@kriswright It's not so much that I care WHY as that I like an uninterrupted gameplay experience. My natural inclination to climb things being stopped short and me futzing around a bit before I realized that no, this thing just plain isn't climbable... not ideal game design to me. If you're going to design a game where you're basically begging the player to climb anything around them, and then some stuff isn't climbable, make it super, duper clear!

@DrFinkelstein @TheBigG753 I understand WHY those things aren't climbable, I just think they could have used more of a visible cue.

@Zero

I'm fairly certain I saw a specific tip that notes Shrine walls are not climbable.

I don't know how much more clear you want it to be honestly. Dungeons and Shrines- No climbing. Everything else? Climb.

I see what Zero's saying about it being arbitrary but I also don't see why it's a big deal at all.

Funny though, I thought I remember the exterior of the Shrines being climbable so I tried to climb one the other day with no success.

@Shadowlink
I think there's a few other things you can't climb but it's far and few between.

@Zero
The Shrine stuff actually is supposed to be its own visual clue since you should discover on your own that it doesn't work, outside and inside. For the most part it shouldn't come as a surprise that the same applies to the DB.

carlosrox said:

The Shrine stuff actually is supposed to be its own visual clue since you should discover on your own that it doesn't work, outside and inside. For the most part it shouldn't come as a surprise that the same applies to the DB.

Yep, pretty much this. Before reaching your first shrine, you've pretty much discovered by that point that you can climb just about everything and it's just natural that you'd try doing the same inside of a shrine, since climbing is such a core part of the gameplay. And when it didn't let me, I was just like "Oh...okay, I guess it makes sense that it'd be like this." It's just another way in which the game teaches you its rule set without resorting to deliberately spelling it all out.

The only issue I had with that was that the divine beast surfaces look rough and textured, like they would be easy to climb. Maybe they should have made them really shiny and slippery-looking.

I finally found another mini-game, the glider one you get after the island shrine quest. Pretty neat! Although it's a bit odd because it is a mini-game that you can do better with the more powered up your stamina is, which kind of makes me feel like why bother putting too much time into it right now? But maybe that's better, can come back here and then when I'm a bit more powered up and get a lot higher score than I got before.

Actually that probably applies to the first mini-game I found, the deer hunting one as well, only in that case it'd be more about getting better stealth gear / using better steal items than actually powering up.

It's not the fault of the game at all but because it is SO HUGE sometimes the pacing is tough to get used to. Like I was thinking "this game doesn't really have many mini-games" but then I was like well, yeah I have only found two so far, but A. there might be more that I missed in the areas I have explored and B. I've really only explored about 1/4 of the map at the moment.

@carlosrox Discovering by doing something that you would think would work that doesn't is sort of the opposite of a visual cue though? By visual cue I mean you look and go "oh, I probably can't do that."

The most clear example I can think of is spinys in the original Super Mario Bros. Up to that point you could pretty much jump on any enemy right? And then they introduce one you can't jump on. But you don't have to jump on it to find out. You look at it and go "oh, definitely should not try to jump on that!" It's a really basic, obvious game design technique!

Actually BOTW does use spikes in some places to restrict your climbing, like on some of the towers. I doubt anyone ran up to one of those towers with spikes on them and thought "hey I bet I can climb those spikes!" It's just visually clear that you can't. Of course I get why they didn't coat all of the walls of shrines / dungeons with spikes, that'd be kind of ugly. But I think they could have probably made it more visually obvious than it is.

@Zero

I thought it was visually obvious. Like the stone/walls have a different finish to them compared to the natural stone of, say, the mountains. Like they've been coated with a slippery agent. The kind I put on my floors to make my kids fall down.

@TheOldManFromZelda Sort of, but it's not super obvious. And the outside of the beasts aren't very slick, combined with the fact that it sent me outside of the beast, I totally thought I was going to be doing some climbing on the body like SOTC or something, but nah. And some of the stuff inside isn't very slick either, for that matter.

@Zero
Going by your logic though there's almost nothing they could have done to communicate it strictly visually aside from flaming walls or spikes jutting out everywhere. Slick looking walls could theoretically help but as we've already established, it's kinda arbitrary what Link can and can't climb in this game anyway. That wouldn't help much because as you said, the logic is to try and climb everything. So a slick looking wall wouldn't stop you from trying anyway. And the DBs are another example of this, as I agree with @TriforceBun that the DBs do look more climbable than the Shrines.

So like I said, I see your point, but it's kind of a weird picky complaint considering it takes all of 10 seconds to figure it out in Shrines and DBs.

*shrugs* Never said it was a huge deal, just making conversation.

But I'm not sure I agree that there is "almost nothing" they could have done just because none of us nerds thought of anything instantly. These are the game design gods of Nintendo! They have minds we can't even comprehend! THEY KNOW THINGS.

@Zero

You keep bringing it up though!

So it must be a big deal to you.

Weird picky complaints are what can make a 10/10 game into a 10.1/10 game! But yeah, I didn't think it mattered, even a little, and Zero is a dumb anti-fun indie dev snob snowflake for bringing it up.


In other news, I've played over 110 hours of BOTW at this point, which means I've played an average of over four hours per day I've been home since I got it. As much as I'm enjoying the game -- which is a ton -- I am also looking forward to being finished with it so I can get back to my relatively balanced life. Bad news, then, because the game never ends, it just goes on forever. Last night I found a whole new town I'd never been to.

After testing early on whether or not surfaces within the shrines could be scaled, I think the slick polished stone texture does well to convey that the walls cannot be climbed there. But, I agree with Zero that the visual cue is not present with the Divine Beasts. One obviously learns quickly that the surfaces aren't scalable, but they could have been made to look a little more slick. Tough design choice though... aesthetic options may be limited when designing 10,000 plus years old stone machines that look weathered...

80 shrines/187 Koroks, about 3/4 of the map explored, loving every minute of it.

@Zero
There's more pressing issues to discuss!

Yeah I didn't think you were foaming at the mouth over this or anything, I even said I agree with you. Just strange that you felt it was actually sorta bad game design.

I don't think I actually tried to climb in shrines since the walls are smooth, but I probably tried it in the beasts since they look coarse.

@TheOldManFromZelda Because you guys keep coming up with weak defenses of it! Probably a better defense would be "it wasn't a priority for Nintendo" and I'd be like sure, I agree.

To me it falls in the same space that being able to swim up waterfalls without losing stamina does. Which is to say it works for the gameplay, so it's fine, but it also just feels a bit weird in relation to the rest of the game.

Oh, you guys want to hear ANOTHER pointless complaint? You ever try to go far out to sea? THERE'S JUST AN INVISIBLE WALL. At least have some wind blow you back or something.

Ha ha, yeah, it does seem weird to get to the edge of the world and hit an invisible wall with the words "You can't go any further." But why? Nothing is actually stopping Link! I think it should at least give a reason for it, like the message should be something like "You can't leave Hyrule, you coward! Get back in there and be a hero!" There are also some mountains at the edge of the world that Link will just clip through and fall into a glitchy graphic abyss, which I think is pretty funny.

@Mop it up

It IS weird. I mean invisible walls are nothing new in video games but there has always seemed to be some...obviousness about them? That it makes sense that there's a definite boundary here? I dunno. But the graphical style of Zelda fosters the illusion that you really should be able to keep going. You're partway along a plain and bam.

They could have put a treasure chest out there too, just out of reach, really screw with you

Meanwhile, quick question to anyone who has the Rubber armour set:

I have the helm, and the pants. I need the last bit. Now both of the parts I found were in Faron province. Given my experience with the Zora armour, would I be right to conclude that my missing piece is also in that area where I found the other two pieces?

Yes or no answer only please- Is the missing piece in Faron or not?

@Shadowlink I was confused by this too, but the answer is: not!