An interesting playthrough: no workbench upgrades at all

[fiflakowski]

Hello,

I imagine you've already played this game in many ways: with/without skills/firearms/all steps etc.

Now I challenge you to play the game without essence (ezpz) and without ANY workbench upgrades. I am attempting such a run myself.

This means:

NO crafting past board and nails (no upgrades to it either - it's the only weapon you will be able to use unless you find something).

NO molotovs, NO bear traps, NO lantern, NO gas bottles/barrels - unless of course you FIND them.

NO armour (this is a big thing).

But the biggest drawback is: NO inventory upgrade and, even more painful - NO hotbar upgrade.

You WILL obviously play the game on NIGHTMARE, because otherwise it isn't a challenge at all. AND, as we know, there's the Wolfman's place in the Old Woods where you can find indestructible crates. For the sake of difficulty DRAGGING THEM IS NOT ALLOWED (and that's because the whole point is to make the Old Woods difficult). So, consider this an exploit.

And, of course, the game shouldn't be intended as a speedrun (because the challenge has actually been achieved through doing a speedrun, so wherever the line is, play the normal game with all its contents - spend the nights in every location etc.

In conclusion: despite NOT BEING ABLE TO CRAFT ALMOST ANYTHING, you will be able to FIND AND OTHERWISE OBTAIN STUFF such as molotovs and bear traps or even an occasional lantern BUT THEY WILL BE SCARCE AND VERY VALUABLE.

Overall:

No workbench upgrades or essence (not even the first upgrade which is very tempting for the hotbar upgrades and bear traps).

No speedrunning (go and clear everything, complete every step of the story).

No crates from the Wolfman's hideout.

Nightmare difficulty and no codemining for the Wolfman's crates.

Otherwise do whatever you want.

Interested? Play the game and share your thoughts. Below are mine but treat them as a spoiler for now, unless you'd like to read about my experiences and advice.

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So, there are a couple of conclusions:

This challenge means you will NEVER have the pump action or double barrel shotgun. You will NOT be able to craft the pistol or the rifle BUT, as we all know, you can obtain them from the Wolfman (this happens a bit late though so this means NO FIREARMS until mid-OldWoods) (which isn't exactly easy, is it?).

That makes the midgame very challenging. The Old Woods will be harder than ever because you're not likely to have obtained the pistol by that time. You will not have found many bear traps or molotovs before you reach the third hideout and I STRONGLY suggest to save them all up until then (the second hideout is arguably easy and there's a huge difficulty gap between the 2nd and the 3rd, while the Swamp is managable with no traps at all and you will have your firearms by then).

There isn't much you can do about the hotbar limitation but the lack of backpack space is actually easily compensated by the fact that you won't have any need for some stuff (like for example the otherwise invaluable fabric or ropes, tapes, weapon parts etc). You really don't need to pick up anything UNLESS you need reputation (but since this is nightmare you are likely to have lots of it anyway so it's likely you will prefer to choose to carry a bottle over the long barrel or shiny stones).

Getting ammo is still a top priority. But oddly you will find that many basic things are actually more valuable than ever. This is the list of things you will be able to craft (and only them):

Torch
Bandages (with alcohol)
Board and nails (no upgrades)
Antidote
Chain trap

So, as you can see this isn't much. But it makes cloth (are they called rags ingame?) very valuable because you will make both bandages and torches with it.

Torches???!!! Yes, torches. Remember you have no lanterns so this is the only thing you get really (I mean I never use flashlights for some reason - I think it's because torch is also a weapon so there's no shifting delay).

Bandages with alcohol???!!! Yes. Although you CAN use pills, there is NO use for alcohol in this setting (hey, no molotovs, after all). If you craft bandages with alcohol though, you will get a healing item AND a bottle (because YOU HAVE NO BEAR TRAPS), which is the most reliable trap you can craft. So you don't even have to use b's with % but it's still a way to get a bottle.

So yeah, it's bad but it's the only use of these things that makes any sense. Pills are still OK.

So, chain traps. Yes, finally there's a game setting where you'll be using them. Why? Because it's the only use of scrap metal available. You get a lot of scrap metal in the game. Chain traps are rubbish but it's what you have. Bottles and chain traps - sorry, nothing more. I advise to spam them by the windows and entrances but to place them apart (so they're not all triggered by a single creature rushing towards you).

Antidotes???!!! Well, they're redundant but since you will collect no mushrooms for the essence, they're the only thing you can use shrooms for. And it's okay, really. Sometimes an antidote is nice - like when you need to get through a bigger chunk of dense woods avoiding a fight (swallow a pill or bread, drink some antidote and you'll be OK).

Okay, an important remark on stamina items. They're REALLY GOOD now. Bread, pills - don't sell them! You don't need reputation. You need to live. You have no armour. You have no WOMDs like molotovs and you have NO RELIABLE TRAPS so making a run for it will become a far more common thing to do.

And one more thing: the board and nails with no extra nails is bad. You need 5 hits to kill a savage. I think 7 or 8 to put down a chomper. Sticks and pitchforks become useful weapons to actually collect and keep in your armoury (the floor). It's not great but it's what you've got.

Oh and another thing: matches and gasoline is the only WOMD you will be able to 'craft'. Although I'd normally not be eager to use this kind of a trap, it may well save you many times now during the 3rd hideout nights. Pour a trail to the puddle at the entrance and take out the first intruders. It's relatively cheap, although sadly very risky as well. If an ignited chomper touches you, you will share his fate and even if that's not gonna kill you (because hopefully you're a skilled and calm fighter), it might still cause some disruption and stress and you may not always find the time to bandage or pill up. Don't forget you won't have the Moth skill so no passive healing during night combats either.

Clearly, you WILL WANT to give the key to the Wolfman because that will be your only way of laying hands on the rifle. You will also want to make sure you give him the electronic game for pistol. Kill the sow, too, for the only hotbar upgrade you can ever get (making it a pathetic four but it's all you've got).

My advice?

Save all the bear traps and molos you find for the Old Woods nights. Otherwise rely on your melee and evasion skills. Once you get to the Swamp you will have received the pistol and the rifle from the WMan so the game can go on normally except for the lack of lanterns, bear traps and molos but that's OK. There is a SS-Shotgun in the Mushroom glade too, so that's a reason to collect shotgun shells beforehand.

This playthrough will be far more challenging than your usual game. I mean melee-only seems like a tough thing to do as well (and I never attempted it because I'd be scared of swampers and centipedes in melee) but this one will be melee-only until you reach the Wolfman's hideout (and hopefully the Church beforehand - for the pistol).

But really it's the lack of bear traps and hotbar upgrades that I feel makes it truly unforgiving. No armour is bearable. No molotovs is OK. No lanterns I can live with. But bear traps save your life in the night when there's 2+ creatures 'visiting'. I'm sure no experienced player will yield to a single enemy. But when there's, say, a chomper AND a huge dog (or even more monsters - as we well know may happen in the 3rd hideout), well, that's a tougher fight to survive. Bear traps saved you many times. They won't, this time, or at least not every night. There's only a limited number you will ever find, so use them strategically as the last line of defence.

It's NIGHTMARE, so you can't die.

Value the bear traps you find. Enjoy your molos, when necessary. Cherish the nights with single opponents where one chain trap and a stick will be enough.

I submit this should be a Steam challenge. I haven't completed it yet.

Good luck to you all, I hope this is a nice and intriguing idea for an original veteran playthrough.

Respect the woods.
Respect your bear traps.

[MazyRun]

Nice, I find the best way to ensure that any kind of customized/nightmare playthrough is a proper long term survival run is to add the condition of 'completionist' to whichever other rules you incorporate into a run..

..meaning in order to 'complete' the game you have to scavenge every area/location in the game, every zone 100% 'completed' before moving on to next (complete every side quest, collect everything, all crates, kill everything, etc.)..

This is the only way to ensure the player doesn't skip bits and essentially speed run it instead of actually playing the game.

Having a bunch of pre-requisite conditions set out for the player to fulfil before they can enter the finale/epilogue stretches the game length to an acceptable level (30+ days), this forces the player to use the in game economy and other in game mechanics/systems fully, as if they were trapped within the woods with the need to survive it long enough to be able to escape it (rather than rush to the end in a couple of days).

[Eschorg]

So it is basically a cowering simulator lol, i like that idea! i might try it.

[fiflakowski]

heh, I appreciate the malice but it's the other way around.

roaming around with pistol and molotovs is easy. you can get enough rep to leave the dry meadows armed to the teeth

the run I'm doing (still haven't finished) has required more melee and proactive defence than anything else I've done in this game

waiting for them to come while you're only armed with a staff and a nailed board is a major mistake. You've got to actively lure them into your chain traps, evade their attacks and keep calm. It's my best run so far. I do not cower at all unless the night is quiet.

It's not as hard as I had expected it to be. I mean going all melee to the old woods is OK. Double huge dog or triple savage fights are hard, sure, but they're managable if you're good at melee. You don't have to be perfect, just decent and calm.

Nevertheless, the lack of bear traps REALLY changes the difficulty at nights. I have yet to see what NO ARMOUR means because I imagine it will become a greater issue in the Swamps where fights of 3 or more enemies can actually happen. I was once attacked by a savage, two human spiders, a centipede and I think either a chomper or a swamper joined the frey. The only reason I made it out alive was because the spiders decided to eat the savage before they tried their luck with me so I focused on other monsters and eventually escaped. No armour will make such a fight incredibly more lethal.

[fiflakowski]

Hello,

I posted a screenshot of my defence in the Old Woods in the discord channel.

I must say it's one of the most reliable defence setups I've ever pulled off in the Old Woods. Never felt safer.

The glass bottles became my favourite trap but I only had so many because I couldn't do molotovs or lanterns. I think I had 20-30 bottles on the floor and around barricaded entrances.

Littering bear traps is dangerous as you can fall into one while fighting or panicking. Bottles pose no danger. The more you dance the more monster blood you spill.

That said, I have managed to gather around 10 bear traps total. I didn't really need to use them. I can't take them to the Swamps so I will place them in the church basement and lure the chompers into them. No shotty in this run. I might as well burn them though.

In other words: I learned in this run that having bottles outmatches having molotovs and lanterns by volumes. Really, I mean it. I also learned to use sticks and I love them.

I kept running with torches and I felt OK. They're a better weapon than the B&Ns because they provide light. Molotovs are dispensable.

Bottles > lanterns/molotovs, by far.

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I'm ready to go to the Swamps but I have my pistol and hunting rifle now so it will be fine. No armour though.

Enjoy the run, it's really entertaining :)

[fiflakowski]

I found something interesting:

Despite not upgrading the workbench at all when I got to the Swamp it was already lvl 4.

Nevertheless, whoever gets to this point without the upgrades can easily just as well continue so I won't use any of the lvl 2 things regardless.

Still, it's an interesting finding.

[MazyRun]

Originally posted by fiflakowski:

I found something interesting:

Despite not upgrading the workbench at all when I got to the Swamp it was already lvl 4

Interesting, I feel like there's a strong possibility that it's an intended mechanic (for the late game hideout to come with a semi-levelled up bench).. however, it still might be worth reporting it in the bug section just to get a definitive answer on it from the devs (they will confirm whether or not it is an intended mechanic or an oversight).

[fiflakowski]

Hello,

I just completed a full nightmare run with no barricades and no workbench upgrades and I recommend it very much.

It seemed a natural development of what I did here.

The nights became a bit more interesting, naturally, although not as much as you'd expect them to. Of course using the existing furniture and barricades is fine for however long they stand which wasn't very long. One rough night destroys all wardrobes.

So that meant all the windows were unbarricaded and all doors non-existent which obviously led to more enemies being able to run through the hideout and likely to spot you.

I actually recorded it all but removed on a whim. I mean it was some 7 hours of a not-so-entertaining-to-watch gameplay, although I could have just extracted the nights.

You know which hideout was the easiest? The Old Woods. Why? Because I spent all the possible time and explored every area of the Silent Forest with its many savages to get all the alcohol and bottles I could. The reasons are listed above. Bottles are the best defences, they even outclass bear traps in my opinion as they do not inhibit your own movement when things get messy. And they do, they always do.

So I entered the Old Woods with the B&N, some bandages, a molotov cocktail I'd found and 30 bottles. The remaining 30 or so bottles I had collected were brought in by the Bikeman the next day.

Nothing penetrated such a defence. Of course there were bear traps too, the ones I'd found. I put some chain traps around many places just to delay the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. But it was in the Silent Forest that I did the most fighting because I was saving up for the Old Woods.

Then there was the Swamp. Ok, that was the most difficult in fact. I had a night of 3 huge dogs and 3 banshees once. Banshees are harsh with no barricades and so are dogs who are hard to hear mid-fight. A savage will always growl at you from a distance, before they attack, perhaps even taunt you a bit. Dogs are stealthy. And when you're busy with 5 banshee babies and another big banshee momma coming right after, these wild beasts can be dangerous.

I didn't have many bottles in the Swamp. Nor ammo, for some reason. Limited bear traps made it relatively hard to defend although I wasn't going all shotty for everything that came. Tried to save up some ammo.

Because it's a no workbench upgrades run you also don't have much backpack capacity so I didn't really carry all those valuables back to the Hideout to sell and reputation was limited. 250 a day is not bad but you may not be able to get everything. Ammo, rags, maybe a pill but definitely scrap metal and gas tank, not to mention gasoline.

It's a good run. I defended the big shelf room in the Silent, as I always do, the oven room in the Old Woods and the room behind the oven room in the Swamp which wasn't ideal (4 entrances) but I managed to block one window with chairs and nothing ever got in.

Still, a nice run. Did the Radio Tower exit but I had explored all areas beforehand, played the full game.

Nevertheless, I stress the importance of going all Wolfman and killing him. 3 weapons + the shotty you find in the Mushroom Glade is the only way to get firearms with no workbench. Never crafted a single molotov, bear trap, armour, firearm or anything like that. Torches, chain traps and bandages with alcohol (and their glorious by-product: bottles) is all I did.

I've run out of ideas for a nice run, I guess I've completed the game in every way that interests me. I thought: no weapons run (traps run) but I imagine it would be so dull and I'd end up dodging enemies half the night carrying a torch and setting fire to the gasoline on the ground. Prolly not the most entertaining run.

Any ideas please?

[MazyRun]

Originally posted by fiflakowski:

Any ideas please?

In general I've found that doing runs that impose restrictions or rulesets such as 'Only Use' this or 'Don't Use' this are not very interesting in terms of gameplay or challenge.. in fact, in some cases it can make a run feel easier for whatever reason, like if it's a ruleset that inadvertently forces a safer playstyle, Or, if you do not level up at all the difficulty level seems to stay pretty flat throughout the entire game.

The other problem with any kind of challenge based rulesets is they can be completely negated by avoiding various situations. For example, if a player does a challenge run and completes it in a very short time, they didn't 'complete' the challenge they just sped through the game avoiding exposure to the actual challenge that the ruleset was intended to impose.

Therefore, I like runs that involve using all of the games available mechanics but attempt to rebalance them in interesting ways. I've found the best, and perhaps only, way to rebalance the game is to rework the in-game economy (reputation), basically the interactions with trader NPC's..

Firstly, set out to play the game as a long term survival run where you have to 100% every area (this exposes the player to multiple nights and turns scenarios like the sawmill & lake into do or die 'boss fights'). This makes the whole game about long term resource management & survival..

You can use some kind of 'list ranomizer' site to randomize which items are available to buy (on a per-day basis) from the traders. This makes every run feel different (it mixes up your rate of progression) because variations in resource availability (ammo, glass, metal, rags, etc.) will dictate your playstyle & progression over the course of the run..

Personally I think the trader loot should be random anyway (rather than the same everyday), so using a item list randomizer is a way of emulating that (there is also a mod that emulates this, but I haven't tried it yet). Random loot means you will experience shortages (or excesses) of different types of resources throughout the run and have to adjust accordingly.

I know there are some mods out there but I haven't tried them yet, partly because I don't want to risk corrupting my old & current save files (plus I feel that things like giving enemies extra HP doesn't make the combat more interesting).