So, um, how long is this game?

[Purudaya]

My party is already at level 5 and we're just now leaving Introduction Island. Given that the level cap is 20 and I'm already a quarter of the way there, either levelling is going to start slowing down, the game is going to be much shorter than I thought, or I'm going to be playing through a good portion of the narrative at max level.

 

Logically, it kind of has to be one of those three...has anyone else gotten significantly further through the game? Does levelling slow down or do you reach max level early? Is the game egregiously short? I remember that being a problem with PoE1's main narrative and would hate for it to be the case given how good the game has been thus far.

[xzar_monty]

Well, I played approximately one third of PoE 1 at max level (which was a huge, huge minus for the game), so there is a precedent for that, at least.

 

But I do not know the answer to your question.

[Voss]

The game is either 20 minutes or somewhere between 32 and 90 hours depending on how much side content you do. Supposedly, anyway.

 

I can see a lot of time being wasted on ship battles, but not sure if they're rewarding to do.

 

But I suspect if you go for a lot of side questing, you're going to be max level for a large part of the game. Maybe as much as half.

[Voss]

The game is either 20 minutes or somewhere between 32 and 90 hours depending on how much side content you do. Supposedly, anyway.

 

I can see a lot of time being wasted on ship battles, but not sure if they're rewarding to do.

 

But I suspect if you go for a lot of side questing, you're going to be max level for a large part of the game. Maybe as much as half.

[Sedrefilos]

The devs were aiming for slightly less or at least equal length with Pillars 1 at start. But they admited it end up bigger than the original. 

[Tattyblue]

The developers or some developers of this game seem to have a fixation on narrative and the rest of the RPG mechanics get a short shaft. They could have easily made the level cap 50 and made it so that you leveled for the entire game. But a low level cap means you focus on their story and not your personal progression. I dislike when developers have agendas other then the enjoyment of the game.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

The developers or some developers of this game seem to have a fixation on narrative and the rest of the RPG mechanics get a short shaft. They could have easily made the level cap 50 and made it so that you leveled for the entire game. But a low level cap means you focus on their story and not your personal progression. I dislike when developers have agendas other then the enjoyment of the game.

 

the Codex has many downsides, but man, do I miss the ability to give a "participation award" rating to posts here sometimes

[Fiaryn]

The developers or some developers of this game seem to have a fixation on narrative and the rest of the RPG mechanics get a short shaft. They could have easily made the level cap 50 and made it so that you leveled for the entire game. But a low level cap means you focus on their story and not your personal progression. I dislike when developers have agendas other then the enjoyment of the game.

 

Y...yes. That's the only possible explanation, you nailed it chief. We've got a real psychologist on our hands here!

[SummerAnne58]

The game is either 20 minutes or somewhere between 32 and 90 hours depending on how much side content you do. Supposedly, anyway.

 

I can see a lot of time being wasted on ship battles, but not sure if they're rewarding to do.

 

But I suspect if you go for a lot of side questing, you're going to be max level for a large part of the game. Maybe as much as half.

I laughed.

[aweigh0101]

There's already a mod on the Nexus that increases the maximum level cap.

[jf8350143]

I leveled up very quickly on the first island, but much slower after I leave there. It took me 5 hours to get level 7.

[Purudaya]

I leveled up very quickly on the first island, but much slower after I leave there. It took me 5 hours to get level 7.

Can confirm. The leveling does seem to slow down considerably after the first island, but I still think that a competitionist playthrough will have you at max level by about the last 1/3-1/4 of the game (I'm at level 9 and it feels like I've barely scratched the surface, but the game could be heavily frontloaded with so many quests in Nekataka). So far it feels much bigger than POE1, so I'm good with it

[Wormerine]

The developers or some developers of this game seem to have a fixation on narrative and the rest of the RPG mechanics get a short shaft. They could have easily made the level cap 50 and made it so that you leveled for the entire game. But a low level cap means you focus on their story and not your personal progression. I dislike when developers have agendas other then the enjoyment of the game.

If you mean that designing skills for another 10 or so power levels is easy then sure.

[Silent Winter]

Well, I finished the game in under 10 minutes (I don't think I got the good ending though )

I'm expecting my current playthrough to take more like 70-90 hours (I like to explore).

[Logos]

I just finished a playthrough earlier today, and in total it came in at 35.6 hours. I played pretty much non stop since Tuesday evening. I played on normal, and as far as I can tell did every quest and went to every island. I read everything except for some of the books and text like "you enter a fetid jungle" after the tenth or twelfth time a near identical description started up when exploring on the overworld map. 

 

I think the biggest difference in play time is going to come down to how long you spend in combat. I set up my AI pretty well, and sought out battles that were two or three skulls above me at the beginning of the game. Once I had the experience and items from those quests under my belt, it made battles at my level go much faster. It also made it easier to do three skull/red quests going forward, which made appropriately leveled encounters go much faster, and so on. At some point I stopped having to do anything and could just let the battles unfold on autopilot, a few boss battles and high level areas excepted.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Logos

[morhilane]

I just finished a playthrough earlier today, and in total it came in at 35.6 hours. I played pretty much non stop since Tuesday evening. I played on normal, and as far as I can tell did every quest and went to every island. I read everything except for some of the books and text like "you enter a fetid jungle" after the tenth or twelfth time a near identical description started up when exploring on the overworld map. 

 

 

How many uncharted islands did you find?

[Witness41920]

My party is already at level 5 and we're just now leaving Introduction Island. Given that the level cap is 20 and I'm already a quarter of the way there, either levelling is going to start slowing down, the game is going to be much shorter than I thought, or I'm going to be playing through a good portion of the narrative at max level.

 

Logically, it kind of has to be one of those three...has anyone else gotten significantly further through the game? Does levelling slow down or do you reach max level early? Is the game egregiously short? I remember that being a problem with PoE1's main narrative and would hate for it to be the case given how good the game has been thus far.

 

You're not a quarter of the way there. Leveling occurs on an exponential curve and looks more like a "J' than "/" in terms of experience needed to level up. While you may be "level 5" the amount of experience it takes to get to level 5 is nowhere near a quarter of the experience it takes to reach level 20. 

 

You still have a ways to go. 

[Logos]

 

I just finished a playthrough earlier today, and in total it came in at 35.6 hours. I played pretty much non stop since Tuesday evening. I played on normal, and as far as I can tell did every quest and went to every island. I read everything except for some of the books and text like "you enter a fetid jungle" after the tenth or twelfth time a near identical description started up when exploring on the overworld map. 

 

 

How many uncharted islands did you find?

 

 

 

All of them, and I got the achievement for it. The only achievements I didn't get were the 'max out negative reputation with companion' one, and the one for finishing the principi questline, because it's bugged. 

 

edit: iirc, they were grouped by major zone, and there were about 3 per zone, so I'd say 10-12 in total. 

Edited May 11, 2018 by Logos