KickStarter Solasta Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Elex]

Yes that’s what matter on 5e sometime action economy is the only thing that determine a win or a loss.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tacticaladventures/solasta-crown-of-the-magister/posts/2896081

Dev Journal | July 2020 - Combat & Action Economy

Hey there folks,

Hope you're all doing well in this fine summer weather! We've been hard at work on implementing quite a few new features... that we'll keep secret for now! Now don't worry, we still have plenty to share regardless. Without further ado, here is our first Dev Update of July - with your weekly dose of friendly feline attached to it.

This adorable fellow is named Kaiju, and he's our Graphic Programmer's companion

Video Dev Diary - Combat & Action Economy
Action Economy is an important concept to understand if you're looking for efficiency during combat in 5e. Learn how to fight efficiently with Tactical Myzzrym by using your Action, Bonus Action and Reaction properly within the SRD 5.1 ruleset.

Spoiler

Here be Monsters
Where are the monsters at? Give those poor goblins a break and show us something new. Well well well, today's your lucky day - for we're about to reveal not one, not two... but four new monsters you can look forward to meet in Solasta!

My path is paved with bones, with steel and strength I shall crush you!

Our first monster is the Minotaur - winner of the February Community Vote, defeating the Ettin, the Ettercap and the Badlands Troll to be crowned the victor! This massive monstrosity is known for its extremely dangerous charge, which can easily down any lesser armored adventurer.

Aaaah, fresh meat.

Our second monster is the Ghoul, well known for roaming in packs under the cover of the night, ever looking for humanoid flesh to satisfy their unending hunger. Considering the extreme environment of the Badlands, it is no surprise to see that undeads would thrive in at least some areas. It is, of course, accompanied by their big brother the Ghast - our third monster of today.

Big brother Ghast is currently only in their 2D stage of creation.

Finishing off today's roster is going to be another undead foe, the Wight. Intelligent undead humanoids, Wights are said to be mortals once driven by dark desire and great vanity. Unlike most "lesser" undead beings, Wights are very adept at using weapons, and those who think that they can be easily pick off from afar will quickly change their tune after being turned into pincushions themselves. Among the more terrifying rumors about Wights is their ability to turn anyone they slay into a zombie under their command, preventing any attempt at resurrecting the victim. No one knows if it's true or simply folktales, for few would be willing to test that theory.

You aren't the first paladin I've met - and you won't be the last.

As to where you would meet such monsters, let me give you a little taste...

Hello? Anyone here? Alright folks, seems like we're a bit late to the party.

Did Anyone Order a (Face)lift?
You've said it, we've said it - none of us are satisfied with the current faces in Solasta. This is why we've been working on it behind the scene - and today we're ready to show you a first glance at what we're working on. We've changed methods on how to create faces, here is our first trial using the new process!

The first in a long list of faces that will be replaced. And by a long list, I mean every face produced so far.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: your feedback matters. Thank you for the time you spend talking about the game, sharing your excitement (and concerns!) with us and other fans!

Environment Artists, Reporting For Duty
Good environment artists are able to make a location come to life, with little details and polish that just make you feel like the area isn't just somewhere for your party goes through - but an important part of the world supporting the game. Places where people live, places where monsters hunt, places left untouched for centuries... Yet, they're most often not those people talk about when the game comes out. So here is some of their recent work for you to enjoy!

The once bland pavement of Caer Cyflen now has motifs and small roads for visitors to browse the market stalls

The statue of a knight adorning the previously barren insides of a temple

Walls and other elements in various levels of disrepair, ready to be used by level builders to decorate the level.

Give me Feats, Give me Power, Give me That Which I Desire!
We've just started implementing feats to our leveling system! You will now be able to select feats instead of increasing your ability scores at level 4 and 8. Note that not every Solastan feat has been added to the interface quite yet, so what you're seeing here is mostly a sample of what you'll have in the final game.

Oh great, I love not dying due to crappy Death Saving Throws. Somehow I feel like that may come handy in no-Cleric no-Paladin runs.

We also have a little system to warn you if you're about to pick a Feat that overlaps with your existing features (such as armor or weapon proficiency)

It's a Kind of Magic
No bloopers this week, but instead here is your weekly dose of new spells!

Chill Touch, Cantrip, Necromancy

Shadow Dagger, Cantrip, Illusion (Homebrew)

That's it for today! Thank you for reading, and don't hesitate to drop by our Forums or our Discord Server.

Read our previous articles here:

• Summer Q&A Recap
• Dev Update #15 - Goodbye, Steam Summer Festival!
• "Choose your Path" Trailer

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

 

[Lacrymas]

Why do we need yet more damage cantrips that are essentially Firebolt? And I'm not particularly keen on Illusion spells doing straight-up damage.

 

[Darth Canoli]

3 fucking seconds animations for cantrips ...
The guy in charge of that garbage should apply to work for Beamdog.

 

[deuxhero]

Why do we need yet more damage cantrips that are essentially Firebolt? And I'm not particularly keen on Illusion spells doing straight-up damage.

Illusion has always been impossible to implement in video games proper. You get its (good) defensive spells, half-assed implementations of Shadow Conjuration/Evocation that restrict you to spells that are far from the best options for those, and nothing else. It's one of those things I don't think could be implemented well even if the entire game centered around it.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Oh thank god the faces are fixed. Hopefully the half-hawk hairstyles come in next so it can truly save the game.

 

[santino27]

Why do we need yet more damage cantrips that are essentially Firebolt? And I'm not particularly keen on Illusion spells doing straight-up damage.

Firebolt is obviously the go-to damage cantrip, but there are times you don't want to use a fire-based spell. More choice doesn't suck.

 

[Lacrymas]

We do have shocking grasp and acid spray too, so it's not like firebolt is the only cantrip. Having too many samey choices isn't ideal either and dilutes the more focused choices.

 

[NJClaw]

Why do we need yet more damage cantrips that are essentially Firebolt? And I'm not particularly keen on Illusion spells doing straight-up damage.

Illusion spells that do damage always crack me up (in a good way). I love the idea of something that doesn't exist but seems so real that you can actually feel an adequate amount of pain.

 

[Lacrymas]

You know how when you are asleep and you really need to pee, you dream about going to the toilet and piss yourself irl? Yeah, it's that. I'm not convinced I like it ;d

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.solasta-game.com/news/88-dev-update-17-everybody-loves-magic-items

DEV UPDATE #17 - EVERYBODY LOVES MAGIC ITEMS

Hey there folks,

We've spent a lot of time on our Combat Video Dev Diary, so this week's Dev Update will be a little bit lighter than usual. Fun fact, around the same time last year we were hard at work to get our first version of the Ruins of Telema ready for GenCon 2019. Back then, we were both eager... and anxious - it was the first time Solasta would be playable by anyone unrelated to the project. Would people come to play it? Would they like it? Did we make the right choice coming to GenCon - an event primarily centered around tabletop - with our video game?

Thankfully, everything went fantastic. Tabletop players flocked to our game stations (we only had two available!) and queues started to form - we even had a couple of fans arriving before us in the morning to get a chance at playing the demo. If you're curious, we did a small recap with pictures here.

Anyway, back to today's Dev Update. But before that...

Doudou doing her best to pester our Producer during meetings. Taking notes is not an option.


Do I Roll One or Two Dice?

Let's start by showing off one of the most requested feature during the Steam Summer Festival: A tooltip telling you why you have advantage / disadvantage (or when they cancel out). Many of you highlighted the fact that it wasn't always obvious why you were rolling with advantage or disadvantage (most often the latter), and thus couldn't adapt your next turn to avoid running into the same problem. Well, we just implemented a first version to help you with that (WIP as usual)!

Here I have neither advantage nor disadvantage because the conditions cancel each other out (unlit = no light)

Spoiler

Magic Items, Yes!

We've just started implemented magic items with active powers! Staff of Fire? Check. Wand of Magic Missiles? Check. Boots of Levitation? Check.

And with all the original properties, including self-destructing if you roll poorly! (woohoo)

And up we go!


Art for the Art God!

It wouldn't be a proper Solasta Dev Update without a healthy dose of gorgeous environment now would it?

A nice little alchemist table. Now that I think about it, selling potions must be very lucrative in Solasta.

So hmmm... Remind me your passive perception score again? Oh, no reason really.

Something is brewing deep inside that castle... brewing... get it? If you groaned, roll 1d6 psychic damage.


Special Effects for a Special Audience

Let's end today's short update with a couple of spells and... a little update on the Ghoul, which will soon be implemented ingame!

Laugh all you want, you'll fail that Constitution saving throw at some point. We'll see who laughs after that.

First version of the Ghoul's idle animation

Invisibility, 2nd level spell, Illusion

That's it for today! Thank you for reading, and don't hesitate to drop by our Forums or our Discord Server.

Read our previous articles here:

• Video Dev Diary - Combat & Action Economy
• Dev Update #16 - Here Be Monsters!
• Summer Q&A Recap

 

[NJClaw]

Invisibility, 2nd level spell, Illusion

Very cool, is the game also designed to be used by human beings with a limited lifespan or am I going to need Cheat Engine to play it?

Seriously, that casting animation is at least 4 times longer than what it should be.

 

[Lacrymas]

Cantrips take 3 seconds and every spell level adds another second on top. Is it flashy enough for the target audience yet or must we prepare reading material before playing the game?

 

[fantadomat]

Invisibility, 2nd level spell, Illusion

Very cool, is the game also designed to be used by human beings with a limited lifespan or am I going to need Cheat Engine to play it?

Seriously, that casting animation is at least 4 times longer than what it should be.

Welcome to the club my scalie friend!

 

[Shrimp]

Those of you who've played the demo, what sort of state is it in?
I'd rather not play the demo if it's still in a very basic state with no definitive release date in sight but I'm bored out of my mind and I'm still interested in seeing what the actual game might end up being like.

 

[whydoibother]

Hopefully they have a quick animation mode, for when you get bored about 5 hours in. All of the Civilizations and its clones games have it, for good reason.
And just like how I enable long animations before I nuke someone, I'd enable it before the big spell bombs on a boss or something. But for trash fights, quick animations are necessary. Its also my biggest problem with Divinity OS and the upcoming Larian Baldur's Gate.

 

[Lacrymas]

Those of you who've played the demo, what sort of state is it in?

It can be completed, but it's fairly buggy (understandable). It's bare-bones, however, and I wouldn't say it showcases the combat very well due to the homogeneity of the encounters, the bad AI, and the inability to create your own characters.

 

[NJClaw]

Hopefully they have a quick animation mode, for when you get bored about 5 hours in. All of the Civilizations and its clones games have it, for good reason.
And just like how I enable long animations before I nuke someone, I'd enable it before the big spell bombs on a boss or something. But for trash fights, quick animations are necessary. Its also my biggest problem with Divinity OS and the upcoming Larian Baldur's Gate.

In D:OS the problem is exacerbated by the constant need to handle the eventual presence of multiple players. You cast your spell and for the entire duration of the animation you can't even select another character to activate a second skill. Having to watch that cartoonish idiot spin in circle to cast Rain without being able to control another character in the meantime made me so angry...

 

[whydoibother]

Those of you who've played the demo, what sort of state is it in?

Neverwinter Nights 2020, but with the user interface of Endless Legend.
It has a premade party, some voiced dialogue, you fight orcs twice and spirets twice iirc. Its low level, so you don't have much to do in fights. In my single run through it, I didn't see bugs. The elevation and terrain are well made, the spiders crawling down the walls of the tower while you climb up the stairs was very neat.

I'd so go through it, its 30 minutes or something.

 

[Thac0]

And while Larian is learning and shaving off animation time for smoother combat in BG3 (atleast according to their devlogs), the Solasta crew is copying their mistakes. Loot at that chill touch, literally looks like it could be in a Divinity OS2 expansion with the overaccented hand swirling and all.
If those development trends continue the UI will be the smallest problem Solasta has.

 

[Dodo1610]

The Demo was more a proof of concept thing than anything else, they proved that they can make an accurate video game adaptation of 5E OGL with a pretty interesting verticality focus. But that's about it, we don't know how the encounters will be, we don't know how varied the campaign or how the story and side quests will be and pretty much everything else. That being said I can't imagine Solasta becoming either an awful game nor the best tactical RPG ever. The thing I am most afraid of is Unity I fear this will be another loading time simulator with low FPS.

 

[Shrimp]

Fair enough, in that case I'll just give it some time for a larger portion of the game to be playable.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect the game to be a massive scale adventure capable of competing on par with the other titles that also are undergoing production at the moment, but the verticality in its level/encounter design is what made me interested in it in the first place and as long as that remains in then I'm perfectly fine with it.

 

[fantadomat]

Hopefully they have a quick animation mode, for when you get bored about 5 hours in. All of the Civilizations and its clones games have it, for good reason.
And just like how I enable long animations before I nuke someone, I'd enable it before the big spell bombs on a boss or something. But for trash fights, quick animations are necessary. Its also my biggest problem with Divinity OS and the upcoming Larian Baldur's Gate.

In D:OS the problem is exacerbated by the constant need to handle the eventual presence of multiple players. You cast your spell and for the entire duration of the animation you can't even select another character to activate a second skill. Having to watch that cartoonish idiot spin in circle to cast Rain without being able to control another character in the meantime made me so angry...

That is why CheatEngine is god!

 

[Bara]

I hope they space out the magic items so they dont need to dumpster them all into a bin if we do get sequels games and can port our party over to hose hypothetical sequel(s).

When I finally went through the goldbox series it felt really good to be able to carry over (when permited) the majority of treasure from one game to the next feeling like an actual DnD campagin.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Why do we need yet more damage cantrips that are essentially Firebolt? And I'm not particularly keen on Illusion spells doing straight-up damage.

Illusion has always been impossible to implement in video games proper. You get its (good) defensive spells, half-assed implementations of Shadow Conjuration/Evocation that restrict you to spells that are far from the best options for those, and nothing else. It's one of those things I don't think could be implemented well even if the entire game centered around it.

Agreed. Illusion is my favorite school, but it's very complicated for a CRPG to do. Baldur's Gate 2 had such awesome spellcasting in part because they actually tried. Illusions spells were awesome, if not overpowered. Those spells were heavily house ruled, but whatever. It was FUN!