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

My apologies. that was rude. Just kind of sick of this discussion. Nothing wrong with single player. You guys are lovely.

1) It wasn't that rude, come on.

2) It was clearly an invitation. Add him on discord.

3) I think his main point was " combat is not the most important part" in D&D while people tend to point at it a lot. Singleplayer experience being the possible explanation for why people tend to focus on combat feedback.

It's an interesting point of view. It's kinda true BG3 feels like Larian focused way more on creating a solid-ish multiplayer/ role-play experience ( for a game requiring +2 years of dev^^ ) while Solasta seems to have focused most of it's budget on combat.

Doesn't mean they won't catch up.

Your view that I do not agree with 100% though you might be correct on the lore correction for 5th edition DnD. The rules are not good in Dnd 4th edition period compared to other Dnd releases. Much dicerolling was removed back inserted dicerolling and simplied rules in DnD 5th edtion.
In addition while someone did not want to hear about WOW (World of Warcraft MMO) they took WOW elements to DnD 4th edition. LIke Hunter and Hunters Mark for Ranger. Now I am not saying this is a bad thing to take some WOW elements and I find it kind of neutral whatever.

You could argue World of Warcraft MMO took ideas from Tolkien world and Dnd World which is true. However in DnD 4th edition they clearly copied World of Warcraft elements to classes and I should know I played World of Warcraft MMO for over 3 years until I got bored and quit. Well not only that removed lots of dicerolling and more complicated rules.

5h edition DnD inserted back the dice rolling and simplified the rules and yes corrected lore to what players liked.

I played a bit more of Solasta - with the new patch - on Ironman Mode. Got as far as Master Mardracht before wiping after failing the check and not being fully rested. Just like in Baldur's Gate it is possible to "game" the game, since with Goodberry you can rest after every encounter, which I had generally been doing until this last one - whoops.

But playing it again just made me double down on my dislike of 5e. As has been mentioned, this game is a linear run about combat, but imo it doesn't even scratch that combat itch which might be a result of 1) too many irritating puzzles - if you are making a combat game it makes me cringe that the only other thing that was added in was some overly long, overly tedious puzzles, between combat set-pieces 2) boring turn based combat (not that turn based combat is boring by default, just that solasta turn-based combat is boring) - I can almost see this game working better RTwP, ive seen people compare it to IWD but imo there is no comparison because of the limitations of turn-based. 3) uninspiring level-design - even if things look pretty the way they are assembled just feels off when playing: crawl through hole and climb up on box syndrome makes it feel a bit like playing a jungle-gym simulator

Finally, the new Sorcerer DLC really shows up an issue with turn based - the slowness - Every time you use a Sorcerer spell you get a metamagic popup. Which is fine... for the first hundred times you don't want to use it, but after that it starts getting really stale. It detracts from the replayability because it makes things more tedious. Reactions to AoO stuff works well as a popup imo, but the metamagic one in combination with the other stuff drives me loopy. Metamagic should have been an upcast menu when picking a spell, not like how it was done - and imo its exactly what Larian would be worried about when designing reactions etc - slowing down combat to a crawl by adding endless clicks

I really want to like this game, but as I have said before a raw 5e simulator, no matter how well implemented, is still just a raw 5e simulator - and in Solasta's case a rather flat-feeling one.

And one of the classic complaints which I have never been able to get over - I really think tactical adventures underestimated the impact their uncanny valley character design was going to have; a lot of people feel a genuine distress and/or revulsion at the character models. its an interesting effect but most unsettling.


edit: i should say that something that Solasta gets 100% right and is a joy is the WSAD +QE camera movement + rotation. It works so well.

edit 2: One final thing, which some of you might have noticed, is that Solasta came our of early access and was officially released in a state that imo feels not quite done. People here have rightly complained about BG3 inventory management but I raise you Solasta inventory management which is also trash

Though I love Solasta for its gameplay and D^D system, I really dislike the rest. Especially the dialogues, characters face/models and paperdolls INSTANTLY gets me out of the game world...Its incredibly uncomfortably creepy looking.
Really wish they just used kick ass fantasy pictures instead, like Pillars of eternity series or Pathfinder: WoTr...which is by the way the game I prefer to both BG3 and Solasta right now.

So much of Solasta still feels like a placeholder to me. My hope for it in the future, is it becomes a easy to use resource for modders and adventure module creators, with the campaign that comes with it being more a tutorial for creating your own material.

one of the few critiques of Solasta that isn't just "eww, it's ugly". Great post.

Well, maybe it’s not “Eww, it’s ugly” but I still happen to disagree with most of it.

Incidentally, I’m also tired of playing this game of backhanded compliments as some poorly concealed attempts to handwave and be dismissive toward anything the game does reasonably well, so whatever.

Also, I don’t really think Silasta does movement and camera particularly well at all.
It does it better than BG3, sure… But that’s just setting the bar low.

Just started playing Solasta a few weeks back. Have enjoyed some of the modules more than the official campaign so far.

Still getting used to the camera.

One thing I found odd/bad is how you can get surprised while camping. Has happened a few times. I would've thought my party would post a lookout or something instead of all of them sleeping and get surprised.

Oh and to add I had a cleric with the peaceful rest which I thought was supposed to stop being surprised.

They do. One of the characters shouldn’t be sleeping. There is a roll for the ambush, it is possible to spot enemies or even ambush them yourself.

It is poorly communicated but you can wake up your buddies by clicking on them (help action or so,pmetching like that) - no need to wait enemy to smash them with a mace,

All four of us were surprised a few times though. So we must've all been sleeping.

Just thought of another weird/stupid one. A surprise encounter where we were magically sleeping but one of us was a half-elf?

I would go as far as to say, that I don’t think any of the DND or DND like games are particularly good and interesting combat wise - real-time mess of BG1&2 and obfuscation of mechanics helped to hide how uninteresting the system really was thanks to a think layer of confusion.

On principle, I have no objection to Larian messing with 5e rules - while I had a great time with Solasta (I was getting a bit bored by the end - not sure how well I would cope with subsequent playthrough), changes need to make game more interesting. I found BG3 combat just as repetitive, I just had to reposition to high ground/backstab before every swing, which made gameplay already on the boring side tedious as well. I also found 5e leveling... lackluster. While 3.5 might be too messy and too easy to abuse for my taste, but I do expect more things to choose from when leveling up these days.

Solasta didn’t make me believe that DND is a great system, but it did reinforce reservations I had about mechanics in BG3.

Surprise is a surprise. You don’t need to sleep to be surprised, you just need to be attacked before noticing the enemy - just as you can do to enemies. I am 95% sure I read that’s a Tactical Adventure’s homebrew.

Oh OK

Didn't read that part. Just seems odd that with high perception and peaceful rest you can still be surprised


What about half elves being affected by magic sleep? Is that homebrew too? Even though I thought it was mentioned in the description they can't be affected m

They aren't, as far as I can remember?

A surprise attack I can't remember which one maybe crystal spiders? Had us all magically asleep. Even half elf. checked their forums as well and other people have experienced it. Oversight? Bug? No response yet.

Also I checked peaceful rest is supposed to prevent being attacked while camping. Doesn't. Bug? No response yet.

Oh and as for being able to tell the others sleeping you're being attacked, you have to do it one by one. Like while you're attacked you nudge each individual "hey we're under attack".

Anyway as I said I'm enjoying Solasta so far. Just found some things that are hopefully fine-tuned or fixed in the future.

More thoughts on Solasta:

This is an example of something that seems so minor making a big difference: There is no Mirror Image spell in Solasta. This seems like a small thing, but I had set about trying to make a Sorceress which could sit in the thick of combat leveraging the Draconic Bloodline's 13 base AC. With the concentration mechanics (which I understand for tabletop but hate in general) there are very limited defensive things you can stack together, Mirror Image being one of the only defensive non-concentration buffs. Of course without Mirror Image in Solasta the plan was a whiff from the beginning - sitting in combat with just Blur up wasn't worth it. I really hope they fix this and put Mirror Image in Solasta

Imo, 5e concentration rules is the thing, more than any other, that makes BG3 not feel like BG1 and 2; its such a fundamental difference in play-style - afaik designed to do away with buff stacking, which I like - so again, the more I play of Solasta and the more I get familiar with the 5e style the less hopeful I am for BG3 combat holding anything of interest.

i'll be honest, I don't like the idea of concentration. Maybe it works better for table top, but in video games, it ends up feeling way too punishing/easy to break for how little benefit you seem to get most of the time.

If there was a way to scale concentration with your level I think it would work a little better. It's how they wanted to tamp down on the jank of wizard compounding buffs, but it's a limit that remains the same from level 1 to 20. Right?

Mirror image is in the SRD, so it being missing was probably a matter of lack of resources/time. In any case, bracers + empress chain (late game) + 20 dex still gets you to 22 AC, and you can buff that to 27 with a reaction if you have shield. Not unhittable by any stretch, but still decent. Note that you could pull this off with the mage armor spell if you went with one of the other subclasses.

If you stack mirror image on that you can get to 36, which IS mostly unhittable, but the required spell slots would be prohibitive. I think mage armor on the sorc subclass that can sacrifice hit points for sorcery points might be stronger. (Just make your sorc a hill dwarf).