Sanctum upper right help, 2025

[runevision]

I've been banging my head against the puzzles on the Sanctum island.

For the one on the upper right
about getting the fire element onto the crystal, how can it be solved?

After spending way too long trying it myself and failing, and looked at this video walk-through:
https://youtu.be/Ze7kYx01Riw?si=C7T_NOWQHhUNgwOe&t=1685

But if I copy exactly what they do - using a water elemental to copy a fire elemental that has no more shots left in it - then in the video it creates a fire elemental clone with 2(?) shots left, but for me it creates a tiny fire elemental clone with zero shots left.

The weird thing is that I have been able to clone a fire elemental with no shots left and get a clone with two shots left too, in order configurations of the puzzle, but not in the configuration towards solving the puzzle. What the hell is the logic exactly for how many shots a cloned fire elemental has? I can't find any reasoning to it. And it's not like this is some unimportant edge case; this is literally on the critical path towards solving this puzzle.

It's extremely frustrating that no only are key mechanics needed to solve hard puzzles not explained in mandatory simple puzzles, the way those mechanics work also seems completely inconsistent and inscrutable to figuring them out.

Do anybody just straight up have a solution that has been tested to work with the latest build of the game? Because older solutions can seemingly not be expected to work anymore. And I'm too tired to keep trying on my own when the mechanics don't even work in a consistent way.

[lorgon]

My solution didn't require cloning the fire elemental, see key steps near here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O94pzHKECes&t=1840s

[runevision]

Originally posted by lorgon:

My solution didn't require cloning the fire elemental, see key steps near here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O94pzHKECes&t=1840s

What do you mean? You ARE cloning a fire elemental in that video. When I say cloning, I mean using a water elemental to become a fire elemental - don't know if it's the right terminology.

And your solution too depends on the clone having shots left even though the one you cloned from did not have any shots left.

[lorgon]

Oh crap, I completely misremembered what I did here at the end, and thought I used the last shot of the original (not the mimic) to do it.

After some replay experimentation on my own, I think the logic is, each water mimic starts with a maximum of 3 fireballs if it ever clones a fire elemental. So like if you have the water guy clone the fire guy (regardless of how many fireballs the fireguy has shot thus far) the mimic will have 3 shots, but if you then push the exhausted mimic away to turn him back into water, and then try to mimic fire again, he will still be exhausted. So the mimic remembers the number of shots between mimic attempts, if that makes sense? It has been a while since I played but after a quick refresher I think that's the logic.

[lorgon]

And yeah, I agree that the mechanics of interplay among the elementals remains relatively unexplored at the end of the game; there a lack of tutorializing any of the mechanical combinations, as well as a lack of puzzles that really exploit the mechanics in interesting ways. The sanctum puzzles do feel a little 'tacked on' compared to the fullness and polish of the puzzles of the other areas.

[runevision]

Originally posted by lorgon:

Oh crap, I completely misremembered what I did here at the end, and thought I used the last shot of the original (not the mimic) to do it.

No worries!

Originally posted by lorgon:

After some replay experimentation on my own, I think the logic is, each water mimic starts with a maximum of 3 fireballs if it ever clones a fire elemental.

That's not the case here. When I make a mimic (water elemental) mimic a fire elemental for the first time, and that fire elemental is exhausted for shots, the mimic is exhausted for shots too. One time I got that to not happen, but there did not seem to be any logic to it, and I have not gotten this to work when I actually need it to solve the puzzle.

[lorgon]

Hm, weird... I'm on an up-to-date Steam copy, and I can't seem to replicate the behavior you're seeing... most of my experimenting has just involved pushing the fire guy 3 ways (sometimes including moving him via wind) and then pushing the water over to clone him after that, so I am unclear if you're experiencing a bug or some other subtle mechanic... if there's a shortest reproduceable sequence of moves that yields a fireball-less mimic, maybe file a bug report?

[Gaxeco]

Originally posted by runevision:

I've been banging my head against the puzzles on the Sanctum island.

For the one on the upper right
about getting the fire element onto the crystal, how can it be solved?

After spending way too long trying it myself and failing, and looked at this video walk-through:
https://youtu.be/Ze7kYx01Riw?si=C7T_NOWQHhUNgwOe&t=1685

But if I copy exactly what they do - using a water elemental to copy a fire elemental that has no more shots left in it - then in the video it creates a fire elemental clone with 2(?) shots left, but for me it creates a tiny fire elemental clone with zero shots left.

The weird thing is that I have been able to clone a fire elemental with no shots left and get a clone with two shots left too, in order configurations of the puzzle, but not in the configuration towards solving the puzzle. What the hell is the logic exactly for how many shots a cloned fire elemental has? I can't find any reasoning to it. And it's not like this is some unimportant edge case; this is literally on the critical path towards solving this puzzle.

It's extremely frustrating that no only are key mechanics needed to solve hard puzzles not explained in mandatory simple puzzles, the way those mechanics work also seems completely inconsistent and inscrutable to figuring them out.

Do anybody just straight up have a solution that has been tested to work with the latest build of the game? Because older solutions can seemingly not be expected to work anymore. And I'm too tired to keep trying on my own when the mechanics don't even work in a consistent way.

I just completed the level using a waaay simpler solution, hope this helps

[Gaxeco]

https://streamable.com/47fys2

Video ^

[runevision]

Originally posted by Gaxeco:

https://streamable.com/47fys2

Video ^

The page just says the video is not available anymore.

[runevision]

I just recorded a video that clearly shows two bugs:

Cloning a fire elemental with 2 shots left creates clone with no shots left.
https://youtu.be/uJ4hTsu3aBc?si=_exC7cRmNWB0_KvE&t=206

Pushing a rock elemental into lava makes it a platform first time, but undoing and pushing it again the exact same way makes it jump over the lava on every re-attempt.
https://youtu.be/uJ4hTsu3aBc?si=_exC7cRmNWB0_KvE&t=372

The second bug is also visible in the video I linked to in the first post here from 7 months ago, so it's apparently never been fixed in all that time.

[Gaxeco]

Originally posted by runevision:

Originally posted by Gaxeco:

https://streamable.com/47fys2

Video ^

The page just says the video is not available anymore.

I just reuploaded it again https://streamable.com/kqcbmx
Expires in 2 days

[runevision]

Originally posted by Gaxeco:

Originally posted by runevision:

The page just says the video is not available anymore.

I just reuploaded it again https://streamable.com/kqcbmx
Expires in 2 days

All right, thanks! An interesting alternative solution.

Unfortunately this too depends on cloning a fire elemental to get more shots, and this keeps not working for me. I'll wait and see if there's any response to my post in the bug report thread.