Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback BG3 vs Solasta

Having played a significant amount of both games now, here are my thoughts...

BG3 is far more polished than Solasta... and I do appreciate that but the performance seems to be getting worse and worse as time goes on instead of better, especially on lower-end systems. The low end graphic settings were certainly playable on DOS2 but are virtually unplayable in BG3. I'm not understanding why that is.

Solasta has implemented less of 5e but what they did implement they have done so far more faithfully. One big difference I've noticed, especially with all the shove attacks going on in both games, is featherfall. It is supposed to be a reaction and is in Solasta. I have actually used it to great effect there, whereas in BG3 it seems relegated to an exploration tool.

Looting was the most god-awful experience in DOS2 and you've brought it to BG3 with little/no change. I spend, easily, 4 times as much time looting in BG3 as I do exploration and combat combined. This is supposed to be DND not loot tycoon. Solasta has BG3 completely trounced in this area. Looting everything on the ground in a designated radius is a huge time saver and not having 50 containers in a room with the vast majority either empty or containing garbage was a breath of fresh air. Not being able to interact with every piece of set dressing was not a drawback at all, and finding interactive containers was always more exciting than in BG3.

Movement is a lot more intuitive in BG3 than Solasta, though the pathfinding is much worse. On the other hand, the camera controls in BG3 leave much to be desired. In the toll house in particular, kept finding the camera jumping up to the roof instead of letting me navigate the level where my characters were.

I love Larian's storytelling and for those saying this doesn't feel like DND, I would wager you didn't play Descent Into Avernus. This is very much the DND world that Wizards has us playing in today.

All in all, I prefer BG3 but something really must be done about performance and looting. I would rather play Solasta at this point, not because its the better game but because it is a far better balance of time spent.

Edit: I nearly forgot... in Solasta the character most capable of doing a thing, does a thing, not whomever happens to be doing the talking. While I can see a certain logic to the latter, far too often dialog is initiated by an NPC with the wrong character. Makes perfect sense for someone else to be able to step forward and take over the conversation or whatever. Just as a for instance, you have a character with a 10 DEX and no slight of hand talking to Matti, but you have Astarion in your party. It makes perfect sense for him to see what is going on and be able to interject his knowledge. Sitting back and letting PC get taken advantage of doesn't further his situation at all.

Also, in 5e, friendly characters do not block movement. Why are we having to spend our entire movement to walk around a character when, from all appearances, it would be quite easy to simply pass by them?

The tons of loot containers is a big issue for me. It feels like they literally only exist to bloat playtime. It made sense to have them in DOS2 because you had a chance of triggering Lucky Charm and finding rare loot in every container, but no such mechanic exists (or even should) within BG3.

There's also the angle of the fact that someone had to spend time programming all these empty loot containers. Like... Why?

On average, the amount of time "programming" a placeable is: Place it where you want it, check a box that says "Lootable".

With 50+ containers in many of these rooms that's still a lot of time that could have been spent other places.

That entirely depends on what jobs the terrain devs have, doesn't it? If their job is decorations in a zone, including buildings, trees, rocks, etc., then they aren't taking any time away from scripts, or story, since it's not in their job description. I'd be hard pressed to find a room with 50+ containers though, do tell, which rooms are those?

The basement of the toll house. (and yes, perhaps I was being a tad hyperbolic but there are a LOT of pointless containers in this game)

BG 3 is more polished than Solasta, you say? This is confusing, as Solasta is superior is every context except for graphics and story reactivity, which I think BG 3 excels at. I understand BG 3 is in early access, but it is rife with bugs, radical imbalances, and premature design. At least, I hope it's premature design. Otherwise, the mechanics of this game will be an utter chore to suffer through just to experience the story.

Haha, the Solasta Bg3 comparisons have been discussed to death on these forums. At the end of the day I have played Solasta through 1.5 times and BG3 I have played through upwards of 60-70 times. I actually lost count, am at over 1100 hours.

I am hoping that Solasta adds native multiplayer and when that happens I will return to it. It's a fun game in its own way as a tactical experience.

DOS2 had tons of stuff, what bothered me was that you picked up a magical item and it felt the same as a sack of potato. Dull as the dull goes. DOS2 was like a dull/blunt sword, through-and-through, they really gotta sharpen it and make it pierce occasionally, well on regular basis.

Larian reminds me of Monty Python. CLICK

For the record it was an AWFUL mechanic even there. but at least as you said it had a mechanical justification.

Here, it seems to be a thing just to give players some (fairly annoying) busywork, because gods only know if there isn't enough messy inventory management already.

Someone I was playing with yesterday accidentally hit "Take All" from their traveller's chest which was LOADED with food. It took him like 5 mins to move it all back, one item at a time with the laggy drag

So I finally began playing Solasta over the weekend. I am LOVING it and having a blast playing it. It is sooooo good in every way. Even the combat, where I generally dislike TB combat, is actually quite nice. So artwork and character images are not very high quality. So what? It doesn't bother me at all. It looks good enough for me, and that's all that matters.

I only have three complaints about the game. Two are the same things I berate BG3 for, while the third is going to be handled by the business model for the game I am beginning to see happening:
No multi-classing
Party size limited to 4
Not enough content/game world is small

That last one is where it looks like TA's model for this game is going to be something similar to what was originally envisioned for NwN, which is the release of the core game with a built-in campaign, and then regular release of new campaigns for the game as DLCs (along with the tools being provided for user-made campaigns). And this I very much LIKE!! Some people are unhappy with the DLC campaigns approach and throw around silly claims of it being cash-grabs. I however am more than happy to spend $20 on a 30+ hours new campaign DLC every six months or so.

Ah, but then there's Dungeon Maker. They even just had a contest for it to encourage players to design new dungeons so there are even more for other players to enjoy,. Smart move. Get the players to make more story quests and such for free for everyone.

I've been very impressed with Solasta, especially after they released the Barbarian/ Druid DLC. I LOVE my half-orc barbarian and half-orc druid. My druid wild shapes into a wolf and had a spirit bear companion. All done very well, and at later levels my druid can shift into other animals like bears, eagles, etc. Nice list of them that you can see immediately so you know what you have to look forward to. Makes you want to work for it.

So well done.

In so many ways, Solasta kicks BG3's butt. That's why I'm out here. I want them to reverse card it and beat the tar out of Solasta by implementing serious RPG mechanics and UI. Stop farting around with gimmicks and exploits, and give us a Great RPG sequel.

Amen!

Nothing matters more than actual gameplay, and Solasta DESTROYS BG3 in that regard. BG3 feels archaic in comparison. Pretty graphics and tale tale cinematic dialogues wont save it.
Make it more in line with D&D (gameplay) and the previous game BG2 (atmosphere), however will.
But who cares. People now-days WATCH more than actual PLAY games. And pretty graphics cringy dialogues is a lot more watchable than interesting strategic gameplay.

Agreed! Larian seems obsessed with combat speed while ignoring things that really slow the game down.

Let's be real, BG3 is a far far far far far better game than Solasta.

Solasta does some stuff well that Larian can learn from, but only in select areas.

That is highly debatable...


While I really hate Solasta's character models and don't like the setting, it is by far superior to BG3 when it comes to gameplay. There's actually a lot Larian can and should learn from Solasta. Especially regarding reactions, shove and ready actions...

If better cinematics, a complex story, and player agency = better game then okay.

But, Larian is SO MUCH BIGGER than Owlcat and Tactical Adventures. So, I don't understand why we can't have as many subclasses as Pathfinder and a combat system as well done as Solasta along with the BG3 cinematics.

Because Pathfinder works with top down sprites low quality models with a good but not complete range of voice acting.. BG3 uses motion trackers for theyre 3 models's facial expressions and most animations. AND most of pathfinder subclasses only reuse mechanics from other classes for the most part. Bloodrager is a Barbarian/Sorcerer, Skald is a Barbarian/Bard ect. While DnD 5e bring in brand new mechanics that needs to be programmed in.