Puzzles...

[Orange Death]

I have been going through the forum for a little while now but, I seem to have missed any topics discussing puzzles. So, my question is, will there be puzzles in this game that are challenging. Most games completely lack in this area. I do not mean challenging as in "go find this switch, now go find that switch". Something that will actually cause you to stop and think. Maybe for an extended period of time.

 

This game is the first game I have been excited about in a long time. So thank you to everyone that has helped to make it possible.

[Sad Panda]

The Endless Paths mega-dungeon will feature lots of puzzles, as is only appropriate, and as the dungeon is supposed to be such that the player can't just race through it on one go, I would imagine some of those puzzles will also be challenging. It's nothing that has been confirmed, but there will likely the situations similar to what you had in Planescape: Torment, where you will have to utilise some item or bit of knowledge gained elsewhere to solve the puzzle, without anyone pointing the connection out to you.

[Orange Death]

Sounds good, I just hope its not like a lock out until a higher lvl. Was hoping for something that might be to hard for the average player but, is not essential for the main quest. Just an idea. Either way, I am sure I will like this game. 

[teknoman2]

as long as for puzzles they do not intend something like the map design of septerra core... it was supposed to be a puzzle, but all you had to do was go from the entrance of the map to a point where a lever was, pull it, then go to a completelly different location, pull another lever, then go to pull another level, then get a key and return to the previous map, use the key to open a similar map, do all the above stuff again and get the key for the 3rd map that was your destination (and sometimes the destination was the 5th or 6th map). it did not involve any chalange, it was just tedious

[Niggey]

I would like some puzzles in the style of what they did in the watchers keep in BG2:ToB. Specifically the puzzle with the ventilators and the fire, ice, poison, wind rooms. It was a puzzle and even included figthing. What do you think of this puzzle?

I really like the riddles in BG-series, but the replay value of these is basically not present. It would be nice if there was a larger pool of riddles which would be used at random, this prevents save scumming to just guess the answer as well. I liked the labyrinth in the watchers keep with all the different room effects too, but I guess this doesnt count as a puzzle.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Niggey

[Sad Panda]

While I'm generally all for puzzles, they should be such that they take the character's skills into account, rather than the player's. My rock-stupid barbarian shouldn't be able to solve mathematical quagmires just because I can, nor should my brainiac wizard with expansive knowledge of lore be stumped by simple riddles I can't think of the answer to. Of course, there's not much point to the puzzles unless it's the player that ultimately solves them, but I'd still like to see the skills and choice of companions of the character at least figure into the process. So for example, when presented with a riddle your character's intelligence would determine how many options you're given to choose from, with very low intelligence perhaps even hiding the correct answer, which one of your smarter companions could then point out to you if present -- and if they like you enough.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Sad Panda

[JFSOCC]

I love puzzles, as long as they are not language based.

[constantine]

Yeah !!! Puzzlezzzz -- PLEASE DO 

[pnhearer]

I have to agree. I do love puzzles in a game. Unless they're Jumping puzzles...that I can live without.

[Lephys]

^ I think the biggest problem with jumping puzzles is that they're often placed into contexts in which they aren't very fluid. Like... MMOs (Guild Wars 2). The fluidity of the jumping mechanic is not really sufficient to render a puzzle very exciting, so it just becomes tedious/frustrating.

 

If you have some kind of action game in which your character has all kinds of jumping/mobility options, and there's a puzzle involving using all of those, then it becomes exciting.

 

In a lot of ways, combat is like a puzzle. Here are foes, the puzzle is solved when they're dead and you aren't, and/or you get away from/past them. If all you had was just one attack, and you just had to use that with various timings, for like 5 minutes worth of combat, it would be reallllly bland. Oh, and if you mess up, you'd hafta start over.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Jumping puzzles would not be fitting in PoE, IMO.  However, we do have classic dungeon-delving puzzles.

[Osvir]

But a "puzzle" in this form? :D



A door you might find, if you look close enough? For instance, instead of going straight into the open big entrance, one goes up to the broken bridge and the scripted interaction above pops up? Could work?

Edited June 21, 2014 by Osvir

[namelessthree]

Yes, please, the more puzzles the better. It's so hard to see good puzzles in an RPG nowadays.

[dr membrano]

I hope beyond "dungeon-delving" puzzles there are some that require acquired knowledge from the game. They mentioned that they don't want people to be able to walk through the endless paths in one run. Does that mean just because it takes too long and the NPC's too difficult or could it be that your character doesn't yet have the experience to be able to solve them. I think there's room for a lot of the individual puzzles to have their own side-quests to old sages for ancient bits of wisdom or for Gordion Knot-esque unconventional wisdom.

[constantine]

Of course, there's not much point to the puzzles unless it's the player that ultimately solves them, but I'd still like to see the skills and choice of companions of the character at least figure into the process. So for example, when presented with a riddle your character's intelligence would determine how many options you're given to choose from, with very low intelligence perhaps even hiding the correct answer, which one of your smarter companions could then point out to you if present -- and if they like you enough.

 

One does not need high intellect to solve riddles, rather than common sense and wits.

[Sad Panda]

One does not need high intellect to solve riddles, rather than common sense and wits.

I'm not sure what "wits" in this context would be other than intellect, which is the capacity to perceive how things connect, and further which possibilities are excluded, effectively or conclusively, by the data -- this is exactly what is measured by culture-free IQ tests, such as those of Mensa. Without this capacity you're basically reduced to this:

 

 

That being said, "common sense and wits" often isn't enough to solve riddles, as they are very commonly culture-sensitive. If you think of the common riddles in English, a lot of them revolve around specific turns of phrase and overlapping designations: The clock has hands, the wind blows, the day breaks, and so on. These riddles make no sense whatsoever unless you're fluent in the language. A lot further tie into local stories, practices and traditions and are as such completely indecipherable to an outsider. High intellect as defined above gives at least a change at solving such riddles even without the cultural context, however, as one can at least exclude some of the more clearly wrong answers -- it wouldn't make sense for a people living in tropical lands to have riddles about snow, for example -- and perhaps even deduce the correct answer by the process of elimination. "[W]hen you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

 

All this brings us back to my point: While the answer to the riddle may be easily decipherable to the player thanks to their cultural context, there's no reason to expect this would also apply to their character, who inhabits a fantasy world with cultures wildly different from our own -- the answer would be out-of-character knowledge, plain and simple. Likewise, the player being able to see what possibilities logically fit shouldn't automatically translate to their character being able to do the same -- we are, I hope, allowed to play as stupid characters, as well. Conversely, the player may well end up being stumped by the riddle because they lack the necessary cultural context (or, I suppose, because they're just not terribly bright), even though their well-read and sharp character should by all regards be able to figure out the answer. As said, it's player's skills vs. the character's. In an RPG, the outcome should IMO depend more on the latter than the former.

[Gorbag]

^ That's what skill checks do. Riddles and puzzles are there to test *your* mind.
Yeah, riddles do not translate very well, but they are fun to have in a game. More fun than that goddamn circus tent genie's goddamn math problem in BG2 at least. Gah!
Anyway, what J. Sawyer seems to be referring to is your typical "find a way to power up this device/get through this door/get around this pool of lava/etc." situations, which may or may not include solving riddles among other things.