Solasta - Preview @ GiN

Yeah, sorry for thread derail - but they are the two 5E titles in sight for now, so it's inevitable they'll be compared.

I did actually enjoy BG3 - played it through twice after different patches - so I don't dislike the game and it has great potential and is currently fun to play (if you close your eyes are pretend its not 5E).

As for pre-buffing, one good thing about 5E is that it has severely limited that: most buffs require concentration, and you can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Initially I hated it - coming from from past D&D and PF - but it's kind of grown on me and it suits their action economy. So, the choice of buffs becomes quite critical and tactical - you can't simply power up everything as you can in PF (where I always had communal prot from poison , communal prot from evil, communal stone skin etc etc *cast*cast*cast* zzzz...surprised the party wasn't glowing ;) ). So I actually think that's a good thing. Of course, I still love PF, but its PF which I played for years , I know it well, and it's a very good adaptation - and sort of what I expected.
 
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The issue is that videogames do not offer that setup. In videogames combat is continuous and incessant as part of the design of what a videogame is, and these combat buffs are not designed as a temporary boost to a certain encounter, they become baseline and mandatory to the point that developers already designed every encounter presuming the player will have those buffs available and running.
I don't think this is generally true.
In the BG games and also in Pathfinder 1 there are encounters where you don't need buffs and those where you need buffs.
This of course depends on equipment and party composition.
And it's the challenge of level designers to create dungeons or other connected parts to make them challenging while sometimes using buffs.

At that point, pre-buffing every battle, be it with Bless, Bull's Strength, Haste, or the other dozen of available buffs to a party of 4-6 becomes an unending tedium, moreso when you enjoy playing in more challenging difficulties that will punish you if you don't want to live a slave of the buffing roulette and spend 2 minutes buffing before every encounter.
Yeah, it is tedious sometimes, especially for standard buffs that help in every encounter like Bull's Strength. That's why I want to have a buff macro feature or something.

Also it's challenging and fun to deal with buffs that help against certain enemies. Often areas have certain monster types with poison, fire or whatever damage and the challenge is to think ahead and prepare.
 
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The issue is that videogames do not offer that setup. In videogames combat is continuous and incessant as part of the design of what a videogame is, and these combat buffs are not designed as a temporary boost to a certain encounter, they become baseline and mandatory to the point that developers already designed every encounter presuming the player will have those buffs available and running.
It should be part of the strategy, as in tabletop. I agree with @Morrandir;, with Pathfinder, there are battles that don't require buffs, others for which you want to wait for the right moment. As a consequence, I learned to equip the right characters with the right buffs, knowing for example that a wizard will only be able to buff before the battle, while an eldritch scoundrel or a cleric will still be able to do so anytime within the fight.

I would find it less interesting without them. If some developers are bad and make it mandatory all the time, the fault is not on the system but how it was used by some. It's not a good reason to remove the feature, just avoid the developer's products instead.

BG3 is still completely unbalanced anyway, we'll have to see where they go. But indeed, committee-driven decisions can't be good.
Yeah, sorry for thread derail - but they are the two 5E titles in sight for now, so it's inevitable they'll be compared.

I did actually enjoy BG3 - played it through twice after different patches - so I don't dislike the game and it has great potential and is currently fun to play (if you close your eyes are pretend its not 5E).

As for pre-buffing, one good thing about 5E is that it has severely limited that: most buffs require concentration, and you can only concentrate on one thing at a time.
No, it's interesting to discuss about the different options :) At first their choices irritated me, to be honest. As was this obsession with romance, they really need to get a life! Sure it's interesting to have interactions between party members, but interactions of any kind. I'm just ignoring it, there's enough good things to enjoy in that game fortunately.

Yes, the concentration limit is interesting! But it regularly gets me swearing, for sure.
 
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No, it's interesting to discuss about the different options :) At first their choices irritated me, to be honest. As was this obsession with romance, they really need to get a life! Sure it's interesting to have interactions between party members, but interactions of any kind. I'm just ignoring it, there's enough good things to enjoy in that game fortunately.
Romance has been part of RPGs for over 25 years now it's not going away. Seriously have you seen the drawings and fan fictions made by fans yet for BG III? It also sells.

Even the original saga had romance the tech just wasn't ready for how it's done today.
 
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Even the original saga had romance the tech just wasn't ready for how it's done today.
Mh? Why wasn't the tech ready? The romances in BG were better than in most of today's games.
 
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As was this obsession with romance, they really need to get a life!
That's nonsense.

Sure it's interesting to have interactions between party members, but interactions of any kind.
Yep, there should be more types of interaction. There have been games with really good friendships and also negatiev relationships. There could be done a lot more.
 
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Mh? Why wasn't the tech ready? The romances in BG were better than in most of today's games.
Have you played BG III? Romance is soft porn cinematics not just text.;)

That tech did not exist in CRPGS in the 1990's.
 
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Nah here you go. It was showcased in a developer update.


If you cant see the difference between the romance in BG 1 & II and BG III.:roll:
 
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I would say romance is one of the more widely-reaching tools in a storyteller's repertoire, and the only thing that matters is whether it is well done or not, like all other storytelling tools. Many topics are niche and only perk the interest of a select audience, while romance has a much wider audience, so it is natural that it is omnipresent in most media. There are series and shows that are literally about solving cases of serial murderers, and romance still plays a strong part in the plot. It is a topic that invokes warm and bonding emotions in a very wide audience and because of that, it is not going away, and it is not a bad thing.

My only gripe is that often romance is not well done, it's chucked in just to make teenagers "happy" about conquering their favourite waifu, but in those cases, as with all kinds of different themes and stories that can be touched, what is at fault is not that they exist, but the quality of them.
 
Nah here you go. It was showcased in a developer update.
Thanks, but I don't want to get spoiled. Don't tempt me! :D
If you cant see the difference between the romance in BG 1 & II and BG III.:roll:
I believe you that there's a difference. But that's not the point.
The point is that for a good romance you don't need softporn scenes.
First, video as media is also not required. There's text, pictures, music, voices, sounds which can be enough. Of course video can also be well done.
Second, experiencing the charcters having sex imho is not the main point. It may of course add to the experience when it's well done.
But imho it should be about the built up, the journey and ideally some actual consequences on the later game.

An example because it's fresh in mind is the romance in CP77:
The Panam romance has a quite long lasting built-up during her missions where you not only get to know herself, but also the way she lives. You learn about the important persons in her life and her struggles.
The sex scene imho is mediocre. While the location is somehow exotic, it imho didn't add anything to the experience.
What I really liked as a consequence is that in the final mission V could opt to go with Panam and her gang instead of Rogue.
 
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Actually, BG doesn't have any romances. That wasn't introduced until BG II.

But imho it should be about the built up, the journey and ideally some actual consequences on the later game.

This, and it doesn't necessarily even have to be a romance. It could apply to any close relationship between characters.
 
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Actually, BG doesn't have any romances. That wasn't introduced until BG II.
You're right. It's just that two of the romance options are also possible companions in BG1. So I bluntly claim that the built-up starts in BG1 and thus it contains (a part of the) romance. ;)
This, and it doesn't necessarily even have to be a romance. It could apply to any close relationship between characters.
Yep, I totally agree.
 
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Yep, romance was only added later by Beamdog in BG with new characters like Neera.

I'm not bothered with romance, it's just the exaggerated media hype Larian did around it that got on my nerves. Fortunately the characters have more than that, you can establish trust with some of them and they'll reveal their history, you can piss them off if you don't have the same priorities or views on the situation.

They sometimes have fondness for, or dislike to one another, and will occasionally comment about it, even outside of dialogs. This is very neat. Solasta does that a little bit, but it's more superficial, more random banter, or sometimes related to past events. Still, it's good, and in both cases it puts some life in the game. :)

Pushing the romance as far as sex scenes is probably a bit over the top, IMO. That's clearly to attract more audience, rather than to add something meaningful or immersive to the game. But after all, they do the same in movies when they want to increase the sales, so I suppose it's more or less free in the grand scheme of things ;) And if that makes some people steer their main character completely off just to get there, that's their problem.
 
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Ah but you underestimate the power of imagination ;)
The power of the imagination sucks. I'm not a child anymore.;)

I need both visual, audio, and other stimuli for a reaction.
 
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Couch, I'm sorry bro..I love u but, imagination is *everything*…to me, at least. Childlike wonder is a
big blessing! :biggrin:. Silence your impatient and stubborn mind and allow things you're trying to really immerse u and win u over. If u want my advice, that is. Love ya buddy. :party:
 
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