Where the hell do you learn about sky drops and what to do?

[Vahnkiljoy]

Landed on the Cloud of Pearls island and it wants me to do...something with sky drops but, I've YET to run into any tutorial even addressing these sky annoyances I've seen since the start.

[Roan]

There's one singular Skydrop in the very first enclave where you start that you have to walk right by. Otherwise I'm not sure there's much to explain, you just kind of notice them eventually as a kind of environmental puzzle I guess?

[MannyKlystron]

It was satisfying noticing that intro skydrop, lining it up, getting a congrats message. But sure, it and plenty of other things could use some explanation at some point at least: I thought mirabilisen were related to level progression since the level pips look just like them. Finally noticed that they're probably only for enclave entry once I poked around the map.

[Vahnkiljoy]

I saw the sky orbs there but they shrank and vanished when I approached, I guess since we have freedom of movement and they don't force you to take a path I completely missed it, bad design choice ther if you ask me, regardless, all other puzzles have had something to introduce you to them except these.

[TNTDragons]

There are multiple areas across the main path that are meant to point towards how to solve skydrops, not to mention them being one of the most obvious and prominent puzzles across the world. By the nature of this design some people will miss it, but they did try their best to have something without just telling the player everything

Btw they shrink when you're close to not obstruct your view. The solutions never require you to be so close to them that they shrink

[Fogmoz]

Someone else had an issue with Skydrops, and it turns out their issue was that they can only be solved in first-person.

[Vahnkiljoy]

Hell I don't even have an encyclopedia info box about them so yeah I literally went in completely blind and stumbled my way into figuring out wtf I was doing. Which of course lead to the 'aha' moment after a reset while searching for the last grouping that I had missed somehow.

They could have been handled so much better though.

[Vahnkiljoy]

Originally posted by TNTDragons:

There are multiple areas across the main path that are meant to point towards how to solve skydrops, not to mention them being one of the most obvious and prominent puzzles across the world. By the nature of this design some people will miss it, but they did try their best to have something without just telling the player everything

Btw they shrink when you're close to not obstruct your view. The solutions never require you to be so close to them that they shrink

Yeah but there is nothing to really point out that they ARE puzzle elements, I thought they were just physical ambiance to keep the weird mood of the game about with us flying around and whatnot.

[Osmium]

The funny thing is that even when you get the encyclopedia entry for them, it only says something like "We'll let you figure this one out for yourself". I was able to figure them out through intuition, but I sympathize with someone who missed what the hell the deal is with those floating mirror balls. If you didn't notice the first skydrop puzzle that's lined up to glow from the angle you'd naturally be approaching it from, it might be hard to guess as to how they're used as a puzzle element or that they are even puzzles at all.

[joridiculous]

Originally posted by Fogmoz:

Someone else had an issue with Skydrops, and it turns out their issue was that they can only be solved in first-person.

that is not entirely true. they can be solved in 3rd person, but it is "recommended" to use 1st. person.

I thought the Skydrops where balls you had to touch at first. Mainly for the first time i flew by the "drops" i could press "activate" on one of them and had to "touch" a series of them. So for some time i ran and flew by all i saw but couldn't activate any of them. Was so confused.

Took me a while before i saw you could line them up and press "activate" on them when they where all white.
Mind: Not all of them form circles.

[Cathy]

All of these replies and only joridiculous even hints at what a sky drop is.... so it sounds like you have to line them up? While flying? and then press activate? I'm still confused.

[Vahnkiljoy]

No not flying, on foot.

[Cregan]

Originally posted by Cathy:

All of these replies and only joridiculous even hints at what a sky drop is.... so it sounds like you have to line them up? While flying? and then press activate? I'm still confused.

Skydrops consist of a number of orbs in the air (you can't tell which ones belong together unless you have and activate an upgrade). The puzzle is finding a spot to stand on where the orbs form a nice pattern, usually a circle.

The orbs become brighter when you're near the right spot and this is when you can definitely see which orbs are part of the pattern you're supposed to form. Moving around a bit more to finish the pattern in the air will turn the orbs almost completely white, which is when you can activate the pattern and solve the puzzle by clicking (near the center of the pattern).

On the island with a lot of skydrops there are environmental clues to use for the patterns: a circular hole in a wall, a circular gap in the canopy when standing on the right spot etc.

[Stonga]

I don't understand why you are making this so difficult. Just move to the smallest skydrop and look towards the larger ones. They are almost always in a line with the smallest in one end.

1st person is recommended.

[joridiculous]

Originally posted by Cathy:

All of these replies and only joridiculous even hints at what a sky drop is.... so it sounds like you have to line them up? While flying? and then press activate? I'm still confused.

You must be on foot :)
The easiest way to learn these is to find a place where there are A LOT of balls hanging and then start waling around trying to "line them up" by looking at them while moving around.
You'll get a hang of it pretty fast after "solving" the first ones.
You can do the first part of line-up in 3rd person but go into 1st for 'fine-tune'.

[Tonester]

On the very first island, there are 5 blue structures that the game tells you are hints of how to solve certain puzzles.. One of those actually tells you how to complete them.