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

I mean, it's as good as any, and in fact probably better than most "videogame-specific" systems around (Dragon Age? Mass Effect? DOS 2?).

And while I was never the biggest 5th edition Stan around (if anything, the more I learn about it, the more over-simplified it sounds) I can't really say I'm struggling to prefer it by a wide margin to a lot of the custom modifications Larian introduced on it.

@tuco, yeah, i'm not making excuses for BG3's flaws and janky stuff, its more that 5e combat doesn't really excite me very much compared to 2e or Pathfinder, and so the major draw for me to BG3 is all the "other" stuff that comes with making a big budget rpg

Well if you mean Neverwinter MMO that was DnD 4 edition and it was very complicated rules. I played Neverwinter MMO over a year with same friend that said he could play Baldurś Gate 3 with me and my brother. Neverwinter MMO is action combat, but the rules and levelup is not simple you can really mess your character if you do not know best level up choices.

With my brother I played World of Warcraft MMO and continued when it was at top height GLORY with the most popular expansion Wrath of Lich King when it had at peak level over 12 million active players paying monthly sub fee. I quit WOW MMO when Panda expansion was released and my brother quit WOW even before me.

I have also played BG1, BG2 and Neverwinter Nigths 1 and Neverwinter Nights 2.

Best DnD rules and yes I have played pen and paperDnd here according to me these are excellent:
2nd edition BG1 and BG2, DnD 3.5 Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, Pathfinder (that is like evolved DnD 3.5++).

The worst Dnd rules according to me?
Dnd 4th edition. It got much negative feedback. Very complicated rules and they removed much dice rolling and Wizards of the Coast decided to make Dnd 5th edtion a step towards old rules back to dice throwing and more simple rules.
Dnd4th edtion is like Windows 8 to me. I like Windows 7 and Windows 10, but I do not like Windows 8.

DnD 5th rules?
Fairly good though personally not my top favorite rules.

I have played with my brother lots of Pen and Paper roleplaying games of mostly DnD 3.5, but also other roleplaying games GURPS fantasy game etc.

I think that's part of the consensus too, that Pathfinder has better combat than 5e. (Never played Pathfinder, but I have several friends who play both D&D and Pathfinder).

At release I'm sure BG3 will still have some homebrew in there. (Personally I just want to keep providing feedback to where we get good homebrew, or at least the current homebrew can shine.)

I do not know of any DnD 4th edition (and did not like those rules) computer game except Neverwinter MMO.

Anyway Wizards of the Coast usually like to market their newest version so you got DnD 5th edition Baldur's Gate 3 or Solasta. Well that or you can try the new Pathfinder. A little warning though if Dnd 3.5 is simple well Pathfinder is evolved Dnd 3.5 at least slightly more complicated then DnD 3.5.

+1 (though I continue to have a soft spot for 3.5e)

People (not you) in this forum (and in this thread) continue to conflate disliking Larian's homebrew rules with wanting 5e purity. A person can like or dislike 5e. A person can like or dislike Larian's homebrew rules in BG3. The two things are separate and independent factors and a person's preference in one does not determine their preference in the other.

I find "Mathfinder", D&D 3.5 and other games work well in a videogame because the game engine makes all the calculations for you, and you do not have to spend a year playing a character to reach level 12, so you can try different builds faster, or change your character or paty composition mid-game, etc.

So you have ton of options to character and party building to try in a way that is easy and fun.

D&D5e favors roleplay, is newbie friendly, and easy to play in PnP, but the options in combat and the character creation are MUCH more limited and neither videogames included multiclassing. Even I enjoy my D&D5e games I do not find the combat and character creation that 5e provides particularly engaging to play in a videogame, to be honest; at least if you compare it with other tabletop games that were turned into videogames, like pathfinder, shadowrun, Mutant year Zero, D&D3.5 (Knights of the chalice), the Dark eye (drakensang and realms of arkania games), etc.

The two games we have of 5e are still fun to play, each for different reasons.

Tactical Adventures released their Solasta update today with full patch notes. it includes Sorcerer Class, new spells, bug fixes, new items and 2 new campaigns.

fml

Hey Vic, surprise! I completely agree with you on this.

[quote=Terminator2020]Well first of all. I have already bought Baldur's Gate 3 and support this game. I have played Early Access.

I have not played Solasta so can not honestly speak from own experience.

They do not directly are competing since release date is so far away from each other. Solasta release date was May 27th 2021.
Baldur's Gate 3 release date is year 2022 or year 2023.

Well so you could buy both games and I do not criticize anyone doing that.

Baldur's Gate 3:
+ Cinematic effects and story!
+ Best graphics of these games.
+ Romance and perhaps even nudity.
+ Character creation is very visual...
+ Baldur's Gate 3 is an upcoming turn based RPG game that takes places in Forgotten Realms DnD setting in terms of lore this is a DnD nerds wet dream!
+ This is the only game of these that has officially multiplayer without any mods (cooperative play up to maximum 4 players can also be played solo).
+ Created by Larian Studios creators of huge success game Divinity Original Sin 2.
Neutral . Less strict to pen and paper rules then Solasta much less... but more or less based on DnD 5th edition rules.
+Super much versatility you can easily sink of hours into Early Access despite not all classes yet released.
+ If you want fully voice acted and cinematic experience and make your choices this is the game to play.
+ Excellent music and very good sound world (I cant comment on music and sound on Solasta have not played that.)
- This is the game that is most further away in development release date 2022 or 2023.
- There are so many changes coming but some balancing could be made now in patch 5 they make so in order to rest you need food so they are restricting resting. Well and Patch 5 release date is on Tuesday next week so now I do not know how that is going to be really with patch 5.
- The companions are sometimes well a bit annoying they are also making changes to companion behavior to less hostile and annoying again in patch 5 release.
- The camera control could be improved as it is now it is kind of ok but not very good.
I like BG3 very much rate it 9/10.

[/b]Going to answer to these items as its a game OP has played. I spent time with BOTH games and I can provide better feed back.


Baldur's Gate 3:
+ Cinematic effects and story! -[b] Is this a comparison or just a statement? They are both cinematic games with story telling.
+ Best graphics of these games. - I mean they are ok, but nothing to brag about.
+ Romance and perhaps even nudity. - Im not 12 and cannot think of a single game improved by "nudity". Get out more?
+ Character creation is very visual... - as it is in Solasta, which I feel has more options.
+ Baldur's Gate 3 is an upcoming turn based RPG game that takes places in Forgotten Realms DnD setting in terms of lore this is a DnD nerds wet dream! - Yes, but Larian is just making D:OS 3 in that setting, which makes me sad.
+ This is the only game of these that has officially multiplayer without any mods (cooperative play up to maximum 4 players can also be played solo).- Yes but without information on character saves/exports, youre just starting over every time you play with friends.
+ Created by Larian Studios creators of huge success game Divinity Original Sin 2. - It was successful in a niche market. I bought it and I hate it.
Neutral . Less strict to pen and paper rules then Solasta much less... but more or less based on DnD 5th edition rules. - More but less? There is too much D:OS in this game, not enough 5e
+Super much versatility you can easily sink of hours into Early Access despite not all classes yet released. - One playthrough, walked away angry I bought it. MEH at best.
+ If you want fully voice acted and cinematic experience and make your choices this is the game to play. - How do you know? Both were early access until recently and D:OS3 doesnt give you any idea what decision you make that might cause later issues, none.....can you give examples?
+ Excellent music and very good sound world (I cant comment on music and sound on Solasta have not played that.) - Exactly you dont know.
- This is the game that is most further away in development release date 2022 or 2023. - Yup and that sucks. It means we bought EA 2 years early, which is not how this should work - Star Citizen, looking at you!
- There are so many changes coming but some balancing could be made now in patch 5 they make so in order to rest you need food so they are restricting resting. Well and Patch 5 release date is on Tuesday next week so now I do not know how that is going to be really with patch 5. - Thursday now and honestly I hate resourcing for a rest. Just make a "survival mode" for the purist.
- The companions are sometimes well a bit annoying they are also making changes to companion behavior to less hostile and annoying again in patch 5 release. - They are always annoying - Rapey Vampire is gross - Grumpy Gith is annoying - Grumpy Elf is annoying - Magic Item eating Mage -no thanks - One eyed Warlock fencer - Bland as hell. Can I bring the skeleton that resurrects with me?
- The camera control could be improved as it is now it is kind of ok but not very good. - Its terrible, especially for none gamers. My wife wont play it until there is another camera option, which isnt a big deal as I dont want to play it as is.
I like BG3 very much rate it 9/10. - Its a 6.5/10 at best! That's being generous. They are already backing off some of the things they promised. No GM mode, no paladins. This game is going to be a shitty version of D&D because Larian is lazy and just wants to make D:OS 3.

I agree with some of your points, but this one I think is not fair. They don't have paladins THIS PATCH! That does not mean that they will never have paladins, and I'm pretty sure that they have never backed off of their commitment to have all players handbook classes in the game at release. We just have to wait for it.

I mean, there' a lot of BG3 one could legitimately like or dislike, but it's hard to argue against the fact that when it comes to CRPGs in particular its current production value and visuals seem to be more or less at the pinnacle of the genre so far.

As we are not likely to see a renaissance of 2.0 (much less 1.0) in gaming, and will hopefully never see a return of 4.0, I'm in agreement with the above as well. 5.0 is neat, tidy, and tactically clean - kind of the Felix Unger of D & D - it can keep me occupied if well done, but it isn't inspiring. Pathfinder's 3.x implementation is Oscar Madison, messier, with flourishes here and head - scratchers there - but leaves me far more satisfied and excited as a rule.

I personally find some of Larian's home brew - use of height, environmental factors impacted by spells, shoving, barrelmancy and so on - to greatly increase my enjoyment and immersion in the game - when they are situational, balanced and properly implemented. That balance is, as many have pointed out, not there yet - but I still have high hopes it will be achieved. In all my playthroughs, I have shoved a total of 3 mobs - each time when I thought it was the right situation and when I felt it was something the character would do under the circumstances presented - it was fun, satisfying and something I would repeat - again only if I felt it right at the time. I've yet to even look twice at a barrel - however, show me a battle in an alchemists lab, or a brewery, where a barrel of explosive or toxic materials SHOULD be found, and assuming it is already in a story-appropriate location combat-wise, I wouldn't hesitate to blow it the hell up and take some mobs out - again, totally circumstantial. Ask me to drag around a barrel (forget multiple barrels) and I'm going to ask why in gods name would someone voluntarily wander around with a freaking armed bomb tied to their back?

Solasta is the fairy tale I read back when I was starting to read - young and inexperienced - BG3 is the original Grimm version I read much later in life. Both serve a purpose, both provide a level of satisfaction, but two entirely different weight classes.

To an earlier comment, in my limited experience with the Neverwinter MMO, it is not a good translation of 4e rules.
Most of the problems with 4e is that it had very high numbers and abilities would do a lot which needed to resolve and be explained slowing down combat a lot.
Put that into a videogame however, the abilities would just go off and the numbers would automatically be handled thereby speeding combat up immensely.

I kinda do want to see a proper 4e game, but as a system it has gotten so much negativity that likely will not happen, even with some coming back to it and recognizing it isn't as bad as many claimed or finding that many issues are in framing (like world of lights vs many worlds of dnd thing).

The source of negativity with 4e was not as much as the game system than the awful lore revamp they made for 4e. It was such a mess that 5e lore is basically wipe out all 4e and restore Abeir and Toril to pre-spellplague status plus a few things.

Same answer for both of these: Play Solasta. If you do, if you like D&D mechanics there is no way you would call the combat "ok". It is the one aspect that even negative reviews acknowledge as brilliant and one of the best translations of tabletop to video game.

Rule implementation mostly. When criticisms started to show regarding combat Larian stated that the tabletop could not be translated to a video game format. Then Solasta came out and not only adpated almost 100% faithfully, its combat specially got much praise and is regarded as better than BG3, exactly because it follows the tabletop. I think this will taint BG3's reputation in the future because of the same motives you pointed.
Why can't a 400 people team with 200+ million dollars make a combat that is faithful to the tabletop whereas a 20 people team with 250k can?

I've had, or tried to have this discussion before. People who play,- and prefer - singleplayer rarely see the problem - which is fine they have a different set of prerogatives.

There are three pillars of D&D Adventuring -1) Exploration, 2) Social Interaction and 3) Combat. If you remove two of those pillars is it still D&D?

Solasta does well at implementing combat (to some extent), but there is no real exploration, and no social interaction. There is no real choice either and your actions are severely curtailed. Replay value is almost non-existent. The AI is not strong, you can't throw anything in inventory, they implement verticality then overuse it, etc. Sorry, I don't mean to get too much into the issues with how they handle combat.

And I respect that they did somewhat well with that small aspect of the game. However in this narrow focus they also create a combat that is somewhat dull and uninspiring. The other pillars of Adventuring should interact with each other to create more meaningful encounters depending on decisions you have made.

Anyway, that's just my experience. D&D without the group, and without meaningful choices seems like a furtive and sad act performed shamefully in a dark room.

Jesus, all you did was ignore what they said.

Combat feels bad in BG3. That's the comparison most people are making. Everything else so far, is fine. I'm still not sure why this is Baldur's Gate 3 rather than D&D: Mindflayer.

Despite what you say, A LOT of this game will be combat. Larian should aim to make it as fun as possible and Solasta shows that even though it's lacking in a lot of areas the combat is so strong, fun, and faithful to the ruleset it helps shore up its weaknesses.