(No Longer) Stumped by Fierce Competition Tier 3 Puzzle

tyrfing666 · April 5, 2020, 4:46pm

I am completely stumped by the step “Figure out what the Orochi agent did with the model”.

It’s annoyingly difficult:

Once you start there’s a 60 second time limit followed by (if you are unsuccessful) a 10 second lockout. I understand this as a mechanism so if there’s more than one player or group trying to solve the puzzle they all get turns, but I’ve only ever seen one other player in my attempts.
The pieces are incredibly small and close together so that you’re not always certain which pieces you are manipulating.
There’s an effigy posted right on the opposite side of the model. It will interfere with your manipulation fairly often, forcing you to kill it, which means you’re not going to finish the puzzle that round. The effigy respawns within a couple of minutes, so it will interfere a lot.
There is no online guide I’ve seen that is useful. I’ve seen a couple of Let’s Play and Walkthroughs but they seem to solve it more or less randomly and they are not clear on what pieces they are actually manipulating.
As far as I can tell, there are no clues to the puzzle. There are a lot of other puzzles in SWL; almost all of them have some sort of clue to them.

Is there any help for this quest? Am I missing a clue or two?

Thanks in advance.

Drenneth · April 5, 2020, 4:02am

10:10 min

not the best video but there are some others. just be sure to search Fierce Competition Tier 3 TSW since a lot of the better guides often were created back in TSW.

Pilchenstein · April 5, 2020, 4:51am

I think there’s scuff marks on the model that are supposed to give hints about which pieces need moving? Been a while since I’ve done it though, so don’t quote me

P-Dubs · April 5, 2020, 4:53am

Sorry for quoting you but yes, there are supposed to be some visual indicators, but they can be quite difficult to see unless you’ve zoomed your camera in a lot.

SinOfTheWolfs · April 5, 2020, 5:18am

Scuff marks aside, there are other models of the same thing, which are showing the correct configuration

Pinkhair · April 5, 2020, 5:58am

Right. There are multiple models, and you visit another one of them at the very first crime scene. So that is, I suppose, meant to be the primary clue. The first time I did it, I just pressed stuff semi randomly to test where each piece could move to and got completion before properly attempting to ‘solve’ it, though.

That said, it would probably be a lot easier if you could click on pieces with your mouse.

Stone_Dead_Forever · April 5, 2020, 2:31pm

I was just doing this mission recently on my new alt. I had done it a few times before but for some reason could not complete it this time. I hadn’t done the mission in over a year so my memory did not help at all. I used to use the crygaiawiki page to solve it but that site is down. The TSW video hint didn’t help. After several attempts I quit. I also tried zooming in the whole way.

tyrfing666 · April 5, 2020, 4:45pm

Okay I think I’ve got it after viewing the video that Drenneth added. I’m adding a picture below from first person view (press V for vanity camera, then use the mouse wheel to scroll all the way in) as it seems easier to manipulate things.

Note the numbers - number 7 is a little vague because I’m not quite certain where it is. It’s easiest to find if you ensure the other blocks are not in your field of view and then click on it. Number 7 may be the block I’ve indicated, or the smaller block below and to the right.

The combo is 2, 1, 4 and then try to get number 7. Unlike some of the other puzzles where a wrong click means start again, if you click the wrong block, you can just click it again to move it back.

I didn’t see any scuff marks, but I could have missed it - I finished it at night so the lighting is dim.