nt

[Basic Token]

nt

[Royta15]

Sounds a bit like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Opm7M-MXus&feature=youtu.be

Granted it was on Nightmare, but the rules are pretty fun:
- no coffee
- no stealthkills (knife cinematic kill is fine, bottle-stealth kill isn't)
- no shooting gallery
- no crafting items
- no DLC
- no upgrades (to both Sebastian and weapons)
- no keys
- no open world (meaning no collecting in open world areas like chpt 3, 7 and 13).
- New Game, on Nightmare

The idea was to create a run that would bring the fear of running out of ammo back, forcing me to play really careful. Lacking stealthkills helps with this. There were some really tough spots, especially chapter 12 had me begging for ways to kill foes. Was good training for the Knife Only Run I'm doing right now.

I too wanted to use Classic, but with me only having gaming time in 1 hour bursts, that's just not happening for challenge runs.

[Royta15]

Yeah that's basically how I did the No Open World ruling, you get the shotgun along the way in Chapter 3 anyway so there's no big miss (it's next to the doll).

No crafting is a bit tricky at times and requires some exploits at times. I originally had the rule "no bench crafting" (so only using field crafting) but by chapter 9 I had not yet crafted so I tried to see if I could have the rule stick. The no stealthkill rule is really needed I feel seeing as just how broken and abused it can be. It, paired with the no-crafting rule, made Chapter 9's crank section very tense for me for instance.

The no openworld rule also got born due to...well...just being bored of Chapter 3. I've done and seen it all, no urge to do it all again haha!

Have fun! Just try the non-crafting rule, but if you run out you can always break the rule. Play the way you want : )

If you want, there used to be a good discussion going here: http://forum.stingermagazine.com/t19p250-the-evil-within-2
Most of the people there are challenge runners of various games (mostly Ninja Gaiden, Chaos Legion, Knack 2, GoW and TEW2).

[Royta15]

With the no crafting rule you'll not have so many bolts though, so keep that in mind. I believe there's only 3 Smoke Bolts to be found for example and I used most (stupidly) on Obscura before I learned how to knife her using the table.

For Chapter 9 I woke the two sleeping bros on the floor and threw a bottle at the chanelier for flame damage, then knife (at least I think I did, could also have been my knife only run). Then when you get the crank you can use the same bottle-chanelier tech for the first two and knife the third, then sneak around back and use a bottle to distract the hysteric, trigger the checkpoint and reload which clears all the foes.

O'Neal can be knifed (takes 30 minutes though..) but a pistol is easy too since he infinitely spawns it.

EDIT: It is cool to talk to someone who is as happy with the game as I, and who also loves doing house-ruled runs! Cheers man, keep it up! You're making me hype again haha!

[Royta15]

Oh the sequel has flaws to be sure. The story was fine to me, I like that they didn't try the whole "is he or isn't he in the machine again" routine. I do dislike how it keeps being pushed in your face. The more I play it the more I'm forced to replay some dialogue sections. I also dislike that certain HP thresholds are weird, for instance it takes two upgraded pistol shots to setup for a kick, which just isn't worth it. Balance is all over the place too with Stomp just ruling supreme.

It is my GotY too though, easily, but only when paired with Yakuza Zero. Despite being a fan of the genre, I haven't played Nier: Tomato yet.

> watched the whole run
Damn! Ha! That's a lot of time spent watching! Appreciate it man, glad you liked it! Wish you the best of luck with the run! Are you planning on doing a Knife Only run down the road?

I'm still looking for some discussion on that part, I've done it on Survivor NG+ (mostly). But got stuck on the Fire Walk and I'm starting to think that will be a run-exception. What's your take on that?

[Royta15]

To be honest, the Knife Only run's only hard part is the Cabin fight which is just pure unadulterated RNG. I saw the Quizzle run and he skipped the Fire Walk too, being unable to get through. Guy has way too much time on his hands haha, but that's what you get with streamers these days! Skilled though.

Other parts in Knife Only aren't that bad. Guardian and Obscura are a joke, Stefano and O'Neil just take forever and Buckethead and Laura just take a while too. Cabin is a nightmare, but doable. Rest is mostly stealthed and avoided. I haven't had to use a gun once so far outside of opening one room with the stun-bolt (just before chapter 4).

Only game I ever knife only'd was RE4 on Pro but I quit at 5-2 (the bulldozer segment) which just wrecked me too hard to live. Respect for knifing REmake. Such a great game!

[Royta15]

Yeah the two(?) levers I don't really count, that's a run exception you have to live with. Compared to RE4 it is pretty mild which had quite some sections where a gun was forced (Water Room, Drill etc.) Myra cannot be knifed, so the run ends after Effigy basically. You can still do Myra with just the Handgun if you want for that added bonus but she's not really hard...just boring as hell.

Let me know how your run goes! Are you going to record any of it?

In terms of REmake I never ran it for the one reason that I wanted it to retain its horror factor. I only beat Chris Hard and then dreamed of doing a handgun only run but decided against it.I might revisit the PS4 version (only had the 'cube edition) which I got for 'free' with Playstation Plus few months back. Amazing game though. Did you like RE0?

[stonersunshine]

This is an interesting topic I wish had more responses. I'm still trying to get that feeling out of TEW2.

My thoughts on no pouches is that during sections where you have to fight they tend to give you pistol ammo/ some shotgun ammo. The cabin gives you about 20 rounds, the fire walk 40 something. My worry is that those sections will turn into pistol fights since I have to use up that ammo right there without being able to hold any in reserve for later.

It's the same problem with bosses where I don't think you can hold enough ammo at base stats to kill a boss like Stephano or O'Neal. I'd be pushed into using the infinite pistol ammo and I'm back to a pistol fight.

For me that would be too similar to a pistol only run. I wound up doing two of those and I can't face using the pistol again. Still I hope it goes well for you.

I'm trying to work out a playthrough that is more the opposite where ammo piles aren't to be touched so I don't use the pistol during boss fights as much. Something like Double Barrel shotgun/ Magnum/ No Upgrades/ No Stealth/ No Melee/ No found ammo.
I'm trying to make crafting expensive but the fights themselves shorter, they go on so long in TEW2. More of the fun stuff, less of the things that feel bad like the pistol and knife. Something still feels missing to me at the moment and I don't know what to do with the bow or if it should even be involved, any ideas?

It's tough because the moments where player challenge rules come into play are kind of limited. Obscura timer fight, Stephano, Effigy fight, house siege, O'Neal, fire walk, flashback boss fights, stone men, monster before Myra, Myra. Those are the moments where I have to shoot something from my stock and a large amount of those only matter if an additional challenge rule makes them. In between those bits all the runs have too much symmetry. It's not like RE4 where there's always something to shoot at and your limitations are always in play. I feel like I've hit a wall personally.

[Royta15]

@stoner, cheers for joining in!

No pouches rule is more a bit annoying than anything else, but in a No-Crafting run it can really hurt your shotgun supply and healing supply, so it's a nice added difficulty spike.

Adding the non-infinite respawn rule is doable, or using it in a seperate run, just tedious I feel. Like you I did a Pistol Only run too and bosses like O'neal and Stephano just go on for ages and you get a bit tired of it. I knifed both Stephano and O'neal now (so no stealthkill), the first one took around 15 minutes while the latter nearly 40 minutes of just hacking away which isn't something you'd want to do all day.

One thing that might be interesting is a bow-only run, really become 'the hunter' so to speak. Or in case of your run (which is NG+ I assume) rely soley on field crafint (make sure to dump all your resources at the start).

Should be noted that you can very easily knife Obscura to save ammo. Really safe method, only takes a few minutes and I only got hit once because I was a complete cocky idiot haha.

Can be seen here:
https://youtu.be/dspERTiVEJI (around 1:27:00)

What might help stoner, when laying out the rules of the run is what you want to learn in terms of mechanics. What do you rely on and would you like to learn to play without? What feeling do you want to have?

In terms of RE4, to be fair that game didn't really have an ammo-cap (which worked in its favor by a mile) and also had the extremely powerful Kick/Suplex.

[stonersunshine]

@ Royta: No crafting/No upgrades was my first run for TEW2 I think, then classic, then alternating between kill everything and a pistol run(you can imagine what happened with saves there).

I'm trying to put the focus of success or failure on mainly resources and take it away from purely skillful execution. Your knife technique for Obscura is really good but if I were to use that my success in that fight would not relate to my resource use at all, things like that are why I banned melee. When the thing started crawling on the roof it was pretty funny. I've knifed a few bosses in TEW2, it takes so long and I went for the lower health bosses, no way am I doing that for a full run.

You know I upgraded during my pistol run because I really didn't want bosses to take forever and O'neal took almost my full stock of pistol ammo, around 40-50 rounds of ammo. I thought at the time in unupgraded knife slashes that's possibly over 200 slashes, assuming a slash every 10 seconds it would take you over half an hour. Doesn't the thought of that alone put you off knifing bosses?

Having said all that during clearing up chapter 3 I started to do the maths for how much crafting materials I would need to shoot all the bosses to death and I don't think my current playthrough is possible without using melee. I really don't want to melee so I'm thinking Bow+No crafting for it could make up the difference. It's not too late for me to turn this into a shotgun only/ craft away from table run so I might make a split save.

I did shotgun only for TEW1 and there was one moment where I offloaded a single round that allowed me to kill two fake Ruviks with a match. It's a run that does require melee against bosses but ending that fight with a dozen monsters in one shot is what's seared into my brain for how satisfying it was. I want a little bit of that feeling from TEW2.

Bow only should work out. 40 pipes, 25 nails, upgraded I know that would be enough for all the bosses. Unupgraded I don't think there are enough pipes in the game to kill O'Neal. 35 fuses, 10 freeze, 35 smoke powder, seems fine for regular enemies.

@holychair: Yes, that's it, it's a pacifist run for large amounts of time and I'm not too into those. My RE4 comparison is very unfair I just wanted something on the total opposite end of the spectrum.

I use an unupgraded, no ammo/resources NG+ save that starts after all the cutscenes finish in chapter 3. I miss out on everything before you are set out on your own to explore Union including getting into the safehouse. I wanted to skip all the boring bits with the save when I made it.

I'm trying to rebalance the crafting game a bit to where the shotgun is too expensive for a single target but less expensive for a group. The magnum is the reverse. It's more about that than making crafting expensive. If I used field crafting I would make one round at a time for the double barrel and it winds up cheaper than the magnum in both cases. I also wanted to have to pay more attention to the table crafting element but I'm not sure how much it adds.

I also skip Myra, the fight is too much like the spider on the bus from TEW1. It's fine but it's not worth all the cutscenes, the long walk up and the bad Kidman bit. By shooting out gunpowder and not just pistol ammo at least it's not another pistol fight.

[stonersunshine]

I changed my mind and decided to use melee for a few bosses (keeper, Stephano, Obscura) and keep all the original rules the same. I'll take advantage of Torres in the cabin to kill most of the Lost, shoot the knife woman in the head with the magnum and the use the fire barrel to kill the crawling monsters (one fire barrel kills them). Should work out.

Doing the chapter 4 alarm segment pacifist style is always funny watching the ai fall apart. Having to open the Guardian shortcut up with a magnum round feels so wrong.

It's slow going and I'm only at Obscura because I've gotten sidetracked by a different game and didn't have much free time.

@holychair: When you fought the Guardian you can lure her to the barrels that open the shortcut and then blow her up, it teleports her away and you can then move on to the exit without her. Sometimes it works better than others.

You could try my strategy for the cabin, save the barrel and use the oil on the ground for the crawlers to save time/ammo. I tend to always let Torres take the first wave or two mostly on her own because she's so good at it, you won't have to though since you have so much ammo. Most of the enemies drop ammo, pistol and sometimes shotgun rounds. There's pistol ammo in the room with Torres and the crates in the back usually have a syringe and 3 or 4 shotgun rounds. The cabin is an ammo profit section you shouldn't be losing ammo there. I wouldn't use the bow there personally.

It depends on what you do after that with O'Neal but your next big ammo spend after the cabin is the fire walk I think and that gives you almost a full supply of shotgun and pistol ammo. I'd consider going a bit nuts with those two weapons during the cabin.

[Royta15]

Good showing guys, great reads all around! Fun to see other runners tear this game a new one!
I personally haven't continued my Knife Only yet, was on a short holiday but I might finish it next month.

> knife only, why
The whole idea that its possible attracts me, the prestige of being the first to knife O'neal attracts me but most importantly: it shows the combat engine in its full light. A lot of games crumble when put under house-rules most of the time, eventually you hit a wall and the gameplay just becomes an unfair mess. Yet some games really stand this test, like God of War, Metal Gear Rising, Resident Evil and in this case The Evil Within 2. It takes a while to kill things sure, but it is 100% possible - depending on player skill - to no-damage knife run the whole game (with probably the Cabin and Fire Walk as the exception).

> holychairs run
The biggest part that had me souring for ammo as you probably saw was after O'neal. I was quite literally out of ammo and it surprised me how each level has JUST enough tools laid out for you to get by. Again, really shows that excellent design. I am starting to wonder if crafting was a late game addition for casual players :/
For the cabin I knifed most of the Lost with sometimes some pistol rounds and when it got crowded used Shotgun > Stomp for maximum pain. The Hysteric was the scariest bit since I forgot to save the Axe for her...idiot that I was. Used it on Stefano instead.

> despawn Guardian
O_O? Is there footage of this StonerSunshine?

[stonersunshine]

@Royta: That's interesting about your reasons for knife running but they are the complete opposite of what I'm looking for. I'd rather a knife run was impossible or that melee cost health in this sort of game, even though I know they are standard runs. Still I like your techniques and obviously I will be knifing things because the run I'm doing forces me to, so I'm glad you're doing it so I can steal from you.

Guardian doesn't despawn, she teleports around the corner and if you move quickly enough through the opened path sometimes she loses track of you. If she doesn't I just go back and trap her in a photo booth. I smash the boxes in between the barrels, get behind them and lure her into being near the barrels that way, it's generous with what it allows for teleporting her. I don't know about any footage, I woudn't know where to begin looking.

@holychair: Ah that's unlucky in the cabin, my very first time through the barrel got knocked away on me but I've never had it happen since. That saves so much ammo against crawlers.

Have you ever gotten Torres to say anything else? That's all I ever get from her.

Against O'Neal if you aren't using stealth then you are using the infinite pistol ammo. If that's the case consider all the pistol ammo you've saved up expendable between, oh you're at O'Neal. You should've had a bit of fun there with that ammo.

Try to kill the first few enemies during the fire walk with the shotgun so you can pick up the ammo from the box on the ground early on.

My own run rules don't come into serious effect until around O'Neal when I finally start shooting things up, it's largely pacifist/melee until then.

I knifed Obscura which was taking me forever until I realized I should be hitting her two or three times instead of once, doh. I got hit a few times for being greedy. Still slow going but I'm trying to finish before Monster Hunter comes out so it'll be done by then. This is probably my final run but I might come back for a shotgun only/craft away from table run which is more of a for fun thing.

I will say I took a break to fire the double barrel at a few things and it really is awful feeling. Sawn off is so much better.

[stonersunshine]

Stephano dead, melee, not fun. As I was walking up to his house it dawned on me that I forgot to loot the area during the Guardian fight, I'm pretty miffed about that. Every time I accidently pick up shotgun shells I get to fire them into the air like a cowboy. Not much to report other that but next time I'll finally get to the "start" of my challenge run. I'm jealous that you get to skip the open world bits, on replay they are busy work but that's done now for me too. I figured out the first and likely only time I fire the shotgun will probably be against the stone men.

Did either of you feel bad for leaving Sykes? Playing normally he's super helpful but he's too big a drain for me.

@holychair: The revolver is a little stronger than the pistol and the burst pistol is the best boss killer, against Stephano you get to land all three shots so it comes out as one of the best boss killers there. I get some use out of the pistols myself. With shotguns there's no comparison, the sawn off is stronger by a significant amount and has the best spread, I can't imagine why anyone would use any other shotgun unless they were ignorant. At least the full barrel still feels alright, the double barrel shoots both barrels but it feels like it shoots half a barrel at most.

The fire walk is the hardest part but after it is a long stealth section (nothing to shoot) where they give you all sorts of crap to resupply. I don't think you have to worry about saving up for the Keeper by holding back during fire walk. For me that section will be very easy but a massive ammo drain. Prior to the stone men there's that barrel to explode for a secret area with all sorts of ammo to resupply there. When I get to the stone men's second section I plan to cheese as many of them to a barrel as I can and then I'll explode them, something like that could save you ammo for effigy too.

[stonersunshine]

@holychair: I didn't look it up but I actually use a strategy similar to that on a normal run though without the explosive bolt, fire hydrants are powerful.

Oh god, yeah I know what you mean about those guides. Sometimes it's funny though, I remember someone asking for help against the second Sadist fight in TEW1 and a guy pops up with "Hey look at my guide". It's a video that opens with him attaching a flame bolt to the Sadist and for the entire fight he keeps using health kits after getting burned by the angry fireball."I hope my guide helped".

On classic I did chapter 3 in full and killed everything myself because I figured while it was long it was very easy and I was unlikely to die. I think the resources you pick up there makes the rest of the run very cushy. Though after doing the run I realize I probably could've skipped it and still had the run be pretty chill. Then again I've never understood people saving before the Keeper fight, that fight is easy, seems like a wasted save to me.

When you say people are blocking things why don't you just run up to them and get them to chase you? I'm playing without the stealth stance and for moments like that that's what I do. Run up and alert them, get them to chase me around a corner and then run back to where they were. Enemies lose track really easy and that pretty much does it every time.

I could be wrong on this but I think stone men might be immune to the electric bolt, I'm not 100% on that. Laura isn't hard to do without them, it usually works out for me that on one of the valves her ai messes up and tries to attack me through a wall.


I got lucky against the three molten lava people when two of them died to one headshot, I did not expect that.

Cabin fight. I decided to try to melee only it and that was a big mistake. I spent an hour trying to melee my way through and every time I reached the Hysteric I kicked myself for not shooting her in the face. I'm not going to say there's zero skill involved but trying to melee only that section with no upgrade or bottles has you heavily rely on Torres. There's not much you can do on your end to increase you chances and it all feels out of your hands. Possibly the most irritating thing I've ever played.

In my final attempt I had insane luck. First wave of enemies Torres loaded some powerful rounds into her rifle and killed all four Lost in the space of about five seconds. She was great except for destroying my barrel. At one point she fell down and by moving around her to dodge a Lost I managed to pick her back up. When the Hysteric arrived I shot it in the face, melee only for that section just isn't happening. As the crawler broke through the wall I ran into the other room. That's when strange things started happening.

All the enemies switched to stealth mode, seeking people out, even though I was standing right next to one and Torres was still shooting people. Torres was still on top form, killing all the leftover lost but she was one hit away from death when the crawler started for her. Naturally I lined up my aim, shot right at the center of the creature and nothing. Torres dies and my shot doesn't register. So now I hold the belief that shots can't travel between rooms. Every time the crawler approaches I wait for it to cross the threshold before taking a shot. Out of nowhere a new Lost appears so I had to quickly headshot him before taking another blast at the crawler. That Thing took five shots which I'd swear is more than it should be able to take.

Counting it all up I left behind 52 pistol rounds and 6 shotgun shells. In powder that's near 200 which is near the amount I've picked up over the entire course of the game. I fired 8 magnum rounds and am left with 13. That's not enough to finish my run and I'd rather end it here during something interesting than during the fire walk when I run out of ammo doing something boring. I think had I used the gallery and keys and gotten a bit more lucky opening boxes this run would be doable but I'm done. Worth a try though.

I'd have to disagree with Royta though, I find the ammo distribution in TEW2 very amateur and it's why I wanted a crafting focused run. I'd rather have to collect ammo and then have to rely on what I've collected during sections like the cabin. The way moments like the cabin and O'Neal are structured I'm given more ammo than I can hold to take on the section and prior performance during the exploration phase feels unrelated, a bonus at best. During boss fights that offer unlimited pistol ammo any pistol ammo saved up until then is made a wasted effort. If I did bad with resources before the cabin/ fire walk/O'Neal/Stephano the game covers for me by offering up ample resources for the event.

It reminds me of the TEW DLC when everything felt very set as either a combat or stealth section.

[Royta15]

Been sick so haven't had a time to respond, but glad to see you are both still having a blast! I've been revisiting Ninja Gaiden Black again, but will probably revisit TEW2 in a few weeks again when my gf goes back to her family for a few months (she finds the game a tad scary haha).

Few quick respones

> knife stefano wasn't fun
Damn straight haha, his one liners get insanely dull after a while.

> open world skipping
Honestly no matter how much I'm going to be running this game, this will be probably a rule in all of them. I might do a last full run again one day, but honestly...I cannot imagine doing all that boring stuff again.

> resupply after firewalk
Be mindful that most are crafting parts, so if you use the non-crafting rule, it is still an issue. Still, bosses incoming so infinite pistol ammo abound.

> Sykes
I felt a bit sorry for him. But like Holychair I have heard of the scene of Sebastian finding him, but never saw it myself. What I think we're confusing with is saving him and then not helping him with the other part. I believe if you dont' fully do his quest chain that you'll find him, not sure though.

> sniper rifle
Question, on one of my runs (and only one) I got a Sniper Rifle (the whole weapon) at the final mirror before the rockmen/effigy section. I have never been able to trigger this since. Ideas as to where the hell this came from o_O?
I had already picked up the sniper in Chapter 13 so that can't be it.

> guides
Guides are, like most youtube videos and "top 10 things you need to know lists", rushed for views and clicks. It is also a reason why I find reviews very badly fitting for a game, since most games don't really come to full life until a few months or even years of community building. Stuff that we're finding, tactics, setups, methods of play, they change a game completely. I don't know if I mentioned this but I own a site myself where I write indepth articles on Action Games where the whole reasoning is that I take my time. I can only 'review' a game after I've beaten it on all settings and done a few handicap runs on it, and even then with some I feel I'm not worthy. Yet here is a online guide that has as a tip "don't get spotted" NO ♥♥♥♥ SHERLOCK.
Stuff drives me up the wall. When I see I guide I generally hope for unique insights and tips with some quirkly knowledge like "upgrading ammocapacity does not reload the weapon" notes etc. Instead you get a guy on NG++++ nuking his way to victory.

> 40 minutes to ge in chapter 4
Agreed. I actually drew a map for my chapter 3 optimal route once, still have it somewhere if you want it. It's a bit...vague. But the whole route is built around axes so that you never have to really fight anyone.

> Lament by the sniper
To be fair, if you come from the west side, you can just sneak past him easily.

> knifing the cabin
Dear god man. I think everyone whose done that would want to marry or murder Torres, or both.

> holychairs final stretch
You can do it man! If you can, stock up on shotgun ammo. It is pointless against Myra, so try to use it against the rockerfellas. There's also a couple of harpoon bolts in the first fight and a medkit in the second, to help you plan it out.