Way to little

I completely disagree.  

Even if the game was only 35 hours, it is well worth the price of admission (two IMAX movie tickets cost?), especially for low-budget (but high quality) studio.  If you aren't in a rush, complete all side quests, the final content will be over 50 hours.  

Add in the ability to replay the game with new characters, DLC, mods, and dungeon maker content and it is worth more than the list price.  

Some people look at a car and say it is an unreliable, handmade, no warranty, low quality, difficult to handle, gas hogging death trap. Other people see a 427 Cobra.  

To each their own, but to broadcast this game does not deliver value, incapable of melting hours with quality entertainment, is a shame. 

I completely disagree.  

Even if the game was only 35 hours, it is well worth the price of admission (two IMAX movie tickets cost?), especially for low-budget (but high quality) studio.  If you aren't in a rush, complete all side quests, the final content will be over 50 hours.  

Add in the ability to replay the game with new characters, DLC, mods, and dungeon maker content and it is worth more than the list price.  

Some people look at a car and say it is an unreliable, handmade, no warranty, low quality, difficult to handle, gas hogging death trap. Other people see a 427 Cobra.  

To each their own, but to broadcast this game does not deliver value, incapable of melting hours with quality entertainment, is a shame. 

I have done every quest in the game.  I've done crafting.  I've done dungeon maker.  There is no replayability because its EXACTLY the same thing, done the same way.  What additional DLC is there to play?  My 35 hours "playing" this "game" was due to me being bored with it and leaving it going overnight, so I really only invested 25 hours in beating this entire thing.  NOT WORTH IT.  This game is very linear and can not justify it's overinflated price.  This "game" should be more inline of $9.99.  Most of the game is cut scenes, so you don't even have to be at the keyboard.

Like I said, 

You see flaws, I see a classic. 

You believe "play time" has a strong correlation to worth, but I believe memories, even fleeting moments are priceless.

If I look at my logs on Steam, if I play one game 600 hours and another 50, is the prior game 12x better?  No, it just took 12x more time to achieve an equal or lesser point of satisfaction.  If time alone is the measure of worth, Proust's Remembrance of Things Past o should be the high bar for literary achievement. I won't argue if someone takes the position, Proust wrote the best book because of its length, but I would debate if they told me Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was unworthy of praise (or price) at 200-ish pages.

You are delusional comparing books to a video game.  A video game is worth more than just play, but this "game" has hardly any play to it, its mostly cut scenes and very generic combat.  I played table top for years and years going back to first edition, this combat makes table top seem extraordinary.  This is probably some of the most basic Ive ever seen.  The main questline is very very basic, go here collect/kill this, end of story.  I have never said this game was garbage, it can be really good with a few more years development, but right now it's not even close to being complete, especially for what they charge.  The classes are very limited, the races are limited, your options are severely limited.  A games worth is combined in play, story, settings, and replayability.  This game has very little play, okay story (needs much more depth), lackluster settings (oh look, another cave, another city, another ____), and it has ZERO replayability.  Doing the EXACT same thing, same combat, same encounters does not mean it can be played over and over.  At some point, everyone will start to wonder why you are doing the exact same thing over and over again.  The games that succeed are the ones that even though it looks the same, it isn't.

To your book point, I dont care how long steven king writes, page one is boring and ill never read it because it failed to capture me, but even the most boring short play game is better than reading any of his books.

To your book point, I dont care how long steven king writes, page one is boring and ill never read it because it failed to capture me, but even the most boring short play game is better than reading any of his books.

This...this is exactly their point. That the length of something doesn't necessarily correlate with its worth. Short and sweet is better than long and boring.

Obviously Solasta would be improved by branching story paths, but replayability isn't necessary for a good game. The draw of replayability will be to try out different party compositions. And theoretically there will be many dungeons and campaigns created by the community to enjoy.

Also, can you explain why you think that Solasta's combat is inferior to tabletop? Solasta's faithfulness to 5e rules is one of its high points. Unless you're comparing Solasta's D&D 5e to other, more tactical tabletop rpg systems..??

Eh, many AAA games take about 30 to 40 hours to finish and cost about 40 USD. 

In my case, this game takes me over 50 hours even just with Early Access, because of the way I play (explore everything, optimize, cautious and tactical). 

ABOVE ALL : it is clearly stated that the Early Access gameplay can be done in about 30 hours.  In fact, the Steam store page reads: As a whole, Solasta should take around 40h to complete.   You should have known that and decided not to buy it.  You made the conscious choice to buy it at that price.  Wait for a rebate, like I do if I feel a game is too expensive.

"You are delusional comparing books to a video game."

You could compare a video game to sex, skiing, biking, reading a book, steaming video content, etc.  Anything that vies for my free time is simply a function of cost and pleasure (with some spontaneity added into the mix... there was that time I tried to get into roller hockey... epic fail).  

Lastly, some of my favorite RPGs of all time were completed (single run) in under 50 hours and cost around $50... which is still decent entertainment value at about $1/hour.  I ski on occasion, excluding travel, equipment, and lodging costs, a day pass is $90... if I ski my ass off for 8 hours, that is > $10/hour.  Do I think skiing is better than video games?  No, just a different way to pass time, at 10x the cost.

You just don't get my point.  The "game", in this state is more like a budget title.  At this point, there is zero they can do to change my mind.  I gotten a refund because I don't believe in supporting something that is SO obviously lacking content.  There are plenty of games out there that you invest FAR more time into, this is not one of them.

No. You refuse to see the same point everyone else is raising, and insist on sticking to your fallacy.

What would be the cost of 25 hours worth of first run movies in a movie theater?

What would be the cost of 25 hours at professional sporting events?

What would be the cost of 25 hours of purchased reading material?

What would be the cost of 25 hours of dining out? Good Restaurant vs McDonalds?

What would be the cost of 25 hours worth of Skiing? Bowling? Slots at a Casino?

Compare those costs to 25 hours of playing a game broken down into a $40 overall cost.

You insist on using a different valuation per hour for different time sinks, based on your personal opinion of the value per activity.. That is your right.

But the rest of the universe is not required to operate in accordance with your particular activity values.

I wouldn't pay 50 cents for a shooter, no matter how much content is contains - that does not mean my value for the activity applies to those who enjoy shooters and hate rpg's.

You just don't get my point.  The "game", in this state is more like a budget title.  At this point, there is zero they can do to change my mind.  I gotten a refund because I don't believe in supporting something that is SO obviously lacking content.  There are plenty of games out there that you invest FAR more time into, this is not one of them.

Goodbye.

Awesome game and we'll worth it.  It is a tabletop campaign simulator that is well made and I am looking forward to future games and content made by the team.

The only thing I agree with OP is limited replayability. Some say different party configuration brings full replayability, but it is not. Once you cleared all contents and all dungeons, you are already spoiled, and you can't escape from the situation that you know and expect everything from the game unless you somehow cleanly forget everything about the first experience.

Random engagements (including ambush from the enemy) and other random elements, not only for the world-map engagements but also for combats inside the dungeon, should greatly and truly enhance the replayability of this game. Because players will never expect the same combats again in their next playthrough. No more ambush spam from the exact same point. New surprise ambush and new monster party configuration and etc... will make all playthrough fresh, at least to some degree.

However, I think OP should understand the real difficulty of "making a product". This is not a high school team project for the semester. This is a big real project to develop a product to sell from the competitive market, under the tight budget from crowdfunding and lack of workforce. Such condition ensures a lot of difficulties to project management and development and etc... 

Not surprisingly, TA had to cut down a lot of content and ideas they planned initially, to launch their project on time with the competitive quality. Go for too much content and too many details at once for their first project would make their first project fails to finish the development with quality on time. Then, their funding will dry, and the dev office will be dissolved. They will have to launch a half-way-done, full-of-critical-bug game with 50% sale on launch, at least to get some money back. But, that wouldn't change the fact that their project is failed and dev members would look for another job with a not-that-great resume.

Looks like am I joking? This already happened a lot of times to a lot of crowd-funded games. Not only to games but to many other start-up businesses. Just, we don't know that much about such a lot of "failure stories" because no one advertises or talks about such fail stories. So, we mostly see, read, and know about success stories, like we can only see the top of the iceberg, never knowing how much is hidden underneath the water. So, it feels easy to make such successful products. But easier said than done. I think TA is going in a proper direction, and I wish they enlarge their success window in the future. So far, I'm glad that TA didn't fall into the same trap and I hope they don't in the future.  

They know people want more and more things to play, and they imagined and envisioned more than now. It is not like the Solasta is short because devs have a poor imagination and all D&D noobs. But, these "real-world issues" like budget, time, workforce... are not easy problems to resolve, rather they can be a nasty problem to doom the entire project. So, we, including you and I, should clearly understand the practical limit of the development of software under a tight budget and lack of developers. And there was a Covid.

If you want to support this game, try to understand the situation that TA developers had to endure. Then, be patient and wait, and provide meaningful feedback that could be helpful for devs to improve this game further. 

I think, properly tactically challenging random engagements, including in-dungeon combats, will make players want to try this game again and again, with different settings and/or higher difficulties. But, I don't expect such things will be here any time soon. TA probably would know about this and think about this. They could bring what I want, or they could find even better alternatives. But until they will really push for whatever it is, I can wait.