Just how long is the BitterBlack Isle content Post/Pre-Daimon All Room/Boss Completion?

[Slayer Seraph]

Dark Souls III is coming soon, very soon. 7 days from now.
I have no idea if I will play it on day-1. Right now I found myself spending the last 3 months playing Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen on PC.
And I have two big games in mind, MGSV and TW3 that I need to finish.
But for now I thought about at least beating DDDA - since I am on a roll and can't drop the controller on this amazing game.

With 233 hours on Hard Mode, I have completed pretty much everything solid to do on the main game + Everfall post game and post game enemies. With the Final Boss True Ending in sight.
Now I have finally took the plunge to Bitterblack Isle.
I have completed Dragon's Dogma on the PS3 back in 2012 (without DDDA). So BBI is totally new to me.

So I wonder if I should take a break, if BBI is going to be long, or perhaps grind through it and finish it.

So how long really, is the new content?
I play on Hard Mode, 1st Playthrough Level 104 roughly (alternating between Fighter, Sorcerer and Ranger atm) - and very thorough, as you might have imagined.

[Dexter]

1. If You switched from fighter to sorc often You may find nothing good in BBI especially on lvl ~100 and on hard mode. Or maybe your set up works in amazing way :)
2. If You will explore EVERYTHING then it should give You about 15-20h of fun. And if You will farm the BBI gear and RNG will not be on your side, You will spend even more time.
Quick note: depends of course how much dps your party has and once more on RNG and random encounters, feel free to add about 3 or more hours on mining, gathering ingredients etc.

[Slayer Seraph]

Originally posted by dexter411:

1. If You switched from fighter to sorc often You may find nothing good in BBI especially on lvl ~100 and on hard mode. Or maybe your set up works in amazing way :)
2. If You will explore EVERYTHING then it should give You about 15-20h of fun. And if You will farm the BBI gear and RNG will not be on your side, You will spend even more time.
Quick note: depends of course how much dps your party has and once more on RNG and random encounters, feel free to add about 3 or more hours on mining, gathering ingredients etc.

Hey, thanks for replying, not sure I understand all your points here.
Yes, I did play throug Mage, Sorcerer, Strider, Ranger, Warrior and Fighter. I did go for the Hybrid simply because I hardly have discipline points to spare and gaining them is still slow.
I like my setup, have access to some of the best Auguments.
What did you mean by "finding nothing good on level 100~ on Hard Mode" if I made switches often?

What is RNG btw? Not quite familiar with the term.

15-20 hours? Sounds too short for me, if I understood correctly - NO SPOILERS PLEASE - after you finish the main story of BBI, the entire map enters "post-BBI" mode, where different enemies spawn and new stuff to do, perhaps? Doesn't that adds double the time or something? I can only imagine it being way more difficult. Not sure if I will have time to farm for gear.. I like repeating some challeges but farming too many times- not as much.

How big BBI compared to Post-game Everfall for instance?

[Dexter]

I was refering to stat growth. If You will have(example) 500magicka and 100 strength and play as fighter You will not be able to do any damage to tougher enemies. Maybe You just got the augments without leveling too much. I wrote that because I had problems in Post-BBi on hard mode until I reached lvl ~150, without the best weapons in game of course.

RNG - Random Nuber Generator
If You get lucky with RNG You can easly get good weapons early on and stomp on everything in BBI.

To be honest:
I spened more time in BBI then in any of the other location in game and it was not only farming runs. It is really hard to describe for me not only because of my english but also because of spoilers. As for post BBI, some people find it simply boring , yes there will be changes but some people, like myself, did not really enjoyed it. I ended up with only following marker on map and later on farming for that sweet armor sets passing by most enemies.

Best advice I can give: Go and try it. Post BBi is not(at least for me) good as it sounds like.

Once again, the hours You will spend there depends on couple things: how good You are in combat, what gear You have, if You want to get deep into dialogues and story etc., if You will take a moment to just look around You know... or find and open every chest.

[Idiot Doom Spiral]

Once you beat BBI, the true endgame begins. If ou haven;t done this yet, well good luck.

[Slayer Seraph]

Originally posted by About 30 Ninjas:

Once you beat BBI, the true endgame begins. If ou haven;t done this yet, well good luck.

Interesting, not quite sure what you mean though... And what you claim sounds quite the opposite to other guy's post above.

Still, that doesn't answer how long is it?
BBI Length?
BBI Post Length? Thanks.

[Corlain]

It you only want to beat BBI and know how to do it, it's actually very short, since there are only a couple of mandatory fights. I don't think it took me more than a couple of hours to beat both rounds since I played this for ages on the consoles before that. But you probably don't want to do it like that the first time, or can't even, especially on hard.

So it's hard to say how long it is, since it sort of depends on many things... Just like how you spent 200 hours on the main game, but it's possible to beat it in much less time, even 15-30 minutes.

[Ta'veren]

BBI can take as long as the main campaign, as the fights are more challenging, and generally takes longer.
And you can get sucked into the gear RNG (farming BBi lvl 2 & 3 chests).

However, it could probably be quite short, as l_hamalainen pointed out - you could just sprint through rooms, to do the obligatory 3 boss fights, which you then have to repeat to beat Daimon's awakened form.

BBI does get quite repetitive, but I would advise against sprinting through. If you do enjoy the DS world, the BBI has the closest to those epic boss encounters. And Death is quite unique in the challenge that he provides.

As far as setup goes, I have played mostly as a MK, some parts as Assassin, and occasionally as a sorcerer. You really do need a ranged option in your attack here.

BTW, why would you want to play DS3 on release? Likely full of bugs, that will take a couple of updates to correct. I'd not rush into it myself, but enjoy what this game has to offer.

And as pointed out above, remember BBI is a side story, and the true ending of the game is facing the senescal, through the Everfall quest (kind of like the 3 kings DLCs in DS2 SotFS before facing the watchers/queen/Aldia)

[haplok]

Hm, why do you think you need a ranged option?

Granted, I have only started the Post-Daimon BBI. But so far the only thing I used a bow for is to ground dragons and even that isn't necessary (have a Ranger Pawn). Plus when I played a Warrior, I only needed to jump attack their tails 2 times before they fell.

Hardly put a dent on Death with my Bow, while with a sword I was able to damage it and force to retreat 3 times.
Though I do not play on Hard.

[Lashane The Simp of Mimi]

depends, I have roughly 95+ hours on Bitter Black Isle 1.0 alone, but that's mainly because I pro crastinate like a mf. also I got lost more then a few times because it was also my first time in BBI, we're in the same boat tbh, I played the original slow/ugly version on ps3 back a few years ago too but never got to bbi because a certain room in the evefall made me rage quit back then.

I would say if you wanna just get it over with, it should be roughly 30 hours to finish bbi 1.0, that's assuming you want to rely on RNGesus to get you a few bbi 1.0 premium weapons and gear, you really want to get the exclusive Rings that allow tier 3 Red Star skill moves to be unlocked because they look a lot more stylish/badass and they hit a lot harder.

Tbh obtaining the Rings for your favored classes is STILL taking the longest time for me, I refuse to stop playing this game until I personally unlock all Fighter, Strider, Ranger, Warrior and Assassin rings that unlock all Tier 3 Red Star skills so I can see them all in action first hand.