Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback maybe take pointers from Solasta (UI, rules, etc.)

Today the EA of Solasta - Crown of the Magister released. Based on SRD 5.1 (the Open Game License version of the DnD 5E ruleset), with a a lot of design decisions and a clean (if visually somewhat 'basic') UI that well translates the ruleset into a computer game. Overall I find it already more mature than BG3 in its current state. Worth taking a look, and possibly get inspired by.

I mean, there are surely areas where BG3 should improve, but I played the Solasta demo and I absolutely LOATHED their UI and movement system out of combat, for a start.

P.S. Still planning to buy that one too, by the way.

Purely from an aesthetic point of view, I find Solasta's UI unappealing, but the layout itself I find great - easy to grasp, and much less cluttered + overwhelming than what we currently have in BG3.
Not sure what you mean with movement out of combat tho? Same as BG3...outside of combat it's realtime, and as soon as combat starts, you go turn-based.

If you give a look at my signature in this very forum, you'll see I have plenty of gripes with how BG3 manages movement out of combat. I absolutely despise the chain/auto-follow system and I miss no chance to stress it over and over.
That said, Solasta manages to do almost as bad with their bizarre "block movement" on a grid even outside of combat
What's worse about it, I think it's way more easy to turn the party controls in BG3 in something decent (just copy Pathfinder, BG2 or any other title in the genre) than salvaging what Solasta is using.

Back to the UI, the developers of Solasta are people coming from Amplitude and apparently the borrowed their philosophy in terms of interface: minimalist, barren, that looks more like some sort of external toolset rather than something organic to the game.
I'm definitely not a fan. It doesn't help their case that it's not even as "snappy" as the premise would suggest.

Last time I played was back during Kickstarter.

UI in Solasta seems distractingly plain - I had the same impression when trying Humankind recently. I also agree that movement was really awkward.

From trailers I liked all the dice and modifiers being shown at all times - I have doubt how informative they will be (they seem to zip by rather fast) but is like the concept. Unfortunately, my laptop refuses to turn on, so I am unlikely to give it a go for a while.

I did not play the demo, started playing the Solasta EA today and the movement and UI seems fine to me, no idea if they made any changes since the demo. You can see it's a indy studio so does not resources that Larian has but overall, I am liking the feel of Solasta.

I've just played 2 hours of Solasta and for me it proves that trusting the 5E rules has paid off massively. It works brilliantly. No surface nonsense to constantly manage!

I love Solastas UI. It is simple, intuitive, and functional. Not a fan of fancy buttons which take ages to read or find(I'm looking at you "sort inventory"). And I absolutly adore the visualisation of dice rolls.
About grid movement outside of combat. That because the whole game is basically a square grid. It may look less immersive, but it makes coding of pathfinding and targeting a lot easier. And we all know that in BG3 those are not even close to be finished.
About rules. I kinda made my peace with the fact that in BG3 5e was modified to the point where i barely recognize it. It's not bad on its own. Problem is that the little semblance of balance that existed in 5e, is gone. And now time that could be spent on ironing out bugs or adding new features, has to be spent on balancing the game from scratch.

Just downloaded it, gonna give it a go. I heard it released today and see what it's about.






You had me at no surfaces.

Exactly the impression I have.

Ohhh it's mature! darker and better.

Ok, "mature" was a rather... strange word to use. It does take it's world and the rules more seriously, though, and that's something Larian could definitely take a page out ouf. You don't need to razzle dazzle your players with pretty lights to make a faithful D&D game...

Take a look at the Fextralife first impressions video for the game, and then look what people complain about around here: It's basically a point for point list of mistakes Larian made and Tactical Adventures didn't.

Ah, I was in no way comparing narrative or storytelling, that's a different topic for me altogether.
Here, I was really only referring to rules implementation, systems, UI etc., and in the sense that they have spent quite some time on those things for it to be in a more 'matured' state compared to what my impression of BG3's current iteration is.

I see, my bad. (Also) true.

I'm actually getting that 100% once it's completed.

I feel the same, I played for 5 hours now and I enjoy the combat that stick to DnD 5e without the crazy poison, ice, fire surface everywhere... ALSO! The longrest and shortrest is well implemented (you need party ration to long rest, and a safe space) There is so more thing i can boast about how well they stuck to DnD 5e CORE RULES. Of course being a 17 people company their game does not look as pretty as BG3.

P.S. I LOVE their character design (the rolling for stats, choosing starting equipment, writing your own backstory for "flavor") A true DnD experience. I hope they have more character customization in the future.

I also enjoy not having range disadvantage or advantage.... today on my 5'th playthrough of BGS, I was fighting those Mesphrit and two of them hop onto the rock that leaves no room for any of my char. All of them had disadvantage against those two (26%) to hit, and i spent the next 20 mins trying to hit those two Mesphrit... In SOLASTA we don't have any of that, hooray, and they have the full cover, half cover, 1/4 cover rules like DND. They have shove, disengage, dodge as an ACTION! HOORAY, so you don't need to stand there when you could not do anything else on your turn, like a fighter for instance)

I think a part of it is Tactical Adventures had nothing so why not use the rules that WotC gave them where Larian had all this stuff already working so fell into the temptation of using what they already had and tweak it to fit 5e. BG3 is prettier but SCotM feels more like a true tabletop 5e experience.

It will be interesting to see if Larian will be willing to embrace the 5e rules to make BG3 a better game though that would be a huge amount of work for them.

I really hope SCotM is successful and would love to see what Tactical Adventures could do if they had Larian's resources.

I plan to play both games, 2021 looking to be a good year.

I felt the same only playing a couple hours of Solasta. Playing Solasta with close to recreation of DnD 5e has been a breath of fresh air for what I've been playing in BG3. I still enjoy BG3 for what it's right now but it's not faithful to DND 5e rules.

I hope nothing but the best for this company who is making Solasta. They did not hit their kickstarter goal to include the sorcerer in their AE (my favorite class). I can only imagine right now what they could of done if they had resources like Larian. Them sticking to the DnD 5e rule almost 1:1 has been amazing and fun to play! Also, them showing use the dice roll for everything above our character is a great idea! (you can choose to turn this off). No more getting frustrated with 95% to hit but missing. YOu can see what what you roll. Brownies points all around.

The sorcerer is being released as free DLC, other classes will be paid DLC if it sells well