Hey there folks!

With all the recent patch notes and other articles about community feedback and bug fixing, we haven't been showing you a lot of new stuff lately. This is something we intend to fix... today, now, this very round! In fact, stop whatever you're doing and roll initiative, we're getting right down to business!


... But first, here's our weekly cat allowance.

You know it, we know it, the adventure does not end at the Wizard's Tower. Your party will be going ever deeper into the Badlands, entering orc territory next. Now, there are tons of things we'd love to share with you - but we also do not wish to spoil everything, which is why you'll have to make do with a few pictures for now!


Step forward brave adventurers, and enter our lair...


Hope you don't mind the heat! Oh and watch your footing, or pray you succeed your Dexterity saving throw.


Welcome home, such as it is. This squalid hamlet, these corrupted lands... wait wrong game I'm being told.


"But what will it look like in-game?" I hear you asking. Well ask no more, that right there is a screenshot.

Goblins and Ghosts, Ghosts 'n Goblins... I'm sure you want some new foes to face by now, right? This is why we've been hard at work on a new monster... the female orc!


What's better than orcs? More orcs!

Alright alright lower your pitchforks, sheesh! Guess that's what I get for dumping Charisma, can't roll a good Performance check to save my life. Jokes aside, we now have female orcs ready to go for when your party meets the orc tribes later during the campaign. And let me tell you, if you expect orcs to simply be savage monsters, you'll be in for a shock.


Storm, Earth and Fire, heed my call!

Without any transition, give a warm welcome to our new elemental friends! Wait... what's that? Sorry, I'm being told they might not be as friendly as I first expected. Fighting might occur, deadly injuries might ensue - consider yourself warned. 


What's 40 feet long, CR 11 and devours adventurers for breakfast?

If you answered "Remorhaz", you are correct! Everyone else go back to studying the Monster Manual, it will be on the next test so pay attention during class. This mighty beast was introduced to Solasta by the community during our Kickstarter campaign, and will take a lot of preparation to take down. Able to swallow its target whole with a simple bite, the Remorhaz has spelled the end of many would-be heroes.


Giant beetles? Were giant spiders not enough?

For those who joined the Solastan community recently, you might be a little confused by the picture above. Giant beetles? What are those? Well, say hello to your spellcasters' new nightmare: the Redeemers. These gigantic insects, originally created by the old elven empire, thrived in the Badlands in the absence of their former masters - and they have evolved in some of the worst way possible.

For our non-French friends, know that for some reason this was one of the first english sentence we would be taught back in the old days. And yes, it served as much as you would expect (hint: as much as a barbarian dip in a high level wizard build). Anyway, lore dump aside we have good news for you. Our magic armours are now looking better than ever, which will distinguish them from their regular counterpart!


Now you can slay while looking dapper! No, that does not mean I'm giving you a bonus in Charisma for free though.

While our Art team produces most of what we usually show in our Dev Updates, it's good to remember that our programmers are still hard at work. We've recently implemented quite a few improvements, such as preventing different characters from stacking onto one another while exploring or having characters orient themselves towards their enemy when taking a hit. That being said, one of the biggest improvements we're currently adding to the game are difficulty options. We've been talking about it for quite some time, but we've just now implemented it in-game - see for yourself! We'll go into more details in a future article about everything you can switch on and off in those settings.


What options do you want? All of them. You get to pick and choose what you want.

It's been quite some time since we shared some new spells, hasn't it? Those were good times. So good in fact that I've got some available to go around.


Grease, 1st level conjuration spell


Silence, 2nd level illusion spell


Sleet Storm, 3rd level conjuration spell[/i]

Alright folks, this is the end 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 January Patch - Patch Notes
• Dev Update #26 - Welcome 2021 & Community Feedback #2!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Hey there again folks,

It's time for the January Patch! This small update should work out most out the bugs released with December's Winter Update, as well as a few others that thrived in our game since our Early Access came out in October. This means... it's patch note time!


But before that, say hello to Newt! She's growing so fast!

As we often see people complaining about the size of each update, I'd like to clarify once more why you're more or less re-downloading the entire game every time. Long story short, due to how Unity works (the engine Solasta is running on) we've had to make a choice between longer loading time, or bigger patch download size - and considering we're not too keen on making loading screens even longer than they already are, we've prefered to choose the latter. That's pretty much the short version of it :(

• The Spell component system has been implemented (options are available in the settings if you want to disable it)
  
  • Verbal:
    Full (Default): Silence now prevents you from casting spells with Verbal components.
    
  • Somatic:
    Basic (Default): Restrained now prevents you from casting spells with Somatic components
    Full: Same as Basic, but you also need a free hand. Two-handed weapons (i.e. Quarterstaff) count as having a free hand.
    
  • Material:
    Basic: You must have a holy symbol, spellcasting focus or component pouch equipped to cast spells with Material components. Magic wands and magic staves are also considered as spellcasting foci. Note that spells with expensive components can also be cast in the same manner without any additional cost
    Full (Default): Same as Basic, but spells needing specific components will require you to have them in your inventory (i.e. a pearl to cast Identify, a diamond for Revivify...)
• Spells will now require a passive Arcana Check to recognize them during combat.
• You should now be able to cast Sparkle as a Bonus Action even after casting a spell with your Main Action
• Finally swapped the Eat / Feed Goodberries buttons, so your wizard no longer "accidentally" gobbles all the berries on their own.
• Fixed spells no longer working on wall sconces / magic lamp and other interactable elements on occasions.
• Losing concentration while flying to a location (by an attack of opportunity for instance) will now make you fall as soon as you lose concentration instead of attempting to reach your destination.
• Fixed the animations when losing concentration after getting hit while flying.
• Fixed Conjure Animals VFX not playing properly.
• Fixed a rare bug when trying to summon creatures somewhere with limited space.
• Elves are no longer affected by Sleep at all (instead of being immune but still feeling a bit weak in the knees)
• Fixed a bug when casting Feather Fall after being shoved into a pit
• Updated VFX for Magic Arrow, Arcane Fury, Guiding Bolt, Doom Laughter and Shine
• Updated Icons for Arcane Fury, Animal Friendship, Indomitable Light, Soothing Hand, Aura of Protection and Word of Law
• AoE Spells info box should no longer re-appear every time your cursor moves to a different cell.
• Added a tooltip to Calm Emotions
• You should no longer be able to cast AoE spells further than their maximum range. No cheating! 
• The various Creed feats no longer grant you Expertise in specific saving throws if you were already proficient. No, getting proficiency twice does not equate to Expertise, it doesn't work like that. 
• Fixed Sparkle being selected when using Ready Action (Cantrip).
• Cancelling the cast of a concentration spell when you already concentrating on another spell will no longer make the combat grid disappear.
• Casting teleport spells like Misty Step now displays the movement grid to show where you can teleport
• Feats should now work properly. If there are still bugged feats, please specify which feat and we'll take another look at it.
• Aura of Protection tooltip should now display the proper Saving Throw modifiers. 
• Fixed Sacred Weapon not working properly.
• Fixed Vampiric Touch not correctly consuming your main action, previously allowing you to spam it. 
• Preserve Life now properly states in the Combat Log that it cannot heal characters above 50% HP. 

• Updated the VFX when drinking some potions
• Characters should now wield two-handed swords properly
• Added new icons for some +1 armors
• Improved the Crown's tooltip when more gems are added
• Fixed Basic Poison acting like a Potion of Health. You should no longer drink poison unless that's your kink, and even then we heavily advise against it. 
• Characters no longer hold both weapons in the same hand when trying to equip two non-light weapons. Also, it's completely useless. Don't do that. 
• Bracers of Archery now only works for bows. I mean those are Bracers of Archery, not Bracers of Universal Bonus Damage.
• Identifying an item should now identify all items with the same name (example: +1 arrows, potions of healing...)
• Copying a spell into your spellbook will no longer consume the entire stack of scrolls
• Your entire party can now interact with Chests as long as they are close enough (without needing every character to open the chest on their own)
• Scroll of Fog Cloud now require you to know Fog Cloud and not Jump. Because logic.
• Magic items no longer display their properties when equipped in the utility slot while unidentified. 
• Comparing weapons will now take into account the loadout you are currently using, instead of always comparing with first weapon loadout. 
• Fixed some recipe having too many dots in the crafting interface.
• Fixed some crafting recipe requiring the wrong components (i.e. Battleaxe of Acuteness needing a Greataxe) 
• Equipping multiple magic items with active components will now display each of them in the combat UI
• Wands no longer contain unlimited charges. 
• Scrolls of Raise Dead are now correctly usable by Clerics and Paladins. Long story short, because Early Access limits you to level 3 spells Raise Dead (level 5 spell) wasn't considered a valid spell, so they couldn't cast it...
• Belt of Dwarvenkind now correctly increase max HP as a consequence of gaining additional constitution (current HP remains the same). 

• Fixed the Dragon Cutscene triggering after killing four ghosts inside the Wizard Tower.
• You should no longer be able to go through a certain rock inside Caer Lem. The illusion magic ran out, we had to replace it with a real rock. 
• Culling (how the game detect to make the decor transparent when your characters are behind a wall) should now be working better inside the Wizard's Tower.
• Fixed a cutscene in Coparran not using the correct music track
• Fixed footprints missing from a cutscene in front of Wizard's Tower
• Fixed the combat music not stopping during a cutscene in Wizard's Tower
• The bench in Monastery should no longer be usable during night time, since its sole purpose in life is for the party to wait until night time. Poor bench.
• Added some music transitions in most cutscenes in the Monastery Quest Line
• Fixed the Princess not having proper lip-sync in some cutscenes
• Fixed a bandit in the Prison Tutorial not having a face. Blasted Doppelgangers... 
• Added water splashes when walking in the water.
• Razan should no longer be able to teleport outside the Dragon Room.
• Kythaela's body will no longer disappear if you save / load during the fight against Razan
• Pressing "Alt" to highlight interactable elements in front of the Wizard Tower will no longer destroy your retina because one foliage decided to roleplay as a miniature sun. 
• Removed some destructible elements in front of the Wizard Tower which served no purpose.
• Fixed Hugo Requer's quest sometimes not completing properly.
• Fixed Angbi's Bones quest blocking dialog with the Antiquarians after completing it. 
• Sir Sunblaze now properly holds and reads the Sorak scroll like he used to
• The Wizard's Tower doors no longer close if you long rest after completing the puzzle.
• Changed Coparran's lighting
• Fixed lighting issues in Tower of Magic Crown Room
• Skeletons in Dark Castle are now back to being hostile. Peace was never an option.
• There are no longer two Barons in Coparran's prison. We toid his twin brother that his services will no longer be needed. 
• Fixed the Ruby Gem not being visible on the Crown after obtaining it. 
• Fixed a rare crash happening when entering the Goblins Cave in Caer Lem
• Set the maximum amount of steps tracked by the quest tracker to 10 to avoid overflow
• Updated the cutscene with the sleepy dragon. Wish we could hibernate like that too, but we've got a game to make!
• Fixed a bug where the door to the dragon door in the Wizard Tower became would become impossible to open after saving / loading once inside the Tower.
• Fixed the travel journal no longer working after a certain time. This fix is unfortunately not retroactive, so old saves will still have a broken travel journal.
• Fixed Broods infinitely respawning in front of the Wizard Tower after a long rest.
• Updated some tavern cutscenes.
• Fixed being able to trap a character in a pit next to the Wizard Tower if they don't have enough strength to get out (and no teleportation spell). 
• Certain quests will now automatically be tracked when started. 
• Fixed the broken bridge cutscene in the Wolf Tutorial.
• Removed an invisible block in Dark Castle.
• Slightly lowered the difficulty of ability checks during the dialogs with Aksha and Mardracht
• Fixed a bug where random encounters would stop triggering if you traveled to Caer Lem straight right after getting the Crown in Tower of Magic.

• Winter Wolves can no longer temporarily freeze time before using their Cold Breath power. They were growing too strong, too dangerous. 
• Similarly, Talbut no longer temporarily freezes time after getting hit with non-magical weapons. There's just too many time lords in this game.
• Guess what? Yes, Minotaurs also did that. Time would freeze when you triggered a Ready Action during their charge. It's been fixed.
• Also, Minotaurs are no longer silent when attacking. We gave them some throat medicine and they're back in shape!
• Wolves now have a prone animation when shoved to the ground.
• Ghasts now have a ranged attack, with a new special attack animation.
• Razan now flies as intended instead of walking in the air like in Chinese kung fu movies.
• He now also has his proper skin color and clothing.
• His portrait has also been fixed.
• Updated some monster portraits.
• Orcs now have new run and idle animations
• Updated the Defiler's Misty Form VFX
• Broods should be targetable once more while they are scurrying on the walls. Their immunity to mouse cursors have been removed. 
• Fixed Flying Snakes death animation not playing properly.
• The Wight now laughs during his idle animation. 
• Monsters capable of spellcasting will now attempt to avoid areas targeted by Silence.
• Monsters capable of spellcasting will now avoid using spells like Sleep on healthy high HP adventurers. Me no stoopid!

• Halflings should no longer take an attack of opportunity when going through an enemy in some rare cases . We'll blame that on the DM forgetting about their racial feature.
• Fixed the game sometimes freezing when casting a spell while flying
• Fixed crawling sometimes not working properly during combat, making some characters unable to crawl through small spaces.
• Attacking unconscious characters in melee range will now properly trigger a critical hit. 
• Characters killed by Life Drain will no longer roll death saving throws
• Fixed Human & Dwarf Female death animation.
• The "Alt" Hotkey (highlight interactable) now works in combat like it used to
• Dead Characters will no longer take damage nor roll Saving Throws. Yes I know it's boring to be dead, just go make a Dice Tower or something. 

• Fixed a potential memory leak related to particles attached to monsters. What does that mean? I have no idea. Don't attach particles to monsters folks, or do it carefully. 
• Fixed the German translation which had reverted to a previous version by mistake.
• Modified the lighting in the Character Creator
• Fixed the size of the encumbrance panel in the merchant interface
• Fixed a rare crash that would happen when opening the inventory
• Fixed clothes clipping through skin in some cutscenes
• Fixed clothes clipping through skin when wearing Leather Armor
• Fixed a bug where characters could be stuck in their falling animation after getting shoved
• Fixed some instances where a character could instantly die by falling through the map
• Fixed a bug when trying to leave the map while the loot window is still open
• Fixed Halflings not holding certain weapons properly
• Added VFX to the level up screen! More power!
• Characters paralyzed by Ghouls will now properly roll Saving Throws after the combat ends instead of remaining paralyzed until the start of the next combat. 
• You should now be able to resurrect characters that died after having their max HP drained to 0 by a Defiler.
• Spam clicking Hit Dice after a short rest will no longer teleport the Hit Dice outside the interface. And yes, that 1 still counts even if the dice landed on the floor.
• Item quantities will no longer appear twice on the Blueprint map when hovering containers.

We haven't forgotten about you folks out there who would want an easier or harder experience that what Solasta is currently providing. You'll be happy to know that we've started working on difficulty settings! We've decided to offer a wide variety of options that you'll be able to customize on your own (on top of the preset you can choose from if you want to keep it simple), such as adding modifiers to attacks, saving throws and ability checks, harder AIs that use their powers more often (still limited by the tabletop rules) and target unconscious characters to finish them off, different encumbrance rules - we're even adding weighted dice for those who've prayed extra hard to the RNG gods. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, there will be more for you to play with once we're done with it! 

We've already gone through two rounds of Community Suggestions, you can read our answers in the following links:

• Round 1 (Skipping Tutorials, Adding More Feats, Difficulty...)
• Round 2 (Crafting, Speed Up Function, Encumbrance...)

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Hello there everyone,

Hope you all enjoyed some quality winter break, hiding under your blanket sipping hot cocoa like I did. In any case Tactical Adventures is back at work, ready to build features, create assets and slay more bugs! And we're not the only ones back either...


Our adorable feline friends are making a comeback too! 

You probably noticed, the Winter Update was not exactly bug-free. And while nothing is ever perfectly bug-free - especially during an Early Access - let's not pretend that we were anywhere close to satisfied when we saw the amount of bugs this last update introduced. Which is why we're planning on releasing an update focused on polish next week, which will tackle most of the issues brought up by the community these last few weeks. 

The fixes should range from the most problematic ones, such as the one teleporting and locking you into a cutscene after killing ghosts in the Wizard's Tower, to more annoying ones that have been around for a long time, such as fixing some feats which just didn't work. In any case, we'll be releasing the full patch notes when the update drops as usual!

Honestly? We're not certain. As some of you already know, we've stated on our Steam Early Access FAQ that we're aiming for around 6 months of Early Access. While we can never be sure of the exact duration (otherwise we'd already have announced a release date), we don't intend to stray too far from that estimation.

Every content update we drop has an impact on the final release of the game: we need to stabilize the build, test it, debug it and polish it before putting it on Steam, and our Winter Update was a good example of how things can sometimes go wrong when we don't allocate sufficient time for that. All of this is time invested away from completing the final game, since there's a good chance we'll be altering or breaking things again when we add or change game systems later on.

Which means we're currently balancing our options between A) solely focusing towards the finish line and get the final version of the game out so that everyone can enjoy Solasta in its entirety, with all its intended features and full campaign - or B) working out appropriate conditions and time to churn out another content update before that. And while the latter would allow us to have you try out new features and levels to keep the feedback coming on improvements and suggestions, there is always this little risk looming around the corner of impacting the final release - or worse, having to cut a feature or a level. 

That being said, it just might end up that we'll be able to release a content update around the end of Winter without having to compromise anything in our final release, but we've always been very transparent with you on the how's and why's when we make decisions. In any case, be certain that we'll keep you informed if or when we do decide to release a new content update!



Alright folks, it's time to tackle them suggestions and feedback again! Get a warm blanket and a mug of hot beverage ready, this is going to be long.

Isn't Crafting a tad bit hard to understand (and kinda bugged too)? 

Indeed! As stated in some threads here and there, the Crafting System isn't fully implemented yet - which means that some recipes are bugged (asking for the wrong type of weapon for instance) and more importantly, we're missing some tooltip showing you what the crafted item is supposed to do. We'll be polishing Crafting later on, especially when we're done implementing all the magic items we intend to have in the final game. 

We're also considering relaxing Crafting requirements as well, as we understand it feels kind of bad when you select Herbalism Kit proficiency but then realize that you can't craft Potions of healing because you can't cast Cure Light Wounds. Although that is the official tabletop rule it is no secret that crafting hasn't been very well developed yet in the 5th edition.

Would it be possible to highlight the Active Character a bit more during combat?

So we did notice that quite a few people had issues following whose turn it was during combat, which could become quite confusing when so many units are in play (and not necessarily close to each other). We're already added a "Enemy Turn" overlay in our Winter Update, but we do plan on making some other improvements for visual clarity in battles.

Would it be possible to automatically refill quivers at the end of the fight (provided you have ammunition in your backpack)?

That would be pretty great! However while this seems like one of these "quick fixes", it is actually not that trivial. Making changes related to the inventory system is always a big risk, as there's so many things that can go wrong - and are not always easy to detect! One recent example with the Winter Patch was for instance being able to duplicate armors if you used double click to equip them (why only armors, eeeeh...). It's something we might try to add if we have the time - and while the coding itself might not take long, the testing resulting from that change will take much more time.

Would it be possible to use Dialog-related features (such as Golden Speech) during Cutscenes instead of having to pre-emptively doing so before talking to NPCs?

This is already in our (very long) internal Improvement List! Ideally we would indeed want players to be able to use those features when the dialog checks come up, as it can be frustrating to have to guess whether or not you should use your powers before talking to an NPC. 

Would it be possible to make passive Arcana Checks to recognize a spell before using Counterspell?

Yes! That is a fairly popular homebrew a lot of DMs are using, and we are indeed working on implementing this as we feel it rewards putting points in Arcana. Enemy's spell names will be hidden unless the party succeeds an Arcana check to recognize it, and we're considering adding modifiers depending on if it's a spell that one of the party members knows for instance. 

Is it possible to identify all magic arrows / potions at once provided they are the same?

Yes, this is something that should be already done on our side, so you will see it in the final game. With this change, casting identify on a +1 Arrow will identify every +1 Arrows in the character's inventory - same with potions, identifying a Potion of Healing will identify every Potion of Healing in the character's inventory. Note that you will still have to identify different potions separately, in the example above identifying a Potion of Healing won't identify a Potion of Giant Strength if you have one in your inventory. 

Can you add an On / Off trigger for Paladin's Smite popup? 

At the start of the project we had to make a choice between the Reaction pop-up (which is what we currently have in-game), or a toggle option (similar to what Baldur's Gate 3 has) which would automatically trigger the action if toggled on. Transitioning now to a hybrid system is something that is both very costly and very risky, as we would need to break down the entire Reaction system to build it back up with both the toggle and the pop-up systems working together. While we understand the reasons for wanting such a thing (clicking No on smite whenever you strike a lowly goblin can get tiring pretty fast), this is something we can only consider when we have more time at hand. 

Can you add an option to speed up time during battles?

This is actually an option we already have in debug mode, so yes it's absolutely planned. Now you might be wondering why we haven't added it to the game if it's already in debug mode - and the simple answer is because speeding up time can cause quite a few nasty bugs. Which is not a big issue when we're using it internally, but ideally we'd like to avoid releasing a bugged feature if we can.

Aren't random encounters on the World Map a bit too easy? It feels like free XP...

As stated before we'll be taking a closer look at balancing before the release of the final game, once we've implemented difficulty settings. Right now there are a fair amount of encounters that are too easy (such as the lone Minotaur next to the monastery) or too hard (such as Mardracht and his crownies) if we wanted to be consistent with difficulty, so don't worry we're aware of it.

Is the Fly spell not working? 

It works, but we've noticed a lot of players weren't aware of how to use Planar Mode to be able to properly move their character in 3D. We're thinking about highlighting the Planar Mode button whenever the player casts a spell like Fly or Levitate so that it's more obvious. For those who might be wondering, Planar Mode can be toggled on and off by clicking the button on the bottom right, which looks like 3 sheets of paper on top of each other (layers) located inside the compass - it allows you to select the elevation for your movement by using the Mouse Scroll Wheel. Otherwise, you can also do that by pressing Shift while using the scroll wheel 


Here is what the button looks like, in the middle of the compass

Ready Action does not allow you to choose which Cantrip to ready up...

Our Ready Action button is using a very simplistic version of the tabletop ready action, and we actually have a more complex design that we'd like to implement in the long run. We can't say for sure how it will look like or work right now (since it will depend on the time we have to work on this feature), but we do plan on allowing you to choose which cantrip to ready up in the future.

Can we have the Tabletop Rules for carrying capacity?

We do plan on adding an option to allow players to choose between the Carrying Capacity Variant (Solasta), the Tabletop Rule (15x Strength Score) or simply disabling the system (carry as much as you want). 

Will we eventually be able to stop / turn back during World Map travels? 

It's a request we've seen a lot, and it's a fairly logical one at that, so we do intend to work on implementing it. Also a bit different but in the same category as World Map, we plan on adding the "I" key as shortcut for the Inventory (for some reason it wasn't added on the World Map). 


Alright folks, this is the end 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 Winter Update - Patch Notes
• Winter Update, Community Stream & GOG Release!
• https://www.solasta-game.com/news/96-solasta-early-access-date-reveal-october-20th-2020Dev Update #25 - New Content Sneak Peek

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Hello there folks!

We've rolled out a small Stability Hotfix patch for people who are running into infinite loading screens and similar crashes. 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.

• This version does NOT fix the bug where you're stuck in a cutscene with the dragon after fighting ghosts. Don't worry, you're not missing much - the content of the Winter Patch ends right after that cutscene anyway
  
• 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

• 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!

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 isaycrashbegone
6. Click on CHECK CODE
7. Select the Hotfix 0.4.15b 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 Hotfix 0.4.15b, 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!

This will be the last patch before we come back in January! We'll have to ask you all to be a bit patient until then, as the team will taking some well deserved rest during the christmas holidays.

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Hey there folks!

Apologies for the new hotfix to fix the previous hotfix, but the previous fix broke some fixes which made fixes not fix what they were supposed to fix.

... Alright more seriously, this Hotfix should simply prevent your game from lagging out / crashing when you open the minimap with M.

And that, friends, is why you ONLY put critical fixes in a hotfix. Because if you want to know what happened to the previous hotfix (0.4.14)...



Yea. Game Dev is fun sometimes.

See you next week!

Hey there folks!

Teenie tiny hotfix for a few very annoying bugs, which should be fixed now:

• Attempting to cast Shield to block Magic Missiles should no longer destroy space time continuum
  
  
• Defeating Razan before the end of round 4 should now properly complete the quest... to finish the Winter Update content. Yea, there isn't much after that - you can go back to the teleporter and click to get a "You finished Early Access!" pop-up.
  
  
• Interacting with the puzzle in front of the Wizard Tower during the day will no longer break it during the night.

That's all, now go back to playing!

Hey there folks!

Welcome to Solasta's Winter Update! With the addition of the new Monastery Questline, the Early Access should now reach 12h - 14h of total game time. We've also taken action regarding the most popular requests, such as adding more customization options and changing the lighting system which was deemed too punitive (we've reverted the rules back to the 5e tabletop ruleset). Hope you enjoy!

Also don't forget, we'll be doing a Community Stream tomorrow at 8 am PST / 11 am EST / 5 pm CET on Twitch!

• An entire new Questline is unlocked after Mardracht's tea party (which may or may not involve tea). Tactical Adventures does not condone violence against the elderly. 
  • Upon returning to the World Map, a new location should now become available.
• Many new magic items have been added to the game, because magic is cool and you know it. And no we won't spoil which ones.
• You can now hide during combat! Wooh for sneaky dastardly deeds, chivalry is for dumdums with negative intelligence modifier. That's not me, that's what the Rogue said.
  • Hiding requires you to break line of sight with all enemies before doing so
  • Creatures can see in a 180 degree arc in front of them, instantly revealing you if you step into their vision range (no Stealth Check)
  • Otherwise, you will have to roll a Stealth Check under the following conditions: Ending your turn too close to an enemy (distance depends on many factors, such as your Stealth score and armor type), or taking an action such as attacking or casting a spell.
  • Note that Hiding in Combat is a very contested rule on Tabletop, so we invite you to give us feedback if you think the current system can be improved.
• Because hiding isn't enough, you can now also apply poison to your weapon. Hey, say what you want but a win's a win. 
• Several new spells have been added to the spell list. You ready? Pass without trace, See invisibility, Animal Friendship, Find traps, Calm emotions and Protection from poison. What do you mean that's lame? Oh sorry Larry, I forgot you only take spells that deal damage because that's all you care about. Well not every spell can be a fireball, Larry. 
• Two new homebrew cantrips have been added to combat darkness more effectively: Shine, which lights up an enemy like a candle from afar for a solid minute - and Sparkle, which is quite literally "I cast magic missile at the darkness" (okay, difference being you still need to target interactable objects such as wall sconces to light them up). 
• Many new Hair / Eyes / Skin Colors have been added to the Character Creator
• Each Ancestry now has access to new additional faces in the Character Creator, on top of the old ones. NPCs also got a facelift in the process. 
• Several new monsters have been added to Solasta. You will encounter them in the new locations of the Winter Update, but you may also run into them during Random Encounters.
• The Scavenger Faction is now up and running! Simply go to them whenever you drop by Caer Cyflen, and they'll send their best to go loot the areas you cleared (including random encounters). We will further develop the Scavengers in the future, but don't hesitate to ask for their services already and tell us what you think!

• The inventory & loot systems have received a lot of requested upgrades:
  • You can now double click to loot / equip items
  • The party will now share their wealth, instead of hoarding each coins individually like little gremlins. Shopping just became much easier.
  • We added a second quiver so you can easily switch between regular arrows and magical arrows.
  • You will now receive a warning when equipping a combination of weapons you can't dual wield, such as Rapier + Dagger. As a reminder, you need two light weapons to be able to dual wield properly (Rapier isn't light).
  • Looting bodies will now open a small window instead of the entire inventory
  • Looting bodies (after battle) will now automatically loot a sizeable area around the body. You may still need to loot some bodies separately if one died particularly far from the fight (for instance if it was perched on a tower). 
  • You can now open a shop directly after having talked to the merchant NPC at least once. Simply click on the shop tent instead of the NPC.
  • The shop interface has been revamped to display more items at once, and base scrolling speed has been increased.
• The lighting system has been reverted back to Tabletop rules:
  • Dim light will no longer give disadvantage on attack rolls, only on perception checks (so you better keep that torch out unless you love running into traps).
  • This means Darkvision will properly allow you to attack into darkness with no disadvantage, since the character will view darkness as dim light. Note that Darkvision still has a maximum range (most often 60', meaning 12 cells) - so beyond that range good old disadvantage will still be here rubbing its hands with its crappy RNG. 
  • Soraks will now receive the "Children of Darkness" buff while in dim light and darkness which enhances their fighting prowess, as they are creatures of the dark. Fighting Soraks? Get some light out or be prepared for a whole lot of pain.
  • Note that unlike on tabletop, you will still be able to target creatures that are heavily obscured. Technically speaking you shouldn't be able to click on enemies in the darkness, but we found that it made the game very frustrating as the player could see the monsters even though the character wouldn't be able to see them, so they were unable to interact with them. And that made any non-darkvision ancestries even weaker compared to before - you wouldn't even attack with disadvantage, you would just not attack at all. 
• The combat console has received several improvements:
  • You can now hover any attack, damage, saving throw, ability check roll to see the details of the dice roll
  • You can now hover creature names to see the monster card (with your current level of knowledge of the monster)
• The combat UI has also received several improvements:
  • Using Dash will no longer immediately consume your action, and will instead show you the updated movement range. Moving inside the first area will only consume your movement, while moving outside that range will use your action to dash.
  • Other actions such as Dodge or Disengage will now ask you for confirmation, as well as reminding you what the action does. No more terrible misclick! 
• The Food System is now a little less hardcore for parties without Rangers:
  • The general shop in Caer Cyflen will now offer up to 50 rations instead of 10.
  • The system will now properly prioritize food you find on the road, so you should consume less rations during your travels overall.
  • World Map travel also allows you to automatically cast Goodberries / Create Food and Water before camping to avoid consuming your rations. 

• Some NPCs in Caer Cyflen now wear faction tabards. I heard it's a fashion thing, adventurers like you wouldn't get it.
• You will now be able to buy the Manacalon Rosary in the general shop in Caer Cyflen.
• Exit Areas have been made much more visible. No more wandering around looking at the ground to find the exit! 
• You will now be able to click directly on the hit dice in the Short Rest panel, and the dice will properly roll on the bottom of the screen.
• Long rest fire icons now flicker. I know, I know, it doesn't sound like much but it's super cool, swear on me mum
• Added animations to Hanging Cages crashing down (Caer Lem - Goblin Hideout)
• The ground should now look a little less monotone outside Bone Keep
• Added VFX to some spells that were missing them (such as Magic Weapon)
• Made some improvements to the blueprint (M)
• Scrolls of the same spell will now stack properly
• Added visual feedback above a character when a condition (such as paralysis) is removed. 
• Added a visible "Enemy Movement" banner during enemy turn, as monsters who were playing without being visible sometimes led players to believe their game was stuck. 

• You will now receive a pop-up during Loading Screens if you're running into an infinite loading screen bug. Well hopefully you won't ever run into that issue, but at least you won't be sitting there wondering if it's ever going to finish loading or not. 
• The "Alt" Key that highlights interactable objects will now properly work in combat as well
• The bug which was causing looting to take several seconds instead of being instant should now be fixed
• The ladder which was unusable in Tower of Magic is now... well, usable again. Go get that chest, folks.
• ... And plenty of other bugfixes here and there, too many to detail!

Here are a few bugs that we didn't quite catch in time to get them fixed for this update - and that we'll likely be hammering down in the upcoming hotfixes later this week. 

• [Blocker] In front of the Abjuration Tower, there is a small puzzle that only activates by night. Attempting to interact with it during the day passed the quest update telling you to come back by night will break the puzzle and block any further progress - meaning you'll need to load a save from before you interacted with the puzzle. 
• In a certain Bone Keep room, killing the ghost in a single round will make the game take around 10 seconds to end the combat. That's the time it takes for the DM to stop weeping at you killing their monster so fast.
• Some skeletons in Dark Castle have been tagged as allies by mistakes. If you can't beat them, join them I guess? Anyway, don't worry the fight will still end once you off all the opponents - no need to try and kill your newfound friendly skellies via Fireball or other AoE spells. 
• The Ready Cantrip ability will cast Sparkle instead of offensive cantrips if you have Sparkle in your spellbook. Since monsters aren't torches, nothing will happen.
• The Minotaur does not like when you use Ready Action. If you attack him it with a ready action when he is charging, he will ask the game for a 10 second time out before resuming his charge. 
• There are some missing textures on the ground next to the cemetery in one of the new areas.
• In a certain prison cell you will find not one, but two barons. While we could try to shift the blame on your alcohol intake, that's just a mistake by the DM.
• Broods have learned how to cheat the system and can no longer be targeted by weapons while on walls. However, we have learned to outwit the Broods by telling you that you can still target them by clicking their portrait instead while we fix this loophole of theirs. 
• If you save during a specific encounter against a single Brood and later load that save, you will see that this particular Brood somehow managed to cast Kage Bunshin no Jutsu and you will be facing five broods instead. You don't know, maybe it was a Hokage in its past life. 
• [Old Save] It is possible (not 100%) that some saves from older versions will run into a blocker in Bone Keep, where you will be unable to open a certain door because the lever that opens it won't appear on the wall (see screenshot below). If that happens, either load another save and try again - or you will need to start fresh again :(

We've seen a few people concerned that the game might be getting too easy due to certain changes. As always, keep in mind that we're mostly doing those changes because we haven't implemented difficulty settings yet - so we need to make sure people who are not expert at tactical RPGs can also enjoy Solasta. Fear not however, as you will find all the challenge you wish for once we implement higher difficulty options when version 1.0 hits the store. 

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Hello there you beautiful people,

For those of you who have been following us on Social Media, you already know what we're going to be talking about. For the others... be ready to be showered with information! But before that, you know what time it is.


They love to play around with clothings in winter, guess cats get cold too

Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you! Honestly I wouldn't blame you, I just looked it up and yea it turns out Winter officially begins on December 21st, so technically it should be called "End of Autumn Update" - but then we'd kind of ruin the surprise, and no one likes that.

So yea, you get to enjoy some more Solasta right before Christmas, with all the new content and changes announced in the previous article. We'll be following community feedback closely after the update goes live, and roll out hotfixes in the following days in case anything goes wrong. Hopefully that won't happen, but you know how game development goes - hope for the best, plan for the worse. After that, most of the team will be taking a much needed break so communications will slow down a little, but worry not we'll be back in full force early January!

Note that your party won't be able to go above level 6 for now, which should be around the level you reach once you complete the new questline of the Winter Update. Save files should be compatible, but as always with Early Access we strongly suggest you start a fresh new adventure to avoid any potential issues! 


Full Patch Notes will be released on the day of the Update, and the list will be massive!

To celebrate the Winter Update, we'll be streaming live on Twitch and Steam on December 15th, starting at 8:00 am PST / 11:00 am EST / 5:00 pm CET. Join the Tactical Adventures crew as we discuss the content of this new update, this time with additional members:

• Mathieu, Creative Director and CEO
• Xavier, Gameplay and Narrative Director
• Karim, Lead Programmer
• Eleonore, Producer
• Pierre, Marketing Director
• Emile, Community Lead (that's me!)

We'll be taking questions from the chat, so don't be shy and ask away!

You've been asking for it ever since our Kickstarter Campaign, it's finally here! Solasta is coming to GOG on December 14th with the Winter Update!

Also if you are a Kickstarter Backer, we've got you covered. Soon after the release on December 14th, you should receive a GOG Key of Solasta Supporter Edition through CrowdOx - just like you did for Steam. It might take up to 24h, so don't worry if you don't see it immediately.


Alright folks, this is the end for today! Thank you for reading, and don't hesitate to drop by our Forums or our Discord Server.

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Hey there folks!

How are you all doing? Winter is starting show its nose, it's getting pretty cold here in Paris! However, that also means we're getting closer to the Winter Update, which we will be talking about a bit more in today's Dev Update. But before that...


Sometimes I wish I could swap places with our pets. Sneaking a nap under a sofa sounds pretty fantastic right now.

Worry not, we've got you. After all, it's already been 3 weeks since we first announced the upcoming Winter Update, and not all of us picked Keen Mind during character creation (though I sure wish I did, now where did I put those damn keys again...). So here is a reminder of what you can look forward to:

• An overhaul of the Lighting System, we're going back to the Tabletop Ruleset with no disadvantage in Dim Light and Darkvision working as its name implies.
• 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
• Optimization to the Food mechanic, so your party won't end up starving as often

Be prepared, this new location is absolutely gorgeous. Are you ready to enter the Wizard's Tower?

We'll talk about the light below, we've been talking non-stop about it these last weeks. What about the new content? Well friends, you're in luck - for I snatched two screenshots to share with you. To avoid spoiling too much, I'll simply show - and not tell. 




A new area means new monsters. Today the star of the show is the winner of the February Community Vote, let us give a warm welcome to... the Minotaur!


That's a big boy! You better be prepared, the Minotaur does not joke around.


The Minotaur's Charge, which deals extra piercing damage and can knock you down on a failed Strength Saving Throw.


The Minotaur's Reckless Attack, which grants it advantage on attack rolls in melee combat

You talked about it, we talked about it - Solasta's Lighting System had quite a few flaws. It wasn't properly explained, meaning a lot of people thought their constant disadvantage was caused by bugs. It was eating into the party's action economy, which was frustrating for some more experienced tabletop players. And to top it off it didn't affect monsters, who happily received a free coupon for a superior darkvision upgrade graciously offered by the MAAA (Monster Association Against Adventurers).

So we went back to the drawing board, and decided that sometimes the best solution is also the simplest - we're reverting the lighting system to the original Tabletop one. For those who may not be familiar with it, this means you will no longer suffer disadvantage to attack rolls while in Dim Light - only Perception Checks will be affected (meaning you're still advised to have a torch out if you don't want to run blindly into traps). Darkvision will also now allow characters to see in non-magical darkness up to a certain range, making it as if it were Dim Light for them (again, it won't help you against traps). 

As you may already imagine, this made some encounters quite a lot easier - and some monsters much less scary. In order to rectify that, monsters who specifically relied on the darkness will now get extra bonuses while they remain in the dark. So... you should definitely get some light out, because as a wise adventurer named Zork once said: "It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue". Worry not though, we've added two new cantrips to help with that!


One Goblin, bright and shiny thanks to the new Shine cantrip which lights up an enemy


Light up to three wall sconces at once with the new Sparkle cantrip

For those of you who enjoyed the previous Lighting System, we'll consider adding it back as a difficulty setting. Some people enjoy their dungeons dark. Very Dark. Like, the Darkest of Dungeons (if you never looked at Darkest Dungeon, do yourself a favor and go check it out).

There is still plenty of content we're working on for the final 1.0 version that won't be in the Winter Update, but that doesn't mean we can't show it to you! Here is a selection of some of the work our team's been churning out these last few weeks.


Research on armor texture to create magic variant for the Leather Armor (+1 / +2)


Studded Leather Armor Concept Art


Research work on tabards and robes to recognize faction NPCs more easily


Concept Art of a future undisclosed questline. This one is going to be a fun one!


Alright folks, this is the end 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 #24 - Community Feedback & Sourcebook Update
• TL;DR #9: A New Lighting System
• https://www.solasta-game.com/news/96-solasta-early-access-date-reveal-october-20th-2020Dev Update #23 - Winter Patch Preview

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Hello there everyone!

Today we're going to be doing a slightly different Dev Update than usual. You might remember that we've always been talking about working hand in hand with the community. This stance, which started during our Kickstarter Campaign, has not changed - if anything, Early Access is a direct extension of that. So far we've mostly used our Dev Updates to talk to you about what we have in store for Solasta. What we've planned, what we're working on, so on and so forth. This time however, we're going to be looking at some of the most popular suggestions and feedback we've received so far - and tell you what we'd like to do on each topic after sitting down together and discussing about it. For those who are curious on how we tackle feedback, we're holding regular meetings with the core team to go over the various community feedback. Considering the amount we've received, there are many suggestions that won't be featured here - but worry not, Community Feedback Reviews will come back in future Dev Updates as well.

... Alright, that was a meaty introduction! Who's up for some cat pictures?


And by cat pictures, I mean cat picture. One is enough, lest we all die of fluff overdose. Say hello to Kaiju!


Over the past weeks since Early Access launched, we've received many requests from people asking if they could become backers even though the Kickstarter Campaign is over. Unfortunately, we've decided long ago that we wouldn't accept late backers - our Kickstarter Campaign officially ended early October 2019. That being said, we also have our Physical Goods from the Kickstarter Campaign available to preorder on CrowdOx... which often are the main reasons why people who missed the campaign wanted to join. As a reminder, we plan to send the Physical Goods within 3 months of the final 1.0 release of the game in 2021. 


The three items available are the Solasta Sourcebook, the Adventure Box and the OST Vinyl

As we'll soon be moving towards the manufacturing of our Physical Goods, we'll be closing on Crowdox shop on November 30th 2020. If you want a Solasta Sourcebook, an Adventure Box or an OST Vinyl, make sure you preorder one before it's too late - we don't plan on printing / selling them again in the future.

For those of you who are curious, we just completed the first draft of our sourcebook... which is currently sitting at 75,000 words - 165 pages of pure text, and that's before adding any pictures! From there on, we still need to do editing, validation, layout and proofreading before sending the final document to the printer.


Alright folks, time to tackle them suggestions and feedback! Hope you've got a mug of coffee / cup of tea / bottle of vodka (wait what) ready, because this is going to be fairly long.

Do you plan on adding a "quick start" feature to skip tutorials once we've already completed them once? 

Yes. This is something we're planning to do in the long run, however it is very likely that this feature won't be available during Early Access as we might still be adjusting things left and right - which might include the tutorial levels. Our current idea would be to have your party start in Caer Cyflen, skipping the tutorials and cutscene with lord Carran so you can immediately go to the council to start your adventure.


Will you be adding more crucial choices to dialogs?

This one is a hard one. Ideally, we'd love to have a wide range of impactful choices that would strongly impact the various quests you're tackling, but here's the thing - these things need time and money. A lot of it. 

Let me elaborate. Adding a dialog choice would mean additional writing, which in itself isn't too bad. Considering Solasta is fully voice acted, you'd have to add voice recording which already starts to become expensive. Then, if you decide that the decision affects the quest - for instance by opening a new path to go around an encounter for instance - you add on top of this time required for game design and level design (to create that new path). And then you also add time required every time we do a test run, because if we don't test all the options chances are some of them may not work.

I explained this in a forum post a long time ago, but it's the same reason we're not going for multiple endings. Let's say you have the time to write three large story quests for the end of your campaign, each taking around 5 hours to complete for the player. When you arrive at the end of the game, if you play those 3 quests back to back, the game is linear but every player gets 15 hours of extra playtime. On the other hand, if you have a to choose between three different endings - each with their own quest - each player only gets 5 hours of gameplay. Now you may argue that players get more overall playtime because they would be encouraged to re-play the game to see the other endings, but those players are exception and not the rule - most players are satisfied with a single playthrough.

So, a single end with more content, or multiple endings with much shorter content for each of them? In the case of Solasta, we never intended our game to be very long - so cutting content to add more forks in the road doesn't sound like a wise choice for us. We'd rather focus on delivering a single, well crafted campaign - even if it might feel a bit railroaded at time.

Now that being said, we also noticed that some dialog options may feel redundant or poorly exposed - for instance a lot of players were really surprised at the fact that experienced adventurers would just put an unidentified crown on their head without second thoughts. You can help us by bringing up particular cutscenes / dialogs where you feel like something just feels wrong so we can take a look at them and change the script a bit to make them feel more natural - I'm sure most of you would have less issues with the crown scene if it was implied that the crown was magically influencing the party to wear it.


Will you be adding more feats that would allow for more interesting martial builds, such as feats that add bonus action options for specific weapons?

We're definitely going to take a look at it. We understand that while spellcasters often get a lot of versatility and options through their spell choices, martial classes often need to rely a lot more on feats for customization - which is why we're not closing the doors quite yet on feats. One thing to note is that feats can either be very fast to implement... or very hard if it implies additional animations and / or programming work when it allows you to do something that doesn't yet exist in-game. We're likely going to stick to more simple ones to avoid delaying other parts of the game - but not just "passive" feats that give +1 here and there, we'll rack our brain to give you more options in combat.


Verticality creates a lot of issues for melee-focused characters, as they often can't reach enemies and have to rely on their ranged weapon

That feel when your Paladin can't smite anything because he's relegated to crossbow duty. More seriously though, while it is true that melee characters may feel a bit left behind in the early game, know that they will eventually come around when monsters become beefier as you won't be able to shoot them down before they reach your squishy backline. And trust me, when that happens boy will you be glad that your Paladin or your Fighter is standing in their way. 

That being said, we're not saying just to "tough it up" until you reach higher levels - especially considering Early Access mostly covers the beginning of the campaign. We're looking into solutions to help our melee-loving friends - such as with minor wondrous items that may increase move speed so you can reach enemies more quickly, adding more melee units instead of ranged units in encounters, lowering monsters' AC and increasing their HP instead so they're not dead after a few shots (also lowering the frustration of missing too often). 


My rolls are incredibly bad while the monsters' rolls are super good! What the hell?!

This is something that you will see in every game using true RNG. It is human nature to believe that after a series of poor rolls, you will be more likely to get lucky on your next one... but that's not the case. Sure, if you roll a million times the rolls will eventually even out - but if you roll just a mere 10 times, you can absolutely get nothing good. This is why many games use pseudo-RNG that will slowly increase your chances if you keep on failing, in order to reduce frustration. However, that's not what happens on Tabletop - which is why it's not something we've implemented in Solasta to start with.

To be perfectly clear, Solasta uses true RNG (pretty sure modders can look at our code to verify my claim) - but one thing that likely aggravates the belief of the player rolling worse than the monsters is due to a lot of players fighting in the darkness and thus rolling with disadvantage, which further increases the chances of getting a bad roll. We're hoping that the upcoming Lighting System changes which revert it to the Tabletop Ruleset will help lessen this belief that the dice rolls are skewed. We're also considering adding a difficulty setting called "Karmic Dice", which would add pseudo-random rolls as explained above (the more you fail, the more likely you are to get a better roll next).


Why am I getting a game over screen when a critical NPC gets downed? Can't they have death saves? Why can't I use my scroll of Revivify?

There are a couple of different issues here. In a technical sense, NPCs are considered monsters in Solasta, which is anything that's not a player character. They do not have inventories, they do not have personality flags, so on and so forth. As monsters do not have Death Saving Throws (and actually that the same on Tabletop),Critical NPCs are in the same boat and die immediately when downed. Now, we also know that on Tabletop your DM does not slam the table and yell "GAME OVER FOLKS" when an NPC die, no matter how important they were - because they can just start improvising when that happens (while slowly weeping as you just invalidated some 20 pages of quest they prepared for you, you monsters). So we're going to see if we can give Critical NPCs Death Saving Throws in the future, although we'll have to see if we have the time for that since it implies separating them from monsters.

The other issue is the scroll of Revivify. The way it works currently is that the character must be able to use the scroll in order for it to prevent a Game Over screen - so if the scroll is on your Fighter, go directly to Reload and do not collect $200. As a reminder, in 5e Tabletop the spell from the scroll must be part of your class's spell list for you to be able to cast it - meaning you're limited to Cleric and Paladin in Solasta. If we have the time, we'll change it so that the scroll is taken into account regardless of who's keeping it as long as you have a Paladin or a Cleric in your party (to avoid the mistake of giving the scroll to the wrong person coming to bite you). 


Why is the game so hard?! I'm getting destroyed by those flying snakes in Caer Lem!

Game difficulty is always a very touchy topic, because it depends a lot on who's playing. We had some players ask us for more challenging encounters, all the while we've had some refund the game because they just couldn't make it past Caer Lem. This issue stems from the fact that we don't have a difficulty option yet in the Early Access - and considering the amount of overall work and balancing we need to do during that period, we likely won't implement difficulty levels before the full 1.0 release.

As for the Flying Snakes, you might be surprised to know that they are actually official SRD monsters and we're just using their stat block. However after looking into it in more details, it is true that they feel very dangerous for mere CR 1/8 (25 XP) monsters - especially with their high damage variance, which can go anywhere from 2 to a whooping 13 damage in a single attack. For newer players that may have taken damage against goblins and haven't done a short rest, a single round with poor luck can easily wipe out their party. We will be lowering their damage to 2 - 9 to start with (1 + 2d4 instead of 1 + 3d4) and see if it helps. For our more hardcore fans out there do not worry about us making some part of the Early Access easier, you will still have plenty of fun with the harder difficulty levels at launch. 


What's the deal with food? The trips are long and the vendor in Caer Cyflen only has 10 rations available!

You'll be happy to know that the vendor has decided to stock up after seeing how many of you were coming to ask for more food - from the next update onwards, the number of rations in the store has increased from 10 to 99. You will mostly be limited by gold or weight if you decide to buy that many, but at least you'll be able to stock up as you want.

Another fix we've added to tackle the food issue is that the game will now prioritize food you've created and / or hunted before eating rations (it wasn't always the case before), so rations should only be consumed as a last resort. We've also added travel options to automatically cast and eat Goodberry and / or Create Food and Water before a long rest so that you don't have to micro-manage. Note that we've also made it so magically created temporary food disappear after a long rest to avoid stocking up on it - we know that RAW they should last for 24h, but it added too much clutter and work as you could end up with multiple stacks with different timestamps. Unfortunate as it is, you won't be able to convert your remaining spell slots into Goodberries before going to sleep!


Why do I not get XP when I talk my way out of a fight? I'm forced to face the boss at a lower level because I didn't murder my way through?

That's fixed in the upcoming update. Diplomacy will now give you as much XP as if you fought the encounter, so that you don't feel forced to take every fight just for the sake of optimizing your experience gain. Let's be honest, you need all the XP you can get before facing the new beefed up Madracht and his cronies.


Where is the Manacalon Rosary?

Poor Hugo Requer, no one ever visits his shop. Jokes aside, we understand that it was confusing for players that every crafting kit was available in the general shop with the exception of the Manacalon Rosary. In the upcoming update, the Manacalon Rosary will be available in the general shop next to the other crafting kits. Sorry Hugo, you needed to put a bit more effort into marketing, man. 


Spellblade Fighter, Shadowcaster Rogue and Rangers in general should be able to replace a spell when they level up

This is indeed correct according to RAW, however it's also one of those features which are very time-consuming to add and may (and I say may) not make the cut for the full release. It involves a lot of fringe cases and adding a system we haven't worked on yet, so we'll need to see if we still have the time after completing the more important part of the game. That being said, you may be aware that there will be a free post-launch Sorcerer DLC - a class which also benefits from such feature. If we can't have it in the 1.0 release, chances are we'll end up working on it for the Sorcerer DLC.


Why can't we revisit locations we've already cleared?

Unless there are very good reasons why, you should always be able to return to locations you've already visited. So far however we've had two different issues. First, in Caer Lem you could only revisit up to the broken fort because... well, there was simply no entrance to the Caer Lem Caves, making them inaccessible once you left them. Second, we've had a very annoying bug (that you may have ran into) that caused an infinite loading screen whenever you tried to return to Tower of Magic after completing its quest - effectively preventing you from setting foot there again. And considering that the third location (Necromancy) was the final level of the Early Access build, well... There wasn't anything else to revisit, eh? 

Both those issues should be fixed for the next update. Go back and grab those treasures you couldn't before!


Can we get get an option to adjust how long the dice remain visible on screen?

This requests falls in the "quality of life and other option settings" bucket - meaning we'll work on it once we get to the polish stage if we get the time. Seriously though, that means we've noted it down in our backlog. It's there. It exists. I promise. 


Can we get the battlelog to show the rolls of every dice and not just the D20 ones?

Same as above! We'll get to it if we have the time, but we understand that people may want to check what they rolled exactly to curse twice as loud when they realize they rolled three 1 and a 2 on a 4d8 roll. Curse you RNG gods!


Well folks, we made it. You made it. What I mean is, you made it possible. And we made the game. Okay let's stop here it's getting hella confusing and my head hurts. Long story short, we are in the Top Steam Releases of October 2020! So thank you, each and everyone of you, for supporting us. 


MOM, GET THE CAMERA!

For those who may have missed the Launch Discount, we'll also be participating in the Steam Autumn Sales starting later today - so it's a perfect time to join in the fun if you were still on the fence! Oh and if you really love us, do you know what you could do? Nominate us for a Steam Award. Who knows, on a series of consecutive natural 20s it might just work. What do you mean I can't roll to seduce the dragon?


Alright folks, this is the end for today! Thank you for reading, and don't hesitate to drop by our Forums or our Discord Server.

Read our previous articles here:

• TL;DR #9: A New Lighting System
• https://www.solasta-game.com/news/96-solasta-early-access-date-reveal-october-20th-2020Dev Update #23 - Winter Patch Preview
• Solasta - Streaming / Let's Play Policy

Article by Tactical Myzzrym