Solasta - Dev Stream, Beta and Issues

To celebrate the launch of Solasta there has been a dev stream, which you can still find on Twitch.

Next to that there is also news about a beta branch being started for the next version and some know bugs and workaraounds.

With the 1.0 release we've unfortunately run into a few annoying bugs, that we'll be working on to fix as soon as we can:

• The biggest one is the black screen / clouds / crash when starting the campaign due to a missing video codec. Workaround here.
• If you had mods installed before, your saves may not work anymore! Remember that using mods may cause issues with the game itself.
• Some people are also running into Unity crashes (small popup with a "!" on top of a Solasta logo). Unfortunately this is due to the engine and not the game itself, but we'll try to see if we can do something about it! Most of them are due to hardware issues (low specs, overheat, overclocking…) so no promises here.
• Some people are reporting issues with the Return the Sword to Merton quest. We welcome any save file right before the bug so we can investigate in more details!
• Some beards and hair are not sticking to the characters face! We know about this and we're working on a fix

More information.

I jumped in shortly and I think they were just finished talking about the models. I wonder if something more was said about the faces, because I see many people complaining about that, some even saying it was better in the EA.

I'd asked the question in a previous stream and they said they would improve the worst of them for the release, but that they were ill-equipped and didn't have the resources to achieve the same standard as AAA games. They were not rejecting the possibility to work further on that, however, but at this stage they have a lot of potential improvements and they'll have to decide which to pick (dungeon creator, sorcerer still need to be done, then there's a wild choice of suggestions).

In the stream, they also said they didn't want to release a patch on Friday because it was a recipe for disaster, that's why they put it in a beta branch until beginning of next week.

It doesn't look like an awful start, there are some bugs but overall it seems fine, what's your impression?

I found some more bugs, but for now none are gamebreaking. One that was "almost" gamebreaking is my save giving a "failed to load" error, but I had a save just before that worked so I lost just a couple minutes getting back to where I was, with no combat or anything important I had to do twice. Apparently that happens because I didn't have any of my characters selected when saving the game, which is not something I should be aware of or even the cause for a save game to be corrupt, but there is that.

Another worth mentioning is that I had the interactable icon of one of the shops at the town disappear, though I can still access the shop through the NPC.

so far the only negative thing is the loading time. (sub highend PC)

Originally Posted by Nereida
Apparently that happens because I didn't have any of my characters selected when saving the game

Wow, this is a bug dating from the Spring update, I thought it was solved. I had this problem back then.

I'm waiting until the first patch just to be on the safe side.

That's almost automatic for games like this though. Party-based games with complex rulesets always get at least some minor tweaking post-release.

The only noteworthy bug I've had is my Rogue's attack button disappearing in the middle of a fight, making them a bit useless for that battle (swapping to ranged and unequipping/equipping another weapon did nothing to fix it), with the disappeared icon persisting even after combat finished. It came back after a save/reload.

Otherwise I've been really enjoying the game.

Originally Posted by Nereida
I found some more bugs, but for now none are gamebreaking. One that was "almost" gamebreaking is my save giving a "failed to load" error, but I had a save just before that worked so I lost just a couple minutes getting back to where I was, with no combat or anything important I had to do twice. Apparently that happens because I didn't have any of my characters selected when saving the game, which is not something I should be aware of or even the cause for a save game to be corrupt, but there is that.

In fact, has this been reported? I don't see any bug thread on this bug.
They forums are terrible and it's not possible to upload files or even images, but it's possible to send them a file on Discord. If they're not aware of the problem, it's definitely worth doing it.

I don't know, I don't check the forums. I just googled it and found a mention to the bug and how to avoid it. It's possible the bug still happens in some systems, but now I always select a party member before saving, just to be safe, so the bug hasn't manifested again.

Similarly to another report in this thread, I had my "Powers" button disappear from my cleric in a fight, just when I needed to turn some undead, and the button didn't come back till I saved/reloaded the game.

Originally Posted by Nereida
Similarly to another report in this thread, I had my "Powers" button disappear from my cleric in a fight, just when I needed to turn some undead, and the button didn't come back till I saved/reloaded the game.

I've seen that one mentioned for other classes as well.

So far I've been lucky, many little issues but nothing serious.

Which difficulty is everyone playing on?

They have so many options.
I am thinking of doing one above normal, whatever that one is called.

Originally Posted by Pladio
Which difficulty is everyone playing on?

They have so many options.
I am thinking of doing one above normal, whatever that one is called.

I'm using authentic but I set "No Food Required" because I don't care much for that sort of micro-management. It's quite heavy and the travels change the quantities completely randomly which makes them unpredictable anyway.

I see that encumbrance is set to "Solasta (Variant)". All the rest is neutral / 100%, which seems easier than the EA. Battles with soraks like the escape at Caer Lem or after the library are more easily won than before.

I didn't see any setting about hiding mechanics. To me it's strange that characters can remain hidden after an attack. They have to roll for that with DEX(Stealth), so it's as if they were not hidden anymore then trying to hide again, but the 5E rules would prevent it, you can only hide when out of sight (like the rogue's cunning action does), and it would take an action to do so. And when they miss, they don't roll, although the rules specify your location is compromised whether you hit or fail.

So I have the impression their interpretation of hidden is flawed but I need to check, is anyone familiar with that part of 5E? It's fun like that but I think they should note that in the differences vs ruleset.

I'm playing on hardest difficulty with no custom modifiers. First few combats were pretty rough and had to cheese them using sneak attacks from stealth. Fighting fairly would never be a win it felt.

I'm now level 6 and with access to magical gear, spells and abilities I can actually beat encounters and boss fights just with good use of strategy and positioning.

Originally Posted by Pladio
Which difficulty is everyone playing on?

They have so many options.
I am thinking of doing one above normal, whatever that one is called.

I played the first time with the actual 5e D&D rules. I did have the deadlier AI turned on and the setting that the monsters would try and kill you if you were unconscious.

5e is a bit player-friendly and you have to pump up the enemy some. We always had to increase creatures AC and HPS in our table group.

Using default setting. "Authentic". Quite challenging enough as it is. I wonder if I shouldn't turn off the food option.

Authentic for a first play through. The game has been buggy, clunky, graphically weak and a lot of fun. If you're the kind of person who enjoyed Pathfinder: Kingmaker, this should be an easy buy.

Fun so far, just those loading times. I need an SSD.

Once you have an SSD, you'll never go back. Well worth saving up for, imo.

This game becomes quite hungry on GPU once you use the light spells…

Originally Posted by Carnifex
Once you have an SSD, you'll never go back. Well worth saving up for, imo.

And nowadays they are fairly cheap, too.