Hi all,

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned this before but it appears that id designed the game to make purchasing ammo, grenades, health packs, wingsticks, and ingredients totally unnecessary. You can find everything you need to complete the game without buying anything.

On my first play through I felt it was all too easy to play the card game and earn as much money as I wanted to then buy all the overpowered ammo types, sentries, grenades etc. That made the game simply too easy. So on my second play through I set myself the following rules.

1. Don't buy any ammo, grenades, health packs, wingsticks, or ingredients.

2. I can buy schematics, armor upgrades, and anything to do with the vehicles. (This is because these things cannot be scavenged, only bought)

3. Don't use health packs ever! (Health packs make the game stupidly easy)

4. Never die (or you must restart the entire game). Basically hardcoe mode with this rule.

It is not only possible to complete the game this way but It turned out that id set the game up to allow this type of play. It's very obvious by what ammo can be found in what situation that id thought it out and set the game up to work just like all their old games. In previous id games you found just enough of each ammo type to do the job, but you couldn't blindly use the same gun to play through the whole game. Indeed, Rage is set up to give you just the right ammount of all the basic ammo to use the most appropriate weapon in each mission.

It also limits your access to all the overpowered ammo types like pop rockets, explosive darts, regular rockets, sentries etc. You will need to save these ammo types to use on the more difficult enemies but id set it up so that you have enough of them at just the right times as long as you don't waste them at the wrong times.

This style of play makes for a much more thoughtful game. At the start of each mission I found myself looking through my weapons and ammo to plan what I would use. I was more focussed on accuracy because every bullet counts. I couldn't blindly craft things because all those ingredients were limited to what I could find and I wanted to save those pop rockets for the Gearhead Vault later etc.

It also forces you to use the more basic ammo types. Regular pistol ammo becomes valuable, especially nearer the end of the game. Basic assault rifle ammo is your mainstay as feltrite ammo is hard to come by. Having to use the basic ammo means the whole game is more difficult. You can't simply mow your way through everything in double quick time and you have to be careful not to get mobbed. Grenades are also in short supply and need to be used wisely. Overall it makes the game more difficult and richer because of the thought required in what ammo type to use at what point, and the requirement to be accurate with every shot. Having said that, I will reiterate that the game is beautifully set up with just enough of each ammo type to get the job done. It's so clear id planned it that way. You will see what I mean when you play it. Like you will find more pop rockets at the start of the Gearhead Vault, and more explosive bolts at the start of the Jackals.

Adding the third and fourth rules, to never use health packs or die, will obviously change the style of play for some. I'm already the type of player who does everything possible not to die. To that end in my two playthroughs I haven't died once. It calls for a more thoughtful approach to the game but it's a style of play that I find more immersive. Battles need to be taken more seriously with no room for risk taking. Planning how you will clear a room full of enemies with minimal use of ammo, and only basic ammo types, is far more interesting than charging in and hitting everything with pop rockets.

Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention that the game is also perfectly balanced as far as money is concerned to allow this type of play. You always have just enough money to buy that armor upgrade, or schematic that you need. Just enough to buy some more rockets for your buggy etc. I also had a rule, that I haven't mentioned, to not play any of the minigames that allow us to make money. They are also unnecessary. There is just enough loot to sell to then buy the things you need.

So in conclusion, if you found the game too easy then play it like any other old school id game and you will have a much richer experience. The ability to buy ammo, and ingredients is there to allow us all to play the game however we want to, but for the more experienced fps players I strongly suggest that you don't.

You could also try rule 5: Don't use the defibrilator.

I started out with that rule. I intended to play through the whole game without ever falling down (except the parts where the game does it as part of the story). Unfortunately I sat down to play my final session and I was at the start of the Jackal territory. I got charged by Jackals, as we do, and because I was at the start of a new session I stumbled over my keys. Instead of changing to shotgun, I hit the crossbow button again and it changed ammo types instead (I play on PC with weapon hotkeys). Fumbling, I hit the same key again and changed ammo types again instead of selecting the shotty. Argg. That was my demise. I ended up using both defib charges at that point because on the first defib I hit the mouse button instead of E so I stood up with basically no health again. I finally got my shotgun out and dealt with the situation without dying so not all was lost. I'll have to try again to complete the game without using the defibrilator. Lesson learned, I usually take a couple of minutes to cycle through my hotkeys at the start of a new session to make sure everything is instinctive and I didn't on that session. Stupid.

Hopefully others will take up this challenge and leave their comments to inspire others to try it. To me, it's the way the game was meant to be played.

Perhaps the game has built in survival mode? The only way to make a distinction other than a fan-achievement type of play-through maybe relates a "help" mode conversely. If people could also choose to relegate the game to overly easy then the flavor of pure scavenging would make all the difference. Unless players are prompted with an option not to choose, they will likely not reflect (Fallout NV starting decision as to hardcoe mode or not but in the opposite fashion as I've described).

Overly Easy: a radio allowing access to Coffer or who ever... a tow truck shop even ... whereby a player could restock mid dungeon. This barter screen addon would not necessarily conflict with established difficulty settings but would equate standard Nightmare with Normal if not Easy. Only using what is found actually sounds pretty appealing and necessarily intriguing.

As to a mod that would work towards some of the suggestions above: bandages ought be 1/3-1/2 as potent (a likely change anyhow for a MP adaptation)

You may be surprised when you try out my suggestion not to use Health Packs. I noticed on my first play through that when I did use a health pack it was after running away to some safety or simply backing behind cover. I realised the health pack was unnecessary because I would have had time to heal. It really doesn't make things significantly more difficult not to use them especially when you have the defib as a last resort. It just adds an element of tension and the need to play it safe like your life matters.

Of course, if you are the type of player to run into the middle of a bunch of enemies and gun them down while gobbling health packs to stay alive then my suggestions are not for you, but that's cool. I'm sure at some point I will do a speed run where I employ that tactic. It's nice that the game is open in the way it allows us to play it many different ways with whatever self imposed rules we want.

It is a shame that the rules I've suggested are not an in-game option though. It's so obvious id designed the game to allow us to play it by scauaging only so an option to disable the purchase of ammo, ingredients, grenades etc seems a little odd. Like a Scavenger mode/option and the option to remove Health Packs.

Not that I really care. I am not the type to need an in-game achievement to motivate me to do something. I choose to impose the rules that I did upon myself to make a better play experince for myself. I don't need some token achievement from the game to make me feel better about it. I didn't do it to show off to anyone, simply to improve my own experience and enjoyment. It worked too.

It's still not that difficult using all the rules I suggested, as you will find out if you try it, but it does switch the game from being stupidly easy to a fair challenge which I've seen a lot of people complain about. This game can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be so I always seem to think that when people complain about it being easy then it is their own fault for making it too easy.

The next step would obviously be to limit which armor upgrades you allow yourself to buy. I'm sure the game truly would be a nightmare even on normal mode if you limited yourself to no armor upgrade purchases at all.

The game needs a new difficulty setting. I hope they will do this in an update. Certainly you can do many things - play without engineering and bandages and so on, but this is not the way games should be played - SO DO NOT ADVERTISE STUFF LIKE THIS.

We need a real and solid solution ...

Wait, what? Its a persons choice how to play a game.. :huh:

Lol, what?

Is there a rule that says you must play the game using everything available in the game? That's news to me.

Is my solution any less real or solid than if id offered the option in a menu? Does the game need to remove bandages in order for you to feel like you can't use bandages. Honestly I've never heard anything so daft. Sure it would be better to have it as an option in a menu but what difference does it make really?

The point is that my self imposed rules gave me the game I wanted to play and id had been thoughtful enough to design the game to allow me to do that. It actually is designed into the game but it's just not an option in some menu. It's a choice you have to make for yourself and if you try it you will see the game designers built the game with my ruleset in mind. Basically I played it like an older id game, and it was quickly obvious that they designed the game that way also. The ability to buy ammo and ingredients is optional for the less skilled players who run out but is entirely unnecessary.

Sure it would be nice to have a difficulty setting that imposed these rules, but what difference does it make when we can choose to do it anyway? The only reason I could see for you complaining at me would be for those who need some achievement to prove that they did it with these rules. I couldn't care less about an achievement. I play games to enjoy myself and I don't need some daft achievement to show anyone else that I've done it. The pleasure comes from doing it, challenging myself, and having a great time. I couldn't care if there was +10 achievement points at the end of it, and I couldn't care less if I choose the rules myself or if the game forces them upon me. Infact, I'd rather it gave me the full sandbox of options and let me choose how I wanted to play it. That's exactly what Rage does. Nobody is forcing you to run through the game with 50 bandages and 500 pop rockets but if you choose to do that then it's going to be stupidly easy.

Ultimately its a personal choice that you seem unable to make unless the developers spoon feed it to you.

Still too easy. Permadeath without the defib would probably be too harsh though. There are certain situations where you can get unlucky and die really fast.

A better way to increase the challenge might be to limit yourself to a single weapon, say, the sniper rifle. That might get tricky during ambushes, though you can always use the rifle's buttstock if enemies are at melee range, as well as engineering items. I might give that a try.

// The ability to buy ammo and ingredients is optional for the less skilled players who run out but is entirely unnecessary.

Oh, and where is the body splatter and the meaty headshots if i don′t use tese things? You can turn it around every way you want - those things break the game ... but they shouldnt. With a newgame+ option this flaw would have been even more obvious. The game has a great and powerful FPS Core, but the overall game design is flawed in many ways.

Defib AND bandages? Where is the ambulance button? : ))) And i never even need them, because with Fat Mammas and Pop Rockets 99% of the time i am invincible.

The meaty headshots and body splatters are still there. You still get pop rockets, you still get everything that is in the game. You just don't get so many of all the overpowered ammo types that the game becomes a boring cakewalk.

If you are going to run around with Fat Mommas and Pop Rockets as your only ammo choices you are only spoiling the game for yourself. You can't choose to be a walking tank and then complain that nothing hurts you. Of course it won't hurt you. But the point is that id has given us the choice. If you want to have a laugh and blow everything up with pop rockets you can. But when that becomes mundane and boring you can choose not to do that and they have designed the game to allow it.

The point of this post was to highlight that id designed the game deliberately so you don't need to buy ammo and there is a new and much more difficult game available for you. They designed it so you don't need bandages. Everything can be beaten without them. They designed it so you don't need to buy ammo, grenades, or wingsticks. There is enough of that stuff lying around to complete the game. It's not just my ruleset. The game was designed to make it fun to do it with these rules but you won't understand what I mean until you try it and see how they have carefully balanced all the ammo that you find on your travels to allow you to deal with everything that crops up. In that sense it works just like Doom 3. You always have enough ammo, but you need to horde the best stuff to deal with the harder parts just like in all the older id games. Ammo management becomes a gameplay element whereas it becomes pointless if you can buy an endless supply at the shops.

I'm not complaining about shops at all. It's great that the choice is there for those that need it, but it's even better that the game is so well designed that you don't need it.

Try it first. You will see what I mean.
id clearly designed the game to play this way. It's so obvious by what ammo you find and when you find it. You always find a bit more of the most appropriate ammo just before you need it, but only a smidge more than you need as long as you have decent aim. Honestly, it's still quite easy with my ruleset, but much more varied and fun. You will have to use every ammo type and every gun. Isn't that much better than running through the game with nothing but pop rockets?

Good call V4nKw15h..
I'll have to try this next time around. I actually had like 50 or so bandages saved up but yeah most of the time I just waited it out heh.
They do however come in handy when about 5 or so mutants ambush on hard skill level.

I have to admit that I played this ruleset through on normal difficulty and I'll say that it was fairly straight forward. Other than that one occassion where I stumbled over weapon selection (my own fault) I never needed the defib or a health pack. It's such a shame it happened so close to the end of the game otherwise it would have been a flawless run.

Obviously my next play through will be on Hard with the same self imposed ruleset. That should make things much harder because taking down tougher enemies with basic ammo (most of the time) is going to take longer obviously, so there will be a few more occassions where things get dicey and I suspect I'll be even more strapped for ammo. On normal difficulty ammo isn't a problem as long as you use the full selection of weapons. I ended the game with about 100 regular pistol ammo, 80 fatboys, 300 AR ammo, 80 shotgun shells, 15 pop rockets, 10 explosive bolts, 50 regular bolts, 8 rockets, 10 sniper rounds, 300 AMG ammo, 150 2x AMG ammo. etc.

I never felt panicked by lack of ammo and always had the ability to make a few more pop rockets. I think I had about 7 explosive packets left to make pop rockets or explosive bolts etc. But whenever possible I was using the weakest ammo available to make sure I didn't run out later. I was even punching guys to death when I knew he was the last one in the room. Lol.

So there was more than enough for me to have taken things easier and use more of the exotic ammo types but I didn't know that until I was nearly finished. I went ape in the final mission using sentries and the best ammo available. I could have used more of it earlier but until I'd played it through I couldn't know that.

On hard I think ammo management will be tighter, but if I'm right id has set the game up to allow us to complete it with these rules all the way to nightmare. I think you actually need this ruleset to make the game play like older id games as far as difficulty goes. id always used lack of ammo to add difficulty and if you run through the game with 500 pop rockets and constantly using bandages then of course it's going to be easy even on nightmare difficulty.

// But when that becomes mundane and boring you can choose not to do that and they have designed the game to allow it.

You didnt finish the game on nightmare??? Dude, come back when you did. Compared to COD its much much easier. And the setting never deserves this name, even with your regular set of weapons and ammo. I finished the game 3 times > normal > nightmare > hard ... and a lot of people don′t even notice a difference.

To put restriction on yourself is straight up stupid ... and more importantly bad bad games design. Certainly you can do this and mimmick something here and there, but it is never nearly the same as good game design, where everything flows together nicely and everything makes sense. So much freedom isnt always a good thing.

If i take your thought to the next level, we don′t need game design at all. The devs will just give you 20 weapons, 60 ammo types and you just put restrictions on yourself!? You see ... this doesnt make sense.

CoD:BLOPS was extremely annoying on veteran. I played through a couple missions and gave up. It's quite ridiculous that you kill so many enemies and they keep coming until you get to the next check point. CoD and Rage are way different in their delivery, so of course it's not going to be as hard because you don't have infinite amounts of enemies rushing you.

Please don't be so elitist. You contradict yourself in your own arguements. You act elitist telling me to come back when I've finished nightmare, like it's some milestone to suggest skill, and then in the next sentence you say most people can't tell the difference between the difficulty levels. I already know that infinite rockets will destroy everything on nightmare. I don't need to prove it to myself. I had read comments that people couldn't really tell a difference anyway and so I chose to not waste my time proving their findings but to instead make the game more difficult in what I considered to be a more interesting way. I tested it on normal to ensure it worked.

Your whole arguement is meaningless and ignorant I'm afraid. Clearly you are arguing for the sake of it rather than having a valid point. You want to be right even though you have no clear point.

You continually ignore the same comment I've made so many times that id designed the game to allow this type of play. It didn't happen by coincidence. You only need to play it this way to see it. It plays exactly like all of id's older games. The only difference was that in older games you needed health kits to replenish health but in this game it replenishes on it's own. Hence no need for health kits.

Let me say this again for you incase you are a bit slow...'id clearly designed the game to be played without the need to purchase extra ammo or ingredients'. That was not an accident. Yep, your arguement that it's bad game design to need to use such restrictions shows that you aren't even listening or thinking. I'm letting people know that id went to the effort of having just the right ammount of ammo to salvage just at the right time. I tested it and it felt just like old school id games with the same ammount of ammo drops. This is excellent game design, not bad design. It allows the hardcoe players to play hardcoe, and the newbs to press the 'I win' button at the shop. Trust me, I'm no newb at id shooters and I don't need to play nightmare with infinite rockets to know it would be a piece of cake. I also don't need an option to in a menu to disable the shop to be able to work out that the game is better without it and was designed that way.

Health Packs in this game are there for those that need it, but in older hardcoe id games they didn't use them. You would pick up medkits to replenish health. This game regenerates. So for the game to play like all old school id games you shouldn't use bandages. Can't you see they are catering to both the hardcoe and the casual gamers at the same time. Do you honestly need them to hard code it into a game mode for you to consider it a viable way to play the game even though they have already designed it into the game?

That is the last time I will reply to your arguement because I don't do online arguements for the sake of arguing. I'll state my case, back it up, and that's me done. Please go troll someone else.

@ V4nKw15h

I think this was a brilliant idea, I'll try it out on my next playthrough! Sounds like a lot of fun ^_^

Wake up or don′t ... i don′t care. This game is too easy ... without and certainly with defib and bandages ... without and certainly with special ammo ... without and certainly with the shop. As long as you don′t understand this, we will get nowhere.

The quick tips suggest that it was the not the big master-plan from ID you promote here. It goes something like this " ... the right ammo can make a big difference in a tough fight!". The problem is that there are no tough fights in this game ...

They got it kind of right in 2 or 3 situations in the Coop mode. So there is proof that it is doable with this gameplay. I have no problem with normal modes that are easy and mainstream friendly, but if i play on nightmare > i really want a nightmare.

Let's wait until someone has at least played through nightmare using the simple ruleset I've outlined here shall we before jumping to conclusions?

It's presumptuous to assume that you will have enough ammo to deal with everything on nightmare when you haven't even played through the game with these restrictions on any difficulty level yet.

If they only added 50% health to all enemies in nightmare it would make things a whole lot trickier because you are going to have the bare minimum of ammo to kill them. It would require very careful use of all ammo types and using them to high efficiency to complete the game.

I'm not going to argue whether you are right or wrong about whether nightmare with this rule set would still be too easy. It would be presumptuous and ignorant of me to do so because I haven't tested it, but then neither have you.

I can however confirm that it makes normal mode a whole lot more tense and interesting, so I can only assume it's going to do the same thing to nightmare difficulty. I'll know after the weekend because I will give it a go. Then we can come back here and discuss further. If it's still too easy I'll be happy to admit it, but I don't remember saying it wouldn't be too easy either.

My post was to highlight an alternative and argueably more fun and interesting way to play the game that was clearly considered and set up by the developers. Whether it is hard enough to challenge the best fps gamers is unknown at this point. Time will tell, but id has never made a nightmare mode that was ridiculously hard for the best players. Nightmare mode was always doable by the best players in previous games and that is how it should be. I will know better after the weekend how much of an effect this ruleset has to nightmare difficulty.

Consider this though, nightmare difficulty on any id game would be a piece of cake with infinite ammo.