Point on "oversimplified puzzles" I find weak. He talks about vamperisim in Morrowind. other games have done this too. no clear guide in game how to do anything. rules or how to be cleansed. you need to read the journals, books etc to sort out myths. The problem with this is, you as the player have no idea what is a red herring. A player can not tell what is just a rumor and what is a real hidden thing in a game. FFS, you could easily dick around players for years, just by adding a "locked" door in a game. have it the only interactable locked door in the game. but not put any key in. Players would be looking for that key that doesn't exist for YEARS. dirty pool. Hiding things in games is too easy. You are basically forcing players to datamine/noclip. Think of all the stupid fake rumors in video games already? Ermacs, and shit.
Or if your hints are entirely too vague.
Aka, Castlevania 2:
Hit Deborah Cliff with your head to make a hole
Wait for a soul with a red crystal on Deborah Cliff.
Video games are not real sandboxes. So, no matter how complex or open you make it, you still need to create very specific conditions for a player to succeed. The worst is when the player knows what he is supposed to be doing, but doesn't know to kneel, and thus thinks he got something wrong, and moves on. the bigger the world, the worse this is.
This is where highlighting interactive items came into play for example. Make a puzzle where a player needs to cut a rope in a basement. Fill the house with random items. Well, in theory there should be a like a hundred things a player could use to cut. the scissors, his sword, a kitchen knife, a broken piece of wood, that crystal shard the player may or may not have from random quest #1234.. but wait, do we even really need to cut it? can we burn it? Can we smash whatever it was attached too? The well just gets deeper and deeper. At some point the player will hit a puzzle that they will know the answer to. but the developer didn't think of the player coming at it from that angle, and hit that wall of disappointment. or alternatively, puzzles act more like adventure game puzzles with 1 clear solution, that acts more like a riddle, then a sandbox. Devs do this for a reason. Granted, some do it better then others.
Granted. giant go here Arrows aren't exactly good.
In game directions would be pretty cool of course. "there is a bandit camp, East along the kings road. turn north at the 3rd signpost to find the hidden trail." shit like that would be great no doubt. But I imagine they don't do that so much, as there is a disconnect between writing scripts and world building. Massive Q/A would be needed to make sure no directions in the script, got changed when the world itself was being built, or a patch reworked something.
