Right now the candle puzzle is rather uh... Not much of a puzzle. I understand the puzzles in Apocrea not being all that puzzling, but for every other puzzle it requires you to find the other half of the puzzle - the candle one simply doesn't.
My suggestions for buffing the puzzle:
- Increase damage on puzzle mismatch
- Give the puzzle a cooldown on failure
This change will make it more dangerous to simply guess the puzzle combination - the current damage is pitiful and doesn't change any player behaviors involving the puzzle. With health as a limited resource, I would suggest something like 4-6 pips of damage - not enough to be devastating, but at least it's more than the less than 1% damage it does right now.
I'd say something simple like a 30 to 60 second cooldown on the candle puzzle would be enough. Players now need to wait between attempts, and in the Grasping Plateau, waiting around in one spot can get pretty dangerous. It's not like players have nothing to do in this downtime, but it will make finding the candle's solution more valuable.
That's about it. This puzzle always seemed so much different from the rest and I run into it often enough to think it ought to be more in-line with the others.