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

Because although some people are doing this, many are not and are pointing out the good and bad in both games, hoping Larian implements some of the good from Solasta into BG3. THAT is the real point of this thread. It is people hoping Larian will make BG3 better by pulling ideas from Solasta and even other cRPGs within the genre - like Pathfinder.

So here's my good/bad BG3 vs. Solasta list (not all-inclusive by any means, just the main points):

BG3 Pros which are Cons for Solasta that I wish they'd improve in that game
- High replayability. Oh man! I've never played a game over and over again so many times from scratch. So many options and choices based on your character like they are all custom designed for my specific character each time. SO many ways you can go. Do you want to save the grove or destroy it? Do you want to skip it all and just go straight for the jugular - going right to the Underdark? Do you care about your companions or not? Are you a murder hobo who just wants to kill everyone? Go ahead. See what happens. And I love that you discover new things each and every time you replay the game. I've played now almost 600 hours and am still learning new tidbits about the overall story and so forth. You THINK you know something, but then you replay it and learn another little tidbit of knowledge and it changes your whole perspective. That's the main thing I love about this game. It's what truly makes BG3 top on the list of any cRPGs that I want to play. Solasta's is not so well done. Solasta is rather linear. I've been playing it also since EA, and even after the first playthrough, it was hard to try playing it again a second time. Everything happens in pretty much the same order every time. Yes, some of the dialogue is different here and there, in that they quip off different one-liners, but overall it's the same exact story each time. You don't really miss anything depending on the choices you make, so your choices don't really matter that much.
- Graphics. Need I say more. I totally disagree with anyone who says the graphics are bad. They need some tweaks - shout out to Niara, because Halflings need some serious tweaks - but by far the models and graphics beat out any other cRPG that is similar. Honestly, I'd prefer Solasta's over Pathfinder, but I'm sure others will disagree. That said, BG3 blows both away. Solasta does have some good models. So, I must say, those who totally destroy its models and graphics are, in my opinion, a bit off base. However, there aren't many that look great by any means. Some are downright nasty and ugly, and we pick the ugly models just for a good laugh.
- Story. Geez. Again, BG3 blows the rest away, at least in my opinion. Solasta's is okay, but it's about as deep as one of the D&D movies we've seen in the past. It has cheesy voice acting for most of it, and the story is pretty basic. Pathfinder Kingmaker (haven't played the other since I can't even get through Kingmaker)? Wasn't really feeling the story. Sorry. I know some probably totally disagree, but for me it was just meh. BG3, as I said above, has an intricate story, and we've only got EA so far. As I said above, you've got to really dig in to understand it all. Those who think it's a boring, dumb story that has no depth aren't digging deep enough. It took me FOREVER to piece together a timeline to make sense of it, and I still find myself changing timeline stuff as I discover new things. Just take Lenore's story alone... or Omeluuum... or the hag... or Minthara's... each character seems to have an actual background, even down to the most minute goblin character. That is another huge thing I love about this game.
- Characters. Yes. I like them all. I know some people get all, "These characters are all stupid. I don't like even one." But I do. Even Astarion, who a lot of people seem to REALLY hate. He's actually one of my favorites. It's always good to have humor against a dark setting of murder, bloodshed, and tadpoles in your heads that'll turn you into monsters. Solasta's characters - beyond your custom 4 - are pretty cringy at times. Merton, for example, actually says, "You're all a bunch of mamby pambies." Ugh! Really? And the Princess Peach-wannabe is REALLY poorly done, in my opinion. I liked Gorin, but you only really talk to her once or twice because she's a merchant, and I kinda liked the Scavenger Halfling lady you first meet. But, again, she's not a major character. I just... the Solasta characters are really not deep especially in comparison with BG3 characters. They're all just, well, meh.

These are probably the top 4 things that are most important to me in a game, and they are why I love this game so much.

Solasta Pros which are Cons for BG3 that I'd like to see improved
- Combat and overall Gameplay (more D&D 5e). It's balanced, strategic, and easy to learn. Everything is laid out for you and is progressive, as D&D is meant to be. You start with a few options in combat, and you progressively get more and more each level so you only have to learn a few options per level. It keeps you from getting overwhelmed by everything you have to choose from. At level 1, fighter can attack, shove, disengage, and dash. Done. Rogue can attack, shove, disengage, and dash. Done. At low level, it teaches you the basic maneuvers and gets you familiar with them. Then it builds upon them so by the time you're level 8 or 9, you have gotten to know your characters really well and are familiar with ALL of the choices you have to work with. In BG3, at level 1, you can do all the things mentioned above plus attack with cleave with this type of weapon, and pommel, and topple with that kind of weapon, and now throw enemies, and so on and so forth with every weapon having extra abilities and so forth. Then, add to this that wizards and clerics and druids and such have a lot of spells to get familiar with, and it's overwhelming. It's hard to remember what all your character can do in a single round. It's also unbalanced. It actually takes me MORE time to take a turn because I'm trying to figure out what are all my options and are any of them better than just moving and attacking. I like options. I do. However, I don't like that you have so many options that it's hard to determine what you should actually do. When playing multiplayer, it really can slow you down a lot because not every player is as familiar with the game as I am. So they see a lot of options and go, "Um. What does this option do? Huh. Is that better? Should I do that or this or that or this?" Yes, it adds some additional strategy - and I like strategy - but it really kills the game in a lot of ways. Besides not giving players the ability to really get familiar with anything before something new comes flying at you, it also leaves the game no real place to go. You start with lots of abilities, and by level 4 you have an inventory full of possibilities plus a ton of special abilities per character/ spells, etc. It's just too much. Solasta's combat system is more tamed down, uniform, cohesive, progressive, strategic, and far less volatile and chaotic. Though combat isn't AS important to me as the story, characters and so forth, it IS an extremely important element in any cRPG. If combat is frankly as boring as BG3 is currently, where I just have to discover what gimmick to use and exploit it, then it will be a HUGE hangup especially for later in the game. If I'm finding combat super boring by level 5 and beyond... yeah... it's going to get REAL difficult to get through the game. Besides this, combat is so extreme with BG3 that you have ridiculous things happening, like enemies shoving you 30+ feet off a ledge and killing you. You have people picking enemies up and throwing them, also ridiculous distances, and doing more damage with throwing enemies than you would with a regular weapon. Solasta doesn't have such weird extreme mechanics, and that's what I like. Combat is more realistic because it is more controlled and orderly. I can determine things tactfully and strategically. In BG3, it's more experimental and wild. Try throwing that grease bottle at that torch and see what happens. Hah! Boom! Enemies go bur! Hmmm. Now try throwing that enemy into the fire to see what happens. Hah! Enemy landed hard and took 8 damage plus got set on fire for an additional 4. Throw a bottle of grease and Boom! I know. I know. Some people like chaotic combat without any real thought or strategy, but I don't. I want something I can rely on and get familiar with. I don't like experimenting to see what works and then having to reload a dozen times per combat just because what I tried didn't work.
- UI and controls. Though Solasta could have been better, because the UI was bigger than necessary and they didn't exactly provide you with a lot of hotkeys (so no just pressing C to Crouch and be sneaking) the UI was laid out well for new players. I actually learned from Solasta that certain rules I'd been doing wrong in Tabletop were, in fact, wrong. I'd just homebrewed my own rules and thought they were actual rules and was playing it my way. Then I played Solasta and its UI taught me a few things. What is ACTUALLY able to be performed and when and where. Wait! I can't just cast Cure Wounds AND Healing Word in a single round. Yes, that was a homebrew I was allowing and thought it was actual rules until I played Solasta. When they grayed out Cure Wounds after I cast Healing Word, I was floored. I even went out and looked it up and said, "Dang! Can't believe I didn't notice that before in the rules." That's how well the UI is laid out so that it teaches you how to play the game. You don't need many tutorials at all. Each round, you know exactly what your options are, and it only takes you a few battles to really get a hang of the basics. Movement is clean and crisp, and pathing is spot on. When you encounter a trap, and you notice it, the game stops you so you don't just plow right into it before you can do anything about it. Camera is sometimes difficult, especially in regard to verticality, but it's better than BG3 which gives you NO ability to go up a few levels of elevation so you can actually see things better. Also, Solasta has FLYING both as an option for YOUR characters AND enemies. So, harpies don't just fly close to the ground. They fly up in the sky, hovering above you. You can also cast Fly and join them, hurling magic from up in the air. I'm not as much of a fan of the Grid movement and so forth - as I do prefer BG3's line movement mechanics especially in combat, but Solasta is definitely superior in terms of movement mechanics, UI, camera, and overall controls.
- Banter. BG3 is getting better at this, but Solasta is still better. I like that characters in Solasta are interacting with one another all the time and even poking fun - playfully - at one another. You miss an enemy and your ally says, "You suck!" or "Do better next time." Or, if you chose a nicer personality, they'll say, "You'll get 'em next time." During dialogue sequences, they are playfully bantering back and forth. It makes for a better cohesive party feel rather than in BG3 where it feels more like it's YOU and the Origins. You are the star, and they are the supporting cast. In BG3, it's kind of a, "Whatever you like, MC. If that's what you like, MC." I want more interactions amongst party members, and since there are more than 4 party members in BG3, I'd like to see a party of 6 so they can ALL work together at the same time to be one complete party of 6 rather than having to only take 3 with you at a time and getting some interaction just between those you take with you while 1 or 2 members are in the doghouse.
- Personality choices/Alignment. This is something sorely missing from BG3. I'd like to be able to create characters with alignment and personality choices so that their facial expressions and dialogue align. Yeah, this might be difficult in BG3, but it'd be really cool. If I create a Neutral Evil drow sorcerer, I definitely don't want to see him looking like some soft-hearted idiot when he's talking to someone. I want him to look callously at them as if they are fools and inconsequential to his personal quest. I don't want my hardened battlemaster looking all scared and weak and such when facing a few goblins. I want to give her a personality where she stares down an ogre without batting an eye. In reverse, I want my soft-hearted cleric to be more friendly and personable looking. I don't want scenes where he is looking at people like, "Gonna kill ya. Gonna die." Solasta does alignment and personality choices, so characters do respond to different situations with different comments. Solasta could have still done it better, but it was better than BG3. Also, alignment means that if there is a holy item, certain characters shouldn't be able to use it, or if there's an evil item, certain characters shouldn't be able to use it. So a Selunite cleric shouldn't be able to use a Sharran amulet, or vice versa.

Like I said, I'm sure there are others, but that's my personal comparison main list, and I'm only even presenting this because BG3 is still in EA. If it was a full and complete game, I wouldn't even bother. I'd just accept it as is. But, they want our feedback, so here it is.