How long does a game take?

GreenWarlock

I am curious how long it takes folks around here to complete one of the BeamDog games. I am certainly no speed runner, and quite the completionist, so any playthrough is a serious undertaking for me. I expect that to complete BGEE or BG2EE will each take me the better part of 60-100 hours of gametime, spread over a period of 3-6 months. I have not yet had the patience to see a run through to the end of ToB, but it's only been 20 years so I still have time . Similarly, I don't own IWD:EE or SoD, and have never really made progress in PST:EE, so have no figures for those yet.

I know I am on the slow side (I like to savor my games) but wonder how wide the range of playtimes is?

UnderstandMouseMagic

I have no idea (how helpful is that?).

I am sometimes surprised at how long the game days counter is showing. But I think nowadays it doesn't take nearly as many hours as you say. But then sometimes I get distracted and mess around for a while trying something stupid just for the hell of it and reloading, that can waste a fair bit of time.

And would just like to say, finish TOB, the game itself maybe a slog but the ending is worth it.

ThacoBell

That's a good question. I've never kept track of total hours. With the time I have, I can playthrough the series BG1-ToB in about 2-3 months. I have almost every quest and important location memorized, so that speeds things up bit. Note that I don't count pre-planning (what my charname will be, how I will RP, etc.). That would likely double the time spent.

Grond0

Playing solo I guess a run would take 15-20 hours. I've only rarely taken parties all the way to the end of the game, but that would probably take about twice as long.

Raduziel

It depends on when the restartitis will kick in. Can be 80h (I'm a serious completionist), can be 12 minutes.

semiticgoddess

My games are unusually fast. I use CTRL-J constantly, and all the practice has allowed me to make all kinds of tiny optimizations that speed up the game.

An example: let's say I need to fight some orcs, only two of which need to die, and open a chest somewhere. I'll reveal the map using the console (which saves maybe a quarter of a second from starting and stopping to clear the fog of war), go to the Map screen to jump over to the right spot (which saves a half second compared to scrolling), CTRL-J just outside of the orcs' field of vision (saves 5 seconds of walking), summon a few monsters, and then target the first orc that needs to die. My character fires three arrows per round, and in between each arrow, I move a few steps closer to the first orc (saves a quarter of a second). Once he's dead, I order my summons to fight the second orc and send Charname over to open the chest.

While Charname is still walking to the chest, I use the quick-loot feature to grab the first orc's loot (saves a quarter of a second). Rather than fighting all of the orcs (which would take 60 seconds), I just kill the second required orc. When the orc gets close to death, I use the Map screen to view the exit (saves a half second), and then CTRL-J over (saves 5 seconds) the moment I see the orc's death show up in the dialog box.

Thus, a process that might take 200 seconds will instead take 128.25 seconds. If I explored every corner of the area, picked up every item, and fought every monster while micromanaging a party of 6, all the optional events might take 10 minutes--five times as long as the optimized path.

My solo no-reload LoB run probably took 15 hours for BG1, 10 hours for SoD, 15 hours for BG2, and 10 hours for ToB. So maybe 50 hours total over the course of the saga, plus 20 hours from the times I had to start over due to dying.

Without all those optimizations and shortcuts, that run might have taken over 300 hours.

sarevok57

with the 1000s and 1000s of play throughs under my belt, and how crazy optimized on how well i play, even without speed running the games i can finish them quite quickly it appears, here are my usual in real life times (frame rate 60, insane difficulty, no cheats):

BG1EE ( FULL completionist play through, gold piece runs - which takes longer - hitting 660 000 GP + without exploits ) takes me 16 hours give or take 30 minutes

BG1EE solo run ( complete enough to grab all the good items/tomes and hit level cap ) about 4 hours

BG1EE story mode solo "speed run" ( just grab all the tomes and race to the finish sort of deal) around 30-45 minutes

BG2EE ( FULL completionist play through hitting around 3.8 million XP by the end of SoA, and about 450 000 GP+ ) takes me around 10-12 hours give or take 30 minutes

BG2ToBEE ( FULL completionist play through, hitting 8 million XP per character, finishing off with 1.5 million+ GP ) takes me around 8-10 hours give or take an hour or so

IWDEE ( FULL completionist play through, hitting around 1.37 million XP the time i hit belhifet ) takes me around 10-12 hours

HoW/TotLMEE ( Full completionist play through, hitting around 3 million+ XP the time i hit the white dragon ) takes me about 4-5 hours at most, pushing it maybe 6 ( it still blows me away how short HoW is and even with TotLM, once you know what you are doing, it doesnt really add that much more game time )

Skatan

I'm not so good compared to the masters above, but nowadays I can probably play through BG1 in about 6 hours using Ctrl-J and hit the levelcap, do all/most of the TotSC but skip most of the small fetch quests and/or loot in random buildings etc. Normally it takes maybe twice that though, I'd wager around 10-12 hours of game time to kill Sarevok.

SoD I'm not so good at, I've only finished it twice and played it all/most through about 5 times. The first couple of maps I've memorized pretty good by now, up to, and with, the bridge sequence. Then from the next chapter I usually end the run or move into BG2.

BG2 takes forever for me. I usually plan to max the EXP which makes me want to have all NPCs for their personal quests etc. And since I am notoriously bad at memorizing where to go when etc, it takes a long time. I usually clean out slavers, de arnise, druids/trademeet quickly but then things slow down when all NPCs personal quests start to pop up at the same time and I quit and restart in BG1 again.

UnderstandMouseMagic

semiticgod said:

My games are unusually fast. I use CTRL-J constantly, and all the practice has allowed me to make all kinds of tiny optimizations that speed up the game.

An example: let's say I need to fight some orcs, only two of which need to die, and open a chest somewhere. I'll reveal the map using the console (which saves maybe a quarter of a second from starting and stopping to clear the fog of war), go to the Map screen to jump over to the right spot (which saves a half second compared to scrolling), CTRL-J just outside of the orcs' field of vision (saves 5 seconds of walking), summon a few monsters, and then target the first orc that needs to die. My character fires three arrows per round, and in between each arrow, I move a few steps closer to the first orc (saves a quarter of a second). Once he's dead, I order my summons to fight the second orc and send Charname over to open the chest.

While Charname is still walking to the chest, I use the quick-loot feature to grab the first orc's loot (saves a quarter of a second). Rather than fighting all of the orcs (which would take 60 seconds), I just kill the second required orc. When the orc gets close to death, I use the Map screen to view the exit (saves a half second), and then CTRL-J over (saves 5 seconds) the moment I see the orc's death show up in the dialog box.

Thus, a process that might take 200 seconds will instead take 128.25 seconds. If I explored every corner of the area, picked up every item, and fought every monster while micromanaging a party of 6, all the optional events might take 10 minutes--five times as long as the optimized path.

My solo no-reload LoB run probably took 15 hours for BG1, 10 hours for SoD, 15 hours for BG2, and 10 hours for ToB. So maybe 50 hours total over the course of the saga, plus 20 hours from the times I had to start over due to dying.

Without all those optimizations and shortcuts, that run might have taken over 300 hours.

I'm reading this and thinking, "Just look at that "clutch'ness".

You are a legend.

And for anybody who doesn't get the reference,

https://youtube.com/watch?v=oYmqJl4MoNI


YOU ARE A F***ING LEGEND.

Ygramul

4 hours

... and 8 days

... and 7 months.

(Well, I do intend to finish my current no-reload run one day.)

Humanoid_Taifun

@Ygramul Do you call it no-reload because the savegame has been sitting there and collecting virtual dust for that long?

Ygramul

Humanoid_Taifun said:

@Ygramul Do you call it no-reload because the savegame has been sitting there and collecting virtual dust for that long?

No, no. It is a genuine No-reload game.
(I always delete my savegame immediately if charname dies.)

It's just that I have been on almost indefinite hiatus from BG/BG2:EE due to Real Life (TM).
My Paladin remains parked in Saradush for more than half a year.

So, yes, for real. I do intend to finish it one day, one way or another...

(I have never finished an ascension successfully yet. SCS and my impatience always gets me in the end. I think I went as far as I did with this run because I followed @Alesia_BH 's advice on playstyle and build.)

DrakeICN

@Ygramul Hey man, I am sorry, I really really don't wan't to jinx you, but I just couldn't resist...

Imagine the anti-climax if you one day start up this game and you die 15 minutes in!

Ygramul

DrakeICN said:

@Ygramul Hey man, I am sorry, I really really don't wan't to jinx you, but I just couldn't resist...

Imagine the anti-climax if you one day start up this game and you die 15 minutes in!

Happens often actually.

I died to Carbos or Shank more times than I can count -- after spending two hours planning and rolling a character. (In SCS, they can poison you!)


Also, I tend drive my characters to suicide if I no longer like them.
So, I am myself curious if my Paladin will one day walk out of Saradush alive...