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

[Grunker]

Vacation, baby. Is this in a polished, playable state yet?

 

[Crispy]

The game is remarkably stable and, aside from a couple of areas in which the framerate tends to tank, nearly bug-free unless you're looking for very specific circumstances.

Edit: I'd also like to state, as I think I did once before earlier in this thread, that Solasta's music is truly great for a video game. It was so good in my opinion, in fact, that once I completed the game, I sat and watched the rolling credits for 15 minutes until the portion of them that specified those who were responsible for the music scrolled by. Wonderful!

 

[Grunker]

Just started this - Scavengers talked about moving into dungeons after I'd cleared them and gathering stuff and selling it for a percentage. Is this just fluff or can I actually expect gold for loot I don't pick up and haul?

 

[Anonona]

Just started this - Scavengers talked about moving into dungeons after I'd cleared them and gathering stuff and selling it for a percentage. Is this just fluff or can I actually expect gold for loot I don't pick up and haul?

You can visit the Scavenger outpost in the city and check one of the billboards near the NPC to see how much time it will take them to recover the items you have left behind. Once they do, you can check the same billboard to sell or keep whatever you want. Also certain outpost will become inhabited once you clear them at certain points through the game, with some having unique vendors, so it may be worth checking on them once in a while. Although if you do sidequest you will end up visiting them anyway.

 

[Reinhardt]

Ded game is ded. 41% strikes again.

 

[lukaszek]

Just started this - Scavengers talked about moving into dungeons after I'd cleared them and gathering stuff and selling it for a percentage. Is this just fluff or can I actually expect gold for loot I don't pick up and haul?

play a bit more, gold will start swimming your way. You will also have a chance of picking things that you missed

 

[Grunker]

Cool. thx me dudes

 

[Grunker]

Are crafting recipes individual or party wide?

 

[NJClaw]

Are crafting recipes individual or party wide?

Party-wide. Once you read a recipe, everyone can craft it (provided he has the required proficiencies).

 

[jackofshadows]

Is this just fluff or can I actually expect gold for loot I don't pick up and haul?

Yes but they will not open chests for you, so... don't miss'em.

 

[Grunker]

more inane questions: the mission board, can I safely accept all the quests and do 'em when I feel like it? The fact that the wording says "start mission" makes me think accepting them locks me into doing it now

 

[Shrimp]

more inane questions: the mission board, can I safely accept all the quests and do 'em when I feel like it? The fact that the wording says "start mission" makes me think accepting them locks me into doing it now

As far as I know there are no time limits or any other sort of downsides to accepting them immediately. You're free to accept them whenever you feel like it.

 

[Grunker]

Oblivion's Channel Divinity is the shit

 

[cpmartins]

After 50-60 hours the game is still fun even though way too easy. I think they should've seriously limited the amount of magic items the game gives to you as the characters get ridiculously powerful anyway around level 6-7.

You are pretty slow dood, I was done after 47 already.

I don't think scaling down the amount of powerfull stuff you get would be beneficial, after all finding that +2 shield in the volcano was one of the highlights of that area. They should definitly have added more and stronger enemies however.

But 5e set a trap for them here. It is an inherent design point of 5e that characters become close to immortal after level 7. It is made for cr*tical role type campaigns, where only one character every few dozen seasons dies. Total party wipes are more theoretical than an actual threat. They certainly have escalated the threat against this inherent mellowing out of the rule system on higher levels, numerically some of the later encounters are quite ridiculous. But the problem is 5e's challenge rating as a system of threat measurement is not only heavily flawed, it also factors in literally zero magical items.

So while their balance might have worked out for either the flood of magical items or the inherent power of a medium level 5e hero both together broke the camels back - especially as those things amplify each other exponentially. A +X magical piece of equipment is much more effective with bounded accuracy.

The closest I got of wiping was in a random encounter where I got surprised by a green dragon. He rolled high for initiative and breathed my party twice while they were all bunched up, killing the ranger and the mage and leaving the pala and cleric with 20% health. All characters were level 10 btw, so you can easily die if you get shafted hard like I did.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

Looks like the Sorcerer update is coming next week. Also adds a few more things such as three more environment types for the dungeon maker and a fix to no longer require concentration for potions.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1096530/announcements/detail/2976298542489916315

SOLASTA SORCERER UPDATE DROPPING HOT ON JULY 13TH!

Hey there folks,

We're happy to finally share with you the release date of the Sorcerer Update, coming in next week on Tuesday July 13th! The Sorcerer Update will not only bring a new playable class to the Solastan roster, but also several new environments for the Dungeon Maker and a plethora of bug fixes and improves. But before that... Let's go back to the good ol' habits of our Dev Updates!

And by good habits I mean cat pictures. Can't go wrong with 'em.

The Sorcerer is finally here!

As promised during our Kickstarter, the Sorcerer is coming for free next week to Solasta - with three archetypes to choose from! Sorcerers are powerful spellcasters with the innate ability to cast magic using their Charisma attribute. While they do not know as many spells as a Wizard would, they more than make up for that with their ability to twist their spells thanks to their Metamagic feature. The three available subclasses are:

• Draconic Sorcerer: Draconic Sorcerers’ powerful magic comes from their bloodline, which they claim can be traced back to powerful dragons of ancient times.
• Mana Painter: Mana Painters were born out of the mana starvation that followed the Cataclysm, with some individuals suddenly gaining the innate ability to drain magic and use it as their own.
• Child of the Rift: When the opening of the Rift forced a new magic brought by the gods of Tirmar into Solasta, those most deeply affected by it were named the Children of the Rift.

Fireball is the question. The answer is yes.

Ironman Mode, DM Update & Other Bugfixes

The Sorcerer is not the only thing coming up in this update. Ironman Mode is making its way to Solasta, experts and masochists rejoice as the game mercilessly grinds your save file to dust when you run into a gamer over. At the same time, you will also gain access to three new environments in the Dungeon Maker, each with their own set of props and gadgets. Lastly, we've also done a whole lot of bug fixes and improvements, such as the Tome of Understanding finally being usable, potions no longer requiring concentration, the primed chain shirt no longer missing from the Arcaneum shop and auto-equip finally being disabled!

Woodlands Environment

Catacombs Environment

Sewers Environment

Alright folks, this is the end for today! See you on July 13th for the Update. Thank you for reading, and don't hesitate to drop by our Forums or our Discord Server.

 

[copebot]

I don't think it's that 5E characters are tougher than in other editions, it's more that there aren't that many save-or-die mechanics and most paralysis/stuns can be saved against every round. There are also many heal bonus action spells that allow clerics to attack multiple times in a round and then heal the whole party every round. This compensates for not being able to hyper buff the whole party constantly as in other editions due to the concentration limits.

The NPCs can be hard if they use strong abilities like the players do. Put more spell casters in encounters, use AOEs to break all the concentration spells, use heal prevention debuffs, and do cheap things like create darkness/stun clouds and then launch fireballs into said zone.

Solasta has one core issue that hamstrings the encounter design: you cannot flee an encounter and the death of any party member without the ability to rez them results in a game over. This makes it so that every encounter, pretty much, has to be surmountable. In a high attrition D&D campaign not every encounter has to be winnable, and there are plenty of interesting scenarios that involve extracting your party from an impossible situation or fleeing following a death or two. This also makes it so that random encounters generally are more exp/loot faucets rather than sources of genuine danger. There were probably some design constraints that lead them down this route (probably related to roleplay and quest flags), but the game would have been better if it could account for deaths and substitutions.

 

[Anonona]

Solasta has one core issue that hamstrings the encounter design: you cannot flee an encounter and the death of any party member without the ability to rez them results in a game over. This makes it so that every encounter, pretty much, has to be surmountable. In a high attrition D&D campaign not every encounter has to be winnable, and there are plenty of interesting scenarios that involve extracting your party from an impossible situation or fleeing following a death or two. This also makes it so that random encounters generally are more exp/loot faucets rather than sources of genuine danger. There were probably some design constraints that lead them down this route (probably related to roleplay and quest flags), but the game would have been better if it could account for deaths and substitutions.

Interesting enough, I seem to remember that in the first demo they released long time ago, the one with the Human Fighter, Elf Rogue, Half-ling Wizard and Dwarf Cleric premade party, the last fight was against a big groups of spiders you had to run away from while keeping them at bay. So perhaps there were plans at some point of having more situations like this, were combat could be resolved by other means beside killing the enemy.

 

[Grunker]

why even give me the option to have multiple speech skills on the same character if the game is going to decide I can only ever use one on that character lol

 

[V_K]

why even give me the option to have multiple speech skills on the same character if the game is going to decide I can only ever use one on that character lol

It may be a different skill in different dialogs.

the mission board, can I safely accept all the quests and do 'em when I feel like it?

There is a certain ill-telegraphed point in the plot after which you cannot complete side quests outside of main city. So make sure that after you find the fifth mcguffin that you finish them all before continuing with the main quest.

 

[V_K]

Looks like the Sorcerer update is coming next week. Also adds a few more things such as three more environment types for the dungeon maker and a fix to no longer require concentration for potions.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1096530/announcements/detail/2976298542489916315

You've forgotten to mention the most important part of the update:

Spoiler

 

[Grunker]

why even give me the option to have multiple speech skills on the same character if the game is going to decide I can only ever use one on that character lol

It may be a different skill in different dialogs.

It's pretty dumb that the game decides for you which character can attempt to intimidate and which can persuade. I have never seen my paladin have other options than Persuade despite being of Violent personality, for instance

 

[Grunker]

Also is it just me or is this game the easiest D&D game ever made? I'm starting to love most of the game to bits, but fighting 4 zombies with 4 level 5 characters is getting really silly. Even in a "boss fight" I had 2 cantrip-spamming mages who missed all the time, one caster that spawned directly on top of my melees for easy execution and then 6 zombies who died to one Turn Undead. I think I took 5 damage that fight. And it's not exactly like I have an optimized party, my main fighter has a measly 16 strength because I looked at the belt of hill giant strength and went "given how easy this is already that seems dumb"

And that's not even factoring in that you can start most fights with a free round of wailing on the enemy

 

[V_K]

It's pretty dumb that the game decides for you which character can attempt to intimidate and which can persuade. I have never seen my paladin have other options than Persuade despite being of Violent personality, for instance

I think the game picks the character with the highest proficiency bonus first, and only then applies personality traits, if there's more than one.

 

[Anonona]

I think the game picks the character with the highest proficiency bonus first, and only then applies personality traits, if there's more than one.

I think it may give certain characters certain answers based both on the answer's innate chance of success and the characters own proficiency bonus. So if you can use Persuasion and Intimidation to solve a check, and Persuasion has like a base 50% chance of success, while Intimidation only has 10%, then the character with the highest point on Persuasion will be given that choice, even if his Intimidation is higher. For example, even if your Fighter has a only +1 in Persuasion and a +3 in Intimidation, because Persuasion has a highest chance of success when you add the bonus, then he will use Persuasion even if its lower than Intimidation. At the same time, if your Cleric had 0+ in Persuasion but -2 in Intimidation, he will be given Intimidation simply because the Fighter already took Persuasion, and that was the next best option for the party.

At least that was my impression when repeating certain sections of the game and passing the Insight checks. I think the option presented are always the best possible ones because not all options are equally valid in all situations.

 

[thesheeep]

Played it for about 15 hours and... honestly got no motivation to continue.

There are a few problems with this game so glaring it just sucks out any motivation:

• Limited selection of classes. Speaks for itself, I think.
  
• The story. "Go to places that just reveal themselves to you as you gather jewels for your jewelry. Fight the big evil"... It isn't the most terrible story in that it doesn't actively harm your desire to play (like e.g. Outer Worlds) but it doesn't do anything to motivate you, either.
  
• Difficulty only knows "way too easy" and "wtf is this?!" - the latter one usually in boss fights that somehow get 4x as many turns as you do, can just straight ignore your attacks if they feel like it, etc. What a mind boggingly frustrating & unfair way to make something difficult. While all other fights just seem to be too easy. Is this maybe a design flaw within 5E itself?
• The worst one, as always: No option to speed up turns/time. I have not enjoyed a single TB game in the last decade or so that didn't allow me to speed up the slog. Watch paint dry as a handful of goblins walk & climb around before finally taking their shot at you. Read a book while sending your party around, slowly climbing, etc. Question your life choices. It's not quite as dreadful as e.g. Battletech, as at least the loading times are humane. But as I grow older, I have less and less tolerance for games that just waste my time.

Apparently they are adding more classes (just saw an update for Sorcerer).
I do have some hope that this might be successful enough for a sequel, because all those criticisms are known to them and seem fixable. Maybe a sequel could be something I'd actually recommend.

What's funny, though:
I started playing Low Magic Age and that is probably better in almost every single regard (except story, obviously).