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

The old Baldur’s Gate games had “core” rules settings. Solasta was a proof of concept that modern DnD combat rules could be translated to a modern video game.

While still falling short of either the old Baldur’s Gate core rules option or actually trying to translate all translatable parts of 5e combat rules, BG3 combat has moved in the direction of 5e combat rules. I think most people would agree that most, if not all, of the changes to bring BG3 in-line with 5e have improved the game.

I'm not so sure, really. There is a *lot* of rules and content. I doubt that if you take a random hundred things they implemented you can point at 35 things that are not. Still, certain things are things that come up all game long, like a action/bonus action swap. But other things are only there because it makes it playable. Like the Beastmaster, or the Monk.

Regardless, I find it hard to judge. At out TT games, we went from AD&D to 3.5 to 4E and immediately to Pathfinder, back to 3.5 and settled on 5E. And every system took us a fair amount of time to really get the hang of en decide what we thought of it. We've always found things we didn't like [look up 3.5 Grappling rules or 4E in general] and homebrewed what we didn't care for right out. It's... part of it, too. I get it if you play this more as a competitive wargame or somesuch. Back when there were stores dedicated to tabletop games - they'd have D&D tournaments where everything obviously needed to be RAW. I get that, and I also get why you'd want that.

But from a roleplaying standpoint... I just don't really care all that much. It is there for us to tell our story, and for this game that's what I hope it does, and it most assuredly will.

My favorite thing about Soalsa might be the UI. BG3 uses a hotbar system which might be ok for martial classes but spellcasters are going to fill those bars with spells quickly. Not to mention special weapon attacks, potions, scrolls, toggles like non-lethal, etc. They do have the tabs at the bottom that give you different hotbars for items, class features, etc and you can extend it upwards for more slots but that just blocks more of the screen, and you constantly have to open the character sheet to drag new spells, items, and such to the hotbar for each character. It's time consuming to have to set up your hotbars and always adjusting them throughout the game.

Solasta however did an amazing job with their D&D UI. The basic layout looks the same for any class. You have a button for Actions, Bonus Actions, Items, Class Features, Spells, and so on. Clicking any of those then expands to show the options. It makes for a consistent layout no matter what class you are playing and there is no need for you to spend time dragging every spell and ability to a hotbar slot for each character in the party. The UI just looks the same for every character without you having to do anything but at the same time is super easy to find what you want and to see what actions you still have available.

Took me a moment to dig it up again, but here you go: https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-will-combine-the-best-of-divinity-and-dandd-5th-edition/

Thanks a lot for the link ! It's a bit of a sad interview to read, but nothing really surprising.

For me, personally, it isn't a comparison of the games as a whole, but rather, wanting the bones of the system to function the way that they should. I don't mind some changes here and there but some of the decisions Larian made just felt odd and unnecessary.

I saw a comment about Solasta being soulless, and I couldn't disagree more. It felt like a game created by passionate fans of 5e (with waaay less budget, mind). The way the game runs and treats the system shows they have intimate knowledge of how it should run because they've probably played it.

Now, I respect the hell out of Larian and the work they've put into the game, but the game can feel clunky and unwieldy at times when you know how certain aspects of the system should run. It feels a lot more restrictive where it shouldn't. Even with the new reaction system, some things like Bardic Inspiration slip through the cracks.

Mostly, I think the discourse is happening because Larian has full use of the official license. That is so rare nowadays that it does feel like Larian should be obligated to fulfill certain expectations. For example, I am really happy with what we're getting at launch, but I'll be extremely disappointed if they don't at least add more of the highly requested subclasses as DLC. It feels like the least they could do with post-launch content.

Unfortunately, Swen seems to be signalling that they may not release DLC at all, and leave the rest of the work up to modders, but that's a different discussion.

Solasta is a labour's if people who actually like what they're working.

Bg3 is about making as much money as possible hence bragging about how much money they're making. The sad part of it is that bg3 is dnd enough that a lot if people who buy the game are gonna be dissappinted that the game is dnd despite all the changes.

Those are the ones who pay full price and will stop playing within 2 hour max. Meanwhile, those of us 'complaining' about the rules changes will play and enjoy the game largely because it is dnd.

The best parts of the game are dnd.

I think there's an interesting to thing to consider when we discuss the desire for this game to be more in line with 5e RAW. From the beginning of EA, I cannot recall anyone who's had issues with the changes to Rangers, or if they are, they've since accepted it far more than they will have accepted any other changes. That is an object lesson in the fact that people absolutely can get in board with rule changes and those asking for RAW aren't simply purists. Also, people are generally in favour of reactions and lessened surfaces, all moves towards 5e. I think keeping in mind those things is a worthwhile perspective.

No i'm not going to be a shoe polisher nor a knight defender for game devs. Don't be fooled that game devs made no mistake and they are perfect. Hell no. The way i see it Larian develop their games to appeal to general audience and try to appeal more casuals who may not play dnd nor know what is it about. I've played Solasta and yes the faces are look atrociously ugly for real. But i have a great time enjoying the games with many playthroughs using different builds. And even multiclassing... via mods. Have so much fun in Solasta. And one thing i like the most is that it is "lite" on story but more on dnd5e gameplay. To me gameplay > long winded stories.

I can see Larian is taking the heavy story and RPG path rather than focusing it being a dnd5e game first. To me most of the time when i play a heavy story with dialogue games.. i tend to listen to those spoken voice overs the first time. And it feels awesome and nice. For the first few hours, yeah fine.. i could tolerate that.. but moving on.. with heavy spoken dialogues i felt the game is going to bore me to death. The next subsequent playthrough i probably just skip the spoken dialogues and chose my answer immediately. Moral of the story for me is gameplay > story first. Not to say story isn't important, but gameplay come first.

Your personal preferences in gaming do not in any way correlate with devs being mistaken or not, on any part. One man's loss is another man's gain. Liking things is not 'shoe polishing' same as disliking things is not 'simply trolling'.

Agreed. Baldur's Gate 3 vs Solasta, video-game vs pen & paper, is a bit of a false dichotomy. Most of the criticisms were on the amount of bad/needless homebrew as opposed to there being homebrew at all.

That said, I think the changes Larian did to the Ranger was pretty unimaginative and poor. The most central criticism of the 5e PHB Ranger is having overly situational/RP abilities.

Larian's Natural Explorer version needlessly went into the same trap. Instead of giving specific resistances for instance (which aren't really immersive - a desert dweller doesn't suddenly have skin of asbestos), providing the Ranger access to a spell such as "Absorb Elements" (1st level reaction that gives elemental resistance to any elemental damage for that round) would be a more versatile and elegant option. Cold resistance is a "trap selection" (imbalance that will hurt uninformed players) given how rare such damage is relative to fire or poison.

Larian's Favored Enemy version is even more lackluster for the most part giving access to one skill and a concentration spell that will have to compete with the likes of Hunter's Mark and others. This includes another bad "trap selection" like True Strike (a spell that really would have benefitted from homebrew but didn't get it) which no one should use. Instead they could have made Hunter's Mark for instance a free-cast, not require concentration, or have advantage on concentration checks, given expertise on two skills of their choice, or some such.

You know many would argue Solasta is a monetized proof of concept, its strange to see somone claim its devs have more passion for their work than larian does. Especially with all the community stuff larian does.

In an interview, Sven said that when he told his people about the BG license with excitement, their answer was "what is BG?"

Yes they are good and hard working developers, but DnD lovers they are not.

Most of his crew are too young to have played the og games and its not like Skyrim where they have released overhauls every few years

There isn't much I can add to this discussion, but there is one thing in a post I want to address:


I know that this is (hopefully) more of a taste thing, but I want to point out that this sentence makes little sense. A lot of D&D adventures, from OD&D to (A)D&D 5 are heavy on the story. The entire game evolved because people wanted more story and personality in their wargames. And there are tables where the story and social encounters are actually more common than actual fighting.

It may not be your preference, but it is still something D&D 5E offers.

I beg to differ, Beamdog BG enhanced was released in 2012~13. But maybe it was a hit only to old players.

Yeah but it was still the same outdated engine also 2012 was a decade ago so still potentially an age issue. A lot of Swens crew looks to be in their 20's

Doesn't matter if some of the team didn't know about the og games, trying to use that as a way to insinuate the current team doesn't care is just gatekeepy.

That’s an odd thing to admit to, and not necessarily damning depending on who said it. CRPG genre isn’t sprawling enough for BG1&2 not to pop up among foundational RPGs - even if one didn’t play it for fun, one would expect to run into it during research - but not everyone on team needs to be informed, immersed or even like RPGs to do their job well.

At the same time if key figures are unfamiliar with genre’s history, it would explain some bizarrely inefficient designs, like the control scheme.

Oh, you must have just started gaming this last week, so you must be unaware of companies that put out half finished games and then expect you to pay for the game to be finished.

Or you must not have heard of Loot boxes, p2win, cash shops and superficial DLC.

None of which are in Bg3 and Larian doesn't have a habit of doing any of that stuff. I think they once released a single squirrel-themed DLC. Once. It was $2.

Also, the money the game makes will determine the quality and level of their next project, and that's I think the only reason they care. Money does matter, and it SHOULD matter to you if you had any idea what was at stake here.

Dev's are already QQ'ing about this game because it contains more in scope and depth then they are putting out - trying to shovel the same crap down people's throats and expecting them to not complain. Also because it doesn't have any extra monetization or microtransactions, which just makes them look even worse.

Blizzard JUST released a trash game called Diablo IV that was as usual a complete bait and switch - and people lapped up the marketing bullshit and shoveled that crap down their gullets and then *surprise pikachu face* when blizzard fucked them.

Don't worry, they will do it again next year I am sure. "There's a sucker born every minute" after all.

And you think Tactical Adventures doesn't care about money? The same thing I said about Larian applies to them. The money they make will determine their next project. They have FIVE DLC's that they released. They have hardcore fans that bought those all at full price plus the supporter pack, which is $83.94...for Solasta!

A buddy of mine is rather into City Skylines, and it looked fun. So I went unto Steam, didn't really go through the DLC and just told steam to Add it to Cart and include all the DLC.....Well over a thousand bucks!