PAYDAY 2

[Sly Reflex]

Got to a point now where I'm feeling comfortable with where I am in the progression of a build and doing stuff on hard with people that have some semblance of an idea of what they're doing. I think there's been a re balance with the difficulties somewhere down the line because I rarely see dozers and I've not seen the cloaker at all. Same with the gun turret and Winters. I think the last time I played the gun turret was on all difficulties and it made playing as a noob a right pain in the arse since it could mow you down in an instant. It's getting to the point I should be doing hard only and maybe be thinking about going up a level when I have people in the lobby that are capable. Also I've noticed that there's a lot more enemies in this game. Sometimes you'll go to do a cheeky loot run to the van and be met with scores of law enforcement. It's scary but also kind of exhilarating at the same time

 

I think I've done almost everything that can be done in loud that I'd not seen before. I'm still missing stuff like Golden Grin and Alesso, I'll pick them up when I see them come up on the crime.net.

 

Aside from a few stinkers I think that they've done pretty good adding heists to this game, they're especially varied with the set ups and how they play in each instance. There's generally stuff going on where it's impossible for the 4 of your to hunker up somewhere and just ride it out. As is often the case there's stuff going on where you need to make a move to progress the raid, one which they rely on for a few of the getting loot out is building an aluminium cage to hold all the bags which you have to defend until a plane flies over and snatches it from the robbery. The location the game decides you have to set this stuff up can lead to some insane shootouts, especially when it's completely out in the open and you're struggling to fend off the cops and stop them from taking your spoils. There's some truly epic drop points and escapes though. I won't spoil them here, but there's cer4tain ones that put a huge smile on my face when they were in motion.

 

One of the most impressive things is that the original heists from the first game have been put into this game and they're really really fucking good. I never could get into the first one because I was shit and controlling it and I wasn't really sure what was meant to be going on. I had no idea about the levelling or skill points or anything like that, so being able to play those now with all the bells and trimmings of what PAYDAY2 has is a god send. I don't know if everything made the leap (there's 5), but the ones I do recognise have been amazing fun and set a contrast that's hard to explain without actually experiencing it. Crashing a BBQ cook off to fix a leak and then breaking into the counterfeiters secret room and printing loads of cash is aces. It's sort of like the meth cooking but with a lot more to it. There's a lot more to the missions than just slapping your mask on and getting on with it as well, you can do huge parts of the raid just by walking about and talking to the right people. Reminds me of Hitman in that regard, you can get a lot done by hiding in plain sight.

 

Stealth wise, I've not even bothered trying to do any of that shit. I'm not saying people are incapable, but they are completely incapable. There's some vindictive people as well, stuff like people coming into an in progress stealth mission and lobbing a grenade and leaving. You have to be a special kind of knobhead to go out of your way to do that. It's a shame really, I want to do all that stuff but I think I'll leave it and do it in private with @Hendo whenever he gets around to playing it. There's several stealth only missions that I'd like to see but sod playing them with kooks, they're beyond fucking useless.

 

The thing I have noticed a lot since I started playing again is that the locations are more varied and I think that makes the game a bit less repetitious in that you're not just in Washington DC all the time. The increase in nationalities in the roster is nice as well. We've enough American voices in games so hearing the sweet Scottish screaming of a big fat lass telling someone to get on the fucking floor is a really nice departure from the norm. I sort of hope whenever PAYDAY 3 comes that they open up the locales and characters a bit more. Variety is good.

 

Maybe the most surprising thing is the whole lootcrate thing they have going on. I've only had a few myself for stuff I don't use, but I've seen them drop loads. At this point in the game the loot pool for turning over cards is gargantuan, but I see at least one safe drop every time I boot up. The conspiracy theorist in me things this is because they're tradable on the marketplace and each sale makes OVERKILL money. This would make sense if everyone was completely decked out wearing these skins, but they're not. Out of maybe 50 to 100 people I've played with maybe 5 to 10 of them have been wearing something that's come from a crate. I don't really get it at all. There's loads of customisation now but barely anyone uses it, even though it costs nothing once you have the crate.

 

The safehouse is actually used for a wave based defence thing now. It's not particularly interesting, but all the achievements and stuff are cool to see. It seems a bit of a waste.

 

The game offers something that's not really replicated elsewhere. Where else am I going to see a Mexican wearing a Trump mask blow up a wall and rob a bank? Nowhere, because no other game has the balls to do something as daft as that and make it feel as badass as PAYDAY2 does.

[DisturbedSwan]

25 minutes ago, Sly Reflex said:

It's a shame really, I want to do all that stuff but I think I'll leave it and do it in private with @Hendo whenever he gets around to playing it.

 

I’ve got it too y’know. 

[Sly Reflex]

Your stealth credentials are unknown. You shot the manager in the first heist we ever did as well, not a good precedent to set.  

[DisturbedSwan]

2 minutes ago, Sly Reflex said:

Your stealth credentials are unknown. You shot the manager in the first heist we ever did as well, not a good precedent to set.  

 

 It was a baseball bat to the back actually, and it was my first game back playing the game in years, Jesus you’re a tough task master 

 

 

[Hendo]

It's because I favour staying out of sight and being the lockpicking, safe drilling motherfucker.

[Sly Reflex]

@Hendo cracks the safes, I draw fire and move bags. And maybe shout revive him when he gets downed. This is the way of Payday. Always has been, always will be.

 

You should probably look up the new skill trees as a lot has changed. Some things have just become mechanics without having to take the perks, like armour taking the hit when you drop too far. I was never that familiar with the Ghost tree but if the other trees are anything to go by then they will have changed a lot. I don't remember being able to reach the cap of two trees but that looks entirely possible now.

[Sly Reflex]

In the Harvest & Trustee map there's a random even that can occur in the parking area to the left of the bank where there's two junkies getting high, each character I've heard get near them normally says something disparaging towards the wasters. 

 

I managed to get near them with Hoxton today upon which he said..

 

"Eugh, smells like fuckin' Manchester!"

 

[Sly Reflex]

Played a bit of solo stealth tonight. There's just something really satisfying about working your way really deep into a compound and cleaning them out as much as you dare, leaving bags to be picked up in a safer place where you can do runs back and forth between the guards and civvies. Be miles easier if I was specced into it but I prefer the loud stuff over the sneaky stuff so that's where my points have gone. It's still totally doable though as long as you put on the right weapons and the two piece suit.

 

I don't miss lugging those bags solo though, fuck me, what a chore. I should have put the drop point favour in or something to try and cut down on the legwork.

[Sly Reflex]

Been playing on Overkill tonight. It's real exciting since you're constantly by the seat of your pants, enemies just streaming in like crazy. Also it makes a lot of the randomness the heist have a lot crazier. The most notable one is you usually go in the front or the side of the bank, except this time you have to go in through the 1st floor. There's less space to move around, there's heavier units to fight off and moving the heavy bags required to pull the safe to bits require a bit more thought that just running back and forth from the drop location to the mark. It makes something that's becoming a bit pedestrian on the lower difficulties scary as fuck.

 

Also had my first bite out of the Golden Grin cherry. What an absolute masterclass of going completely over the top when it comes to robbing a casino. It's easily on par with Big Bank. It's utterly ridiculous in its execution. The vanilla escape leads to an enormous bag chain going right out the front door, if it has anything like Big Bank in it with the elevator or bus escape as a favour then it might well be the best thing Overkill have put into the PAYDAY games. I'm reckoning  doing that on the harder settings loud is going to be absolutely trucking solid as well, the way they've designed the back end of it is full of chokes and mad corridors where you don't really have any option but to ruck, there's a lot of variation in the level that makes the different stages of the robbery interesting to shoot out through.

[Sly Reflex]

Nice long session that, gave the long arm of the law a good dicking while making away with loads of swag, @Hendo.

 

Also I just noticed that I have a spare copy of this in my inventory. If anyone would like a go, give us a shout and I'll punt it across. Might be a game @Sambob might be interested in giving a go?

[Hendo]

Yeah we played a fair bit and jumped up quite a bit in levels and nearly got my character to where I want them. Already got the quick lock picking skill and that’s half the battle.

After that getting two ECM jammers that can also open doors and cash machines is something I miss. After that it’s a case of keeping an eye out on what sounds useful and waiting till I have enough points.

 

I’m impressed with how much more stuff there is. Also good that they give you a linear mission path to go down as it always felt weird to me to just give you a map with random missions popping up for you to pick.

[Sly Reflex]

I remember the days where some missions had to be played on a minimum difficulty. Big Oil on very hard? Do fuck off, ain't anybody got time for that bollocks.

 

I unlocked the achievement for finishing everything on normal, which is wrong because I've not done the Scarface mission yet, not have I don't Alesso. Still not stepped into the Yacht heist either. There's no doubt I'll do them all at some point though, probably be able to do everything up to very hard or Overkill and then struggle like a fuck to do anything over that.

[Sambob]

Whats this? 

[Sly Reflex]

A co-op game where you have to rob levels that have variables. There's a levelling up system where you can create different builds dependent on how you play. Heists have loud and stealth variables, with certain levels allowing for either or both methods of attack. You get to build your own guns that have stats that work off the builds you craft as a class.

 

Also there's a loud sweary Yorkshireman in it, which classifies it as the best thing ever.

[Sambob]

is it single player or mainly multiplayer? I could look this up and it would be faster but still.

[Hendo]

It’s like Left 4 Dead, Sam. You can play on your own with AI teammates, but better off with real people.

[Sambob]

So you have to rob the bank whilst its full of Zombies, sounds like an interesting twist actually. Do the Zombies attack you and the police or just you?

[Sly Reflex]

Yeah, you want to be playing multi unless stealth is your thing. Then you want to be playing multi with friends as there can be a fair bit of coordination to keep stuff in stealth and having a wide range of skills to get that quiet heist off will come in handy.

 

You remember that scenario in L4D2 where they go out looking for fuel, then they have to bring it back and defend the roof? It's sort of like that, except there's more variation in how it moves stuff about. There's more variation in general, instead of just heaving health kits, pills and pipe bombs you have Dr bags, health kits, ammo satchels, mini turrets, tripmines that can be used to spot or blow up, shaped charges and ECMs that can interfere with the cops bleepers and generally confound electronics.

 

You can wear big suits of armour and carry huge weapons, but if you're doing stealth stuff you need to have weapons that can be easily concealed and wear the less conspicious suit or under shirt body armour.

 

The idea is similar to L4D in that you can play the levels over and over again and they change a little bit each time with the placement of civvies, guards, objectives and even rooms you're looking for can move about from hit to hit.

 

There's also a preplanning mode. In it's simplest variation you place down consumable stuff like dr bags and ammo, but there's more in depth things that allow you to rig up more in depth stuff, like have security cards left in a dead drop, or have a sniper on a rooftop help you out when the situation goes loud. You can even alter escapes on the bigger heists. There's a lot of variation there.

[Sly Reflex]

I know that's a joke with the zombies, but sometimes that sort of happens when you've a third faction there. It's not often you have gangsters and the cops in the same area though, usually you manage to kill all the lower tiered stuff before the heavy units show up.

 

So the waves of mobs in loud go something like this.

 

You get guards which are push overs.

 

Then the first responders arrive which are usually just cops

 

Then it goes all out crazy and you start seeing blue type SWAT.

 

Then yellow SWAT appear.

 

Then green SWAT appear.

 

Then you get heavily armoured SWAT showing up.

 

If you have any hostages taken, hostage rescue will show up and try to rescue anyone you have tied up in the mess of SWAT.

 

Those mobs are the push overs (except the green armoured ones which are pretty fucking hard to kill if you're not good at getting headshots)

 

Inbetween all this, you have special enemies that enter the fight.

 

Shields are ballistic wielding shield bearers that increase in difficulty as you go up the difficulties. They start with a flat shield but end up having ones that sort of encase them  more from the front.

 

Snipers take high up nests and try to do loads of damage to you when they have line of sight.

 

Tazer units come in and electrocute the player leaving them vulnerable, also while being tazed you fire your gun which spends valuable ammo.

 

Cloakers infiltrate the map and can down you in one hit. They can only hit you though, no shooting, they're very easy to kill if you catch them in time.

 

Bulldozers are the heavily armoured tanks that slowly wander about the map and take loads of damage to kill. They come in variants like the Shields.
 

Captain Winters comes in and makes it so that enemies constantly spawn, if you want a break in the waves you have to kill him.

 

Finally there's a big SWAT van with a huge gun on it that impedes moving bags about unless you deal with it. You're going to want to deal with it as well, because you move bags a lot in this game.

[Sambob]

It does sound pretty awesome actually, how often do you play, is there a decent player base?