Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General So...the puzzles in Original Sin

Are terrible. The end. They have no redeemable quality i can think of.

In spite of the HORRID puzzles i still would give D:OS a 9.5/10. So i really love the game.

But i would like to explain why i think D:OS's puzzles are really poorly designed.

There are to many looked doors/forcefield/chest puzzles. Many times the key(of whatever form it may be is on a completely different map). This is bad for a number of reasons:
- it stops progress for no reason at all(at least i don't see the reason)
- it is not fun to come up to a closed door that you can't alter in any way. Considering this game is suppose to be open there should not be a single door i can't brute force my way through.

Spoiler alert:

Example: The force field in the Cyseal Church. There is no way to bypass it(as far as i am aware of) unless you have an item called a Enlightened Amulet. You get said Enlightened Amulet from a hidden dungeon in a different quest, in a different part of the map. Now if you did the quests in the Golden path order, you will most likely have the Enlightened Amulet and the force field might as well not exist. If you didn't do the really cool, but really convoluted quest line to get Enlightened Amulet than tough luck. You have one impassable force field which will stop you. This is stupid for the following reasons:
- it kills the hype to the boss fight( which is awesome btw)
- it forces the player to backtrack to find something he has now idea where to look for.

End of spoiler

Most puzzles in the game are just like the example above. So whats the problem.
Larian sucks at puzzle design. Now has anyone played Portal?

Portal is nothing but one giant puzzle. And somehow i managed to not get stuck once. Ever. In both games. Rarely have i heard of people getting stuck.

Now if you listen to the developer commentary in Portal you start to get how they managed that feat of game design. Because designing puzzles is insanely hard. Almost all puzzles in all games suck. Yes this includes all the old adventures games. In was not fun to figure out Grim Fandango.

However Portal is widely appreciated. Why?

Valve explains at length how the game was designed in the developer commentary. I will spare you trouble of replaying Portal and reiterate the main ideas they used:
1. Always have a solution to the puzzle in the location of the puzzle
2. Near a puzzle the graphics need to be as bland as possible to allow the player to focus on the problem at hand. In D:OS many times the clutter heavy graphics are the puzzle. You have to pixel hunt some button or some portal to solve it. I don't know if you heard Larian but pixel hunting SUCKS. I can't overstate this enough.
3. Every puzzle should have more than one solution. In D:OS this is sometimes the case. Many time it is not.
4. Every puzzle should be solvable in stages. In D:OS this is sometimes the case. Many time it is not.
5. If any of the 4 rules above do not apply to your puzzle the puzzle is not fun.

At the end of the day i had great fun playing the game but the puzzle part of the game:
- i either solved randomly,
- i didn't know there was a puzzle( i had the required item in my inventory from somewhere).
- i screamed horrible invectives at the screen for one our( things like Fuck your ugly mutt of a face Swen Vincke!) and other things in the same vein. Not my proudest gaming moment. Than i solved the damn thing and went: Finally! Lets have some fun.
- never felt smarter.

Conclusion

Valve solved puzzle design. Portal 1&2 proves it. You either follow their rules or don't make puzzles at all. Yes this means Broken Age puzzles suck ass. They do. I wish they didn't but they really do. A PEACH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ?! THATS THE ANSWER TO THE RIDDLE? AAAAAAAARRRRRAAAAAAAAGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

P.S.
I love you SWEN VINCKE! I really do. Please keep making games:))