What Was Your Opinion of Dowsing?

[ChuChuOfTime]

I personally think that dowsing made the game almost to easy when you had to look for anything, really is it that hard to find stuff? What does everybody else think?

 

[Mozzy]

I gotta agree. I would just use the dowsing to get that initial beep to shut up. After that I mostly looked for stuff on my own since I like to drag out my Zelda games.

 

[LinkPTY]

+1

It made the game too easy.

 

[Mozzy]

If they reintroduce dowsing they should do more with it like maybe have invisible switches that you need to use dowsing to find or something. It could have been a fun dungeon element kinda like the mirror from Occarina or something.

 

[Majora's Cat]

The straightforward dowsing gameplay segments were distributed well throughout the game. Although these parts weren't particularly exciting, dowsing doesn't necessarily have to be used for more than a few minutes at a time. Fetch quests are made a little bit easier with the addition of the Master Sword's dowsing ability, but this is balanced out by the challenge of finding the item you're dowsing for. In the case of Eldin Volcano and the Fire Sanctuary, some of the pieces of the key were well-hidden and required some searching and thinking to be found.

But very much unlike guides in other games (normally found on Easy mode), dowsing only leads the player in the general direction of the object. It is still the player's responsibility to solve the puzzles. In many cases, dowsing will lead the player straight into a wall, and you will always have to find a way around the area to reach the desired destination. One must also keep in mind that the dowsing sections are a very small fraction of the overworld gameplay between dungeons.

However, dowsing isn't mandatory. If the player wishes to, he/she may looks for locations and objects without the help of the sword's dowsing ability, but I think this detracts from the experience. While I do like open exploration, you just wouldn't have the slightest inkling of where to look. Some players may stumble across these items quickly due to sheer luck, but for some it may take an hour or more before they can find what they're looking for. That is not the sort of frustration that we cherish in Zelda games.

 

[athenian200]

I think that dowsing was interesting because it gave you a vague idea of where the object was, but still left it open enough that you had to look carefully for it. It was like that game of "hot/cold" many children play. Sometimes it was frustrating because it was horrible at vertical positioning, but that just made it a little more challenging than an easter egg hunt.

Also, it's hard to complain much, because dowsing was totally optional. The game can be played without using it, if you want to challenge yourself further, or you find it a hindrance.

 

[TheCakeIsALie]

I got annoyed with dowsing, but I'm not very good at this kind of thing, so I ended up using it. I think they would have done better by showing you where it is on the map.

 

[Fred Flintstone]

I mostly ignored it. I used it to find my missing stones or more like to find out if I was missing any stones. I looked for most things on my own and I laughed when the option to find the water dragon speared seeing she is still in the same place as before. Having it be an upgrade with the sword was a tad disappointing because it doesn't add any power and the hart and treasure options were never used. It would get in the way when I just wanted to look around.

Not bad-just not needed.

 

[SavageWizzrobe]

I didn't mind dowsing at all. I'm not sure about the point that it makes the game too easy, since dowsing does point out the general direction you should travel in but it doesn't spell out exactly what you need to do. A good example are the pieces of the Earth Temple key, most of which require some thought to obtain; dowsing alone can't get them. On the other hand, there are sections of the game where I could have dowsed, but didn't, mostly because I was unaware that you could dowse for those objects. I'll use the three things to access the third dungeon as an example; I found all of them without dowsing and also without being aware of dowsing for them.

 

[surferguy7]

You don't have to dowse, it's completely optional. Dowsing makes finding things easier though. It's less tedious and more fun.

 

[AwesomeTingle]

Sometimes it was helpful, sometimes it seemed just plain dumb. I really have not much of an opinion on it.

What I'm really wondering is where the word "dowsing" came from. Of all the words they could've used, they decided on dowse...

 

[Ventus]

I think that dowsing was interesting because it gave you a vague idea of where the object was, but still left it open enough that you had to look carefully for it. It was like that game of "hot/cold" many children play. Sometimes it was frustrating because it was horrible at vertical positioning, but that just made it a little more challenging than an easter egg hunt.

This sums it up basically. While I'd much rather search for things on my own, being able to play what is essentially "Marco Polo" makes things a little bit more bearable on the "don't wanna do this fetch quest" type player.

 

[Links Brother]

For the first few hours I found you used the dowsing ability a lot. I was a little nervous that dowsing would take up too much of the game and you would have less good old fashion searching for things. However I soon found that Dowsing gave made it easier and even more fun to find things. I would have hated to search for all the power generators on my own. But I still found even with the dowsing it was hard to find things so you did have difficulty still.

 

[DeletedUser9]

I liked the Dowsing fine. It's a fun little mechanic that's there if you want it. As others have said, the Dowsing was completely optional, so with regards to how easy it makes things (and I disagree that it did), it wasn't something that was forced on you, so I don't understand how someone could complain about it.

I would have liked the Dowsing to be used for a few more optional things though. I know that later in the game you can use Dowsing to locate things like Goddess Cubes and Gratitude Crystals, but somehow I wish there was more. Maybe I'm thinking more in terms of wanting more collectibles and side-content though. xP

If they reintroduce dowsing they should do more with it like maybe have invisible switches that you need to use dowsing to find or something. It could have been a fun dungeon element kinda like the mirror from Occarina or something.

Yeah, I was surprised it couldn't be used inside the dungeons. The pre-release discussions about Dowsing implied that the reason there was no Compass in dungeons was because of Dowsing, so I expected Dowsing to be an optional tool for finding secrets in dungeons. Kinda odd they didn't do that.

The straightforward dowsing gameplay segments were distributed well throughout the game. Although these parts weren't particularly exciting, dowsing doesn't necessarily have to be used for more than a few minutes at a time. Fetch quests are made a little bit easier with the addition of the Master Sword's dowsing ability, but this is balanced out by the challenge of finding the item you're dowsing for. In the case of Eldin Volcano and the Fire Sanctuary, some of the pieces of the key were well-hidden and required some searching and thinking to be found.

However, dowsing isn't mandatory. If the player wishes to, he/she may looks for locations and objects without the help of the sword's dowsing ability, but I think this detracts from the experience. While I do like open exploration, you just wouldn't have the slightest inkling of where to look. Some players may stumble across these items quickly due to sheer luck, but for some it may take an hour or more before they can find what they're looking for. That is not the sort of frustration that we cherish in Zelda games.

Yeah I think you put this well. Dowsing was a great way to make fetch quests less irritating, and because it was there, Skyward Sword's relatively high number of such quests was prevented from being irritating. And I'll tell you what, that is an impressive feat considering that fetch quests are almost universally bad in most peoples' eyes. At least from what I hear these days in reviews and whatnot about games that have a lot of them. It's just a tool to make sure things are fun. Use it if you like.

 

[Deeds]

I think Dowsing was quite a good thing to add to the game. The opinions on this forum would be mainly "Makes it too easy" or "I like finding things by myself" That's completely understandable it's just the majority of the people on this forum are Zelda enthusiasts, therefore advanced zelda players. Dowsing meant that beginners to the game would have a OPTIONAL breakthrough if they were to be stuck.

Dowsing on some stage can be compeletely pointless, like the ability to dowse for hearts. There is a very rare occasion when there is going to be a heart that isn't hidden in the grass, correct me if I'm wrong but in order to successfully dowse for hearts, the heart had to be bare. The only situation bare hearts would be found is those heart plants, which are pretty rare, especially outside Skyloft.