While the Codex Consensus -- and the view of many other players -- is that the combat is terrible, "we can have bad combat because PS:T had bad combat" was definitely not the thought process. The Crisis system was a huge investment of time and resources and was meant to be elaborate, exciting, and strikingly different from normal RPG combat by allowing you to undertake lots of non-combat actions over the course of a prolonged Crisis. It was the opposite of PS:T's "trash" spammy real-time combat. If it went awry, I think it went awry for different reasons (too rare, too long, somewhat unintuitive) from the problems with PS:T (too frequent, too easy), and not because of a lack of resources. As Tolstoy would say, every unhappy combat is unhappy in its own way.
I do think that the view was that combat could be of limited significance because it was insignificant in PS:T, but the approach was to have it be limited but great, not limited and boring. :D
--EDIT--
I'll add that when I first heard of the Crisis system, and read the initial documentation, I thought it would be revolutionary and one of the coolest things in any non-P&P RPG, so it's particularly sad that it would up being worse than RTwP spam in the view of many.
It might not have been "we can have bad combat because PS:T had bad combat" but there was no need to dedicate so much time to combat as fans of PS:T don't play PS:T for the combat. The crisis system might well be an amazing system, therefore if you're going to spend that much effort on it then you might as well make a combat focused game. If the story and general non-combat gameplay and C&C were where the time and energy was fully dedicated then a simple turn-based combat system tagged-on would have, obviously, been far superior to mediocre everything.
You say it yourself "the crysis system was a huge investment of time and resources". Who the fuck would set about making a PS:T sequel and then immediately spend a huge amount of time and effort on a combat system. That's the exact opposite approach to the original game. People weren't backing an improved combat system, they were backing a story-focus cRPG in an unusual universe with lots of non-combat related activity. When these people added to their preferences "can you also please not make the combat shit" they were not saying "please can you also make the combat the focus of your time investment", they were saying "can combat just be regular turn-based D20-like mechanics please".
The crisis system might well be a great idea to build a game around, but probably not a sequel to a game with expectations, probably a whole new IP.
In retrospect, inXile's true calling may be making games with a crowd-pleasing pulp sensibility (Robots and punks in the post-apocalypse! Funny singing goblins and snarky bards!), and their attempt to branch out into more serious fare a predictable flop.
"more serious fare" BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
Do you even have any sense of self-perception...
In what way, shape or form would you consider TToN to be more 'serious' fare than: Tyranny, Age of Decadence, Serpents in the Staglands, Underrail or any of the other recent cRPG attempts that all have perfectly respectable reputations on this site? Oh, you meant versus the AAA sales hunting market? In what way is TToN "more serious fare" than... I have no fucking idea what market your imagining TToN was supposed to go for with that comment.
You mean "the public" doesn't like independent derivative cRPGs that try to do things a bit differently? YOU MEAN LIKE UNDERTAIL?
Jesus, you can be a card sometimes.
Tyranny demolishing it in long term sales was the biggest surprise for me. An out-of-nowhere RTwP RPG in an original setting with a frankly pretty bad marketing campaign (I honestly thought it was a campy Overlord type game based on the initial press) has managed to pull 200k sales to date. It was looking close there for a while, but now Tyranny is far, far ahead of Torment's sales. Based on the number of backers it had, it seems like kickstarter was responisible for the lion's share of "owners" for Numenera on steam, too. Absolute trainwreck from a commercial standpoint.
Indeed.
Unfortunately this does not impact just Inxile. TTON flopping means that, apart from extreme indies, there will be nothing risky done in this genre for another decade.
Because TToN was the only cRPG in the last decade to take risks was it? Funny, I don't remember it even taking any risks, all I remember was people gave them millions of dollars and all them needing to do was partially immitate an already existing game. Who the fuck paid them to take these 'risks' in the first place?
Perhaps the lesson will be "don't take risks when people are paying you in advance not to do that" *facepalm*
And then he'll go to the publisher or CEO to ask for funds, he will be denied because "the last one sold crappy", and that will be the end of it.
You'd make a good fantasy writer. Well... maybe not a good one.
A RPG that takes place in a non-traditional fantasy setting where there are only about a dozen fights and most of your time is spent reading would be considered a higher than usual risk by most investors, yes.
No, the risk was taking money in advance on the promise of something which carried expectations and then treating the game's production like an art-house experimental jam. What the game ended up being has fuck all to do with any risks with regard to what the end game turned out like because none of the investors were investing in a game where there's only a dozen combat encounters and just lots of reading, they were investing in a sequel to an existing game. If someone had pitched what the final game looked like via a time machine then it wouldn't have been a matter of taking risks, people who were interested in that product would have invested for that product. *facepalm*
AoD has fewer owners on Steam than Torment...
AoD is also on GOG, and it's also a $30 game compared to Torment's $45, and it's been out for nearly two years now compared to Torment's half year.
It did *okay* for a low budget indie game developed by a tiny team. Its numbers don't tell you anything about games with multi-million dollar budgets.
AoD had less marketing budget.
AoD didn't pay youtubers to shill for it
AoD didn't have Infinitron shilling for it
AoD didn't have $millions from kickstarters
AoD is an entirely new IP
AoD pleased the people it was supposed to please
AoD has less expenses
AoD doesn't get bumped every other day by people trying to
cover-up figure out what's been painfully obvious since release.
But yeah, TToN has a larger total number of owners. Because it started with a 100,000 head start, duh.
InXile has a goldmine that is Wasteland, if they make a good game it would sell better than an equally good fantasy game.
