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

I don't know if this is going to get thrown into other threads, but it is my opinion and I'm sure others will share it and have shared it before, and I have no idea at this point where the thread might be at to throw this one into.

Been playing Solasta today after the recent update and all I can say is the Solasta combat system has BG3's beat hands down no questions asked. Tactical Adventures has done the UI right, and Baldur's is losing to it HARD.

My suggestion here and feedback is that Larian would do well to copy Solasta's combat system as best they can or at least give us something close. I don't mean the grid movement and such. I like BG3's ability to move wherever during combat with the line movement and such. It's more fluid. I mean in terms of UI functionality and the ability to Ready Actions and control Reactions and spells and all the other things people have posted about. Solasta's UI and combat systems are SO much less frustrating and so much more true to D&D 5e ruleset and frankly a lot more fun. The initiative order works well and doesn't freak out and enemies don't take forever to take their turns.

Baldur's beats Solasta, in my opinion, in a LOT of ways. I love BG3 a lot more than Solasta because I feel a lot more drawn in by BG3. It has better graphics, better cutscenes, is more emotionally stimulating, the models are better, there is a lot more replayability and a lot more diversity in regards to where you can go and what you can do (at least in the Act 1 areas we are given. Solasta has BG3 beat now in that you can now travel the world map with the latest Patch, able to go to different world map locations). The story is more engaging and the acting, at least in my opinion, is better in BG3. BG3 has a LOT more potential to be a LOT more awesome than Solasta.

But in the UI department and combat system department and overall game mechanics department, Solasta wears the Crown (pun intended :P). I'm posting something similar to this on the Tactical Adventure's Solasta site as well. They may have a smaller budget and might not have all the things I mentioned above, Larian, but they are certainly giving you a run for your money. Frankly, their game is a lot less frustrating to play. You are going to have to step it up in the mechanics department or Solasta is actually going to kill BG3. They're doing an awesome job, and they are in EA too. So you can't use that as an excuse. They're even stepping up their side quest capabilities and they've even made a Dungeon Maker so people can craft their own adventures. Their inventory management is better, their merchant interactions are better and easier to use... it's all better from a User Friendly Player perspective. I even like that they limit a player's ability to just equip and unequip items and gear because frankly, logically speaking, a character shouldn't be able to just jump around like a super hero, drink a potion, equip a Two-Handed Sword after putting away their Long Sword and Shield, and then decide to go back to their Long Sword and Shield afterwards because they want to up their AC before an enemy attacks them.

You might be offended by this, and I'm sorry. I don't mean it to offend. It's just my honest feedback on things, and I'm only saying it because I love BG3 and am now worried that in the end BG3 is going to be left in the dust by Solasta. I WANT BG3 to be awesome. I want it to blow Solasta out of the water. I would really HATE for Larian to spend all this money and do all this work only to have Solasta destroy BG3. You HAVE to fix the game mechanics. You have to fix the UI. I know this post might sting, but whatever. It's my true, honest feedback, and I hope I'm not alone in this and you do something about it soon.

I'm mostly surprised the BG3 UI is so bad. Solasta has everything sorted so neatly and intuitively.

I can sort of understand a need to mainstream the game mechanics in BG3 and make the game more casual friendly. The budget is massive and it needs to sell millions of copies so it can't be a niche RPG. Then again.... you can have both an authentic 5e experience and a more casual power shoving pig head eating barreltastic experience through separate difficulty settings. And D&D 5e is hardly niche to begin with. D&D is peaking in popularity I've heard. So why mess with it too much.

So... Larian... please add a "D&D RAW" difficulty setting for BG3. Go play Solasta to see how great it is. And for the love of Gond, make a better UI.

I much preferred the way the UI was done in the previous franchises. BG1, IWD and BG2. Opening the Character sheet or Inventory screens was very much like looking at a book, as if you're actually creating a character and writing it's story. It was beautiful. I miss that look. Now all we get are colored straight line squares everywhere.

I really dont quite understand what do you want exactly. :-/

But there is only few UI changes i would apreciate ...
- And more space on hotbar (perferably like it was in early state).
- Allowing casting directly from spellbook (instead of adding spells on hotbar ONLY).
- Allowing us to give on hotbar all, or any specific spell level we want (there is no reason to have all spell levels in single button, if their effect is simply the same ... example: mage armor).
- And allowing us to re-cast with same icon we casted previous spell, instead of creating another icon we have to search in awfully overcrowded hotbar.

And most imporatantly of all this, i hope they dont start with some "pre-set" groups of things on the hotbar ... i just want to sort is as i see fit. :-/

When talking about UI it is important to differentiate between functionality and looks.
From functionality standpoint Solasta's UI leaves BG3 in the dust. It's grouped in a way that you will use your abilities. It is eather imideatly obvious where the button you need is, or you can easily gess, based on type of action it represents. And it is obviouse what type of resources it will cost.
Looks are subjective. And much easie to adgust. So I don't think that it requires much discussion.

Play Solasta. You'll see what I mean. The UI is fully functional and works like a charm. It's a great UI and the combat is fluid and smooth. The game rules make sense from a more realism perspective. If an enemy moves past you, you can decide whether or not to use your Reaction or save it for another enemy. If an enemy casts Magic Missiles at you, you can use your Reaction to throw up the Shield spell if you know it. You can ready a melee attack or ranged attack. Bonus actions are just that, bonus actions. You don't disengage from combat and attack someone in the same turn nor do you use a potion as a bonus action but as an Action.

Why do I think all this is superior? Because it makes the game balanced and it makes each skill set and class and ability set unique and meaningful. You don't have rogues dashing, dashing again, and then dashing a third time because they chose the Thief Archtype and thus get an additional Bonus Action in a turn. Fast Hands is limited to using certain actions, not just an extra Bonus Action. It makes sense and has value and meaning.

Initiative order works well and doesn't skip character's turns. I don't have to click on a character's portrait or click ] key 500 times to switch characters. I don't have to Hit C, then click on a new character, then Hit C again, then a new character, then Hit C again, then hit my fourth member and hit C again just to stealth everyone. I mean...there's just too many to recount.

I know some people are tired of hearing people complain that BG3 needs to stay more true to 5e rules, but they marketed the game as a genuine D&D 5e game. They said it was authentic to the tabletop rules. But that is not what we are getting. Solasta has done a MUCH better job at being a true D&D 5e game. They have stuck pretty true to the rules, and it is working like a charm. It makes the game fun and well balanced, giving full meaning to each of the characters in your party.

I'm just saying. If Larian is going to continue to market this game as a D&D 5e game, they need to stick more true to the rules. One or two house rules because it's a video game, I get, but major D&D 5e mechanics are not in place, and it is really hurting the overall game. You may not think so, but I do.

I would question the need for a giant hotbar in BG3 to begin with. BG3 is not a real time game where you need to be able to do everything with one click. It's much more important things are in a logical place.

Solasta has no hotbar at all, and it works wonderfully. It's clean and intuitive. BG, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder.. none of these games rely on huge hotbars. NWN has a 3x12 slot hotbar and it's good there because it's real time without pause in multiplayer. I like the quick accessibility of more hotbar pages with CTRL and SHIFT which means you don't need a million tiny quickslots on the screen simultaneously to save space.

Spells especially need their own UI interface that sorts them by level, upcasting and metamagic. I assume Larian simply has to create a functional spellcasting interface by the time Sorcerer comes along with both metamagic and upcasting versions of every single spell.

Ok. But why do they give you two different inventory screens when you only need the one? I just press “n” for everything.

Taking into account magic pockets and how encumbrance is practically nonexistent, I don't understand why we even have separate inventories. We really only nead one, so trading wouldn't be such a pain. And if it is absolutely essential to have some items in possession of specific characters, maki it like in Pathfinder or Pillars of Eternity - large common inventory and a personal belt.

Loser. I always run out of space. I make that happen .

One needs to note that Solasta is in an almost finished state. Full release is estimated to be sometime in May or June. In fact, there’s a sale right now that’s ending at the end of the month for $28 USD. After that, there will be a price increase from the EA price of $35 to $40 USD in anticipation of the full launch (part of the explanation was that Steam won’t allow discounts within 30 days of each other, and there is assumed to be a launch discount).

That said, BG3’s UI only makes sense when you consider that the framework is based on DOS2’s UI. They’ll probably overhaul it at some point, but I wouldn’t hold my breath as long as the more fanatical portion of the community merely tolerates it.

I've said it a few times in this forum. The item screen should be a shared inventory with shared encumbrance, with each character having a unique equipment screen.
I don't understand the double up for both. In Divinity: Original Sin 2 my friend and I always lament how much time we spent passing equipment items onto each other's characters.

Raw 5e in Solasta also makes for a much better tactical combat game than Larian's house rules and action economy changes.

Having played both games, I really don't understand the Larian changes. Can anyone explain why bg3 would be considered "better" with free advantages, food healing, Wizards casting Cleric spells, everyone using scrolls, bonus Disengage, crazy power bonus shoves and a "help" action that magically heals for free?

Shove is a problem also in Solasta with all the verticality even though they didn't increase or make it a bonus action.

Solasta's character creation totally failed to hook me at the final step when choosing an appearance. The main reason I fall out of BG3 is the UI.
I wish there was a D&D computer game I actually enjoyed right now lol

Maybe we dont essentialy "need to" ... but i certainly "want to". :-/

Its much smoother to simply click and cast ... than open spellcasting window, search for spell, search for desired spell-level, and then cast ... call me lazy, but i liked it that way, especialy since Spells in Baldur's Gate refuse to be sorted by any key i found, and they keep sorting randomly.
That is main reason why i keep saying that *current* popup window casting mechanic is ugly, boring and stupid ... but to add there another mid-step would be totally crazy. :-/

The UI in Solasta is very friendly user.
Everything is a the good place and you know what you can do / where to find what you want.

That's a reason why I hate so much BG3's hotbar.
It's a mess, new icons appear sometimes on another bar (recast,...) or dissapear (torches), new spells/feature appear in a random location (or don't appear at all) and you have to manage your hotbar a lot.

Managing the UI is not something I want to do in a video game. A UI should always be friendly user and should not require such tedious management.

It's not a MMORPG with 50+ levels... It's a D&D game with FOUR levels...

Specific "menu/bar/popup/..." for items, spells, features,... would be way better according to me.

So what you are saying is, that BG3 has budget . I need to give Solasta a go. I found the demo during crowdfunding very promising, and I liked very much what I have seen in Retcon Raiders playthrough. Solasta is definitely small in scope and small team and budget really shows, still I will take one thing done well, then a hodgepodge of conflicting ideas and designs. Looking at Solasta UI doesn't even seem that good (not talking about looks which are plain). It's just doing a normal, functional UI that RPGs have been doing for last 20 years.

Larian thinks it is making an MMO. And to be fair, the UI in D:OS2 didn't bother me that much when I played in COOP - managing only two characters and having lots of downtime when waiting for your coop partner means that one has time to clean up their UI every hour or so. Still, if I am in a mood for a tedious, monotone work I clean my flat, not play games.

About the only thing I don't like still about Solasta are the models. They really need to focus more on creating some better looking characters. Right now, I feel that I've found the best human, elf, dwarf and halfling models for my current playthrough. Still, that's something they can easily expand on later.

I agree that the UI of Solasta (and almost every other RPG like the original BG1+2) is much more functional than BG3.
A giant hotbar is not the answer to this issue.

A hotbar is nice for a handful of spells or abilities you use very often.
But if you have tons of spells and items it becomes terrible.
It should be easy to find stuff and the game should sort it for you.
Spells belong in a spell menu where they are sorted by spell level, special abilities should be in an ability menu where they are sorted by class and so on.

I really hate that I have to re arrange the hotbar every time I get a new ability or an item I want to use.
I really hate that I have to move items between characters all the time.
I really hate that I have to search the "cast spell x again" button.

The last big RPG I played was Kingmaker/WotR. I used the hotbar for abilities I use often (charge, coup de grace, defensive fighting, intimidate/dazzling display and so on)
but I selected spells via the spell menu.