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Has anyone tried to play without ever going to the shop?

Level 5 support, West London. I get my body armor sometimes but thats about it, free gun I start out with I can use for the whole map and tons of ammo spawn points to run to.

Try playing on above Beginner and Normal. Ammo, armor, and weapon spawns get proportionally lower and take longer to refresh on higher difficulties.

On Suicidal, there's almost no ammo on the map whatsoever, so if you don't get to the shop in time to stock up, that's about it for you...
 
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It would be great if ther would be a mutator that would make 50% chance the trader wil not spawn.
From what i've seen the trader doesn't spawn at all, the traders are in all locations at once and the game just enables a certain shop area at the end of a wave. If you are inside a shop area when that area isn't enabled it doesn't let you buy stuff.
but anyway, the amount of ammo and guns around is MUCH lesser the higher difficulty you go, to the point where you'll see the occasional ammo box or weapon but its rare.
I'd go with what raziel says and just enable the notrader mutator if thats how you want to play.
 
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On Hard servers I usually only go to the trader each round to sell weapons I've found and give my money to other players. I only do this as a level 5 medic though because you can easily outrun most enemies while looking around the level for weapons and ammo. On suicidal I try to do the same tactic but I'm often forced to buy ammo because it's so scarce.
 
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On Hard servers I usually only go to the trader each round to sell weapons I've found and give my money to other players. I only do this as a level 5 medic though because you can easily outrun most enemies while looking around the level for weapons and ammo. On suicidal I try to do the same tactic but I'm often forced to buy ammo because it's so scarce.

No kidding! On suicidal, I'd say that there will be MAYBE 3 randomly picked ammo spawns active on each map. They take a huge amount of time to reappear and there's no guarantee that they'll be there at all when you need them...buying at the Trader is a must.

With some ammo-gobbling classes (Commando, Firebug), even Normal usually requires a trader visit after each wave. The only time not going to the trader is usually viable is on Beginner, where it spawns something like 4x the amount of ammo crates and is very generous with the weapon/armor spawns...
 
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In multiplayer, I usually let other people grab weapons and ammo before me ( since I play medic, I don't really need them that much ). Just sticking around other people and backing them up usually earns protection, and everybody can use a diligent healer.

Solo, on the other hand, I hoard money and pickups because I don't have to share them.
 
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Don't ever try it with Clot Buster on. Me and my friends did that earlier and ran out of ammo trying to kill the insane amount of Fleshpounds that the game spawns. Eventually, we were cornered in the upper floor of one of the farmhouses. **** did not end pretty.

Clot buster is trouble anyway, for anyone but a Berserker. The clots quite literally aren't worth the ammo you use to kill them!

Even using inexpensive weapons, like the 9mm, Bullpup, and Lever Action Rifle, you'll run low on ammo and since each clot only gives you $1-$2 on higher difficulties, you'll be hard-pressed to buy ammo!
 
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Clot buster is trouble anyway, for anyone but a Berserker. The clots quite literally aren't worth the ammo you use to kill them!

Even using inexpensive weapons, like the 9mm, Bullpup, and Lever Action Rifle, you'll run low on ammo and since each clot only gives you $1-$2 on higher difficulties, you'll be hard-pressed to buy ammo!

Three pounds on Suicidal :(. Even if you kill a whole wave yourself ( 30 -> 50 solo ), you can't afford to use power weapons until wave seven when fleshpounds start showing up unless you spend like no money on yourself.
 
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