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PAYDAY 2 Crimefest introduces stat-altering weapon skins and microtransactions

B

benicillin

Banned
So the annual PAYDAY 2 Crimefest event just had it's first update (basically Crimefest is a week or so of free updates every year where they release new weapons, heists, music, etc for free) and are introducing cosmetic microtransactions into the game basically the same way that TF2 or CS:GO does it...

(Quote shamelessly stolen from Reddit)
THE BLACK MARKET :
Introduction of 'Safes' - like TF2 crates, they are unlockable and contain items. At this stage, it appears to be only weapon skins, with different rarities. Like in TF2 / CSGO there are also different types of safes, and there is steam trading for them. You can purchase or trade "drills" - again, like TF2 keys - to open safes.
At this stage trading is only for the drills, safes and skins, and not for other items - though it will remain to be seen if that changes down the line. Certain skins will alter statistics of weapons that they are applied on. It is not confirmed if using a skin on a weapon is permanent, however it likely is - so once you apply it to a weapon, be sure you don't change your mind!
There is also planned implementation Steam Workshop for weapon skins made by the community, with more information on that to follow.
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...except the skins also impact weapon stats.

I've played a lot of PAYDAY 2 and am a huge fan of Overkill - I've always supported their DLC strategy (which already seemed a bit excessive) but it's hard for me to support a move towards paid cosmetics that can also influence weapon stats, especially during an event that is supposed to be about free content for the community.

EDIT: Starbreeze press release.

Starbreeze introduces Steam Economy to PAYDAY 2, kicking off the 2015 Crimefest Community Event. Starting October 15th, players will be able to acquire and sell cosmetic items within the game
Starbreeze AB, an independent creator, publisher and distributor of high quality entertainment products, today announced the introduction of Steam Economy to its action packed co-op shooter PAYDAY 2, also marking the start of the 2015 Crimefest Community Event.
Download artwork: The Black Market Update – Steam Economy (more images available at the end)

On Thursday the Black Market: Vlads Weapon Deal update will go live which will add new random item drops as you play PAYDAY 2. When a player receives a Safe, the player can purchase a Drill for 2,19€ / 2,49$ that can then be used to open the safe. When the safe opens, the player receives a weapon skin item of varying quality that can be used, traded or sold using the Steam Community Market. The community driven marketplace decides the value on each item bought or sold.
At launch, the Black Market Update comes with two safes, the Crimefest II and the Sputnik, see more about the safes here: http://www.overkillsoftware.com/games/blackmarket/
Crimefest is a 10 day long annual event hosted for the PAYDAY community to celebrate everything PAYDAY. The event coincides with the original release of PAYDAY: The Heist, the first game in the PAYDAY series.
For more information about the second installment of Crimefest, please read here: http://www.overkillsoftware.com/games/crimefest2015/
First launched in 2011, PAYDAY is a cooperative first-person shooter computer and video game franchise with more than 9 million players on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
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They've been selling guns as DLC that are better than the base weapons for ages, as much as I don't like it this isn't much of a leap for them.
 
I love Payday 2, it's my most played game but this is just some bullshit. Let's see what the next updates are but this is not a good start to Crimefest.
 
Hopefully we see a reduction in paid DLC in the future now that they've created additional revenue streams for the company.
 
Bought Payday 2 for the 360 - had a blast for a couple of weekends and then got really jealous of all of the content that was coming out on PC but not consoles (and I think they had said they were going to work towards parity). Fast forward to the XBOX one version, I almost impulse bought, before reading into how broken it seems.

I want to LOVE this game, but they've made it really hard for me to jump in and feel good about it.
 
Plasma said:
They've been selling guns as DLC that are better than the base weapons for ages, as much as I don't like it this isn't much of a leap for them.
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Other than HE ammo from the shotgun pack and maybe snipers in general, I don't think there is anything straight up massively better. The CAR4 is still the best assault rifle in the game.

What's worse with this is that it's the same random lottery system where you're not even guaranteed to get something you want. They basically looked at Valve and learned nothing from what was already a sketchy situation.

The only way they could possibly put a positive spin on this is if they announce that future DLC will be subsidized by this. Even then, this is possibly the worst way to announce this, on the face of a week long community event to get people invested in the game by announcing F2P-esque microtransactions.
 
shawnoftheshred said:
Bought Payday 2 for the 360 - had a blast for a couple of weekends and then got really jealous of all of the content that was coming out on PC but not consoles (and I think they had said they were going to work towards parity). Fast forward to the XBOX one version, I almost impulse bought, before reading into how broken it seems.

I want to LOVE this game, but they've made it really hard for me to jump in and feel good about it.
Click to expand...

4DCGV7J.png


https://www.facebook.com/overkillstudiosignoresconsoles

.
 
KarmaCow said:
Other than HE ammo from the shotgun pack and maybe snipers in general, I don't think there is anything straight up massively better. The CAR4 is still the best assault rifle in the game.

What's worse with this is that it's the same random lottery system where you're not even guaranteed to get something you want. They basically looked at Valve and learned nothing from what was already a sketchy situation.

The only way they could possibly put a positive spin on this is if they announce that future DLC will be subsidized by this. Even then, this is possibly the worst way to announce this, on the face of a week long community event to get people invested in the game by announcing F2P-esque microtransactions.
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Considering Almir literally went on a week long trip to Valve earlier this year I'm willing to bet it was all about incorporating the Steam market and how TF2 does things.
 
It's great, because that's almost thirty gigs off of my hard drive. Pending the refund, it's $7.50 I get back too.

my copy actually hasn't worked for months, but I guess this is as good a time as any to bail out
 
Stupid move, we're already used to buying regular DLC packs to keep the game going, why are there microtransactions on top of the loads of DLC-only content?

Worst part is adding safes to the loot card system. It's already hard enough to establish a collection of weapon parts when you start out without having even more duds added to the RNG.

I wonder if this would have been prevented if we had failed the "road to crimefest" challenges that supposedly unlocked these additions...
 
Ever since they were bought out they have just rolled down hill so fast with the worst kind of money grabbing shite, and declaring it as support for the game and it's customers. The difference between how DLC was handled between the first and second Payday speaks volumes.

They also banned me from posting for a month for pointing out that having 30 dlc packs for a game is bullshit, before any MT's.
 
KDR_11k said:
Stupid move, we're already used to buying regular DLC packs to keep the game going, why are there microtransactions on top of the loads of DLC-only content?

Worst part is adding safes to the loot card system. It's already hard enough to establish a collection of weapon parts when you start out without having even more duds added to the RNG.

I wonder if this would have been prevented if we had failed the "road to crimefest" challenges that supposedly unlocked these additions...
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The community focused challenges for any game are a smoke screen, a way to get people invested. The same thing happened with the recent SMTIV Final announcement where the reveal was supposedly tied to the number tweets, but it was really tied to a set time. They were always going to be released, the idea that they would spend all this time to integrate backpack support and skins but would hold off because some arbitrary goal wasn't hit is silly. Same thing happened last year during Crimefest where the last goal was a John Wick promotion added in the game to coincide with the release of the movie. I don't understand how Overkill keeps fucking these things up, not expecting this kind of backlash.
 
Yeah, I know the "if you don't unlock it we won't release it" thing was likely bullshit. Addons would likely get packed into paid DLC but there's no way they would have skipped major changes to the core game (and if it's just because merging those at a later date would cause waaaay too much overhead).

The DLC seemed like a decent compromise in the past, maybe not always great but it kept development going and didn't feel exploitative (yes, some of it was slightly too strong but the game's not PvP so minor imbalances don't ruin it). At very least it wasn't required, you could join any match without any DLC. And yes, a ton of it ended up being made but that's because the game kept going for so long and each pack was fairly small.

If they had just released some 5$ weapon skin packs like the previous DLC packs I might even have picked some of them up. No way I'm paying half that for a random chance at a single consumable though

Suspicious though: All DLC packs are 75% off now, normally the most recent 3-4 are only 40-50% off. Are they planning to remove paying entirely and make the game fully F2P?
 
KDR_11k said:
Yeah, I know the "if you don't unlock it we won't release it" thing was likely bullshit. Addons would likely get packed into paid DLC but there's no way they would have skipped major changes to the core game (and if it's just because merging those at a later date would cause waaaay too much overhead).

The DLC seemed like a decent compromise in the past, maybe not always great but it kept development going and didn't feel exploitative (yes, some of it was slightly too strong but the game's not PvP so minor imbalances don't ruin it). At very least it wasn't required, you could join any match without any DLC. And yes, a ton of it ended up being made but that's because the game kept going for so long and each pack was fairly small.

If they had just released some 5$ weapon skin packs like the previous DLC packs I might even have picked some of them up. No way I'm paying half that for a random chance at a single consumable though

Suspicious though: All DLC packs are 75% off now, normally the most recent 3-4 are only 40-50% off. Are they planning to remove paying entirely and make the game fully F2P?
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This seems like an eventuality. It's probably their endgame for PAYDAY 2 once they get closer to releasing their Walking Dead game.
 
1) the game is now CS:GO. I don't see the problem.

2) OVK's updates are pretty much constant, and don't work well with how patching works on consoles. They were talking about this a while ago. The amount of crap they get for something that's not really their fault is terrible.

3) I wish they'd make some major improvements to gamefeel, especially movement.
 
I almost always hate micro transactions but in this case it's not that bad. Unless there is a newer game mode I am unaware of, the people with paid items are always on your team. Calling it pay to be better is fair but it's not like it puts you above a human enemy since it's all AI opponents in the game anyway
 
Tagyhag said:
The person asked "or should I look at buying a PC" so they answered.
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Kalentan isn't wrong though. There's a pic where someone tweeted them complaining about the console version being broken and they responded with like "If I wanted to play a game and it was broken on my platform of choice, I'd fucking get it on PC instead"

The way they treat console customers is truly appalling, I don't say this about many games but I hope the game flopped hard on consoles and lost them money. I feel dirty typing that, but fuck these guys.
 
So I can earn money by selling 'safes' like in TF2 and CS:GO? Hmmm. I can deal with those stat changing skins since it's coop vs computer and the game's been doing some iffy stuff with DLCs anyway (though it's cool that you can play new heists without buying them so everyone gets new content regularly).
 
derExperte said:
So I can earn money by selling 'safes' like in TF2 and CS:GO? Hmmm. I can deal with those stat changing skins since it's coop vs computer and the game's been doing some iffy stuff with DLCs anyway (though it's cool that you can play new heists without buying them so everyone gets new content regularly).
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Yup, I've been buying skins and flipping it.
 
Eh, I'm not sure how I feel about this, they've done a bunch of DLC stuff that isn't too far off from this but having the stat boost stuff kind of comes off wrong. I guess I'll have to see how it plays out as the PD2 community seems to be losing their minds over it.

I think $2.50 for a drill is a little nuts, since you can get a handful of guns, masks and other goodies from any of the $5 weapon packs out there. Spending $2.50 on the chance that you might get a skin for a gun you use that slightly alters the stats doesn't really seem too enticing.
 
Hopefully they'll backtrack on this, before it causes more damage... It's a shame because the game started out pretty nicely as a co-op heist game, but the longer it's gone on the more they keep doing things like this - throwing stuff out, having to backtrack when it should be obvious that they are taking the wrong direction or not providing what players want (look at Infamy 2 for example, or safehouse customization, or the connectivity issues for the XB1). I mean, even when I last played maybe 2 months ago the game still wouldn't connect to a lot of the players but yet by now there's DLC that lets you rob a bank with a bow and arrow. IMO they've bitten off more than they can chew and the game is losing its focus.
 
Lets not lose our heads.

Some people are pretending like none of this is optional, when it's ALL optional.
All of that DLC you don't like? Don't buy it. You don't buy keys for TF2/CS:GO? Don't buy them for Payday 2.

Amazingly enough, the game still plays!

The only real "bad" thing here is the possibility of the incredibly minor stat increase on a skin.
Yes that's dumb. It's not the end of the world. There is no PVP here.

Reign it in, Internet.
 
Going F2P or?


CeePhour said:
Lets not lose our heads.

Some people are pretending like none of this is optional, when it's ALL optional.
All of that DLC you don't like? Don't buy it. You don't buy keys for TF2/CS:GO? Don't buy them for Payday 2.

Amazingly enough, the game still plays!

The only real "bad" thing here is the possibility of the incredibly minor stat increase on a skin.
Yes that's dumb. It's not the end of the world. There is no PVP here.

Reign it in, Internet.
Click to expand...

Except it alters stats so there is a gameplay effect for foregoing that.
 
Aselith said:
Going F2P or?
Click to expand...

Or what? They have to give a game away free because they added a few skins? How about if someone doesn't like it they don't participate in that aspect?

How quickly everyone forgets the constant free updates, free maps, only host needs DLC maps for a whole crew, etc. Instead the Internet hate machine rages at yet another perceived slight against their delicate morals.
 
CeePhour said:
Lets not lose our heads.

Some people are pretending like none of this is optional, when it's ALL optional.
All of that DLC you don't like? Don't buy it. You don't buy keys for TF2/CS:GO? Don't buy them for Payday 2.

Amazingly enough, the game still plays!

The only real "bad" thing here is the possibility of the incredibly minor stat increase on a skin.
Yes that's dumb. It's not the end of the world. There is no PVP here.

Reign it in, Internet.
Click to expand...

Totally agree with this,

I've played a lot of Payday 1, I have Payday2 but havent had the time to start playing it (am installing it currently). But remember people, this isnt a competitive game, its a coop game, so having minor stat upgrades isnt the end of the world and wont make the game unfair/not fun.

If anything, I think this will bring a new life ot the game, having the dif. skins, the ability to trade and sell them on the market is a great thing. Will they drop randomly, like in CSGO or TF2 ?
 
Overkill now on my shitlist for developers to never trust or support. The only other dev on there is the creators of monday night combat
CeePhour said:
Lets not lose our heads.

Some people are pretending like none of this is optional, when it's ALL optional.
All of that DLC you don't like? Don't buy it. You don't buy keys for TF2/CS:GO? Don't buy them for Payday 2.

Amazingly enough, the game still plays!

The only real "bad" thing here is the possibility of the incredibly minor stat increase on a skin.
Yes that's dumb. It's not the end of the world. There is no PVP here.

Reign it in, Internet.
Click to expand...
Nah, it's pretty awful. They've been charging an absurd amount of money for little content for years now. On top of that they hardly give a shit about what the community thinks or their suggestions. This update is also extremely hypocritical because the reason for barely any changes in the infamy update was to avoid unbalanced stats. Yet here they are releasing content which offers better stats for money. They even re did stats to better show how close you are to the break point for one or two shotting enemies. Don't have enough damage with all your current mods? Gamble for straight up better stats using money! Disgusting.
 
CeePhour said:
Or what? They have to give a game away free because they added a few skins? How about if someone doesn't like it they don't participate in that aspect?

How quickly everyone forgets the constant free updates, free maps, only host needs DLC maps for a whole crew, etc. Instead the Internet hate machine rages at yet another perceived slight against their delicate morals.
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm the one raging lol. They also had 36 DLC packs so don't act like they were giving it all away. They added more skins but this time with a gameplay effect to "encourage" the purchase. Everyone appreciated the free stuff but they were already selling stuff as well and no one cared until they intrioduced stats on it.
 
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