Level 12 cap?

[T-Dax]

Love the game, but I'm near the end of the campaign and found out about the level 12 cap, which feels like a kick in the junk. Are there more campaigns or expansions that let you get to level 20?

[T-Dax]

It's not really that hard to prepare high level encounters. Yes, there's less variety in monsters, but you make up for it with other characters with character levels. It's not like the game has a huge list of enemies to begin with (understandably) either.

I don't want to judge 5E as a whole since I've never played it, but I'm starting to think it's not a great system for video games. I can see where the system might work in table top D&D and make the DM's job easier, but when I play a video game I want constant rewards, and a helmet that lets me understand all languages isn't going to do it, especially since I never even had a need to use it. There's been so many good CRPGs over the recent years and they're all able to handle a constant stream of loot without breaking the game.

[Grumpy Old Dude]

Origineel geplaatst door JustinCredible:

There's been so many good CRPGs over the recent years and they're all able to handle a constant stream of loot without breaking the game.

Translation: I am spoiled, and you must cater to my whims!

[T-Dax]

Origineel geplaatst door Grumpy Old Dude:

Origineel geplaatst door JustinCredible:

There's been so many good CRPGs over the recent years and they're all able to handle a constant stream of loot without breaking the game.

Translation: I am spoiled, and you must cater to my whims!

Man, some of you guys get awfully salty when someone disagrees with you. What is it you guys like so much about this game that makes you respond that way? Is it the dungeon maker?

[LJ-the-brave]

Origineel geplaatst door JustinCredible:

Origineel geplaatst door Grumpy Old Dude:

Translation: I am spoiled, and you must cater to my whims!

Man, some of you guys get awfully salty when someone disagrees with you. What is it you guys like so much about this game that makes you respond that way? Is it the dungeon maker?

He is called Grumpy for obvious reasons. Though he is wise with many points to give.

[mk11]

You do get a constant stream of loot in Solasta, but a lot of it is potions, scrolls, and other one use items. There is a tendency to always save that for when things are worse.

Table top tends to be slower gaining levels in part because a lot of fun time is spent in party-interactions that do not give experience.

[Cartesian Duelist]

Origineel geplaatst door JustinCredible:

I don't want to judge 5E as a whole since I've never played it, but I'm starting to think it's not a great system for video games.

It really isn't great for video games specifically because of all the points you brought up. Video games have conditioned people to expect loot explosions from every boss and a constant stream of minor character advancements as they level up over 60ish levels. D&D 5e really isn't designed that way so it's no surprise that many people can't get used to it.

[Grumpy Old Dude]

Origineel geplaatst door JustinCredible:

Origineel geplaatst door Grumpy Old Dude:

Translation: I am spoiled, and you must cater to my whims!

Man, some of you guys get awfully salty when someone disagrees with you. What is it you guys like so much about this game that makes you respond that way? Is it the dungeon maker?

More like you see the same complaints, over and over and over again, and the stuff being complained about, was never hidden by the devs. If you dont bother to look into what a game does or doesnt offer, then whine about something it does or doesnt do (when that something is easily identified beforehand), the whining is terribly reminiscent of a 6 yr old.

TA originally announced the lvl cap at 10. Then when they adjusted it upward, in response to player complaints, that too was publicly announced and never hidden. If you expected lvl 20...shame on you. If you dont bother to look into something before buying, shame on you. Own it.

[T-Dax]

Origineel geplaatst door Cartesian Duelist:

Origineel geplaatst door JustinCredible:

I don't want to judge 5E as a whole since I've never played it, but I'm starting to think it's not a great system for video games.

It really isn't great for video games specifically because of all the points you brought up. Video games have conditioned people to expect loot explosions from every boss and a constant stream of minor character advancements as they level up over 60ish levels. D&D 5e really isn't designed that way so it's no surprise that many people can't get used to it.

I don't really think it's something you get used to though, you kind of need that for a video game. The real fun from tabletop RPGs comes from your interactions with the other people and the actual role playing, but you just don't have anything like that in a game like this. If the game was doing something truly amazing and different (like maybe Dark Souls), then I would cut it some slack in the loot department, but if we're being totally honest, this game really doesn't do anything exceptionally well outside of giving us a faithful combat engine.

Origineel geplaatst door Grumpy Old Dude:

Origineel geplaatst door JustinCredible:

Man, some of you guys get awfully salty when someone disagrees with you. What is it you guys like so much about this game that makes you respond that way? Is it the dungeon maker?

More like you see the same complaints, over and over and over again, and the stuff being complained about, was never hidden by the devs. If you dont bother to look into what a game does or doesnt offer, then whine about something it does or doesnt do (when that something is easily identified beforehand), the whining is terribly reminiscent of a 6 yr old.

TA originally announced the lvl cap at 10. Then when they adjusted it upward, in response to player complaints, that too was publicly announced and never hidden. If you expected lvl 20...shame on you. If you dont bother to look into something before buying, shame on you. Own it.

Eh, I didn't even know about the game until I saw it on Steam a couple months ago, so I wasn't following announcements. I read some Steam reviews, and they generally seemed positive, so I went for it. I don't really regret it either, I'm just sharing my opinion. Even if it wasn't a D&D based game though, I'd feel the same way. It just feels unfinished, and underwhelming.

[Cartesian Duelist]

Origineel geplaatst door JustinCredible:

I don't really think it's something you get used to though, you kind of need that for a video game.

I don't fully agree with this, but it's a valid opinion. I think the reason people believe that you need that in a video game is because people have become used to getting that from a video game. People have been conditioned to getting a steady dose of minor character upgrades spread out over a long period so now everybody thinks that you need to have that in order to have fun. I don't see it that way, but that's just me.

[nstepak]

There are enough monsters in the Open Game License and Items listed to make higher level campaigns. There are a few higher level campaigns, Vel Ode to Yendor, Vel King of the Hill, and Silverquick Ruins of Ilthismar. The way to get around level caps is to use manuals like Manuals of Gainful Exercise or other stat boosting items or manuals. belts like Belt of Giant Strength, Circlets like Circlet of Intelligence. There are also some fairly high level items like Staff of Fire, Cloak of Displacement, Dragon Blade, Lightning Bow and Frostburn Heavy Crossbow. Plus some of the high level scrolls are still pretty effective. Legendary creatures can also be used in pairs or with allies. This leads to end game content where your high level characters have very strong attributes and gear. There were some earlier level 10 dungeons which were the end point which you can't use if you are level 12. Some would consider this cheating. It is more like, there are no more levels. Would like to play some higher level campaigns, 14-20. Could easily do it.

I like power gaming, testing the limits of a game like this. A lot of people like very challenging modules. I have been playing Knights of the Chalice 2 which has very high level characters and lots of loot, but almost no modules.

Also, there are quite a few critters that have not been brought out, eight headed hydras, phoenixes, djinn, rocs, medusas (things that turn party members to stone) and other creatures. There are a variety of poisons which are listed which have not been used extensively in modules which the characters can make.

The monsters with rare exceptions have not done any really challenging spell casting that often, things like insect plague and cloudkill, paired fireballs, or even cone of cold. There is also no web spell which surprises me.

In addition, there could be higher level spells, up to level 9 spells which could be used in modules. Would like to see some of the higher level druid and green mage spells.

Another issue with Level 12+ is that campaigns are not sorted by level. On the side bar, in the workshop tab, there is an indicator for 1-5, 6-10, then 10+, but none of the mods have been sorted by level. It might be nice to see some of the campaigns sorted by level. I would add another category 1-12 complete campaign.

Link to maxed out Level 12 character after Ode to Yendor
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2736254263

Here is another one. It is about the maximum that can be gone right now.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2735924725

[T-Dax]

Origineel geplaatst door Cartesian Duelist:

Origineel geplaatst door JustinCredible:

I don't really think it's something you get used to though, you kind of need that for a video game.

I don't fully agree with this, but it's a valid opinion. I think the reason people believe that you need that in a video game is because people have become used to getting that from a video game. People have been conditioned to getting a steady dose of minor character upgrades spread out over a long period so now everybody thinks that you need to have that in order to have fun. I don't see it that way, but that's just me.

It doesn't even need to be constant loot, like DIablo for instance, but I definitely want more than they give you. I'm at the end of the game and the coolest piece of gear I have is the cloak that gives me spider climb (which is pretty awesome), other than that it's some of the blandest gear possible. I have some +1 weapons (one +2 even), some rings that reduce poison damage, a couple items that increase strength (I'm actually really surprised how easily 5E allows you to increase strength), a couple other odds and ends that improves saves or checks, and a few that allow me to cast some low level spells.

At this point it's such a minor factor in the game that I'm pretty sure I could drop all my magical stuff for plain gear and not even notice a difference, which apparently is the point in 5E, but I have to wonder if it's not possible to come up with some more interesting gear that doesn't violate the design decisions of 5E. It doesn't help either that I'm finding the leveling boring (mostly due to feats feeling bland and not allowing for a lot of specialization), but it may be that I just don't have a good enough grasp of character building in 5E yet.

[Cartesian Duelist]

Origineel geplaatst door JustinCredible:

At this point it's such a minor factor in the game that I'm pretty sure I could drop all my magical stuff for plain gear and not even notice a difference, which apparently is the point in 5E, but I have to wonder if it's not possible to come up with some more interesting gear that doesn't violate the design decisions of 5E. It doesn't help either that I'm finding the leveling boring (mostly due to feats feeling bland and not allowing for a lot of specialization), but it may be that I just don't have a good enough grasp of character building in 5E yet.

5e was specifically designed to scale way back on the power bloat that 3.x became. It was designed in a way that even a party of 20th level characters could do just fine without a single magic item. Having magic items certainly makes life easier, but they also have been scaled back to provide less mechanical advantage than in previous editions. I don't mind so much because most of 3.x was just number creep with no real reason behind it. Monsters started being made with 50 AC because people were making characters with +47 attack bonus. It's just an arms race at that point with people min/maxing the fun out of the game (in my opinion). People min/maxing in 5e pretty much insist on being able to multiclass since that's where the real skill synergies come into play.

So yeah, 5e is a more bland version of D&D when compared to 3.x no question. Add to that the fact that TA only got license to use the SRD, and you have only the bland bits of the bland version. Personally, I prefer it because I wasn't impressed with the power bloat of 3.x, but 5e certainly isn't for everyone.

[nstepak]

There are definitely some unique abilities which certain classes have. I like the green mage because of their ability to entangle creatures with bows, cast entangle and other crowd control spells for example. Rather than having super powered magic items, some more thoughtful items might be made available, wand of entanglement, shield of the sun (casts daylight 1/day), platemail of cold resistance, staff of shielding, finesse short sword, magic lockpicks +2, potion bottle +2 herbalism, etc.

[Nephtem]

Doing higher level campaign is possible on paper yes, but since this is a small studio making Solasta, every bit of extra content is more strain on the budget. Everything need to fit a higher level campaign, game systems, spells, enemies, story, quests, archetypes, voice over etc etc. It's not that it's "hard" but it has a cost to implement everything. So I'm not holding my breath for it, might happen "soon" based on the survey so we'll see.

Possible bypass would be to have more support on the dungeon maker, user content has always pushed games to new heights.

As for powercreep/power bloat... Well I think it's good that solasta has this niche of avoiding it. We already have pathfinder games on steam that fully embrace the power fantasy. I played pathfinder:wotr and this is the polar opposite; extreme character customization, highly impactful itemization, lots of synergy/combo. With the drawback that between someone knowledgeable and someone not, the performance gap is very large. You either feel like hitting 90 AC is simple or impossible for instance. Difficulty is highly customable that said. I enjoyed it too but for high difficulty (unfair/hard), you sink a lot of time in theorycraft and preparation, same for story choices.

[nstepak]

People are already trying to do workarounds with the modules. The latest one to try to do this is the Lich King module. There are also player mods which allow for higher level characters. There is an interest. I think it is more likely as more DLCs are put out that there will be higher level content. A year from now after two more DLCs people might be at level 14-16 to keep the game goiing. And two years from now, 16-20. It might be part of planned progression over the next three years, not immediate, but stepped increases.