Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Solasta and spellcasting Interface

I recommended you take a look to Solasta Crown of magister for the game interface. THeir spellcasting interface it so better than your shortcut. If you can mangae to do the same that will be so better for the enjoy of playing the game. You can keep the shortcut for the potion but you need to do something better for the interface of the spellcasting.

We want play D&D here not divinity original sin. The way they did the crafting is perfect. Easy and fun. Still to try to understand how to do it here. You have to simplifie the process.

I recommended to take a look tto Solasta that will give you really good idea to make your game better with your beautiful graphic that will be perfect.

I want to play Baldur's Gate III. not Solasta 2,0. O_o

What does that even mean? The interface for spellcasting needs improvement, because putting a spell on your hotbar for each spell at each level you can cast it at is a wildly inefficient use of space, and is confusing as well.

Although obvious, and I presume Larian realizes this, +1 for being rational. The spells/hotbar system needs some love.

I assume (yes word chosen on purpose) that it will end up being like hex, where you click on say Melf's and it pops up all levels to choose from. While not my prefered way, the resources are already there and just need some tweaks.

Greatly enjoyed my first successful playthrough, but agree that the spellcasting/spell selection/spellbook interface was very confusing for me. Also, sometimes spells would randomly drop out of the hotbar and eventually I figured out how to add them back in manually. However, I went through several combats without Shadowheart being able to cast Guiding Bolt Keep up the good work, Larian team!

I agree that we need inmprovement in this area. Even NWN2's quick cast menu would be an upgrade.

Worst idea ... even worse for being repeated so often.
Even if there is soooo many better options allready.

Solasta has a very clear interface indeed, it helps people understand what they can do and when, if they're unfamiliar with the ruleset.

But Solasta is implementing D&D 5E, Baldur's Gate 3 has been moving away from it (even if they won't comment about that) and their rules are a bit strange, I'm not sure it's possible to translate that into the same type of "guiding" interface.

+1
Current spellcasting is not good. It is only 2 spell levels avaliable in EA but already interface is a mess. 20 year ago BG2 was more user-friendly.
Game in need for some separate interface for spells away from scrolls, bottles and other stuff.

That's so true... From the character creation to the combats, Solasta's UI really help player to understand the rules.

NWN2 spell menu was the best I have ever seen.
If it is used as the highten spell meta magic for sorcerers (cast spell at higher spell level), it can be used for every char in BG3.

regarding solasta: I have not played it yet, but I will at some point.
Looking at the screenshots the UI is much better than BG3.
Both games are turn based party based RPG based on DnD 5E, so it makes absolutely sense to look at the other game.
I would say that Solasta is more similar to BG3 than any other game out there and if we compare BG3 to something, than this one.
Some rules are different, but thats OK because its still different games from different devs.

Solasta EA is on sale on steam at the moment.

Dunno about solasta, but anything else than what we have now will do. The spellbook UI, or the lack of, in BG3 is atrocious. No personality and style. COMPLETELY functional 2020 console aesthetics = Boring as hell. I just dont want to open my spellbook it looks so bad. lol.

BG2 is just timeless. Looks cool, works good and easy to understand. Its just fun flipping through all your wizards/priest spells.
Why not just IMPROVE that formula for BG3?

I have a feeling that EVERY single decisions for the UI had the <console gamer> and Xbox controllers in mind. Everything has to fit neatly into squares all in one screen so you can use your L1 R1 & Dpad buttons to scroll through stuff etc...

As it stands, I doubt that in 10 years time people will remember the great looking <spell books> of BG3.

BG3 is in dire need of stylistic identity. It's bland... but it has hints of what could contribute to its style. Like the UI golden borders. They look great, but it's not enough. I think a simple background/texture would make a world of difference. Add some parchment behind the "spellbooks". Some stone texture in other UI elements and so on.

I really liked the NWN and NWN2. Perhaps the dial menu of NWN was a bit slow with the mouse, but with the keyboard it was quite handy. A quick spell menu like NWN2's would be ideal for both devices if implemented correctly

Actually, Solasta has quite a different style than BG3.
- BG3 is allegedly based on, or rather inspired of D&D5E, but Solasta is the only one correctly implementing actions, bonus actions, interactions, and other features like sneak attack, push/shove, reactions, long and short rests, and so on. They even implement the wizard spell book! It doesn't have the full licence, so it's not sharing the setting, however, but BG3 can.
- Also, Solasta has a strong tabletoop feeling, the party characters sometimes make comments on one another's combat move, the dice are shown for different rolls (it can be selectively turned off and customized), not just an "in-your-face" dice to decide which branch the game will take during a conversation. The board is more pervasive, for example you see the squares - even the characters are moving by squares, which may be a little too obvious for some. BG3 is more of a video game, and is more flexible with the world, you can experiment with functional objects. And then there are the infamous area of effects, so typical of Larian (for the best, and especially for the worst). Solasta has a more rigid world in comparison, though there are some puzzles and moving parts in it. On the other hand, Solasta plays a lot on light effects.
- BG3 has one big and unique map, where everything is packed together. Solasta has separate areas like BG, NWN and so on. They added a great journey system between those areas.
- BG3 has a weird long rest camp, remote from the area where the party is, with other companions and NPCs. Solasta has the expected field camp, but at fixed locations, you cannot long-rest anywhere.
- ...

Having played both, I don't feel they can be compared, that's a mistake a few video reviews have been doing when Solasta was released. The only points in common are the cRPG genre and the turn-based combat , but they're really in different subcategories of cRPG. I think Solasta is more for hard-core D&D players, or players interested in this ruleset, but unfortunately for now, outside of the D&D lore. While BG3 is more an evolution of the Larian style of games, which happens to be in the D&D lore. And so, my conclusion is that the game that is the closest to BG3 is probably D:OS2, yet BG3 is clearly a great evolution of its ancestor. I could expand the comparison with how the dialogs and narrative are handled, or the graphics, or the interaction between the companions, all of which separate Solasta vs BG3, but make D:OS2 and BG3 alike.

So I'd just bring a little correction to what you said, they're not both D&D5E, as already said above. The way rules are implemented is not left to devs' interpretation, it's important to the balance of the game, as a matter of fact we see how rogues are overpowered in BG3 since they changed the sneak attacks and the bonus/standard actions, and interactions. There are other choices that are left to the implementation, especially in D&D, such as how many short rest per day, the interactions with the world, on what criteria the dialog options are based, ... and thankfully, Larian have used them perfectly.


PS: at first, just after the release of BG3, I argued this game was not a "D:OS3", and was indeed D&D5E. The release of Solasta and the lack of response from Larian to their fans regarding the big deviations from the ruleset made me see they clearly wanted to take a separate road and take full advantage of their environment engine, adapting whatever would be necessary in the process. I wouldn't put the "D:OS3" label, however, because the setting is just not the same.

Art style and “immersion wise” I agree (overall, I believe BGs aged very gracefully - there is definitely space for update and improvement, but for 20 years old games they present and play beautifully).

I wouldn’t overlook practical advantages of this BG3 skills screen - all party is displayed in one place, all of their active skills are visible in one screen (be it wizard/cleric spells, and actions). It is especially crucial with Larian’s high maintenance hot bar style (which I didn’t like in D:OS2). As nice as BG2 screens look like, scrolling through different screens of spell levels and switching between wizard and cleric spells ain’t great. What I see here from BG3 should allow for pretty easy party and level wide overview of our teams arsenal.

Still, the same could probably be achieved with a more evocative menu. I did greatly enjoy Pillars and Kingmakers homage to IE’s skeuomorphic UI.

The current bar feels very easily cramped for Shadowheart, or Clerics(?) in general.

And it is really easy to forget you picked up potions that give you some resistence, or cure poison etc.
If we are spellcasters and bring tons of our own abilitys to the bar already, it is very easy to lose track of everything, true.

I dunno ...
If i had to choose between that old one, wich is certainly stylish and nice ... but unpractical and a little bit chaotic.
Or that new one, wich is to put it simply exactly oposite ...

I would allways choose new one. :-/

I'd say the quick bar has the worst of both worlds -- it's generic and doesn't fit the setting like previous one did and it's chaotic. I just don't know where that magic missile at level 2 button went. It's a bit better than DOS2 but inferior to BG2. Sometimes newer is better and sometimes you devolve.

Don't forget this screenshot of BG3 is a screen of level 3 or 4 characters that know nothing..
You'll have to scroll when you'll have more spells and more spells level because everything won't fit a single window.

The best should probably to have less screen but specific screen per characters...

One window/character with
- a better character sheet (1/4 left)
- equipment (1/4 middle left)
- skills/spellbook (1/4 middle right)
- why not, something to manage your hotbar and/or character's inventory (1/4 right)

It should be way better than what we actually have.
That way you have everything on one screen for every character because that's what we need to manage.... characters...

What's the point of seing everyone's spellbook or equipment on the same screen ?