Unlocking everything without watching guides

[GaviJa]

The game has lot of puzzles and enigmas that are well designed. Doing them is part of the fun. Although sometimes you have no idea what to do or even what to look for.
How do you guys discover stuff without watching guides or follow a YT video??
Having hints would be nice in game but the game doesn't seem to have them.

[Michael]

I look at my map periodically to see if there's anything that looks suspicious or that I missed. I look over ledges for places I can drop down to, sometimes I shoot at gaps to check for invisible bridges. I destroy breakables in case there is a space you can duck through behind them. I destroy breakables on the other side of low barriers in case that will enable me to vault over them. I shoot at shiny things in the environment.

I roll into walls because I forget I'm not playing Dark Souls. I listen for the sound invisible walls make in this game when my minions aren't drowning them out. I waste half an hour trying to solve a lever puzzle that required me to go through another zone first. I waste half an hour trying to solve a puzzle that required it to be a blood moon.

Basically I blindly stumble into a situation that reveals a secret to me, and then I try to look for similar clues going forward and try to remember if I have seen something like that previously I can go back for.

[MrWitz]

It's never been possible in games like this without using guides. Elden Ring, for example, has stuff hidden in some really obnoxious ways, and R2 is no different. If they added hints for everything though would make it all really boring. Even with guides, accomplishing some of these things is still "cool". It's just the way it is.

[serious swamp ass]

Originally posted by MrWitz:

It's never been possible in games like this without using guides. Elden Ring, for example, has stuff hidden in some really obnoxious ways, and R2 is no different. If they added hints for everything though would make it all really boring. Even with guides, accomplishing some of these things is still "cool". It's just the way it is.

If it wasn’t possible without guides, the guides wouldn’t exist to begin with. It’s possible if you want to dedicate tons of hours into the game.

[Forge Master]

I'd rather work smarter, not harder

[Cutlass Jack]

Figuring things out is half the fun. Its a great feeling when we work a tricky problem. So I avoid guides as much as I can.

Really the only exception I made was unlocking the engineer class and that music box puzzle on Yaesha. I'm terrible with music puzzles and just couldn't work out the pinsettings on my own.

[ReaperFrosty]

Originally posted by Cutlass Jack:

Figuring things out is half the fun. Its a great feeling when we work a tricky problem. So I avoid guides as much as I can.

Really the only exception I made was unlocking the engineer class and that music box puzzle on Yaesha. I'm terrible with music puzzles and just couldn't work out the pinsettings on my own.

This, plus the Archon....was never going to figure that out on my own lol

[Darkrayne]

If they provided some indicator that you are missing something from a World then I would ignore all guides but they don't. Something simple like you have 38/44 items from Yaesha for example.

It's probably intentional. All the guide videos and media coverage about secrets and stuff is a lot of free marketing and creates a community outside of the game.

[Kai]

I wouldn't want to deal with the frustration for some of them, and it's time consuming.

[verarticus]

Well, one option is go to a wiki and just peruse items and such to see if there's something you're missing. Find out what world or area it's on and leave it at that if you want to solve the mystery, though this does ruin the reward surprise.

For the most part I don't start doing that kinda thing until I've either beaten the game or feel like I'm extremely under geared or missing tons of things. Games with puzzles and secrets to this extent anymore are designed to be solved as a community rather than as a player, which makes sense with how connected everyone is and easy it is to share and find info.

[The Time Traveler]

Originally posted by GaviJa:

The game has lot of puzzles and enigmas that are well designed. Doing them is part of the fun. Although sometimes you have no idea what to do or even what to look for.
How do you guys discover stuff without watching guides or follow a YT video??
Having hints would be nice in game but the game doesn't seem to have them.

making this post about wanting tips.... you should just go watch videos. srsly tho. think about it.

[MeSako]

There are hints.. you just have to find them, and understand them

[LazyLiz]

Read the books everywhere. Everything is explained.
It's generally "make this pattern", and nearby is always "here is the pattern"

[Vacknishkara]

Originally posted by GaviJa:

The game has lot of puzzles and enigmas that are well designed. Doing them is part of the fun. Although sometimes you have no idea what to do or even what to look for.
How do you guys discover stuff without watching guides or follow a YT video??
Having hints would be nice in game but the game doesn't seem to have them.

I would say there are 3 levels of difficulty in inlocking things in this game, from easiest to hardest :
1) normal exploration :
Just normal exploration there, nothing too bad, some spots are really well hidden, or visible but hard to access but you can eventually stumble on them and find you way in.

2) investigation + lore intelligence :
This is where you need to read item description, dialogues and quests, and try a few things to get some surprise items.

3) data mining required :
There is very few content that requires it, you are VERY unlikely to succeed alone for that.
Spoiler : There is a secret archetype and a few others items hiddens behind a gate in the labyrinth where you need a very specific loadout to get a 'corrupted' state and pass throught.

[FDru]

With careful exploration (and multiple playthroughs of each biome) you will more than likely unlock everything except 2 of the archetypes. I'm not sure if there's any real hints in game that lead to unlocking these but one is possible to find by accident, the other is a complex secret you will likely need to be spoiled for.

[FieserMoep]

You can discover everything. Chances that you will are slim without looking it up. Regarding some stuff, near zero if you lack specific skills / knowledge.