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Cool, I'll check them out! I just did an evil run of Lost Valley to see what happens if you help Orenatis, and I really did not expect the head of the rebellion to be an ancient lich mummy thing. The end mission in the jungle facility is super chill a well, you skip 75% of the fights since they're all friendly to you.
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# ? Nov 24, 2022 17:22 |
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# ? Jun 9, 2024 08:08 |
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I did not know that if you find multiple books of +stat, they stack. why yes, i will take +4 charisma on my paladin. I rather liked my black dragonborn heartlands paladin, but i think its volcanic aura is bugged. Beat the Valley, and the Paladin should have had resist fire, acid, necrotic. ice, and poison, from race, volcanic aura, ring of cold resist, amulet of necro resist, and a belt of dwarvenkind. the rest of the party would resist a fireball, but my paladin didnt. but the paladin did get the AC boost from the aura. Weird, but the game wasnt so hard it made a real difference. She ended up using the maul of the destroyer with its sweet dc 13 str check or get stunned, and feats were follow through, armor master, and mighty blow. Never actually got to use level 12 stuff, at that point it was "all quest say go finish the game"
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# ? Nov 26, 2022 08:31 |
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I’ve never hit 12 either, the Lost Valley seems to give enough XP for level 11, though I guess if you just traveled a lot you might get enough from random encounters. There are some crazy ones hidden in there, I got attacked by 3 Remoharaz once, which was quite nasty when half my team was using fire magic.
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# ? Nov 26, 2022 21:07 |
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yeah, i hit 12 by walking back and forth between the Swamp and the Verdant Valley. I was going to make the pile of recipes the Forge gave me at level 11, drat it, because I had the mats in my pocket for 7 levels, drat it. but hey, left the valley with 600lbs of gold, a bag of holding full of rare reagents, and magic items not seen from the time of the Empire.
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# ? Nov 27, 2022 05:04 |
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If anyone's looking for a user campaign Shadows over Brightreach is really fun. The writing's and story are pretty good, and the encounter design is really good later on. The workshop page warned me I needed an optimized party, so I made one and breezed through the early game, but the optional fights in the late game have been crazy. I don't know if I'd have managed it without using stuff like Twin Cast Haste. Good stuff!
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# ? Dec 2, 2022 21:09 |
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Oh they fixed the community mod now as well. It's been rolled into "Solasta Unfinished Business". https://www.nexusmods.com/solastacrownofthemagister/mods/225
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# ? Dec 2, 2022 23:55 |
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Gerblyn posted:If anyone's looking for a user campaign Shadows over Brightreach is really fun. The writing's and story are pretty good, and the encounter design is really good later on. The workshop page warned me I needed an optimized party, so I made one and breezed through the early game, but the optional fights in the late game have been crazy. I don't know if I'd have managed it without using stuff like Twin Cast Haste. Good stuff! Thanks and please keep recommending campaigns as you find them.
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# ? Dec 3, 2022 03:58 |
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I finished the Lost Valley DLC this weekend and I really enjoyed it, definitely better paced and executed better than the vanilla campaign. The faction stuff was well-done and the whole experience overall felt like they took a lot of feedback on board. It seems I'm always destined to have a buggy end to my first time with these official campaigns, though. For the ending I went with the People factions as the overall "good" option (with the Forge also left high as it didn't conflict with the People) and this allowed me to merge the two halves of Orenetis into a single being again. The end slide said that the throne was left empty and was ripe for chaos, though. What?! Also, not a bug, but I didn't realise activating the big mana machines in the citadel was a bad thing. Still really enjoyed it and looking forward to trying some of the other faction-specific endings.
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# ? Dec 6, 2022 15:05 |
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Zirak posted:I finished the Lost Valley DLC this weekend and I really enjoyed it, definitely better paced and executed better than the vanilla campaign. The faction stuff was well-done and the whole experience overall felt like they took a lot of feedback on board. If you haven't played Solasta before, I assume doing the vanilla campaign first is a good idea?
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# ? Dec 6, 2022 17:27 |
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Prism posted:If you haven't played Solasta before, I assume doing the vanilla campaign first is a good idea? Personally, I would always play it first as it introduces you to the dev's own world and its backstory, if you care about those kinds of details (I know I do!). With that said, however, nothing in the Lost Valley campaign references the vanilla campaign directly - just some shout outs in the beginning to justify why you are where you are. Otherwise it's a pretty self-contained adventure. EDIT: The vanilla campaign also has the initial tutorials on the mechanics, which Lost Valley does not.
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# ? Dec 6, 2022 17:37 |
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Is there a way to increase the font size? Last I checked, there wasnt. Im dying to really play, but so far its been just a little too hard on my eyes to tv & couch.
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# ? Dec 7, 2022 20:09 |
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That unfinished business mod is the bees knees, but sadly got broke this morning by the latest patch, so will have to wait till it's updated to play some more. It adds quite a lot, even including the artificer class (inventor in the mod). Was playing yesterday and got jumped by 4 berserkers and 4 dire wolves, with my characters at lvl 4, and had to explain to my kids watching me fume at the RNG what confirmation bias is and how it manifests in video games, and that's why daddy curses at the computer. Did beat the encounter though, with just my bard left standing and having to use potions and scrolls.
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# ? Dec 7, 2022 21:44 |
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Started playing this for serious recently and man, I regret giving up on this during the tutorial before. This was the game I needed when Pathfinder was kicking my rear end. The difficulty in this game seems just right between frustrating and baby's first RPG.
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# ? Dec 12, 2022 11:37 |
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Mordaedil posted:Started playing this for serious recently and man, I regret giving up on this during the tutorial before. And the settings on difficulty can be changed at any time. Mid fight, prefight, whenever.
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# ? Dec 12, 2022 22:36 |
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I'm really surprised by how positive the reactions to the game are in the thread. The actual play is fine - it's just D&D fifth which is a bit boring but they've done a good job at setting it out. But the voice acting and the dialogue itself are absolute poo poo. I hate the way the game has assigned random personalities to my characters and how they all just say random stuff in conversations. It's so badly written and so badly done. It almost feels like each voice actor got given a list of contextless text and they recorded it and then they put it into the game. I'm so tired of hearing "clear skies". So tired. And how everyone's got random loving accents too. And the way facial hair looks on characters is seriously (as someone put it earlier) like a santa glue on beard, it's wildly bad. It's also frustrating that my Dragonborn without darkvision is constantly at a disadvantage, stuff you expect to cast light - like the fuckoff big runes on the stuff in the Monastery/Master quests - don't. Having to cast light because of it is just a pain. Because the story is so poo poo and badly connected I'm getting really tired of the battles. If they HAD just pitched it as a dungeon crawler I think I'd have been a lot happier with it Taear fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Dec 29, 2022 |
# ? Dec 29, 2022 21:06 |
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Taear posted:I'm really surprised by how positive the reactions to the game are in the thread. Clear skies, friend.
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# ? Dec 29, 2022 22:41 |
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Taear posted:I'm really surprised by how positive the reactions to the game are in the thread.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 00:31 |
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Cast light when you walk in the dungeon on your Dragonborn’s armor. The game is a lot more fun at 2x speed. But yeah, it’s a dungoncralwer. The writing of some Of the player campaigns are significantly better than the main (or lost valley) stories, mainly because it’s just text.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 01:47 |
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DisgracelandUSA posted:Clear skies, friend. Clear skies indeed.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 03:11 |
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It just makes me remember how much people got mad at NWN2 when I'd say the story there was head and shoulders above what we have here I can't understand why they decided to make everything voice acted. It's a bizarre decision. And after playing Chained Echoes (basically made by one person) I can't just go "well, it's a small team"
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 09:00 |
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Taear posted:I'm really surprised by how positive the reactions to the game are in the thread. I'm with you on this one: the presentation is so bad it has single-handedly stopped me from playing more than 3 hours of this despite actually liking the combat.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 10:40 |
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https://imgur.com/a/0UdNRlk I mean look at this word salad, every character having to say very similar lines for just no reason whatsoever.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 10:58 |
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While I somewhat enjoyed the game overall, the issue isn't that it's a dungeoncrawler, it's that significant parts of the dev team seem to have not realized that. The game would have been vastly improved by dropping any pretense of role-playing and going for more deeper dungeons instead of running from story beat to story beat.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 14:23 |
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Taear posted:https://imgur.com/a/0UdNRlk You have cited what IMO is the worst dialogue in the game (though there’s competition, for sure—probably have a dozen scattered through the game including one near the end). It’s never especially good, and the voice acting is very “this game was funded on Kickstarter” throughout. But the 5E combat engine works and you can turn off some of the barks and the verbal casting and such. The plot is passable and the design is fairly thoughtful. For example, they decided to making lighting condictions a central aspect of the game, to the extent that multiple archetypes revolve around lighting-specific issues and fighting enemies with darkvision. The main adversaries of the game, as well as dangerous foes like vampires, receive disadvantage in areas of bright light, making Solasta the only D&D PC game I’m aware of where you might deliberately prep and cast a Daylight spell. If you find it irritating, fine; I’m sure someone finds the “3D” combat system with specific bonuses for ranged attacks from a height annoying and seethes every time the game plays its climbing animation, too. But it was a major design decision which adds typically ignored aspects to the combat engine and some of us are delighted at the implementation, which the game makes good use of in combat encounters. It’ll be interesting to compare with Baldur’s Gate III when that actually releases.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 16:23 |
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Narsham posted:You have cited what IMO is the worst dialogue in the game (though there’s competition, for sure—probably have a dozen scattered through the game including one near the end). It’s never especially good, and the voice acting is very “this game was funded on Kickstarter” throughout. But the 5E combat engine works and you can turn off some of the barks and the verbal casting and such. The plot is passable and the design is fairly thoughtful. I mean other than the first sentence what does that have to do with what I posted? I said the engine was good! Although it annoys me that stuff stands on the side of walls and I can't say to my spiderclimb guys to do the same (I know they'll stop and attack, but I mean I can't specifically say "please stand here") Taear fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Dec 30, 2022 |
# ? Dec 30, 2022 16:51 |
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Taear posted:https://imgur.com/a/0UdNRlk Part of that is that Kythaela isn't quite right in the head at that point. Her dialogue being somewhat incoherent is intentional.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 17:37 |
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Solasta is a pick-up game using a module with characters you had about one minute to think up. It’s not always what I want to play, but it’s very good at giving that feel.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 17:47 |
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Part of that is that Kythaela isn't quite right in the head at that point. Her dialogue being somewhat incoherent is intentional. Hers isn't what's incoherent! IT's everyone replying random poo poo to it
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 18:33 |
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reads like Persona 5 dialogue lol
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 18:35 |
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I do agree that the writing and VO is terrible, but there's enough structure in the story to give me some motivation to go places and do things, and I tend to skip most of the story anyways. I personally like it because it's the only real exposure I've had to 5ed rules, and I love how it fixes a bunch of the bloat and balance issues I have with 3.5/Pathfinder. Not needing to cast 73 buffs after each rest is fantastic, or the way I can remove a debuff from an ally by attacking the caster.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 21:27 |
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My preliminary BG3 vs. Solasta comparison: Even with only one act so far, BG3 wins on story, characters, and presentation by a long shot. Mechanically, other than subclasses, Solasta is more faithful to the 5e ruleset. I'm not against adaptations for a PC game, but the changes that BG3 makes are not very well considered or designed, in my opinion. Making certain actions bonus actions further nerfs the already weak rogue, for instance. The abundance of magic items that grant abilities feels more in the spirit of the D:OS games than any 5e campaign I've experienced. Interface-wise, Solasta's feels more intuitive in how it sorts action types and spell levels. The visual design is a little out of place, though. Both games have terrible inventories.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 21:48 |
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Gerblyn posted:I do agree that the writing and VO is terrible, but there's enough structure in the story to give me some motivation to go places and do things, and I tend to skip most of the story anyways.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 21:49 |
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it's surprising that owlcat didn't base their games on pathfinder 2nd, which takes the 5e approach to this as well
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 22:07 |
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Angstrom Gothington posted:My preliminary BG3 vs. Solasta comparison: It's also worth noting that Solasta is much better-optimized, with considerably lower system requirements than BG3. I spent nearly $1500 on my new laptop last year (and that's with the enormous discounts from the links in the SH/SC laptop megathread), and it still can't run BG3 due to its GPU requirements, which is just an automatic strike against any CRPG on principle. RPGs, strategy games, sims, etc., should be designed to be run even on mid-tier graphics cards. Like, Solasta wins over BG3 by default for me, because my laptop can run it.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 22:07 |
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Mister Olympus posted:it's surprising that owlcat didn't base their games on pathfinder 2nd, which takes the 5e approach to this as well Well, it's not really a surprise that they didn't base Kingmaker on it, what with Pathfinder 2nd not being out for another year after Kingmaker released. And then they already had the basic engine done, I guess, for Wrath. (I don't remember when Wrath got kickstarted - it might have been before PF2 came out, too.)
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 23:07 |
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Prism posted:Well, it's not really a surprise that they didn't base Kingmaker on it, what with Pathfinder 2nd not being out for another year after Kingmaker released. And then they already had the basic engine done, I guess, for Wrath. (I don't remember when Wrath got kickstarted - it might have been before PF2 came out, too.) Yeah, switching to V2 for WotR would have involved a huge rewrite of code and content, and could have delayed development by several years, or made WotR a far less comprehensive game than it is now.
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# ? Dec 30, 2022 23:21 |
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I'm just sad that they're doing Rogue Trader now because Pathfinder 2nd is the platonic ideal of a TTRPG for me after playing it. It's got a nice amount of crunch but it's not as player unfriendly as the ridiculous amount of options in Pathfinder 1st. Improved Improved Improved Improved Critical? gently caress off. And I agree the amount of prebuffing in Pathfinder is wild. I'd STILL rather take Wrath than this game though and Wrath is pretty bad even if I enjoy it. Maybe it'll get more traction now Hasbro is utterly destroying D&D to make it into some weird microtransaction thingy. I feel like the good reviews for this, Kingmaker and Wrath are entirely because people are super starved for RPGs in this vein. There's been what...8 or so in the last decade? I bet Kickstarter could still get you a decent amount of money if you decided to do another tactical CRPG, even with kickstarter burnout.
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# ? Dec 31, 2022 10:24 |
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Taear posted:I feel like the good reviews for this, Kingmaker and Wrath are entirely because people are super starved for RPGs in this vein. Or your tastes are just out of sync with other people's. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I frequently dislike games other people enjoy Personally I didn't really like Kingmaker, but I don't think Wrath is a bad game at all. It's actually pretty much the most ambitious single player RPGs I've ever played, the sheer scope of what they tried to do with the class/mythic system is astonishing. It's a bit janky in places, but considering the complexity of the thing, that's not really surprising. The only real issues I have with WOTR are more to do with how the core PF rules seem to work than what Owlcat themselves have done.
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# ? Dec 31, 2022 16:31 |
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Gerblyn posted:Or your tastes are just out of sync with other people's. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I frequently dislike games other people enjoy It's extremely buggy and hosed up So many bugs that in any other game would get it completely slated, but people NEED a game like that. Even people who love it - and don't get me wrong, it's been interesting to play - say the same
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# ? Dec 31, 2022 19:44 |
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# ? Jun 9, 2024 08:08 |
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I have close to 300 hours in the game, and I think I've had maybe 2 or 3 crashes or hangs. There are also minor glitches like charge sometimes not working properly, or the fact that using a Cure Wounds spell doesn't work half the time in turn based (which apparently is due to some stupid PnP rule). The game's certainly a bit janky, no argument there, but I've not had anything close to what you describe. It has been patched a ton right now, so maybe I missed the bad old broken days. Gerblyn fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Dec 31, 2022 |
# ? Dec 31, 2022 19:58 |