Solasta Solasta II - coming to Early Access in 2025

[rashiakas]

wish this guys wouldnt play d&d for retards

 

[Harthwain]

Besides; what's wrong with restarting.

It's basically a waste of time. If I start a new game it should be because I want to try out a different class or make different choices, not because I made a sub-optimal build.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Besides; what's wrong with restarting.

It's basically a waste of time. If I start a new game it should be because I want to try out a different class or make different choices, not because I made a sub-optimal build.

Eh... I think this sort of thing is precisely what difficulty options are for whether things like Cataclysm I think Solasta called theirs or playing in Ironman mode. You can hit a brick wall and need to restart for people who are into that or never have to engage with it for those who don't.

But a challenge wall such as a physical damage immune boss usually has a workaround in a well designed game whether environmental features, some manner of magic use by physical characters (UMD scrolls, items, weapons), etc. It's reductionist and simplistic to assume you're SOL because you chose a fighter only party if the game is well designed.

 

[Pink Eye]

It's basically a waste of time.

I disagree.

I think RPGs should have a learning curve that is exciting to master. I think games should be tough at the start so you're incentivized to sit down and learn the mechanics. I also think RPGs should throw odd balls every now and then to keep the players on their toes. For me personally, nothing kills a game more than when its difficulty is so easy that I can just click, click, go through the motions, and win - more often than not, when I'm not engaged, I quickly lose interest and move on to something else.

Overcoming a hard obstacle is fun for me, it stimulates my brain.

Also, of the games I mentioned earlier, you do have difficulty settings to tweak the experience if you don't like challenge. Chalice 2 gives you a million ways to tweak enemy AC values, HP, how you level up, gold cost, etc. Colony Ship also gives you sliders to customize the difficulty, from the equipment you start off with, to the amount of exp you can get. Though one thing that Colony Ship does really well is the creativity in how it allows you to bypass hard encounters. For example, you can use speech to talk enemies away, stealth to sneak past it, civic skills to solve the encounter without fighting (there's an encounter that you can solve by using civic skills to turn on turrets which kill the enemies without you lifting a finger); or you can just completely ignore the difficult encounter because Iron Tower games are designed in such a way that you can beat the main story without much fighting.

 

[Harthwain]

I disagree.

I think RPGs should have a learning curve that is exciting to master. [...] Also, of the games I mentioned earlier, you do have difficulty settings to tweak the experience if you don't like challenge.

To me it is not even the difficulty that's the issue. Being able to "fix" your build is simply an added bonus. I played Alaloth and Remnant 2 and I had a lot of fun with switching builds. I wouldn't play them as long and I wouldn't find them as engaging otherwise. It really helps with experimentation when you can respec mid-game, especially after your pool of item grows and you start seeing more possibilities. I would also argue it benefits long games (such as Owlcat ones), because I simply don't have time on my hands (or patience) to do multiple runs and I could easily do that via respec.

 

[rojay]

I think these guys know what makes a tactical, turn-based game work, and I have no doubt they'll nail the tactical, turn-based combat in the next game.

I thought the story in the first game was fine, but I guess I'm in the minority on that. Regardless, if they can keep the verticality and find ways to improve enemy AI it'd be sweet.

 

[scytheavatar]

Besides; what's wrong with restarting. It's great when a game is hard and forces me to go back to the drawing board and seriously think about my party composition. It's great when the game pushes back as it forces me to use *all* the mechanics to win. The essence of this is what makes me love games like AoD, DR, and Chalice - deep, compelling, RPGs with rulsets that have depth, nuance, and complexity.

5e is the worst possible system to achieve what you describe, it's a system deliberately designed for players who DON'T want to understand the rules and just want to have fun. While leaving the understanding of the depth, nuance, and complexity of the rules to the poor DM. This is the main reason why 5E is the most successful TTRPGs system ever, it is the most accessible cause it hides its complexity from the players.

If you want a game that keeps making you go back to the drawing board that game probably should ditch 5E.

The reality is that you have to think of the experience of the normies who are not hardcore RPG players and don't want to waste time restarting their builds. Game devs who fail to cater to them are going to struggle to sell enough copies. Even the Fromsoft souls games are designed to be friendly to those that want to just use a longsword to wack things.

 

[Myzzrym]

I see quite a few people getting hang up on my example of physical damage immunity, so I figured I'd expand a little on why I said that. You're right when stating that physical damage immunity in a vacuum is not impossible to beat, even if your party is full of martial classes - and could even provide an interesting challenge that changes from the usual "I shall now proceed to hit you in the face with my hammer, villain."

However, you have to remember that every part of a game takes time to build. Say we create this boss fight that's immune to piecring / bludgeoning / slashing damage (even magical weapons). Most players wouldn't have too much problem dealing with it as they'd likely have at least one spellcaster. But now let's think about our full martial parties - or even parties where the player picked mostly utility spells. Ok, maybe they have scrolls and wands in stock - oh wait, scrolls need the spell to be in your class' spell list to be used, and most wands need to be attuned - and what if the player sold them or never found them? We're talking potentially loading a save file from hours ago, and if they overwrote it they're boned. Okay maybe we go with another route, let's say we make a special arena where interacting with three different paintings removes its immunity for X rounds. Hey that could be cool! But suddenly you have to develop a system behind to support such feature, and while it may not be that long it might mean that you're doing that instead of giving your Gorgon its petrifying breath. For a feature that only a small amount of players may even use (because the rest might just blast the boss' ass into oblivion with fireballs), and that we likely wouldn't reuse (how lame would it be if three different bosses used the same gimmick). Remember we're a small team, and we everything we choose to do has tradeoffs.

At the end of the day, that doesn't mean we won't ever do fun / challenging / out-of-the-box fights - but before that we want to make sure the foundations of the game is solid. We don't want to have a repeat of Lost Valley where many monsters were just big fat lumps of HP who just had one melee physical attack. Once we have an interesting baseline, then we can go and fine-tune more exotic encounters.

Hope that clarifies my use of that example a little!

 

[Artyoan]

I did use a few enemies that were immune to physical damage in some of my campaigns. But I also had custom weapons that nearly all deal some small amount of magical damage, a few custom weapons that deal purely radiant damage, and the enemies had relatively low health to most monsters. I also tended toward more interesting resistances/invulnerabilites in the six man versions as opposed to the four man. Had I the capability to put something like fire damage bombs or anything in the environment to alternatively handle them then it becomes an easier sell for the occasional fight if the player can pick them up mid-battle.

The people who want to run lopsided groups tend to be the people who want to 'find a way' anyway.

 

[Alienman]

With a bigger party, the chances increase that the player has a mage

 

[Mortmal]

I see quite a few people getting hang up on my example of physical damage immunity, so I figured I'd expand a little on why I said that. You're right when stating that physical damage immunity in a vacuum is not impossible to beat, even if your party is full of martial classes - and could even provide an interesting challenge that changes from the usual "I shall now proceed to hit you in the face with my hammer, villain."

However, you have to remember that every part of a game takes time to build. Say we create this boss fight that's immune to piecring / bludgeoning / slashing damage (even magical weapons). Most players wouldn't have too much problem dealing with it as they'd likely have at least one spellcaster. But now let's think about our full martial parties - or even parties where the player picked mostly utility spells. Ok, maybe they have scrolls and wands in stock - oh wait, scrolls need the spell to be in your class' spell list to be used, and most wands need to be attuned - and what if the player sold them or never found them? We're talking potentially loading a save file from hours ago, and if they overwrote it they're boned. Okay maybe we go with another route, let's say we make a special arena where interacting with three different paintings removes its immunity for X rounds. Hey that could be cool! But suddenly you have to develop a system behind to support such feature, and while it may not be that long it might mean that you're doing that instead of giving your Gorgon its petrifying breath. For a feature that only a small amount of players may even use (because the rest might just blast the boss' ass into oblivion with fireballs), and that we likely wouldn't reuse (how lame would it be if three different bosses used the same gimmick). Remember we're a small team, and we everything we choose to do has tradeoffs.

At the end of the day, that doesn't mean we won't ever do fun / challenging / out-of-the-box fights - but before that we want to make sure the foundations of the game is solid. We don't want to have a repeat of Lost Valley where many monsters were just big fat lumps of HP who just had one melee physical attack. Once we have an interesting baseline, then we can go and fine-tune more exotic encounters.

Hope that clarifies my use of that example a little!

There's a very simple way to solve this issue: introduce multiple NPC companions and retainers who join you during the adventure. You can swap party members with them at every campsite, ensuring no one gets cockblocked due to a single encounter. Off course make the cleric character an hot woman, like a certain game, to incentivize the average player to include her in their party—if they haven't already picked up on her utility.

 

[Raghar]

With a bigger party, the chances increase that the player has a mage

With large enough party chance that at least one player would play warrior instead of cleric or mage increases up from close to zero.

 

[Roguey]

Tactical Adventures has made it clear that they want any person to be able to complete their games and if you are a hardcore tactical role-player who wants combat that challenges you in particular, those fights will flat out brickwall the average chump. Just how it goes.

 

[rojay]

Most players wouldn't have too much problem dealing with it as they'd likely have at least one spellcaster. But now let's think about our full martial parties - or even parties where the player picked mostly utility spells.

Why are you thinking about balancing encounters so that full martial parties can beat them without having to reload? People playing through the game without any spellcasters or who gimp themselves with only utility spells are almost 100% people who have already played the game and are doing it as a challenge/gimmick.

Maybe you've got data that disproves that assumption, but people who roll with 4 fighters on a first playthrough should be encouraged to make better life choices.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Maybe you've got data that disproves that assumption, but people who roll with 4 fighters on a first playthrough should be encouraged to make better life choices

Yeah, like four barbarians

 

[Lyric Suite]

Tactical Adventures has made it clear that they want any person to be able to complete their games and if you are a hardcore tactical role-player who wants combat that challenges you in particular, those fights will flat out brickwall the average chump. Just how it goes.

So the game is shit?

 

[Crispy]

So the game is shit?

No, it's actually the best isometric D&D simulator since ToEE. If you'd actually played it you'd already know that, LS.

Don't you have anything insightful to add to this thread?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Tactical Adventures has made it clear that they want any person to be able to complete their games and if you are a hardcore tactical role-player who wants combat that challenges you in particular, those fights will flat out brickwall the average chump. Just how it goes.

So the game is shit?

Nah, Rogua is just hormonal again.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

I see quite a few people getting hang up on my example of physical damage immunity, so I figured I'd expand a little on why I said that. You're right when stating that physical damage immunity in a vacuum is not impossible to beat, even if your party is full of martial classes - and could even provide an interesting challenge that changes from the usual "I shall now proceed to hit you in the face with my hammer, villain."

However, you have to remember that every part of a game takes time to build. Say we create this boss fight that's immune to piecring / bludgeoning / slashing damage (even magical weapons). Most players wouldn't have too much problem dealing with it as they'd likely have at least one spellcaster. But now let's think about our full martial parties - or even parties where the player picked mostly utility spells. Ok, maybe they have scrolls and wands in stock - oh wait, scrolls need the spell to be in your class' spell list to be used, and most wands need to be attuned - and what if the player sold them or never found them? We're talking potentially loading a save file from hours ago, and if they overwrote it they're boned. Okay maybe we go with another route, let's say we make a special arena where interacting with three different paintings removes its immunity for X rounds. Hey that could be cool! But suddenly you have to develop a system behind to support such feature, and while it may not be that long it might mean that you're doing that instead of giving your Gorgon its petrifying breath. For a feature that only a small amount of players may even use (because the rest might just blast the boss' ass into oblivion with fireballs), and that we likely wouldn't reuse (how lame would it be if three different bosses used the same gimmick). Remember we're a small team, and we everything we choose to do has tradeoffs.

At the end of the day, that doesn't mean we won't ever do fun / challenging / out-of-the-box fights - but before that we want to make sure the foundations of the game is solid. We don't want to have a repeat of Lost Valley where many monsters were just big fat lumps of HP who just had one melee physical attack. Once we have an interesting baseline, then we can go and fine-tune more exotic encounters.

Hope that clarifies my use of that example a little!

Will Solasta 2 retain a rectangular movement grid or will it use free movement like BG3? More generally, are there going to be any major changes to the combat system/mechanics?

 

[Abu Antar]

I read the word "attuned". For the love of God, take some creative freedom, and remove attunement from the game.

 

[Infinitron]

Will Solasta 2 retain a rectangular movement grid

Yes, although now when moving from square to square characters will "snap off" the grid and move in a direct line.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I read the word "attuned". For the love of God, take some creative freedom, and remove attunement from the game.

I actually don't mind 5E attunement. It makes you have to make some actual decisions about who gets what and ensures you don't get into a magic item arms race where you see who has more shinies stacked from head to toe.

 

[Abu Antar]

I read the word "attuned". For the love of God, take some creative freedom, and remove attunement from the game.

I actually don't mind 5E attunement. It makes you have to make some actual decisions about who gets what and ensures you don't get into a magic item arms race where you see who has more shinies stacked from head to toe.

I'm stubborn as a little kid on this one. If I see shinies, I want to use the shinies.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I read the word "attuned". For the love of God, take some creative freedom, and remove attunement from the game.

I actually don't mind 5E attunement. It makes you have to make some actual decisions about who gets what and ensures you don't get into a magic item arms race where you see who has more shinies stacked from head to toe.

I'm stubborn as a little kid on this one. If I see shinies, I want to use the shinies.

Use the good ones, throw the crap away.

 

[Abu Antar]

I read the word "attuned". For the love of God, take some creative freedom, and remove attunement from the game.

I actually don't mind 5E attunement. It makes you have to make some actual decisions about who gets what and ensures you don't get into a magic item arms race where you see who has more shinies stacked from head to toe.

I'm stubborn as a little kid on this one. If I see shinies, I want to use the shinies.

Use the good ones, throw the crap away.

Sensible advice, but