Solasta - New Team Member and Lighting System

Thanks for the detailed reply @Redglyph; and @gabrielarantest;

While I understand narrative and story is not the major selling point, I hope they still flesh out the lore of the new world they are building.

Did they incorporate lore to their dialogues at all (like Kingmaker and PoE fashion - where you mouse over the text and it gives longer description of the place etc). I think two place names mentioned were Caer Cyflen and Caer Lam and was wondering why they share "Caer" - does it mean city or is there other reason they share that word etc. Those are the things I wish they incorporate (unless its already in game).

Also agree with @Morrandir; and hope tag system breath in more life to my party members.

purpleblob said:

Did they incorporate lore to their dialogues at all (like Kingmaker and PoE fashion - where you mouse over the text and it gives longer description of the place etc). I think two place names mentioned were Caer Cyflen and Caer Lam and was wondering why they share "Caer" - does it mean city or is there other reason they share that word etc. Those are the things I wish they incorporate (unless its already in game).

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Unfortunately no Worse, it's presented as subtitles, you can just watch and listen, and see the subtitles fly by (better not be distracted, there's no scrolling back). You can still see the whole conversations in the journal log once they're finished, but no tooltips or nothing of the sort there.

In the current version there's only a small tutorial accessible in-game, and a bestiary that fills in as you encounter species. But no lore, no encyclopedia either, just what you can read on the site and watch in their videos. Have other games spoiled us?

I hope we'll see more of that at some point, but it's still a small team, I wouldn't put the bar too high regarding these features.

purpleblob said:

Also agree with @Morrandir; and hope tag system breath in more life to my party members.

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What do you mean by tag system? The personality traits that influence the dialogs?

Redglyph said:

Unfortunately no Worse, it's presented as subtitles, you can just watch and listen, and see the subtitles fly by (better not be distracted, there's no scrolling back). You can still see the whole conversations in the journal log once they're finished, but no tooltips or nothing of the sort there.

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That's what I feared :/ IIRC, devs done a few posts on lore of Solasta during their dev diary, so I'm still hoping it will be incorporated into the game at some point.

What do you mean by tag system? The personality traits that influence the dialogs?

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Yes, personality tag system

Very few games have lore tooltips built into dialogue, so being disappointed that it's not in Solasta seems kind of strange to me. It's not something I would expect from a game with a smaller budget compared to other titles being mentioned.

Hastar said:

I was fighting 80% of the time in Pathfinder. Isn't that your favorite game ever? Solasta has about the same amount as Pathfinder. I skipped many combats using skills. Including some boss fights. I'm not talking about kingdom management either since most here didn't like it.

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Like Purple, and as someone who has 373.9 hours in PK according to steam, I would also disagree with that 80% number. You can skip some combat in PK with dialogue and skills, or reduce/increase fighting.

@JDR13; Maybe I'm spoiled by other games as Redglyph mentioned

I think it quite jarring to figure out lore and such outside of the game itself so I still want devs to find out a way to incorporate lore into the game, even if not via dialogue tool tip system. An addition of encyclopedia would be great.

Sure, we're all spoiled by certain games. However, I don't go into newer games expecting them to have everything I want.

I wouldn't be surprised if Solasta ends up including some kind of in-game codex. It already has a monster encyclopedia that fills in as you encounter the monsters.

JDR13 said:

Sure, we're all spoiled by certain games. However, I don't go into newer games expecting them to have everything I want.

I wouldn't be surprised if Solasta ends up including some kind of in-game codex. It already has a monster encyclopedia that fills in as you encounter the monsters.

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It certainly doesn't have "everything" I want nor I'm asking them for it (it should be RTwP combat if I'm asking for everything I want ) - it's obvious you and I have different expectation from the game.

As I said, an encyclopedia / codex would be nice - wouldn't it be waste not to share information about their new setting otherwise?

purpleblob said:

It certainly doesn't have "everything" I want nor I'm asking them for it (it should be RTwP combat if I'm asking for everything I want ) - it's obvious you and I have different expectation from the game.

As I said, an encyclopedia / codex would be nice - wouldn't it be waste not to share information about their new setting otherwise?

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Yes, I think my expectations are a little more realistic.

I agree about the codex. Like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up having one.

JDR13 said:

Eh? 10x the current content would be a massive game. I don't feel like every RPG needs to be 100+ hours long. I'd be happy with 3 or 4 times what's there now.

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Yeah, but don't tell the developers that. Let them aim for 10 times and they might stop at 5.

JDR13 said:

Sure, we're all spoiled by certain games. However, I don't go into newer games expecting them to have everything I want.

I wouldn't be surprised if Solasta ends up including some kind of in-game codex. It already has a monster encyclopedia that fills in as you encounter the monsters.

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purpleblob said:

@JDR13; Maybe I'm spoiled by other games as Redglyph mentioned

I think it quite jarring to figure out lore and such outside of the game itself so I still want devs to find out a way to incorporate lore into the game, even if not via dialogue tool tip system. An addition of encyclopedia would be great.

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I'm with you both on that

What they do, they seem to do with care, even if nothing is perfect. But that's true, they can't do everything. Fortunately, they seem to have a good notion of priority of what they decide to include.

So if they decide to add a codex, be that in or out of the game, I think - I may be wrong - they'll take the time to do it right, and it will have to serve a purpose, in other words there should be enough lore in the quests and dialogs to justify it. For now, they have obviously thought about the lore but it's not very complex. In Pathfinder, I'm really happy to have this, otherwise I'd feel lost. I don't think that would be the case in Solasta.

Maybe we'll see more clearly in the next update ("coming in the next few months"... heh, wish they could be more precise!), whether they add to the storytelling, or if they prefer it more casual, like a bunch of friends playing for fun around a table. Perhaps I was being optimistic about the whole story thing, but I hope not.

wolfgrimdark said:

Like Purple, and as someone who has 373.9 hours in PK according to steam, I would also disagree with that 80% number. You can skip some combat in PK with dialogue and skills, or reduce/increase fighting.

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And you can do the same in Solasta. I would say I used more skill checks in Solasta to avoid fights but some of that was because of turn based combat. Battles in Pathfinder could be finished a lot faster.

purpleblob said:

I think it quite jarring to figure out lore and such outside of the game itself so I still want devs to find out a way to incorporate lore into the game, even if not via dialogue tool tip system. An addition of encyclopedia would be great.

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Additional tidbits!

I was starting to wonder whether the story was really going to be a part of the game, after seeing some of the other's opinion and taking a step back to try and see it more objectively. I've finally asked in their forums how important the story was in their view, and they were kind enough to answer

It is not secret that the narrative part of Solasta won't be anywhere as strong as larger AAA games. More writing means more voice acting budget. More dialog choices means more writing, AND more game design work to create new branches in the quests that are impacted by those dialog choices - potentially even needing more level design work if it unlocks new paths or additional encounters.

As you can see, adding narrative layers can be very costly if it's not purely "fluff" (for example: additional lore books you can find). Our goal is to first and foremost deliver a main campaign that has a solid storyline, even if it may not be very choice heavy.

That being said we're still working on stuff. Extra lore through the faction screens or the bestiary could be a thing, we need to see how much time we have at hand after completing the core game

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If they want to have voice acting for all the dialogs, we probably won't see the amount of narrative we have seen in Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate (well, I still have to play this last one, but I've seen enough to get the idea). I don't think we'll have tooltips or the same level of lore abundance as Pathfinder either. But they seem keen on giving a good storyline, and I'm sure they'll offer a good overall balance so as not to let us down.

They're being very pragmatic about what they can achieve with the resources at hand, and not over-promising/over-extending themselves. I think it's a good strategy. If they can provide a solid little game with a really good implementation of DnD, that will put them on the map, hopefully provide some cash, and more options for seeking investment. Then they can look at expanding the aspects we'd like to see more of in future games.