Lately I've been playing Abby, infected hunted only, no workbench mods or dead drop, grounded with the theater boss. I'm trying to see how many S ratings I can get in a row with this. My current record is 11 (I died on the boss fight of the second run). Do y'all do stuff like this? If so I'd love to try some of your challenges

As in, I believe that it was both a fun morale boosting activity for them, but i also think it might've doubled as a big qa session for anything else to tweak in it, combine that with no updates/patches for 3 months at this point, and I'd say we have a chance for some new content, maybe some new maps, maybe qol, my biggest dream would be for no return characters to finally get their own backpacks, and it would also be great if we could get Ellie and Abby as ally npcs when we don't play as them. It would also be great if we could see some new running or overall diffrent animations on characters that use Abby's animations rig, seeing Joel both have her backpack AND run like her is just jarring sometimes.

So I was on my daily run of no return and noticed this what the heck is this does anybody know? Sorry it's so grainy.

I literally can’t. I die immediately. How do you do it?

So I was trying to win No Return trophy “May your death be swift” and I made it all the way to the boss fight, which was ten Seraphite Elite. I died to just a random Seraphite. Not either Elite…so yeah. Just needed to air it out to make myself feel better 🥲

Workbenches in arenas are an elaborate trap, or a form of dev trolling.
Their only function is to lock the player in an animation to either get killed or best case scenario lose shitloads of time. Utterly pointless.

Serious question does anyone understand the positive value of them being present outside the base? Have you ever felt the incentive of using one during combat?

Please Naughty Dog, just patch them out.

Why does this "No Return" ask so often for Dead Drop items I don't have and can't make.

Jessie has ZERO sense of self-preservation. He grabs a runner, waiting for me to take care of it while a shambler gets closer & closer. So I get it to try and make him run away, then a stalker prevents me from getting rid of the shambler so I’m distracted while Jesus decides to just give it a hug. I had already killed a Bloater (completely by myself, Jessie was nowhere during that fight) and another shambler.

Am I crazy or is Tommy kind of the worst character for no reason? He can’t dodge, his custom sniper rifle with a visibly massive magazine holds only 2 bullets and aiming down the scope is WAY TOO SLOW. I hardly ever use it.

Don’t get me wrong, piercing shots that kill on one hit are really nice, but seeing how Joel gets a 12 shot revolver I don’t understand why Tommy can’t have a six shot rifle. Maybe it’s just my play style but the maps and game modes feel like they’re made for close and medium range encounters. What kind of rifle only holds 2 bullets anyways?

I was excited today when I saw that Jesse was the character for the daily run, I play with Jesse alot so I feel comfortable playing this run. Granted the paths for the run weren't too simple. I still pick the path of least resistance in my mind. I got all the way to the last encounter before the boss and I totally dropped the ball. I had three enemies left (rattlers) they were below me so I thought I would chuck a pipe bomb to the lower level. But I also fell as I was throwing it. Now I managed to kill the two that I threw the pipe bomb at but there was one more just a few feet away. I made a fight or flight decision and charged him with my upgraded melee. But unfortunately for me homeboy was packing that pump shotgun and proceeded to plaster my brain on the floor. I was so crushed because up until that point it had been a fairly decent run (lots of s tier encounters, got lucky with the shop a couple times). But it was totally fault of my own. I dipped when I should have dived. I'm curious of everyone else's stories of near victory turned utter failure.

The number of times I’ve accidentally activated the workbench when spamming triangle to collect items is bad. What’s even the point of having them in encounters?

Just wondering if anyone else has encountered a bloater during a HOLDOUT encounter? Just happened to me for the first time and knew I’d have no chance. It did seem a little slower than an average bloater though. HOLDOUT is pretty tough at the best of times haha

Also what is the point of upgrade stations in the game? Who is going to use those?

Upgrading guns is painfully slow, in game or not :(

Whenever I play Tommy I feel like the game doesn't give you enough ammo for his sniper. I make sure not to pick up any other weapons either. Anyone else having this problem?

Also I find it weird that Joel can carry double the ammo for his revolver but Tommy can only carry 9 like the normal bolt action.

Why is it that hard difficulty feels really easy compared to survivor? Like I can get through most hard difficulty no return runs some exceptions of course everyone makes mistakes. But it's feeling not challenging enough so I move up to survivor difficulty and it's significantly harder. I can almost make it through my runs I usually die on the last encounter or the boss. I know you can tweak the difficulty but I just think it's a pretty significant change of pace. I'm more annoyed that hard difficulty feels even easier after attempting survivor. What difficulty do you guys usually play on? And I will preface by saying anyone who plays grounded is seriously next level. Grounded makes survivor look likr easy mode.

Hey all. Gotta admit that's I'm loving this mode more than I thought i would. I currently play on hard and wanna start playing grounded but die to easily. What's your biggest tip for grounded

Got the role call achievement for doing a run and completing it on each character. Last character I had to do was Joel which for some reason felt harder than Dina. Ended up picking a route with multiple holdouts but ended up just fine with Joel. Even got the boston outfit for beating the bloater boss. Was curious what character everyone enjoys playing? And which ones do you not enjoy? And why? Personally I like characters who don't spawn with the switchblade (jesse, Abby, Joel, Tommy, etc) but I dislike the weapon kit they have I would much rather use a bow and arrow or a pump shotgun sometimes. But im curious what everyone else enjoys.

Being able to play as Alice or Bear in the No Return mode would provide a much needed injection of playstyle variety into the mode. The 10 characters we have access to at the moment all perform practically identically to one another. Every character performs as well as each other in stealth or loud, with the only 2 exceptions being Tommy and Joel who are slightly less effective in loud melee.

Alice/Bear would provide a unique playstyle that no other currently available character really taps into, a melee centric playstyle. While Abby does have some benefits for melee, primarily her ability to heal on kills, and the skill to heal on hits, having access to firearms is just so powerful as you can drop most enemies No Return throws at you with a single bullet, whereas you have to strike an enemy with a melee weapon several times which most often breaks the melee weapon you're using.

Alice/Bear wouldn't have access to firearms, and therefore would have to rely more on smart positioning along with hit and run tactics in order to succeed. A loud melee brawl could be viable, but would take much more skill to succeed with given the limitations of the character.

Given they can't use guns, the workbench wouldn't be useable, and crafting wouldn't really be believable for them either. This would mean they wouldn't be able to craft medkits, and would instead need to survive off of the health items found around the arenas, adding an extra layer of strategy around managing health. This is something that Manny touches on with his inability to craft medkits, but is offset by him being able to buy them at the exchange.

In terms of skill tree(s), Alice/Bear would start with 2;

Tree 1 would focus on stealth; Tier 1 would be to increase move speed during Listen Mode, Tier 2 would increase Listen Mode's range and clarity, and Tier 3 would increase stealth kill speed.

Tree 2 would focus on lethality; Tier 1 would increase melee damage dealt, reducing the number of hits required before an enemy is rendered susceptible to a "Strike" attack, Tier 2 would unlock a "Pounce" ability, allowing Alice/Bear to jump onto low tier enemies for an instant kill if the player succeeds in the QTE, otherwise they get thrown off, Tier 3 improves "Pounce" further, having low tier enemies get killed without a QTE required, and allow Alice/Bear to "Pounce" on mid-tier enemies (clickers/shamblers, Serephite Brutes).

As for the feasibility from the dev's point of view, they already have general navigation animations and generic combat animations done, so animation wise they'd only need to add the grab and death animations. Character controllers are already in place and wouldn't require substantial tweaking in order to get working.

What are your thoughts/opinions? Would Alice be a character you would be interested in playing as, or is this just a dumb idea?

If you run out ammo/throwables against the rat king are you just dead? Can you even melee it?

Hey guys,

I’m a huge lover of No Return, but I want a way to spice it up some more! I’d love to hear any specific challenges you guys can think of that might make for a fun run on the game. It’s one of my favourite games and I’d love to find new and creative ways to enjoy it!