Feedback Temples and Holiday Palace

Hi! Player-Staff communication is nice so I figured I’d try give some opinions about temples!

Good things:

  • Variation from ordinary dungeons is great! Because it’s hard currently to vary gameplay with all these limitations PMU has code wise etc
  • Puzzle 2 in forest temple was cryptic! (favourite puzzle). I like the switch puzzles too like Fire Temple puzzle 1

Suggestions:

  • Bosses are kinda too tough. Unforgiving since there is no way to save progress, so you must redo all of puzzles if fails which is boring (or get limited chances like in HP). Ideally you don’t need to repeat puzzles for boss but hard to implement. Also doesn’t favour many players who don’t have strong strategies for bosses in their assembly (many PMUers are low level or just hang out)
  • Icebreaker puzzles are my least favourite because it is a lot of backtracking and unforgiving (when solo). Some other puzzles like Warp Maze in like Fire Temple 4th are sometimes similar. So less unforgiving warps to start and backtracking. (for example invisible mazes, which are similar to Icebreaker just no warps to start, are ok imo)
  • Secret keys are usually found by trying all possible combinations, like ramming or checking every wall. Maybe instead possibility to add hints? Like signs implying where you can find secrets? Hints for puzzles are nice too of course, like in Forest Temple 2

Questions for players:

  • More temples are planned! Looking forward to them or is it starting to get old? For new content, mix dungeon releases with temple releases?
  • New recruits are some of the best rewards! Should we get new recruits somehow in temples? Should rewards always be 100 % since it’s no fun repeating same puzzles?

I’d love some hints.

Many times when trying puzzles on PMU I hadn’t the foggiest Idea on what I was supposed to do or look for.
Now as a more experienced player I understand how most puzzles work on PMU but for newer players I can imagine it may be a bit too frustrating. I myself tend to stay clear of the most puzzles unless it’s an event.

Though I have to say, I like the addition of puzzles. It ads more depth to the gameplay aspect. Also, I’ve enjoyed some of the events (once I understood what I had to do) and some of the puzzles in the dungeons.

To sum it up - Generally I like the puzzles in PMU but sometimes a hint or two would be good. Especially for newer players.

Also, granted we’ve seen 3 puzzle temples being released after their introduction as an event. One more is one its way at least, as we know from the sky and have been told about it. In the meantime we got 1 new dungeon, Sunrise temple.

I’d prefer for temples to be kept to a minimum, especially seeing as how many legendaries are placed in them. There is a lot of potential for new dungeons and I’d be sad to see legends already in use that could have otherwise fit well. For example, Kyurem, we could have had an epic Ice dungeon with super high level pokemon in it. There’s no greater Ice legend no? Well there aren’t that many anyway.

Rather I’d see legends like the lake trio go into the puzzles. They would fit a puzzle dungeon quite fine I think as they each represent a part of the psyche. Willpower, Knowledge, Emotion. you could make puzzles with these themes. Besides that it might be trickier to come up with a dungeon to fit them than the likes like of Kyurem and Heatran. Also consider if all future temples even need legendaries. Perhaps some temples without legends?
Edit: like the forest temple which has no legendary boss)

So to sum that up, please be careful about choosing which legends to put in temples as perhaps something greater could have been made using them. Reserve the main legends for dungeons, use some other’s for puzzles.
Also, limit the amount of puzzles. I prefer puzzles to ad some variety to gameplay but I don’t want it to take away from dungeons too much and for them to end up serving as fillers. Also, some temples without legends.

Edit: I have to say though, I’m not much of a puzzle person in general, certainly no puzzle genious and as such I’m much more excited for dungeons (though I still appreciate the temples non the less) but that’s just me. I imagine for people who like puzzles their opinion could be very different.

Legendaries can be re-used in other dungeons and/or we can set up a replacement boss for the temples. No harm there, Ouli. Thanks for your thoughts. If I may, Forest Temple has no legendaries (except for a Celebi encounter, whom isn’t a boss).

Definitely going to be adding some more hints like I did in the Forest Temple. But you see, with PMUs coding and its limitations to such an environment that I wish to create, hints could either be extremely discreet or just throw the answer into a player’s face. If it’s in a wall, for example.

Regarding puzzles - I’ve been looking into adding new puzzle mechanisms so we aren’t always recycling puzzle ideas. The sky temple has been taking a bit longer than it should because I don’t want to just slap a new tileset down and re-create puzzles. Essentially, I want to add at least 1-2 unique puzzles per dungeon. You can see the results from - Forest Temple puzzle 2, and Ice Temple puzzle 1.

Finally, bosses are definitely being reviewed too. I safe-test the temples before I release them to the best of my abilities, and usually with my level 50 party I don’t have too much of a problem fighting the boss. A challenge at the end of many challenges calls for a great rush of achievement and excitement, and that’s what I like about the bosses! I think having the bosses made easy will just lower any feeling of victory, and take away the specialty of beating a temple. Bragging rights, essentially.

Eventually, all of the temples (excluding limited ones such as Holiday Palace and the upcoming Neo’s Castle (which is going for a planned release in 2018)) will be released permanently, however as I am only human I can only manage to change up and provide the appropriate maintenance for so many temples at once. Therefore I am keeping only 3 temples released for open and free roaming at a time. I can provide more details when said situation arises.

Temples are all about tough puzzles, finding hints, having a good time, and getting cool treasure. If you guys have any other suggestions or comments, or even some critcism, feel free to contact me directly or make a post about it. I’m always open to new ideas.

P.S.: I take unique puzzle ideas, if you guys would have any.

Thank you!

Aw yeah, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to come up with new puzzles, let alone making puzzles at all and wow! a 2018 release! Sounds like a bigger project than I imagined. :o
It’s great that you’re working on new kinds of puzzles. Making something new is much harder.

As for hints, Thinking about it it must be tricky. I can’t imagine any hints myself that wouldn’t give away too much. :/
Better then to have no hints instead I think.

I agree, it’s nice for the bosses to be a challenge. I also like the Idea of temples switching up as more get released in the future. If I may give a suggestion for that it would be to have temples of varying difficulty. Maybe one temple fit for relativly new players and the others more of a challenge. If it fits the plan that is. I don’t want to be too critiquey here specially as I daresay you have good plans with the temples and are thinking about it thouroughly.