Very challenging!

[shortsack]

Holy smokes some of these puzzles are fiendishly difficult. I haven't struggled this much since The Talos Principle DLC. How is everyone else fairing?

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Yeah they are brain busting, that is for sure.

[Nixmachine]

Done with the puzzles, but currently on a headache getting all the corrupted logs

[zuppaclub]

right now, not good , still stuck, I don't want to solve another puzzle or see the the solution until I complete this 1 puzzle

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Originally posted by zuppaclub:

right now, not good , still stuck, I don't want to solve another puzzle or see the the solution until I complete this 1 puzzle :lunar2019laughingpig:

This is just my 2cents, but I have found that if I'm banging my head off the wall on a single puzzle for too long - 1) it begins to seriously lose its fun and gets frustrating, but more importantly 2) when I went off and solved another variety of puzzles, I actually learned a few little new things/strategies and when I came back I solved the original puzzle fairly quickly.

Food for thought. Really just depends how much fun you are having when still stuck. It varies for me.

[Tenebrais]

If nothing else - and this applies to any puzzle in any game - you come up with so many better ideas after taking a break and thinking about something else for a while than spending the same amount of time bashing your head against the same problem.
We have a tendency to get stuck in a particular way of thinking, and without taking a break we often can't actually break out of whatever wrong assumption is keeping us away from finding the answer.

[[aTm] pickledmidget]

just started playing this game. its tough. i hate it. i love it.

the best part is trying to figure out a puzzle for 30 minutes and having my buddy watch me stream it through discord and he figures it out in 2 minutes.

i shut down the stream. my friend just laughed and said "that was easy"

i don't want to be friends with him anymore!

to the DEV team... i hate this game! keep up the good work.

[shortsack]

I took a break from the final engine room puzzle and explored more areas. I solved most of the "starter" puzzles and got a nice preview of the rest of the game's mechanics. Very refreshing and highly recommended if you are currently stumped.

[Malkav0]

Puzzles are clearly on the high side, but some of them are misleading, particularly those with "paths" to follow (the blinking one in engine room seems to not even make sense I feel I got more lucky than insightful). That's minor though, it does not happen often. What I found more of a bother, is they crafted a very nice story that you feel compelled to discover, and when you are stuck on a puzzle, because the series are long (mostly 3x5 per chunk), it gets frustrating like the story is taken away from you. I don't know if I have any alternative to suggest to that, but that's often how I felt ^^ maybe divide it with more little chunks

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by Malkav0:

Puzzles are clearly on the high side, but some of them are misleading, particularly those with "paths" to follow

The game does not hold your hand, but it never misleads you. It just doesn't stop you from misleading yourself. ;)

Originally posted by Malkav0:

(the blinking one in engine room seems to not even make sense I feel I got more lucky than insightful).

Hmm, there is nothing "blinking" in the engine room or its puzzles. All puzzles in the game can be solved by logical deduction (with some experimentation to determine the rules of new mechanics), with only two exceptions: the moving pillars in front of the escape pod bay and the cryosleep chamber. In these two cases, you're supposed to realize that you need more information to find the right combination. Both puzzles are extremely easy once you have that information.

Originally posted by Malkav0:

That's minor though, it does not happen often. What I found more of a bother, is they crafted a very nice story that you feel compelled to discover, and when you are stuck on a puzzle, because the series are long (mostly 3x5 per chunk), it gets frustrating like the story is taken away from you. I don't know if I have any alternative to suggest to that, but that's often how I felt ^^ maybe divide it with more little chunks

The story is already divided into little chunks. You usually get a bit of story after solving an anchor, either a) via direct voice-over, or b) by getting access to a login for new messages and logs, or c) by unlocking a voice-over elsewhere on the ship.

I can see where the frustration is coming from, though. That's the reason why narrative games often have very easy (if any) puzzles - they can get in the way of the story if they take a long time to solve. Filament is not a narrative game though. It's first and foremost a puzzle game that just rewards you with small bits of story after solving puzzles. It's similar in design to games like Portal or The Talos Principle in that regard.

If you have a compelling narrative and challenging puzzles in a game, then you'll always have situations where the player gets temporarily stuck on a puzzle and is then frustrated because they can't progress in the story. The only way to prevent this is to either have a great story with no puzzles (like Gone Home) or have excellent puzzles with no real story (like The Witness). But I think there's room for games that combine both. The temporary frustration of getting stuck is outweighed by the feeling of accomplishment when you succeed. The "open world" approach helps a bit - if you're stuck on one puzzle in Filament, you can always leave it for a while, solve puzzles elsewhere, and "earn" some story bits from those other puzzles.

[DarkVantage]

Ugh. Most of the time after I solve a puzzle, I fee like it was just luck. Has anyone developed some general strategies/tips they want to share?

[Y4F9]

This is the reason I've avoided paying full price for it. I know it'll be too hard to actually push through and finish off or get even close to the end. I don't want to use a guide. Takes away from the sense of accomplishment. Also bums you out when you can't finish it.

[swingline]

Originally posted by shortsack:

Holy smokes some of these puzzles are fiendishly difficult. I haven't struggled this much since The Talos Principle DLC. How is everyone else fairing?

Yeah, this is pretty hard for me even early on. fwiw, I finished Talos (but not the DLC) but this is stumping me early on. It's a different kind of difficulty in this I think. Kindof have the feeling early on that I'll not be able to finish this - similar to that feeling I got about maybe halfway through the Witness when I realized I'll likely not make it to the end.

[Y4F9]

Originally posted by swingline:

Originally posted by shortsack:

Holy smokes some of these puzzles are fiendishly difficult. I haven't struggled this much since The Talos Principle DLC. How is everyone else fairing?

Yeah, this is pretty hard for me even early on. fwiw, I finished Talos (but not the DLC) but this is stumping me early on. It's a different kind of difficulty in this I think. Kindof have the feeling early on that I'll not be able to finish this - similar to that feeling I got about maybe halfway through the Witness when I realized I'll likely not make it to the end.

Hate that feeling. When you know you love the game but can just see yourself eventually getting burned out. Loved The Witness but taking breaks from the game made you forget some of the mechanics which made the eventual burnout come quicker.