ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So, the other day someone asked on chat how long does it usually take to beat the game, and I got surprised at the answers the people in chat were giving, there was a very large difference between them, so I want to make a poll to see what the community has to say about it

Anyone is free to participate, doesn't matter what difficulty you play, but if possible, please comment on which one you usually play and how long it takes you to clear the game on them

Also I totally just created this thread just to show the playtime on my latest insane roguelike winner

I loaded up all of my insane winners and took a look. None of them are very quick.






14h is pretty dang fast! Is psyshot super good are you just a strong player?

I think it really depends on the build. An adventurer (really strong "stealth bomber" build), finished in under 14 hours, a stone warden took more than twice that. Both on insane adventure.
My first guess would be damage output. The SW had a lot of slugging matches that seemed to take fovever.

Tryble wrote:14h is pretty dang fast! Is psyshot super good are you just a strong player?

I wouldn't say i'm a strong player, but I do play pretty fast, which gets me killed in some stupid ways sometimes

Wins usually take between 15 and 20 hours for me

The other winner I have alive is at 20 hours and has killed both postgame bosses

Am I the only one who leaves the game running while AFK in order to log the chat for potential player wisdom and darkgod event pushes?

When it comes to play time, it really has to take into account class and playstyle. A more strategic build is going to take longer to play then a tactical one. Additionally, one can probably expect a bump attack playstyle to play faster then one that makes heavy use of talents to fight. Game Difficulty likely plays a factor too - with easier difficulties being easier to play. And then you have to take into account that there is more then just the vanilla 'Age of Ascendancy' campaign.

When it comes to roguelikes, I am a very slow player and make up for it with a high win rate. It takes me 8 hours to beat DCSS 3 rune, 6-7 hours to beat Quickband and my ToME4 dwarf berserker AoA normal win... well, I don't remember how much of it was idle time, but Steam says I played for 50 hours, so we'll just say >30 and call it a day.

Looks like my recent Insane Shadowblade winner took me 19 hours which is a lot less than I expected, especially considering some of this time was spent idle on chat or doing schoolwork. I definitely spent over 50 hours on some wins on Insane in patch 1.1 though; I spent around an hour per floor in zones like Dreadfell, Reknor, the Prides, and High Peak.

I make decisions pretty slowly compared to other people, I remember my rogue and summoner both spending about 10-12 hours on a Saturday each just for high peak. My last winner was over 50 hours in play time.

Velorien wrote:Am I the only one who leaves the game running while AFK in order to log the chat for potential player wisdom and darkgod event pushes?

I'm afk a lot too, though I haven't yet figured out the chat channel.

I wonder what a speed run would look like, by the way. There is a lot of potential for skipping dungeons.

Well, there are some people that tried
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAMojfqDPjM 00h30 sun paladin Master kill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-6DEvgR0Tw 1h53 adventurer win

My most recent AoA insane/adventure winner: AoA madness/adventure: EoR nightmare/adventure (actualy it took a bit less time, since i played that char a few endless dungeon floors): Also i have a few normal AoA wins, but can't say how much time they took, because they are old version saves.
I think it's around 20-30 hours per win.

darkgod wrote:Well, there are some people that tried
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAMojfqDPjM 00h30 sun paladin Master kill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-6DEvgR0Tw 1h53 adventurer win

Had a look at them.. The full run was easier / exploration. I think a run below 2 hours on normal / adventure should definitely be possible. If I have some more spare time to blow on gaming I know what my next challenge goal will be.

DG why'd you link my Sun Paladin video instead of the Zerker one.
This one is more impressive I think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFL5vcH6Zao&t=2s
Because I didn't drown anybody!

Also, yes, below 2h normal/adventure runs *should* be possible. Luck plays a big part in that sort of attempt, though. I've completed a full run in 1h40min, but that was with the use of the item vault.

I'm just starting to get back into ToME and speedrunning will probably be one of my main focuses (I find it to be very entertaining actually).
So for those of you who have waited over 2 yrs for a new video, you may be in luck

My AoA winners seem to be be mostly in the 1-1.5 days of playtime range, including Normal through Insane difficulties. My first (and so far only) EoR winner was 11 hours 38 minutes on Normal/Roguelike. I play fairly slow, as I spent a lot of time checking shops and managing inventory.