Thank you to all participants of Faerie’s Epic Treasure Hunt, and I hope you had fun! The following is a walk-through of the puzzles and the final solution. Following that is some advice to anyone who might be introduced to conducting a similar event in the future. The document ends with the original document that was used with the hunt!
Comments/Questions: [email protected]
Walkthrough:
Getting Started:
The intended beginning of the hunt was discovering an odd-looking Party Finder hosted by a character named Treasure Hunt.
It’s clear that you need to get started by searching the marketboard for something…but what? Since this was the Faerie server, a simple search of “Faerie” into the board yields a few items, with Faerie Queen standing out as the obvious choice. Sure enough, looking at what’s for sale, you find:
So plot 47 is where the hunt begins. But the clue is vague as to what ward. After diligently searching (or picking up on the hint that the items are being sold in the Limsa markets), you find that the FC tags of houses in Mist Ward 16 spell out WARD YOU SEEK as the clue suggested.
Traveling to Plot 47, you find a message book amongst some treasure and a pile of gold.
Typing in the URL bit.ly/ff14puzzle brings you to this document! At the end of this document you can see what was posted, but it was a list of “official rules” and an outline of how to solve the puzzle.
- You need to list a specific item at a specific price
- The item is found upon solving the puzzle in plots 39 and 40
- The digits of the price are found by solving the puzzles in plots 35, 37, 42, 43, 46, 55, 58. However, to make sure everyone had adequate time to play, some plots were not going to be open until a few days in the future.
- FC/individual names of plot owners aren’t clues, but everything else (decor, greeting, name of estate, message books) might be.
So let’s get started solving!
Item: plots 39 and 40
Upon finding these houses, you immediately notice that they appear identical both outside and inside. Same decorations with the same colors in the same places. Same greeting and message book too.
So how to figure out the item? Well the only real clue was looking at the name of the estates: “Now You See Me” and “Now You Don’t”.
Upon a VERY close examination of both houses, it becomes apparently that there is a terracotta pot in plot 40 (now you see me) that is missing in plot 39 (now you don’t)!
So the item to sell is a Terracotta Pot! A clue added to the Google Document noted that Furnishings: http://en.ff14housing.com/itemlist.php?h=1 would be an invaluable website, and it’s basically necessary to identify the item!
Plot 35: perhaps the most difficult puzzle, and not because it was in a mansion.
The intention was for you to take notice of the area around the message book (same treasure chest and gold pile as the intro house). Specifically, you were to notice that it appeared like one of the miniature Kojins appeared to be missing from the pedestal (Itomaki from the Estate Name is the Kojin you find in the Beast Tribe Quest “Little Kojin Lost”, and the Kojin beast tribe theme is playing in the estate). The message book also mentions that “your job is to find X”.
Ok, so here’s where things get rather complex. Searching the house, you indeed find the missing Kojin doll floating in an aquarium downstairs.
What now? It seems like most of the clues given have been used: “Itomaki”, “Swimming the same deep water as you”, “Find X”, but the message book has extra.
“Like in math class, your job is to find X. Why? 16.0 in this case. Too ambiguous? Well, it’s beside the point…just to the left of it actually!”
The intention was for you to notice that the fish in the aquarium were Cupfish (ugly beasts), and that this aquarium was the only one with all of the same fish, indicating that they were significant. Coupled with the additional clue posted in this document that another necessary URL is http://ff14angler.com/aquarium/ , you were to explore how to “find” Cupfish. From the website, Cupfish are found only in Blind Iron Mines, and if you travel there, you find that that X/Y coordinates of the fishing hole make the rest of the message book make sense.
Y (“Why?” in the book) is indeed 16.0. X is 27.3, which is three digits. Since that is indeed ambiguous, “beside the point…just to the left” narrows it down to a 7. Since the estate greeting was “Itomaki the Third”, the 3rd digit is a 7.
Plot 37:
The estate name and greeting as well as the message book is intended to clue you in that the paintings in the house (unlocked by the sightseeing log) are what’s important. Indeed, the upstairs and downstairs of the house are galleries with a wide variety of painting of many shapes and sizes. The task will be to figure out what paintings are important, and what specifically about them is needed.
The clues provided that don’t imply art are: “Red Rook”, “The Last Two” (which indicates that we are looking for the last two digits of the price), “Up or down, same answer”, “Your move”, “Check…mate”. These are intended to guide you to the ground floor where two large tables that look to have chess pieces on them.
Looking at either table, you find that one is indeed red, so this must be important. The intention is for you to recognize that the placement of pieces around the table correspond to the placement of paintings on the walls. For example, in the pictured table above, you see four small pieces at the left corner, then going clockwise a piece with wings, another piece with wings, three stumpy pieces in a rows, a piece with wings, another piece that looks like the four clustered together, etc.). Looking at the gallery pictures, we see that this corresponds to the four small paintings in the corner, then (going clockwise) a medium painting, another medium painting, three larges in a row, etc. The red pieces give the paintings to focus on.
Going to the (nearly required) website provided as an additional clue (http://en.ff14housing.com/itemlist.php?h=11), the paintings upstairs and downstairs are the Sanctum of the Twelve and the Mark of the Twelve. The last two digits in the price are 12.
Plot 42:
The clues here are pretty thin, with it only being obvious that you’re working on the second digit (“second tale”). You were intended to discover that all the housing decorations are plants from the Thousand Maws Of Toto-rak, which happens to have notes left by an expedition scattered throughout. Finding the note from day three yields what you need, especially with the estate title (“Divided They Fell”) in mind.
Since the party was divided into four teams, the solution is that the 2nd digit is 4.
Plot 43:
The estate name and message book greeting mention “performance”, the estate greeting refers to music, and the decorations of the interior are dominated with a musical motife, with nearly a full orchestra with seating in the basement. The intention was for you to realize that music was the clue here and for you to look up the song playing (Six Fulms Under, which also plays when you fight the “conductor” of the orchestra in Dun Scaith). The first digit (first performance) is 6.
However, there seems to be a few different viable solutions that utilize the clues too. Instead of looking up the song title, the winner of the hunt guessed 6 because there are 6 horns (and horns are the only instrument without someone playing it, which ties in nicely to the Performance Anxiety as the estate title). In retrospect, the name of the estate should have been changed to make it clear that the solution referred to the title of the song, e.g. “Insert Title Here” or “Witty Name”.
Plot 46:
The intention was for you to realize that you’re working on the fifth digit, since “Shatotto…can tell you where this fits in to the grand scheme of things” (didn’t realize the typo until now, whoops). Shatotto was during the 5th Astral Era. The name of the estate (Glyph) and Greeting (Now where have I seen that symbol before?) tell you how to figure out the digit.
In the house, Gold Saucer decorations about (and the music being played is from the Gold Saucer, unfortunately named Four-Sided Circle; 4 is not the answer). Heading to the basement there is a mysterious pixel art symbol/glyph made out of dyed pillows that must be the clue.
The Gold Saucer theme and “where have I seen this symbol before” was intended to point you to the Gold Saucer to translate the symbol. Indeed, if you have played mini-Cactpot before, you might have noticed that the Eorzean symbol for each number appears along with the numeral we’re used to.
The symbol is an 8! Thus, the 5th digit is an 8. Coincidentally, there happened to be 8 decorations from the Gold Saucer that led a few people to get 8 as well.
Plot 55:
The message book greeting lets you know that we’re working on the 6th digit, and that there are no clues on this plot and all relevant objects from the front yard were moved….somewhere. The message book mentions the Moai might have seen something, and it is indeed gazing off into the distance. In fact, WAY in the distance you can see another Shirogane style house that’s colored black.
Headed out to that estate, you find that this must be the place since the outdoor furnishings are identical to the ones in Plot 55, but there’s a pattern and order to them.
So the puzzle is at this estate (doubly confirmed by it being called Saga of the Sixth), but what’s the solution?
The estate greeting “from within” was intended to have you look inside the house for help, and indeed that’s where the message book is found. It’s clear that we need to count the number of a certain object in the front yard, but what? The message promises being “pointed” to the answer at the right time of day, and that time should be obvious by the interior.
You were intended to notice that everything is found in multiples of three in the house (and there’s a LOT of decorations on the three floors), so 3am or 3pm. Looking in the front yard at either of these times, the sun/moon casts a very particular shadow from the Dataqi standard that indeed points to a specific set of objects: the five stumps! Thus, the sixth digit is 5!
Plot 58:
This was the final clue given, and unfortunately the weakest and most poorly designed in retrospect. No one solved it initially, so I took the two people who accidentally guessed the correct digit and pitted them together in sudden death: whoever came up with the intended solution (with a bunch more hints) would win. I fully expect this would have been solved if it was not the last clue and people weren’t rushing to solve it, but I wish I had changed a few things to make it better. Anyway, without further adieu:
Inside the house is a shrine to Haurchefant, with black partitions restricting access to the rest of the house and 10 sets of assorted candles resting on a troupe stage.
The intention was for you to focus on “Sometimes, to move forward, you must look to the past.” and “Remember what once was; in memoriam”. There’s limited options on how to interpret this. The first is to focus on Haurchefant (which is also the name of the estate). His grave (which you visit in Burdens We Bear) is the most obvious solution, but not the one that was intended here. Anticipating that people would likely seek his grave, we placed a low level character named “Wrong Idea” at his grave.
So what else could it be? The hunt started by looking at an item on the marketboard, so it’s fitting it should end that way too. The only obvious furnishing that can be put up on the marketboard is the Assorted Candles (portrait is untradeable). And indeed if you look at the transaction history you find it (explicitly mentioning this is the fourth digit as well, which hasn’t been mentioned anywhere else)
To let someone know they were on the right track if they did start searching the marketboard, it was made clear that the transaction history of the other sellable items in the house were wrong.
Thus, the fourth digit is 6.
In retrospect, a simple fix would have been to take the focus away from Haurchefant and name the estate something other than after him (since he was a red herring), e.g., “Historical Value” and to leave the message book as simply “Remember what once was” or “Appreciate what once was”, or even “Can someone replenish these candles when they go out?”. Sorry!
Final Price
Piecing this all together, the item to sell was a Terracotta Pot at a price of 64,768,512
Winners:
After about 45 minutes, the guest book had essentially filled up with wrong guesses for the fourth digit. Two people (Taru Tataru and Vo’aela Bluerose) listed 6 but for the wrong reasons. The rules didn’t say you had to solve the puzzles the “right” way, but it felt a little unfair to have one of the win by “stumbling” onto the correct digit, so I messaged them and told them it was sudden death: the first of the two to discern the intended solution would win. After a few more hints, Vo’aela figured it out literally a second before Taru and was crowned winner. Vo’aela’s terracotta pot was purchased for 64,768,512 and as a consolation prize Taru’s terracotta pot was purchased for a tenth of that.
Advice for future events:
Designing an event like this is HARD with the biggest challenge being designing the clues masterfully so that it doesn’t divulge into a mind-reading content. Based on the successes and mistakes on this hunt, I’d recommend:
- Have all parts of all clues support the solution and have the solution be related to every given clue! This makes it is “obvious” to the participant when they got the right answer.
- Plot 35 was extremely difficult but designed right – the name of the estate, greeting, and message book made it clear when the right solution was found (e.g., if someone thought the solution was 3 because of 3 cupfish in the tank, they’d have to ask themselves “well what does X and 16.0 have to do with it?”; same thing if they thought the solution was 4 because of 4 Kojin dolls; if someone thought the solution was 6 because it is to the left of the . in 16.0, they’d have ask to ask what relevance the greeting and dolls had, etc.)
- Plot 46 was designed pretty well with the name/greeting referring something about a symbol and where you might have seen it before. If someone counted up a certain type of object in the house, they’d have to ask themselves how that refers to the “symbol” part of the clue, etc.
- Plot 58 did not have a good design because the solution did not relate back to all parts of the clue (it had nothing to do with estate name of Haurchefant or “a smile better suits a hero”).
- Plot 43 was of questionable design. While the solution related to all the clues, other solutions did too (6 horns missing performers and the estate name was performance anxiety).
- Don’t have so many puzzles. Eight was too many, even if it extends over multiple days like this contest was.
- If your contest is spread over many days, and it’s a “race to the finish”, have the last clue be totally unambiguous (e.g., the last digit in the price to teleport from Limsa to Ul’dah, or the
- I’d recommend to NOT “re-use” puzzle solutions within a hunt (i.e., don’t have two puzzles refer to x-coordinates while others refer to something else). People are tempted to solve later puzzles similarly to how they solved previous ones (many people had 4 as the solution to the Glyph puzzle because Four-Sided circle was playing, and music was used to solve a previous puzzle).
- Be prepared to give out additional hints! Even following good design guidelines, a large part of a challenging puzzle in this context can boil down to mind-reading. People will likely need more pushes in the right direction (or, more accurately, pushes away from dead ends) to solve puzzles!
Original document and hunt:
Congratulations on finding the start of this epic treasure hunt! Scattered throughout this ward are the clues you’ll need to win the prize. I will be purchasing from the market board a specific item (easily purchasable or craftable) at a specific exorbitantly large price at the conclusion of this hunt. The prize is large: somewhere between 10,000,0000 and 99,999,999 gil. Your job is to figure out what that item is, and what price to list it at (I highly suggest selling it from the Ishgard market or wherever market happens to have the lowest tax).
“Official” rules
- An entry consists of the following:
- Signing EACH house’s message book with a brief solution to the puzzle (e.g., “there’s nothing in this house, so the digit must be 0”).
- Listing the relevant item on the market board
- Leaving one additional appropriate message in a specific “final” message book. You’ll be guided as to the content and location of this message during the hunt.
- The first legitimate entry (meeting all 3 requirements above) will be the winner. The timestamp on the message book will be used to determine the winner.
- Any changes to the rules, additional hints, etc., will be posted here under Addendum if necessary.
How this all works
- The item to list is found in one of plots 39 and 40 (tagged <<Item>>).
- Plots 35, 37, 42, 43, 46, 55, 58 (tagged <<Digit>>) provide clues to the digits and their positions in the price you’ll list at.
- Clues (and there are often more than one per estate) may come in the form of most anything (e.g., estate name, estate greeting, indoor/outdoor furnishings, etc.). However, the associated player or FC name who owns the estate is irrelevant (and dependent on who I could convince to participate). Occasionally the FC tag provides a minor clue.
- Clues for the position of the digits are mostly straightforward and usually consist of words commonly used to denote positions (third, fifth, etc.).
- Clues for the digits in the price can be quite difficult; some of these puzzles are not easy! Each puzzle will yield a single digit except for one (which yields two digits).
- With the exception of one puzzle (which one will be fairly obvious), the exterior and interior of the housing plots are unrelated (in other words, only the interior, or only the exterior, has the clue).
- Some digits may be the same (e.g., the 3rd and 8th digits could be 9).
- To allow as many people to participate as possible, not all puzzles/estates will be available immediately. If not available now, the estate greeting reveals when they will be.
Addendum (Hunt finalized 11:30pm EDT July 30 2018):
- You’re welcome to re-submit a solution by re-signing the guestbook, and only your most recent submission will be used to make sure you “got it”
- Additional Hints added 8/1:
- No digits are 0. 8/1: 10:30am EDT
- Plot 42 was left open by mistake (and there’s nothing inside) leading most people to believe the digit was 0. It’s not, so you’ll want to try again if you put that in the book. 10:30am EDT
- “Four-sided Circle” (gold saucer music) was not the intended clue: the solution for this house is not 4. 10:30am EDT
- The item is NOT the Tiny Bronco Miniature (which is not easily obtained; the reason why you thought it is the item has been “fixed”), but those of you who listed it had the right idea (and insanely good eyes).10:45am EDT
- The number of fish in the aquarium house is not relevant, but their contents are. To figure out the digit, you’ll need to leave the housing district entirely! 11:15am EDT
- Useful (nearly mandatory) external URLs (4:25pm EDT):
- Furnishings: http://en.ff14housing.com/itemlist.php?h=1
- Fish: http://ff14angler.com/aquarium/
- Paintings: http://en.ff14housing.com/itemlist.php?h=11
- Orchestrion music: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/6jorib/complete_orchestrion_songs_guide_titles_origins/
- Additional Hints added 8/2: (approximately 10:15-10:45am EDT)
- All puzzles are designed to be solvable by adventurers who have reached around level 30 in the MSQ (in other words, no Heavensward or Stormblood locations need to be visited)
- Aquarium house: the solution does have something to do with finding a location, but this is not in the housing district (as mentioned above) and it is not in the Ruby Sea (which would require a 60+ character). P.S. some of you folks are insanely smart and solved it, wow!
- Plot 55: the Uznairian collective ransacked this plot’s front yard and moved its items elsewhere, so find where.
- Plot 42: you will once again have to adventure outside the housing ward to discover this digit. “Day 3” will make more sense once you figure out where.
- Plot 43: the prize for winning this hunt is more than one million times this plot number…
- Plot 46: the digit doesn’t have anything to do with when we first saw the Golden Saucer in the Final Fantasy series; the cushions though…
- Additional Hints added 8/4 (approximately 9am EDT)
- General hint: no solution requires referencing the three-digits numbers in the orchestrion log itself
- Plot 37: the solution doesn’t involve the number of lanterns (which are used here only for dramatic lighting)
- Plots 39/40 (<<Item>>): changed names of these houses to their intended names (providing a helpful clue, though pretty much everyone already seems to be getting it already)
- Plot 46: corrected pronoun of Shatotto (thanks Lula Moon!), though it is unrelated to the solution for this house
- Final Clue and Submitting Your Entry
- The house with the final clue (Plot 58) opens 8/5 at 11am EDT. It does not require as much attention to detail as many of the other clues, so if there are a lot of people inside the (small) house, it will not be an issue. No additional clues will be given for this puzzle.
- Once you have decided on your price, head to the Starlight Seaside Resort to submit your entry. Because there could be a lot of people, it’s important to find/sign the guestbook efficiently.
- The guestbook is downstairs. Turn right, and it’s on the table at the end of the bear rug in front of the tree.
- I recommend binding “Target Nearest NPC or Object” or the A button to something so that you can press the keybind twice to open the guestbook (so that you don’t have to click on it if people are in the way).
- Leave your retainer’s name in the guestbook! This retainer may only be selling a single copy of the item for it to be a valid entry.
- List your item AFTER your have put your entry in the guestbook! The timestamp on the guestbook with the earliest correct entry wins. The item won’t be purchased until the winner is determined, so it doesn’t need to be on the MB until much later.
- Entries will be checked later on 8/5 and the prize will be distributed provided someone has a correct entry (if there is a tie, the contenders will /random). If so, the winner will be announced here. If not, a list of people who are “close” will be provided, along with some additional hints.
