Does everyone have their backpack ready? Ration check? Alright, it’s time to head out into the wild unknown! Join us today on a trek to discover Solasta II’s World Map - and the vast freedom of exploration you will enjoy (especially compared to Crown of the Magister). Let’s go!
To adventure we go, follow Emji and fortune will follow! (possibly. maybe.)
A whole new World
A new fantastic point of view! Alright alright, let’s stop lest we anger the great rodent god from beyond. Although we revealed Solasta II’s brand new world map on stream a few weeks ago, we wanted to do a little deep dive for those who might not have been here to listen to us yapping for almost 2 hours about it. Behold!
Oh boy, where do we even start! If you played Solasta: Crown of the Magister, you’re already seeing a lot of differences with the first game. First is the fact that the world map is now in 3D, and no longer a 2D illustration upon which the party travels. Which allows us to do this!
You can zoom in quite far to appreciate each landmark you come across and get a slight idea of what’s awaiting you inside if you enter. Forests have trees, coasts have sand, and most importantly - you are no longer limited to traveling from location A to location B. That’s right, this is a hex-based map that you can uncover one tile at a time!
That’s also why you’re seeing a Movement bar on the bottom of the screen - with 4 Regular Move points, and 4 Forced March points. Depending on the terrain you’re crossing, you will burn a different amount of movement points - forcing you to take more time when not sticking to the roads between major settlements.
As you can see here when hovering the neighbouring tile, you are informed of the type of terrain as well as its movement cost (Grassland, 2 points). It’s also warning you that attempting to move will trigger Forced March, which is a nasty condition that can really ruin your day if you happen to get into a fight while exhausted!
As you can see here, after moving through two different tiles under Forced March, some of my party members gained a level of exhaustion, decreasing the result of all their D20 rolls by 2. One even gained two levels, meaning they’re getting a -4 penalty! If that wasn’t enough, they also move slower in combat by 5 feet per level of exhaustion.
But what’s this? Is it night time?
It absolutely is! When moving under Forced March, you will no longer be traveling under the sun and will be relying on the stars to guide you instead. This means encounters could get more dangerous… Is it really a risk you’re willing to take in order to save time and food rations?
World Map Events
Remember when we showed you Random Encounter Maps and told you that you might come across these small combat arenas during your travels? Well, the good news is - Solasta II does not limit its World Map Events to combat encounters!
When roaming the map, you have a chance to stumble upon random events. Some of them only appear under certain conditions, such as being confined to a particular biome, time of day or even depending on the outcome of some previous encounters - which makes exploration that much more interesting!
In this example, you can see that during Forced March (since we’re at night), our party has spotted a kettle of vultures circling the skies. You have several different options to choose from, some of which may result in combat!
Here we decide to roll a Perception check to learn more about the situation. Uh oh, turns out these might not be “just vultures”. Had we approached immediately, we could have been in some serious trouble. Maybe we should just steer away for the night, and not risk a combat encounter while exhausted.
Some of you may have noticed that our little scene here takes place in the forest - that’s because our party is currently traveling through a forest tile! Had it been a coastal tile, or a grassland tile, the background wouldn’t be the same. We have made several little scenes in each biome to give random events a little more life as you travel, so you get to see your party not only during fights but also while they roam the lands.
Alright, that’s it for today! As we’re creeping closer to the release of Early Access, we’re back to a steadier rhythm of two news per month - so expect more from us very soon. Don’t think our Galaxies Trailer is all we were going to give you!
Article by Tactical Myzzrym
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2975950/Solasta_II/
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