Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The 'Solasta argument' and why it's irrelevant to me

Sorry but I really have to disagree with you there. That may be your anecdotal experience, but it is certainly not statistically accurate. I would absolutely qualify myself as a hardcore CRPG D&D fan. I've been playing D&D CRPGS since Icewind Dale 1, and I've replayed every Solasta campaign at least twice now, and have also thoroughly enjoyed many of the community created dungeons. Are the narrative elements of Solasta compelling? No, they aren't, but they're still fun, and I kept playing Solasta long after I stopped replaying BG3 specifically because I didn't like how much BG3 had diverged from the 5e mechanics.

I'm sure I'll enjoy BG3's immersive narrative and choices with actual consequence. I'm also sure that I'll be frustrated with things not working the way I've become accustomed to from playing 5e both at the table and in Solasta.

You know, at this point, with all the DLC, Solasta is more expensive than BG3.

EDIT: Oh I see it's on sale again for $38 buckaroos.

I found solasta to not be faithful to 5thed as 5thed emphasizes RP and creative solutions, it's why a lot of the rules where compressed from 3.5, but when all you have is just combat (yes the combat is faithful) then even thou it is faithful it really is not faithful, as the spirit of 5th ed is missing in its entirety. Solasta gives you no agency at all, you get teleported as a party for most fights so no tactical anything, choices do not matter, and there is almost zero tactical play in Solasta beyond, drag a wall of fire with 2 casters and watch everything die as the brain dead AI just runs through it

Solasta Lightbringers edition (which includes all DLC) is $38.78 on Steam right now. That is with a 54% discount, but sales happen often enough on Steam that you can guarantee them if you are patient.

BG3 is listed at $59.99. Eventually it too will be on sale, but I wager it will be quite a while (a year maybe?) before you can buy it at 38.78.

The problem is, I have no clue what those reasons could be. Larian doing the other stuff you mentioned doesn’t require messing up the combat system. As far as I can tell Larian just breaks aspects of the existing system for no benefit that I can see.

I am not 5e purist. Most issues I have with combat, were there before I played Solasta or read up on 5e. It’s just easy to point to the other 5e game and say: “see it works better without your interference”.

Solasta- made by Tactical Adventures- is in fact tactical DND. They put a story around it but it's really a sequence of DND battles one after the other.

BG 3 battles, at least in EA, are not as fun [DUCKS]. BG 3 is much more about production value, graphics and the story. I'm incredibly excited but if I'm honest, I value the player characters and showcasing their talents in fights the most. The story I often find myself space barring my way thru. I don't want that to be true- I wish I was a story person but it's still hard to get into a store from a video game for me.

Maybe with release- that will change for me. I hope so!

Well said! Especially in games I replay over and over, the combat quickly becomes an annoying chore that has to be taken care of for the story to progress

I mean it's a matter of opinion and of course playstyle so if you find them less fun then I get that has been your experience.

You don't have to duck, you expressed your opinion respectfully.

To me, they are the most fun I have ever had in a tactical, turn based RPG - but as everyone knows I play multiplayer with my fellow chooms.

Then again I also play singleplayer (often streamed into the Discord) and I still love the battles there as well (but mainly I like being able to slowly read everything and explore).

Whereas with Solasta I found the tactical battles just "ok" because you can't really interact much with the environment, and the engine doesn't cover some scenarios that the PHB allows but just are not supported. There is a lack of flexibility. Also the writing, dialogue, VA, graphics, interactions, and overall story are all subpar with no real choice or replayability.

But, we have had this discussion many times on these forums, and I want to say that in a positive sense Larian finally relented and focused some resources on putting in reactions which I will always be grateful to Solasta - for inspiring people to push them to do. It made the game better.

Solasta is a (very)poor man's Temple of Elemental Evil, that's it. Great DnD combat, everything else is pathetic, laughably so. Hmm to be honest scratch it, it's waay worse than ToEE.

BG3 is on a whole nother level.

Still, I enjoyed Solasta very much. Just because DnD is that good. But I also enjoyed latest Owlcat Pathfinder RPGs, which can indicate that I actually have terrible taste, and I'm just obsessed with DnD.

The BG vs Solasta 'debate' has been rehashed many times on these forums - why start yet another thread? The design decisions Larian have made are locked in now - with no way to opt out of the changes - and those who wanted a more authentic 5e experience have been sidelined. That's certainly what it feels like to me. Larian *could* have provided for both 'camps' by simply following older BG titles and having a 'core rules' option - that was requested many times. And no, I don't see mods as a satisfactory alternative (1) they are not part of the game I paid for and mist be made by third parties (and they can break with every patch/update ) and (2) they can't fix everything. That said, I will likely end up trying them to see what they can fix.

Another note for the Solasta critics - you could turn off several features of 5e rules if you didn't like them. PF: WotR did the same - plenty of options to configure the game rules as you liked. At least in EA, Larian has not provided anything like that, so I doubt it's in the final game (sure that would have been mentioned).

I enjoy both but prefer BG3. I like being able to interact more with your companions and others. I also enjoy being able to talk your way out of situations if needed or persuade people.

I think this is a strawman. Most people don't avoid Solasta due to their strict adherence to 5e rules, but rather because franky, it's ugly as hell, and barely an rpg. It's a combat simulator, and if people are looking for that, then awesome. Trying to argue that strict 5e rules are boring/slow/etc isn't fair. And this is coming from someone that doesn't particularly like 5e.

I confess I haven't yet finished Solasta as about half way through the main campaign (I think) the FPS dropped to single figures. I later tracked the issue down to something that had absolutely nothing to do with the game and resolved it, but by then my momentum had been broken.

Before then, I did really enjoy the game, and was even impressed by how much my party came to life based on just a voiceset and some fairly simple personality traits. And I did enjoy most of the combat. Which I guess is just as well as the story seemed quite thin, though I certainly didn't find it as bad as some folk seem to. One of these days I will go back and finish it.

But for all I think it's a fun game and BG3 had things to learn from it, like reactions, it's not what I wanted BG3 to be. Whereas, for my tastes and preferences at least, Larian have nailed it, with far fewer caveats than I'd expect in a game of this size and complexity.

Fortunately there's room for both games, as well as many other takes on cRPGs, so we don't have to choose!

This is pure conjecture, but I suspect that a lot of the changes, especially things like shove as a bonus action, are things that rarely and situationally a human DM would let you get away with if you made a strong case for why it could be reasonable in that particular scenario.

Since we don't have the benefit of a human DM, the design choice boils down to "should players have options that a human DM might occasionally allow?" And since the only two possible answers to that question ate "no, never," or "yes, it's allowed," to my thinking that's a no-brainer. People who need shove to be a full action are perfectly welcome to forgo their action on a turn when they shove.

And let's be real, shoving has been *way* toned down from what it was a couple years ago, so there's way less cause to use it. Also, you do have to be careful and selective yourself - "after I shove this dude, do I have enough movement to get clear of this spot that's obviously a good place to shove from?"

People who want to cheese shove as a bonus action will learn to be much more selective in their use of it.

I guess the point in trying to get at is that I'm fully on board with OP in this, and many of these rule changes are good because they can make your game feel more like table top.

(I'm not feeling as generous when it comes to race ability scores, but oh well, I refuse to let that stop me from fully enjoying the game)

Off topic, but since you brought it up...what? Forgoing your action is not at all equivalent to shove being an action by default
1.) Shove being an attack-equivalent action would mean characters with Extra Attack could shove multiple times per turn. This doesn't extend to the BA shove in BG3 though.
2.) BA shoving and willingly forgoing your action means you've lost your bonus action that'd you have had otherwise per RAW

Edit: To keep this post at least partially on topic, I'll echo what others have said. The (or at least my) Solasta Argument was that Solasta implemented 5e rules mostly RAW and was fun (according to me and the many positive reviews on steam). Thus, for many rules, Larian didn't *need* to significantly change 5e rules to make them work in a video game; Solasta showed otherwise.

Well said! I would encourage you to dive back in and finish the main campaign, especially if you've purchased the Palace of Ice DLC that immediately follows it. Fun stuff. Your post also reminds me that I am actually excited about a lot of what is going make BG3 exactly what it is: compelling narrative quality with meaningfully consequential choices. Who knows, I might actually even just learn to ignore all the differences between the 5e rules that I have come to know and love and Larian's choices.

My point of view is pretty simple on this. I'm glad I'm playing BG3 and not Solasta.

And I trust Larian more than some folks online who believe they could have designed BG3 better by making it more like Solasta, mechanically.

It's one thing to say, "I really like Soalsta and wish BG3 was more like that." --that's just an expression of opinion, which is understandable.

Unfortunately, it often comes across as... well, different.

+1

Honestly by the time I got to the end of Solasta I was relieved to not have to deal with the combat anymore, it was just stifling.

That and the "uncanny valley*" faces of the characters. So creepy.

However, I am grateful that on some level it made me a better player and gave me a better understanding of 5e rules.

*The uncanny valley phenomenon can be described as an eerie or unsettling feeling that some people experience in response to not-quite-human figures like humanoid robots and lifelike computer-generated characters.

Uncanny valley or Cabbage Patch Kids

Larian claimed bg3 was gonna be 95% 5e compliant. It's more like 65%.

As for Solasta. It's vastly superior to TOEE in almost every way contrary to what a poster above claimed.

Admittedly, Solasta's writing leaves a lot to be desired, but not like Larian are writing masters, either.

I know Solasta is fun. I expect BG3 to be fun.