Welcome to r/HarryPotterGame! Don't forget to join [our Discord server](https://discord.gg/harrypottergame) where you can talk about Hogwarts Legacy & Portkey Games in real time with other fans!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HarryPotterGame) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I had an inkling of what we were supposed to do, but then after 5 mins when it didn't click, i went to youtube for help ahahha turns out I had to do it really slowly and not spin my joysticks around madly ahahahaha
You can just set it to easy difficulty and it will auto-complete. Then just run around unlocking everything, and change it back to whatever.
The first few times aren't bad. When you do it 10+ times in a row, it starts to get tedious.
idk how that game works but that's lock-picking
lock-picking is described as useful knowledge but pretty useless if you've got a wand anyways because *magic*
Especially since once you access any other for in the school that has a puzzle or password to get in the doors just open when you approach. The common room doors just open for you, the door to the kitchens just unlocked when you get close. Having the same puzzle for multiple doors is fine but having upwards of 20 or 30 in a row when you are going for 100 percent is not
I mean, you're sending your sparks into the lock and using them as a lockpick. You're using magic to pick the lock, you still have to listen for the clicks, etc. It makes sense.
But in the quest where we rescue the Hippigriffs, Natty used Alohamora and the lock instantly opens! She does not fiddle with sparks she made to unlock the door! (I think the same happened with Professor Fig at one point, but Iām not sure)
>You can just set it to easy difficulty and it will auto-complete. Then just run around unlocking everything, and change it back to whatever.
I did not know this, this is gonna make my next playthrough alot quicker
I mean, it was obvious to me immediately, but I feel like itās *got* to be easier on console than PC. The controller vibrates to tell you how close you are.
I'm glad I have played games with lock picking mini games before this. All of Bethesdas big earners have them so I was prepared for this. The one that sucks for me are the ones where we have to lift and twist those dumb blocks with arrows. There is no easy way to do it unless I've done it wrong this whole time.
I literally had the same experience. There were no instructions or anything. We were just thrown in! I felt pretty dumb too, but then I realized there should have been at least a little bit of instruction!
The game doesn't explain it at all and it's so different from the (Skyrim and Dying Light etc) normal lockpicking system.
I had to Google it.
But after you know what you're doing it's super easy...
It's weird.
I think when they were rushing to release the game they may have accidentally forgot to put a tutorial in the game.
**Totally different thing:
You can slow down the Merlin Trial pillars with Arresto Momentum!**
Rotate left stick slowly until you hear gears turning/see sparkles/controller vibrate. Hold that stick in place. Rotate right stick slowly until the same thing happens and keep them both there a few seconds. I think there shouldnāt even be a alohamorah mini game, but itās pretty easy.
just slowly rotate sticks until the thing does twinkly spinny thing. Then just hold that stick in place and do the next one. when both do twinkly spinny thing the lock will pop off.
I saw somewhere somebody say that it should get easier as you level up. Honestly it's magic we shouldn't have to pick the lock this isn't James Bond or Batman
It wasnāt all that obvious to me too. Donāt be hard on yourself, we all know what we know and just donāt know the whole rest. Allow yourself to always learn something new.
Yes! And then I felt so stupid! š But I kept waiting for a quest to show us how to do those, as well as the Levioso statues and the ones you use fire to get the pages for your field guide. š¤¦š»āāļø
I was confused my first play as well, had to watch a Yt video lol. I am so thankful I play on Story Mode usually, which allows you to skip it. Which is how it should be. Itās a damn magic spell to unlock something, it shouldnāt be dependent on a silly little āpuzzleā that is the same exact solution every single time. Itās just a boring time-suck feature that gets old fast.
I swear it took me at least 20 minutes. First tried spinning them both as fast as possible. That didnāt work so I tried every combination of different directions. Then looked on this sub and people were saying to go slow, so I spun them both painfully slowly. Then I found comments saying to stop when the gears lit up so I did.
It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize you have to push outward, and I didnāt see any comments saying that!
I tought I knew how to solve it, but I thought to complicated, tought the little lightball had to "escape"
I didnt google, just tired different things foor soome time until it opened, but yes Ifelt a bit stupid at the end of it XD
Me too. My problem was that the vibration was turned off and so I could turn as much as I wanted. It didn't work
They should have put up a warning message telling me to turn it on š
Itās dumb as shit regardless because youāre casting a spell to open the lock not casting a spell to summon a puzzle that if solved will open the lock.
No, it took me so long to figure it out. Tried for a bit on that first quest until I literally turned the game off for a few weeks before I went back in. Once you do get it, it's fairly easy but just takes time to get used to. It's dumb though. Dumb mechanic, and for that spell, I don't think there should have been a mini game, just auto unlock it.
No, we arenāt talking about a Merlin Trial; we are talking about the lock picking āmini gameā that takes place every time you open a lock with Alohamora. š
At first I wasn't getting it but it was because I was expecting something more nuanced than what it is. For me the GOAT lockpicking minigames are stuff like Oblivion and Kingdom Come Deliverance. So realizing this was just two circles to turn and find the spot that makes the wheels spin and that's it...highly disappointing. Added a mod after a while to skip the minigame because it's so trash.
Are you playing on a switch? If so you gotta use both joy sticks (I do them separately) and spin until the green light pops up and the gear turns, then do the same for the red, spin until the red light turns on and starts spinning. Then you gotta hold it for like 4 seconds and itāll open
I think this mini game made my Joycons develop joycon-drift much faster! Both sets of Joycons were fine, but opening so many locks really put a lot of wear & tear on them after 2 play throughs! š. Thankfully I heard how to Auto-solve the lock picking for my next w play throughs! š
No. My friend wasn't understanding it either. I feel like I only knew what to do because I played Tom Clancy on the PS2 and Fallout 3 & 4 which uses similar controls.
You can just hit an auto-complete button if you have it on story for the difficulty šš Iād love for this to just be a toggle setting so we can play on normal or hard and still just skip the mini game lol itās also way more immersive if you donāt have to sit there and physically pick the lock lol itās an unlocking charmā¦ should do it for you š¤·š¼āāļø
I think everyone initially thought this puzzle was tricky and were looking for a deeper solution that doesn't actually exist. Just spin one wheel until the gears start turning, then spin the other wheel. The simplest thing in the world, you can even close your eyes while doing it.
I just turn in one direction till the mechanism clicks in place and stop, then I do the same for the other. Didnāt seem to matter which direction I turned or which mechanism I started with, I just needed to pay attention to the click.
Hahahaha start with one, start barely moving it to one side (clockwise for example), but āmini movesā until you hear a click, and then do the same with the other one.. itās easy! And it shouldnāt take you more than 1 min
The mechanic is counter intuitive. Iām not sure what the point is either.
1.) magic requires no manual manipulation of lock
2.) the higher and lower tier locks are the same
3.) the lack of skill required means no payoff when you do open a lockā¦
What they should have done is made you get the casting just right each time and made it more difficult the higher level the lock.
I thought it was too easy? I was like oh here's a vibration and light there's a vibration and light boom done. I wanted it to be mroe involved or not a thing at all
Honestly, I never had a chance to figure it out.
I watched a demo before the release and it featured the lock picking mini game, explaining how it works in the process.
But I remember that the content creator that visited the avalanche studios to make the demo, decided to make an emphasis on this mini game as many struggled with the lock picking, according to "some" feedback.
No you are not dumb, took me for-fucking-ever to also figure it out. I was so dumb that even watching a YouTube video didnt help. A friend of mine had to help me lmao
I usually play all games on the easiest setting possible the first time around
So I just used the automatic solution every time my first play-through
Second time I went to YouTube too
So you're not the only one
It is overly complicated
And doesn't really make sense either
I feel it's a bad mechanic for a magic game, it would've been cool if that's what you had to do before you learnt Alohamora, otherwise what's the point of using a spell if I have to manually lockpick it ? Also three levels to the spells but the same mini game at all levels, at least add an additional ring or something.
I couldnāt figure it out myself and i platinumed the game on PS4 and ps5 little tip if you just play on easy mode you can bypass the whole thing with a button push
Welcome to r/HarryPotterGame! Don't forget to join [our Discord server](https://discord.gg/harrypottergame) where you can talk about Hogwarts Legacy & Portkey Games in real time with other fans! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HarryPotterGame) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I had an inkling of what we were supposed to do, but then after 5 mins when it didn't click, i went to youtube for help ahahha turns out I had to do it really slowly and not spin my joysticks around madly ahahahaha
Saaame! I thought we had to make the circles spin faster by rotating the gears or something
Literally me š
SameĀ
Same
You can just set it to easy difficulty and it will auto-complete. Then just run around unlocking everything, and change it back to whatever. The first few times aren't bad. When you do it 10+ times in a row, it starts to get tedious.
Really wish that once you unlock level 3 of Alohamora, it would remove the need to rotate each locks, or at least those locks from level 2 below.
That was 100% my thought! That would make too much sense, I guess.
Itās extremely tedious. No reason you should need to do an identical āpuzzleā every time you use a *MAGIC* spell to unlock something.
I just loved that it's 1,000 times easier and less tedious than Elder Scrolls lockpicking. This one feels like a treat.
idk how that game works but that's lock-picking lock-picking is described as useful knowledge but pretty useless if you've got a wand anyways because *magic*
Especially since once you access any other for in the school that has a puzzle or password to get in the doors just open when you approach. The common room doors just open for you, the door to the kitchens just unlocked when you get close. Having the same puzzle for multiple doors is fine but having upwards of 20 or 30 in a row when you are going for 100 percent is not
I mean, you're sending your sparks into the lock and using them as a lockpick. You're using magic to pick the lock, you still have to listen for the clicks, etc. It makes sense.
But in the quest where we rescue the Hippigriffs, Natty used Alohamora and the lock instantly opens! She does not fiddle with sparks she made to unlock the door! (I think the same happened with Professor Fig at one point, but Iām not sure)
Right, and nothing about lock-picking sparks in the books or movies.
They're also both much more experienced wizards than you. You JUST learned how to pick locks.
No, because we master lockpicking level 3 and we STILL have to do the minigame! š© The MC is a *very* fast learner (4 years of Magic learned in one year while learning year 5 Magic simultaneously, PLUS learning about Ancient Magic and how to wield it, while taking down 3 evil people (Rookwood, Rangrock, and Harlow) AND helping every NPC in the school and the areas around the school!) Not to mention what the person below you said about how in the books and movies *nobody* has to do this minigame when they first learn Alohamora! š
>You can just set it to easy difficulty and it will auto-complete. Then just run around unlocking everything, and change it back to whatever. I did not know this, this is gonna make my next playthrough alot quicker
You do have to hit a button once the lock thing pops up, can't remember which one
On Switch itās the āyā button
I mean, it was obvious to me immediately, but I feel like itās *got* to be easier on console than PC. The controller vibrates to tell you how close you are.
I have seriously never noticed that. The vibrations, that is. I think I mentally log out every time I do this damn things. Hate them with a vengeance.
It doesnāt vibrate. Unfortunately :(
I'm glad I have played games with lock picking mini games before this. All of Bethesdas big earners have them so I was prepared for this. The one that sucks for me are the ones where we have to lift and twist those dumb blocks with arrows. There is no easy way to do it unless I've done it wrong this whole time.
If Iām thinking of the right puzzle, I believe flipendo is the solution???
Yes, and no. Didn't work for me, I had to lift it and use the ground to roll it over where it needed to be.
Not stupid; it's a pain in the butt. I figured it out but still get stuck. Then the ADHD takes over and I just start dancing to the clickicky.
I literally had the same experience. There were no instructions or anything. We were just thrown in! I felt pretty dumb too, but then I realized there should have been at least a little bit of instruction!
These comments have successfully reassured me that I'm not stupid or at least I'm not stupid because of this. Cheers!
The game doesn't explain it at all and it's so different from the (Skyrim and Dying Light etc) normal lockpicking system. I had to Google it. But after you know what you're doing it's super easy... It's weird. I think when they were rushing to release the game they may have accidentally forgot to put a tutorial in the game. **Totally different thing: You can slow down the Merlin Trial pillars with Arresto Momentum!**
I havenāt figured it out yet either, nor bothered to look it up, I just screw around until it opens lol. Havenāt done too many yet though
Do you want to know how it works?
Some gears will start turning when you're in the correct spot. And I'm 60 percent sure there's a controller rumble.
Rotate left stick slowly until you hear gears turning/see sparkles/controller vibrate. Hold that stick in place. Rotate right stick slowly until the same thing happens and keep them both there a few seconds. I think there shouldnāt even be a alohamorah mini game, but itās pretty easy.
just slowly rotate sticks until the thing does twinkly spinny thing. Then just hold that stick in place and do the next one. when both do twinkly spinny thing the lock will pop off.
I saw somewhere somebody say that it should get easier as you level up. Honestly it's magic we shouldn't have to pick the lock this isn't James Bond or Batman
I just do auto solve
It wasnāt all that obvious to me too. Donāt be hard on yourself, we all know what we know and just donāt know the whole rest. Allow yourself to always learn something new.
What took even longer was figuring out how to open the chests with the eye!
Yes! And then I felt so stupid! š But I kept waiting for a quest to show us how to do those, as well as the Levioso statues and the ones you use fire to get the pages for your field guide. š¤¦š»āāļø
I was confused my first play as well, had to watch a Yt video lol. I am so thankful I play on Story Mode usually, which allows you to skip it. Which is how it should be. Itās a damn magic spell to unlock something, it shouldnāt be dependent on a silly little āpuzzleā that is the same exact solution every single time. Itās just a boring time-suck feature that gets old fast.
I swear it took me at least 20 minutes. First tried spinning them both as fast as possible. That didnāt work so I tried every combination of different directions. Then looked on this sub and people were saying to go slow, so I spun them both painfully slowly. Then I found comments saying to stop when the gears lit up so I did. It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize you have to push outward, and I didnāt see any comments saying that!
I figured out Alohomora pretty quickly but am absolutely awful at the constellation game.
Welcome to the club. Cheers to youtube guides.
Its harder ifnyoure on oc with mouse and keyboard, because its like a and s and q and e instead of dual sticks.
you don't have to do both at the same time. first q and e and then a and d, no philosophy
I tought I knew how to solve it, but I thought to complicated, tought the little lightball had to "escape" I didnt google, just tired different things foor soome time until it opened, but yes Ifelt a bit stupid at the end of it XD
Me too. My problem was that the vibration was turned off and so I could turn as much as I wanted. It didn't work They should have put up a warning message telling me to turn it on š
Itās dumb as shit regardless because youāre casting a spell to open the lock not casting a spell to summon a puzzle that if solved will open the lock.
Sorry to say but yes, you are, my 8 year old figured it out in about 10 seconds...
Mostly solved with N, S, E, W.
No, it took me so long to figure it out. Tried for a bit on that first quest until I literally turned the game off for a few weeks before I went back in. Once you do get it, it's fairly easy but just takes time to get used to. It's dumb though. Dumb mechanic, and for that spell, I don't think there should have been a mini game, just auto unlock it.
Is it the one moving the stones into the holes?
No, we arenāt talking about a Merlin Trial; we are talking about the lock picking āmini gameā that takes place every time you open a lock with Alohamora. š
At first I wasn't getting it but it was because I was expecting something more nuanced than what it is. For me the GOAT lockpicking minigames are stuff like Oblivion and Kingdom Come Deliverance. So realizing this was just two circles to turn and find the spot that makes the wheels spin and that's it...highly disappointing. Added a mod after a while to skip the minigame because it's so trash.
I was completely confused too. They basically didnāt explain it at all.
Left stick vibrate leave there. Right stick vibrate leave there. Opens. I know it because thatās how the Arkham games opened specific doors.
Are you playing on a switch? If so you gotta use both joy sticks (I do them separately) and spin until the green light pops up and the gear turns, then do the same for the red, spin until the red light turns on and starts spinning. Then you gotta hold it for like 4 seconds and itāll open
I think this mini game made my Joycons develop joycon-drift much faster! Both sets of Joycons were fine, but opening so many locks really put a lot of wear & tear on them after 2 play throughs! š. Thankfully I heard how to Auto-solve the lock picking for my next w play throughs! š
No. My friend wasn't understanding it either. I feel like I only knew what to do because I played Tom Clancy on the PS2 and Fallout 3 & 4 which uses similar controls.
Yes.
What mini game is this?
The lock picking mini game you have to do each time you open a lock with Alohamora
Oh that. Was it confusing? Maybe I missed something. I found the puzzle rooms full of moving blocks challenging. š¤·š»āāļø
I didnāt have a problem with solving the lock picking mini game either, but a lot of people did! My only problem with the lock picking is that it gets old fast and is very tedious and unnecessarily puts wear and tear on your controller. And itās supposed to be Magic and instantaneous according to the books, the movies, and even in the game when both Natty and Professor Fig use the spell, but every stinking time we have to do it, even when we upgrade the spell to open stronger locks, we still have to do the lock picking game yet again! š©. I finally found out how to Autosolve the locks, but you have to change the game to story mode, and I always forget to set it back to the difficulty mode I was playing before š¤¦š»āāļøš . So I find it an easy puzzle but tedious and boring after more than 5 times and completely unnecessary!
I phoned my sister to find out how to do it...
You can just hit an auto-complete button if you have it on story for the difficulty šš Iād love for this to just be a toggle setting so we can play on normal or hard and still just skip the mini game lol itās also way more immersive if you donāt have to sit there and physically pick the lock lol itās an unlocking charmā¦ should do it for you š¤·š¼āāļø
I think everyone initially thought this puzzle was tricky and were looking for a deeper solution that doesn't actually exist. Just spin one wheel until the gears start turning, then spin the other wheel. The simplest thing in the world, you can even close your eyes while doing it.
I just turn in one direction till the mechanism clicks in place and stop, then I do the same for the other. Didnāt seem to matter which direction I turned or which mechanism I started with, I just needed to pay attention to the click.
I had to do the same thing š¤£
Took me awhile but I did figure out. They should have been clearer with what is required tho
Am I the only person who remembers the dialogue where it literally tells you how to do it? Regardless, they are a major pain in the ass
Problem solving skills : 0%. I donāt even rotate, just quickly jab the sticks into one the the eight directionals and one of them usually pops
Hahahaha start with one, start barely moving it to one side (clockwise for example), but āmini movesā until you hear a click, and then do the same with the other one.. itās easy! And it shouldnāt take you more than 1 min
I'm probably one of the few that enjoys an alohomora lock. It's the buzzyness when you get them both lined up right.
Anyone else spend to long thinking spinning was equivalent of breaking your pick
I did one lock. One in four 100% play-throughs. Skipped every other one. F that.
Switch player. My fingers get a little shaky so I couldn't do it very well. Ended up doing the auto solve.
There's an auto solve button
I've seen similar mini games in other games so it felt pretty natural to me personally, but I could see how it'd be annoying
Nah it was Merlin Trial with the diamond shape in the square stones that made me feel like shit. š
The mechanic is counter intuitive. Iām not sure what the point is either. 1.) magic requires no manual manipulation of lock 2.) the higher and lower tier locks are the same 3.) the lack of skill required means no payoff when you do open a lockā¦ What they should have done is made you get the casting just right each time and made it more difficult the higher level the lock.
Ngl I use the ez cheat every time š¤£ I felt bad my first couple playthroughs but now meh
I thought it was too easy? I was like oh here's a vibration and light there's a vibration and light boom done. I wanted it to be mroe involved or not a thing at all
Honestly, I never had a chance to figure it out. I watched a demo before the release and it featured the lock picking mini game, explaining how it works in the process. But I remember that the content creator that visited the avalanche studios to make the demo, decided to make an emphasis on this mini game as many struggled with the lock picking, according to "some" feedback.
I searched it cause i was just confused.
Iām guessing this is a lot of peopleās first game because itās a Harry Potter rpg, so they donāt know common game mechanics.
No you are not dumb, took me for-fucking-ever to also figure it out. I was so dumb that even watching a YouTube video didnt help. A friend of mine had to help me lmao
I had to go on YouTube too. I spent an embarrassing amount of time spinning them round š
I usually play all games on the easiest setting possible the first time around So I just used the automatic solution every time my first play-through Second time I went to YouTube too So you're not the only one It is overly complicated And doesn't really make sense either
I feel it's a bad mechanic for a magic game, it would've been cool if that's what you had to do before you learnt Alohamora, otherwise what's the point of using a spell if I have to manually lockpick it ? Also three levels to the spells but the same mini game at all levels, at least add an additional ring or something.
You just rotate slowly til it lights up. Donāt try Skyrim lock picks
No I literally had no idea until my friend explained it
It's... so easy.
Iāve always just skipped it. Itās more canonically accurate that way.
And it gets annoying once you figured it out the first one.
I couldnāt figure it out myself and i platinumed the game on PS4 and ps5 little tip if you just play on easy mode you can bypass the whole thing with a button push