Solasta vs. Wrath of the Righteous vs. Baldur's Gate 3

Yeah, it’s frustrating. I’m replaying Divinity Original Sin 2 with @ShivaX and it’s really fun, but it’s a nightmare to loot rooms because while sometimes chests (and always bodies) are highlighted, stuff like bookshelves and creates, even sometimes chests, don’t highlight when you hold down the ALT key. It’s maddening, and it makes you feel obligated to look around for when your cursor changes to the tell tale icon that the object can be looted (at least the icon changes to a grey color if the object has already been looted, I guess).

Once it comes out of Early Access and the Mac Client is out, I will be interested in it too.

That was recently announced by the by - 5/27, not too far away now!

No idea about a MAC client, I’m afraid. EDIT: I looked on Discord and found the latest news seems to from March where they said a Mac version is a post-launch project.

Hi Scott! I, too, give massive weight to gameplay. That said, how much of the time are you engaged in combat in Solasta? Is it more Icewind Dale, BG2 or Torment?

It’s in the Icewind Dale category - it’s got some fun dialog moments, NPC’s to engage with, and moments of choice but it’s mostly a tactical combat simulator with exploration and light puzzle solving, like IWD was.

Perfect. Thank you! Right up my alley.

Thanks for the detailed write-up Scotch_Lufkin ! Can’t wait to read the updates as they come up.

Pluses and minuses on all three for me.

Currently I own BG3 and Solasta. I didn’t get as much of a Divinity 0S2 vibe on my BG 3 playthrough as I feared, but the world does fell “theme parkish” and small. It has been a while since I played BG1 and 2, but I remember that the worlds seemed larger, with more epic possibilities. But maybe things will open up at final release.

Haven’t had a chance to play Solasta yet but I am hoping to this weekend. I prefer just rolling one character as part of a bigger story, but the tactical system looks interesting.

I enjoyed the original Pathfinder but never finished. I got to a point before the final sequence where my kingdom was humming and all my companions were happy so I called it a day. Any improvement on the sequel would be a win for me.

Yeah I don’t know who these people are who want 500 lootable objects per dungeon level. When I see a loot box in Solasta, I know it will be worth the clicking usually even worth expending resources to get to it.

Plus a true 5e implementation is a lot of fun to play.

Frustrating? Sounds infuriating! The fact that they highlight some but not all of them just seems like a big middle finger to the player.

I’d really like to move to a loot model where you don’t have to strip everything off every body you leave behind, but maybe just say, “Hey, you finished this level of the dungeon, here’s what you find.” Granted, there’s something fun in finding the hidden compartment (with a skill! not a hidden object game!) and the nice dopamine hit of unlocking a chest, but there’s no fun in just holding tab (or alt or whatever) and clicking on everything that’s blue.

Ugh.

Maybe it will work with Codeweavers Crossover. I’ve had decent luck with Wine emulators.

One thing that’s cool about Solasta is the introduction of the Scavenger Guild. They will travel to a location you’ve been to, including a random battle along the road, and after time has passed will have collected all the junk you didn’t pick up (including stuff you might have left laying out in the open and missed by not looting a body, but not stuff found inside chests of course). Then you are presented with a list of all the stuff they recovered, and you can click on things you want to keep and just turn the rest into gold, sharing a % of the profits with the guild. It’s a slick system, and keeps you from feeling like you have to grab up every lose sword or belt you loot.

Pathfinder has a nice solution to this as well, in which when you leave an area you get a similar list of items found on the ground, and can selectively pick the stuff you wanted but didn’t notice (like a missed potion or scroll or a masterwork sword that is worth lugging around to sell).

BG3 (and Divinity) seems to be the worst in all possible ways in that not only do they not have an option for something like this, they actively make it harder to loot the environment for stuff.

Scott you are my spirit animal and I can’t disagree with anything you said. I overcame my dislike for the presentation of Solasta to find a marvelous game. I will also enjoy the other 2 for different reasons.

You guys are killing me. I was holding off on Solasta to wait for release, but now… I Really want to play…

If you want 10 - 15 hours of a fun time rolling up characters, finding your perfect party, and getting a feel for it before full release… why not?

Excellent write up, Scott - agree with your views.

Beware Scotch_Lufkin posts! His a walking wallet threat level!

Oh, neat! Both those systems sound cool and the Solasta one even has some nice flavor to it, sounds like. Really seems like BG3 is falling down on the job!

Anyway, thanks for doing this, I definitely need to get Solasta now.

Started a campaign in Solasta during lunch. Got killed in The tutorial. 10/10 would buy again…At the start I’m getting a very DDO vibe, and that is a good thing.

Run away from the dire wolf and push the boulder.

At least he didn’t fuck that up on camera. Several times in a row.