Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Some advice for BG3 after finishing Solasta

My point being that there is already like 3 or 4 mega threads about this subject, bringing up the same exact points. I didn't realize that asking for a mega thread (which btw was discussed by a moderator just a few days ago) was "derailing" the thread. These same points are made by the same posters ad nauseam. It has basically become a meme.

Doing this and nothing else is an act of derailment, full stop. It's one thing to bring it up while still addressing the subject matter, but you've made three posts in here with only one talking about the subject matter thus far.


Yeah, I suppose it makes sense if the enemy cannot establish line of sight to you, and obviously if you get the kill then there is no perception check to contest your stealth. But if the enemy survives but can't establish line of sight, I think it would make sense for rolls to happen anyway. They should still get to roll a perception check (with disadvantage) and you should get to roll a stealth check (with advantage).

The current implementation still needs some refinements, but it's still pretty good. :P

Like... Who?
The OP hasn't been active on this forum since April and a quick check doesn't show an overabundance of Solasta.
I hardly ever mentioned it first and I rarely even stayed on the topic long enough of discussing the details (in fact I think so far I've seen more chances to commenting on people reacting to Solasta being mentioned than on the game's specific mechanic themselves).
Blackheifer more often than not joins in to shit on the game, since he doesn't seem particularly fond of it.

And this already cover everyone in the thread before your intervention.

Can't speak for others coming in later (and I can't be bothered to go and stalk their post history to check "HOW MANY TIMES THEY SAID THE DIRTY WORD") but since a moderator gave his permission to discuss the game from a pertinent angle I'm not sure what's the point of antagonizing them for joining in.
Well, I could probably make few guesses, but let's say it's for "consistency" and leave it at that.

Wow, didn't know you got hired on as a mod on this forum (I know it means a lot to you considering that you bring it up so often that you used to be one). Congratulations.

I actually made 2 posts, once in regards to not agreeing with a point he made, and one replying to a Blackheifer's joke, both were in regards to the topic which was Solasta. These constant Solasta posts might be better in a mega thread (which btw, was a discussion not days ago from a mod posting the same sentiment and if I remember correctly, that it was something actually being discussed (they might not have CC'd you since your new to the job). NIETHER were derailing the thread. I am also pretty sure I was replying to Composer, and not you. So maybe keep in mind that you aren't actually a mod in here, it is their job to deem something derailment.

Okay, time to re-rail this because certain people insist on continuing this train of thought and proving me right.


I don't think this is happening unless Larian overhauls their engine. Even though it's been about three months since we've last heard from them, I don't expect that this is what they're spending development resources on. Especially when realistically it'll only affect the Harpy fight (although the spider fights could be redesigned for this too).

Fun fact: Harpies and Phase Spiders DO NOT normally have ranged attacks, they are a deliberate addition. They normally only possess melee attacks, and the main counter to Harpies for melee characters is to ready action an attack for when they swoop down to strike. (Spellcasters could also use spells like Sleep to force them down and take fall damage in the meantime.)

So I have about 30+ hours in on Solasta and finished a playthrough. I have 800+ hours in on Bg3.

I find these comparisons odd personally because BG3 is the larger more ambitious game by a few orders of magnitude. Its strange to compare it to a game like Solasta which takes no risks and constrains your actions to the point of having no agency.

Btw no one that I can think of on this entire forum is arguing that the exploits (and there are MANY) in BG3 should not be closed, fixed, or straight removed. No seriously, who are these people who are pro game-breaking exploits?

Solasta is a finished game, BG3 is has at least another year in development. BG3 is also building off an engine that needs extensive modification still to make it work for 5E rules. Personally I am not too concerned about those rules because one way or another they will be fixed. The Mod community will step in and tighten that stuff up, but hopefully Larian does it themselves.

For me- the real value in BG3 is in all the areas that Solasta fails to have any skin in the game. The Multiplayer, the ability to be a Platform, DM Mode.

I played Solasta. It was good. I doubt I will play it again, as there is no replay value. Solasta - simulates Vanilla 5e Combat to a decent degree. I say Vanilla because even in combat it heavily constrains actions. You can't throw anything, not flasks, not bombs, not shoes. The AI is very basic and despite the lack of tactical options doesn't do anything surprising. The difficulty settings are all about buffing the creatures but not improving their thinking. The game can be cheesed and has meta builds - I mean Spirit Guardians/Wall of Fire will kill 90% of encounters. I had spidey shoes on my melee characters pretty quick and that took care of most verticality.

The most time-intensive fight was the magic spitting forest tree spiders who stay in their trees and never chase you but will shoot at you, until they can't then they just stay where they are while you line of sight them one-by-one. I guess those are tactics if you like. Doesn't Larian get shit for having spiders that spit stuff? I swear I heard that.

And just fyi, Solasta 100% homebrews some majorly OP FEATS. Twin Blade Defense? Follow Through?

By the end of the game I was pretty bored to be honest. The maps don't have a lot of originality, the world feels empty and unresponsive.

Solasta does have the better UI but I never expected that the current UI wouldn't be redesigned one way or another.

it is my hope that the Solasta team made enough that we one day see a Solasta 2 with Multiplayer and an engine that allows a lot more freedom.

If you kill your target, it doesn't make you roll.

Yeah, I know that. I'm talking about situations where they survive and they don't roll anyway. I've had a couple situations like that.


To be fair, the frequency of pop-ups did start to get rather annoying later in the game as I unlocked more reaction/conditional abilities, but it's nothing a few toggles can't solve (as in, we should get an option to not ask to counterspell against an identified spell of 2nd level or below, unless the spell will possibly inflict lethal damage against a party member or cause an incapacitating status effect). Or not to shield against any attack that would inflict less than 20% of the character's HP. And I'm pretty sure everyone now is in agreement that they'd rather have working reactions than none at all. Aside from the few people citing immersion when much of the rest of the game's combat design is certainly already lacking in it.

On another note, Shove needs an overhaul too. Or well, one could argue it IS working properly as is, you're not shoving things off a cliff unless they're already at the edge of one to begin with, the only thing goofy about it is the arc at which things fly. But it's missing the second half, the ability to shove enemies prone instead.

When you think in the long term, the current distance shoving only design will just result in making fights longer than they should be later on. Shove and jump/disengage are powerful as bonus actions now precisely because we are stuck at level 4, when the majority of classes do not yet have bonus actions to speak of. Nor do most classes have Extra Attack yet. When certain classes unlock more bonus actions, suddenly trying to shove and jump every turn isn't that attractive (such as Bards using Bardic Inspiration). One could argue that their existence as a bonus action is a slight indirect nerf to the bonus action heavy classes, and a heavy buff to classes that don't possess that many to begin with.

Anyway, sure, you can shove that enemy off of a cliff, but that's also several turns that your melee won't be beating their faces in with 2 attacks per turn instead. Upon further consideration, shove is only simultaneously that strong and silly now because the cost/benefit analysis is currently firmly in the 'shove things off to inflict fall damage and give advantage to ranged party members/disadvantage to the target' camp.

BUT, if you were given the option to shove things prone instead? Suddenly one party member just needs to spend one bonus action to knock something to their knees, and if they succeed, ALL melee party members will get advantage rolls against them until the enemy's next turn. And this also means each melee party member doesn't have to re-enact a bad edgy fanfic by spending their own bonus actions jumping behind them for backstab advantage. Hell, one could use this as justification for removing backstab advantage entirely.

Stuff like this is why it's absolutely critical that EA should go up to level 5 at some point before release, because a lot of things can completely change when certain class features, the next tier of spells, and extra attack comes into play.


There is a slight difference in context between both games that makes the criticism much heavier for one instead of the other.

Solasta's potential cheese is based more on the encounter design and the tools available to your team. Wall of Fire and Spirit Guardians are crazy, but they are legitimate spells that you can't get until you're about halfway through the game.

BG3's issue is that the cheese is solely revolving around the combat mechanics themselves that are already there from the very beginning of the game, they completely overshadow and throw off the entire cost/benefit analysis for many early game spells, and it's obvious that entire encounters are designed around those combat mechanics existing. That's why BG3's cheese is several magnitudes higher in severity.

Solasta's OP feats are a bit forgivable considering they are literally forced to homebrew that stuff. But I don't think there was anything forcing Larian to implement the questionable cheese mechanics in BG3.

Your example of spitting spiders in Solasta is slightly disingenuous. The early level spiders only possess melee attacks, and I didn't run into any spitting spiders in Solasta in the EA content that was stated to run for half of the game (I am personally waiting until I am done with WotR beta phase 2 to restart Solasta from the beginning). I think by the time I'd run into them, I'd have a bunch of fireballs available to burn them with. The BG3 phase spiders have AoE spits, which is more than a bit nuts for an early game encounter where you have very few ranged options and pushes any fight involving them into what I'd call 'trap clairvoyance design'. Granted, I wasn't too miffed because I am already used to DOS2-style encounter design, but it would feel insane to anyone else.

(That said, while I still think height advantage/disadvantage should be shot into the sun, it might be less of a problem once we get more spells that do half damage on saves. Which, again, we're not going to have as long as we're stuck at level 4 for EA, which heavily contributes to the perception that these new advantage mechanics are so much more powerful for the early game.)


There aren't any here on this forum as I assume our admittedly relentless crowing about all of these issues drove such people away from here. But there's a fair amount of these people on the BG3 subreddit.

Though thankfully, even that place is starting to wake up to this sort of thing. What's this now? Another thread asking for reactions to actually act like reactions? The one person fine with the system as is got downvoted to oblivion? You love to see it.

https://old.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/nyg8ou/we_need_reactions_to_be_reactions/

Wow, I have never seen anyone so desperate to have the last word. But if it makes you feel better that your somehow being proven right, that is fine.


Personally, I think that is just an excuse to justify ANY criticism towards BG3.


So for some reason, now what is good for the goose isn't good for the gander. It is kind of hypocritical to say that homebrew in Solasta is ok, but not in BG3 (just because you personally like the homebrew of Solasta). As a former "mod" for a gaming forum, you should be familiar with being able to remove your personal preference, and judge both by the same principle.

How are you even able to accuse his example of spitting spiders, when you admittedly, have not played the live version of the game? Isn't that comment, by definition, disingenuous?


It is simple, it is a way to generalize, and make anyone else's points that do not match theirs as trivial, or illegitimate (I can't wait for the "passive aggressive" and "irony coming from" comments to come, that is the general tactic). It is used a lot today, it is easier to brandish someone as a fanboy that loves everything about a company, or stupid as some have said, or lacking experience in tactical games etc. That way, they can prop up their points and make them more "legitimate". It is commonly used on Twitter etc to beat down any conflicting viewpoints into submission.

The irony of this is that if you go to the Solasta forums, where people try the reverse and try to start hate on BG3 (not saying the OP of this thread did that, actually his was laid out decent overall, more the usual suspects), the majority want and enjoy both games. The overall opinion is the more D&D the better, and they look forward to the differences (where here, they want a replica). Of course people have justifiable discussions about little things like inventory management, the ugly group chain, the UI but none of this Larian bashing or these "mechanic sux" attitude. It is actually a pretty interesting comparison between communities.

Solasta's EA was about half of the game. BG3's EA is probably about 1/4th-1/3rd of the game as far as anyone knows. Only one throws teleporting AoE spitting spiders at you at level 3-4, and it isn't the one with an EA phase that ran for half the game.

I don't have a problem with homebrew. I have a problem with UNBALANCED homebrew based on the context, and most of BG3's homebrew altered the core mechanics themselves. I have argued repeatedly that I would welcome such things if they actually improved the system, but it appears the majority are in agreement that few (if any) of the changes BG3 did to the core combat systems had any positive long term effect on the game.

Plus, there is a huge ass difference between homebrew feats, and outright freely giving advantage for height/backstab, and I'm pretty sure everyone in this forum is smart enough to understand that distinction. After all, the feats you can ignore/avoid using. But you can't ignore height advantage.

For example, if I had any say in this, I'd alter Paladins in BG3 so that you can smite with ranged weapons, because it'd suddenly open up a lot of build variety. Then I could make a really fun archer Bard/Paladin multiclass.

Not going to respond to the personal bait otherwise.

Compared to the ease of most encounters (btw, with no barrels), the spider fight was the most interesting. Different strokes, for different folks. It is also a perfect example of coming across a difficult enemy, in any zone. This is not a "level by zone" game like WoW. If you go in the wrong cave, you can run into a monster that can kick your ass, personally, I like that.

I would also personally happily take a kick to my non-existent nuts if it turns out that the primary reason we haven't heard from Larian in so long is because they've been working on programming a proper reaction and ready action system, which I imagine would have probably resulted in having to rebalance a few encounters too. Then I could leave this place knowing that everything's going to be good.

That's probably the number 1 priority right now. Everything else probably won't really matter very much in the context of those systems working properly.

Also, most of Larian's fanbase are here because of DOS2. DOS2's primary draw was its combat system. It's almost weird that people here are taking offense to people pointing out that BG3's combat system isn't in a good spot right now.

Other forum members are allowed to have opinions that disagree with you. And in no way does anyone have to be all for homebrew or all against homebrew. Homebrew is situational and it's very normal to like homebrew X, but not homebrew Y.

Could you please not make personal accusations and focus on the discussion of the thread?

Nice to know that more people agree that Baldur's Gate 3 would be better if it became more D&D rules-as-written.

Are you serious?

Also, you may want to re-read that second quote, because you obviously missed the point, or intentionally misrepresented the point of the entire paragraph. The fact that you try to state I have a problem with people with different opinions over Saito's and others actions in that regards is almost laughable.

Agree to it all.

Beautifully put! =)
Err... I realise this isn't "staying on topic" but... I just thought it was... good. Ehh.. sorry. I will get back on topic now. =)

Stop, guys. I'm dropping this argument, no one else needs to come in too.


Coming back to this topic, I'm not entirely sure adapting Solasta's fast travel system would work out in BG3 at all. Solasta is actually very linear, so it works there. BG3's layout is as such that it's very possible that you can accidentally travel right into a combat situation (and probably step into a couple damage puddles across the way, like that one path between the crashed ship and the waypoint Gale hops out of). It's not something I'd really consider a priority.

People probably have an issue with the way the waypoints are presented in the game too, but I don't particularly mind them much. I suspect there's a lore reason for them, the same way Solasta has that network of major gates that allow you to teleport to different parts of the world map when you discover and activate them. Though it's implied in that game that everyone with access can use them once you get them working, which two of the game's cities use to maintain a political alliance.

Though if there actually isn't a lore explanation for BG3's waypoints (which I suspect there should be an explanation considering Gale literally came out of one, which means he knows what they are and the party's ability to use them would likely be explained by a Gale-related cutscene that probably hasn't been implemented yet), I'd probably just chalk it up to another carryover from DOS2, which had waypoints that worked exactly the same way.

Wall of fire/Spirit Guardians is OP ONLY because the AI and encounters in Solasta are not strong. An intelligent monster shouldn't walk into a wall of fire unless they are immune to fire. They would look for another option, or move to ranged strikes. Yet I have never seen the AI do anything particularly smart.

On top of that, I am level 10 and in all the encounters I have yet to have anyone use a powerful spell on me. Every single time its a low level Magic missile or a Cantrip at most. Not once has anyone thrown a fireball or lightening bolt at me or my group.

Compared to Bg3 and enemies WILL use 1st and 2nd level spells at you all the time. Sleep and magic missile are common but I have seen Flaming Spheres, Thunderwave, Bane, Bless and a host of other decent 1st and 2nd level spells. Enemies will try to drop stuff on you, throw things at you (flasks and grease), use the environment, shove you off cliffs, knock out concentration, focus down high value targets, or casters, they seem to know about advantage and will go after anyone who has their back turned and they will try to get height advantage on you. They are jerks. I love it.

Solasta is a good game to learn about a limit range of D&D combat rules. There is also a lot of detail oriented micro-management (optional). Its not a challenging game by any measure even on the highest difficulty settings. And spending the time to make sure you are organized and have everything you need never pays off with encounters that really test your preparedness. I ended up with a stack of revive and raise dead scrolls I never used because no one ever died on my side...or got knocked out.

Perhaps. I did have two goblin shamans throwing two lightning bolts at my whole party once on the way to the third gem (along with killing their comrades that engaged my party in melee), which was quite a trip.

I suspect their supposed next project taking place in the same world is going to significantly up the base difficulty, because a lot of people have been saying that the latter half of the game has been too easy (except for a certain stretch where resting is apparently difficult).

If the AI doesn't have the sense to avoid targeting its own side then its a serious problem. 90% of the problem with the difficulty is the bad AI.

And yes, the most challenging thing they had was a waves-of-enemies survival encounter, but even then I didn't lose anyone. The actual endgame fight is such a huge letdown.

But hand to God, they should not have released this game with that bad AI. What's the point of faithfully crafting a authentic 5e rule system and not provide a good encounter?