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#531844 30/07/14 01:18 AM
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Hi,

This is a great game, i love it but i think there is a huge problem and i haven't seen any complaints about it.

Game is so complicated. I don't talk about skills, spells, anything like that, i'm talking about structure of quests, maps, quest items and puzzle.

Some may like it but there are so many pointless puzzles. I don't want to search a button, key, diamond or something like that to continue my quest all the time. I go somewhere, there is a locked door and i can't open it, why, because it isn't the place i should be in. I forget about there, follow the other road and same thing happens again. I again find a locked door, i don't have a clue how i open it, i google it and find out i need an item. I don't have that item, why? Because i missed it about 20 hours ago. Lets go back to the first area. What, item is not there? Yeah, i sold it, lets visit all the vendors.

Like i said, puzzles, quests and maps are overly complicated, i forget about what i'm doing all the time. I know it's too late for fixing something like this but i wonder, am i the only one who thinks like this?

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A lot of people like it BECAUSE it's complicated.
This probably isn't the game for you.

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Like i said, i love RPG games and i love this game, thats the only thing bothers me.

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I feel you lowlife.

Act 1 is ok for me probably because I've gone through it a couple of times.

Act 2 is where the confusion and frustration kicks you right in the silence


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Sometimes I was frustrated because I missed a small detail and had to look it up online.
But other times I managed to figure stuff out on my own, and enjoyed that.

Some of the puzzles and hidden buttons are irritating, I agree.

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I'm at wizards house in hunters edge, according to youtube i need a teleporter crystal and i don't have it. It seems it's in cecil's room but looks like i missed it, so i will go to first area (after about 20 hours) and pick it up, it seems wrong to me.

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Cmon, when I was playing it, and found some annyoing puzzle, first I was frustrated. But then I was like "Hey... wait... I'm here for 2 hours, and still can't solve this... It didn't happen to me in any RPG for years...OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS GAME". It was like all this annyoing RPGs I was playing when I was young, where you actually could get stuck, where you could look for solution for days. But when you finally found it, it was rewarding as hell, and you felt sooo proud of yourself. So much better than today AAA hand-holding crap, which even monkey could finish, pushing buttons randomly.

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Well, i don't agree.

Don't get me wrong, i don't hate puzzles or hard games. I'm playing this game in hard, i'm playing Dragon Age in nightmare, i love Dark Souls, i love challenge, i only think puzzles and quest structure is badly designed. How finding 4 buttons is fun? How searching all map to find one scroll is fun?

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Originally Posted by lowlife
I'm at wizards house in hunters edge, according to youtube i need a teleporter crystal and i don't have it. It seems it's in cecil's room but looks like i missed it, so i will go to first area (after about 20 hours) and pick it up, it seems wrong to me.

Holy cow, dude...
Remember Zixzax? He tells you that there's another teleporter pyramid. You even get a book about it. You've never used the pyramid?

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I know that many games will allow you to sort quest items and even keep you from selling them until they are not needed anymore. This game could benefit from a system like that.

I do find myself coming to the forums for help too often it seems.

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Quest tracking is pretty loose I agree, but this problem isn't obvious until you get past Cyseal.
Once you left Cyseal, you'll realize how bad it gets. I literally had to rely on my co-op partner to guide me through cause it was impossible for me to keep track since I was uninvolved for most of the conversation.

In fact, I felt Larian want to make the game slightly open but as a result, many players went to areas out of sequence, faced enemies above their levels and get wrecked. Or encounter puzzles that they may not have a ready solution.

All I can say is, cut down on the puzzles - and less of a huge map where parties have to have to find a specific item to fetch. Make it more focused and compressed like Cyseal. And don't derail the players with too many details like telling them about THE END OF THE WORLD when they barely started on their first murder investigation.

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Frankly, the only time I felt there was insufficient information was in the immaculate trials, with the four weighted switches. Otherwise, I think it's pretty well done so far (albeit, I'm only in Heiberheim right now, still looking for the 'WW')

rk47 #532228 30/07/14 05:10 AM
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Originally Posted by rk47
Quest tracking is pretty loose I agree, but this problem isn't obvious until you get past Cyseal.
Once you left Cyseal, you'll realize how bad it gets. I literally had to rely on my co-op partner to guide me through cause it was impossible for me to keep track since I was uninvolved for most of the conversation.

In fact, I felt Larian want to make the game slightly open but as a result, many players went to areas out of sequence, faced enemies above their levels and get wrecked. Or encounter puzzles that they may not have a ready solution.

All I can say is, cut down on the puzzles - and less of a huge map where parties have to have to find a specific item to fetch. Make it more focused and compressed like Cyseal. And don't derail the players with too many details like telling them about THE END OF THE WORLD when they barely started on their first murder investigation.


What do you mean with with as focused as Cyseal? I was level 15 before I was even close to clearing the murder case and its not done even now by level 19 ;-)
De-Railing works fine right from the beginning. Actually the only moment in the game that was really challenging was in Cyseal when I reached the light-house and that boss was 3 level above us and even than I can not say that it would have hit us out of nowhere, we knew that his boss was not meant to be done at such a low level.

The high level enemies are sometimes a little challenging, but they are not really unfair ever. And I am running a party that spend not a single point onto perception.

The game is quite fair to players that roam around in areas which they do not belong in. The only exception of fairness might be the beach with the mines. Those did catch us by total surprise, though the level of the npc was a big hint to stay away.

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The game is well balanced when it comes to puzzle. You may struggle a little at first with some of them, but you will always find out by yourself. It is more enjoyable that way, because it feels like YOU, not the game, solved the puzzle. Overall, it's a really good thing in the game, that it is not a straight corridor with signs everywhere and markers telling where to go and what to do. It feels a lot more like an RPG, and helps for immersion. It is also a lot more enjoyable.

In the other hand, I think Larian overused a little bit the "tiny button behind the pillar" thing. When it happens once, you think it's fine, especially if some rat hinted you you had to look for a tiny switch. But when it happens 10-12 times, it gets boring and useless. It's not about thinking or puzzles anymore, and you ultimately end up on google looking for screenshots that point the switches. The "where's Waldo" trick can become a fun spoiler if overused.

Last edited by Durmir; 30/07/14 11:10 AM.
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But they always have done that "tiny button behind the pillar things". It's simply what they do, so it's not a surprise it's in their most recent Divinity-game as well.

I like it.

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It is a bit annoying when your high perception char gives you feedback every 5m that he has spotted a massive trail of blood that simply follows down a road as if it were an accomplishment, but doesn't say a word about the tiny buttons for the vial of blood puzzle.

What I dislike is the design choice to have puzzles that unlock more puzzles (Initiation / Source Temple) instead of having a mix between puzzles, combat and a 3rd objective that allows different solution (Intimidating a npc, picking a lock, using an item from a sidequest).

Last edited by eidolon; 30/07/14 11:50 AM.
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Originally Posted by Jito463
Frankly, the only time I felt there was insufficient information was in the immaculate trials, with the four weighted switches. Otherwise, I think it's pretty well done so far (albeit, I'm only in Heiberheim right now, still looking for the 'WW')

I just did this yesterday and it just increased my appreciation of the game.
It took me a good 15min or so to figure it out and once I solved it, it felt really good because it had all the necessary clues but wasnt overly easy, and best of all was the feeling of solving it without help from google.

However I can understand that many would get frustrated with it. Especially since it's a puzzle that you cant leave and come back to later. There have been some puzzles that I havent been able to figure out so I've had to just leave them be and come back later.

The game has a lot of problems and bad design choices, but amongst all things these puzzles have been one of the things I'm enjoying the most.

rk47 #532606 30/07/14 01:06 PM
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Originally Posted by rk47
All I can say is, cut down on the puzzles - and less of a huge map where parties have to have to find a specific item to fetch. Make it more focused and compressed like Cyseal.

Instead of cutting down the puzzles, they should just add alternates ways to solve them. Let's say you find a locked door: then find a key OR find a spell to destroy the door OR find someone who will open it for you. Just like how you have several ways of solving the murder case. Doesn't hurt the game and improves replayability.

Originally Posted by rk47
And don't derail the players with too many details like telling them about THE END OF THE WORLD when they barely started on their first murder investigation.

This. I think they should be a couple more fights and xp-ing before the murder case in Cyseal. It would help new players to get the hang of the game, get some gold/gear and have some fun before tackling the tedious murder case and/or trying to get out of Cyseal to face numerous undead enemies. I'm afraid a lot of new players might get bored trying to solve the murder case for hours right after the tutorial part of the game, especially if they're not familiar with other "free-roaming" RPGs. And I agree that the "End of Time" first discovery should happen AFTER the murder investigation, for clarity.
Have the players find the first Starstone at the end of Evelyn's beach lair, for example.

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The camouflaged items and switches are absolutely maddening. It's what I call "artificial difficulty increase via crappy interface". And while I can deal with camouflaged items somewhat by using the "highlight item" function, it's a drag. E.g. in Skyrim, if a key is on a table, you can clearly tell that there's a key on a table and not some funky half-blended texture. And since the highlight function doesn't highlight switches, you have to pixelhunt like you used to in old games like Myst. It's boring and tiresome.


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Skyrim is a good example. Huge open world but even without markers you know what you're doing. Quests doesn't spread out like in Divinity. You don't miss quest items. You know what you're searching for.

About puzzles, they are not fun. I know you can't create puzzles like Portal's but you don't need to. You don't have to put so many pointless puzzles in an Action-RPG game. Like i said, ofcourse some people like it and it's only my opinion.

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