Guild Wars 2

The Bloodstone puzzles from “Where’s Balthazar?” can be a little frustrating.

I’m posting below an easy way to get it done.

A B C
D E F
G H I

The “active” glyphs are A, B, G and I.

Throw the shards in this order:
SPOILER*H - C - I - F - C - B*

The second (final) puzzle has the same glyphs activated, you just have to find the right angle.

:)

This is a classic children’s game. Anyone getting frustrated is baffling to me; it’s like they never had a childhood. I had about 13 different versions of this as various board games and what not.

There are some nice graphic solutions on the Wiki, including where to orientate your character.

Good luck.

@OP: thanks for posting an easy solution (and hiding it behind spoilers). That’s very kind of you.

Fluffball.8307:

This is a classic children’s game. Anyone getting frustrated is baffling to me; it’s like they never had a childhood. I had about 13 different versions of this as various board games and what not.

It is a 2-dimensonal, 2-state puzzle of the same class of exercises as a Rubik’s Cube (which is 3D with six states in its classic form). People who are bad at spatial relationships and/or have some sort of spatial dyslexia couldn’t do this sort of thing as a kid and they aren’t going to find it fun today either.

Some people can look at a Rubik’s Cube and figure out how to ‘complete’ it in the minimum number of moves. I have to study carefully to understand the impact of the transformations and work backwards from the final state to even imagine what the solution looks like. Even someone telling me ‘click here then there’ does little for me other than allow me to skip the studying; it doesn’t help me to understand why that works or how.

In short, it’s nice that this is easy for you; your brain is built to solve puzzles like this. However, it’s definitely going to be really hard for a significant portion of the community.

I’m fine with ANet including puzzles in the stories; it makes for a nice change from the standard “wait for the NPCs to speak” mode of other instances. All the same, it’s good to remember that just because this is easy or even trivial for some doesn’t mean it won’t be soul-crushingly difficult for some.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

In short, it’s nice that this is easy for you; your brain is built to solve puzzles like this.

I don’t think my brain is, I just grew up with these kinds of puzzles. We did stuff instead of screwing around on facebook for 14 hours straight. I’m sure the devs that made this played these games as little kids as well.

If someone suffered with this, it was probably a good learning experience for their brain.

Fluffball.8307:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

In short, it’s nice that this is easy for you; your brain is built to solve puzzles like this.

I don’t think my brain is, I just grew up with these kinds of puzzles. We did stuff instead of screwing around on facebook for 14 hours straight. I’m sure the devs that made this played these games as little kids as well.

If someone suffered with this, it was probably a good learning experience for their brain.

I think the point Illconcieved was making is that some people can’t learn things like this. It’s a learning disability (or rather one aspect of a few different ones).

Telling them they’ll learn if they just keep doing it is…well it’s like telling a blind kid that if only they’d spend more time trying to look at things eventually they’ll be able to see.

P.S. It’s also generally not a good idea to assume you know how old someone else is or what their childhood was like unless you actually know them. A lot of people online (particularly on MMO forums) are older than many other people assume. If I remember correctly the average age for MMO players is in the mid 30s. Oldest player I know of is 94.

I’m not assuming anyone’s age, I’m telling you these games were commonplace before the internet ruined all childhoods.

Well I’m not quite older than the internet but I am old enough to remember it being a ridiculous pipe-dream a few universities wanted to set up with clearly minimal applications beyond saving them a bit of money on postage when they wanted to share documents.

I don’t think I ever encountered this type of puzzle outside of video games. Same with the Tower of Hanoi, and that one with the fox, chicken and bag of grain you have to get across the river (or the 1001 variants) and most other things I now get to encounter in training workshops where they act like it’s some kind of revelation that will change your life once you “really” understand it. Telling them it was in some silly game about fighting goblins 15 years ago really kills their enthusiasm.

Danikat.8537:

Well I’m not quite older than the internet but I am old enough to remember it being a ridiculous pipe-dream a few universities wanted to set up with clearly minimal applications beyond saving them a bit of money on postage when they wanted to share documents.

I don’t think I ever encountered this type of puzzle outside of video games. Same with the Tower of Hanoi, and that one with the fox, chicken and bag of grain you have to get across the river (or the 1001 variants) and most other things I now get to encounter in training workshops where they act like it’s some kind of revelation that will change your life once you “really” understand it. Telling them it was in some silly game about fighting goblins 15 years ago really kills their enthusiasm.

For a workshop making fried chicken should be a valid answer to encourage thinking outside the box … :p

Fluffball.8307:

I’m not assuming anyone’s age, I’m telling you these games were commonplace before the internet ruined all childhoods.

You’ve assumed all sorts of things. Re-read my post. I understand exactly what sort of ‘game’ this is and it is precisely the sort of thing that is hard for people like myself with poor spatial relationship abilities; it’s got nothing at all to do with familiarity with the game.

I’ve done Rubrik’s cubes, which are much, much more difficult versions of the same puzzle. But I can’t do it visually; I had to do it mathematically. I imagine some people haven’t done Rubrik’s cubes because they don’t like those sorts of puzzles.

So again, I’m happy that this was easy for you. I ask only that you accept that it might not be that easy for other people, for reasons that have nothing to do with their childhood gaming or lake thereof.

I’m not here to argue, just saying literally millions of kids played with this game in the past. I don’t care if anyone succeeded or struggled.

The percentage of people with severe enough disabilities that this is even worth mentioning for a simple puzzle has got to be numbered in the dozens rather than millions. I’m not saying it wasn’t horrible for you or whatever, I’m just talking about the normal experience.

Also since I was caring for an infant for the 2nd puzzle, I know for a fact that solving it isn’t even a requirement. After I randomly clicked enough times, the game progressed without me doing anything that required intelligence or experience. All you have to do is fail for 5 minutes and everything is fine anyway.

Really! My client must be bugged because I failed for a lot more than 5 minutes and my Story didn’t progress.

I must need a -repair. =(

Ya I definitely did not succeed on the second puzzle, was just trying to not die while I read a book to my kid. The boss attacked me before the book was over.

I finished the first puzzle in like 3 moves, but I can’t imagine that would set up some different scenario for the 2nd puzzle. It had to have just been a time limit.

You still aren’t getting the point. You’ve assumed facts that aren’t true to come up with a theory that no one should complain about this puzzle. I’ve provided specific examples of that not being true and simply asked for you to be sympathetic to the possibility that other people aren’t seeing this the way you do. It doesn’t take a “severe handicap” to be bad at spatial relationship puzzles. It actually sometimes takes one horrible experience in the past to make it horrible to try any future puzzles of the same class.

Again, I am not complaining for myself. I am not even saying this was horrible for me personally. I am saying that not everyone sees puzzles the same way as you do. This isn’t about experience or intelligence, it’s about perception.

It is my hope that in the future, you won’t be “baffled” that other intelligent people have trouble where you don’t.

Except it doesn’t ‘give’ it to everyone.

It may be possible your client is the exception. Who knows?

I’m sure my client is the exception, that seems like the most likely scenario.

I just threw stones around randomly, and each puzzle took me about 2 minutes. If it hadn’t worked that way, I would have to take the time to figure it out. I wanted to proceed in the story, not solve some puzzle. I like puzzles a lot in general, and if I feel like doing them, I have several apps on my phone and the internet is full of puzzles. It’s not a big deal, but I don’t want this kind of puzzle (rubik’s cube) while dong quests in an MMO. I played the Tomb Raider series and loved it, it’s a game where I expect these kinds of puzzles.

As I said, once in a while it’s ok in GW2, please don’t overdo it though. And since this puzzle can be solved by randomly throwing stones quickly, I won’t complain. I haven’t figured out the puzzle from this thread though, and I don’t feel the urge to check the wiki for it. When I have to do it with another character maybe.

Good luck everybody

the puzzles weren’t that hard once u understand the mechanic. my lazy ass threw them randomly till i realised i wasn’t going anywhere then i solved it shortly after realising how it work. However just because it wasn’t that hard doesn’t mean that it’s not that hard for anybody else and this has nothing to do with just facebook generation and other kitten like that. It’s a thing about spatial intelligence. Spatial experience, mathmathical intelligence, logical reasoning and deductions are all forms of intelligence we have in several levels. some players like the OP are appearantly incredibly good in that aspects. others are not and that has nothing to do with them bieng lazy kittens or anything like that.

Funny thing, I accidentally cleared this puzzle the first time by lighting all pods.. when she got shocked and fell over.. I thought I actually killed her..
Then I remember the new anet doesnt use fail conditions in story mode, so you cant lose or fail no matter how you play