Solasta Solasta II - Journey to the Lands of Neokos in the Unreal Engine - coming to Early Access - Demo available

[anvi]

First impressions after fixing the ground textures - the game is really struggling to run. Severely unoptimized. Pre-alpha indeed. Other than that, they definitely don't have the budget to pull something like this off. The facial animations are comically exaggerated, every piece of loose fabric flaps wildly in the wind, textures pop up like nobody's business and that hair needs grooming. It seems like small fishing villages are as multicultural as a major metropolis irl. I don't see this appealing to me, just like Solasta 1, it has that modern D&D vibe I don't particularly get along with.

50 FPS with all settings on Epic, running the game in 4K on a 4070, no dlss on —struggling and unoptimized?

I'm getting 22 FPS on the lowest settings and 15 on max settings. There's definitely something up. There's also this awful shimmering effect around the characters when they move and it looks dreadful.

Probably requires a specific driver version like a lot of games these days -.-

 

[mediocrepoet]

First impressions after fixing the ground textures - the game is really struggling to run. Severely unoptimized. Pre-alpha indeed. Other than that, they definitely don't have the budget to pull something like this off. The facial animations are comically exaggerated, every piece of loose fabric flaps wildly in the wind, textures pop up like nobody's business and that hair needs grooming. It seems like small fishing villages are as multicultural as a major metropolis irl. I don't see this appealing to me, just like Solasta 1, it has that modern D&D vibe I don't particularly get along with.

50 FPS with all settings on Epic, running the game in 4K on a 4070, no dlss on —struggling and unoptimized?

I'm getting 22 FPS on the lowest settings and 15 on max settings. There's definitely something up. There's also this awful shimmering effect around the characters when they move and it looks dreadful.

Probably requires a specific driver version like a lot of games these days -.-

Could be... or lots of newer things (not sure if this is a UE5 specific thing or what) need to do all that shader compilation crap before they run properly.

 

[Mortmal]

He's not giving any info on his rig, so he just wants to complain and be miserable. Let's not hinder his fun—it would be rude.

 

[whocares]

Finished the demo. Performance was decent with some tweaks, but that thing put my GPU fans into overdrive - not good. Also, it looks like DLSS is always on. Even when you put scaling on 100 and turn off all blur and post-processing, there's the signature DLSS blurring when you move the camera around. Such agression will not stand. But if I remember correctly, the demo for the first game also ran like ass, so I'll cut them some slack here.

Content wise, we get a neat story setup. The setting is being expanded. We now have these stone dudes who remind me of DDO's Warforged, but stone. And we get a few neat fights that exhibit the Solasta engine. Conversations are much less stilted. Darkness is back big time, and when it's dark - it's really dark now, so incline. Verticality on the other hand is barely there in the demo, so decline. Multiclassing is in - incline. Reactions are infinitely better than in Bear's Gate 3, and better than Solasta 1, dice rolling is fast and breezy - incline.

The actual content is a good intro for the systems. I'm sure some of this is just demo shit, but I'll go down the list anyway. The devs tend to hang around here and maybe they'll heed my fuming.

• The dreaded plant picking for crafting materials makes an unwanted comeback.
• There doesn't seem to be a way to pause at the moment. Be it in exploration to reposition, or during cutscenes.
• Minimap rotates when you rotate camera and I didn't find an option to turn it off. To this day I have no idea where all these people who don't hate this disorienting feature with a passion are hiding. Just leave the minimap alone!!! REEE.
• Cloth physics are going craaazy at the slightest movement. Need to be toned down.
• Remember yellow scratches denoting climbable surfaces in AAA games? AA games don't have the budget for yellow paint, so we get white. On every surface where you can jump or climb. NO. Bad devs. Stop this shit.
• In the inventory screen, you don't see icons for all the party characters, and have to scroll through them one by one.
• Already we're seeing devs learning wrong lessons from BG3. Party controls are toilet chain-lite. Hates it. You can either control a leader character and the rest autofollow, or control them individually. At least unlike BG3 separating them isn't such a chore. BUT. If you want to quickly click a char - send somewhere, click another - send somewhere else, then you get a big fuck you, because the moment you switch off, a char stops. Positioning and scouting is a massive chore because of this. Just let me box-select who I want you savages. Controllerfags get direct control at least. Hooray for that, I guess.
• When you loot a container by individual item instead of loot all, it doesn't auto-close.
• I couldn't figure out how to unequip items by dragging, only by right-clicking. Also, couldn't figure out how to split stacks at all.
• The giant enemy crab's aoe attack seems broken - whether you succeed or fail a save, you get full damage.
• Autolight feature seems super wonky.
• Animations are very smooth and nice and character looks are considerably better. Fedora tipping intensifies. Vegetation is lush and in general the visuals are pleasant. Just need to do something with all the resources it's hogging and let us turn off DLSS.

 

[Crichton]

I've played through to rescuing a friend of a friend and I really like what I see so far; ~BG3 level voice-acting and animation. There are clearly a couple things missing from the demo (dropping items or placing them in containers for instance) but those will clearly be added for the release version. I'm more concerned about the lack of a readied actions (particularly since BG3 didn't have them and the devs may have concluded casual players won't use them anyway).

The pre-made party, on the other hand, is designed to drive the player crazy,

- Snow dwarf with 9 Dex who uses a long sword instead of a battleaxe
- Halfling thief without darkvision
- High elf sorcerer w/o melee cantrip
- Ms. BAFTA awards (F2/C1, Einar protect us!) doesn't have guidance

I think one is going to be a real winner once I get to make a proper party.

 

[soulburner]

Tried the demo for a few minutes, no real opinion on the game itself, but the performance is rather poor (1440p, 5800X3D + RTX 4070, getting 60-80 fps depending on the settings, warms up the GPU like CP2077) and typical for Unreal Engine 5.

Seems the game is not using DLSS but the Unreal's built-in TSR, which is inferior to DLSS. I'd say it's comparable to FSR but it can sometimes look worse than that, depending on the engine version used. There's no option to disable it within the game but the alternative in the form of TAA would probably not be any better. Hopefully the final version will add DLSS and DLAA.

I've also noticed during dialogs whenever the camera changes to a different view physical objects on characters - weapons, cloth, etc - seem to reset, which looks both funny and bad. Probably already on their roadmap for 1.0.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

First impressions after fixing the ground textures - the game is really struggling to run. Severely unoptimized. Pre-alpha indeed. Other than that, they definitely don't have the budget to pull something like this off. The facial animations are comically exaggerated, every piece of loose fabric flaps wildly in the wind, textures pop up like nobody's business and that hair needs grooming. It seems like small fishing villages are as multicultural as a major metropolis irl. I don't see this appealing to me, just like Solasta 1, it has that modern D&D vibe I don't particularly get along with.

50 FPS with all settings on Epic, running the game in 4K on a 4070, no dlss on —struggling and unoptimized?

It doesn't even boot on my Vic-20!

You should download more RAM dude.

 

[Lacrymas]

The environments look nice. Combat is still the janky 5E miss fest you can't do anything about.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Combat is still the janky 5E miss fest

Nigga is you dumping STR again

 

[mediocrepoet]

Combat is still the janky 5E miss fest you can't do anything about.

You can miss in Solasta?

You sure you didn't boot up a different game?

 

[DemonKing]

That was a pretty cool (and hefty) demo.

Looks like more of the same but with the graphics turned up (especially character models).

I liked how resting affected the tides too so hopefully there will be more cycles included in the full game.

It needs a button to press to highlight the interactable items in the environment.

Demo ended on a nice cliffhanger which was fun.

 

[Crichton]

It needs a button to press to highlight the interactable items in the environment.

Alt

 

[Artyoan]

So I did finish one playthrough of the demo. My immediate impressions and random notes.

Pros:
-The WASD controls (or controller usage) is my favorite improvement by far. Just feels leaps and bounds better than click to move. Basic traversal feels better than Solasta 1 and BG3.
-Steam says the controller is not supported for the demo but it is. Works very well too, though I tried most of the demo with keyboard and mouse. Wasn't much of a dropoff to just use a controller except for targeting enemies sometimes felt awkward.
-Moving in stealth is only slightly slower than the basic run speed and doesn't feel like a chore to be in it regularly, unlike Solasta 1.
-Movements over broken bridges, climbing up ladders, vaulting over things, all of these actions are numerous but not annoying to me as the animation is fluid and quick.
-There are group checks where two of the four must pass the check to succeed. Nice addition.
-Double clicking to validate dash is a nice quality of life feature. Instead of clicking dash, its just shown as an extended orange grid and requires double clicking so as to not waste the action.
-The cover system looks to be only better than Solasta 1. The trusty line of sight is not only there, but it shows if half or 3/4 cover exists on the target on the line itself. Can be awkward to see if the distance is very large but its there. Even the ground can provide half cover if the target is up a hill and then further down a flat distance.
-Three skills can added to a favorites selection. This makes three skills be available on the skill bar that won't require digging through multiple selections to find. Handy.
-Combat feels better than Solasta 1 due to faster animations and speed primarily. But it remains to be seen if things like flying or walking on walls is going to carry over yet, so we'll see. Even with a small slice from the demo though, not expecting any large dropoff in tactical quality to the combat.
-Every aspect of the presentation from the graphics, to the voice acting, to the character faces, environments, all of that shit is better here.
-Final battle was actually moderately difficult.

Neutral:
-Sneak attack is being prompted every time an attack is made. I'm guessing, if they use the 2024 rules, this is to implement cunning strike options.
-Switching weapon sets can be done infinitely.
-Lights automatically in darkness seemed wonky. Like it wasn't working quite right. Should deactivate on stealth but doesn't always?
-Lots of plants to pick up in the demo but no crafting or reason to do it.
-Some stuff is obviously missing. Can't hide with the rogue, or throw things on the ground, or split anything, or ready weapon.
-I don't have any major issues with the UI structure but there are clearly aspects of this that are being built with consoles in mind. The item inventory and combat log in particular.

Cons:
-First NPC you meet is an auctioneer and looks pretty rough compared to the others.
-The graphics are overall great but as others have complained, slightly blurry. This could drive some people crazy.
-Did end up with a slight performance hiccup in the caves near the darker areas after the kobold fight. Only one I had. No crashes.
-Some ally NPC's that join a certain fight aren't controllable and are begging to die.
-A number of small quality of life things are missing. Like mousing over an equippable item in the inventory should highlight what slot it would replace. The looting window should auto-close if everything was taken. Knut's too close to being encumbered the whole time.
-Rolling success or failure needs a grace period where the dice is rolled and then the result is played out. In dialogue, the character starts speaking the result before the dice is rolled and done with. Minor problem but felt off to me.
-Caution (stealth) mode didn't have a dedicated keybind to start/stop it that I noticed and there wasn't one in Solasta 1 either. Needs a keybind.

Very happy with it. That's about as solid an introductory demo as I could have asked for.

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

-Sneak attack is being prompted every time an attack is made. I'm guessing, if they use the 2024 rules, this is to implement cunning strike options.

Maybe you've not noticed something or found a glitch, because for me sneak attacks only work when the rogue has advantage or there is an ally next to it.

 

[Artyoan]

-Sneak attack is being prompted every time an attack is made. I'm guessing, if they use the 2024 rules, this is to implement cunning strike options.

Maybe you've not noticed something or found a glitch, because for me sneak attacks only work when the rogue has advantage or there is an ally next to it.

I meant when sneak attack is eligible but always prompts on a hit. Sneak attack didn't prompt at all in Solasta 1. There was no real reason to need a prompt.

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

-Sneak attack is being prompted every time an attack is made. I'm guessing, if they use the 2024 rules, this is to implement cunning strike options.

Maybe you've not noticed something or found a glitch, because for me sneak attacks only work when the rogue has advantage or there is an ally next to it.

I meant when sneak attack is eligible but always prompts on a hit. Sneak attack didn't prompt at all in Solasta 1. There was no real reason to need a prompt.

Well, sneak attacks can happen only once per turn. So the way it currently is implemented might be better, as you can, for example, attack an enemy with low HP that's close to your rogue with an offhand weapon without wasting it and then proceeding to move closer to another enemy with higher HP and then do the sneak attack (I actually did this once while playing this demo).

 

[whocares]

I'm more concerned about the lack of a readied actions (particularly since BG3 didn't have them and the devs may have concluded casual players won't use them anyway).

Yes, forgot to mention it in my recap. There were several moments when I wanted to ready action and spent some time searching for it in the UI only to find nothing. Would be a shame if they dropped it.

Sneak attack didn't prompt at all in Solasta 1. There was no real reason to need a prompt.

I like that it does now. It's a reaction, and you only get one per round. With how quick and snappy the reaction screen is, I'd rather have control over when to use it.

 

[Bara]

Myzzrym enjoyed the demo extreme visual improvement over Solasta 1 that's for sure.

I will still mourn the loss of Z axis movement for spells or spider climb if what I remember correctly hearing that was lost with the change in engine but being able to move around with WASD made movment feel a lot more fluid and more detailed environments and being or set pieces like the dragon swimming in the water does a lot for immersion.

Also at the start of the the demo reading that the demo party were all the adopted siblings of some one felt kinda "eh." Like some how a elf, dwarf, human, and halfling all became orphans and all got adopted by the same family.
But as I played it I enjoyed the references to their shared history and how they treated one another like when the halfing went "oh look mom's back from the dead" when the human was lecturing them a bit and the dwarf responded "don't" gave them all some personality to them.

Like I prefer the classic D&D varied group of adventures and ruffians forming a group together for the sole purpose of gold and glory and forming friendships along the way.
Which I felt Solasta 1 was trying to do but the inter-party dialogue in that game just did not do it for me like other rpgs have.

The demo party's inner-group dialogue and shared history gave the group a lot more personality and camaraderie together was more enjoyable than Solasta 1 and I prefered this demo group over the original party.

If on release for the main Solasta 2 party if we could perhaps some kind of option in character creation for our group of 4 that was a choice of "What brought your group together."
With different options like:
1. Discovery of a vault where group got together to loot it but x went wrong and after resolving it stuck together.
2. Mercenaries squad that was whipped out and we the survivors tried our hand at adventuring.

Or just stick with the "all adopted by the same family" anything to just to give them something more to talk about and have some shared history and personality to speak of while adventuring.

And for my last mention of positives I will say the combat felt faster than it did in Solasta 1's engine.

Now for my minor quibbles:

• Health bar on the turn order for characters I think should just be bright green, that light blue was really hard to see I could barely tell the human was half health and had to get to their turn or hover over them to actual confirm.
• Ultra-wide support in the demo is nice but if we could maybe get UI options to move things to the center of the screen and if possible expand cut-scenes to ultra-wide.
  • It's a turn based game so eh if you can't have a UI adjustment thats fine not really a issue just be nice to have and I know it is a extreme pain to re-render cutscenes to ultra-wide so I get not doing it at all.
• Combat animations were fine but it... felt kinda weird to see the dwarf and the human to bother wasiting the time to put their shields away on their backs to then swing their weapon. Still need to make the animations for attacking while the shield stays out? Or Intented design?

And last but not least please if we cannot get custom campaigns and mod support with your switch over to the new engine consider doing a series of adventures/dlcs to get the party to level 20.

I also hope you folks can do more with the diffrent factions to make it feel like your picking sides and get diffrent content locking you out of other things.

Oh and I had a crash to desktop when tabing to the halfing while the party was standing on the rock for some reason my only crash.

 

[Grunker]

Artyoan you know what I’m gonna ask… difficulty/encounter-design? Any signs of lessons learned?

 

[Morgoth]

Bit of a hog to run that game, no?

Other than that, it's basically discounter BG3. Pass.

 

[Alienman]

Just sucks that overwatch is removed. Or I can't find it, at least.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Just sucks that overwatch is removed. Or I can't find it, at least.

No ready melee, ready ranged, ready cantrip?

 

[Alienman]

Nope, I can't find it, at least. Sucks if it's gone. I used that a lot.

 

[Lacrymas]

Artyoan you know what I’m gonna ask… difficulty/encounter-design? Any signs of lessons learned?

The three fights I've had up to now are almost identical, but they did find a way to slightly modify each of them. Which is more than what Solasta 1 did. One of your party members is almost a dead weight, though, very strange build. The 2 Fighter/1 Cleric. All of them are strange, but they work because their classes are good, this one not so much. Or at least her most valuable asset, protecting allies, is situational and you have to think about it too much (compared to the others) for it to be semi-effective.

The new fancy graphics come with readability issues btw, the crabs especially blend into the environment, but basically everything that is interactable blends too much. You do have the highlight key, so it's not that much of a problem. There indeed is no prepare action button. What I always say about Solasta 1 applies here to - if the content and encounters are good I can get over the computerized 5E, but if it continues to be Disney-esque/modern 5E-esque I'll politely excuse myself from playing it. I like how people praise the high/low tide "mechanic" (? I don't think it's a mechanic, it's probably a scripted event) yet we've had this in NWN for forever. At least I vaguely remember it being used in Pirates of the Sword Coast, but it's definitely used in user-made modules. The two biggest issues I foresee it having are budget and 5E itself. It's going to be as janky as Solasta 1 due to budget constraints, but in other ways other than graphics (the main campaign is probably going to be extremely short or repetitive after the first few levels). As for 5E itself, what I would like to see is an option to roll 2d10 instead of 1d20. 3d6.67ish would be better but it won't be as intuitive. Not that I care whether it's "intuitive" or not, computers can roll a 3d6.67, you can't do that irl. The wild RNG swings are what drag the tactical nature of the game down and impose themselves on it. 3x misses with a single Scorching Ray are a common sight. Since there is no DM to arbitrate the results or consumables to make up for it, you really feel how limited your characters actually are, especially non-spellcasters vs spellcasters. I don't want to be forced to always take a majority spellcaster party. I can go on and on about 5E, so I won't and I have other stuff to do. More impressions coming later when I've finished the demo.

 

[whydoibother]

Played through the demo. It lasts about 100-120 minutes and is basically Solasta+. Iteration, not revolution.

Visuals, UI and audio have the same design and mood as before, but are technically improved.
Gameplay is the same as before, but there's no push action. Didn't the last game have it?
In this demo you can't create characters, and the pre-built ones are dull stereotypes.

There's 4 fights in the demo:
>tutorial fight against crabs, with some platforms
>optional fight against kobolds that you can talk your way out of
>side quest fight against crabs, where you have to defend suicidal fishermen NPCs
>the final fight where you defend an obelisk, while platforms around it explode, and having to take 1 action per turn to stabilize it

There are a few dialogues in the demo, but most NPCs can't be interacted with at all, not even greetings or barks.
Dialogues have skill checks relevant to the various characters, and you can try the Paladin charm or the Rogue deception to the same end.
I didn't see any interactable doors either, just open and closed spaces. NPCs don't react if you loot chests near them.

I think rotating the camera behaves WORSE now than before, and sometimes goes crazy when trying to move in the caves. In particular it sperged on me when I tried to move my camera without moving my characters, to see the road back from the caves.
You can't click on the map anymore to quick move your party there. BIG DECLINE. I hope this gets readded.
Asking my characters to climb to a high place had them pathing through unexplored terrain, that they can't know would lead them there.
I used save-reload 4 times, and one of those 4 times the game froze while loading and I had to kill the process. After that the load happened normally, no save corruption.
You can zoom into third person, and control your character like they are Geralt of Rivia walking through town, which looks and feels good.