So I was going to wait until the DLC was out before I posted this but had a bit of time to get it written up today so here it is:
So ever since Treasure Maps where announced it made me think about Clue Scrolls from Runescape and the Treasure Trails and made me think how much better the Treasure Map system could be if it evolved into something like that, doing clue scrolls was fun, challenging at times, and rewarding, they made you think, solve puzzles, solve riddles, hunt down NPCs or locations but most importantly they had you exploring the world and learning new things about it, they had me doing quests just to get to places I couldn’t access yet, or levelling up more so I could meet the quest requirements, they are what helped to push me to progress through the game and I think if done right, it could be a very good system to be added to Orbus, there was different levels of clue scrolls, and with increased difficulty came extra challenge and reward, higher the level of clue scrolls, more parts you would have to complete before getting the reward.
Each level of difficulty has its own separate reward list as well as a reward list that will apply to all levels of difficulty, including common resources, dyes, and consumables as well as your random greens and blues, and other uncommon to rare drops that aren’t super rare maybe like some furniture too, and then the super rare cosmetics, pets, mounts, dyes and other possible rewards I can’t think of right now
So what type of stuff am I suggesting other than talking about rewards? There could be a bunch of different puzzles and stuff such as:
- Anagrams - an NPC’s name will be jumbled up, work out who it is and talk to them
- Challenges - The will give you a name of an NPC, you talk to them and they will ask you a question about something in game, you type in the correct answer
- Co-ordinates - You’ll get a clue with some co-ordinates on it, you will use a tool in-game to reach those co-ordinates
- Hot-Cold - You will get a device to scan with, you’ll get the name of the zone/general area you need to search in, as you scan you will get told if you’re getting warmer or colder, use it to find the location
- Maps - These are already being added
- Puzzles - Sliding picture puzzles, tile turning puzzles, memory puzzles, will go into more detail on these below
- Search - You’ll be given a location, search in boxes/chests/shelves for the next clue/reward
Things to note:
- Once you start a clue, it will become soulbound, so you will no longer be able to sell it and you will not drop it if you die
- For higher level clues you may be attacked upon finding it, so be ready to defend yourself!
- You cannot start more than one clue at a time
- If you don’t like your clue and want to start another one you must destroy the one you are currently doing
- Any unfinished puzzles will be reset on relogging (sliding, tile or memory puzzles) this is good for if you mess it up and get stuck and need to restart, trust me, it happens
Sliding Puzzles:
I was thinking there could be 3 different difficulties, I a few quick concepts, I’m sure you’ve got more artwork you can use I just grabbed the most recent that I had
Easy Sliding Puzzle:
Medium Sliding Puzzle:
Hard Sliding Puzzle:
Tile flip puzzles
You get a 5x5 square grid and a random number or a stored pattern of these tiles are coloured. Pressing any of the tiles will toggle it and the four adjacent tiles. The goal of the puzzle is flip all the tiles to the same colour, See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lights_Out_(game) for more info
Memory puzzle:
There are pairs of cards/tiles with pictures of items you need to match together, You can flip 2 items over at a time, if they don’t match they flip back over, if they match they stay flipped, you need to match all the pairs to win, difficulty can be increased by the amount of pairs that need to be matched, icons on the cards/tiles could be resources or tiles from artificing
I’d love to hear other peoples ideas which could add more to this, some other puzzle ideas would also be great especially if you can think of some that could only be done in VR that would work well in the style of Orbus
I’m too lazy to put in the work myself 
I’d like to see this implemented in some way.