KickStarter Solasta: Crown of the Magister Thread - now with Palace of Ice sequel DLC

[Shrimp]

I'm glad they at the very least are continuing to support the game by adding new classes (classes that should have been there at launch, mind you) but I have a feeling that even just adding those won't help with the game's replayability.
I think it'd be more interesting to see what they decided to do a year or so down the line if they decide to make another game using their experiences from this game.

 

[Acrux]

At this point I'd like them to put most effort into enhancing their dungeon/campaign manager to become really robust. Sell and market it on that idea and let modders take it from there. There are already some good mod dungeons. Doubt they will, though.

 

[anvi]

I really like the battles, it's so good. Kinda like TOEE but more 3d and more verticality, and a lot more refined. Looks nice too apart from the camera angles.

 

[gurugeorge]

I really like the battles, it's so good. Kinda like TOEE but more 3d and more verticality, and a lot more refined. Looks nice too apart from the camera angles.

It looks rather nice and detailed when you zoom in on the action - except then those honking great bright blue squares are gigantic and even more intrusive.

 

[Dorateen]

What makes the combat enjoyable is how crisp the communication is to the player. In addition to the movement grid, the lines for sighting enemies that can be targeted, as well as quickly showing if an attack is made with advantage or disadvantage. In a dynamic environment the battlefield is marked clearly, including squares that are highlighted to show where destructible objects will fall.

 

[Mud']

I seriously hope they bet all their eggs into the modding basket, seriously just add a way for players to add new types of textures or enemies + simple dialogue options / NPCs and watch how some autistic guy remakes the entire The Tales of Yawning Portal into the game.

This game is the perfect platform for D&D 5th edition shit, it just need a way to add more content to it like what happen with Neverwinter Nights.

 

[gurugeorge]

I seriously hope they bet all their eggs into the modding basket, seriously just add a way for players to add new types of textures or enemies + simple dialogue options / NPCs and watch how some autistic guy remakes the entire The Tales of Yawning Portal into the game.

This game is the perfect platform for D&D 5th edition shit, it just need a way to add more content to it like what happen with Neverwinter Nights.

IIRC they've always said that while they don't have the resources to make the game mod-friendly in the Steam one-click sense, they're well aware of the modding potential, and have consulted modders re. how to make it moddable short of that, which I presume is why there's an "API" mod for UMM and stuff like that. I think they will probably, hopefully, keep going in that direction. After all, the main interest will be from people who are at least savvy enough not to be fazed by UMM modding anyway.

It could be a very long-lived game if people can make assets and play online together like NWN (and there's already a mod that's making inroads into that). And as I said up-thread, even the fairly rudimentary user-made dungeons - without verticality and much in the way of interactivity, dialogue or even shops, are pretty good so far. If modders can eventually make levels that are more full-blown like what TA makes, it's gonna be great!

 

[Vincto]

The user content has exploded in Solasta over the last few months. There are hundreds of hours of really well-produced adventures and entire campaigns to take a party to max level (currently level 10, 12 is in the current development stream). You've got people there with decades of experience in D&D crafting tabletop adventures who then added a decade of crafting user content on top of that. I've been enjoying them even more than the 'official' Crown campaign, which was fun, but the combat encounters were not challenging, which was a shame as that is the strongest part of the game imo. I'm a particular fan of what Silverquick is putting out, it just gives me such authentic vibes from the moment I start.

Solasta for me is the red box D&D Basic I had as a kid, and the user content is all the modules we bought for only a few $ each. If you haven't played user content please give it a go. Everything is one click through steam.

The Dungeons wiki has been collecting the most popular and has links to Steam or Nexus where appropriate. It takes about 2 minutes from browsing the dungeons to actually being in game with your party and rolling dem dice.

https://solasta-dungeons.fandom.com

 

[underground nymph]

Everybody praise combat which I fully agree with, but I am also surprised how competent dialogs, story and voice acting are. I am double surprised because these were the aspects of the game I wasn’t expecting to deliver much.

What’s the point in letting a player to abuse the re-roll initial stats mechanic? There’s always a temptation to roll an uber party isn’t it?

 

[Atlet]

Is this game good to play now, or should we still wait a bit when more classes and DLC's are updated?

 

[V_K]

Is this game good to play now, or should we still wait a bit when more classes and DLC's are updated?

Yes.

 

[Abu Antar]

It depends on if you want to play user made classes. There are mods for alchemist, barbarian, bard, druid, monk, tinkerer, warlock, new subclasses, mods that add new feats, a multiclassing mod, a mod that restores sleight of hand, and actually makes it usable.

 

[Atlet]

It depends on if you want to play user made classes. There are mods for alchemist, barbarian, bard, druid, monk, tinkerer, warlock, new subclasses, mods that add new feats, a multiclassing mod, a mod that restores sleight of hand, and actually makes it usable.

This is great news! Do you know if they are well implemented mods?

 

[Abu Antar]

It depends on if you want to play user made classes. There are mods for alchemist, barbarian, bard, druid, monk, tinkerer, warlock, new subclasses, mods that add new feats, a multiclassing mod, a mod that restores sleight of hand, and actually makes it usable.

This is great news! Do you know if they are well implemented mods?

I don't know, to be honest. I stopped playing when I got sick, and I haven't gone back to the game. All these mods were released after I stopped playing.

https://www.nexusmods.com/solastacrownofthemagister/mods/

In general, people seem to like them.

 

[Contagium]

Just finished this about an hour ago. Man did it seem like they gave up on the story around 70% of the way through. I agree with the other posters about the community being the source for better content. Looking forward to delving into what the fans have done

 

[Denim Destroyer]

Hopefully their next game will have better pacing towards the end. Despite the issues this game was a lot of fun and a better representation of Dungeons & Dragons than what most games can claim.

 

[anvi]

I think everything about this game is terrible, except for the combat which is not bad. The story, the characters, the world, exploration, items, questing, etc. all super shitty. Really bad. And I dread to think how many hours people spend looking at loading screens because of this stupid ass game. And it is so unnecessary too. I can't believe they would do such a neat job of the combat and then cover it all this amateur shit that they clearly have no experience of making. I also can't believe so many people think it is ok.

Also the combat which is this games only good thing, has a bunch of problems too. The encounter design is weak, but D&D itself is under developed shit. Spamming cantrips is not fun. At low levels you don't get many spells and with the one dimensional battles it forces you to use specific spells. And when some of them are not balanced well it means you really are only using the same few spells in most fights. The way light works is more of a chore than it is a challenge. And it just makes half of what you do to be lighting things up instead of actually battling. Stuff like Turn Undead is shit because it doesn't work on most stuff and undead are usually either easy to smash skellies or super deadly legendary enemies that it wont work on anyway. Fighters are still kinda plain. They get second wind now which is basically just lay on hands... Why have fighters and paladins if they are same. Action Surge and Close Quarters are pretty cool, but if you can have those why not have several more cool and useful and fun to play with abilities? Instead every fight is the same 2 abilities on him. And he can't taunt so he plays benny hill most of the time and because I built him to focus on tanking (dex and con) it means his str is lacking so he rarely lands a hit. Really shit to play is my point.

My Cleric has a million spells which are useful 0% of the time. The Attunement thing is shit too. I have all these empty gear slots on my characters because they can only attune 3 things. And it's not enough to cover you for anything, I have a ring of posion resists and some other thing which is useless in 90% of fights. And I have not much to switch to and even the stuff I do have requires a long rest which is waste of time. And you can't tell what you need for upcoming fights anyway, you have to try, lose, then try again. etc.etc. This game is another Kingmaker to me, an ok RPG core with a bunch of gimmicky jank stuck on top of it. If you removed all of that and left it as a dungeon crawl it would be better. But if you spent those resources on tidying up D&D's weak design, it could have been excellent.

 

[Lacrymas]

Use finesse weapons on your high Dex tank. But yeah, the game isn't good. D&D's weakest design is RNG, it has nothing to do with the classes or their choices. Don't get me wrong, if I were WotC I'd remove half the classes and improve the others by a lot, but that's neither here nor there.

 

[anvi]

Yes! You could consolidate a lot of the abilities to focus them into more interesting classes. And yeah RNG sucks.

Most of this smells like lack of budget and caring at WOTC. I mean Counterspells are such a shit design, and they know it has been controversial in MTG for 20+ years, so shoving that into D&D as a staple seems obnoxious and lazy. The whole point of playing out a battle is for people to deal with things that happen... Counterspells remove all the interactions and replaces it with an instant resolution. It is anti-gaming. Lots of other questionable stuff too. I wish more devs would just use it as a basis and then make their own game.

 

[Dorateen]

Man did it seem like they gave up on the story around 70% of the way through.

With regard to the story, I think what I would have done is design the content for the eight gems and masters of the schools of magic first. Then I would loose the player to tackle that content in any order they want. It would cut down on the linearity and force-fed directions. The adventure would then be focused more on exploration and the hunt for the gems.

 

[Mud']

Why have fighters and paladins if they are same. Action Surge and Close Quarters are pretty cool, but if you can have those why not have several more cool and useful and fun to play with abilities?

Such a shame to hear that, Fighters can be pretty fucking OP low levels with the right Feats and the Battle Master Maneuvers they get are pretty good.

If you removed all of that and left it as a dungeon crawl it would be better. But if you spent those resources on tidying up D&D's weak design, it could have been excellent.

Maybe give the user content a try and then give a final score? I saw some videos on some dungeon stuff and its looks pretty damn good, i will let this one bake a little more in the oven before it buy it, the day they give stuff to make NPCs dialogue and more complex stuff is when i will consider it buying it full price.

 

[Vincto]

If any of you know who SIlverquick is from NWN, he has already made 3 amazing 1-10 campaigns inspired by classic D&D modules, and the first module from his next campaign dropped last week.

https://solasta-dungeons.fandom.com/wiki/Slave_Lords_Campaign

That is my personal favourite I've played. The Against the Slavers series, re-imagined in Solasta.

 

[Larianshill]

https://www.nexusmods.com/solastacrownofthemagister/mods/

Ten pages of mods, and nobody implemented battlemaster into the game.

 

[Vincto]

Can you use Battlemaster with SRD?

 

[Larianshill]

Since when copyright has been a problem for modders?