Riddles, Puzzles, Tests: No Multiple Choice, Fill in the Blanks Instead

[TrashMan]

I'm all for players typing in the answers. ALL THE TIME.

 

 

FF's learn some vocabulary. At least some good may come from playing games.

 

Even with synonims and spelling, it only taks you a few tries anyway if you have any grey matter to begin with.

[AlphaShard]

Perhaps then they should not have the correct answer in those choices if your character hasn't met the stats then. I do remember that happening in BG2 when talking to Solaufein if your int was high you could answer Illithid, medium was Soul Flayer and low was Otyugh.

[TrashMan]

Agree with the OP.

 

A, B, C choice becomes a simple "spot the inturuder". It makes riddels trivial.

I still remeber the old Thunderscape, where you had to type in the answer to every riddle. It made riddles so much harder and it felt so right.

 

But it is a system that is relying on your intelligence, not your characters (which is ultimately my objection; I want my character to be doing as much of the stuff as possible, not me).

 

 

If that is the case, then don't use any party tactics. Don't direct combat. Because you'd be doing that, and not your character.

 

Don't get me wrong - I know what you mean. But mental faculty is practicly impossible to simulate in a game in any excpet the most broadest and simplest terms.

[RiceMunk]

Agree with the OP.

 

A, B, C choice becomes a simple "spot the inturuder". It makes riddels trivial.

I still remeber the old Thunderscape, where you had to type in the answer to every riddle. It made riddles so much harder and it felt so right.

 

But it is a system that is relying on your intelligence, not your characters (which is ultimately my objection; I want my character to be doing as much of the stuff as possible, not me).

Actually, I've seen cases in games where both can kind of apply.

You would be presented with the riddle but if your character has high enough intelligence/whateverelseisrelevant the correct answer is highlighted for you.

Of course it can kind of ruing the puzzles for you if you don't want the game to tell you the solution. I'd say stuff like this should be turned off in expert mode, where people are more likely to enjoy figuring out the dialogue puzzles in the "proper" way.

As for typing in the answers, it's going to need the devs to be very careful and do a lot of testing on the puzzles so they can have all the likely synonyms etc. included in the list of correct answers. If the player is at all unsure of their answer when giving it and give an unaccounted-for synonym, they might start looking for entirely different answers before trying synonyms and that path leads to unfair frustration and annoyance very fast.

[Shadenuat]

I think one or two optional puzzles where you need to type answer yourself won't hurt.

[Amentep]

Agree with the OP.

 

A, B, C choice becomes a simple "spot the inturuder". It makes riddels trivial.

I still remeber the old Thunderscape, where you had to type in the answer to every riddle. It made riddles so much harder and it felt so right.

 

But it is a system that is relying on your intelligence, not your characters (which is ultimately my objection; I want my character to be doing as much of the stuff as possible, not me).

 

 

If that is the case, then don't use any party tactics. Don't direct combat. Because you'd be doing that, and not your character.

 

Don't get me wrong - I know what you mean. But mental faculty is practicly impossible to simulate in a game in any excpet the most broadest and simplest terms.

 

Yeah, I know you can't divorce yourself entirely from the character, but I think there are some ways of designing puzzles that gives in game, in character explanations. Maybe not, maybe its too much. I'm not going to hate a game where I can figure out a riddle because of past knowledge either.

[sollus]

The problem here is that many riddles dont have a single answer, and there are often more than one word which fits the answer, but because it is not the "right" answer it is rejected.

 

Riddles and puzzles can be fun - somehow I think this should be an option whether or not to tie them to the critical path of the game, as to some they may feel like an exam or get in the way, others certainly relish the challenge.

 

Also if you tell the player immediately whether or not they are right or wrong it leads to save scumming, a less than ideal game experience. If riddles are tied to the stats/skills of the players party then this would lead to word puzzles or riddles being easier to beat and take away the challenge. You could have some riddles which actually get more difficult and obscure the smarter your party is though to mix it up a little.

 

Additional requirement would be creation of riddles specific to the game world which are not well known, common in reality today, or searchable on the net(well until someone makes the answers available)

 

One system which is used is that multiple answers are presented to the player for each question, they are all right, but some are more correct than others, and over a series of questions you get a positive result if you exceed a certain score.

 

There are a lot of complexities I doubt you can get a perfect system in place.

 

That being said - I found the riddles and puzzles enjoyable the first time I encountered them in other IE games.

[Hormalakh]

Here's a good one: In Might and Magic 4/5. In one room, you find 9 chests arranged in rows of 3X3. They each have a number 1-9 and are arranged randomly. If you close the chests in the correct order you get experience. In the next room you have 9 chests arranged in 3X3 and you see each chest has a letter:

 

C I K

T H P

O F R

 

And you're told only those who think differently can open these chests. The chests give you mad lootz. That's a good puzzle. The reward is great; it teaches you the concept in the first room; you get significant (but not game breaking) loot; it's not necessary for the main quest.

Edited December 12, 2012 by Hormalakh

[TSBasilisk]

If you want to involve the RPG elements into a multiple-choice system, how about this:

 

A riddle is posed to your character, and you have a choice of rolling an Int check on it or consulting your party. Each party member offers their own answer to the riddle, giving you five options and the option to roll the Int check if none look good.

 

Each party member would have a chance based on their Int and class to guess correctly. Chanters would have the best answer for riddles relating to old legends; priests for riddles on the myriad of gods; rogues for more devious logic puzzles; and so on. With the right party composition, it would be entirely possible to have all wrong answers, forcing you to rely on your Int roll.

 

This would of course lead to no-win situations, so like in other threads I'd say don't make this a complete Pass-Fail test. Give the player a different experience as a result, like a new type of active mobs or traps to contend with.

Edited December 12, 2012 by TSBasilisk

[JFSOCC]

What I don't understand, why isn't the game allowed to require some intelligence from you the player? isn't it ultimately to challenge and engage the player. the Player Character is my avatar. but I as player will always figure out some things that my character might not. Me supplementing my abilities to my character engages me and pulls me it. If every single thing is done with checks, am I still playing the game, or is it a simulator where I get relegated only to picking character traits which I feel will help my avatar best?

Doesn't that create extra distance?

 

Perhaps (not going to happen) we should do away with intelligence and wisdom as traits and let the player substitute his own mental prowess?

[GrinningReaper659]

What I don't understand, why isn't the game allowed to require some intelligence from you the player? isn't it ultimately to challenge and engage the player. the Player Character is my avatar. but I as player will always figure out some things that my character might not. Me supplementing my abilities to my character engages me and pulls me it. If every single thing is done with checks, am I still playing the game, or is it a simulator where I get relegated only to picking character traits which I feel will help my avatar best?

Doesn't that create extra distance?

 

Perhaps (not going to happen) we should do away with intelligence and wisdom as traits and let the player substitute his own mental prowess?

 

I agree with the tendency for such things to turn games into stat-checking sims. But, isn't it part of the role-playing experience to allow a player to role-play a witless barbarian terrorizing the lands if he/she sees fit? I agree that the game should be challenging and involve player involvement, but that pretty much means two things: first, that your character's mental stats can't exceed your actual mental stats; second, that the game enforces this with limiting the available options due to mental stats. In other words, if you do roll a character with higher mental stats than you actually possess, then you're not going to be able to get the full benefit of it because the game requires you to prove your mental mettle (the mental challenge that you mentioned). These are apparent in the case of type-the-answer riddles, where even a character with max INT won't be able to get it right due to the player getting it wrong. On another note, multiple choice answers for a high INT character would at least include the correct answer, giving the character an increased chance of getting it right compared to a low INT character, while still challenging the player.

 

The idea is that you're supposed to be playing a certain role, so character creation is an implementation of the honor system in the sense that your mental stats should reflect either your actual mental stats or the extent to which you plan to intentionally hold them back when playing your character. The game can't make you smarter than you are, and it can't make you less intelligent than you are (unless it actually stops you from giving the right answers). The game attempting to make you smarter seems like a problem to me, and brings about the stat-checking sim scenario you mentioned, as in order for this to work the game would have to supplement your intelligence and effectively play the game for you. I like the idea of the game stopping you from giving the right answers when appropriate.

 

I think that if you want to make use of your RL intelligence in-game, then you should have to put points into intelligence (or intelligence just shouldn't even be a stat). In other words, the game should limit how much you can apply your intelligence based on your stat scores, and if this doesn't happen then the system is failing. A barbarian with 3 INT and 3 WIS should not be able to defeat the sphynx's riddle simply because the person behind the keyboard can. This doesn't mean that type-the-answer riddles can't exist, but I think that when the player types an answer to a riddle with that barbarian (let's say he types "42," which happens to be the correct answer), the barbarian should say to the riddle-giver: "33," or "2," or "monkey." He's a barbarian that the player has chosen to bestow with 3 INT and 3 WIS, and that should be reflected in the game.

 

In the case of multiple choice riddles, with a low enough INT and WIS, the right answer just shouldn't be there. Obviously these riddles shouldn't be required to be answered to get through the game (or, if they were, I'm sure your barbarian can find some appropriately violent way to deal with the riddle-giver and move on).

 

 

I do like the idea of doing away with the mental stats, but it seems like it would be very difficult to implement given the number of things that these stats effect.