Jelani wrote:
It's disappointing how quick people are to use guides to solve plot steps, though. I remember a couple of days after the brightvale library step, people were complaining that it was too easy:
"Did you use a guide?"
"Well, yes."
It wasn't easy if you were there at three o'clock in the morning UK time trying to figure out the damn thing for the first time just so you could update the Neodex before Jellyneo, I tell you.
A fair point. I use guides depending on how much time I have. For the current step, I figured out things for myself, and that seemed easier than trying to follow a guide.
Quote:
I'm not going to say people shouldn't use guides or that there shouldn't be guides: I think plot puzzles should be more of the kind where the method is universal, but the implementation of that method is different for every person. In one of the puzzles of ToW, for example, you had to find your own vines in your own places then work out which to braid together to make a long enough and strong enough rope: all a guide could do is say "You need to find x vines, these are all the different types of vines, then you need to find your way to here, then you need to make a rope that's strong enough by choosing the correct combination".
Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to say. This could have easily been done for this step; randomizing which insults angered Xandra more for each person.
To other comments: Regarding the level of complexity, I think it's silly to dumb everything down to the least common denominator. Sure, some people are younger or have less time to work things out. But TNT still has a Lenny Conundrum, which sometimes requires calculus to solve. Most of the site is accessible for their current "target market." But if you try too hard to please the tweens to the exclusion of everyone else, then everyone else will go away. Something like 20% of users are adults (maybe more). That's a sizable market, too -- and one that spends an awful lot more money on the site (NC, premium, etc.).
Because this plot did not rely on completing one step before moving onto the next, it wouldn't have hurt anything to put a few achievements here or there (or even whole steps) that were a bit more difficult. Even if a younger player couldn't solve it, they could still do
most of the plot, so they'd have no reason to leave. If anything, it'd give them motivation to work harder at the site.
Besides, in the past, with harder steps, if someone was really struggling, others would help them figure it out. So as long as you had the time, you were able to do it. Notice how much shorter this thread is vs. prior plots'. Yes, part of that is because PPT is smaller. But comparing the actual comments, very little of our discussion has been about how to do certain plot steps. And to me, that indicates that this plot has been far too easy as long as you have a guide. In the past, even with a guide, people struggled. And so when you finally solved a step, it meant something. Here, not so much. It just means you jumped through TNT's hoops.
The only exceptions might be Castle Nox and the dark caves -- but for the dark caves, mapping them when they were invisible was much harder than just fumbling around randomly (compared to the vines step in ToW, when some people really
had to map them to finish). And Castle Nox was more tedious than challenging, I think.
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. 
) but beggars can't be choosers and it's had a pretty good story so far. ^^
