*so and so* claw and other "hard" dungeon puzzles... : V - Skyrim

» Thu May 31, 2012 6:10 am

2 easy ways to make puzzles harder is to either make the clues well hidden so they are harder to find or well protected so they are harder to obtain. The harderst would be to make complex puzzles that are hard to figure out even with all the clues at hand. That could easily lead to rage and frustration with many players imo.

» Thu May 31, 2012 7:26 am

Yeah, I was hoping for more riddles and stuff. I would have also liked to have seen a Indiana Jones chest where you had to replace the item with another item of equal weight (though they did have the pedestals). I also liked the one where you had to burn something specific, but I was bummed that the caves was filled with said item. The column puzzles were a bit too simple, but I liked the one where a lever rotated multiple columns and you had to get them in the right order. I did like the doors where you had to get multiple items throughout the dungeon. The area with the Wall had some decent puzzles, if not a bit simplistic.

I think what really hurt them was that both the column and claw puzzles had the same 4 -5 images, on everything. I think a bit more variety would have been nice, and a few more puzzles where the answer isn't in the same room as the puzzle, and a bit more variety overall (there were few puzzles that used Thu'um for example).

well, I did find a dungeon that if I took the loot of a pedestal, arrows would continuously fly out in multiple directions almost killing you instantly in the crossfire until you weighed it back down again. moving objects to try and put it on the pedestal was the hard part tho

» Thu May 31, 2012 12:05 pm

I think the puzzles are a neat addition, but just like the removal of spell crafting and stats altogether, they have to dumb it down for the masses.

I'm sure Bethesda would rather us complain they were too easy, as opposed to having 500,000 high school kids from the Fable generation who cant be bothered with reading, screaming "THIS IS STUPID! I CANT COMPLETE THIS QUEST!"

Unless the national IQ starts to climb, we're all screwed. :sadvaultboy:

BaratheonFury likes this post.

» Thu May 31, 2012 9:56 am

The puzzles don't have to be all that much harder (but come on, a little wouldn't hurt), but some variety might be nice. I've done 1 dragon claw puzzle....Oooh I wonder what the other 200000 dragon claws I come across are for? See what I mean?

The puzzles are all the same, so it doesn't become a problem to solve (even a tediously easy one), it just becomes a repetitive bore, that has just been plonked in, in an extremely sloppy manner. Oh and then adding a few lines in a lore book to try and justify their laziness to those intelligent enough to be able to read.

Like I said, do it properly or not at all. I think we can all agree that there needs to be variety in the puzzles, regardless if you like hard or easy puzzles.

» Thu May 31, 2012 5:00 am

I can understand why they made the puzzles you need to do to get to the end of the dungeon easy, but it would have been nice to have some difficult optional puzzles that would lead to a sideroom with some treasure or whatnot.
So people that didn't know how to solve the puzzle wouldn't get stuck, just miss out on some loot.

» Thu May 31, 2012 5:49 am

Stop reading at "Really?" ... I HATE when people start saying "REALLY?"

REALLY? Jesus resurrected? OMG christianity, what where you thinking of???
darn

» Thu May 31, 2012 4:35 am

I didn't think the claw and pillar puzzles were even supposed to be challenging.

The dwemer puzzles were a little more complicated.

» Thu May 31, 2012 6:18 pm

It would be nice to have a little complexity to the puzzles, but let's face it, the game is about freedom of exploration. Stumping people in a game with so much content may cause a lot of your game to go unexplored, sad to say. This generation (not just of gamers, of people) is extremely impatient, it's all about instand payoffs.

» Thu May 31, 2012 3:54 pm

I had one pillar puzzle where i just couldn't figure out the solution...in the end i just tried them all (4 pillars, 3 sides each) until i got it...i had a lot of poisened arrows stuck in me...

Yeah, I don't see the point of most of the traps they have in both Oblivion and Skyrim. The poison darts don't do anything other than make my guy scream and turn the screen green. The flying mammoth tusk traps usually mis my head, and if they do connect barely do any damage. The bear traps don't do anything other than stop my character for a few seconds, they don't even alert the guards when I set them off. I hope traps are implemented a lot better in the next TES game.

I did find a puzzle that took me a little bit to figure out. There were 4 pillars, and the picture of the correct animal was above each. However, turning one pillar would turn the other ones, so you had to turn them in a specific order. I wish they had more variety with these crypt puzzles. I want Indiana Jones style traps, with some actual danger involved....

» Thu May 31, 2012 5:19 am

I like the puzzles. They should make the claws harder. If you want a challenge. Don't look at the code on the back of the claws.I didn't even know there was a code till my 3rd puzzle

Cheers

» Thu May 31, 2012 1:32 pm

This is what happens when they decide to go casual. This game pretty much holds your hand through everything. The puzzles are a joke. I guess the 12 year olds on their consoles can't be helped.

» Thu May 31, 2012 8:35 am

The real question is...

What's the point of putting a puzzle on the door if you need a key to open the door and the key has the answer to the puzzle on it? Totally redundant. Two seperate keys, one with the puzzle answer and one that opens the door: that makes sense, but this? Who the hell thought this was a genius idea?

» Thu May 31, 2012 1:43 pm

I'm going to give an example of a great adventure game with awesome puzzles, just to show it can be done.

Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen

Here, have another:

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

And another:

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2

Blood Omen 2 had some decent puzzles but too many switches. Defiance was just get X and bring it back to Y then press button. There were one or two original ones throughout the game, but I can't recall any of them off-hand. These games' devs knew how to make a puzzle that didn't break the game but was still challenging. Soul Reaver overdid it on occasion by dropping enemies into the room while you were trying to solve a puzzle, but that's another matter entirely. Just wanted to show that a mix of puzzle and adventure can be had.

» Thu May 31, 2012 12:56 pm

The hardest puzzle I've come across was still ridiculously easy. You had to spin four different pillars, but the thing about it was that one pillar controlled all, the next one only controller three and so on. But at least it was a little break in the combat, just to get the player off the hook. You still had to figure out what happens, but after that it's not much of a hassle. I'd definitely like some harder puzzles that really made you think a little more, scrawl down notes on papers etc. Maybe not like the Myst series (which has some incredibly challenging puzzles), but something that takes a little more than 20 seconds to figure out.

» Thu May 31, 2012 10:12 am

Puzzles in this game aren't meant to be obstacles, but provide the illusion of an obstacle so there's a plausible explaination as to why your character was the first guy in 100 years to figure it out. It's a bit of business that allows you to pretend, while not making the game so frustrating that you feel you need to cheat to get through it.

Yes. This isn't a puzzle game. Go play Braid if that's what you want.

» Thu May 31, 2012 3:41 am

The real question is...

What's the point of putting a puzzle on the door if you need a key to open the door and the key has the answer to the puzzle on it? Totally redundant. Two seperate keys, one with the puzzle answer and one that opens the door: that makes sense, but this? Who the hell thought this was a genius idea?

http://imperial-library.info/content/skyrim-death-wanderer

» Thu May 31, 2012 9:55 am

Yes. This isn't a puzzle game. Go play Braid if that's what you want.

What?
No, this is an RPG.
RPG's tend to have puzzles.
Or used to.

And honestly, 'go play this and that if youre that and such' replies are such a massive bore of a non-sequitor.
It never makes any sense, just a mindless put-down.

» Thu May 31, 2012 11:48 am

The Uncharted series has some tough (and good) puzzles.

» Thu May 31, 2012 9:21 am

http://imperial-library.info/content/skyrim-death-wanderer

Heh.
Well, that settles that then.

» Thu May 31, 2012 11:34 am

Yeah I almost felt bad for :bowdown:

Todd Howard :bowdown:

when I realized how dumb the puzzles were. Poor judgement.

» Thu May 31, 2012 1:45 pm

The Uncharted series has some tough (and good) puzzles.

Which are mostly solved by Nates journal, not exactly difficult.

» Thu May 31, 2012 12:55 pm

I would love to see them add spell crafting maybe as part of DLC or somesuch.

I think the puzzles are a neat addition, but just like the removal of spell crafting and stats altogether, they have to dumb it down for the masses.

I'm sure Bethesda would rather us complain they were too easy, as opposed to having 500,000 high school kids from the Fable generation who cant be bothered with reading, screaming "THIS IS STUPID! I CANT COMPLETE THIS QUEST!"

Unless the national IQ starts to climb, we're all screwed. :sadvaultboy:

» Thu May 31, 2012 10:42 am

http://imperial-library.info/content/skyrim-death-wanderer

First I have to say Lady Nerevar, that I really respect your well thought out posts and your knowledge of lore, but I think we both know why that little bit of lore was made hmmm?

Do you think Bethesda looked at their puzzles and thought "actually, these puzzles are really mundane and easy- we'd better come up with a good excuse as to why"? Laziness is still laziness, no matter how one sugar coats or tries to justify it.

» Thu May 31, 2012 3:29 pm

BLAME THE CONSOLES!

If this was a PC game, there would be much more complexity in puzzles. Without a keyboard, they are relegated to simple "turn the pillar" puzzles.

» Thu May 31, 2012 4:02 am

Gotta cater to the 10 yr-olds playing on their xbox or ps3. *rolls eyes*