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

[Sykar]

"Species" would be correct, but it's too modern/scientific for a fantasy world. "Race" doesn't make any sense as that word describes a group within a species. So, ancestry it is. Personally, I'm fond of "Breed"

Fucking zoomers, enough with this "Races" bullshit: "Dwarf" and "Elf" are classes!

Realms of Arcania HD. Just ask ERYFKRAD

 

[Harthwain]

I see they've decided to hide the UI during the battle sections in that video.

There are a few moments when the UI is shown.

 

[Nortar]

"Dwarf" and "Elf" are classes!

And dwarves completely outclass elves!

 

[Abu Antar]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tacticaladventures/solasta-crown-of-the-magister/posts/2950455

Solasta comes to Steam Early Access on October 20th 2020!

Are you excited yet? We sure are!

Hey there folks,

We weren't lying when we said that our Gamescom Trailer was a teaser... We're now ready to reveal the full Trailer - and the Early Access date with it! Mark your calendar, for in a bit more than a month on October 20th, Solasta: Crown of the Magister will be available on Steam Early Access!

Hello Pax Online!
Tactical Adventures will be part of Pax Online, from Sept 12th to Sept 20th! You know what that means... Our Demo is once again up and running for the time being!

More info on that soon!
Updated Steam Page with Early Access Information
Why Early Access?

Early Access allows us to deliver on something we’ve always promised since the game was announced – and that is working hands in hands with our players. With Early Access available to our community, we’ll be able to receive much more qualitative feedback, which in turn ensures that we’ll be able to deliver an even greater experience at release

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

While it is difficult to pinpoint an exact date – especially as we’ll be implementing suggestions and changes from the community as we go – we are still looking for a release in 2021. Ideally we’d like to aim for 6 months, but it’s hard to be 100% certain!

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

The Early Access version of Solasta includes Act 1 and a teensy bit of Act 2 – which should be more than 10h of content to go through. Every ancestry, class and archetype is unlocked during Early Access, with the maximum level capped to 6. We believe that it is very important for players to reach level 5, as many archetypes start shining around this stage: 2nd attack for martial classes, access to powerful AoE spells, stronger cantrips... It is a very different experience from the early levels, and can affect the balance of later encounters drastically.

The release version of Solasta will include Act 2 and Act 3 in full, as well as adding many side quests such as the Legendary Monster Hunt from our Kickstarter stretch goals, or the characters’ background quests. It will also unlock access to additional locations to explore – and of course plenty of loot to boot. It will also bring party up to level 10! As a whole, Solasta should take around 40h to complete, although that number may very well vary depending on the difficulty level.

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

As stated before, Early Access gives you access to the full Character Creation Tool with all the ancestries, classes, archetypes and backgrounds. You will be limited to level 6 maximum, and won’t be able to progress past the start of Act 2. As with every Early Access games, there will be small kinks here and there, such as bugs or balance issues – but we’re confident that we’re providing a strong and enjoyable experience from the get-go with the release of our Early Access! As a matter of fact, it is important for us to get as far as we can in terms of stability & polish for this Early Access, so that you can provide better feedback. The game will be available in English, French, German and Simplified Chinese during Early Access, but we’re looking to add more for the final release.

Important Note: Considering the fact that game development is a very iterative process, please understand that your saves will likely be incompatible with larger updates and with the full game release. As such, if you’re looking for the complete experience Solasta can offer, we encourage you to wait for the full release.

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

Yes, Solasta: Crown of the Magister will be slightly cheaper during Early Access, as we believe each player helps us better shape the final release of our game!

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

Solasta has a very active Discord server as well as an official forum where we gather all of our players’ feedback. We’ve already implemented many suggestions from the Steam Spring and Summer Festivals thanks to people playing our Demo – and we’re looking to do that again (and again!) during Early Access of course.

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

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

 

[Tom Baker's Arse]

I need to take a break from Wasteland 3, the constant gunplay has this old bastard (me) bloody well on a hard edge. I'm drunk on Bushmills half the time while playing, its not a good scene. I need a mellow break. Man, its a good thing grass is legal in this country now. I can get through until October 20 with Encased, yes, that will do it ...

 

[Bara]

So went to take a gander at the Solasta discord for more tidbits came across this post by Myzzrym about what happens if a backer uses their code for steam early access but the game rleases on gog later:

No, if we eventually release on GoG we'll likely just send you an another key. Lke seriously you bought the game, I don't want to be counting peanuts on who prefer steam who prefers GoG.

Cool devs remain cool.

 

[NJClaw]

So went to take a gander at the Solasta discord for more tidbits came across this post by Myzzrym about what happens if a backer uses their code for steam early access but the game rleases on gog later:

No, if we eventually release on GoG we'll likely just send you an another key. Lke seriously you bought the game, I don't want to be counting peanuts on who prefer steam who prefers GoG.

Cool devs remain cool.

Don't let Myzzrym fool you, they are already going down the pay-to-cat road.

 

[Infinitron]

Demo is available again for PAX Online.

 

[gurugeorge]

I just started the demo for this, immediate first impressions:-

So far as it goes, it's good, it's got a lot of attention to detail, particularly the UI, which is really nicely done. The camera is a problem though, and it makes the vertical "gimmick" a bit annoying sometimes. With a game like this I think precisely what you DON'T want is a camera that jerks around with automatic criteria that you have no control over (like zipping from character to character, or jerking around following surfaces to avoid clipping). (Baldur's Gate 3 has this problem as well - I guess it's an artifact of trying to make things easy for console controllers. But with BG3 I gather they're making camera automatisms optional) As a PC player with mouse and keyboard, you want the camera to be at peace, and to have total control over it so you can look anywhere and not get a headache from it jerking around constantly with a mind of its own.

I really don't know how this can be solved (because there's obviously going to be clipping through surfaces if it's totally free, and with the possibility of one losing one's bearings in the complex 3-d spaces, and wandering off to places unknown with the camera). But the devs are clearly smart and dedicated, so I think they'll probably have gotten it all working nicely at launch. It's probably an issue of very fine tuning, and especially of making sure that you can "recall" to viewing your party at any instant.

The other issue is that the "gimmick" itself is somewhat negated, gameplay-wise, by the fact that the characters' AI is smart enough to find it's own way across and around obstacles, so effectively there's no actual puzzle gameplay involved with the movement, you just point your party at the place where you want to go, and the party finds its way, occasionally being stymied by impassable areas where you need to interact with something to help you get across a gap or whatever. On the one hand this is actually good, it's nice and smooth most of the time, but on the other hand, I think it sort of nullifies the impact of the verticality in a way.

Connected with all this, the fact that you can't zoom in close is something of an annoyance. I feel that if you could zoom in close and see more of the detail of possible paths to take then you wouldn't need to rely on the AI, you could treat it as more of a step-by-step puzzle process. But because there's no zoom, because everything feels distant, and the AI finds its path anyway, again, it makes one lackadaisical about the verticality stuff, and that sort of nullifies the point of the verticality as a gimmick. One just has the impatience to get from A to B.

But nevertheless, this game has got a LOT of potential as a gritty D&D style tactical CRPG and everyone should give the demo a go.

 

[gurugeorge]

Should also say (seeing as there's a dev here), you absolutely must make keymapping assignable on release for PC. An instant annoyance that immediately predisposed me to disliking the game was the fact that I couldn't change the camera turn keys. Fortunately the game is good enough that I persisted by making do with the hold right mouse method, but I would prefer to use keys. Developers must lose a small but non-negligible chunk of players all the time to things like non-assignable keys and non-reversible mouse y (Asian developers are particular sinners in the latter area).

 

[V_K]

The camera is a problem though, and it makes the vertical "gimmick" a bit annoying sometimes. With a game like this I think precisely what you DON'T want is a camera that jerks around with automatic criteria that you have no control over (like zipping from character to character, or jerking around following surfaces to avoid clipping). (Baldur's Gate 3 has this problem as well - I guess it's an artifact of trying to make things easy for console controllers. But with BG3 I gather they're making camera automatisms optional)

I don't know about BG3, but having place DOS2 recently I've come to appreciate Solasta's camera and zoomed out view a lot more. Anyways, there was an update somewhere on how they're going to improve the camera for release.

 

[gurugeorge]

The camera is a problem though, and it makes the vertical "gimmick" a bit annoying sometimes. With a game like this I think precisely what you DON'T want is a camera that jerks around with automatic criteria that you have no control over (like zipping from character to character, or jerking around following surfaces to avoid clipping). (Baldur's Gate 3 has this problem as well - I guess it's an artifact of trying to make things easy for console controllers. But with BG3 I gather they're making camera automatisms optional)

I don't know about BG3, but having place DOS2 recently I've come to appreciate Solasta's camera and zoomed out view a lot more. Anyways, there was an update somewhere on how they're going to improve the camera for release.

Good, I hope they do. Just finished the demo and I sincerely wish the developers success. The tactical combat certainly works well, that's for sure. If they manage to get the camera right (and again, I would suggest total freedom of movement for the PC, including zooming in and out, if that's possible within their graphics constraints - but I can understand if that's too much work without much ROI if they're aiming mainly for consoles, in which case they just need to refine the camera so that it does less random bumping about) then I'll certainly be buying it.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.solasta-game.com/news/97-dev-update-21-onwards-towards-early-access

DEV UPDATE #21 - ONWARDS, TOWARDS EARLY ACCESS!

Hey there folks,

Now that you all have a date to look forward to, it's time for us to dash towards the first checkpoint (the final goal being v1.0 release in 2021 of course). Early Access has been announced, and we're here to deliver! We've been hard at work creating Solasta: Crown of the Magister's campaign, but we've also been working out the issues from our Kickstarter Demo days - camera, facial animations, bugs and quality of life galore. And of course, we'll continue to do so all throughout our Early Access! But before we start today's Dev Update...

I'm pretty sure our 3D Programmer rolled a Beast Master in his previous life, here is a hedgehog from his garden


Solasta coming to Steam Early Access October 20th 2020!

To all of you out there who rolled 1 in Intelligence (Investigation), you may want to know that Solasta is coming to Steam Early Access on October 20th 2020 (that's a bit more than one month). As a reminder, every Kickstarter Backer whose rewards included the game (Tier $18 and above) will receive an Early Access Key, and non-backers will finally be able to buy the game as well!


We updated our Steam Page with an Early Access FAQ where you can read more about our plans and what's included in Solasta's Early Access


Ask Us Anything on Discord - Thursday September 17th!

As Early Access is coming right around the corner, we'll be hosting an AMA on our official Discord server on Thursday!

Starting at 5 am PDT / 8 am EDT / 2 pm CEST, I will be online (with the rest of the team not so far away) for a few hours to answer any question you may have on Discord. Not there during those hours? Worry not, the AMA Channel will be open for the rest of the day so ask away and we'll pick back up the next morning! In order to avoid missing out on the information that will be shared, I will be compiling the questions & answers in a separate channel where only devs can talk.



Got a question? Fire away (with advantage on your roll)!

Once the AMA is over, I will also be putting up a recap in our Forums so that those who couldn't make it don't miss out on some juicy tidbits! Don't be shy, drop by and say hello^^

Spoiler

Death is not the End

For most unfortunate adventurers who meet their fate at the hands of undead foes, death is a blessing more than a curse - as it is highly likely that damned will join the swelling ranks of the Undead. From the lowly skeleton to the elite Wight, all of them were once living breathing beings!

Dread Brood Concept Art

Flesh Brood Concept Art

Blood Brood Concept Art

Wight Armor 3D Model - we're trying to see if we can make the armor work on player characters as well!


More Art for the Art Gods

While there are plenty of stuff we would love to show you, we have to keep spoilers to a minimum as we still want you to discover Solasta on your own during Early Access (and later in the full release as well). Still, here is a selection of Concept Art and in-game screenshots!

Ruined mansions are pretty great... Say, how much do you think that painting is worth?

While traveling in the wild, you suddenly hear rustling! Roll 2d4 - 5 starving wolves jump from the bushes, roll initiative!

More Work In Progress Spell Icons, including Healing Push-Ups, because sport is good for your health (this one is getting reworked)


The Return of the Bloopers

Getting closer to Early Access means we're starting to squash bugs left and right... which means bloopers are back on the menu, and boy do they look spicy!

Implementing new faces means breaking the older ones, now they look like they just got hit by a Bestow Curse (CHA)

Abort, abort! Cutscene broke, cutscene broke!


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

 

[Lacrymas]

I have hedgehogs in my garden as well.

 

[V_K]

I know they're French, and it's probably something that simply got lost in translation, but someone should tell them that hedgehogs aren't cats.

 

[Lacrymas]

hedgehogs aren't cats.

Lies!

 

[V_K]

hedgehogs aren't cats.

Lies!

It's an understandable mistake to make, I can totally see how one could be confused for the other - both prey on mice, are impartial to milk and tend to curl into balls. But the fundamental difference is that cats are soft, snuggly and pleasant to the tough, while hedgehogs are, well, not.

 

[Alienman]

They are in fact upgraded rats.

 

[Bara]

Still waiting on dogs to appear.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.solasta-game.com/news/98-ask-us-anything-pax-qa-recap

ASK US ANYTHING - PAX Q&A RECAP

Hey there folks!

This week we're posting a recap of the Q&A that happened during PAX Online last week. Saddle up, because there's a LOT of text coming your way.

Obligatory cat picture to lessen the upcoming impact with the wall of text


== Character Building ==

Q: You will add some new class post-launch ?

A: Solasta launches in Early Access with the 6 classes available in the Demo, however we have already promised to add the Sorcerer as a free post-launch DLC during our Kickstarter Campaign.

Ideally, we'd love to have all official SRD classes in Solasta - however we don't want to make any promises. We'll likely be looking at DLCs post-launch to add new classes (depending on how the game performs!). As for the order of release, we'll likely involve the community like we did during the Kickstarter!

Q: Will there be anything like Bladesinger or Eldritch knight?

A: So just to make sure people don't misunderstand - we won't have the Bladesinger or the Eldritch Knight as they are not SRD.

That being said, we do have the Spellblade that is our version of the magic-wielding fighter archetype, and the Greenmage which is a sort of Wizard / Ranger hybrid (vs the Wizard / Fighter that is Bladesinger)

Q: Are you only including content from the core 5e books in terms of class and races, or will you be expanding out to Xanathar's, Tasha's, etc. ?

A: As stated before, we're using D&D SRD 5.1 - we do not have a full D&D license. As such, we can't use any content from Xanathar's or other official D&D sourcebooks. Even taking the Player Handbook, we don't have access to all the archetypes for instance.

Q: Are Half-orcs going to be included?

A: Half-orcs have unfortunately not been confirmed for Solasta! So... maybe post-launch, but maybe never - I don't like to make empty promises, so we'll have to see!

Q: Is multiclassing something you are looking into for the future?

A: This is unlikely, as multiclassing brings in a LOT of bugs and balancing issues (who doesn't know of the Warlock dip when playing a CHA character). That being said, Solasta is a single player game so it's mostly for technical reasons than balancing reasons (it's not like we have a scoreboard or something).

Ideally we want to make more Archetypes / bring more Classes if variety is what is lacking, rather than do multiclassing. But again, we have the philosophy of "never say never" - if the community is behind it, and we find the time and decide to prioritize it, it may be a thing post-launch (but most likely not).

Q: Is Divine Intervention going to be in Solasta?

A: I'm pretty sure that it won't be part of Solasta. Divine Intervention is one of those very RP feature that shines with good DMs, and we unfortunately don't have a highly performant AI brain locked behind our game. Early Access only goes up to level 6 which leaves us time to think about another Cleric lvl 10 feature.

Q: Will the Sorcerer have chaos bolt to add to his spell repertoire?

A: I just checked, Chaos Bolt is Xanathar - so nope, we can't have that in Solasta

Spoiler

Q: Are more races going to be added? Seems a bit limited for now. Also, will we get variant humans as an option?

A: More races: Again we don't like to promise things when we don't know if we're going to make them. We may have more races in the future in DLCs.

Variant human: Unfortunately not SRD, so nope!

Q: Will it be possible to read through all character options in a more friendly format than the steam demo? A pdf would be great

A: No, and the reason is simple enough: It takes time to make and format properly. Time that would be better spent working on the game^^

Q: What skills/languages won’t be relevant/needed?

A: Rule of thumb: If it's not relevant in-game, it won't be offered in-game. We might have some remnant during Early Access, but at launch skills that can't be used in Solasta won't be there in the Character Creation (same for languages)

Q: For character generation, other than the unlimited free points, will we be able to establish our own standard stat array for all our characters? For instance, could I set my play through to use an array of 16,14,13,12,11,8 for all my characters?

A: We've implemented the standard creation rules. If you want to use a specific array, you'll need to use the "Free Edit" option and set the stats manually.

Q: There will be any homebrew feats that make more viable certains category of weapons like Great Weapon mastery or Polearm mastery?

A: I wouldn't know about that, feats are not finalized for now.

Q: About how many tool proficiencies (including things like musical instruments, gaming sets, and vehicle proficiencies) will have a role in the game?

A: Not that many. We'll mostly be gameplay focused, so gaming sets or musical instruments likely won't make it in - we'll have stuff like thieves tools, scroll writing tools and stuff

Q: Will we have to reach level 4 in the campaign to see the feats?

A: Yes. Thankfully Early Access goes up to level 6.

Q: Will we get proficiency feats?

A: I believe there are a few, yes.

Q: Will it be any reason to have multiple characters with the same skill profiency

A: For general skills, not really. Some skills like Stealth can be useful as each individual have their own detection meter, but for group checks the game picks up the highest modifier only.

Q: Would you consider allowing two proficient characters to assist one another with, for example, a History check (granting advantage to the character receiving the Help action)?

A: That's more or less what the Help action would do, but it could be interesting. I'll submit that to the design team.

Q: Will there be a playable race similar to Duergar?

There are only 2 available dwarven races at launch, Hill Dwarves and Snow Dwarves. That being said it doesn't mean we aren't interested in adding more later.

Q: How many Cleric subclasses are there ?

A: 7 Domains: Life (SRD), Sun, Elemental, Battle, Law, Oblivion, Insight

Q: Is there no way to plan a character around a specific feat?

A: That's actually a good point, we'd probably need to have the list of feat available somewhere so that people can plan their characters in advance.

Q: Will there be any way to respec/re-level up a character?

A: I don't believe so, it's not really something you do in D&D... but I do think that's one of the things modders will add in-game, if there are any :D

Q: When the vote was around for extra classes there was a lot of talk about differentiating Ranger from a Fighter or Rogue - how are you working to make the Ranger feel like a unique class distinct from those two? How are the (generally considered underpowered) abilities and mechanics of that class influencing its development?

A: Vanilla rangers are often considered underpowered not necessarily because of their fighting prowess, but because most of their features are conditional. Like, they are not always going to be useful (and in fact, most of the time they are not going to be).

These features also happen to be the ones that are very RP reliant, so they don't work as well in a video game if just implemented as such. Ranger is one of the classes who've received quite a few tweaks in Solasta. We're looking forward to your feedback during Early Access!

Q: In regards to the answers about multiple characters with the same skill, if two characters have Thieves' Tools proficiency, can they both take a crack at a lock or is it still one group check?

A: So our current philosophy is to have one roll for the group, to avoid slowing down the pace of the game too much. That being said, it's something that we will refine during Early Access, so if you feel strongly about the need of each proficient character rolling, be vocal about it!

We may also think about implementing a passive Help, where if two characters (at least) have proficiency than the character with the highest modifier automatically rolls with advantage or something.

Q: What is the expected level cap for the game? Will it be extended in the future?

A: Level 10 at launch, who knows for future DLCs?

Q: How many races/classes do you guys have planned in total in the game (sub races and sub classes included)

A: 5 Races (8 subraces), 6 Classes at launch (22 archetypes), 1 additional class post-launch already announced (3 archetypes)

Q: How many voices will there be?

A: 2 voices male, 2 voices female (Player Character, NPCs not included)


== Exploration & Quests ==

Q: Will some side quests have a similar structure, offering different outcomes and affecting other side quests in turn, even possibility new side quests that only become available by certain past actions/choices?

A: Some side quests may be locked if your reputation with certain factions is too low, but I don't believe there are quests that are locked if you answered A rather than B in a previous quest for instance (unless that put you in a very bad spot with said faction).

Q: Are all quests timed?

A: No, quests are not timed. We wanted to avoid putting that pressure on the player.

Q: Is any of the content "gated" by class choice or race choice? Corollary: Is any content gated by the choices we make in dialogue or other quest-based decisions?

A: Class / Races may unlock you special dialog options in certain cutscenes, however I don't believe they are blockers per se. Content may be gated if you get on the bad side of some factions however, as they will stop giving you quests.

Q: In world map travelling system are present horse or caravan or other stuff to change the pace or the risk to encounter bandit or monster ?

A: As far as I know you won't be getting horses or caravans, but according to the ruleset you have 3 different travel speed (with different bonus / penalties).

Q: Is it possible to explore all the content in one playthrough, or will there be mutually exclusive options (faction-related storylines for instance)?

A: I think it should be possible to explore all the content as far as quests go, but you will be missing dialogs / lines of course depending on what you select during your playthrough.

Oh, and background quests of course. Since you can only choose 4 out of the 8 existing ones.

Q: We know that the party can reach level 10 throughout the course of the game, but how difficult is this going to be to achieve? Will the main storylines provide enough experience to cover it all?

A: The goal is to have the party reach level 10 by the end of the campaign, so I don't believe hunting down every side quests will be a necessity.

Q: How many cities, villages will be in the game? Or will game contain only small hubs and dungeons/ruins to explore?

A: There are two main cities if I remember correctly (one much bigger than the other).

Q: You mentioned earlier that quests will not be timed, but that the party will be able to travel at the three different travel speeds described in the PHB. What is the in-game benefit to traveling at a faster speed if quests are never timed?

A: Sometimes you may not have enough rations to survive the trip otherwise? :p

Q: Will there be different ways of moving beyond what we’ve seen in the demo such climbing ropes, swinging on ropes, walking tightropes...?

A: I don't believe there will be that many additional props to use for movement, as each always demands a new set of animations. You will be however able to use Spiderclimb and Fly to move around the level in ways that were not shown in the Demo.

Q: Is there going to be different endings ?

A: Single ending

Q:What will the background quests be like?

A: Can't reveal that yet!


== Gameplay ==

Q: What craft are in game ? we saw crafting scrolls in the demo

A: There are fairly basic crafting recipes, notably potions and scrolls. We didn't want to go the route of let's say Skyrim and have you be able to craft everything and nothing, so keep in mind that crafting will not be a principal aspect of the game (it's more a supporting system).

Q: A lot of D&D adaptations scale back monster XP to make the campaign last longer - digital combat is much faster than tabletop combat. Are you making any adjustments to the XP values of monsters, or to how much XP is needed to level up?

A: This is something we're still working on, and is one of the reason Early Access is so useful. We need more data to see just how fast people chew through the levels, and find ways to tone it down (or not) if it breaks the campaign.

Q: Long rest could be done only in specific area like in the demo ?

A: Yes, that was a design decision after playing around with Long Rest for a while.

Q: In 5th edition D&D, you can spend gold (and time) to learn new tool proficiencies and new languages during downtime - higher Int means less time and gold is required for this. Will this game feature options like this, or downtime activities in general?

A: No downtime activities are planned in Solasta - aside from crafting which takes time and will be done during Long Rests.

Q: About reaction. It will be possible prepare spells as a reaction?

A: There is a reaction system in Solasta, so you'll be able to cast counterspell, shield and the like.

If you mean prepare action, we have a more simple version of that implemented, which is like the overwatch action of XCOM (and only with weapon attacks or cantrips). With full spells it started to become too complex to use.

Q: Will spells that enemies cast be identified or unidentified by players by default

A: They will be identified by default. On Tabletop the DM can describe the spell and let you hanging with suspense, but on computer you need to feedback the effect of the spell anyway, so you'll know how much damage you take (and what the rolls were), what stat is going down the drain etc. So we found no use in "hiding" the name of the spell

Q: Will all the content be hand-placed, or will there be some randomly generated content

A: There are some randomly generated content, such as random encounters on the world map.

Q: Will Stealth work as described in the rules

A: As in, exactly as on Tabletop: Probably not. We need to make some adaptation for things to make sense on computer. So far we don't have hide as a bonus action during fights, because there were quite a few issues with "when is hide valid". Like can you only hide if there is no direct line of sight? do you need to be in dim light? etc etc.

We're still working on it though

Q: How was ready action changed from the demo?

A: No change from the demo at the moment.

Q: How many homebrew spells have been made?

A: Only a few, I think like... 3 cantrips? The only reason we created homebrew spells was because we didn't have enough cantrips in-game (a lot of cantrips are very RP heavy, such as Prestidigitation and the likes). There are enough official spells that we don't need to homebrew more.

Q: Will the game differentiate between full, half, and three-quarters cover?

A: Yes.

Q: Will the game apply passive Perception penalties for dim light?

A: Yes, dim light = disadvantage on perception rolls / -5 passive perception (except if you have darkvision)

Q: How much of the game will have destructible environments

A: Not a lot. There are interactable props that highlights when moused-over, so you know you can interact with them (use a spell on them etc), but I don't believe you can lightning bolt a door away (you can use Knock though).

Q: In terms of character death, how will resurrection work?

A: For resurrection we've discussed A LOT about it. Initially we were thinking of allowing players to create new characters, but then we realized that the narration was completely borked because of that (hello, meet bob who is replacing patrick who just died. Bob has been here for 5 min and he already knows everything patrick did, and talks to the party as if they are old friends).

Anyway, we realized that we had to keep the party together since we're not using the "one main character, multiple sidekicks" formula that's common in most RPGs. If one guy dies and you have no resurrection options available - game over.

Overall you'll have resurrection scrolls and magic items to help you, otherwise you'll be using the good old save/load tactic. If you end a fight without resurrection options available and one guy is dead, it's still game over.

Q: Will the find familiar spell appear in the game?

A: Not planned for now.

Q: Are diseases and other long term conditions something we can face and deal with?

A: Not at launch.

Q: Can characters use the Help action to grant advantage to skill checks outside of combat?

A: Not for now, no.

Q: Have there been any decisions made to have an option where we can choose to NOT have our characters regain full health after a long rest.

A: That's probably a difficulty options we could add to the game.

Q: Have you found yourselves creating any homebrew ritual spells? If so: can you tell us about them?

A: We have not created any Homebrew Ritual Spells so far!

Q: will you implement in external area weather condition like wind/rain and apply the malus to ranged weapons/spell attack and other stuff ?

A: This sounds very cool, but we don't have weather conditions that affect the gameplay.

Q: How will Guidance be used ?

A: Guidance can currently be used pretty much whenever, although we'll have to see if we decide to add limitations in the future to avoid making the player feel like they must "Guidance spam" in order to get the best out of every roll.

Q: Xanathar added variant little rules for toolkits allowing them to do some small features (cook a good meal to heal more per HD, improve a potion, etc) anything similar possible in Solasta?

A: That would be fantastic! However, we need all the time we have to make sure the core gameplay is as good as it can be - and that means small features / improvements like those are usually not the focus... of the first game at least! (if we are to make a second one)

Q: Will we be able to hire temporary help for tough missions?

A: Hire? No, there isn't any NPCs for hire. However, some quests will have NPCs join you for a limited time - and some of them can kick major butt.

Q: Is there any sixth level spells used by npcs?

A: I don't believe so. Level 10 spellcasters can only cast up to level 5 spells, so there is no reason for us to implement level 6 spells so far (since it takes time to do so).

Q: Are you going to make creatures that turn slain adventurers into undead, game ending bosses?

A: Slain adventurers won't be raised into undead, remember that in Solasta if one of your party member dies and you can't resurrect him, you have a game over. It's the story about the party, not a single character.

However, if you're asking if we're going to have big undeads that COULD do that to your party? I won't be saying no :3

Q: What happens if one of the characters fails all their death saving throws and the other characters dont have a means to resurrect them?

A: Game over

Q: Will personality flags have a real impact on the game?

A: Yes, dialog lines depend on your personality flags


== Items & Crafting ==

Q: Will the Whip be available as a weapon?

A: Whips will NOT be part of the base game. We had to cut down on weapons due to the amount of animations we had to produce (remember we're like... 17 people...), and whips are one of those weapons where you can't re-use the animations for anything else.

Q: Will slings be in-game?

A: I believe not!

Q: Will reach weapons be implemented eventually?

A: For the moment Reach Weapons are not planned for Solasta, we've had quite a few headaches about how to deal with the animations and we just didn't have enough time to work it out.

Q: Will there be any setting specific weapons or armors? I mean your homebrew things

A: Yes, as far as magic items go we will have homebrew ones.

Q: Are there going to be cursed weapons in the game?

A: Not planned for now!

Q: Can we buy horses or other mounts?

A: No mounts are planned for now.


== Lore & Visuals ==

Q: Why Solasta?

A: Solasta is a derivative of the Gaelic word "Solas" which means Light. We liked the sound of it.

Q: Will the new faces make it into the early access?

A: We are currently implementing them! At the moment our build has both old and new faces, and plenty of bugs thanks to that too (our internal chat channel is full of screenshots of weird ape-like faces)

Will they all be available when Early Access launches? That's our goal. Will it happen? We sure hope so! The only reason why we might be stuck with old faces during Early Access would be if we find out huge game-breaking bugs linked to the new faces, but so far that hasn't happened yet

Q: How much lore of the world is discoverable? Are there parts that require us to do more investigation as we go or does it come up mostly in cutscenes?

A: There will definitely be lore that you can miss out on, whether due to failed skill checks, passing by some interactable props or missing out on some lore items.

Most will come up during the main campaign (to avoid players feeling disconnected from the setting), but you can find more if you dig.

Q: The demo had the fantastic archaeological site - will we be seeing more ruins and historical sites and, as the story goes on, will we learn more about the history of those places?

A: The adventure will be taking you into the Badlands, where you will find more about the past of Solasta through ruins and ancient places - so yes there are a lot of things to discover here.

Q: About feat will you create beautiful icon like for fighter style and deities or simply plain text like languages

A: Feats are text only

Q: Will the Solasta Sourcebook be made available to the public at some point if the game is successful enpugh or will it always be backers only?

A: At the moment there is no plan for a second printing. These things take a lot of time, money and effort and we're a video game company, not a tabletop company - the sourcebook is more like a goodie for our backers, we don't have plans on expanding on it. You can still buy it on Crowdox for now even if you're not a backer by the way

Q: Will there be a lot of cutscenes

A: Well every dialog in Solasta is a close-up "in-game cutscene", so yea there will be a lot of them if that's what you define as a cutscene.

If you're only talking about scripted cutscenes where you have the camera pan around and stuff, those are a little less common - but as far as I know every cutscene is in-game camera, not CGI or anything like that.

Q: Will the party develop a bond overtime in the story ?

A: This will be reflected in the dialog and how the characters react to each other, but it will be mostly depend on the writing. There are no "evolution" in characters' personality in Solasta (you don't have say, a Paragon / Renegade gauge like in Mass Effect), you choose your personality flags at the start and the remain as such.

Q: Is there going to be a lot of party banter ?

A: Define a lot? There are going to be barks and quips, but not specific banter


== Game Information ==

Q: How much will EA cost for non-backers?

A: We haven't announced the price yet, but we're probably going to reveal it in a few weeks (before Early Access launch). Let's just say that we're not a $60 AAA game, so we're not going to price it as such

Also, keep in mind the base tier during Kickstarter was at $28 - meaning we're not going to go lower than that at launch.

Q: On what platform should we buy the game so that devs get the maximum revenue?

A: This is very nice of you, thank you! That being said, we've currently only announced Solasta on Steam. Notably because making deals and signing papers take a lot of time, and we're very busy on the development side of things - we'll likely have more platforms supported after launch (not forgetting about you folks out there who are asking for GoG every so often).

So short answer: For the moment, Steam is fine!

Q: You will add French voice-over (or other languages)?

A: No, voice recording is very expensive which is why we only have English voices.

Q: Obligatory steamplay / linux support?

A: This is something we checked before, and making sure the game works on Linux takes quite a lot of time for a VERY small amount of players in total. So we can't promise there will be Linux support.

Q: Has there been optimization work to put less strain / generate less heat on older devices?

A: Optimization is usually done when getting closer to launch (if you look at recent games, sometimes even after launch...). Honestly, even Early Access will be far from being perfectly optimized - but yes, optimization is something that will be an important task in the upcoming months.

Q: Multiplayer/coop?

A: We haven't built the architecture of our game with multiplayer in mind, it's not something we can add on top.

So, maybe for our next game - I know it's something a lot of people have been asking us for.

Q: This may have been asked before so please forgive me, but will it be mod-able so we could add in our own content/classes/races later on?

A: The game will be moddable since it's on Unity (and we don't plan on obscuring the code specifically against modders).

We don't have modding tools planned for now though, as we have scoped it in the past - and while we could have a Unity Modding SDK up and running fairly easily, it would be very difficult to use for anyone who isn't a game developer already. Discussions with prominent RPG modders led us to understand that if it's too hard to use, people won't care about it.

Q: What sort of content are we most likely to see, post-launch?

A: Most likely the usual, such as additional campaigns, new classes, races, archetypes.

Q: Once the game is released, what kind of content do you intend to focus on next? Additional content for the game (classes, races, modules, quest lines)? A standalone game with the same base engine? A completely different game?

A: Hard to answer that, it will depend on many things - such as how well the game sells, if there are opportunities popping up, etc etc...

But yea ideally we'd support Solasta with DLCs, and also start working on another game. Whether that future game is Solasta or not, that I can't say (simply because I don't know).

Q: Can I still back this or is it a case of waiting for early access ?

A: Wait for Early Access!

Q: Will you be adding controller support for those of us with disabilities

A: This is something we'd like to add in the long run. It's probably not going to be a launch feature as it takes time to adapt the UI for controller (can't just slap some key binding and be done).

Q: Is there going to be a way to "auto-toggle" interactable objects on and off?

A: I think there already is - if not, we'll add a button for that. Being colorblind myself, such feature is needed :p

Q: Could we have Twitch Integration where Chat could choose what to pick in conversations as Baldurs Gate 3 is planning on ?!

A: Surely not for Early Access, but that's something we're discussing internally to see if we could add that!

Q: Could we make community translation for game?

A: Probably through modding! As stated before, we can't officially endorse community translation since as a company we'll be held responsible for it. That means if the quality is poopy, it's on us (because we accepted to implement it) - so we'd need to hire proofreaders, and eventually translators to re-write some part...

This is why community translation through modding is OK, but we can't implement it ourselves and just call it a day.

Q: Will there be a replay feature that we can use to watch every battle after it happens in real time (without extra time spent on making decisions such as which action to take or to what exact tile to move)?

A: That sounds dope, I've seen games like that. Unfortunately, that's not planned!

Q: Can we expect multiple campaigns and if so, will all of these campaigns start the party off at level 1?

A: For launch you'll only have the main campaign, but adventure DLCs will likely be separate campaigns. Some may start at level 1, some may start at a higher level!


== Questions for the Team ==

Q: How are you guys doing, no really how is everyone?

A: Well to be honest, getting close to launch (even if Early Access) is always a stressful and busy period. You need to wrap up the content that will be available in-game, but at the same time you need to start focusing heavily on debugging... and you also realize some stuff needs polishing because it's just not good enough!

However, I've been working with a lot of different team, and Tactical Adventures has been by far the most healthy one so far. People aren't getting vacation denied, and our Producer would never allow for endless hours of crunch (bless her).

Q: Who has the cutest pet ?

A: Obviously me (Myzzrym). Trust me, I'm an expert.

Q: How was the summer vacation of your german speaking Dev?

A: That's one of our writers (Antoine)! I'm pretty sure it went well, I think he and his family managed to land a spot near the sea during summer.

Q: What are you most looking forward to for the players to discover/experience?

A: Ohhh that is very subjective. I think I'm most excited to have people starting to explore the levels with Fly once they hit level 5 - and realize that it's a concentration spell once their Wizard splats on the ground from a arrow.

Q: Is there anything you regret (or something you wish you had known before you started) about creating your game? What do you think is the most important quality in the creation of your game?

A (Mathieu): So far no regret because the project is not over and everything is possible! I wish we had more time and we could duplicate every team member though!

Most important quality: attention to details. Polishing is an art in itself

Q: What's your favourite party composition, or what ill you look forward to playing the early access/full release?

A: Four halfling rogues to roleplay the hobbits from LotR. More seriously though, I'd like to test out the Darkweaver, the Green Mage, the Motherland Paladin and one of the ranger archetypes I forgot the name of.

Q: Any plan to produce a game with the full lore of D&D 5e?

A: That depends not on us, but on Wizards of the coast.

Q: What's your favourite spell that'll be in Solasta? What's your favourite spell that won't be because it's not SRD?

A: Fly, because you can break a lot of thing with that. Favourite Spell that won't be in Solasta: I don't play spellcasters often enough to have a big preference, but illusion spells are quite dope on Tabletop (hard to make them interesting in video games though because of the lack of DM). Spell that will be a pain to replace because it's not SRD: Hex, because it's a pillar of the Warlock Class.

Q: What is your favourite of the new feat from solasta ?

A: Feats are still being balanced right now. One of those I read about long ago (which I don't know if it will make it in-game) that I like was "if you take less than 10 dmg at once, you don't need to roll concentration", which deals with the annoying "a pebble just hit you, oh no I just lost a spell slot"

Q: Is there any other coming from Tactical Adventures studio? Or for now its all your focus on Solasta?

A: Yes, we're fully focused on Solasta. We aren't big enough so that we can split attention on multiple games for now.

Q: If you get an opportunity to work in an official Wizards setting, would you rather do that or keep building in your own homebrew world?

A: That's a very tough question to answer like that. It depends a lot on what the opportunity is, and what the deal looks like^^

Q: When creating video game that uses D&D 5ed rules, do you have to use stuff from SRD 5 or can you invent completely your own thing but with using basic 5ed d20 mechanics? What limitations do you have except you can't use official WotC stuff that are not in SRD?

A: So this is fairly simple, the SRD is actually available in PDF on WotC's website. We can use anything that's inside this PDF, and homebrew on top of it. We don't HAVE TO use stuff from the SRD (we could say that you roll D100 instead of D20s for example), but we wanted to make a D&D-like game.

Q: Let's say you are able to create Solasta 2. Do you think we can import our characters from Solasta 1 to 2 and allow our characters to reach levels higher than 10?

A: That'd be a great idea, but also a hard one to implement. What about new players? Do they just start with level 10 characters? Do we do some kind of magic mumbo jumbo and roll everyone down back to level 1?

Q: Out of curiosity, have you benchmarked Neverwinter Nights 2 Storm of Zehir for party-based mechanics?

A: I am not sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if some of our designers played that game in the past.

Q: Will there be a spoon weapon that does insane amounts of damage

BEGONE!

Q: Solasta Team....What is love?

A: 1d6 Bludgeoning Damage, that's what it is.

Q: Is there anything you guys feel particularly proud of or wished you worked more on with this game?

A: 3D grid / battle. We're still working on it to make it as easy to navigate as possible, but it makes spells like Fly or Levitate / fights against Flying enemy much more satisfying than usual.

On Tabletop, it's always a pain to represent height, so we end up using false 3D as in "okay that marker basically says that the unit is flying", but you can't really play around a lot with that.

Q: You folks are working hard on this game, are you also taking care of yourselves?

A: Yes, as stated earlier Tactical Adventures does not plan around endless hours of crunch and overtime. Some of us are even taking days off (oh my lord, what is that?!)

Q: Do you wish to get the full D&D 5e licenses? Is there a plan to try and acquire them (5e licenses) in the future? How can we help you get said licenses, if this is a goal of yours?

A: D&D license questions are a bit tricky, since it doesn't come down to us alone. We prefer not make plans on uncertain futures^^ If you want to help, make Solasta grow and who knows? :D

Q: What drove you to focus on a party of custom characters rather than the more usual "main character + companions" scheme?

A: That's very simple! When you're playing on Tabletop, you never have a main character - every player is equally important, right? It's the same idea here, we did not want to have one hero with his group of followers milling about.


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

 

[rusty_shackleford]

never realized how hard it is for people to understand the concept of licensing before

 

[V_K]

Some side quests may be locked if your reputation with certain factions is too low, but I don't believe there are quests that are locked if you answered A rather than B in a previous quest for instance (unless that put you in a very bad spot with said faction).

There are fairly basic crafting recipes, notably potions and scrolls. We didn't want to go the route of let's say Skyrim and have you be able to craft everything and nothing, so keep in mind that crafting will not be a principal aspect of the game (it's more a supporting system).

Obligatory cat picture to lessen the upcoming impact with the wall of text

 

[Ysaye]

I hope early access works out for them; it does seem like there are still a fair few things that they are working on. My hope is that they can bring something out that is taken up and then hopefully add some sequels on, but I guess it all depends on whether the initial product sells well enough.

And there was a lot of tedious questions there; kudos for them attempting to answer them all.

 

[Bara]

Dog watch continues...

Q: Let's say you are able to create Solasta 2. Do you think we can import our characters from Solasta 1 to 2 and allow our characters to reach levels higher than 10?

A: That'd be a great idea, but also a hard one to implement. What about new players? Do they just start with level 10 characters? Do we do some kind of magic mumbo jumbo and roll everyone down back to level 1?

Makes me wonder what type of ending are they planning for Solasta if they're not sure the party will cary over.

If so I'm hoping the ending finishes the adventure satisfyingly enough for the party but leaves more about the world open for the maybe sequel.

 

[Elex]

Well campaigns post lvl 10 in 5e are not videogame friendly unless you castrate all the casters.