[quote=Maximuuus]
And this highlights two separate niche demographics of players: Players who think D&D is the rules and players who think D&D is about the story you tell (focus on companions, romances etc.). Probably the healthy demographic here are the ones who put equal value in both and tbh that makes the most sense to me personally.
This makes sense to me... But it depend what you call "story you tell".
First of all Solasta's story is not that bad. That's a myth.
It's pretty simple and linear but it totally makes the job.
I ended the whole game a few days ago and it's not worse than many other games.
In a way the story in Solasta looks way more DnD to me than BG3's one. It hasn't the lore but it totally has the spirit even in it's mechanic. I cannot choose where I'm going but I'm really travelling in the world. I have to be prepared, there's time, night, it's dangerous, etc... But I also met companions for a while, I also have a bit of side quests, the character personnality I builded matter on how they react the events...
The only thing that's missing is freedom but every "concept" works even if it require improvement.
The story flows from the beginning to the end.
On the other hand BG3 is far from being perfect from a "story" point of view. It's amazing that we can still discover new area every playthrough but the map design is "gamey" and is completely wrong according to the story (goblins can't find the druid is the most common exemple).
Same about the companions... They never react and have no opinions, they never talk together,... About the main story I won't talk too much because we don't really know much but having 2 pathes is not what I call "deep".
And it's the same about combats that are completely wrong from a story in the FR point of view. Combats are a "gamey" parenthesis and nothing else.
If you consider the story you're writing as a whole rather than an assembly of parts (story, exploration, combats, ...), according to me Solasta do a better job.
You couldn't describe any combats in a book you would write to tell your BG3's story. You couldn't ever talk about distance and time, you couldn't describe the world and the environment, the weather, the creatures living in an area etc... In Baldur's Gate 3 there's a huge gap between "the story" and "the gameplay".
According to me that's why BG1 and BG2 are legendary games. From the beginning to the end you're writing a consistent and a coherent story in a consistent and a coherent world with a consistent and a coherent setting. Everything works together.
It's the same in Solasta except that there are huge limitation due to the lack of money.
Tactical Adventure had to make choices and I'm glad they choose the mechanics rather than the facial animation and different story path and romance. Now they have strong foundations for the future.
Larian doesn't have to choose and that's exactly why I'm so dissapointed. They had the potential to create the best RPG and the best Tactical TB game of all time. It's too late for many things (world design) but not for many others.
