Puzzles, treasures and rewards

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Lilith Ayin, Jul 17, 2021.

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  1. Isabel Ayin

    Isabel Ayin Avatar

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    The game is full of puzzles and mysteries to solve. It's fun to explore and hunt for clues, but many times it takes a lot of time to find those clues and solve the mystery, and I think the payoff is not worth the time and effort invested.

    Yesterday I entered Drachvald Spur North and found the door of an abandoned mine. I spent half an afternoon looking everywhere for the key, but couldn't find it. Today I have returned to look for the key, without result.
    I thought maybe Drachvald Spur South was related to the key to the mine, so I went inside. The South does not appear to be related to the key, but there I found another mystery.
    On the horizon I have seen a temple on top of a mountain, I have reached it and a ghost has given me five tribute roses.
    I've spent over two hours looking for where to put those roses, and the reward has been 58 gold coins, some arrows, a couple of repair kits, and a few gem shards.
    I have obtained the same type of reward in all the puzzles and mysteries that I have managed to solve.

    In some of them you can also get a buff, but it does not always benefit the specific character.

    It is not easy to solve the puzzles and sometimes they are abandoned by the frustration of not finding the clues. And if you finally manage to solve them, you find a disappointing reward.
    However, we can find lots of artifacts just by breaking some boxes or opening some sacks.
    It does not seem coherent to me that the effort of solving a puzzle obtains such a ridiculous reward, compared to what you can obtain by breaking a box at the door of a bank in any city.

    Please make the time and effort invested in the puzzles get a more attractive reward.

    By the way, will it be worth looking for the key to the abandoned mine in Drachvald Spur North?
     
  2. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    a small cave with a few giant mushrooms, some emeralds to mine, and a chest that was a mimic three of three sceneloads, so is probably always one.
     
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  3. Owsley

    Owsley Bug Hunter

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    Heck, I give better loot for solving my dungeon adventure.
     
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  4. Isabel Ayin

    Isabel Ayin Avatar

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    I found the key thanks to the clues on the forum. A mushroom also gave me a seat mushroom, which are cool in the garden :D
     
  5. vulcanjedi

    vulcanjedi Bug Hunter

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    I think this has been mentioned in wishlist a few times. I remember doing a few of these puzzles back before we had mounts and they took forever. I'm sure they could use some kind of incentive.
    vj
     
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  6. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    Could introduce some of these chests as a sort of mini quest, where when you find and open them the first time it gives a nice reward. But using it again after it resets just goes back to basic crap loot.

    Could introduce a new npc that gives various quests to find a number of hidden chests in the game too (he would only give a hint at where to start looking for them ).
     
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  7. FBohler

    FBohler Avatar

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    I think those should have good loot, potentially including XP, artifacts and rare materials.
    Depending on the reward, convert them to daily or weekly quests so there's meaning to try and solve these puzzles other than the puzzle itself.
    For a new player it should feel awesome to get a good chunk of XP and rare items out of their curiosity to interact with the game world.
     
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  8. Vaentorian

    Vaentorian Localization Team

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    The real challenge is rewarding players who invest time and effort in solving the puzzle for themselves, as opposed to following someone else's walkthrough; but at the same time not making the puzzles super grindy for the sake of discouraging people who would do that just for the loot.

    I think this is at least part of the reason why success is often meant to be its own reward (personally I find a lot of the challenges too grindy and/or obscure to hold my interest, but I appreciate the extra flavour they bring to the game world).
     
  9. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    I agree 100% that there needs to be some better rewards for puzzles specifically ones that do not reward with a buff. over all though we have seen some pretty nice changes that have happened with rewards over the last year, but still need more options and more unique rewards even if its a one time for the unique, with other times offering other. same with chests it adventure zones I think rather than static ones new tech should be introduced to randomize locations along with better loot options. even gold looking at gold prices in the game a chest with a few thousand coin ever once in a blue moon would not upset the economy at all vs 30 gold. it would also push people to want to explorer more which as a new adventure is something that needs reward but for us older adventures who have pretty much everything there is little to draw us out to keep looking.

    @Elgarion
     
  10. Tahru

    Tahru Avatar

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    I would love it if there was a way for players to drive this from their lots and POTs. There is a growing list of tools in the game to create quests and stories, but there is no way for a player to prevent cheating or reward participants for a job well done. Putting rewards in vendors and chests just allows players to take everything, demotivating the sponsor from rewarding good stuff when not physically present.

    The game has conditional check to prevent most cheating activities and to reward players with a single prize. A good example of this are the in-game emote rewards and the town crier rewards. How awesome would it be if you could setup a conversationalist and have it reward the first 1-X people that enter a code or answer a question correctly? And how about these daily quest boxes where you can trade items for items, what if we could set that up so that a specific paper ticket created by soandso returns one or more rewards provided by real players...
     
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  11. FBohler

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    Following a playthrough is as legit as figuring the puzzles by yourself. I think there's space for everybody on board.

    I totally agree on the chance of hitting a jackpot with a big fat gold reward in chests.
    Compendium of Pain and Suffering, for example, has pretty good gold rewards. I don't see why can't other select chests have the same feature.
    Obviously, it should be behind some kind of interesting gameplay or be timed and only accessible in open matchmaking scenes. Imagine how cool would it be if there was a good timed reward in every PVP scene, so people would have a real motivation to engage in PVP?
     
  12. Rinaldi

    Rinaldi Bug Hunter

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    Maybe Some other options for rewarding those who solve puzzles?
    1) Unique titles - maybe for solving 5 puzzles you get the title "Puzzle Challenger", for 10 puzzles solved you get the title "Puzzle Solver", and for 15 puzzles you get "Puzzle master". I never use titles, so this reward may be nice, but I feel it is not very satisfying.
    2) Pieces to a puzzle treasure map - chris was gonna put in a mechanic where you could get pieces to a map, and the map would lead to some reward. Maybe for each puzzle you solve, you get a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. When you get all the pieces and the recipe to craft the puzzle (maybe 8 puzzle pieces, wax, and wooden boards to frame it), then you can open and look at the puzzle picture like a map of ardoris. The map leads to some treasure or special deco item. maybe once a year, change the treasure map. I like this idea because the entire puzzle solving theme is woven into the final reward.
    3) a Puzzle emote - maybe the avatar plays a rubik's cube? or maybe a ball-in-cup emote?

    i do like exploring and solving the puzzles, but often the area that you reach when you solve the puzzle and the reward you get are completely lackluster.
    A Classic example is the mushroom cave in Eastmarch: an un-interesting cave that looks like any other cave, and a treasure chest than has a few gold and a few gem fragments.

    @Elgarion
     
  13. Sannio

    Sannio Lead Quest and Level Designer Moderator SOTA Developer

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    This is a good discussion. I'll chime in, too!

    Some puzzles are in the world and some are based on NPC conversations. Some puzzles are up to current standards, while some are old and might need to have better directions, compass markers, tooltips, rewards, etc. If anyone engages in a puzzle and feels it's missing something or the reward is incredibly insufficient, please report it as you would a bug. Give "/loc" details and clear suggestions on how you think it should be improved. Please keep in mind the simplest solutions are more likely to be implemented. Make sure to post it in the forums (don't DM me) so other players can contribute to the conversation. Also, make sure each report is it's own thread and don't gang up a bunch in one report, please. We'll look over your report and make appropriate adjustments.
     
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