Hey there folks,

Our Steam Early Access Launch has been a blast so far. We've spent hours upon hours reading your messages, comments, suggestions, feedback... and it's been great! This is everything we wanted from the Early Access period. Anyway, now that things have calmed down a bit, we're back with our scheduled Dev Updates - this time with a preview of the upcoming Winter Patch, which should drop in the coming months. But before that... Let's greet our newcomers with our usual ritual - a picture of one of our fluffy companions!


Say hello to Tallulah, our 3D artist's little buddy!

Grab your coat and fire up your computer, here's a little sample of what's coming next!

• A new area and its set of quests, taking place after the Necromancy Main Quest
• The Scavenger System - no more lugging around all the junk you see lying around
• New combat features, such as hiding during combat and applying Poison onto your weapon
• More customization options in Character Creation, and a bit of plastic surgery on some faces
• Inventory and Shopping improvements, hand picked from your suggestions
• Still under consideration, but we might be adjusting the lighting system following your feedback - potentially not in this patch!
• And plenty of other additions, that we'll talk about in the coming weeks!

More content! With that, you should definitely be able to reach level 6 by the end of Early Access

If you've been following Solasta for a while now, you might remember that the main criticism of our Demo (Ruins of Telema) was the camera - most people had issues moving the camera around without bumping into walls or other obstacles, making the experience slightly more painful than we originally envisioned. As such, we've worked quite a bit on that topic before the launch of our Early Access - and while we do still have a few hiccups here and there, complaints about camera control are now much rarer! 

The most common complaint of our Early Access version has since switched to our Light System which we've explained more than a year ago in an article... and not without good reasons. We've been reading through your messages and suggestions, and we find ourselves agreeing on quite a few of them. The largest issues being:

• We've been saying that Solasta is faithful to the 5e Tabletop ruleset, but we've made changes regarding the lighting rules
• This design change wasn't clearly explained in-game, leading many people to be disappointed after expecting their Darkvision characters to be able to see without light
• Fighting in dark environments is frustrating due to often rolling with disadvantage, especially against enemies that like to stay at range

While we had our reasons to change the lighting rules originally (as stated in our article), we've come to appreciate how difficult it is for Tabletop players to adjust to that new set of rules - especially since everything else stays fairly close to the original Tabletop ruleset. So... we're going back to the drawing board to make it better! After all, that's what Early Access is for is it not? Gather feedback from the players, keep what people love and rework what people find problematic. 


A screenshot from more than a year ago! This old level named "The Crypt" sadly no longer exists.

For those who liked the challenge of playing around with the light during combat, fear not - light & dark, much like verticality, is a pillar of Solasta. We've been discussing about many potential options - one of them being to stop penalizing the player and instead buffing the monsters while in the dark. This way we can revert the lighting rules back to its original tabletop version, but still heavily encourage players to use light properly against monsters that benefit from the darkness. We're also discussing about adding ways to light enemies from afar, such as throwing torches for teams without spellcasters, or even adding a few homebrew spells.

That being said, keep in mind that all of this is still being discussed and tested - so we may not add everything I've been talking about above. We'll try to get a few changes implemented into the Winter Patch, but no promises!

Lighting isn't the only thing getting improved! We've made tons of little improvements here and there as well as adding missing features that we originally planned for our Early Access launch (that didn't quite make it due to time constraints). Here are a few of them that you can look forward to once the Winter Patch goes live.


AoE loot is finally a thing! Pick and choose items from the ground after combat, and switch who picks what up on the fly


Double click to loot & equip items, two quivers to easily switch between normal and magic arrows


The Hide Action is finally here. Rogues rejoice, sneak attack for everyone! You need to break line of sight first though


The Dash Action has also been reworked, a simple misclick doesn't eat your action anymore


Slowly working our way into increasing our characters' charisma by improving their faces, one by one

This is just a portion of what the Winter Update will contain. Hope you enjoyed today's little preview, we'll be revealing more in the coming weeks! Thank you for reading, and don't hesitate to drop by our Forums or our Discord Server.

Read our previous articles here:

• Beta Version 0.3.4 Hotfix - Bugs be gone
• https://www.solasta-game.com/news/96-solasta-early-access-date-reveal-october-20th-2020Version 0.3.3 Update - Fix ALL THE THINGS!
• Solasta - Streaming / Let's Play Policy

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1096530/Solasta_Crown_of_the_Magister/

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Hey there folks,

We're pushing a small Hotfix today for people who're still running into game-breaking bugs during their run. As we want to make sure this small patch does not cause more issues than it fixes (and since it literally only contains bug fixes), we've decided to upload it to a BETA branch on Steam.

What does that mean?

• If you're not currently running into any game-breaking bug while playing Solasta, you can safely ignore this patch - it's only here for those who're having severe issues when playing Solasta. 
• If that's your case, you can try to switch to the following BETA branch to download the patch and hopefully play in peace without those pesky bugs gnawing at your ankles!

How do I do that?

1. Open your Steam Library
2. Right Click on SOLASTA Crown of the Magister
3. Select Properties...
4. Select the BETAS tab
5. Put in the Beta code ireallyhatebugs
6. Click on CHECK CODE
7. Select the 0.3.4_beta branch (instead of NONE). If you can't see it, restart Steam and re-open the BETAS tab, it should be available now.
8. When you successfully select the 0.3.4_beta branch, you should see a small message under the code box
9. That's it, just close the Properties window and the hotfix should start downloading!

Note: If you're running into infinite loading screens, make sure you read the following thread https://forums.solasta-game.com/forum/data-corruption-what-to-do-if-youre-stuck-in-infinite-loading-screens

This will be the last patch before switching our entire focus to the next big update, which will drop this winter season! We'll have to ask you all to be a bit patient until then, as we won't be delivering any updates until then - every small patch we make delays the larger one, and we know you're all waiting for more content from us, not just fixes. We will go into more details as to what this big Winter Update contains, but let me already tell you that there will be new quests, more customization and the Rogue's Hide action among other things!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Hi there everyone,

It's been one week since our Early Access launch and we've been hard at work to bring you a whole bunch of improvements! 

DE version available here (thanks Raminblake): https://solasta-rpg.de/2020/10/27/patch-0-3-3-ist-released/#

Important: If you are running into infinite loading screens, make sure to verify your games files! 

• Go to your Steam Library and right click Solasta => Properties => Local Files Tab => Verify Integrity of Game Files. 
• If this doesn’t fix the problem, try loading an older save (such as an auto-save) to go through the problematic area! On rare occasions, save files can get corrupted so the solution is loading another one.

Tutorials

• Characters and NPCs in the tavern should no longer clip into their chair or the table in the intro cutscene.
• You are now forced to use Disengage against the Greyback Wolf. Hopefully that will save some more lives, too many budding adventurers died there
• We've also updated the Quest to clearly indicate that you must push the rock after disengaging
• Added a camera movement in the Orc Cave to show where the lever is to open the door
• Added a bit of gold in the Stealth Tutorial, because gold is life

World Map

• Fixed a bug where locations would sometimes appear at the wrong place. Don't lose your waaaaayyyy!
• Fixed a bug where the party would sometimes not move on the World Map, then suddenly teleport further away. The DM just forgot to move your tokens, sorry
• Caer Lem should no longer be producing light at night on the World Map. Its secret goblin nightclub has been closed for sanitary reasons
• Fixed a bug where trying to travel with an unconscious character would sometimes crash the game. Give the poor lad some of that healing potion!
• The camera behavior should be more consistant on the World Map now
• Random encounter locations should now have music outside combat as well

Caer Lem

• Monsters should no longer shove you to your death. We will re-introduce this feature when we roll out the difficulty settings, but it was too punishing for new players
• A secret passage in the cave should now properly open up when interacted with
• Daliat should no longer appear alive in a cutscene if you killed him earlier. He will haunt you regardless, you monster
• You should no longer be able to walk inside fire tiles. At least not here. Not now. Not like this

Tower of Magic

• Fixed a bug where killing spiders would sometimes teleport you to an empty Crown Room. Sorry future Solasta speedrunners
• It should no longer be possible to get a random encounter between leaving the Tower of Magic and the Trouble Night Event
• Fixed one wall being closer than what the visuals showed in the Crown Room
• The chest in the Crown Room should no longer be filled with test items

Caer Cyflen 

• Fixed a rare crash that occurred after Aer Elai (the vision) from the Crown-bearer
• Started optimizing Aer Elai to reduce fps issues
• Fixed a rare bug where merchants sometimes weren't positioned properly after cutscenes
• Fixed NPCs sometimes not properly looking at people when they talk after reloading a save. They're just standing there... menacingly
• Added a quest marker for the first scavenger quest

Necromancy Quest

• When fighting Lizzaria, the zombies should no longer be locked behind bars. They get to join the fun too!
• Fixed a rare crash where killing Lizzaria would drop her Arcane Focus, which probably was an Orb of Annihilation considering how it annihilated the game stability
• Mardracht has been buffed a lot, poor old man barely had enough HP to stand up. He now is ready to kick some butt
• Mardracht should no longer disappear before the end of the cutscene
• Made adjustments to the items found in loot containers
• Added audio when breaking windows
• Fixed the main quest not updating if the player immediately rushed to the secret passage instead of entering the courtyard
• Mana Lamps should no longer go invisible after being lit. Those lamps are weird man, I tell you
• Added a short fade to black effect when transitioning between Cemetery and Courtyard
• Skeleton now have new portraits and a small ambiant VFX 
• Fixed the poor dwarven ghost's beard looking like a fluffy stuffed animal
• Fixed a few pathfinding issues when playing around moving crates and puzzle doors
• Added a collider so that players can walk inside a certain sarcophagus. You're already pillaging tombs, don't be rude come on

Items

• Ring of Protection +1 should now work properly
• Heavy Armor should no longer reduce AC if you have negative DEX modifier
• Unidentified items should now properly hide their properties until identified
• The attunement system should now work properly. The Wand of Lightning Bolt awaits you!
• Scroll of Lightning Bolt should no longer be named Scroll of Fireball. The scribe in charge of writing scrolls has been reassigned to latrine duty
• Crafting a scroll of Jump should no longer give you a scroll of Mage Armor. Latrine duty duration has been doubled. 
• Weapons tooltip should now display if they are Simple or Martial weapons
• Fixed a bug where drag & dropping items in the inventory would make them... disappear! Truth be told the rogue probably stole them
• Added some harvestable ingredients. GATHER ALL THE FLOWERS!
• Made some adjustments to item cost.
• Fixed a rare bug where a character going unconscious on top of loot, getting healed and then attempting to pick up said loot would sometimes crash the game. Loot is sacred, don't fall on it
• Faction items should no longer show white squares in their tooltip
• Updated the Harversack tooltip

Spells

• Updated the icons of Flaming Sphere, Spiritual Weapon and Dancing Light
• Removed the ability to upcast Fog Cloud for now. Save the frames, kill the upcasting
• Added VFX effects to the Tongues spell
• Fixed a rare crash when refreshing spell slots
• Fixed a very rare crash when spells go poof game goes boom boom. And that's a no no
• The Shield spell should now properly end on the start of your next turn
• Fixed a rare crash when casting a spell inflicting a condition using a scroll
• The game will now display a warning message when trying to scribe a scroll you already know
• You can now scribe Greenmage spells if you're a Greenmage 
• When attempting to move spells such as Flaming Sphere, Dancing Light & Spiritual Weapon, you should no longer lose your Bonus action if you immediately cancel instead of moving after selecting it. 
• You should no longer be able to cast Flaming Sphere directly on top a character
• Added VFX effects to the Remove Curse spell
• Casting Levitate on an enemy should no longer give them advantage on their Saving Throw
• Speaking of Levitate, Spiders should no longer turn invisible if you cast Levitate on them. Seriously, who does that?
• Fixed Protection from poison doing weird stuff

Characters

• Snow Dwarves should now properly get +2 in Constitution Saving Throws instead of Advantage. Tell me again about how you "misread" the feature, Larry.
• Fixed the idle pose when holding a 2-handed sword. Fighters all around the world now know how to properly wield a greatsword
• Fixed a very peculiar bug where an NPC would sometimes replace your character if the two shared the same name. What can I say, some NPCs always wanted to be adventurers
• Fixed a bug where Saving Throw modifiers were applied twice against Ghouls paralyzing effect. Larry I'm sure you know how to do basic math, stop cheating
• Fixed a bug sometimes causing issues when attempting to level up an Oblivion Cleric
• Fixed characters sometimes not visually waking up from sleeping conditions
• Characters in Stealth knocked unconscious will no longer be considered in Stealth
• Adjusted Anton & Miles (pre-made characters) starting equipment
• Fixed a very funny bug where some characters would wave their torch back and forth, even when unconscious
• Fixed an issue with the Sorrak ranged attack animation could sometimes be out of sync
• Aristocrats should now properly have proficiency in Intimidation as displayed in the tooltip
• Archers should now properly take into account elevation when aiming at the enemy before shooting
• Disarming a trap while holding a rapier should no longer show the rapier flying around
• Added some missing audio for Sorraks, such as spellcasting and Doom Laughter
• Fixed characters sometimes saluting by placing their arm inside their chest instead of on their chest. Poor Sorraks, they're trying their best to blend in
• Skeletons should no longer hold their shortbows inside their wrist
• Characters should now reposition themselves automatically if they start their turn stacked on top of someone else
• Characters' portrait should no longer be blurry after loading a save during combat
• Fixed Orcs' faces in the Bestiary

Miscellaneous

• Added an option to enable non-seeded RNG (has to be activated manually). Savescummers rejoice! 
• Dice Rolls should now properly appear when making ability checks during cutscenes
• Fixed some lighting issues when swapping to the third weapon configuration (weapon + light source)
• Fixed most missing texts in French, German and Chinese
• Fixed the camera sometimes not switching to battle mode when entering combat. Peace is not an option, camera
• Fixed a crash when the creature with the highest initiative died of an "at the start of your turn" effect. 
• Fixed a whole lot of rare crashes and bugs again! More stability banzai! 
• Added a button on the main menu to easily leave a review on Steam, which you should totally do because that would make you even more awesome than you already are
• Fixed a rare bug where the game would sometimes display an empty string instead of the correct location of the party in the save file
• Fixed the camera sometimes going bananas when focused on a character
• Fixed a rare bug preventing the player from doing Short Rests after doing a Long Rest + Level up
• The loading screen when launching the game should now properly scale to your screen resolution instead of being horribly stretched
• Optimized starting time a bit. You should see a slight improvement when launching the game!
• Fixed a strange bug that would happen when attempting to fast travel and closing the map at the same time
• Continue & Load Game buttons should no longer be greyed out when cancelling Character Creation
• Poisoned and Diseased conditions should now properly be displayed 
• Fixed a rare and strange bug where audio levels could get out of sync in certain conditions
• Rocks should properly roll when pushed now, instead of sliding on the ground
• Fixed a small issue with the Adventurer Ghost portrait
• Added new sounds to ghouls, skeletons and zombies
• Made some slight improvements to the map here and there

Hey there folks!

It's time for the 1st hotfix patch. We're furiously scribing down your bug reports in our Great Book of Grudges - wait, wrong game - I mean in our Great Book of Bugs. Be assured that we're working on making sure that the Early Access version is as stable as it can before we start heading back to working on completing the game! Anyway, here's the patch content - we're planning a meatier one hopefully next week (or the week after that).

This patch does NOT break save games. Game away!

Important: If you can't launch the game or run into infinite loading screens, make sure you go to your Steam Library and right click Solasta => Properties => Local Files Tab => Verify Integrity of Game Files. This should fix the issue!

• Monsters will no longer slap you when you spam click while paralyzed. Yes, that could happen
  
  
• Added some rations to find in existing levels - we may adjust this in the future, but for now we don't want make it too punishing for new players who're having trouble managing their food as we don't have difficulty options.
  
  
• Removed a random text bubble appearing in the garden of Caer Lem - no, you are not supposed to converse with grass.
  
  
• Casting the Light Cantrip while selecting targets with another spell will no longer allow you to cast both Light and the other spell in the same turn. No Larry that's not a feature, you're just cheating.
  
  
• Failing to scribe a scroll no longer adds the spell to the spellbook. STOP CHEATING LARRY, I CAN SEE YOU FAILED YOUR ARCANE CHECK.
  
  
• Feats which modify your ability scores should now properly... well, modify your ability scores (duh).
  
  
• Fixed Bestiary Lighting, because monsters deserved to be seen at their best too.
  
  
• Fixed a bunch of Lighting issues when fighting in Dim Light exterior (during dawn / dusk) and when fighting under Darkness or Fog Cloud spells. Take that, disadvantage rolls!
  
  
• Fixed a few missing Chinese Characters. 不好意思 !
  
  
• Fixed a bunch of rare crashes that hopefully you'll never get to see now. No, you can't know what they were - what's behind the DM screen stays behind the DM screen.
  
  
• Some localization texts are still missing in French / German / Chinese. We're hunting them down and we're planning a fix in next week's patch!

That's it folks,

We've finally made it to Steam Early Access! It's hard to imagine that it's been barely a year since the end of our Kickstarter Campaign, isn't it? The game has changed so much since the first Demo we released that it feels like an eternity. I even begin to tell you how happy we are to finally be able to not only show, but even put the game in your hands at last. Alright let's cut this intro short - apologies but no feline friends for this time!

This one is for everyone who missed our Kickstarter and repeatedly asked us if we could have a late backer option - you can now buy the game on Steam! We're celebrating the release with a -15% launch Discount for the week, and will appear in the very relevant upcoming Steam Festival - The Digital Tabletop Fest. 

If you're not familiar with Early Access, getting the game on Steam now will also give you the final game at launch (you won't need to buy it twice) - however keep in mind that save files will likely not be compatible. 

Also... You played and enjoyed Solasta? Help us out by leaving an honest review on Steam! The gods of Steam Algorithms are finicky, and the more reviews we have the better off we'll be!




New monsters? New environments? New spells? LORE? To celebrate our Early Access Launch, here is a brand new trailer for everyone to enjoy! 

Kickstarter Backers, make sure to redeem your Supporter Pack Key to enjoy some high resolution Concept Art of Solasta (as well as some Digital Dice Customization when 1.0 releases). For the others, if you love Solasta so much that you want to further support the studio after buying the game, head to the DLC Page!



A large part of Early Access is about you - our community - and how you can help us shape the game into what you really want Solasta to be. As such, we ask you not to be shy - if there are bugs you'd like to see squashed, features you'd like to get implemented or tweaks you'd like to see added, come and tell us! Our Official Forums are here for that.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1096530/Solasta_Crown_of_the_Magister/
Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Hey there folks!

We're less than 48h before going live on Steam! To celebrate that, join us on Solasta's pre-launch stream with the folks over at Fextralife tomorrow!

Tune in to https://twitch.tv/fextralife on Monday 19th at 8 am EDT / 2 pm CEST to chat and maybe get a Steam key!

Cheers,
Myzzrym

Hey there folks,

As we're in our last sprint towards Early Access release, today's Dev Update is going to be much lighter than usual! Still, do keep reading as there is plenty of information you may want to have for our release day. And of course, cat pic! 


Hope you saved your work, cat splat incoming

Just dropping it again if case you missed it last week, the Dice Preview video is here and you should definitely watch it if you haven't already! Don't worry this one is short compared to the previous ones: In and out, 3-minute adventure. 



Since the beginning of this week, we've been showing bits and pieces of our Early Access to journalists and game websites - so keep an eye out for new information about our game that was never revealed yet! Here are two articles that are already out:

• Screenrant: Looking Good Before Early Access
• [FR] Warlegend: Y'a une vraie passion, c'est le projet de nos rêves 

We're back with the Ruins of Telema Demo for one final time during the Steam Autumn Game Festival. If you haven't already, make sure you play Telema before it gets forever retired when our Early Access goes live. It's almost time to say goodbye to Violet, Garrad, Vigdis and Rhuad! Farewell heroes, Hector shall probably never be saved.


I can't believe it's already been more than a year since this demo was released. Hopefully we shall go back to Telema one day!

As we announced in our latest Kickstarter Update, we will be sending Early Access Steam Keys towards end of next week. Here is all the important information:

• We will post a new Kickstarter Update after sending the keys, so you won't have to wonder if you missed something or not.
• The game will unlock on Tuesday October 20th at 2 am PDT / 5 am EDT / 11 am CEST - the hour may yet change. 
• The Steam Keys will be sent by mail through CrowdOx, so make sure to check your junk folder if you can't find anything after we post our Kickstarter Update next week!
  • If you didn't receive any mail, you can also find your key on your CrowdOx Survey URL, which was sent to you last year in November ("Pledge Confirmation")
  • Forgot what your URL was? You can get it back here: https://app.crowdox.com/retrieve/tacticaladventures/solasta-crown-of-the-magister  
  • Tried it already but it's not working out? Contact us directly at http://mailto:contact@tactical-adventures.com with your Kickstarter Name, Real Name, Kickstarter Email and Pledge Level (note that due to being busy with release, it may take some time for us to answer - so only use that mail as last recourse)

As with many other Steam games, Solasta will be sporting a Supporter Pack when Early Access releases for those who want to further support us financially. This package will contain a few goodies: a high resolution concept art pack, with some additional dice customization and dice VFX available when the full 1.0 version launches. Reminder that buying this pack is first and foremost to show support for the game and the studio, the goodies are absolutely non-essential to get the full game experience of Solasta. 

• If you are a Kickstarter Backer, you will automatically receive a Steam Key for the Supporter Pack around the same time you get your Solasta Early Access Key, there is no need for you to buy it again - we'd rather you leave us a review and talk to about the game online. You supported us plenty a year ago, so the goodies are on us!
• Note that the Supporter Pack is different from the Kickstarter Edition, which remains exclusive to Kickstarter Backers at Tier $40+. The Kickstarter Edition bonus content will be unlocked when the full 1.0 version launches in 2021. 

Our environment concept art make for great wallpapers and can easily be used in your pen and paper sessions


Need some inspiration for your character's new magic weapon? Our Solastan weapons are available in high resolution as well!


That's it for today! Thank you for reading, and don't hesitate to drop by our Forums or our Discord Server.

Read our previous articles here:

• Dev Update #21 - Onwards, towards Early Access!
• https://www.solasta-game.com/news/96-solasta-early-access-date-reveal-october-20th-2020Solasta Early Access Date Reveal - October 20th 2020!
• Dev Update #20 - Gamescom is over!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Hey there folks,

I honestly didn't think I'd manage to sneak in a Video Dev Diary so close to our Early Access launch, but turns out that one doesn't need sleep to survive when you ace those Constitution Saving Throws! And in case you didn't manage to succeed your Intelligence (Insight) check, I was just kidding. Crunch bad mmm'kay? Anyway today is a bit of a shorter video, but I think all of you dice lovers out there will be very much interested in it!


Enjoy! There probably won't be another Video Dev Diary for a while as we'll be focusing on our Early Access Launch for the foreseeable future (but don't worry, it will come back at some point). 

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Hey there folks!

This week we're posting a recap of the Q&A that happened during PAX Online last week. Saddle up, because there's a LOT of text coming your way. 


Obligatory cat picture to lessen the upcoming impact with the wall of text

Q: You will add some new class post-launch ?
A: Solasta launches in Early Access with the 6 classes available in the Demo, however we have already promised to add the Sorcerer as a free post-launch DLC during our Kickstarter Campaign. 
Ideally, we'd love to have all official SRD classes in Solasta - however we don't want to make any promises. We'll likely be looking at DLCs post-launch to add new classes (depending on how the game performs!). As for the order of release, we'll likely involve the community like we did during the Kickstarter!

Q: Will there be anything like Bladesinger or Eldritch knight?
A: So just to make sure people don't misunderstand - we won't have the Bladesinger or the Eldritch Knight as they are not SRD.
That being said, we do have the Spellblade that is our version of the magic-wielding fighter archetype, and the Greenmage which is a sort of Wizard / Ranger hybrid (vs the Wizard / Fighter that is Bladesinger)

Q: Are you only including content from the core 5e books in terms of class and races, or will you be expanding out to Xanathar's, Tasha's, etc. ?
A: As stated before, we're using D&D SRD 5.1 - we do not have a full D&D license. As such, we can't use any content from Xanathar's or other official D&D sourcebooks. Even taking the Player Handbook, we don't have access to all the archetypes for instance.

Q: Are Half-orcs going to be included?
A: Half-orcs have unfortunately not been confirmed for Solasta! So... maybe post-launch, but maybe never - I don't like to make empty promises, so we'll have to see!

Q: Is multiclassing something you are looking into for the future?
A: This is unlikely, as multiclassing brings in a LOT of bugs and balancing issues (who doesn't know of the Warlock dip when playing a CHA character). That being said, Solasta is a single player game so it's mostly for technical reasons than balancing reasons (it's not like we have a scoreboard or something).
Ideally we want to make more Archetypes / bring more Classes if variety is what is lacking, rather than do multiclassing. But again, we have the philosophy of "never say never" - if the community is behind it, and we find the time and decide to prioritize it, it may be a thing post-launch (but most likely not). 

Q: Is Divine Intervention going to be in Solasta?
A: I'm pretty sure that it won't be part of Solasta. Divine Intervention is one of those very RP feature that shines with good DMs, and we unfortunately don't have a highly performant AI brain locked behind our game. Early Access only goes up to level 6 which leaves us time to think about another Cleric lvl 10 feature.

Q: Will the Sorcerer have chaos bolt to add to his spell repertoire?
A: I just checked, Chaos Bolt is Xanathar - so nope, we can't have that in Solasta

Q: Are more races going to be added? Seems a bit limited for now. Also, will we get variant humans as an option?
A: More races: Again we don't like to promise things when we don't know if we're going to make them. We may have more races in the future in DLCs.
Variant human: Unfortunately not SRD, so nope!

Q: Will it be possible to read through all character options in a more friendly format than the steam demo? A pdf would be great
A: No, and the reason is simple enough: It takes time to make and format properly. Time that would be better spent working on the game^^

Q: What skills/languages won’t be relevant/needed?
A: Rule of thumb: If it's not relevant in-game, it won't be offered in-game. We might have some remnant during Early Access, but at launch skills that can't be used in Solasta won't be there in the Character Creation (same for languages)

Q: For character generation, other than the unlimited free points, will we be able to establish our own standard stat array for all our characters?  For instance, could I set my play through to use an array of 16,14,13,12,11,8 for all my characters?
A: We've implemented the standard creation rules. If you want to use a specific array, you'll need to use the "Free Edit" option and set the stats manually.

Q: There will be any homebrew feats that make more viable certains category of weapons like Great Weapon mastery or Polearm mastery?
A: I wouldn't know about that, feats are not finalized for now.

Q: About how many tool proficiencies (including things like musical instruments, gaming sets, and vehicle proficiencies) will have a role in the game?
A: Not that many. We'll mostly be gameplay focused, so gaming sets or musical instruments likely won't make it in - we'll have stuff like thieves tools, scroll writing tools and stuff

Q: Will we have to reach level 4 in the campaign to see the feats?
A: Yes. Thankfully Early Access goes up to level 6.

Q: Will we get proficiency feats? 
A: I believe there are a few, yes.

Q: Will it be any reason to have multiple characters with the same skill profiency
A: For general skills, not really. Some skills like Stealth can be useful as each individual have their own detection meter, but for group checks the game picks up the highest modifier only.

Q: Would you consider allowing two proficient characters to assist one another with, for example, a History check (granting advantage to the character receiving the Help action)?
A: That's more or less what the Help action would do, but it could be interesting. I'll submit that to the design team.

Q: Will there be a playable race similar to Duergar?
There are only 2 available dwarven races at launch, Hill Dwarves and Snow Dwarves. That being said it doesn't mean we aren't interested in adding more later.

Q: How many Cleric subclasses are there ?
A: 7 Domains: Life (SRD), Sun, Elemental, Battle, Law, Oblivion, Insight

Q: Is there no way to plan a character around a specific feat?
A: That's actually a good point, we'd probably need to have the list of feat available somewhere so that people can plan their characters in advance.

Q: Will there be any way to respec/re-level up a character?
A: I don't believe so, it's not really something you do in D&D... but I do think that's one of the things modders will add in-game, if there are any :D

Q: When the vote was around for extra classes there was a lot of talk about differentiating Ranger from a Fighter or Rogue - how are you working to make the Ranger feel like a unique class distinct from those two? How are the (generally considered underpowered) abilities and mechanics of that class influencing its development?
A: Vanilla rangers are often considered underpowered not necessarily because of their fighting prowess, but because most of their features are conditional. Like, they are not always going to be useful (and in fact, most of the time they are not going to be). 
These features also happen to be the ones that are very RP reliant, so they don't work as well in a video game if just implemented as such. Ranger is one of the classes who've received quite a few tweaks in Solasta. We're looking forward to your feedback during Early Access!

Q: In regards to the answers about multiple characters with the same skill, if two characters have Thieves' Tools proficiency, can they both take a crack at a lock or is it still one group check?
A: So our current philosophy is to have one roll for the group, to avoid slowing down the pace of the game too much. That being said, it's something that we will refine during Early Access, so if you feel strongly about the need of each proficient character rolling, be vocal about it! 
We may also think about implementing a passive Help, where if two characters (at least) have proficiency than the character with the highest modifier automatically rolls with advantage or something.

Q: What is the expected level cap for the game? Will it be extended in the future?
A: Level 10 at launch, who knows for future DLCs?

Q: How many races/classes do you guys have planned in total in the game (sub races and sub classes included)
A: 5 Races (8 subraces), 6 Classes at launch (22 archetypes), 1 additional class post-launch already announced (3 archetypes)

Q: How many voices will there be? 
A: 2 voices male, 2 voices female (Player Character, NPCs not included)

Q: Will some side quests have a similar structure, offering different outcomes and affecting other side quests in turn, even possibility new side quests that only become available by certain past actions/choices?
A: Some side quests may be locked if your reputation with certain factions is too low, but I don't believe there are quests that are locked if you answered A rather than B in a previous quest for instance (unless that put you in a very bad spot with said faction).

Q: Are all quests timed?
A: No, quests are not timed. We wanted to avoid putting that pressure on the player.

Q: Is any of the content "gated" by class choice or race choice? Corollary: Is any content gated by the choices we make in dialogue or other quest-based decisions?
A: Class / Races may unlock you special dialog options in certain cutscenes, however I don't believe they are blockers per se. Content may be gated if you get on the bad side of some factions however, as they will stop giving you quests.

Q: In world map travelling system are present horse or caravan or other stuff to change the pace or the risk to encounter bandit or monster ?
A: As far as I know you won't be getting horses or caravans, but according to the ruleset you have 3 different travel speed (with different bonus / penalties).

Q: Is it possible to explore all the content in one playthrough, or will there be mutually exclusive options (faction-related storylines for instance)?
A: I think it should be possible to explore all the content as far as quests go, but you will be missing dialogs / lines of course depending on what you select during your playthrough. 
Oh, and background quests of course. Since you can only choose 4 out of the 8 existing ones.

Q: We know that the party can reach level 10 throughout the course of the game, but how difficult is this going to be to achieve? Will the main storylines provide enough experience to cover it all?
A: The goal is to have the party reach level 10 by the end of the campaign, so I don't believe hunting down every side quests will be a necessity. 

Q: How many cities, villages will be in the game? Or will game contain only small hubs and dungeons/ruins to explore?
A: There are two main cities if I remember correctly (one much bigger than the other).

Q: You mentioned earlier that quests will not be timed, but that the party will be able to travel at the three different travel speeds described in the PHB. What is the in-game benefit to traveling at a faster speed if quests are never timed?
A: Sometimes you may not have enough rations to survive the trip otherwise? :p

Q: Will there be different ways of moving beyond what we’ve seen in the demo such climbing ropes, swinging on ropes, walking tightropes...?
A: I don't believe there will be that many additional props to use for movement, as each always demands a new set of animations. You will be however able to use Spiderclimb and Fly to move around the level in ways that were not shown in the Demo.

Q: Is there going to be different endings ? 
A: Single ending

Q:What will the background quests be like?
A: Can't reveal that yet!

Q: What craft are in game ? we saw crafting scrolls in the demo
A: There are fairly basic crafting recipes, notably potions and scrolls. We didn't want to go the route of let's say Skyrim and have you be able to craft everything and nothing, so keep in mind that crafting will not be a principal aspect of the game (it's more a supporting system).

Q: A lot of D&D adaptations scale back monster XP to make the campaign last longer - digital combat is much faster than tabletop combat. Are you making any adjustments to the XP values of monsters, or to how much XP is needed to level up?
A: This is something we're still working on, and is one of the reason Early Access is so useful. We need more data to see just how fast people chew through the levels, and find ways to tone it down (or not) if it breaks the campaign.

Q: Long rest could be done only in specific area like in the demo ?
A: Yes, that was a design decision after playing around with Long Rest for a while.

Q: In 5th edition D&D, you can spend gold (and time) to learn new tool proficiencies and new languages during downtime - higher Int means less time and gold is required for this. Will this game feature options like this, or downtime activities in general?
A: No downtime activities are planned in Solasta - aside from crafting which takes time and will be done during Long Rests.

Q: About reaction. It will be possible prepare spells as a reaction?
A: There is a reaction system in Solasta, so you'll be able to cast counterspell, shield and the like.
If you mean prepare action, we have a more simple version of that implemented, which is like the overwatch action of XCOM (and only with weapon attacks or cantrips). With full spells it started to become too complex to use.

Q: Will spells that enemies cast be identified or unidentified by players by default
A: They will be identified by default. On Tabletop the DM can describe the spell and let you hanging with suspense, but on computer you need to feedback the effect of the spell anyway, so you'll know how much damage you take (and what the rolls were), what stat is going down the drain etc. So we found no use in "hiding" the name of the spell

Q: Will all the content be hand-placed, or will there be some randomly generated content
A: There are some randomly generated content, such as random encounters on the world map.

Q: Will Stealth work as described in the rules
A: As in, exactly as on Tabletop: Probably not. We need to make some adaptation for things to make sense on computer. So far we don't have hide as a bonus action during fights, because there were quite a few issues with "when is hide valid". Like can you only hide if there is no direct line of sight? do you need to be in dim light? etc etc.
We're still working on it though

Q: How was ready action changed from the demo?
A: No change from the demo at the moment.

Q: How many homebrew spells have been made?
A: Only a few, I think like... 3 cantrips? The only reason we created homebrew spells was because we didn't have enough cantrips in-game (a lot of cantrips are very RP heavy, such as Prestidigitation and the likes). There are enough official spells that we don't need to homebrew more.

Q: Will the game differentiate between full, half, and three-quarters cover?
A: Yes.

Q: Will the game apply passive Perception penalties for dim light?
A: Yes, dim light = disadvantage on perception rolls / -5 passive perception (except if you have darkvision)

Q: How much of the game will have destructible environments
A: Not a lot. There are interactable props that highlights when moused-over, so you know you can interact with them (use a spell on them etc), but I don't believe you can lightning bolt a door away (you can use Knock though).

Q: In terms of character death, how will resurrection work? 
A: For resurrection we've discussed A LOT about it. Initially we were thinking of allowing players to create new characters, but then we realized that the narration was completely borked because of that (hello, meet bob who is replacing patrick who just died. Bob has been here for 5 min and he already knows everything patrick did, and talks to the party as if they are old friends).
Anyway, we realized that we had to keep the party together since we're not using the "one main character, multiple sidekicks" formula that's common in most RPGs. If one guy dies and you have no resurrection options available - game over.
Overall you'll have resurrection scrolls and magic items to help you, otherwise you'll be using the good old save/load tactic. If you end a fight without resurrection options available and one guy is dead, it's still game over.

Q: Will the find familiar spell appear in the game?
A: Not planned for now.

Q: Are diseases and other long term conditions something we can face and deal with?
A: Not at launch.

Q: Can characters use the Help action to grant advantage to skill checks outside of combat?
A: Not for now, no.

Q: Have there been any decisions made to have an option where we can choose to NOT have our characters regain full health after a long rest.
A: That's probably a difficulty options we could add to the game.

Q: Have you found yourselves creating any homebrew ritual spells? If so: can you tell us about them?
A: We have not created any Homebrew Ritual Spells so far!

Q: will you implement in external area weather condition like wind/rain and apply the malus to ranged weapons/spell attack and other stuff ?
A: This sounds very cool, but we don't have weather conditions that affect the gameplay.

Q: How will Guidance be used ?
A: Guidance can currently be used pretty much whenever, although we'll have to see if we decide to add limitations in the future to avoid making the player feel like they must "Guidance spam" in order to get the best out of every roll.

Q: Xanathar added variant little rules for toolkits allowing them to do some small features (cook a good meal to heal more per HD, improve a potion, etc) anything similar possible in Solasta?
A: That would be fantastic! However, we need all the time we have to make sure the core gameplay is as good as it can be - and that means small features / improvements like those are usually not the focus... of the first game at least! (if we are to make a second one)

Q: Will we be able to hire temporary help for tough missions?
A: Hire? No, there isn't any NPCs for hire. However, some quests will have NPCs join you for a limited time - and some of them can kick major butt.

Q: Is there any sixth level spells used by npcs?
A: I don't believe so. Level 10 spellcasters can only cast up to level 5 spells, so there is no reason for us to implement level 6 spells so far (since it takes time to do so).

Q: Are you going to make creatures that turn slain adventurers into undead, game ending bosses? 
A: Slain adventurers won't be raised into undead, remember that in Solasta if one of your party member dies and you can't resurrect him, you have a game over. It's the story about the party, not a single character.
However, if you're asking if we're going to have big undeads that COULD do that to your party? I won't be saying no :3

Q: What happens if one of the characters fails all their death saving throws and the other characters dont have a means to resurrect them? 
A: Game over

Q: Will personality flags have a real impact on the game?
A: Yes, dialog lines depend on your personality flags

Q: Will the Whip be available as a weapon?
A: Whips will NOT be part of the base game. We had to cut down on weapons due to the amount of animations we had to produce (remember we're like... 17 people...), and whips are one of those weapons where you can't re-use the animations for anything else.

Q: Will slings be in-game? 
A: I believe not!

Q: Will reach weapons be implemented eventually?
A: For the moment Reach Weapons are not planned for Solasta, we've had quite a few headaches about how to deal with the animations and we just didn't have enough time to work it out.

Q: Will there be any setting specific weapons or armors? I mean your homebrew things
A: Yes, as far as magic items go we will have homebrew ones.

Q: Are there going to be cursed weapons in the game?
A: Not planned for now!

Q: Can we buy horses or other mounts?
A: No mounts are planned for now.

Q: Why Solasta?
A: Solasta is a derivative of the Gaelic word "Solas" which means Light. We liked the sound of it.

Q: Will the new faces make it into the early access?
A: We are currently implementing them! At the moment our build has both old and new faces, and plenty of bugs thanks to that too (our internal chat channel is full of screenshots of weird ape-like faces)
Will they all be available when Early Access launches? That's our goal. Will it happen? We sure hope so! The only reason why we might be stuck with old faces during Early Access would be if we find out huge game-breaking bugs linked to the new faces, but so far that hasn't happened yet

Q: How much lore of the world is discoverable? Are there parts that require us to do more investigation as we go or does it come up mostly in cutscenes?
A: There will definitely be lore that you can miss out on, whether due to failed skill checks, passing by some interactable props or missing out on some lore items. 
Most will come up during the main campaign (to avoid players feeling disconnected from the setting), but you can find more if you dig.

Q: The demo had the fantastic archaeological site - will we be seeing more ruins and historical sites and, as the story goes on, will we learn more about the history of those places?
A: The adventure will be taking you into the Badlands, where you will find more about the past of Solasta through ruins and ancient places - so yes there are a lot of things to discover here.

Q: About feat will you create beautiful icon like for fighter style and deities or simply plain text like languages
A: Feats are text only

Q: Will the Solasta Sourcebook be made available to the public at some point if the game is successful enpugh or will it always be backers only?
A: At the moment there is no plan for a second printing. These things take a lot of time, money and effort and we're a video game company, not a tabletop company - the sourcebook is more like a goodie for our backers, we don't have plans on expanding on it. You can still buy it on Crowdox for now even if you're not a backer by the way

Q: Will there be a lot of cutscenes
A: Well every dialog in Solasta is a close-up "in-game cutscene", so yea there will be a lot of them if that's what you define as a cutscene.
If you're only talking about scripted cutscenes where you have the camera pan around and stuff, those are a little less common - but as far as I know every cutscene is in-game camera, not CGI or anything like that.

Q: Will the party develop a bond overtime in the story ?
A: This will be reflected in the dialog and how the characters react to each other, but it will be mostly depend on the writing. There are no "evolution" in characters' personality in Solasta (you don't have say, a Paragon / Renegade gauge like in Mass Effect), you choose your personality flags at the start and the remain as such.

Q: Is there going to be a lot of party banter ? 
A: Define a lot? There are going to be barks and quips, but not specific banter

Q: How much will EA cost for non-backers?
A: We haven't announced the price yet, but we're probably going to reveal it in a few weeks (before Early Access launch). Let's just say that we're not a $60 AAA game, so we're not going to price it as such :P
Also, keep in mind the base tier during Kickstarter was at $28 - meaning we're not going to go lower than that at launch.

Q: On what platform should we buy the game so that devs get the maximum revenue?
A: This is very nice of you, thank you! That being said, we've currently only announced Solasta on Steam. Notably because making deals and signing papers take a lot of time, and we're very busy on the development side of things - we'll likely have more platforms supported after launch (not forgetting about you folks out there who are asking for GoG every so often). 
So short answer: For the moment, Steam is fine!

Q: You will add French voice-over (or other languages)?
A: No, voice recording is very expensive which is why we only have English voices.

Q: Obligatory steamplay / linux support?
A: This is something we checked before, and making sure the game works on Linux takes quite a lot of time for a VERY small amount of players in total. So we can't promise there will be Linux support.

Q: Has there been optimization work to put less strain / generate less heat on older devices?
A: Optimization is usually done when getting closer to launch (if you look at recent games, sometimes even after launch...). Honestly, even Early Access will be far from being perfectly optimized - but yes, optimization is something that will be an important task in the upcoming months.

Q: Multiplayer/coop?
A: We haven't built the architecture of our game with multiplayer in mind, it's not something we can add on top.
So, maybe for our next game - I know it's something a lot of people have been asking us for. 

Q: This may have been asked before so please forgive me, but will it be mod-able so we could add in our own content/classes/races later on?
A: The game will be moddable since it's on Unity (and we don't plan on obscuring the code specifically against modders). 
We don't have modding tools planned for now though, as we have scoped it in the past - and while we could have a Unity Modding SDK up and running fairly easily, it would be very difficult to use for anyone who isn't a game developer already. Discussions with prominent RPG modders led us to understand that if it's too hard to use, people won't care about it.

Q: What sort of content are we most likely to see, post-launch?
A: Most likely the usual, such as additional campaigns, new classes, races, archetypes.

Q: Once the game is released, what kind of content do you intend to focus on next? Additional content for the game (classes, races, modules, quest lines)? A standalone game with the same base engine? A completely different game?
A: Hard to answer that, it will depend on many things - such as how well the game sells, if there are opportunities popping up, etc etc...
But yea ideally we'd support Solasta with DLCs, and also start working on another game. Whether that future game is Solasta or not, that I can't say (simply because I don't know).

Q: Can I still back this or is it a case of waiting for early access ?
A: Wait for Early Access!

Q: Will you be adding controller support for those of us with disabilities
A: This is something we'd like to add in the long run. It's probably not going to be a launch feature as it takes time to adapt the UI for controller (can't just slap some key binding and be done).

Q: Is there going to be a way to "auto-toggle" interactable objects on and off? 
A: I think there already is - if not, we'll add a button for that. Being colorblind myself, such feature is needed :p

Q: Could we have Twitch Integration where Chat could choose what to pick in conversations as Baldurs Gate 3 is planning on ?!
A: Surely not for Early Access, but that's something we're discussing internally to see if we could add that!

Q: Could we make community translation for game?
A: Probably through modding! As stated before, we can't officially endorse community translation since as a company we'll be held responsible for it. That means if the quality is poopy, it's on us (because we accepted to implement it) - so we'd need to hire proofreaders, and eventually translators to re-write some part... 
This is why community translation through modding is OK, but we can't implement it ourselves and just call it a day.

Q: Will there be a replay feature that we can use to watch every battle after it happens in real time (without extra time spent on making decisions such as which action to take or to what exact tile to move)?
A: That sounds dope, I've seen games like that. Unfortunately, that's not planned!

Q: Can we expect multiple campaigns and if so, will all of these campaigns start the party off at level 1?
A: For launch you'll only have the main campaign, but adventure DLCs will likely be separate campaigns. Some may start at level 1, some may start at a higher level!

That's it for today! You can find the rest of the questions / answers on our website (Steam has a character limit on their news): https://www.solasta-game.com/news/98-ask-us-anything-pax-qa-recap

Hey there folks,

Now that you all have a date to look forward to, it's time for us to dash towards the first checkpoint (the final goal being v1.0 release in 2021 of course). Early Access has been announced, and we're here to deliver! We've been hard at work creating Solasta: Crown of the Magister's campaign, but we've also been working out the issues from our Kickstarter Demo days - camera, facial animations, bugs and quality of life galore. And of course, we'll continue to do so all throughout our Early Access! But before we start today's Dev Update...


I'm pretty sure our 3D Programmer rolled a Beast Master in his previous life, here is a hedgehog from his garden


To all of you out there who rolled 1 in Intelligence (Investigation), you may want to know that Solasta is coming to Steam Early Access on October 20th 2020 (that's a bit more than one month). As a reminder, every Kickstarter Backer whose rewards included the game (Tier $18 and above) will receive an Early Access Key, and non-backers will finally be able to buy the game as well!


We updated our Steam Page with an Early Access FAQ where you can read more about our plans and what's included in Solasta's Early Access


As Early Access is coming right around the corner, we'll be hosting an AMA on our official Discord server on Thursday!

Starting at 5 am PDT / 8 am EDT / 2 pm CEST, I will be online (with the rest of the team not so far away) for a few hours to answer any question you may have on Discord. Not there during those hours? Worry not, the AMA Channel will be open for the rest of the day so ask away and we'll pick back up the next morning! In order to avoid missing out on the information that will be shared, I will be compiling the questions & answers in a separate channel where only devs can talk.


Got a question? Fire away (with advantage on your roll)! 

Once the AMA is over, I will also be putting up a recap in our Forums so that those who couldn't make it don't miss out on some juicy tidbits! Don't be shy, drop by and say hello^^


For most unfortunate adventurers who meet their fate at the hands of undead foes, death is a blessing more than a curse - as it is highly likely that damned will join the swelling ranks of the Undead. From the lowly skeleton to the elite Wight, all of them were once living breathing beings!


Dread Brood Concept Art


Flesh Brood Concept Art


Blood Brood Concept Art


Wight Armor 3D Model - we're trying to see if we can make the armor work on player characters as well!


While there are plenty of stuff we would love to show you, we have to keep spoilers to a minimum as we still want you to discover Solasta on your own during Early Access (and later in the full release as well). Still, here is a selection of Concept Art and in-game screenshots!


Ruined mansions are pretty great... Say, how much do you think that painting is worth?


While traveling in the wild, you suddenly hear rustling! Roll 2d4 - 5 starving wolves jump from the bushes, roll initiative!


More Work In Progress Spell Icons, including Healing Push-Ups, because sport is good for your health (this one is getting reworked)


Getting closer to Early Access means we're starting to squash bugs left and right... which means bloopers are back on the menu, and boy do they look spicy!


Implementing new faces means breaking the older ones, now they look like they just got hit by a Bestow Curse (CHA)


Abort, abort! Cutscene broke, cutscene broke!


That's it for today! Thank you for reading, and don't hesitate to drop by our Forums or our Discord Server.

Read our previous articles here:

• Solasta Early Access Date Reveal - October 20th 2020!
• Dev Update #20 - Gamescom is over!
• Dev Update #19 - Rise of the Undead

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1096530/Solasta_Crown_of_the_Magister/

Article by Tactical Myzzrym