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

[Reinhardt]

cooldown

Sorc

warlock

dragon

And it's just from the last page. Dear developers, please add cooldowns to all spells!

 

[Cryomancer]

Dear developers, please add cooldowns to all spells!

Yep. Please, make Solasta into Sword Coast Legends. OwlCat will love it now that they have turn based mod.

 

[Nortar]

Indeed ducks are worse than both cats and dogs.

I had pet goose at one point. Birds are cool.

I like birds and dogs more than cats tbh.

Like a "lesser terrasque"(since lv cap = 10), a kraken or even dragon fights?

Well, any kobold thinks himself a dragon. Like "lesser lesser dragon". So be careful of what you wish for!

 

[V_K]

I'd rather have the Druid than all of the charisma-based classes combined. Hell, I'd even live with not having the Druid if it means no charisma-based classes get implemented either.

What if they homebrew that their warlock to be INT based like Pathfinder's Witch or 2e warlock(which was a mage "KIT") or the earlier access version of WLK which was INT based on earlier 5e but was changed to CHA due "player feedback"?

As long as it's not charisma-based, I don't care, they can add anything they want.
Although, I fail to see the point of a Sorcerer in 5e, even if changed to intelligence-based. It used to be that Sorcerers got more short-term versatility (no need to prepare spells) at the cost of long-term versatility (fewer spells known). But in 5e, if I understand correctly, a Wizard can prepare more spells than a Sorcerer can learn. And they are not tied to spell slots anymore, giving the Wizard both short- and long-term versatility - so what need is there for a Sorcerer then?

 

[Cryomancer]

so what need is there for a Sorcerer then?

Sorcerers also has a more limited spell selection. The unique point of sorcerer on 5e is metamagic which IDK why WoTC took alway it from Wizard. IMO this classes like Sorcerers and Warlocks should have been added as Mage "kits" like was on 2nd edition.

 

[V_K]

The unique point of sorcerer on 5e is metamagic which IDK why WoTC took alway it from Wizard.

But how is it different from regular upcasting?

 

[Infinitron]

Coming to GOG: https://af.gog.com/game/solasta_crown_of_the_magister?as=1649904300

 

[NJClaw]

Honestly, I kind of regret not backing the game on Kickstarter. I will surely give them my money the next time they ask for it, be it for their next game or an addition to Solasta.

 

[Darth Canoli]

[snip] I had pet goose at one point. Birds are cool.

I had a lizard and a hedgehog.

Spoiler

They both jumped from the first floor and never looked back.

Now i wish i had a chameleon eating mosquitoes by the dozens.
The cat catches some though.

 

[Whisper]

Yea it's a delicate balance. You want your core fans to be satisfied, but you can't just solely pander to them - because there's just not enough of them to for this to be viable (see how most MMORPGs evolved through the years). On the other hand, if you push it too far the other way, you remove a lot of the flavour so you don't get any strong following, just a large amount of people who buy your game and moves on to the next one after that (and won't remember you by the time you release your next game).

So yea, tough balance. Arguably here most of the arguments about difficulty is simple enough for us, we just add them to a difficulty setting menu. It's more complicated when people ask for better voice actors, more choices in the dialogs or simply more variety overall - all of which we'd love to have, but don't necessarily have the time nor the budget to tackle.

Hopefull the devs will get feedback.
Kind of worried they will be dumb this game for casuals. Hopefully hard difficulty will be hard.

 

[Lacrymas]

I don't know if it's old news, but the German gaming magazine GameStar have an article from a few days ago that mentions Solasta - https://tinyurl.com/y2tc9hlu

He basically says he loves to create his own characters, but doesn't like they are all silent all the time, so Solasta kind of attempts to tackle that "problem" by having you assign personalities to each character you create. Pretty inconsequential and trivial article, but hey, free publicity.

 

[LESS T_T]

Coming to GOG: https://af.gog.com/game/solasta_crown_of_the_magister?as=1649904300

On December 14th, the same day with the upcoming Winter Update. https://www.gamasutra.com/view/pres..._AND_BIG_WINTER_UPDATE_COMING_DECEMBER_14.php

Tactical Adventures, a French development studio of passionate RPG game developers and tabletop players, recently released its tactical RPG Solasta: Crown of the Magister on Steam Early Access. The game has seen much love from the community, has a very positive Steam user rating (94%) and is receiving its first major update on December 14th. The new Winter Update will include a completely new area and quests, an overhaul of the lighting system, new combat features, more customization options, implementation of the scavenger mechanics, and more. Solasta: Crown of the Magister is coming to GOG on December 14.

Wizards of the Coast has granted Tactical Adventures a license to use the Dungeons & Dragons SRD 5.1 content and rules in Solasta: Crown of the Magister.

Solasta is a team-based adventure game where each character plays a critical role in the campaign and can be a hero. The dynamic and mysterious world features elements of verticality, allowing players to use their surroundings as an element of strategy. Players can position ranged characters on high vantage points or send their thief down into shafts and caverns to scope out what lies ahead. In Solasta, light is a tool to explore the depths and hallows of dungeons or can be used as a weapon against the creatures of the dark, but if players aren’t careful, it will give away the party’s position to nasty creatures bent on their demise.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

[

Spoiler

They both jumped from the first floor and never looked back.

.

What, together?

 

[Bara]

On December 14th, the same day with the upcoming Winter Update

Sooner than i exoected thought for sure theyd want more time between them and cyberpunk.

 

[Darth Canoli]

They both jumped from the first floor and never looked back.

What, together?

Yeah, and the lizard was on the turtle's back, a true love story, and then, the turtle spread its wings ...

Spoiler

Not together but same scenario though ... Ingrates!

 

[The Avatar]

Wizards of the Coast has granted Tactical Adventures a license to use the Dungeons & Dragons SRD 5.1 content and rules in Solasta: Crown of the Magister.

Isn't the SRD OGL? Why would they needs Wizards to grant them a license? Anyone can use that content. Doesn't make any sense.

 

[LESS T_T]

Wizards of the Coast has granted Tactical Adventures a license to use the Dungeons & Dragons SRD 5.1 content and rules in Solasta: Crown of the Magister.

Isn't the SRD OGL? Why would they needs Wizards to grant them a license? Anyone can use that content. Doesn't make any sense.

From Myzzrym:

Uh, is this a thing? Isn't the whole point of the SRD that you don't need a license? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tacticaladventures/solasta-crown-of-the-magister/posts/2630193

SRD in Video Games gets a little more complex than that, so we went ahead and discussed with WotC to reach an agreement and avoid any potential issues in the long run.

Solasta is more serious commercial project than other indie RPGs using OGL materials after all.

And bonus points that they can use the words Dungeons & Dragons and WotC in their press releases and marketing materials. Also who knows this relationship will be advanced to the official D&D game from TA.

 

[RPK]

yeah, didn't they say they have something of a more formalized relationship with WOTC than "yeah we're just looking at the SRD website"? I can't remember, but I thought they announced some sort of contact with them a while back.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tacticaladventures/solasta-crown-of-the-magister/posts/3045726

Winter Update, Community Stream & GOG Release!

Hello there you beautiful people,

For those of you who have been following us on Social Media, you already know what we're going to be talking about. For the others... be ready to be showered with information! But before that, you know what time it is.

They love to play around with clothings in winter, I guess cats get cold too

One Winter Update, coming right up - December 14th
Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you! Honestly I wouldn't blame you, I just looked it up and yea it turns out Winter officially begins on December 21st, so technically it should be called "End of Autumn Update" - but then we'd kind of ruin the surprise, and no one likes that.

So yea, you get to enjoy some more Solasta right before Christmas, with all the new content and changes announced in the previous article. We'll be following community feedback closely after the update goes live, and roll out hotfixes in the following days in case anything goes wrong. Hopefully that won't happen, but you know how game development goes - hope for the best, plan for the worse. After that, most of the team will be taking a much needed break so communications will slow down a little, but worry not we'll be back in full force early January!

Note that your party won't be able to go above level 6 for now, which should be around the level you reach once you complete the new questline of the Winter Update. Save files should be compatible, but as always with Early Access we strongly suggest you start a fresh new adventure to avoid any potential issues!


Full Patch Notes will be released on the day of the Update, and the list will be massive!

Community Stream with the Team - December 15th
To celebrate the Winter Update, we'll be streaming live on Twitch and Steam on December 15th, starting at 8:00 am PST / 11:00 am EST / 5:00 pm CET. Join the Tactical Adventures crew as we discuss the content of this new update, this time with additional members:

• Mathieu, Creative Director and CEO
• Xavier, Gameplay and Narrative Director
• Karim, Lead Programmer
• Eleonore, Producer
• Pierre, Marketing Director
• Emile, Community Lead (that's me!)

We'll be taking questions from the chat, so don't be shy and ask away!

Solasta x GOG - Release on December 14th
You've been asking for it ever since our Kickstarter Campaign, it's finally here! Solasta is coming to GOG on December 14th with the Winter Update!


Make sure you don't miss the release by hitting the notification button

Also if you are a Kickstarter Backer, we've got you covered. Soon after the release on December 14th, you should receive a GOG Key of Solasta Supporter Edition through CrowdOx - just like you did for Steam. It might take up to 24h, so don't worry if you don't see it immediately.

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

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

 

[Infinitron]

Here we go:



https://www.solasta-game.com/news/110-solasta-winter-update-patch-notes

SOLASTA WINTER UPDATE - PATCH NOTES

Hey there folks!

Welcome to Solasta's Winter Update! With the addition of the new Monastery Questline, the Early Access should now reach 12h - 14h of total game time. We've also taken action regarding the most popular requests, such as adding more customization options and changing the lighting system which was deemed too punitive (we've reverted the rules back to the 5e tabletop ruleset). Hope you enjoy!

New Content / Feature:

• An entire new Questline is unlocked after Mardracht's tea party(which may or may not involve tea). Tactical Adventures does not condone violence against the elderly.
  • Upon returning to the World Map, a new location should now become available.
• Many new magic items have been added to the game, because magic is cool and you know it. And no we won't spoil which ones.
• You can now hide during combat! Wooh for sneaky dastardly deeds, chivalry is for dumdums with negative intelligence modifier. That's not me, that's what the Rogue said.
  • Hiding requires you to break line of sight with all enemies before doing so
  • Creatures can see in a 180 degree arc in front of them, instantly revealing you if you step into their vision range (no Stealth Check)
  • Otherwise, you will have to roll a Stealth Check under the following conditions:
    • You end your turn too close to an enemy (distance depends on many factors, such as your Stealth score and armor type)
    • You take an action such as attacking or casting a spell.
  • Note that Hiding in Combat is a very contested rule on Tabletop, so we invite you to give us feedback if you think the current system can be improved.
• Because hiding isn't enough, you can now also apply poison to your weapon. Hey, say what you want but a win's a win.
• Several new spells have been added to the spell list. You ready? Pass without trace, See invisibility, Animal Friendship, Find traps, Calm emotions and Protection from poison. What do you mean that's lame? Oh sorry Larry, I forgot you only take spells that deal damage because that's all you care about. Well not every spell can be a fireball, Larry.
• Two new homebrew cantrips have been added to combat darkness more effectively: Shine, which lights up an enemy like a candle from afar for a solid minute - and Sparkle, which is quite literally "I cast magic missile at the darkness" (okay, difference being you still need to target interactable objects such as wall sconces to light them up).
• Many new Hair / Eyes / Skin Colors have been added to the Character Creator
• Each Ancestry now has access to new additional faces in the Character Creator, on top of the old ones. NPCs also got a facelift in the process.
• Several new monsters have been added to Solasta. You will encounter them in the new locations of the Winter Update, but you may also run into them during Random Encounters.
• The Scavenger Faction is now up and running! Simply go to them whenever you drop by Caer Cyflen, and they'll send their best to go loot the areas you cleared (including random encounters). We will further develop the Scavengers in the future, but don't hesitate to ask for their services already and tell us what you think!

Spoiler

Major Changes:

• The inventory & loot systems have received a lot of requested upgrades:
  • You can now double click to loot / equip items
  • The party will now share their wealth, instead of hoarding each coins individually like little gremlins. Shopping just became much easier.
  • We added a second quiver so you can easily switch between regular arrows and magical arrows.
  • You will now receive a warning when equipping a combination of weapons you can't dual wield, such as Rapier + Dagger.
    • As a reminder, you need two light weapons to be able to dual wield properly (Rapier isn't light).
  • Looting will now open a small window instead of the entire inventory
  • Looting bodies (after battle) will now automatically loot a sizeable area around the body. You may still need to loot some bodies separately if one died particularly far from the fight (for instance if it was perched on a tower).
  • You can now open a shop directly after having talked to the merchant NPC at least once. Simply click on the shop tent instead of the NPC.
  • The shop interface has been revamped to display more items at once, and base scrolling speed has been increased.
• The lighting system has been reverted back to Tabletop rules:
  • Dim light will no longer give disadvantage on attack rolls, only on perception checks (so you better keep that torch out unless you love running into traps).
  • This means Darkvision will properly allow you to attack into darkness with no disadvantage, since the character will view darkness as dim light. Note that Darkvision still has a maximum range (most often 60', meaning 12 cells) - so beyond that range good old disadvantage will still be here rubbing its hands with its crappy RNG.
  • Soraks will now receive the "Children of Darkness" buff while in dim light and darkness which enhances their fighting prowess, as they are creatures of the dark. Fighting Soraks? Get some light out or be prepared for a whole lot of pain.
  • Note that unlike on tabletop, you will still be able to target creatures that are heavily obscured. Technically speaking you shouldn't be able to click on enemies in the darkness, but we found that it made the game very frustrating as the player could see the monsters even though the character wouldn't be able to see them, so they were unable to interact with them. And that made any non-darkvision ancestries even weaker compared to before - you wouldn't even attack with disadvantage, you would just not attack at all.
• The combat console has received several improvements:
  • You can now hover any attack, damage, saving throw, ability check roll to see the details of the dice roll
  • You can now hover creature names to see the monster card (with your current level of knowledge of the monster)
• The combat UI has also received several improvements:
  • Using Dash will no longer immediately consume your action, and will instead show you the updated movement range. Moving inside the first area will only consume your movement, while moving outside that range will use your action to dash.
  • Other actions such as Dodge or Disengage will now ask you for confirmation, as well as reminding you what the action does. No more terrible misclick!
• The Food System is now a little less hardcore for parties without Rangers:
  • The general shop in Caer Cyflen will now offer up to 50 rations instead of 10.
  • The system will now properly prioritize food you find on the road, so you should consume less rations during your travels overall.
  • World Map travel also allows you to automatically cast Goodberries / Create Food and Water before camping to avoid consuming your rations.

Tweaks / Improvements

• Some NPCs in Caer Cyflen now wear faction tabards. I heard it's a fashion thing, adventurers like you wouldn't get it.
• You will now be able to buy the Manacalon Rosary in the general shop in Caer Cyflen.
• Exit Areas have been made much more visible. No more wandering around looking at the ground to find the exit!
• You will now be able to click directly on the hit dice in the Short Rest panel, and the dice will properly roll on the bottom of the screen.
• Long rest fire icons now flicker. I know, I know, it doesn't sound like much but it's super cool, swear on me mum
• Added animations to Hanging Cages crashing down (Caer Lem - Goblin Hideout)
• The ground should now look a little less monotone outside Bone Keep
• Added VFX to some spells that were missing them (such as Magic Weapon)
• Made some improvements to the blueprint (M)
• Scrolls of the same spell will now stack properly
• Added visual feedback above a character when a condition (such as paralysis) is removed.
• Added a visible "Enemy Movement" banner during enemy turn, as monsters who were playing without being visible sometimes led players to believe their game was stuck.

Bugfixes / Others

• You will now receive a pop-up during Loading Screens if you're running into an infinite loading screen bug. Well hopefully you won't ever run into that issue, but at least you won't be sitting there wondering if it's ever going to finish loading or not.
• The "Alt" Key that highlights interactable objects will now properly work in combat as well
• The bug which was causing looting to take several seconds instead of being instant should now be fixed
• The ladder which was unusable in Tower of Magic is now... well, usable again. Go get that chest, folks.
• ... And plenty of other bugfixes here and there, too many to detail!

Known Issues

Here are a few bugs that we didn't quite catch in time to get them fixed for this update - and that we'll likely be hammering down in the upcoming hotfixes later this week.

• [Blocker] In front of the Abjuration Tower, there is a small puzzle that only activates by night. Attempting to interact with it during the day passed the quest update telling you to come back by night will break the puzzle and block any further progress - meaning you'll need to load a save from before you interacted with the puzzle.
• In a certain Bone Keep room, killing the ghost in a single round will make the game take around 10 seconds to end the combat. That's the time it takes for the DM to stop weeping at you killing their monster so fast.
• Some skeletons in Dark Castle have been tagged as allies by mistakes. If you can't beat them, join them I guess? Anyway, don't worry the fight will still end once you off all the opponents - no need to try and kill your newfound friendly skellies via Fireball or other AoE spells.
• The Ready Cantrip ability will cast Sparkle instead of offensive cantrips if you have Sparkle in your spellbook. Since monsters aren't torches, nothing will happen.
• The Minotaur does not like when you use Ready Action. If you attack him it with a ready action when he is charging, he will ask the game for a 10 second time out before resuming his charge.
• There are some missing textures on the ground next to the cemetery in one of the new areas.
• In a certain prison cell you will find not one, but two barons. While we could try to shift the blame on your alcohol intake, that's just a mistake by the DM.
• Broods have learned how to cheat the system and can no longer be targeted by weapons while on walls. However, we have learned to outwit the Broods by telling you that you can still target them by clicking their portrait instead while we fix this loophole of theirs.
• If you save during a specific encounter against a single Brood and later load that save, you will see that this particular Brood somehow managed to cast Kage Bunshin no Jutsu and you will be facing five broods instead. You don't know, maybe it was a Hokage in its past life.
• [Old Save] It is possible (not 100%) that some saves from older versions will run into a blocker in Bone Keep, where you will be unable to open a certain door because the lever that opens it won't appear on the wall (see screenshot below). If that happens, either load another save and try again - or you will need to start fresh again

Difficulty and you:

We've seen a few people concerned that the game might be getting too easy due to certain changes. As always, keep in mind that we're mostly doing those changes because we haven't implemented difficulty settings yet - so we need to make sure people who are not expert at tactical RPGs can also enjoy Solasta. Fear not however, as you will find all the challenge you wish for once we implement higher difficulty options when version 1.0 hits the store.

And released on GOG: https://af.gog.com/game/solasta_crown_of_the_magister?as=1649904300

 

[Abu Antar]

Cool! Got a free GOG key on top of my Steam key.

 

[Infinitron]

Me too.

 

[Lacrymas]

Cool! Got a free GOG key on top of my Steam key.

Gib me?

 

[Infinitron]

GameBanshee preview: https://www.gamebanshee.com/preview...-magister-early-access-preview/all-pages.html

Introduction

A few years back, I was looking for something new to play, and by pure chance, I stumbled upon Endless Space - a sci-fi 4X strategy from Amplitude Studios. I ended up enjoying that game quite a bit, as well as its eventual spin-offs in Endless Legend and Dungeon of the Endless.

So, when Amplitude’s CEO Mathieu Girard announced his departure from the studio and the subsequent founding of Tactical Adventures - an RPG-focused outfit - I was very curious to see what they would come up with.

Fast-forward a few years and the studio’s debut project, Solasta: Crown of the Magister, is now live in early access, and you can find my thoughts on the currently available content below, along with some musings on the role-playing system fueling it all.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not THAC0

Solasta’s biggest draw is perhaps the fact that it’s a turn-based D&D game. A D&D game based on the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. However, it’s important to note that Solasta uses the Dungeons and Dragons SRD 5.1 Ruleset, which is kind of like an abridged version of the Player’s Handbook distributed under the Open Gaming License.

Skipping past all the legalese, this means that Tactical Adventures has access to a limited number of races, classes, spells, and so on. On top of that, their game can’t take place anywhere near Forgotten Realms or some other official D&D world. At the same time, they’re free to expand the SRD with some unique content of their own.

Where does this leave us, then?

When it comes to races, we have Humans, Half-elves, and two flavors of Dwarves, Elves and Halflings. And probably for the first time ever in a D&D game, Humans are the single least desirable race of the bunch. I honestly don’t see a single reason why you would want to play a Human in Solasta. Not only are their racial bonuses beyond inconsequential, they’re also the only race without access to Darkvision, something that’s really nice to have in Solasta. I guess, after all these years of Humans being a great, if not the best option for pretty much any character, seeing them gutted to such a degree is just a bit strange.

As for classes, there are Fighters, Rangers, Paladins, Rogues, Clerics, and Wizards, with Sorcerers already promised as a free post-launch DLC. During the early access phase, you’ll be able to reach level 6, with the full game raising this cap all the way up to 10.

Beyond these two obvious pillars, the character creation process goes pretty deep, and the game even has a neat little character library where you can create a bunch of characters and then import 4 of them into your campaigns.

Even for something as simple as determining attribute scores, Solasta gives you more options than pretty much any other CRPG on the market. You can use a point-buy system, you can roll the dice, you can use the standard attribute array, or you can even manually set all your attributes to 18, if that’s your thing, and avoid rerolling the dice for three hours.

Then, you also get to edit your starting equipment, something very few games allow you to do. On top of all that, you also have 8 Backgrounds and the usual Alignment chart. Instead of just offering some roleplaying flavor, Backgrounds determine the character’s extra starting equipment and proficiencies, while both Backgrounds and Alignments provide you with a selection of personality tags.

Combining four of these tags creates a unique personality for the character, and this plays an important role in pretty much every interaction you’ll have in the game. Instead of any traditional dialogue system, Solasta has this thing where every interaction is voice-acted, with your characters doing most of the talking based purely on their personalities.

Now, you still get to make the decisions, but the options you get are based on who your characters are. So, for example, having a greedy character will give you an option to ask for a bigger reward, while having an aggressive one will allow you to turn some conversations into battles.

This unique conversation system flows really well and I was impressed with how vibrant and alive my characters felt despite being created simply by combining four tags and a Background.

Moving on to the roleplaying system itself. The fifth edition of D&D sits somewhere between the third and the second editions. Unfortunately, what I consider to be the main draw of the third edition, its hundreds upon hundreds of feats, is no longer a thing in the fifth. They’ve been replaced by a pitiful selection of supposedly game-changing feats you can opt to pick instead of extra attribute points when leveling up.

And you see, even the full 5E feats are for the most part very lackluster. But, since SRD doesn’t list any of those, Solasta’s developers had to come up with some feats of their own, and I don’t know if those are just placeholders, but the EA selection is beyond pathetic, with most feats simply providing an extra attribute point plus some minor bonus, like a bit of extra carrying capacity.

Skills also received a major rework compared to the earlier editions. Instead of putting points into skills as you level up, you have a Proficiency bonus that grows on its own once every few levels. When creating a character, you get to tag a number of skills, allowing that character to add their Proficiency bonus to the roll when using those skills.

Now, while this may seem pretty dire on the surface, 5E makes up for its lacking skill and feat variety with unique class features and archetypes that add a lot of flavor and some impactful choices to the leveling system.

But because the actual class is so important to how a character plays, it’s kind of unfortunate that we get such a limited number of classes. With 4 character slots and no multiclassing, you’ll probably want at least one divine caster, one arcane caster, one specialist, and someone to hold the line. This means you’re pretty much forced to pick a Cleric, a Wizard, and a Rogue unless you’re going for some challenge run. And to add insult to injury, the one already unveiled DLC class is the Sorcerer.

And let me tell you, in 5E, the Sorcerer and the Wizard are essentially the same class. There are some minor differences in how they memorize their spells, but basically, one of them is a specialist wizard, and the other one is a metamagic wizard.

It makes no sense to me why these are the classes that made the cut when the SRD has Barbarians, Bards, and Druids. How do you have only one divine spellcaster? How do you have three martial classes, and not one of them is the Barbarian? How do you have two arcane casters planned, but one of them isn't the Bard, who can double as a specialist and is considered by some to be the strongest spellcaster in the game?

I understand budgetary concerns limiting the number of available classes, but the actual picks are beyond puzzling to me.

Spoiler

Then, of course, there’s the Rogue. You see, while no one was watching, Rogues somehow managed to go from trap monkeys you had to pick purely for exploration reasons to unstoppable killing machines.

Seriously, it’s like between Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Solasta the developers were competing to see who could create a more overpowered Rogue. And while Kingmaker takes the cake there thanks to its high-level campaign and abundance of magic items, Solasta’s Rogues aren’t far behind.

At one point, I was using my Rogue to scout ahead when the lights magically turned on, leaving the Rogue surrounded by ghouls, while the rest of the party was left dealing with some rabble a few rooms behind. By the time the party reached the Rogue, they witnessed what could only be described as a reenactment of that “I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me” Watchmen scene.

You see, with how armor and attack bonuses work in 5E, it’s very easy to build a Rogue that’s all but unhittable by common enemies, while the Rogue is just a good as a Fighter at landing attacks. Not to mention that sneak attack now works on pretty much everything, including the undead. And, it seems to be very easy to qualify for it.

As an aside, the developers really need to add some indicator for when you’re about to sneak attack, because occasionally I would get one when I wasn’t expecting it, or don’t get it when I thought I should.

And the funny thing is, none of this is on the Solasta guys. I have some familiarity with tabletop 5E, but my knowledge of it is far from encyclopedic. Occasionally, some Solasta feature would raise my eyebrow, and I would go straight to the source, convinced that things must have been altered in some way. But nope, every single time, everything worked exactly as stated in the rulebook.

Still, if you’re only familiar with the video game side of Dungeons & Dragons, where up to this point it had all been about the second and third editions, you might find yourself slightly confused, since a lot of little things seem similar but in reality, are anything but.

Concentration, for example, still exists, but it’s now a way to limit the number of lingering spells you can have active at any given time. The stronger magic items now require attunement during a long rest before you can actually use them. And some things, like Weapon Finesse or extra damage for two-handing a weapon, are now baked into weapons as special tags.

But, even in the game’s current early access state, it was fun figuring out all these little differences and learning how to make them work for you. This stuff is one of the biggest draws RPGs have for me, and Solasta already has plenty of it.

All of it comes together to create a mighty satisfying combat system with a lot of potential. Back when the game was just announced, things like illumination and verticality were listed among its key features. And let me tell you, I haven’t felt as giddy when playing a new game in a very long time as I did when an enemy casually jumped up on a wall and crawled to a spot where my melee guys couldn’t reach it but it could attack my mage.

The game really makes you think in three dimensions and that feature is anything but a gimmick, even if it inadvertently results in levels filled with gaps and pillars that force your party to jump around like a herd of mountain goats while grunting suggestively. That stuff is a small price to pay for all the great encounter opportunities this whole verticality angle provides.

And while there’s not enough content in the early access build to discuss Solasta’s actual encounter design with any degree of certainty, the final dungeon you get to explore right now is already quite promising. You have some optional quests, multiple secret passages, fights you can completely avoid, fights you can talk your way out of, and even a not half-bad puzzle.

If the rest of the game can at least reach the same level, we can be looking at something spectacular here, at least when it comes to combat. However, there’s also the question of difficulty. The early access build is beyond easy, even if you opt not to rest inside dungeons, but that’s to be expected. But when it comes to the full game, I’m just not sure how realistic it is to expect encounters to be completely redesigned based on the difficulty level. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Regardless, what we already have in early access is a pretty faithful adaptation of the tabletop system that works really well as a tactical experience.

Story and Quests

I’m afraid the same can’t be said about the game’s narrative side. Due to a multitude of reasons, the story bits present in the current build feel disjointed at best, occasionally dipping into incoherent.

The game takes place in a fantasy world that’s been ravaged by a major cataclysm that shattered a vast elven empire, caused great chaos, and added a whole bunch of humans, gods, and assorted monsters into the mix.

And if you stop and think about the game’s setting and the campaign’s events for a moment, none of it makes any sense. You see, these humans from another world apparently fled from their ancient lizard enemies. Those enemies naturally followed them. But even though there are still elves around who lived through the whole thing, these lizards are seen as legendary creatures that don’t exist, and your early quests are focused on proving that they do. While at the same time, there’s a Paladin archetype built around an old Human tradition of fighting the very same lizards.

And don't even get me started on how everyone seems perfectly fine with humans now living in their world, even though their arrival turned like two-thirds of the map into the barely inhabitable Badlands.

Beyond just the setting, the game’s hook is extremely weak. The game starts when your party is hired as “deputies” tasked with patrolling the above-mentioned Badlands. The job is described as highly dangerous, bordering on suicidal, but you’re not given a single good reason for doing it. In fact, for the first couple of quests, you don’t even get paid.

I could honestly go on and on about every little thing, but I hope by now you get the idea. The game’s story still needs a lot of work to become in any way satisfying.

But here’s the thing, right now the game handles its conversations in such a way, where every dialogue is like this interactable cutscene. This voice acting-heavy setup makes editing quite tricky, not to mention how annoying it makes dealing with shopkeepers.

I say the developers should keep this system for important story conversations only. Then, they should add a simple, easily edited text box for everything else, including the shops.

This approach should hopefully make it easier to pad the game with some extra NPCs too because right now, even the main hub city can feel a bit empty. And while they’re at it, the developers should really add some extra side content. At the moment, there’s not a lot of it, and what’s there is extremely basic. This results in you going from one story mission to the next in a very rushed manner. You really need some optional locations and red herrings there to not feel like you’re being given a CliffsNotes version of the campaign.

Hopefully, all that stuff is still coming. And seeing how there’s already a campaign selection screen, we may be getting some DLC or custom campaigns at some point in the future.

Technical Information

Back in the day, Endless Space was notable not only for being a competent and fun 4X strategy but also for the fact that it was a Unity Engine game that worked like an actual piece of real software and not a bunch of spaghetti code held together with duct tape. Because of this, I’m optimistic that come launch, Solasta will be able to avoid the usual pitfalls.

At the moment, it already runs well but is a bit too taxing on the GPU. And even on an SSD, the bigger levels can take a while to load.

The options menu, though, is already looking good. Beyond just robust video settings and adjustable quick and auto-save slots, there’s a separate tab for gameplay-related options where you can decide if you want your enemies to be grouped based on their initiative and whether you’d like your roll seeds to be preserved through loading. And, there’s also a tab where you can customize how the game presents its many dice rolls to you.

This being an early access release, there are bugs of course, but at the very least, the game never froze or crashed on me. Most of the bugs were just mildly annoying, like when I had to change areas for the feats I picked to start working.

Inventory management is also quite janky right now, both because of some minor bugs and the fact that the game has a crafting system that fills your bags with lots of useless junk. At the very least, that stuff should have its own inventory tab.

Speaking of crafting, right now it looks like the best way to get magic gear is to craft it, and that’s a huge negative as far as I’m concerned. Throughout all my years of playing RPGs, I’ve never met a single person who actively enjoyed crafting. At most, some people don’t mind it. I honestly have no idea why developers keep adding crafting systems to their games. I fully agree with Richard Cobbett on this one - heroes don’t craft.

Moving past that, the game’s visuals are also not where they should be just yet. The environments are sharp and pleasant, but are a bit on the generic side and lack a certain sense of artistic cohesion. The character models, though, are outright bad. And while usually, this wouldn't be a problem at all in an isometric game, Solasta’s cinematic conversation system doesn’t quite synergize with the subpar models.

Conclusion

The early access build of Solasta: Crown of the Magister is but a taste of what’s to come. But with its fateful adaptation of the ruleset and an extremely satisfying combat engine, it’s already starting to look like a CRPG no self-respecting enthusiast would want to miss.

However, in order for Solasta to truly shine, the Tactical Adventures team still needs to polish some rough edges and take a good long look at the game’s narrative side. And if they manage that, they’ll have something spectacular on their hands.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Cool! Got a free GOG key on top of my Steam key.

Gib me?

I'd gib mine, especially seeing as I won't be playing the EA anyway, but it's sort of taking advantage of the devs' generosity don't you think. Aren't they only giving out these keys because backers got their Steam keys before a GOG release was confirmed, and they didn't want to deal with cancelling them?