I've been really enjoying Payday the last week or so, but the more I get into the game the more troubling I find the RNG loot/card system. It starts off addictive and fun, but rapidly becomes depressing and bleak. You're dealing with such a vast ocean of random chance, that it becomes impossible to even desire something specific. Want a cool rare mask? Here's another shotgun stock. You already have 3. SWEET! I got an Infamous color scheme for a mask! But it's been 20 levels since I've gotten a mask...

It goes on and on, in any depressing combination you can imagine. There is just such a massive field of things to roll on. First, which card you get Mask related or gun related. Then if that card is a cash payout or actual loot. Then if that is going to be infamous loot or not. Then you have to luck your way past all the stuff you may already own. Because owning something doesn't take it out of the loot table - you just double up your stock. Then once you've gotten through ALL that to unlock a mask, you can only customize each template once. So do you hold out for the perfect color scheme? How long could that take? Eternity, 5 minutes, who knows.

I get RNG loot tables. I think they have their place. But Payday 2 is only hurting itself with the extent to which it has been applied. Really hope something changes in future updates.

yup, im there with you, its depressing to get the same masks or Weapon attachment that is useless, I have 5 of the same shotgun upper rail that does noting and have only had 2 silencers drop in 55 levels

Yeah, it could use a better unlock system along with a level select list that lets you choose difficulty. Those are my only two gripes with the game really. Still rocking a default mask because the game refuses to give me a new one.

The devs seem pretty intent on keeping the game updated, so hopefully they listen to the community on this one, even though it would require a major overhaul to what they have in place.

Yeah, it makes what is already a drawn out progression system even more drawn out because you can't choose your mods.

Took me until like level 20 to get a single assault rifle mod.

Also just got disconnected from my Firestarter match after running the whole thing perfectly til the last mission on Very Hard... jack to show for it now. Probably the last time I play this game. 22 hours out of it, no real complaints, but a lot of blown potential all the same.

Also at $40, the game seems absurdly overpriced for what it is. It could have used some kind of cash shop, and been F2P or around $10. Overkill seemed like they bit off more than they could chew. It's a shame since the idea is amazing. And in terms of actual gameplay, it works. Not perfectly, but it all works. As much as I want to congratulate Overkill for actually finding a way to make this kind of a game, I also want to strangle them for hamstringing it with excruciatingly misguided randomness in matchmaking and loot. It's agonizingly close to being a genuinely great game.

The game cost $30. And it's not overpriced, IMO. The game it reminds me of very much is Left 4 Dead and this was half the price and has a lot of different elements at least (that could be argued either way).

Still half price. And no way in hell does a solid handling 3D shooter with all these elements cost $15, no less $10. And I like the price a lot in theory vs the bullshit that could go on if it was F2P.

But I totally feel you on what your saying. Like I said in my previous post and throughout with this one, I definitely got my money worth but yeah the flaws really show when you put your time in and it is indeed very close to being a really awesome game.

http://www.gamestop.com/ps3/games/payday-2/109418

It's 40 for consoles.

Okay, well bought it for $30 myself. I can see saying it's 10 too much on console but no way could this be less than 30 for what it is, that's just not realistic without microtransactions and I love that this game steered clear of that. We are already having complaints about the progression without F2P imagine it with F2P.

Yeah, I would have loved to pay 60 for a complete package with more maps, better visuals and a well designed loot system. Maybe OK just ran out of money and had to get some funds

Agreed man.

This game seems to be quite successful (on PC at least, been like top 3 on the Steam Best Seller list since just before it came out) so I hope they can really blow out Payday 3 or maybe we get some more heist games, maybe that are similar but change things up or I would love to see some really tactical takes, who knows.

And we also have GTA V and GTA Online which may be what we're looking for too.

They changed the loot system at one point so you can get only max 2 of the same item in stock ... so the longer you play the higher the chance you get something you don't own yet.

Yeah, it wan't until about 20 hours in that I got a new mask, and then when I did I got four of them in a row.

Considering I'm level 29, specced purely as a Ghost, and haven't managed to unlock a suppressor, I think that's a problem. Actually what's even worse is that @gunstarred, who's specced as an Enforcer, totally unlocked a suppressor before I did! I mean, where's the justice?

Least they could do is allow some sort of trade option.

@yummylee: to be fair though ... everyone gets one surpressor for the basic pistol and even as a ghost thats pretty much all you need. If you want to play stealthy most of the time you are screwed anyways if you have to fire your gun.

It's much more important as a ghost to get the skill that knocks out people without them making a noise.

Edit: And I'm pretty sure they are looking into a trade system. At least I heard that several time.

I dunno about that. From what I've heard there's been missions like the FBI level that can be easily completed stealthily with two players just going around pew pewing all of the guards.

I never realised I already began with a suppressor for the default handgun, though. I already sold the damn thing eons ago, but it may be worth buying again to finally fit myself with a suppressed pistol at least. Ta.

If you are going around killing guards you need a specific combination of skills ... you need a Mastermind with Smooth Talker and Domination ... and yeah, I do that too (killing guards) but never with a gun, even a silenced one, because with a gun there is always a chance someone will hear you shooting. Much safer to get that ghost skill and melee them.

I understand that the loot system is frustrating, I would like some specific stuff too, but mostly it's not very relevant to the missions what gear you have. The stuff that matters, new guns, unlocks level based.

@2headedninja:

Stealth mechanics are fine as long as you understand that they play by a set of rules unique to payday. The detection, suspicion, civilian behavior, noise levels, etc are all different enough from standard stealth games to be confusing. Monkeying around long enough lets you get comfortable with the framework to stealth in, but it doesn't feel... Fluid. But it is still there, and doable. Which is great.

Overall it's a 7/10 game that based on fun level alone is around 8 or 9. It needs a better coat of paint, more heist specific maps and a loot system that lets you at least see the carrot at the end of the stick. The gun unlocks are all done so quickly you barely notice the progression.

But I really do think the RNG only hurts things once you get about 10+ hours in. The loot pool is too large. They could remove standard color palettes, cash bonuses and already owned gun mods and it would STILL be huge.

Some of these comments made me laugh.

Anyway I'm level 53 or 52 I understand your pain. Like I said in another thread the card concept isn't bad, but I don't like the way its used. Hell I don't like how there's a limitation to your weapons and masks inventory, and your force to get rid of stuff you've bought to get something else, complete bullshit. I wonder wtf Overkill was thinking with some of these design decisions.

The loot is not the only issue this game has. There is no late game content and nothing to spend money on. Once you get to about level 40 and you have people that know what they're doing, even on overkill difficulty the missions are a cake walk. I'm still under the belief that they released the game early to get out of the way of bigger games, but it is a discount title if that counts for anything.

I haven't played since hitting level 70 something, but they do update multiple times a week so I still have hope that they're listening to the community and will deliver fixes even if it's a little delayed.

Edit: They actually just had an update today "There now is a higher chance to drop weapon mods for weapons you currently own".

Wait, wait, wait... I haven't played Payday 2, but are you saying that you can get an item drop that is identical to one you've already received? That's fucked up. It turns the Payday loot system into the coupon collector's problem, i.e: there are X number of different coupons, how many magazines with one random coupon in it do you have to buy in order to get at least one of each. Stated in other words, if there are 100 unique loot items, and for every drop you get one randomly selected (even if you already have it), what's the expected number of drops until you have them all?

If this is indeed the case, that would be pretty merciless. For 100 different items, the expected number of drops you'd need to collect them all would be 519 (the formula is X multiplied with the Xth harmonic number). Meaning that 419 of those drops would be something you already have.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding how the loot system works, but this just seems plain shitty.

Problem would be solved if they just let you buy cards cause money becomes purdy useless.

@gkhan:

It's not good. It would be like every piece of end game loot in an MMO dropping off one boss, one item at a time. It's safe to say the pool of "stuff" you're rolling on when you flip a card is in the hundreds. Color palettes (most of which are god awful), masks, mask designs, weapon mods (you can own multiples), cash and the any infamous quality loot. It would still be a tough loot lottery even if you unlocked an item from each category at once, every mission.

They need to get rid of the cash bonus cards. Those are fucking useless. They might be somewhat useful when you're just starting out at level 0 with no cash, but you can easily make money doing Watchdogs over and over. If they have to have a cash bonus card, then at least make it a percentage boost of the spending cash you earned in the heist, not some shitty cap of 16,000 dollars. Like, give additional 25% of the spending cash earned or something. Or just replace cash bonuses with XP bonuses. I'd rather have a double XP card than a shitty cash card. Right now, the only reason they have cash cards is so they can justify that near useless Ghost skill which gives you a higher chance of earning better quality loot. They need to patch out that skill with something more useful.

If I had to describe Payday 2's negative aspects in one word, it would be "padding." Every thing they implement in the game is to pad out the small number of heists and to ensure that you keep replaying over and over to get what you want. It's not just the loot drops that are random, it's the godawful crimenet that's random too. There is no reason, in a co-op based game, why you should deter farming. If people wanna run Jewelry store over and over to card farm then let them. It's your own fault for forcing people to card farm by implementing that awful card drop system in the first place. On the other hand, people don't want to see Ukranian Job or Nightclub dominate the crimenet. You know how you can circumvent that? Don't implement that awful crimenet! Just have the lobby from Payday 1 where you can filter by heist and difficulty. The people that want to farm can farm and the people that want to play other heists can easily find other heists to join instead of waiting for crimenet to update.

The only reason they have to balance their game is because they themselves have broken it with terrible systems that artificially pad out the game. When you implement a random loot drop system with terrible drop rates, long XP grinds, can't keep the masks and patterns you sell, and have random heist selections, you are encouraging people to farm. So don't punish them for playing the game in the way that you unintentionally designed it.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the game. But I'm sitting at level 60 here grinding out Rats over and over again with barely any mods for my guns. Don't overcomplicate things by trying to make it Diablo, just take it back to basics.

And the way they inundate you with mask customization options, would lead one to think that masks would be easier to obtain. But NOPE. I have 5 infamous materials and more patterns that I even care to think about, and have unlocked 3 masks at level 51. 3. That isn't incentive to play around and be creative and use my patterns. It's incentive to never touch anything.

@drflapjack said:

That's depressing to hear. With only a handful of heists and limited variability in each, I've already begun to see the game's ceiling at level 20ish. My friends and I basically take on each heist as "no detection or we restart" just to keep it from turning into a boring horde mode each time.

I do love this game though. Maybe it's because I never played the original so it's really fresh to me. It will likely be my #2 GOTY behind GTA V. Bring on the DLC, I will buy it all.

Just got the Kawaii mask, pretty fabulous. I think the RNG loot makes your build less static since if it just let you unlock everything you'd probably stick to one loadout the entire time but getting random upgrades for other weapons makes you want to mess around with other stuff.