Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Baldur's Gate 3 vs Solasta comparison

I am almost 100% sure that BG3 will outclass Solasta by FAR in most respects. I mean, it already does. I just hope that BG3 will be at least 50% as good as I dream it will be, because then it will be the best RPG ever. If it's above that... I am not sure my heart can handle it.

Oh yes. BG3 to me is like Avengers End Game while Solasta is like reading old Spiderman Comics. They're fun and I enjoy them, but the movie had big explosions and lots of excitement and was on a whole different level.

That said, I like that Solasta lets you build your characters' personalities. You even have side quests based on the choices you made for each character during creation. The game cracks me up frequently with party banter etc. When my Paladin swings and misses and my cynical greedy dwarf rogue says, "You suck!" in his gravelly dwarf voice, that's just entertainment right there.

The NPCs can be fun also when your party is interacting with them. "Sorry to keep you waiting," says Lord Caron. "We should be paid extra for having to wait so long," says my chaotic evil halfling mage. "You can take it up with the treasurers. I'm sure they could use a good laugh, " replies Caron.

Yeah, there's plenty of fun dialogue and characterizations. I laugh frequently playing that game.

Again, though, don't get me wrong, Pathfinder is a blast too. I love the Barbarian. She cracks me up. "For Gorim!!!" And calling Tartucio a little purple toad. Hah! I was thinking the same thing.

Of course there are things that I would change, but I'd say that overall I've enjoyed my time with both for different reasons.
When I'm in the mood for a traditional 5e D&D dungeon-diving experience, I play Solasta.
When I'm in the mood for a narrative-driven character-centric experience, I play BG3.
They're similar, so it's expected that comparisons would be drawn between them, but they're different enough to fill two distinct niches for me.

My thought exactly. The latter is basically Icewind Dale 5e: minimum of dialogs, zero plot branching, and dungeoneering all the way. The most noticeable difference is that in Solasta, your party members have much more palpable personalities, to the point of being almost grotesque sometimes, and aren't shy demonstrating it left and right.

Which is actually a very good thing. When you don't have many people to talk to, party banter and their seemingly off the cuff remarks add a lot to the overall immersion.

I played both BG2 and IWD 1/2, and enjoyed all of them. They are just different, that's all.

If this is BG3, Solasta is IWD. I would even say better than IWD, but the comparison holds. Unfortunately, this tells many people nothing. However, for those of a certain age there is really nothing else that needs to be said.

I completed Solasta once - and have about 98 hours played having started a second playthrough.

I have completed BG3 more times than I can remember and have about 800 hours played - mostly on multiplayer.

I never understood the comparisons between these two games and am still at a loss for why they keep happening. How do you compare a team of 20 with a 250k budget with a team of 300 with a 200+ Million dollar budget?

Its my hope that Solasta did well enough that they can do more ambitious projects in the years to come. I think they have a lot to add to the genre and they certainly showed they have some solid gaming chops in the work they have done so far.

But BG3 is the culmination of almost 20 years of work by Larian studios. They earned the right to the license and the resources to publish a triple A game. Bg3 is incredibly ambitious and is designed to appeal to a much broader audience. If they get this right they are looking at Game of the Decade - especially with the multiplayer aspect of it.

Interestingly both studios have patches this week. Solasta is adding Sorcerer and of course we all eagerly await Patch 5 for BG3.

It was honestly my hope that with the course correction by Larian and the news that they were working heavily on the reactions system that we would stop getting these comparisons, but alas.

They have openned a new Studio that is already working on "a new tactical TB game based on Solasta" and at the same time, the team that has worked on Solasta is still working to impvove it and the dungeon maker.
It sell well enough and more ambitious projects will come.

Great news for the RPG lovers we are.

That IS good news. Any info on Multiplayer in the new game?

I'd be a pain, some of my players are in Europe.

I am sure they are planning to do multiplayer. From interviews they clearly wanted to but didn't have the resources.

I am hoping for Avengers End Game but expect what we'll get is DCUE: Justice League, something that will need a director cut to fix most of the major flaws but still having some remaining several years after release.

I am definitely in the camp that for a game, most important element is gameplay and while BG3 looks pretty, gameplay is still lacking in most areas.

Solasta nailed gameplay, feels like I am playing in a VTT game using something like Fantasy Grounds Unity for combat. I look forward to see what Tactical Adventures develop it into.

Swen's attitude on this puzzles the heck out of me. I play several games each week using Fantasy Grounds Unity as our VTT and all the combat automation is handled by FGU so it's possible to do this in a program. Yes, the GM handled mob AI and all the dialog trees and stuff but it not like we have to do everything by hand. It's not like Smiteworks is hard coding everything, FGU works by parsing XML / text for stuff like so really easy to handle 5e or other pen and paper rulesets. I mean they update all the new rule books then come out at the same time WoTC releases new stuff. ( Yes, they get stuff a head of time but it not like what I expect Larian has to do to add stuff to their game. )

The issue is they are using an engine that is not designed for 5e and don't seems to want to put in the work to change their engine to handle the 5e rules.

Nah no informations.
The 2 sentences I wrote are the 2 sentences they gave^^

We'll have to wait to see what's next.

I agree.
20 years ago I enjoyed BG2 but I never finished IWD. Not because it was too difficult but because I got bored from tons of fighting while I forgot what the story was about.
In Solasta you create all party members too, but the devs tried to give each of them a personality based on your choices. Its not always perfect, but it helped me a lot to enjoy the game more than IWD with its totally soulless party members. Some talking and cut scenes in between also helped me to remember why I am in this dungeon.

I also think that Solasta is the most natural comparison to BG3, at least in terms of game mechanics and UI. Do you know another turn based computer RPG that is based on DnD 5E with a party of 4?
If swen said that you cannot make a good computer game out of DnD 5E without massive changes to the rules then Solasta proves that he is wrong.
Of course BG3 is better than Solasta in everything except game mechanics and UI. Show me somebody who finished Solasta by using only shove and throw, no attacks or magic.
Lets see what changes Swen has made for the coming updates.

Really?
You don't understand why the only two games currently available on the market sporting a turn-based implementation of the 5th edition combat system keep being compared? You are at loss about why that happens over and over?

Its Apples and Oranges Tuco. One game is finished and the other is in early access. Granted, its a testament to how polished EA looks for Bg3 but still its still a year from complete.

Its also unfair to Solasta - which does not have the resources to compete with all the features Bg3 has. You add them up and Solasta gets trounced. Solasta cannot afford to give players the kind of freedom BG3 has. It doesn't have the license. It doesn't have the VO, the animation, the writers.

And finally its unhealthy and counterproductive. We had people with zero social skills rolling up here, trashing Larian (not just criticizing BG3) and then telling everyone what a better game Solasta is. That kind of nonsense doesn't help anyone. It didn't win them any Solasta fans here and if the Tactical Adventure devs knew they were doing that they would NOT thank them for it.

It's absolutely not.
Especially given that they are specifically compared about their combat/dungeon exploration and it's mostly just disingenuous people who keep introducing into the conversation some sort of "whataboutism" about how Solasta has "less story and cinematic dialogues", which is completely beyond the point.

As I was just saying: irrelevant.
And of course it's "unfair to Solasta" if you try so hard to play that tricky angle. You could probably fund its entire sequel on the budget Larian dedicated just to the cinematic intro for BG3.

EDIT - The final part of your post reads just like "And this is why some of us are overdefensive about it". Fair enough, but people being blunt/rude/stupid about it has absolutely nothing to do with the implicit qualities of both games.
"I like to shit on Solasta because its fanboys annoy me" is not really a particularly better display of social skill or more in general a better demonstration of maturity.

Yup. If people were logical our society would be a very different (better) place.

There is no further info beyond that the studio is up and running. I even posted questions about it on the TA forum and no responses from any of the devs even though normally they're very responsive.

+1 hehee

My brother has said he will buy Baldur's Gate 3 and play with me when it is near release date and a friend of mine has said he interested to play with us. My brother did play through Divinity Original Sin 2. My brother is quite demanding in graphics, but said DOS 2 had good enough graphics.

I have my doubts Solasta will support multiplayer at least officially directly in game for Solasta main adventure that is from what I heard very linear indeed.

Solasta is fun in its own way... To me it feels more like the old Gold Box games from 30 years ago in the way it plays....

I do find it interesting that they have a patch/update coming out to day, adding the Sorcerer class.....

never one to avoid controversy, after trying Solasta again, yes it seems to implement 5e well, but by doing it well it made me realise that 5e is not a particularly good system for a video game, designed as it was to to make dnd newbie friendly (good). It just feels really simplistic: "balanced" - yes, I suppose, but I think "lackluster" is how I would describe it. And since all Solasta really has going for it is "accurate implementation of 5e", that doesn't leave it with very much at all.

There was a poster who went on and on about how 3(.5) was the better system for a video game and i didn't agree with them because I find nwn1-2 and IWD2 to be lackluster as games, but I suppose that is an issue with those games not with 3.5e and I think Kingmaker shows how "Mathfinder" works very well in a super-crunchy video game.

Overall Solasta actually reinforces my lack of attachment to 5e RAW, since it makes me realize I don't particularly like 5e, raw or otherwise, which is a shame because I like BG3