KickStarter Solasta: Crown of the Magister Thread - now with Palace of Ice sequel DLC

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

I agree with everything except the close-ups. Always found them charming since they add to the party charm. I also found it interesting to see the locations from ground level. The biggest sin with Solasta in my opinion (that lasts through all the DLCs) is the god damn random encounters. They slow the pacing to a crawl and also give you way too much XP. I was hoping the latest DLC would get rid of them, but alas.

Legit I don't know what they were thinking if anyone there actually GM's 5E or any of the other editions.

If all your random encounters are always just combat it's going to wear down the players and make them find traveling tedious.

You need to discoverable locations, non-combat social encounters, to keep random encounters spicy. Like Kingmakers goblins with the throne or that guy on the road talking cryptically.

Better example in video game format Storm of Zehir's overworld map.

Correct but unpopular opinion: Zehir is the best NWN expansion.

I have that in my GOG account and have never played it because I loaded up the game and got sidetracked by playing the NWN 2 main game for some reason and never got around to it. That was years ago, maybe I should give it a try.

 

[J1M]

I agree with everything except the close-ups. Always found them charming since they add to the party charm. I also found it interesting to see the locations from ground level. The biggest sin with Solasta in my opinion (that lasts through all the DLCs) is the god damn random encounters. They slow the pacing to a crawl and also give you way too much XP. I was hoping the latest DLC would get rid of them, but alas.

Legit I don't know what they were thinking if anyone there actually GM's 5E or any of the other editions.

If all your random encounters are always just combat it's going to wear down the players and make them find traveling tedious.

You need to discoverable locations, non-combat social encounters, to keep random encounters spicy. Like Kingmakers goblins with the throne or that guy on the road talking cryptically.

Better example in video game format Storm of Zehir's overworld map.

Correct but unpopular opinion: Zehir is the best NWN expansion.

I have that in my GOG account and have never played it because I loaded up the game and got sidetracked by playing the NWN 2 main game for some reason and never got around to it. That w wasas years ago, maybe I should give it a try.

Only time having a Ranger in a NWN party didn't feel like a handicap.

PS: That's probably still not a recommendation.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I don't get why so many modern games want a 4 man party? Is it because the loudest complainers in the forums are the ones who have ADHD and can't get into or understand building characters and whine about how long it takes so they get worried all their customers are ADHD drooling tards who just want to push awesome buttons? Or is it just easier and quicker to make campaigns built around 4 man parties?

For Solasta specifically, it is based on the game called "5th edition D&D" that is designed for parties of exactly four characters, rather than the larger average party size and substantial variation in party size of actual Dungeons & Dragons.

Larger party size is one of two essential improvements in the next game by Tactical Adventures. the other being proper exploration.

 

[Mortmal]

You can scale 5E to a party of 6 easily , but it takes a bit more work and time, something we know they are kinda averse to. First problem you need many more enemies. Solasta runs easily on my pc, but is it the case on older pcs? Much more important: Since its the public they cherish and the customers they want to cater to first, xbox players, can shitty xbox run it ?
They already dont want to make harder encounters for 4 pc , i dont see 6 pc party coming for their next game either, even if its PF2E.
Exploration, i wont get any hope about it , there's no will. There was nothing preventing them to sell us a megadungeon with attrition and all the things we love into dungeon crawling already. If some modder can do temple of elemental evil with the dungeon maker, they could sell something similar too. But there's obviously no will for it.

 

[Artyoan]

I think they would be fine with officially supporting 5 or 6 man parties if they weren't also having to upkeep their own official campaigns along with that. By now they seem to not want to touch CotM for fear it might break even more. Same with Lost Valley. Myzzrym alluded to this with his 'does it pass fire inspection anymore?' comment imo. But since UB is a workhorse free of charge, doing 5/6 man capability anyway, I'm sure they'd rather move onto a new foundation and start to actually work on the many requests they knew they couldn't feasibly do with Solasta.

Even still, I'd bet their official campaigns will never be that hard. For the same reason that karmic dice is now on by default, making it a more pleasant streaming experience seems more like their goal. Thats how they market it and sell copies. There was a vtuber that did sponsored content for Solasta for Inner Strength, had over 40k views. He played it without sponsorship two more times but what burned the guy out was a few hour stream of bad streaks in dice rolls. Then he moved on.

I think if you want a more focused and difficult experience, you're still going to have to turn to custom content even in their next game. Provided they increase capabilities there, I'm happy with that.

 

[lukaszek]

sometimes i do wonder if we are playing same games. dont you find annoying when you both manage and fight large number of combatants with many unique skills? Especially long wait times and animations in between

 

[Mortmal]

I think they would be fine with officially supporting 5 or 6 man parties if they weren't also having to upkeep their own official campaigns along with that. By now they seem to not want to touch CotM for fear it might break even more. Same with Lost Valley. Myzzrym alluded to this with his 'does it pass fire inspection anymore?' comment imo. But since UB is a workhorse free of charge, doing 5/6 man capability anyway, I'm sure they'd rather move onto a new foundation and start to actually work on the many requests they knew they couldn't feasibly do with Solasta.

Even still, I'd bet their official campaigns will never be that hard. For the same reason that karmic dice is now on by default, making it a more pleasant streaming experience seems more like their goal. Thats how they market it and sell copies. There was a vtuber that did sponsored content for Solasta for Inner Strength, had over 40k views. He played it without sponsorship two more times but what burned the guy out was a few hour stream of bad streaks in dice rolls. Then he moved on.

I think if you want a more focused and difficult experience, you're still going to have to turn to custom content even in their next game. Provided they increase capabilities there, I'm happy with that.

Ah ok, thats why the karma dice is on by default so things are even worse than i thought, lot worse...
I am not fine with having to rely on custom content, that will never reach the profesionnal level of a paid dedicated team. If they had the system of premium modules like for nwn i would accept it, but counting on free labor and the user base its just wrong.

 

[Nortar]

I am not fine with having to rely on custom content, that will never reach the profesionnal level of a paid dedicated team.

Bro, you should really take a look at Forsaken Isle and Morrows Deep.

 

[Mortmal]

I am not fine with having to rely on custom content, that will never reach the profesionnal level of a paid dedicated team.

Bro, you should really take a look at Forsaken Isle and Morrows Deep.

i Did. Already discussed about it.

 

[Nortar]

I am not fine with having to rely on custom content, that will never reach the profesionnal level of a paid dedicated team.

Bro, you should really take a look at Forsaken Isle and Morrows Deep.

i Did. Already discussed about it.

So do you disagree that combat counters there are harder and better thought out than the most of the official campaigns battles?

When we're are talking about using a ready toolset, I'd say self-invested enthusiasts pouring their souls into passion-projects can definetely make better content than "dedicated team" of paid clock-pushers or even genually good devs but resticted by time, budget, marketing and whatever else limits.

 

[Mortmal]

I am not fine with having to rely on custom content, that will never reach the profesionnal level of a paid dedicated team.

Bro, you should really take a look at Forsaken Isle and Morrows Deep.

i Did. Already discussed about it.

So do you disagree that combat counters there are harder and better thought out than the most of the official campaigns battles?

When we're are talking about using a ready toolset, I'd say self-invested enthusiasts pouring their souls into passion-projects can definetely make better content than "dedicated team" of paid clock-pushers or even genually good devs but resticted by time, budget, marketing and whatever else limits.

Artyoan did a very good work with the writing, area layout and use of the toolset. However as i already told him i prefer something more in line with a tabletop session with several medium and hard encounters in a row rather than one 10X deadly at full ressources after a rest.
Now if you compare it to solasta main campaign where they give you one hard(below deadly) encounter after a full rest, yes i prefer the way he does it.
Then you can see he's not allowed to make his own boss mobs with legendary actions, he cannot add new environments, and no new models either.Lot of restrictions you can only bypass by working at tactical dev.

Preaching in the desert anyway , since no one cares , and the opinion of some retarded youtuber , not really into rpg, is what matters today.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

However as i already told him i prefer something more in line with a tabletop session with several medium and hard encounters in a row rather than one 10X deadly at full ressources after a rest.

Pourquoi pas les deux?

 

[Artyoan]

Ultimately that is what sells copies. From a business standpoint it makes sense to showcase your game around streaming to some degree. I’m just speculating but the change to karmic dice made a lot of sense after seeing that stream and countless forum complaints about bad streaks. Even I’ve been accused of rigging the dice in my campaigns, as if it makes any sense for me to force the player to roll low.

But if they are building around the dungeon maker from the ground up then that potentially allows for custom monsters, legendary skills, custom environments, custom spell lists, etc. There is already an import/export function that would make it pretty easy for teams of people to create things.

The dungeon maker wasn’t promised in the kickstarter. The CEO wrote the code to implement it himself after requests. Anything built after the fact is going to be pretty limited. And that’s on top of the base game not being built for expansion anyway.

I’m optimistic about everything I’ve heard from reading between the lines. I’m just not expecting the official campaigns to be very different from what they are now. Maybe I’ll be wrong there.

If you look at Solasta steam reviews the vast majority don’t even mention the dungeon maker. A new game is also a new start to market it as user content driven game.

 

[mediocrepoet]

However as i already told him i prefer something more in line with a tabletop session with several medium and hard encounters in a row rather than one 10X deadly at full ressources after a rest.

Pourquoi pas les deux?

Parce que vous allez vous faire foutre, voilà pourquoi.

Spoiler

 

[Nortar]

However as i already told him i prefer something more in line with a tabletop session with several medium and hard encounters in a row rather than one 10X deadly at full ressources after a rest.

I can see your point. Coming from tabletop background I'm not a fan of rest-spaming myself.
Sleeping right outside of the Evil Boss' room is an alien thing to me.

So yeah, the pacing is pretty even, as it does not ever let you relax.
And I agree, it would have been nice to feel "teh powah" by roflstomping some easier encounters once in a while.
Still properly chosing your starting position, like circling around enemies to climb on top of tower or barricading in a single entry room, can turn a deadly encounter into a manageble one.

One of the best tactical decision I made in Morrows Deep was to wait until night before clearing out bandit/cultist infested ruins so enemy archers had disandvantage on their attacks. I'm sure it would have been much harder or taken more resources during the day.

 

[Mortmal]

Ultimately that is what sells copies. From a business standpoint it makes sense to showcase your game around streaming to some degree. I’m just speculating but the change to karmic dice made a lot of sense after seeing that stream and countless forum complaints about bad streaks. Even I’ve been accused of rigging the dice in my campaigns, as if it makes any sense for me to force the player to roll low.

But if they are building around the dungeon maker from the ground up then that potentially allows for custom monsters, legendary skills, custom environments, custom spell lists, etc. There is already an import/export function that would make it pretty easy for teams of people to create things.

The dungeon maker wasn’t promised in the kickstarter. The CEO wrote the code to implement it himself after requests. Anything built after the fact is going to be pretty limited. And that’s on top of the base game not being built for expansion anyway.

I’m optimistic about everything I’ve heard from reading between the lines. I’m just not expecting the official campaigns to be very different from what they are now. Maybe I’ll be wrong there.

If you look at Solasta steam reviews the vast majority don’t even mention the dungeon maker. A new game is also a new start to market it as user content driven game.

I's not speculation, its 100% sure, i would even bet infinitron's left nut that you are right. Makes sense from a business point i guess, but you know what else make sense for a grognard like me : Not participating in any kickstarters anymore , not paying full prices and just get it all on gamepass. One month sub at -75%, good enough. Since its junk food for the gamepass lets pay it at junk food price.

 

[Alienman]

Curious. Will BG3 have mod tools?

 

[Lagole Gon]

Comfy...

 

[gurugeorge]

I've always wondered why something like "moar-karmic dice" isn't an inbuilt feature of builds and progression - in fact, if anything, it should be the main thing that changes with "experience."

The skilled swordsman is less prone to slipping on a random banana peel, etc.

 

[IDtenT]

I've always wondered why something like "moar-karmic dice" isn't an inbuilt feature of builds and progression - in fact, if anything, it should be the main thing that changes with "experience."

The skilled swordsman is less prone to slipping on a random banana peel, etc.

That's kinda what ability scores and proficiencies already do.

 

[gurugeorge]

I've always wondered why something like "moar-karmic dice" isn't an inbuilt feature of builds and progression - in fact, if anything, it should be the main thing that changes with "experience."

The skilled swordsman is less prone to slipping on a random banana peel, etc.

That's kinda what ability scores and proficiencies already do.

I thought the idea of it was that rolls skew in your favour if you've had a few unlucky rolls in a row?

 

[lukaszek]

I've always wondered why something like "moar-karmic dice" isn't an inbuilt feature of builds and progression - in fact, if anything, it should be the main thing that changes with "experience."

The skilled swordsman is less prone to slipping on a random banana peel, etc.

That's kinda what ability scores and proficiencies already do.

I thought the idea of it was that rolls skew in your favour if you've had a few unlucky rolls in a row?

i thought it basically implements entropy so it swings both ways, cant be lucky too many times in a row either?

 

[Lagole Gon]

Unironically great finale.

Spoiler

 

[Darth Canoli]

Was the engine optimized at any point?

 

[J1M]

Was the engine optimized at any point?

Still uses Unity.