KickStarter Solasta: Crown of the Magister Thread - now with Palace of Ice sequel DLC

[Grunker]

The party banter and interactions are pretty good, don't get all the hate directed at them. The story doesn't take itself too seriously, so it fits quite well.

They're fairly poorly written but I love the system. And I really love the skill rolls like Arcana checks and such, they really make you feel like you're P&Ping. It's a shame there aren't more of the really good ones like the one in the first ruin where you get a Faction item if you succeed on a check. That stuff was really great.

It's what I mean when I say I love the game's system. There's hardly one mechanic I don't really, really like.

 

[mindx2]

Don't really know why but this game just hasn't "hooked" me yet. I play through one combat encounter then turn it off. I don't think about it until a few days later then load it up and play another short time, usually just one more encounter then walk away again then repeat. Games I enjoy (or even are just okay) make we want to keep going just a little while longer then suddenly it's way too late at night. This one... eh, just doesn't grab me. The "story" just seems generic and there to get you to the next encounter. It isn't interesting at all, no sense of exploration or mystery. At least none that are memorable as I sit here and am trying to remember what the "plot" is besides you're hired by some coalition is some generic city. The encounters themselves seem simple with me just trying to angle my shots or spells to target enemies crawling around on the pillars, walls, ladders, etc. I came in with no preconceptions except thinking the verticality thing would be fun... but it's just... not. Maybe it gets better later on as admittedly I'm not very far into it.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I love that codexers are actually cynical enough to think projects like Solasta are made with profit as the primary motivation. They wouldn't have made fucking Solasta were that the case lol

Of course not, but once something is profitable, or at least generates enough money to make more games, expand the team, invest into more assets, etc, the obvious question is do we stay the course or do we start fucking with what 90% of the audience doesn't consider broken.

As an addendum, I once did an interview with the Expeditions-developers (Logic Artists) about why they cared about such a niche-site as the Codex. They said a pretty significant portion of their sales came from sites like this, and the Codex specifically was a big part of it. And it makes sense, doesn't it - if you're such a superfucking nerd you actually buy games like Solasta and Expeditions, odds are you also hang out on sites like the Codex.

EDIT: Maybe Vault Dweller can support or undermine this point

Naturally, but the reception is a factor. Expedition: Conquistadors has 928 reviews, 78%, so the team is forced to deviate from the formula instead of improving it. Expedition: Vikings has 2,330 reviews, 84%, enough to be noticed by THQ, not enough to say no. Solasta has 6,000 reviews, 90%. By the end of the year they'd have over 10k reviews, which means massively successful by the indie standards. They'd have to be stupid to make any changes to the formula now, regardless of what sites they visit or what they thought of what they started working on the game.

 

[Salvo]

I love that codexers are actually cynical enough to think projects like Solasta are made with profit as the primary motivation. They wouldn't have made fucking Solasta were that the case lol

I'd say profit is the end goal of any game developer that is such as a their primary profession, since you know, you need to eat

 

[Grunker]

Of course profit is part of it but if money is all you're interested in you don't make Solasta. You make some shitty flash games for soccer moms

 

[Lacrymas]

I don't think anyone can accuse Solasta of being primarily profit-driven. Some of the decisions are mind-boggling, though - full voice-over, live orchestra, 3D.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I see harder difficulty being patched into successful games fairly often, even Breath of the Wild got it. It's safer than balance changes.

 

[copebot]

The criticism of Solasta that it veers between trivial encounters and tough, tricky ones is an accurate one.

What are these tricky fights?

Load it up and fight Kangaxx with your current meta knowledge

What is my metaknowledge of Solasta? I have none. Zip. Nada. Zilch. I rolled a very suboptimal party (my main frontline strength-based damage dealer has 16 strength on level 7 because I refuse to use the overpowered belts, my Wizard has trash spells and none of the hard hitters like Scorching Ray) and am playing the game completely blind, yet I did the entirety of Master's Fortress *both outside and inside* in one straight go, never resting and never reloading a single time.

And Mortmal's strawman that I'm posturing is hilariously dumb. I am really not that great at these games. Dungeon of Naheulbeuk must have broken my personal reload-record. I only ever beat Llengrath once on Path of the Damned and the fight ended with all my characters down except Aloth on one (*1*) hp. I still have yet to complete X-COM on higher difficulties.

Obviously despite our best efforts this debate is going to be based alot on experience. And my lack of reloading is key here, it's the fundamental reason I'm wondering whether Solasta might be the easiest RPG I've ever played. I always play games on high difficulties, but since I'm fairly shit and don't read many guides, what ends up happening is I reload alot.

I can't remember reloading once since level 2 in Solasta. Not a single time. The vampire in the castle downed my fighter three times during the fight primarily because I messed around dealing with the Darkness spell for far too long, but since the player still has so many advantages I still won the fight. Since then I haven't had anyone go down.

That's crazy.

I'm not fully done with the game yet. Maybe I'll reload a fight later. But no matter what I'm fairly certain I've never tried a cRPG that seems to demand so little.

I would have happily traded all the dialogue in the entire game (except for the line about orcs being like "dwarves, but worse") for a better random encounter system and more in depth adventure mechanics. Dialogue and story are plagues on the genre. If just half of storyfags learned what a 'book' was, developers would no longer feel the need to cater to their stupid and unfulfillable wishes.

I may disagree with your opinion on Solasta's difficulty - but you, sir, are a scholar and a gentleman

The tricky fights are the green dragon and Aksha. There are no other tricky fights, unless you count the red spiders in the forest.

Naheulbeueekekek is definitely harder than Solasta, although I might be skewed in that one because I played the former on the hardest difficulty. X-Com is way harder on classic or higher and so is X-Com 2.

IMO your impression of it being "the easiest" may be related to the last act of the game, which is rightly criticized for being totally trivial. It doesn't really make sense that the final encounter is easier than the dragon encounter. You fight monsters that you fought in some of the first encounters in the final one. How does that make any sense...?

I thought overall it was an enjoyable RPG if only because of the tabletop adaptation and the fact that you could make a party. I also liked the adaptation better than the BG3 early access. After the Aksha fight they really let the level curve get out of control compared to what they were putting in the encounters.

 

[Parabalus]

There are no other tricky fights, unless you count the red spiders in the forest.

This is def a good one, if you don't meta you get surrounded by 4 spiders with 3x attacks and >120 HP who are in the tree tops.

 

[Vault Dweller]

There are no other tricky fights, unless you count the red spiders in the forest.

This is def a good one, if you don't meta you get surrounded by 4 spiders with 3x attacks and >120 HP who are in the tree tops.

Cast the square firewall, enjoy the bbq.

 

[copebot]

There are no other tricky fights, unless you count the red spiders in the forest.

This is def a good one, if you don't meta you get surrounded by 4 spiders with 3x attacks and >120 HP who are in the tree tops.

That's what happened to me. I thought that they were going to be melee enemies, so I casted firewall and spirit guardians. They just kept pelting me with their fluids, so I had to cancel the fire wall and run off to a corner where a couple of the spiders were. It took a lot of healing and smacking around from my paladin with a spider climbing item, but I managed to grind through them without deaths.

Part of the issue with D&D difficulty is that the P&P game is "ironman difficulty" by default with the option to roll new characters when members die or the whole party dies. It's not balanced for quickload. A tense situation in an ironman game is a snoozer in a quickload game. All the CR guidelines in the DMG are based on the assumption that you are not just going to fudge dice or restart the encounter if characters die. That also shows the issue with just slapping on an ironman difficulty and calling it a day. With Solasta the CRs of the encounters are generally weaker than DMG guidelines, plus there's quickload. So, some of that is fixable for this game: just upping the monster count and changing around the encounters. You could even add in some minor level scaling by just slapping down another version of the encounter for higher level parties. The fundamental part about changing D&D from a game in which character death is expected and supported to something which generates a Game Over is not something that can be easily fixed: that's a core design mistake that also happens to be very common among CRPG developers.

 

[Parabalus]

There are no other tricky fights, unless you count the red spiders in the forest.

This is def a good one, if you don't meta you get surrounded by 4 spiders with 3x attacks and >120 HP who are in the tree tops.

Cast the square firewall, enjoy the bbq.

They have ranged attacks and kept sitting at the top of the trees.

Did you have the advanced AI disabled?
Maybe that's the difference, for me they didn't move into melee at all, had to get them with fly.

 

[Harthwain]

I don't think anyone can accuse Solasta of being primarily profit-driven. Some of the decisions are mind-boggling, though - full voice-over, live orchestra, 3D.

Are they though? Full voice-over and 3D is an industry standard by now.

 

[Lacrymas]

Are they though? Full voice-over and 3D is an industry standard by now.

There are a lot of indie games which don't feature these things, and by all accounts I'd say Solasta is an indie game. Maybe they are an industry standard in AA+ games, but ...they shouldn't be. I don't know, I simply don't enjoy full voice over in 99% of cases in games. Only super cinematic games should feature it as a baseline because having a character stare at the fourth wall while you are trying to read a text isn't the most elegant way to go about doing things in this context. But Solasta? I'd say it turned out objectively worse due to this. It not only showcases the uncanny valley models, but it also assaults you with cutscenes every 3 seconds and it siphoned the obviously limited budget. It looks and feels spread too thin at first glance, and when you actually sit down and play it your first impression gets confirmed.

I have no doubt Solasta would've turned out more beautiful and playable if it was 2D and had limited/no voice-over, and no live orchestra. The only thing which is debatable is the 2D thing, afaik most programmers/artists don't get training in 2D anymore, so it might actually be more expensive to produce, but I honestly have no idea.

 

[Grunker]

The tricky fights are the green dragon and Aksha. There are no other tricky fights, unless you count the red spiders in the forest.

Then it is hardly correct to state that the game "veers between". More accuractly it is piss easy in general but has two fights that cannot be auto-piloted.

Naheulbeueekekek

I will never be able to unsee this spelling

IMO your impression of it being "the easiest" may be related to the last act of the game, which is rightly criticized for being totally trivial.

Nope - like I said, I didn't reload fights from level 2-3 onwards. This is very atypical for me in RPGs.

Part of the issue with D&D difficulty is that the P&P game is "ironman difficulty" by default with the option to roll new characters when members die or the whole party dies. It's not balanced for quickload

Again - when the issue is that the game demands no reloads, it is hard to use these excuses which are actually relevant for most other RPGs

if only because of the tabletop adaptation and the fact that you could make a party. I also liked the adaptation better than the BG3 early access

I agree with this very much, but not only that. I like almost every system in the game. It's just not very enjoyable to play despite all that and the difficulty is the main culprit

 

[copebot]

The tricky fights are the green dragon and Aksha. There are no other tricky fights, unless you count the red spiders in the forest.

Then it is hardly correct to state that the game "veers between". More accuractly it is piss easy in general but has two fights that cannot be auto-piloted.

Naheulbeueekekek

I will never be able to unsee this spelling

IMO your impression of it being "the easiest" may be related to the last act of the game, which is rightly criticized for being totally trivial.

Nope - like I said, I didn't reload fights from level 2-3 onwards. This is very atypical for me in RPGs.

Part of the issue with D&D difficulty is that the P&P game is "ironman difficulty" by default with the option to roll new characters when members die or the whole party dies. It's not balanced for quickload

Again - when the issue is that the game demands no reloads, it is hard to use these excuses which are actually relevant for most other RPGs

if only because of the tabletop adaptation and the fact that you could make a party. I also liked the adaptation better than the BG3 early access

I agree with this very much, but not only that. I like almost every system in the game. It's just not very enjoyable to play despite all that and the difficulty is the main culprit

Consider that per the 5E DMG a 10th level party is supposed to kill through 9,000 experience worth of monsters before taking a long rest per character. So, for the 4 in the party, that makes for 36k gross experience. In Solasta unless you went out of your way not to rest, you would really struggle to reach that 9,000 per character marker before going to the map screen and being forced to long rest anyway. The encounters tend to cap out at around 5,400 experience, which would be considered a "Hard" encounter for a full party of level 10s. Then you also in many of those encounters get an additional 1-2 party members, which makes those encounters below trivial.

I think the Remorhaz encounter uses the MM table for their stats, that comes out to a total experience of 10,800, and that is considered to be a "Hard" encounter counting the ranger hireling that they give you. But that "Hard" label is assuming that you are going to be fighting around 34,200 XP worth of monsters that same day. Which you don't. If you did have to, you might need to expend some items and other things to clinch through the attrition. I think that the Solasta devs probably looked at the "Medium/Hard/Deadly" tables and thought that it was meant to be considered in isolation rather than part of a leg of an adventure in which attrition is a serious concern and indeed the main part of the game's strategy layer. The DM is supposed to intervene to prevent the party from slicing the adventuring day into 10-30% of what it's supposed to be.

In a lot of situations you can't even say that the fiction wouldn't support it. "We lay down to rest in the deadly poison forest after beating one encounter. OK, you wake up to the chittering of 30 giant spiders. You are surprised. Roll initiative. Suck my dick."

If you allow rest spamming in a D&D adaptation, you would have to make all the encounters at least 1.5x-2x "Deadly" to compensate. That's not a good solution. CRPGs that try to adapt D&D tend to constantly run in to this issue.

You can plug in Solasta encounters to this tool and it will spit out the numbers per the DMG tables: http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

 

[jungl]

Well solasta could definitely mix up the formula. DnD PC games are too simplistic. Combat and character building is usually what they all about. I thought kingmaker would be different with its city building but that turned out even more basic and shit then free games you can play on facebook. There is a goldmine out there in innovation for this genre of gaming out there somewhere.

 

[The_Mask]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1096530/view/2976298542489916314
I have no idea if this was posted, since people kinda stopped caring about this...

Solasta Sorcerer Update dropping hot on July 13th!
Hey there folks,


We're happy to finally share with you the release date of the Sorcerer Update, coming in next week on Tuesday July 13th! The Sorcerer Update will not only bring a new playable class to the Solastan roster, but also several new environments for the Dungeon Maker and a plethora of bug fixes and improves. But before that... Let's go back to the good ol' habits of our Dev Updates!

And by good habits I mean cat pictures. Can't go wrong with 'em.


The Sorcerer is finally here!

As promised during our Kickstarter,
the Sorcerer is coming for free next week to Solasta - with three archetypes to choose from
! Sorcerers are powerful spellcasters with the innate ability to cast magic using their Charisma attribute. While they do not know as many spells as a Wizard would, they more than make up for that with their ability to twist their spells thanks to their Metamagic feature. The three available subclasses are:

• Draconic Sorcerer
  : Draconic Sorcerers’ powerful magic comes from their bloodline, which they claim can be traced back to powerful dragons of ancient times.
• Mana Painter
  : Mana Painters were born out of the mana starvation that followed the Cataclysm, with some individuals suddenly gaining the innate ability to drain magic and use it as their own.
• Child of the Rift
  : When the opening of the Rift forced a new magic brought by the gods of Tirmar into Solasta, those most deeply affected by it were named the Children of the Rift.

Fireball is the question. The answer is yes.


Ironman Mode, DM Update & Other Bugfixes
The Sorcerer is not the only thing coming up in this update.
Ironman Mode is making its way to Solasta
, experts and masochists rejoice as the game mercilessly grinds your save file to dust when you run into a gamer over. At the same time, you will also gain access to
three new environments in the Dungeon Maker
, each with their own set of props and gadgets. Lastly, we've also done a
whole lot of bug fixes and improvements
, such as the Tome of Understanding finally being usable, potions no longer requiring concentration, the primed chain shirt no longer missing from the Arcaneum shop and auto-equip finally being disabled!

Woodlands Environment

Catacombs Environment

Sewers Environment


Alright folks, this is the end for today! See you on July 13th for the Update.
Thank you for reading, and don't hesitate to drop by our Forums or our Discord Server.


Article by Tactical Myzzrym

 

[Mortmal]

The tricky fights are the green dragon and Aksha. There are no other tricky fights, unless you count the red spiders in the forest.

Then it is hardly correct to state that the game "veers between". More accuractly it is piss easy in general but has two fights that cannot be auto-piloted.

Naheulbeueekekek

I will never be able to unsee this spelling

IMO your impression of it being "the easiest" may be related to the last act of the game, which is rightly criticized for being totally trivial.

Nope - like I said, I didn't reload fights from level 2-3 onwards. This is very atypical for me in RPGs.

Part of the issue with D&D difficulty is that the P&P game is "ironman difficulty" by default with the option to roll new characters when members die or the whole party dies. It's not balanced for quickload

Again - when the issue is that the game demands no reloads, it is hard to use these excuses which are actually relevant for most other RPGs

if only because of the tabletop adaptation and the fact that you could make a party. I also liked the adaptation better than the BG3 early access

I agree with this very much, but not only that. I like almost every system in the game. It's just not very enjoyable to play despite all that and the difficulty is the main culprit

Consider that per the 5E DMG a 10th level party is supposed to kill through 9,000 experience worth of monsters before taking a long rest per character. So, for the 4 in the party, that makes for 36k gross experience. In Solasta unless you went out of your way not to rest, you would really struggle to reach that 9,000 per character marker before going to the map screen and being forced to long rest anyway. The encounters tend to cap out at around 5,400 experience, which would be considered a "Hard" encounter for a full party of level 10s. Then you also in many of those encounters get an additional 1-2 party members, which makes those encounters below trivial.

I think the Remorhaz encounter uses the MM table for their stats, that comes out to a total experience of 10,800, and that is considered to be a "Hard" encounter counting the ranger hireling that they give you. But that "Hard" label is assuming that you are going to be fighting around 34,200 XP worth of monsters that same day. Which you don't. If you did have to, you might need to expend some items and other things to clinch through the attrition. I think that the Solasta devs probably looked at the "Medium/Hard/Deadly" tables and thought that it was meant to be considered in isolation rather than part of a leg of an adventure in which attrition is a serious concern and indeed the main part of the game's strategy layer. The DM is supposed to intervene to prevent the party from slicing the adventuring day into 10-30% of what it's supposed to be.

In a lot of situations you can't even say that the fiction wouldn't support it. "We lay down to rest in the deadly poison forest after beating one encounter. OK, you wake up to the chittering of 30 giant spiders. You are surprised. Roll initiative. Suck my dick."

If you allow rest spamming in a D&D adaptation, you would have to make all the encounters at least 1.5x-2x "Deadly" to compensate. That's not a good solution. CRPGs that try to adapt D&D tend to constantly run in to this issue.

You can plug in Solasta encounters to this tool and it will spit out the numbers per the DMG tables: http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

You are right on the isolation part you are supposed to chain them but you get the numbers a little off .For 4 players, it's 7600xp for an "hard encounter " 9500 for 5 , 4 players 11200 for a "deadly one" 14000 for 5 . Once again deadly means someone in the party MAY die, a codexer ubermensch wont. So yes solasta is far far too lenient its not often you get past hard while you have unlimited rest. No surprise people say its the easiest d&d game ever, but i dont think BG3 is doing any better.
A remorhaz is 7200xp alone, but i think it had two younglings with him. If i am not wrong one cr 11 and 2 cr 5 = a cr 18 encounter. 21600 xp a 2X deadly encounter which is completely doable and even trivial after full rest.

 

[Harthwain]

There are a lot of indie games which don't feature these things, and by all accounts I'd say Solasta is an indie game.

"Indie games" or "niche games"? Like the others have said already, Solasta seems to be doing really well for what it is.

I have no doubt Solasta would've turned out more beautiful and playable if it was 2D and had limited/no voice-over, and no live orchestra. The only thing which is debatable is the 2D thing, afaik most programmers/artists don't get training in 2D anymore, so it might actually be more expensive to produce, but I honestly have no idea.

They already had to go with 3D, because the verticality was highlighted as their main feature. And since we are on the subject of 2D vs 3D, I'd argue it's more difficult to create GOOD 2D visuals. The lack of voice-over means you either have to know how to write very concisely or have a really good writer to even stand a chance. So, again, I'd say it's harder than doing even a mediocre voice-over, even if it's more pricey in the end.

 

[Spectacle]

I have no doubt Solasta would've turned out more beautiful and playable if it was 2D and had limited/no voice-over, and no live orchestra. The only thing which is debatable is the 2D thing, afaik most programmers/artists don't get training in 2D anymore, so it might actually be more expensive to produce, but I honestly have no idea.

Detailed 2D graphics have always been expensive, especially doing animations takes at least 10 times as long in 2D as 3D, and that's before taking possible character customization into account. Many of the classic 2D rpg's like Fallout and Baldur's gate are mostly pre-rendered 3D graphics rather than drawn in 2D.

It's also wrong to assume that the resources spent on sound and music could be transfered to programming/design without substantially delaying the project.

 

[Infinitron]

Nice new Kickstarter update.

 

[Thac0]

I don't see difficulty as such a big problem. This game has an extensive system to create your own difficulty. We will not get more sensible encounter design, but giving us better difficulty presets is a very simple move that goes a long way.

Also on Cataclysm the difficulty is not joke tier until you hit level 7 and gain Firewall and Conjure Minor Elementals (4 Wind Snakes). After that it falls behind Naheulbeuk and other competing tactical rpgs, but I'd say pre level 5 Cataclysm in Solasta is harder than Legendary Naheulbeuk.

The question is if even doing the absolute minimum for the hardcore players and crafting reasonable high difficulty presets which are not as grindy as Cataclysm makes sense for them now. This game has been a stellar success, somehow managing to capture a significant upwind from people too impatient to wait until BG3 is finished.
Sure would be nice to see, but this is no longer a niche product for hardcore enthusiasts. It may have started out as one, but it soared past that status in record speed.

 

[copebot]

I don't see difficulty as such a big problem. This game has an extensive system to create your own difficulty. We will not get more sensible encounter design, but giving us better difficulty presets is a very simple move that goes a long way.

Also on Cataclysm the difficulty is not joke tier until you hit level 7 and gain Firewall and Conjure Minor Elementals (4 Wind Snakes). After that it falls behind Naheulbeuk and other competing tactical rpgs, but I'd say pre level 5 Cataclysm in Solasta is harder than Legendary Naheulbeuk.

The question is if even doing the absolute minimum for the hardcore players and crafting reasonable high difficulty presets which are not as grindy as Cataclysm makes sense for them now. This game has been a stellar success, somehow managing to capture a significant upwind from people too impatient to wait until BG3 is finished.
Sure would be nice to see, but this is no longer a niche product for hardcore enthusiasts. It may have started out as one, but it soared past that status in record speed.

You're not entirely wrong, but you get to level 5 by the end of the Dark Castle. That's not much content that's reasonably balanced. That's a handful of encounters. I don't think designing it for the difficulty of core 5E would make it exclusive to 'hardcore enthusiasts.' 5E's guidelines are explicitly geared towards pen and paper casuals. I get what you're saying that they probably will not redo the encounters. However, adapting D&D to CRPG format is like this pile of $100 bills blowing around on the sidewalk that a lot of developers have just ignored for a long time -- even a halfway well executed, halfway messed up effort like Solasta with no official license has done quite well.

IMO for any game like this you want to cater to hardcore players because word of mouth and organic reviews are the only thing that will generate sales. They aren't spending any money on advertising or PR, so word of mouth combined with organic search rank/automatic Steam recommendations are the only way that they can push more sales. Enthusiasm among core players drives sales to casuals unless you substitute marketing $$$. It's like this in literally every direct to consumer retail business and gaming is not special. Very happy core customers are salesmen who do it for free. If your core customers are not that happy they will not work for free for you and you will have to pay someone to hawk your product instead.

 

[cretin]

I don't see difficulty as such a big problem. This game has an extensive system to create your own difficulty. We will not get more sensible encounter design, but giving us better difficulty presets is a very simple move that goes a long way.

Also on Cataclysm the difficulty is not joke tier until you hit level 7 and gain Firewall and Conjure Minor Elementals (4 Wind Snakes). After that it falls behind Naheulbeuk and other competing tactical rpgs, but I'd say pre level 5 Cataclysm in Solasta is harder than Legendary Naheulbeuk.

The question is if even doing the absolute minimum for the hardcore players and crafting reasonable high difficulty presets which are not as grindy as Cataclysm makes sense for them now. This game has been a stellar success, somehow managing to capture a significant upwind from people too impatient to wait until BG3 is finished.
Sure would be nice to see, but this is no longer a niche product for hardcore enthusiasts. It may have started out as one, but it soared past that status in record speed.

You're not entirely wrong, but you get to level 5 by the end of the Dark Castle. That's not much content that's reasonably balanced. That's a handful of encounters. I don't think designing it for the difficulty of core 5E would make it exclusive to 'hardcore enthusiasts.' 5E's guidelines are explicitly geared towards pen and paper casuals. I get what you're saying that they probably will not redo the encounters. However, adapting D&D to CRPG format is like this pile of $100 bills blowing around on the sidewalk that a lot of developers have just ignored for a long time -- even a halfway well executed, halfway messed up effort like Solasta with no official license has done quite well.

IMO for any game like this you want to cater to hardcore players because word of mouth and organic reviews are the only thing that will generate sales. They aren't spending any money on advertising or PR, so word of mouth combined with organic search rank/automatic Steam recommendations are the only way that they can push more sales. Enthusiasm among core players drives sales to casuals unless you substitute marketing $$$. It's like this in literally every direct to consumer retail business and gaming is not special. Very happy core customers are salesmen who do it for free. If your core customers are not that happy they will not work for free for you and you will have to pay someone to hawk your product instead.

tl;dr version: just make TOEE with romances and booba and you will make a lot of money.