Hi there Almir !
I’ve played Payday 2 since the release and am a very big fan of Overkill’s work. Over the time I’ve been curious about quite a few stuff but missed all of your AMA’s so far. I really hope that this time I’ll be able to get these questions answered.
Oh and um… sorry that this is such a long post but I’ve collected these questions for a long time and it’s been quite a long time since the last AMA.
1.
Did the V1 music from Payday: The Heist get removed because of copyright issues? And if yes, is there a possibility that it will ever make a comeback? Because I really really loved the old payday 1 menu music, it just had this badass mastermind feeling to it. It’s been stuck in my head for years now.
2.
Preplanning has been added to some missions which actually don’t really need it now because you can barely configure anything about them. Are you considering to add a preplanning-update which adds a lot of new options to these missions? This would be really great and enhance the gameplay a lot ! For example thermite in the normal, small bank. Would be a lot of fun because for a change you’d have to cover the roof instead of the inside of the bank. I think adding new preplanning features could be a great way to make the fun of the game everlasting, because the only reason I keep coming back to Payday 2 is the great skill and weapon customization, which changes the whole gameplay too. I think this would be a great way to change the whole play-style of a few maps. For example a preplanning option to be able to get the gold from Framing Frame day 3 without having to stealth the mission – That would be very interesting. Of course it should be a really hard way, but it’d be great, because I have stopped playing Framing Frame a LONG time ago, it just became repetitive to be only able to stealth the mission. Not stealthing it was just not as satisfying as stealthing it because the gold was missing .
Update: The Diamond Heist has recently been added and as of its current state: There are exactly 0 interesting loud preplanning assets. It would be epic if you’d one day make a preplanning update which adds some nice things. Stealth could also need some more preplanning assets, because it was rather silly to listen to Bain saying “maybe you can find an other way in” when I hadn’t bought any thermite. For loud preplanning assets, I’d definitely recommend ways to avoid having to do the timelock, so it can’t be switched off by the cops all the time. For example the preplanning asset could simply be to drill the gate, or to use some nice c4. Of course the c4 should cost a lot of favour points in that case.
Please don’t get me wrong. I loved the diamond heist, especially the puzzle. However, I was REALLY looking forward to preplanning as good as in Big Bank. Big Bank was simply the best and will always be. The many ways of entering or leaving the bank were a lot of fun and it never gets boring that way. Big Bank is in fact the heist I play 75% of the time.
3.
Did you ever consider adding a Payday “Boss” in a bigger mission, which is important to the story? Like a guy in metal armor, who is actually impossible to kill. But sometimes he walks into a pool of water, which then gives you the option to electrocute him somehow and shoot him while he is stunned. Was just another thought that went through my head so I don’t know if this would be too hard to make because of the timed events it would require and possibly cause sync problems.
4.
Interactive Interactions. I have recently thought about this with a friend. Very often we see events which simply happen by pressing F. However, the piggy bank event, where you have to control the crane, was a great start to making these kind of interactions a lot more interesting. I was talking with a friend about the possibility to add “minigames” to these kind of interactions. So one of the players would have to use some kind of machine to interact with specific locations on a big vault, which finally opens the vault or atleast gives you a time bonus. The faster and/or better you do this minigame, the faster the vault opens or the bigger the time bonus is. What do you think of that idea ?
5.
What happened to the beautiful random events, the ones who aren’t calculate-able and change the whole heist. Like that the tiara could appear in the front side of the store… or that the watchdogs driver could die by driving too badly… In Payday 1 there was a random event so that there would spawn c4 under the pool in Counterfeit. It changed the whole heist, it turned everything upside-down because you could either die while trying to defuse the c4 or survive the explosion but cops would be able to come through the roof then or manage to defuse it and feel epic. You see, I always loved these random events in Payday: The Heist and was REALLY looking forward to Payday 2 having a lot more of them. That’s why I also like Hoxton Breakout so much, basically the whole heist is controlled by random events. However, they are part of the missions and thus not making a “unexpected” change to the gameplay. Everything has become calculate-able in Payday 2 for me… I really miss these game-changing random events which kept the game fresh. It would be really epic if you guys could take a look into this once you’re done with all the bigger updates and think about making a big update dedicated to adding a bunch of random events. Or… something that just came into my mind: Unlockable random events for hosts, if they’ve reached a specific infamy level. An option to enable “special” random events, which make the game quite harder but also keep it fresh. It would have a similar feeling to Preplanning from Big Bank. You get to choose your heisting gameplay depending on your mood and go along with it. Would be kinda epic in my opinion.
6.
A new mission objective system, which I’ve recently thought about. (And many heisters seem to agree with me on this as you can see in this reddit post: http://www.reddit.com/r/paydaytheheist/comments/2poypd/the_payday_movie_heister_feeling/ )
In Payday: The Heist, I really loved the heist Panic Room. The reason was because everytime my teammates had to do the saws, I was the one trying to prevent the cops from opening the front door, so my teammates can fix the saws in peace. Which means I got to do my task and they got to do theirs. What if this was somehow implanted as official mission objectives in the game? For example, a typical movie heist scenario: One guy drives, while the other shoots. Each of them gets to do his own task but they don’t feel separated because they are indirectly helping each other out, which makes it feel more like a whole thing. If you should think about this and actually consider implanting it, I guess this would fit better into a Payday 3. I am suggesting this because as of its current state, I very often see people in Payday 2 seperating rather than actually sticking together. A good example would be: “No I get to do the action first, I can press F faster”. That happens extremely often. This made me feel extremely separated from my team in Payday the whole time, and very often ruined the feeling of “Teamwork”.
Now here comes the reason why Big Bank is my favourite heist up until today: Exactly because of this. In Big Bank you can do multiple objectives at the same time, which means you can tell one guy to do the piggy, the other tries to find the right pc, the other hacks the pc, and the other defends/takes out snipers. Big Bank did it EXACTLY the right way, even though there might still be space for new ideas, on how to further develop this system. For example you get to choose your role before the heist and according to which role you’ve chosen, you will get different mission objectives than your teammates. Something like that.
This concept may sound almost too simple but in my opinion it also sounds brilliant at the same time. I hope you’ll consider thinking about this
7.
Last question (and probably my most important one): Will the challenge-system from Payday: The Heist ever make a comeback? I really loved it. For one reason because it even rewarded you with something, even if you didn’t complete the heist. Also, and that’s the best part about it, there were SO many ways to get rewarded and it felt like an ongoing progression of your character that just wouldn’t stop. I really don’t know why exactly, but this challenge-system you got there… That was the best thing I had ever seen in any game. It motivated you to try out new things, new play styles, it basiccly kept the game alive. I just seem to never find motivation to try out the other weapons in Payday 2 because I don’t like them that much. However, with this challenge system… Oh my… I’d probably never stop playing Payday 2. I’d really welcome something like this because at the moment I have sadly become really lazy and only seem to play Payday 2 whenever there is an epic update. (Which means every update, because all of your updates are epic.)
Otherwise: I am really excited for future updates and especially the Walking Dead Co-Op Game. I’m really thrilled to see how the stealth mechanics are going to work in that game.
Keep doing what you’re doing, because you’re epic at it !!!
PS: Give your beard a kiss from me :*