The issues surrounding the rate at which God of War Ragnarok companions spoil the mechanics of a puzzle were only made known to Santa Monica Studio after launch, the studio has revealed. In a new interview with MinnMax, narrative director Matt Sophos said pre-release QA testers never gave any feedback about the likes of Atreus talking too much when trying to solve a puzzle. They didn't see it as an issue, so the team was caught off-guard by the feedback.
Sophos said: "That was certainly never the goal. I think it was just somehow the timing for the hint was too aggressive and should have had a much longer countdown timer before something comes up." He then adds he "would love" for there to be a patch to tone down the rate at which puzzle hints are handed out, but he speculates it could be a difficult coding task. Story lead Richard Gaubert, who was also part of the interview, even admits "they're giving hints way too often" when playing the final version.
The conversation surrounding early puzzle spoilers in Sony games really kicked off with Horizon Forbidden West last year, and was then heightened by Santa Monica Studio's latest epic. When you're told what to do so quickly, fans argue it spoils the experience as you're not being tested yourself. We posted a Talking Point on the subject shortly after God of War Ragnarok's release, and 39 per cent of you responded saying early puzzle spoilers are "annoying and patronising".
How do you feel about this topic a few months later? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 34
I suspect that testers are scared to point out anything that is not a glaring flaw. They are replaceable.
@DarkestHour That's really not how it works.
While it was present in GoW:R, it was way worse in Horizon FW. After coming off Elden Ring, straight onto FW, it was shocking how patronising it felt having Aloy tell you how to progress within seconds of reaching a new obstacle.
@LiamCroft Do tell
Didn't really bother me.
Well I'm glad to see them acknowledge the criticism. Though I do think Forbidden West was much more egregious with this flaw than Ragnarok. Hopefully it means less of this in future 1st party games from Playstation.
It certainly did bother me but Horizon Forbidden West was even worse in that regard
@TripleKing333 One time in HFW I was entering a new room in a cauldron and before I've even properly entered the room Aloy already said "I can use the glider to get to the other side". The game didn't even give me one second to think lol
Cool atreus the man with the masterplan.god of war ragnarok is a masterpiece.kratos the g.o.a.t. 🐐 👑.word up son
@mariomaster96 Yeah I had multiple similar situations. It really started to grate on me by the end of the game.
Yeah, this really spoilt my experience of Horizon Forbidden West. I kept shouting "Shut it, Aloy" at the TV. It's like it was there for people who had never played a game before. So annoying.
Is there a way to tone down the hints you are given in GoWR? Loving it so far, except the hints.
just include sliders for them.
people need to remember they are for accessability and inclusion for gamers with disabilities.
I'll be honest, i really didnt really notice it in Horizon, but Mimir wound me right up in Ragnorak. Hopefully Sony learn from this going forward. It would be better if there was a button to press to ask for a hint imo. A hint on/off toggle in the settings seems the most obvious solution though
I am about 1/3 into the game. Did not have any complaints at first, but when a new companion joined the team, they started to shout hints almost immediately. Also, it seems to be limited to puzzles in story and side missions. If there is an open-world puzzle (eg Nornir chest), I don’t remember when was the last time I was given a clue.
To me it is bad game design to ever have any character try to give you a hint. It's hardly as obtuse as playing an adventure game from the 90s.
Talking about options, just have the option to turn it off altogether in every game - how difficult is that?
It's a tricky balance though. I can't stand the flow of a game being broken by obtuse puzzles when all you want to do is get on with the action and the story.
Having to play a game with a guide webpage open to solve often unintuitive 'puzzles' annoys me even more than the reverse scenario talked about here.
I'm definitely on the side of 'just make it a toggle'
The puzzle spoilers weren't that bad in my eyes but having an option to full on disable it would be nice.
Maybe it's just me but I never found it to be an issue because there were a handful of times where despite being given a hint, said hint didn't help, granted I suck at puzzles, and despite most puzzles being simple in design, there were some puzzles that really perplexed me and weirdly enough, the puzzles that really perplexed me, didn't provide me with a hint at all.
That being said; I like the idea of characters assisting you in figuring out a solution to a puzzle, you literally have 'The Smartest Man Alive' dangling from your waist. In a real life situation, if you were struggling to solve a puzzle, and you have friends with you, naturally they're not going to wait for you to solve the puzzle, they're going to be thinking of there own ways to solve the puzzle as well.
Mimir & Atreus staying silent while you/Kratos are trying to solve a puzzle would be unrealistic, especially if you/Kratos struggling to figure it out.
@DarkestHour - They're scared to do the job they are being paid to do?... yes that makes complete sense...
I noticed it in H:FW and it was annoying, but really didn't in GoW:R, certainly wasn't as egregious.
The reality is many of don't want hints, until we need one, but others do. How to have a solution for all?
My ideal solution would be to have a 'hint' button. Press it once to get a loose hint, press it a second time to get a slightly more obvious one, press it a third time to basically be told the solution. This would cater for ALL gamers.
It's a better solution than having a hints slider (thought that would be better than current), or turning hints off entirely as the reality is sometimes we cannot see the wood for the trees and miss the obvious, or think we've done it already and it didn't work.
I found it incredibly infuriating in Ragnarok. It was the only thing that occasionally dampened my enjoyment of what was a near perfect game. I found it more annoying than in Horizon FW.
I honestly don't care either. I still got stuck on some of the later puzzles.
@JustPlainLoco There is a difference between pointing out bugs and claiming that x design decision sucks
@AndyKazama
No, unfortunately
@LiamCroft QA testers are not really allowed to give feedback about game mechanics, how they function, if they're fun, or if it's annoying. QA testers actually don't really interact with the engineers or members of the dev team if they're not studio central testing.
You find bugs. You put them in Jira. If you put in,
In Ragnarok, the user will observe that the puzzle hint system occurs too much...
or something like that. You're getting hit with a big fat NAB (Not a bug). Because it's not really a bug.
Big publishers don't rely on Quality Assurance for feedback regarding mechanics. They hire advisors or focus testers for that. That's the standard for American QA, so yes that is how it works.
@JustPlainLoco That isn't the job that QA testers are hired for. There's a massive misconception about what role QA has. I suggest reading up on something like ISTQB certification to get a good idea if you don't want to take my word for it, but QA's role is to find and report bugs so that engineers can fix them.
If you've ever found a bug in a game. QA has found it, reported it, and then it wasn't fixed due to other issues, or the fix didn't work.
Kinda throwing QA under the bus huh?...
Classic. 👍
Although I really doubt people in creative teams ever look in Jira, or are even whitelisted to access it, so if they didn't know anything about QA that wouldn't surprise me.
@DarkestHour You are more right than you know. Unless you've actually worked in the industry and are just playing coy. lol
QA doesn't give feedback on things that they think suck, or annoyances, as I've said above. If you bring it up to your leadership, they'll go "Yeah that sucks. Anyway!", and if you try to put it in Jira (The industry standard for tracking and archiving bugs) it will be a NAB, and you will probably get in trouble after a few of those.
Like everyone else is saying, a slider that adjusts how often you are given in game help would be lovely.
@Constable_What I am used to being right
@Wiiiiiiiii real shame. It's not a deal breaker. Just really annoying 😂
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