Starting out: use Unfinished Business or no?

[LosMonstruos]

About to play Solasta for the first time. Should I install Unfinished Business first, or should I play it vanilla for the first time? I'm a 5e player looking for a more-or-less faithful rendition of 5e rules, so I'd just be using UB for QOL tweaks and things that fit that bill. If I should use UB, what options should I enable?

[Harag]

Personally I prefer to play the first play through as the designers designed it, then mod the game, otherwise you might not know which mods to use or not.

I've not used UB though but heard it mentioned a few times. It's really up to you. Look at what the mod does, how much you can turn on/off (if that is possible) and then decide. e.g. Multi classing etc.

Since the game campaign are not designed with multi class in mind then your party might be a little Over powered if you do use the mod, so you might need to up the difficulty. This is the reason I like to do a play through unmodded to get a feel of it first.

Either way you choose, choose wisely and enjoy!

[Frostfeather]

Absolutely yes 100%.

Respec is a game changer for many reasons, but a big one is that as a new player, you don't yet know the intricacies of how TA decided to implement things in Solasta. If you make a "mistake" with a character, you can undo that very easily.

Multiclassing may appeal to you as well if you're familiar with 5e already. And many of the subclasses are blatant copies of existing 5e ones if you have some that you like that aren't in the base game (I love Divine Soul aka Divine Heart Sorcerer personally).

The rest depends on how you like to play. Some of the UB classes/Feats are objectively overpowered for the main campaign, but if you're using this stuff for more rp reasons, you should be fine.

[Dallas S]

I'd say go for it. The unfinished business mod adds a bunch of official feats, spells and subclasses (though with name changes and some very slight changes to some of the classes to avoid lawsuits from wotc). Also multi classing

[LosMonstruos]

Thanks, very helpful! Are there QOL things aside from respecing that improve the experience?

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by LosMonstruos:

Thanks, very helpful! Are there QOL things aside from respecing that improve the experience?

Yeah, there's tons of stuff. The interface/camera options especially. And I've used it to spawn missing quest items before.

Some of it is more personal preference type features like appearance options and ways to reduce repeated prompts in combat. Some of it regards different interpretations of rules.

You should take a look on GitHub or just install it and browse through.

[DeMasked]

I've played the first campaign without mods and 4 person multiplayer. I also played the same campaign with Unfinished Business using 6 characters controlled by 3 players.

Imo UB with 4 characters is a great upgrade because you get a lot more balance changes, feats, subclasses, classes, races, items, etc... 6 characters the game can get a bit janky at times at least for the first campaign.

After going with Unfinished Business I will never go back to classic ever. Currently with the 2nd group on Multiplayer we're doing Lost Valley campaign with 6 characters on cataclysm - might tweak the enemy stats in some ways.

[THAC0]

Originally posted by LosMonstruos:

About to play Solasta for the first time. Should I install Unfinished Business first, or should I play it vanilla for the first time? I'm a 5e player looking for a more-or-less faithful rendition of 5e rules, so I'd just be using UB for QOL tweaks and things that fit that bill. If I should use UB, what options should I enable?

base game then mods this way you know what it changed and what to add in the future.

[Harag]

Originally posted by DeMasked:

I've played the first campaign without mods and 4 person multiplayer. I also played the same campaign with Unfinished Business using 6 characters controlled by 3 players.

Imo UB with 4 characters is a great upgrade because you get a lot more balance changes, feats, subclasses, classes, races, items, etc... 6 characters the game can get a bit janky at times at least for the first campaign.ty

After going with Unfinished Business I will never go back to classic ever. Currently with the 2nd group on Multiplayer we're doing Lost Valley campaign with 6 characters on cataclysm - might tweak the enemy stats in some ways.

Great to hear you are enjoying UB mod... Got a question for you (apologies for hijacking this thread)

Regarding MP of the game, do you have many sync, duplicated items, lost items etc type of issues? we've found MP so frustrating we nearly gave it up, but might after current campaign. it's just frustrating as hell.

[Frostfeather]

I never had any issues in multiplayer at all. I know others have said they have though.

[Harag]

Originally posted by night4:

I never had any issues in multiplayer at all. I know others have said they have though.

Strange, we're constantly getting them.

[Dallas S]

Originally posted by night4:

I never had any issues in multiplayer at all. I know others have said they have though.

The key to multiplayer and the mod, is that all players need to have all the exact same settings in the mod. Easiest way to do this is to send all the other players your settings.xml file and get them to replace theirs with yours

[Dani Mcfly]

YES. Unfinished Business will Improve the Experience.

[jsnider193]

use UB and only issue have had is the more then 4 in the party. When get to the apartment that the princess gives u in the game the blue exit can only accommodate 4 characters. I run 5 so have not yet figured out how to leave the area and the game forces me into the place to proceed with the rest of the game. May be my head space is problem here but have yet to find a solution to get out.

Everything else in the UB mod have selected has really improved the game in my view.

[LosMonstruos]

Originally posted by night4:

Originally posted by LosMonstruos:

Thanks, very helpful! Are there QOL things aside from respecing that improve the experience?

Yeah, there's tons of stuff. The interface/camera options especially. And I've used it to spawn missing quest items before.

Some of it is more personal preference type features like appearance options and ways to reduce repeated prompts in combat. Some of it regards different interpretations of rules.

You should take a look on GitHub or just install it and browse through.

Ahaha I just finally started playing, without UB. How is the camera so floaty? Hilarious.

[DeMasked]

Originally posted by Harag:

Great to hear you are enjoying UB mod... Got a question for you (apologies for hijacking this thread)

Regarding MP of the game, do you have many sync, duplicated items, lost items etc type of issues? we've found MP so frustrating we nearly gave it up, but might after current campaign. it's just frustrating as hell.

Yes the game can be janky on MP. Classic campaign without mods we had to switch hosts and even then we had some janky moments like duped items, lost items, etc - I think it has to do with cinematic cut scenes going on when someone is interacting with something like an item - so just be sure to communicate when people are done trading and so on before advancing.

The mod can potentially add problems depending on the mod version since it is being updated every once in awhile. However it IS being updated and problems seem to get resolved and checking the patch notes is important - the benefits of UB far outweigh any negative imo.