Yes exactly. Of course there are going to be some fans of the original games who prefer TB, but there is no question the vast majority prefer RTwP
First we all know the disappointed side will be more vocal, but lets leave that known thing lay.
Why did Poe2 not live up to sales expectations? Why didn't Kingmaker sell more? Why did DOS or Xcom for example as TB games outsell both of these? If RtwP was so much more preferred by everyone, why did more everyone's buy the TB games? I feel it is a fair enough question. How does that happen? As a community we went out of our way to buy the game style we like less.
PoE2 didn't live up to expectations because of its writing and its forced social agendas. The criticisms of the game upon its release noted that, and not its combat system.
Why did adding TB to PoE2 not do anything to improve PoE2's sales or review scores? Why did PoE2's Steam score not increase by even a single % point in the months following the addition of TB to the game?
If TB was so popular, why did Torment: Numenera tank in sales despite having TB instead of RTwP combat? Why did people criticize the game for abandoning Planescape: Torment's RTwP combat, if everyone supposedly preferred TB combat?
If TB was so much more preferred by everyone, why did those games bomb in sales and not benefit from having TB?
If TB is so popular, how come Wasteland Remastered isn't selling and has mixed reviews?
If TB is so popular, then how come there are more owners of Pillars of Eternity on Steam than there are of Wasteland 2?
If TB is preferred by everyone, then why does Pathfinder: Kingmaker, which is RTwP, have almost as many Steam reviews as Divinity: Original Sin, despite that Pathfinder: Kingmaker released 4 years after D:OS1? It seems to be
out-performing D:OS1's popularity on Steam, yet it's RTwP.
If TB is preferred by everyone, then how come Dragon Age: Origins, which has RTwP combat, sold lot more copies faster than Divinity: Original Sin 2 did? It took Divinity: Original Sin 2 two-and-a-half months
to sell 1 million copies. After just over 3 months, Dragon Age: Origins
had sold 3.2 million copies. So, DA:O greatly outsold D:OS2. And that's not even counting DLC: DA:O also sold
"well past $1 million" of DLC within its first week of release.
How can you explain all of that?
The answer is simple: Because there is no trend that games with either TB or RTwP combat systems do better than the other type of game due to the combat system. Each game does well based on the sum of its parts, and either RTwP or TB can be done in a way that is good and compliments the game. D:OS2 didn't become popular specifically because it has TB combat, but because of the sum of its parts.
The same false argument that TB games are doing better than RTwP pause games keeps coming up by people who I have to assume are not experienced with the PC RPG genre, because otherwise why would they be oblivious to the actual recent history of RTwP and TB PC RPG game releases and receptions? Why are they only familiar with D:OS2 and speak totally uninformed and baseless assumptions about what the market has been approving of in recent years?
There's literally one TB game that has been a mega hit (D:OS2), while other TB games have done decently to terribly. If people were loving TB games because they're TB, then Torment: Numenera wouldn't have been a flop. Then PoE2 would have improved in sales and reviews after getting TB added. But T: Numenera did flop and PoE2 didn't improve in sales or reviews after getting TB added. And Pathfinder: Kingmaker, which is RTwP, has blown both of those games away in popularity. And Pathfinder: Kingmaker is getting a much-anticipated sequel.
So, there is no truth to arguments that TB is more popular. D:OS2 is a recent popular game, and D:OS2 has TB. That doesn't make TB a better system, it just means that there are a lot of D:OS2 fanboys out there who don't know much of anything about PC RPGs and only know D:OS2 and so fanboy to get a carbon-copy of it.
If Larian made BG3 with RTwP and they did a good job with the RTwP system so that it was at least as good as Dragon Age: Origins' (but hopefully better), there would then be just as many fanboys of BG3 with RTwP demanding that every next game be RTwP because TB is out-dated and not relevant anymore in modern gaming. Fanboy thinking isn't based on situations actually are, it just distorts perception of reality to put the one thing they liked recently on a pedestal and create a mythology about its importance.
What's important is doing a good job with what a game is. And a Baldur's Gate series game should be an RTwP game, as well as a game that respects and honours the other characteristics of the Baldur's Gate experience. Larian should be doing that and shouldn't be making D:OS 2.5 with the Baldur's Gate license.
