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My Thoughts on Payday 2

Zoroark Cutie

The Illusion Fox Skyfarer
2,511
Posts
9
Years
I'm going to go ahead and say that I do like this game more than the first Payday game, it improves on so many things, but it does have a few missteps to it. I want to give my thoughts on both the vanilla part of the game, the part of the game before it got so many updates to it and is also the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, and the current updated version of the game.

Starting with the skill trees, I personally like that they got rid of the system that they put in the first Payday. The original Payday's skill trees had 3 skills you could increase, Assault, Marksman, and Support along with a DLC Technician class, and all the stuff you got from leveling up a skill tree was a mix of unlocking weapons, gadgets, and boosts which include improving armor durability, increasing health, extra cable ties, extra start-out ammo, increase in accuracy, damage, magazines, reload speed, and decreasing recoil to certain specified weapons, as well as having crew bonuses that give increase damage, decrease weapon spread, increase body armor, increase bleed out time, increase in ammo pool, decrease weapon reload, and increase in cash. Honestly why they aren't bad, they didn't feel really unique from each other. Payday 2's system on the other hand does feel more unique as each skill tree do focus on different kinds of situations with Mastermind focusing on being a support by keeping team mates healthy and alive, the Enforcer focusing on combat, armor, shotguns, and ammo, the Technician being the tech class and focuses on drills, mines, and sentry guns, and the Ghost class focusing on stealth. I also like how each unlock in each class feels different from each other, whereas the original Payday's unlocks felt nearly the game. To understand what I mean, I'm going to take the Support class from the original Payday and the Mastermind class from Payday 2 and compare their unlocks. The Support class in The Heist unlocks the Medic bag, Bronco. 44 magnum, Reinbeck shotgun, Compact-5 SMG, 2 accuracy upgrades to the B9-S pistol, 2 Mag increases for the AMCAR-4 Assault rifle, 4 damage upgrades, 4 accuracy upgrades, and 2 reload speed upgrades for the Bronco .44, 4 damage upgrades, 4 recoil decreases, 2 mag increases to the Reinbeck, 4 reload upgrades, 2 accuracy upgrades, 2 recoil decreases, and 2 steelsight speed upgrades for the Compact-5 upgrades, 5 extra startout ammo player upgrades, 1 extra body armor player upgrades, 3 doctor bag upgrades, and the Protector Crew Bonus, plus maybe the Mr. Nice Guy Crew Bonus, but I think every skill tree has that if I remember correctly. The Mastermind class in Payday 2 however has 3 paths with 4 tiers in each path with each unlock having a basic and aced version starting with Combat Medic which gives you access to the Doctor Bags, Quick Fix which decreases the deploy time of doctor bags and when aced it makes anyone player who uses a doctor bag take less damage for a few seconds, Painkillers which make crew members take less damage for a few seconds when revived and increases the damage reduction when aced, Uppers which gives you more First Aid Kits and makes First Aid Kits automatically used on players who go down within a certain radius when aced, Combat Doctor which gives you one more deployable Doctor Bag and gives you two more charges when aced, and Inspire which decreases the time it takes you to revive someone and gives your team mates a movement speed boost for a few seconds when you shout at them and when aced you can revive team mates just by shouting at them. Now that is just one of the Mastermind paths and that was also the PC version, it would take forever to go through all of them, but I personally think that the Mastermind class has more interesting unlocks and upgrades than its original Payday counterpart. I also really like that the skill trees in Payday 2 give you a pick and choose style as you get to pick what you want to unlock through each of the skill trees and let you make your own build.

I also like the Reputation and Money changes which were done between games. Instead of basing experience and your Reputation levels off of money like the first Payday, I like that they made them both separate. With the Reputation experience being based off of the heist you've done, how the heist went, and a few other factors. The money on the other hand, I'm glad that this is just its own thing, it's not experience hidden as money, and it's more worthwhile since it's now used for purchasing weapons, which I'm also glad are now universal Reputation unlocks rather than skill unlocks except for one particular weapon, and some of it goes to an Offshore account.

As for weapon variety, I think it is vastly better without a doubt. I never could get out of my mind that the original Payday's weapon variety was lacking, as there were not many weapons to be honest which is why I'm glad that Payday 2 at least has more weapons. Although I do have an issue with the weapon modifications, but I'll get into why later, although I will say that I do like that there are more weapon modification options and each one sort of being different each other. I say sort of different because I have seen some weapon modifications that act the same to some others in the same category and only different in appearance. I also personally don't like that you need to purchase extra slots to have more weapons, especially since the slots themselves are expensive. I also like the introduction to melee weapons which now give a bigger purpose to using melee as some of the weapons have a better range and do more damage. There is one weapon in particular that is different and that would be the Saw. This is a melee weapon, but it doesn't take up a melee weapon slot, it takes up a primary or secondary slot, and you can not use it unless you have a certain Enforcer skill. The Saw does have its uses as it can open up deposit boxes quicker, it can open up ATMs if you didn't bring an ECM jammer, and open up certain doors, although the Saw can't be use infinitely as the blades break easily and it will burn through your blades quickly and it doesn't have a whole lot of them. As for the equipment, while it is largely the same, I do like the additions of the body bags and ECM jammers since the body bags do help since they allow you to move bodies and the jammers can take out electronics which both come in handy for players who want to stealth some heists.

Another big change is addition of Crime.net and PAYDAY. Personally I do like the addition of Crime.net, as it has a nice website like look to it as you scroll over a map and contracts pop up from different clients, it shows you how much money and experience you'll earn, their difficulty and rather you can complete them by stealth, how many in-game days you have to complete them and the clients. I personally like the clients as they each have a different theme when it comes to their heists. Bain having the regular types of heists, Vlad having contracts that include stealing back stuff and causing destruction, Hector having heists that involve cartel work, and The Elephant who's heists involve political motivations. As for the changes in the heists themselves, I do like some of them. I like the introduction of Days where you'll have extra parts to do before you can get paid. The Escape portions where you'll need to defend off police and re-secure your stuff is also a nice addition if you ask me. Pro Jobs, the much more difficult heists where if you fail then you can't restart them, I am okay with, although I wish that some of the heists that get one, like Big Oil, weren't exclusive. As for the new Assets page, I absolutely love this, since it makes each heist feel more like a heist as you can look at the maps or purchase some extra stuff to help you, and I love that. The PAYDAY feature, I'm also okay with, as I do like getting that lottery like chance to get some extra cash, EXP, or mask customizations, although I really take an issue with getting weapon mods in a PAYDAY since weapon modifications are really needed, especially silencers, and that you need to still pay for them to even be put on your weapon. I honestly think that is just stupid that you need to pay to add these modifications, especially with silencers. I can maybe understand paying to have a scope added on some guns, but with silencers, that's stupid especially since putting silencers on a gun is not that hard and should cost no money other than buying it. The other stuff you get in PAYDAY cards, I'm fine. As for the heist themselves, I do like that there is about double the amount of heists from the last game and I like that there is a bit more variety in terms of objectives, even though it is still mostly stealing stuff, I do like that some heists aren't 100% about stealing. I absolutely do love the assets that you can purchase for heists at the cost of some money to help you through each heist.

In terms of Gameplay, I honestly think that it is largely the same, although I do like that more heists can be completed by using stealth. I think the changes to the security cameras are much better as they serve more of a purpose to keep an eye out on as they can now spot you and have alarms going off. Even though the security cameras in The Heists's No Mercy heist essentially do that, that's the only heist where they do spot you and even they are scripted to go off if you don't shoot all of them within a time limit. As for the addition of security rooms and being able to view cameras through monitors, with the exception of the ones on the final day of the heist called Framing Frame, I never really found them to be that useful, but that's probably because I'm not that stealthy and haven't been able to do any heists with stealth because I don't have a silencer for any of my guns. I know that silencers aren't needed, but I'm that terrible at stealth to I do need them. Speaking of stealth, I do like that you now have a Concealment ranking where certain weapons and armors will either change your Concealment rating, the higher the Concealment, the higher chance to have a stealth operation go loud, and it forces you to decide if you want to go a bit lighter to try and stealth or go more equipped for combat. I also do like the addition of the pagers, mostly because they make sense for guards to have, although I found them to be really picky about on where you have to aim in order to answer them. Lock picks are also another new addition I like, however at the same time I also really hate them because they are really slow, but I can only assume it's to be more real. As for the game's difficulties, I kinda like how it does progressively tougher when you go up in a difficulty as it spawns and the higher the difficulty, then it throws more difficult enemies. The AI on the other, is largely the same, although I think the AI might be a bit worse this time. The enemy AI is still aggressive, but I still see them charging right towards me and my team, and I have numerous occasions where they would just go into full derp mode and aim at walls when I was near them and even times where they would just point their guns at me, and just did nothing. I remember that there was one heist I did where I got the item to steal, and a whole team of SWAT officers walked into the room, guns pointed, and just literally stood there, they didn't start firing until I killed one of them and this was after going through 3 assault waves earlier and was on a 4th one so the argument that "they're trying to get me to surrender first like the SWAT may do in real life" is pretty invalid here since I went through previous assault waves. Team mate AI is also a bit worse because often times, they still are partially blind and get right in my line of fire, but I find them getting stuck in some questionable areas and sometimes even being miles behind me when I need them. One particularly bad incident I had was that I got down in the streets and I kept shouting at an AI team mate to revive me and they got stuck in the middle of the street and were a few feet away from me, somehow. Most of the time they are still the same as the AI in The Heist, although they do have some special moments, giving you a reason to play this game in coop. Civilian AI seemed to be a bit better, still not perfect as I still saw them do some derpy things, but not as much as I saw in The Heist. I also had some clipping moments, where an enemy would clip through a wall just a tiny bit, but enough to where I could kill them. Guns feel a bit better to use than in the last game personally and they do sound better, and you still do have to wait around for some things to finish, and while it is a bit longer in some cases, at least there are skills you can unlock to make it a bit faster.

Now that was pretty much everything in the vanilla version and I do want to share what I think of the stuff that is in the updated version.

I do like that new characters have been added into the game and that they aren't just new models. While they are just new models in hindsight, I do like that they bring new weapons and even have their own Perk Decks. Perk Decks I do like since they give passive effects that can greatly help with your survival in heists. As for the new Infamy system, I'm okay with it since it is basically a Prestige system, just that you need to pay a lot of money from your Offshore account, enough money to build a city of diamond mansions, in order to get to be Infamous. The Offshore Payday is also a good way to get some cards and even up your chance to some goodies you want when you have some Offshore money and gives that money a new use. I'm going to be honest, Offshore money really didn't mean a whole lot to me in the vanilla version since the only thing they could be used for was to buy contracts of heists that you wanted to play without having to wait for the contract to show up, and I usually got all my money back after completing a heist since I try to collect as much as possible to get more money. Even though the Offshore Payday is expensive, it still a nice alternative way to use your Offshore money. The new Pre-planning phase where you can buy some assets and get a much more detailed map to look at as well as being able to highlight key areas and set your assets for the heist is really neat feature, however I am disappointed that it's not in every heist, only on a certain selection of maps.

That's pretty much all that I can think of to give my thoughts on Payday 2. It was hard for me to go over everything and give my opinion on what I think about each stuff since the game does have a lot to it even though each heist, I won't be surprised if I even missed out on a few of the features because the game does have a lot. I know I skipped out on the microtransactions and that was on purpose since those have been removed and the safes have been redone. Overall, I do love Payday 2, especially since it has been updated so much. Not going to lie, going back to Payday 2 and taking the jump from PS3 to PC is like a giant huge leap with all the new stuff they added in.
 
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