Kicked out of translating phrases

[Loquacious Lasagna]

I really don't understand the rules behind translating phrases. It seems like, even when I know something is obviously incorrect, I have to put it down anyway so that it will get crossed out. But sometimes when I do that, the whole minigame is cancelled and I lose my chance to verify the words present. Why does this happen? I can't see any logic in it. Sometimes I'm allowed to guess the missing words and sometimes I'm not.

[cswiger]

The goal is to identify valid phrases. You need to not just match everything you can, but figure out when partial matches don't fit and remove them.

In some cases, you only know a partial match and you need to remove that fragment for the translation to activate. Suppose you know and is "_". If you see "x_", that means "but", but placing the squiggle underscore won't work.

For spoilery examples, consider:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/774201/discussions/0/1681441347884887368/#c1681441347886102889

[Loquacious Lasagna]

Originally posted by cswiger:

The goal is to identify valid phrases. You need to not just match everything you can, but figure out when partial matches don't fit and remove them.

In some cases, you only know a partial match and you need to remove that fragment for the translation to activate. Suppose you know and is "_". If you see "x_", that means "but", but placing the squiggle underscore won't work.

For spoilery examples, consider:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/774201/discussions/0/1681441347884887368/#c1681441347886102889

I understand that much. It just seems like the game wants me to try and blindly match as many symbols as I can. There have been lots of times where I know a certain glyph can't possibly be correct, but the only way to make Aliya comment on the solution is to put it in anyways (where she either removes the incorrect glyph or I get kicked out of the puzzle).

If it happens because I just don't know the correct glyph, it would be handy if the game actually said something, instead of the main character just swearing and refusing to let me continue.

[cswiger]

Yes, start by blindly matching as many symbols as you can.
A decent amount of the time, that will work.

When it doesn't, that is when you need to experiment with removing partial match words. It's really common to be shown three word fragments where you only know one word. Other likely candidates are possessives like "of you" -> "your".

You don't have to get any particular translation right, although they all help. Keep talking to Huang.

[taggedjc]

Sometimes, you don't have enough words to separate out the phrase fully. If that is the case, it will sometimes let you try until the smaller fragments that are wrong get eliminated and it is certain that you don't know enough.

You can of course just save it for later right away if you find you won't be able to separate it out and want to save yourself the trouble from plopping in words you know actually aren't used in that way in fhe phrase.

[zyzz]

I start by matching the longest phrases I can and then work my way down. The glyphs for "of", "thing", "act" show up a LOT but are usually part of a longer word.

My biggest frustration is getting locked into a puzzle that I know I can't do yet and being forced to play the symbol-mashing game until it lets me "save for later".

[Loquacious Lasagna]

It seems as though if I do the puzzle immediately, some of the words I use will be verified if I've used them before, but not if I save it for later, hence most of my irritation.

[taggedjc]

Originally posted by zyzz:

My biggest frustration is getting locked into a puzzle that I know I can't do yet and being forced to play the symbol-mashing game until it lets me "save for later".

They are lessening the requirements for backing out, soon.

[Lanka]

I wish the initial guessing game would have a way cut the phrase in words instead of the loop of put everything in&characters commenting it being incorrect when you can clearly see that you only know a half of a word.

End of first playthrough some of the translations were quite long already, and having to do the filling part 10 times to get to guessing what 1~2 new words are felt very frustrating and tedious. Think I stumbled on maybe 2 or 3 so long ones that game just put them aside waiting for later automatically.

[Omnituens]

Yeah it doesn't make it clear why sometimes it just nopes you out of the translation after 1 go, but I think it's because you basically have 2 unknowns next to each other so have no way to break up the phrase. Would be nice if it said something, rather than looking like you pressed the wrong button and she "swears".

Also, clearing off all the inserted words, then eliminating one is very annoying, you end up having do the same things over and over if you have to keep putting small connecting words like "of" back in for it to attempt the validation.

By the waters!

[cswiger]

I don't know how the game decides how many chances you have, but in order to be able to attempt a translation, you need to know at least some words. If you don't know anything in a phrase, you won't even get the chance to translate.

So if you are given a chance, you always can complete the translation successfully.

If you fail, and it crosses off a word and gives you another try, I think I agree that it should only clear the word it crossed off rather than removing the other words. But maybe Inkle tried that and found it was confusing to players?

[Holger]

The rules seem to be:

A) You can attempt to solve a phrase as long as the words that you have in your dictionary allow you to split the phrase into distinct words. (This means specifically that between two unknown words must be one or more possible words from your dictionary.)
B) You can't attempt to solve a phrase if two (or more) words that you don't know yet are next to each other. (Since you do not know where to split them)

Sometimes after failed attempts, when words from your dictionary are crossed out, you go from state A to state B, because you no longer have enough words in your dictionary to split that phrase into words.

[Loquacious Lasagna]

Is it just me or are you sort of punished for not having all the words? Like if you do the minigame normally, and you have enough words that you don't have two adjacent unknowns, which I assume is the failure condition, you have a chance to validate some words and learn new ones when it splits. However, I've never returned to a phrase when I know more words and had it validate my guesses, I just slot symbols in. If anything, that's what really bugs me about this, is that I'm being weirdly punished by the game for no reason.

[dorianmode]

Have to have a frame of reference to be able to decipher more, I guess. It's not about having all the words, so much as having to find more things in order to translate the more complex fragments. No expectation you'll be able to translate everything first time.

I'm a bit sad there's no option to break words yourself when you can totally translate them from the meaning of the underlying glyphs, but I understand this would make translation pretty trivial after a while.

[Dioneira]

I can't split up a phrase after the first try. I seem to be stuck with some really long words now. In one case I have a confirmed translation of one word in the middle but I have no idea how or if I can use that. Is that possible?

Originally posted by Holger:

The rules seem to be:

A) You can attempt to solve a phrase as long as the words that you have in your dictionary allow you to split the phrase into distinct words. (This means specifically that between two unknown words must be one or more possible words from your dictionary.)
B) You can't attempt to solve a phrase if two (or more) words that you don't know yet are next to each other. (Since you do not know where to split them)

[Loquacious Lasagna]

Originally posted by Dioneira:

I can't split up a phrase after the first try. I seem to be stuck with some really long words now. In one case I have a confirmed translation of one word in the middle but I have no idea how or if I can use that. Is that possible?

Originally posted by Holger:

The rules seem to be:

A) You can attempt to solve a phrase as long as the words that you have in your dictionary allow you to split the phrase into distinct words. (This means specifically that between two unknown words must be one or more possible words from your dictionary.)
B) You can't attempt to solve a phrase if two (or more) words that you don't know yet are next to each other. (Since you do not know where to split them)

It seems to force you to trial and error everything yeah. There have been countless times where I know that a word is wrong because I understand the grammar of ancient but I'm forced to guess it over and over anyways. The mechanic is fun but really needs work.