re: Descendant of the Potentate

chrisw_63_ESO

When is a puzzle Not a puzzle? When the game forces something with zero notice. You get the elemental tiles, but you have no say which goes in the current slot. You're guaranteed to fail the first time while you figure out that the game is forcing the order in which the tiles get placed. Hire someone from The Room (iOS game) and give us some really neat puzzles.

Slightly more seriously.. the mechanism is seriously forced and totally unnatural. The least you could have done was add a subscript somewhere that the tiles were spelled to only be used in a certain order.

Barry_Magikarp

There is a book which gives you hints(pretty much the answers really) on a table next to where the tiles are placed.

chrisw_63_ESO

Huh... In the same quest, at the end, Proconsul Beloren-Kaie says he was summoned by the Magnate, and by her ancestor many years prior, due to the Proving Festival, and even repeats that this is a "time for the Akaviri people to commune with their ancestors." Ancestors. So how did he get summoned? Awkward...

Ildun

I completed it with first try, and I'm not guessing.

chrisw_63_ESO

Yes, the book gives you hints, but it doesn't tell you the order you need to use. And, Ildun, unless you cheated (saw a video, read it somewhere) you'd have to get extremely lucky.

I'm not saying the puzzle was hard, just an odd forced mechanic that isn't supported by the quest information.

Ildun

chrisw_63_ESO wrote: »

Yes, the book gives you hints, but it doesn't tell you the order you need to use. And, Ildun, unless you cheated (saw a video, read it somewhere) you'd have to get extremely lucky.

I'm not saying the puzzle was hard, just an odd forced mechanic that isn't supported by the quest information.

What? It gave you the element and direction, what else do you need?

I do that quest on 1st day of PC launch, I don't think there are video or article about that. If you insist, believe whatever you want.

Bam_Bam

chrisw_63_ESO wrote: »

When is a puzzle Not a puzzle? When the game forces something with zero notice. You get the elemental tiles, but you have no say which goes in the current slot. You're guaranteed to fail the first time while you figure out that the game is forcing the order in which the tiles get placed. Hire someone from The Room (iOS game) and give us some really neat puzzles.

Slightly more seriously.. the mechanism is seriously forced and totally unnatural. The least you could have done was add a subscript somewhere that the tiles were spelled to only be used in a certain order.

The Room games are brilliant. Would love to see those types of puzzles in ESO

daemonios

The quest hint tells you which elements you should place, e.g. "place the fire element", so you can use the book to place it in the correct spot. You don't choose which order you do the elements in, they progress automatically as you place the previous one.

That said, I agree the design is bad. It's inconsistent with other puzzles in the game where you can place one of several objects in any order. I failed the first time because I tried interacting with the placement spots in the order I chose and didn't immediately notice the quest hint.

daemonios

Bam_Bam wrote: »

The Room games are brilliant. Would love to see those types of puzzles in ESO

While I would like that, you should see early threads on the topic of puzzles. Anything more complicated than a memory game-style "press the pads in the same order as the ghost" got a lot of peoples' panties in a bunch. So I'm guessing that would not be popular.

Come to think of it, there could be a way to do it without penalising players who don't appreciate puzzles. In Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis you could choose from three game modes: Fists Path, Wits Path, or Team Path. In the first you typically had to fight your way through obstacles, in the second one you'd solve puzzles, and in the third you would take turns controlling Indy or Sophia, also basically solving puzzles but in a collaborative way. Maybe that sort of puzzles in ESO could be smashed through?