69 réponses à ce sujet

[CBGB]

A valiant effort! Thanks for posting these, especially your detailed plans. Makes me want to try.

[Grond0]

Do give it a go. The game has a quite different feel when you're playing against the clock than when you have leisure to consider your next move.

[Grond0]

I crammed in another attempt before work. Thought I was going to make it this time - with 1 hour 32 mins on the clock and only the palace and Sarevok to go. At the palace buffed up with potions and used arrows of dispelling to de-buff the dopplegangers. Everything seemed to be going well when Sarevok informed me that the dukes were dead! Belt must have been really unlucky because at least 2 of them and normally 3 were chasing me all the time and the ones attacking him were de-buffed nearly all the time.

As I had time in hand in this run I suppose I should really have played it safe and taken some of them upstairs. Oh well - from death springs new life.

[Grond0]

Another early morning attempt - another death. This time at the bandit camp. Unfortunately, after opening the chest (40 mins in to the run), Raemon spotted Sumer. He had a potion of invisibility for just this event, but after taking it the bandits succeeded in surrounding him anyway - I really hate that behaviour!

In desperation Sumer fireballed himself just on the off chance that being damaged might cause one of the archers to move away - no such luck.

[Grond0]

With no work today there was plenty of time to have another attempt - and this time success ... sort of.  Sumer got to the final fight in 1 hour and 42 minutes and quickly worked Sarevok into his corner position.  From here it would have taken a major error not to win the fight, but finishing it was unfortunately impossible as Diarmid and Angelo failed to spawn - I've had this problem before with the SCS improved final battle component.

To get round this I uninstalled that component and loaded the autosave from outside the temple.  That seemed to work OK and Sumer finished Sarevok off in 1 hour 51 minutes.  Although the tactics required are very different I think the SCS version takes about the same amount of time - need to kill more things, but they also cluster together in SCS which makes area effects such as arrows of detonation very effective.  Certainly the fight would have been complete well within 2 hours (which was my target), so I'm happy with that.

Progress was roughly as follows (intention in main text, comments/variations I can remember in italics):
2 mins - shop at Candlekeep for basic equipment.
4 mins - kill Shoal for XP.
6 mins - travel up to Friendly Arm (get ogre's belt and ring of protection on way) and pick up ring of wizardry (to fund purchases).
11 mins - head south through Beregost to Nashkel - get stealth boots and Lord Foreshadow's ring on the way.  Pick up ankheg armour and talk to bounty manager.
13 mins - at Carnival buy necklace of missiles, amulet of shielding and potions (red, violet, freedom).
15 mins - hop back to Beregost to give Firebead his book and talk to Marl.  Buy +1 axe and +1 shield and then get Algernon's cloak.  Rest to gain first (evil) Bhaal power.
20 mins - Nashkel mine. Go through under stealth as far as kobold roadblock, then use necklace of missiles; and again to deal with Mulahey's supporters (lucky here as managed to disrupt a unholy blight and Mulahey fell soon after). 
21 mins - Stealth to revenant tomb to get potion invisibility.
24 mins - Rest to get second Bhaal power then travel to Firewine bridge and Samuel's area to get 2 scrolls of magic protection.
25 mins - Back to Nashkel to return ring and report to mayor.
30 mins - In Beregost buy bow +1 and arrows and deal with Tranzig (stand in doorway to prevent him moving too far).
33 mins - Bandit camp. Go straight for main tent under stealth at night.  Re-stealth as soon as entering the room and again after opening chest (put Mulahey's boots on first).  If stealth fails use potion invisibility (greeted by Lamalha on arrival at camp, but managed to stealth before she went hostile; the SCS ambushers follow even through invisibility / stealth, so fighting cheese with cheese Sumer opened up a small gap and rested on the run - to get to nighttime and avoid stealth penalties). 
51 mins - run through cloakwood ignoring encounters (use potion freedom to get through spider area). Charm Drasus and let guards kill him to make boots of speed available (don't attack rest of party to avoid activating them).  Stealth down to Daveorn and use scroll magic protection to kill him (the 2 guards don't find it easy to kill Drasus and I failed to keep him moving at one point and he trashed one guard so sped up the end with a fireball and an axe attack).
61 mins - at the city explore Iron Throne under stealth before leaving for Candlekeep (slight delay here as Thaldorn stopped in the doorway after talking to Sumer.  Waited the best part of a minute before attacking him - he finally disappeared after taking damage).
73 mins - at Candlekeep avoid battle with Rieltar. Use scroll magic protection + potion to loot tombs and leave under stealth (annoying moment coming out of the catacombs when loads of phase spider teleported in.  Sumer was already under stealth, but trapped.  Fortunately retreating to the dopplegangers was possible and Sumer rested there before coming back to a more reasonable reception).
86 mins - back in the city use Iron Throne party to deal quickly with Cythandria.  Recruit Gorf to kill Slythe and Quenash to be killed to make Cloak of Balduran available (significant error with Cythandria when she spotted Sumer before he had finished recruiting the Iron Throne party, which meant he had to use a scroll of magic protection and spend 2-3 extra minutes to finish her off).
94 mins - buff up with potions for dopplegangers at the palace.  Lead some upstairs to make things safe for dukes; stealth back down and use arrows dispelling in support (success here, but only just.  First trip upstairs disposed on 2 dopples and next trip 3 more.  However, despite that Liia was killed and Belt at near death when Sarevok turned hostile.  I'm wondering if something in my installation has nerfed them).
99 mins - buy any final equipment and then kill an innocent and rest to get final Bhaal power.
102 mins - stealth through the maze and into the temple.
111 mins - arrow of dispelling to slow down Sarevok and then potion of invisibility to put him in a corner.  Draw out Angelo and then use magic shielding for protecton while beating him up. Necklace of missiles / arrows of detonation to kill others next to Sarevok before finishing him off (revised tactics were to use mobility advantage to stealth repeatedly and backstab.  Others present were ignored other than getting rid of speed with arrows of dispelling.  Very few arrows used as axe did so much more damage, although it was an arrow that eventually finished him off).

Although that run hit my target I think there's still significant potential to improve on it.  There were various minor errors which cost perhaps 10 minutes.  Stripping down inventory to the bare minimum and not picking up most treasure would save quite a bit of time - perhaps another 10 minutes.  With no screenshots or notes a perfect run should therefore be able to get comfortably under 90 minutes - there's a challenge for someone else.

Modifié par Grond0, 17 novembre 2011 - 12:37 .

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Hurrah!
Baldur's Gate 1 can finally be called a modern RPG, as the time required to beat it is now in the range of ADHD-ridden casuals.

[Grond0]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...

Hurrah!
Baldur's Gate 1 can finally be called a modern RPG ...

I wouldn't know - nothing modern about me.

As an epilog to his BG1 adventures Sumer has had a quick journey round seeking out tomes and the helm of Balduran.

A single arrow was enough to account for Ramazith.


Paid a priest to get reputation up and then killed him to bring it down!


The last 7 or 8 exploding arrows dealt with all but one of the sirenes on the way to the pirate cave.


The battle horrors were no match for a warrior using potions.


Sumer also chewed his way through the ankheg area on his way back to Baldur's Gate - he's definitely now a fighter for foes to be wary of.  That short post-Sarevok session has more than doubled his XP, though he still didn't get up to the cap.  Here are his closing stats prior to departing for Amn.

[Alesia_BH]

Nice work. That's a great portrait by the way!

[Son of Imoen]

It's a fine job you did. Only criticism I can think of: the portrait is way too charming for a character with 3 CHA .

Congratulations!

*edit: are you going to do Amn as a speedrun as well? (wouldn't follow your story there though, it would be a spoiler from the 5th chapter onward for me)

Modifié par Son of Imoen, 19 novembre 2011 - 07:39 .

[Grond0]

Son of Imoen wrote...

It's a fine job you did. Only criticism I can think of: the portrait is way too charming for a character with 3 CHA .

Perhaps his charisma will have to be upgraded in Amn then!

*edit: are you going to do Amn as a speedrun as well? (wouldn't follow your story there though, it would be a spoiler from the 5th chapter onward for me)

I know BG1 well, so just completing the game is pretty easy - hence the need for challenges.  However, I've never completed SoA and never even started ToB so a speed run there is a bit superfluous.  I am currently doing a multiplayer game with Gate70 with the intention of completing the whole of BG2, so I might be better equipped in the future.

[Grond0]

I've had a few abortive speed runs lately using a fighter/thief leading up to this successful one in 1 hour 27 minutes.  The script I followed is shown below with some commentary (in italics), times and screenshots added.

2 mins - shop at Candlekeep for bow & arrows, armour and helmet and pick up potion of clarity.

4 mins - kill Shoal for XP.

6 mins - travel up to Friendly Arm (get ogre's belt and ring of protection on way) and pick up ring of wizardry (to fund purchases).

9 mins - head south to Beregost and on to Nashkel - get stealth boots, healing potions and Lord Foreshadow's ring on the way.

11 mins - at Nashkel pick up ankheg armour, buy necklace of missiles and potions of invisibility, hill giant strength and freedom.

14 mins - hop back to Beregost to buy bow & staff +1 and ice arrows, talk to Marl, kill Algernon for his cloak and give Firebead his book.  Rest to gain first (evil) Bhaal power.

19 mins - in mine show face at trap to make kobolds move around and break up roadblock; stealth into cave and try and backstab Mulahey to death (beat him up hand to hand if necessary).  Use necklace of missiles to deal with his summons if they block the exit.
Unlucky with the first attack to get kobolds to move around as they regathered into another block. As compensation, however, Mulahey died without talking so no need to waste time against his summons.

20 mins - rest to get second Bhaal power then travel to Samuel's area to get scroll of magic protection.

21 mins - return to Nashkel, talk to bounty manager and report to mayor.

23 mins - back in Beregost take giant strength potion and try backstab / Bhaal power combo to deal with Tranzig.

25 mins - bandit camp. Go straight for main tent under stealth at night.  Re-stealth as soon as entering the room and again after opening chest.  If stealth fails use potion invisibility.
All Shorty's skill points have gone into stealth, so he has very little chance of failing where there are no light penalties and did not fail in the tent.  He could then move to the chest, detrap it and take the contents - this is out of sight of Raemon so no problem in stealthing again to leave.

44 mins - run through cloakwood ignoring encounters (use potion freedom to get through spider area). Using stealth attempts from range charm Drasus and then use Genthore to kill him to make boots of speed available. Stealth down to Daveorn; use scroll magic protection and try and separate him from his guards then backstabs or frontal assault to finish.
Used a potion of freedom to escape the ambushing phase spiders and run through the traps in the spider area.  Another potion went in a spider ambush, but he still had one left as did not have to use one against Mulahey.  The fight with Drasus was a mess - he saved 4 times against charming attempts and the party attacked Shorty, who had to run off the map.  Came back and forth 3 times before eventually charming Drasus where he would be killed by the others - probably lost at least 5 minutes here.  Daveorn was not too bad - the battle horrors followed Shorty upstairs early on and got left there, so Shorty was able to attack Daveorn at will.  However, still took a while to get through his protections as he was constantly running round (also highly resistant to fire, so necklace of missiles was not much good).

54 mins - at the city buy potions and scroll of magic protection and then explore Iron Throne under stealth before leaving for Candlekeep.
On the way to the city was ambushed by Molkar at the Friendly Arm.  Shorty ran for the top of the map and was in a race against a sleep spell targeted on him - the spell was gaining, but not quite quickly enough to prevent him reaching safety.

59 mins - at Candlekeep avoid battle with Rieltar.  Rest to get divine might Bhaal power and just stealth out.

67 mins - back in the city use giant strength backstab / divine might + firebreath potion to deal quickly with Cythandria.  Use Larze to kill Slythe.
Cythandria went well - the backstab and potion doing just enough to make her give in.  Slythe, though, continued to prove tougher than I expected.  I brought Larze in to attack him, but made the mistake of having Quenash attack first (as I didn't need her cloak anyway for this run).  That meant Larze got one fewer attack than normal and he also rolled a critical miss allowing Slythe to kill him.  During the combat Slythe also took a couple of extra-healing potions, so was only partly damaged and survived both a back-stab and the initial damage from potion of firebreath.  He had used a potion of invisibility and was trying to catch Shorty up when he died to the second round of potion damage.

73 mins - buff up with potions for dopplegangers at the palace and just melee them to keep them off the dukes.
Tried the melee strategy initially, but Shorty didn't really pack enough firepower to make me confident the dukes would survive.  Instead he ran round a corner and hid; without a PC in sight the dopplegangers script no longer makes them seek out the dukes to kill, so they are much less dangerous and were duly taken out - Shorty hunting down the last one which had run outside.

74 mins - buy any final equipment and then kill an innocent and rest again to get final divine wrath Bhaal power.

77 mins - stealth through the maze and into the temple.

87 mins - dispelling arrows to slow down Sarevok and any other speedy characters.  Then use mobility advantage to stealth repeatedly and backstab with run and shoot in between stealth attempts.
This combat was another which was slower than I would have liked - Shorty took 7 arrows to finally dispel Sarevok's haste, but still found it difficult to restealth (a conseqence of having 3 invisible members of Sarevok's army, plus sundry battle horrors running round).  That meant things took rather longer than I hoped, but eventually the dozen or so backstabs took effect and Sarevok realised that he was dead.

Shorty's final character record is as follows.  As you can see from the number of deaths he was using stealth extensively!


I suspect that you could knock getting on for 15 minutes off that if all the combats went perfectly - possibly a few minutes more by cutting down even further on the amount of equipment acquired and used.  I only took very brief notes, but if they were not used and no screenshots taken that could save perhaps another 5 minutes, but I doubt whether I could get under an hour using this basic strategy.  Blackmalkin mentioned a bard as being used for a speed run and using one of those with an invisibility based run might be another possible avenue to explore.

[corey_russell]

Nice work Grond0 -- far faster than I could do it, that's for sure.

[Gate70]

For starters it makes a break from the completionist multiplayer trilogy run which has been going on for....5 months now. It also gives a better understanding of the options available to complete the game.

Or role playing. Someone has just murdered your foster-father and justice/revenge/etc is key.

Modifié par Gate70, 22 mars 2012 - 08:54 .

[AWaywardKnight]

Wow, I don't think I could ever speed run through Baldur's Gate, I play way too slowly.

[crooked]

Haven't played the game in years, was just browsing the forum. Highly entertaining read, well done! I remember trying to do every bit of content on every run through when I was younger. Still one of my most played games off all time eventhough I only completed 5 games

[Grond0]

I liked playing the game like that as well - before getting sucked into these forums and exploring some of the weirder ways to play the game!

[ArchDragonDranovis]

@Grond0, I know where you are coming from. I just wanted to play Baldur's Gate again. Then I find the no-reload challenge. Now I want to succeed at that! I've played BG1 and 2 and know at least half of each of them by heart! Not enough to succeed of course, but I intend to try!

[Piplodocus]

1 hour 27 minutes is incredibly impressive, many congratulations. Perhaps this thread needs to be renamed "Is it possible to complete BG in a lunch hour?"

Install onto a SSD for minimal load times and who knows?!?! ;-)

[Francoprima]

Unbelievable and impressive what you guys pull off playing this game in 2 hours !