Payday 2 VR
Payday2 is a heist based co-op fps game that can be played with upto 4 people (theoretically with even more thanks to the BigLobby mod).
The base price is around $10 and it goes on sale pretty often, dropping as low as $1. Store page link
Payday2 does receive some criticism due to the abundance of DLC and being paywalled out of a lot of customisation options. But when a big sale happens, you can buy all (except the latest DLC) for around $12-16 so all in all it's not that bad imo. The devs were generous enough to provide the lobby host with the option to host their DLC, and all other lobby members can play it for free.
--- [Pro's & Cons] ---
- Very fun co-op game, has an arcadey feel to it
- A lot of diversity when it comes to maps, playstyles, weapon loadouts, talent builds, etc.. (replayability)
- Base game is extremely cheap ($0.99 during winter sale and full DLC bundle for $12)
- For the limited VR support it has, it plays a lot better than most VR titles
- Missions can be played in Stealth and is actually pretty fun/challenging (might be the best VR stealth game funnily enough)
- Big download (70GB)
- Can be janky at times and can experience a crash every now and then
- Lots of stuff paywalled behind DLC if you're a poorfag
- Can't host pw protected lobbies, have to add each other to friends in order to play (or use steam groups)
- It can be pretty grindy before you are able to unlock the full potential of your talent builds
--- [Initial Set-up] ---
You will need to install the following links to have the best VR experience:
Native Payday2 VR "mod"
Install the following mods at this location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\PAYDAY 2\mods
Super BLT (mod manager) Install this one first and then boot your game before installing actual mods
BeardLib
payday2-vr-improvements rename the mod folder 'payday2-vr-improvements-master-....' to 'vrplus'
VR Recoil Adjust the recoil to suit VR more
BigLobby Allows you to play with more than 4 people in a lobby
(Note that either EVERYONE needs to have BigLobby, or NOONE - Otherwise you won't be able to join each other's lobbies)
--- [In-game settings] ---
Friendly arm/hands IK
In order to see the IK of your friends, launch the game and once inside you should see a menu on your left side
Click on Arm Animation and then enable Procedural Arm Animation
Keybindings and movement
This is probably the most jankiest thing about Payday2 in VR, but after a lot of trying things out I found something that works pretty decent. By default snapturning doesn't even work and it will be bound on A/B buttons on your right controllers. I made a public keybind community profile that fixes most things. You'll be able to jump easily by using right A and you'll be able to sprint by pressing right B for 0.5s (long story short: you are unable to sprint in pd2 with default bindings, you have to use community bindings and edit stuff from there). Look for the 'PyoDay2 VR' community bindings to find the fixed settings. index bindings only, for other headsets you'll have to use a random community binding and assign stuff yourself I guess
At this point you're ready to play, however if you want to dig deeper into the mechanics and such, read more below
--- [Things to know] ---
Setup phase aka Casing Mode
Some heists will start with having your masks off in order to prepare yourself. Don't be alarmed if you suddenly can't snapturn anymore, this is something that never got fixed. Once you put your mask on it'll work again.
Difficulties
Normal > Hard > Very Hard > Overkill > Mayhem > Death Wish > Death Sentence
Supposedly the game is designed to have Overkill as the 'baseline' difficulty, however don't try it when you're completely new because you will get destroyed. In addition there's also the 'One Down' modifier to further challenge yourself, allowing you to only go down once before getting jailed
Mission objectives and wrist watch
Pay attention to what the NPC says in order to figure out what you have to do. Current mission objective will always be displayed on your wrist watch. You can also see your team's armor/health on there so it's a good thing to keep an eye on. You can also slide your right hand across the wrist watch to change tabs. Swipe right to see chat (in case you play with desktoppers I guess) and left for team equipment
Infamy System
This is the end-game progression system, think of it as the Paragon system in Diablo3 or whatever. Basically once you reach max level (100) and you have $200 million in your off-shore account, you can progress to the next Infamy level, which resets you back to level 1 but with an extra level in Infamy. Your talents and weapon loadout will be reset again until you gain enough levels! They recently (around October 2020) had a patch where they revamped the system and made it "easier" for the non hardcore players. Before you'd aim to get at least level 5 Infamy in order to get the most out of it. This allows you to spend less talents in order to make a full build, however since the patch you get all the benefits of Infamy5 in the baseline level 1 Infamy level saving you a lot of time and effort
Diesel game engine
Payday2 is actually developed on Diesel which is an engine primarily used for driving simulators. But good news! Payday3 has been announced and it should be on Unreal Engine. (scheduled to release in 2022-2023)
--- [Terminology & FAQ] ---
There are a number of different types of enemies that you have to deal with throughout a heist
| Enemy | Tactic |
|---|---|
| Regular agent | Literally fodder, they die mostly in one hit until you crank up the difficulty a lot |
| Shields | Most annoying to deal with, you either need to use AP rounds (fiveseven pistol) or grenades/molotov/grenade launchers/flank |
| Tasers | Will continue zapping you making you unable to move and you'll keep firing your gun |
| Bulldozers | Tanky fuckers that do a lot of damage, target their visor and shoot it repeatedly to break down the different stages of destruction |
| Snipers | Will mostly be on a far away roof or in a window, can spot them easily due to their red lasers |
| Cloakers aka Ghosts | These guys will 1 hit kill you and spawn from the most random locations (vents/under cars/etc) kill them asap |
| Captain Winters | He will spawn during some heists and is surrounded by a ton of super shields, use everything you have to kill him asap because he will keep spawning endless waves of a ton of enemies until he is killed |
| Sentry guns/turrets | Mostly stationary turrets, the ones on APC's can drive around. Shoot it until it explodes |
A couple of mechanics to remember regarding your accessory item
| Item | Usage |
|---|---|
| First Aid Kit | Heals you to full. Can be dropped on the ground for an ally to use does not reset down total! |
| Doctor's Bag | Heals you to full. This should only be used when you have been downed a total of 3 times, as it resets the total |
| Ammo Bag | Gives you full ammo |
| ECM | Drop on the ground to jam radio signals (prevent civs/cops from calling) or quickly open electronically locked doors |
| Body Bag | Gives you extra body bags to use on corpses to hide them |
In addition you should also know about the following things:
- You can yell at civilians with left A to order them to get on the ground and cable tie them (this will delay police interventions)
- You can yell at cops for them to surrender. They can be traded whenever a friend is in jail (has been downed 3+1 times)
- Sometimes your friendly NPC's will have an open hand symbol above their head, this means they are holding that position
- Use left A (interact) and yell at them if you want them to follow you again
--- [Perk Decks & Skill Builds] ---
I don't want to go too deep into this since it would take way too much room, look stuff up on youtube if you're really interested. I'll only be explaining a couple of the beginner stuff to get you started.
Perk Decks
The way the perk decks work is, whenever you gain XP from a mission, you can turn these into perk points simply by visiting the perk interface. You will have to focus on one deck at a time and progress the cards from 1 until 9 in order to complete a deck. Try to figure out what style of gameplay you want to go for before investing into these because it does take quite a lot of XP and grinding to complete a full deck. (when starting out anyway)
| Perk deck | Benefit |
|---|---|
| Muscle | Gives you a ton of HP and hp regen |
| Armorer | Gives you a lot of armor |
| Rogue | Gives you a lot of dodge |
| Hitman | Gives you armor recovery rate and increased ammo capacity for akimbo pistols |
| Burglar/Hacker | If you want to focus on stealthing |
| Anarchist | One of the more advanced decks, you should look up how this works because there are too many factors linked to making it work |
Skill Builds
Try to mix and match some of the most valuable skills below here together with the weapon category you want to use in order to create your build. You can play around with this skill calculator though it considers you to be Infamous (read above) so you might lack a point here and there to unlock some of the stuff if you aren't. Just use whatever filler looks best to you in order to unlock it. Right click > Open image in new tab if you want bigger versions of images below
| Skill | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Mastermind > Medic tree > Uppers (Aced) For just 12 skill points you get 14 first aid kits that can be used by yourself or your team. Simply grab them from your belt and drop them on the ground. Hold left grab to consume them. Very helpful when you are completely new | |
| Enforcer > Tank tree Spending 6 skill points into these 3 skills gives you a lot for very little. Transporter is pretty much a must since you'll be throwing bags around a lot of the time. Bullseye is one of the best skills in the game, gives you armor back for each headshot (there's a very advanced mechanic behind it, maybe I'll try to explain it some other time) | |
| Ghost > Artful Dodger tree A couple more basic skills you get in pretty much every build. For 3 skill points you get increased stamina, sprint speed and movement speed | |
| Enforcer > Ammo Specialist tree Use 1 skill point to get the Scavenger skill, ammo boxes will be your primary source of ammunition so having a wider range to pick them up is very nice (even works when you kill cops in their spawn point that are blocked by an invisible wall so you can't directly run over them) | |
| Enforcer > Shotgunner tree If you will mainly be using shotguns, these are the skills you'll be looking at. There's no need to Ace the Overkill skill, the base skill is enough. Underdog by itself is also a very valuable skill in case you plan to use other weapons. Gives you a 15% damage bonus when 3 or more enemies are within 10 meters of you, which is pretty much most of the time. | |
Fugitive > Gunslinger tree If you will mainly be using (akimbo) pistols, these are the skills you'll be looking at. Just like the shotgun tree, there's no need to Ace the Trigger Happy skill, the base skill is enough. Note: if you're using akimbo shotguns you will want to pick up the Akimbo (Aced) skill from the tier 2 row as well |
|
| Technician > Oppressor tree If you will mainly be using SMG/AR, these are the skills you'll be looking at. Personally I haven't used SMG's or AR's very often so I'm not very knowledgeable about these skills, but these seem the most valuable ones | |
| Technician > Breacher tree If you aren't much of a fighter and would rather be helpful to your team, you can spend some point on improving the drills. I'd say most of the missions require a drill at some point, and having one person with at least some of these skills will save you A LOT of time | |
| Mastermind > Sharpshooter tree I have never tried out the sniper rifles in this game, but same as SMG/AR, I think these are probably the most important skills to get | |
Ghost > Artful Dodger tree > Sneaky Bastard If you want to make a dodge build, this is the skill you'll be working towards. Depending on your detection risk, you might or might not want to Ace it. You should always wear the Two-piece suit and depending on what weapon you use, your detection risk will be higher or lower. If your detection is lower than 4, you're getting full benefit from Sneaky Bastard Basic. | If your detection is lower than 23, you're getting full benefit from Sneaky Bastard Aced |
|
Ghost > Silent Killer tree > Low Blow If you want to make a crit build, this is the skill you'll be working towards. Depending on your detection risk, you might or might not want to Ace it. You should always wear the Two-piece suit and depending on what weapon you use, your detection risk will be higher or lower. If your detection is lower than 4, you're getting full benefit from Low Blow Basic. | If your detection is lower than 23, you're getting full benefit from Low Blow Aced |
|
| Mastermind > Controller tree Most builds use this one since it gives you a ton of survivability. Basically at the start of the heist, your first goal is to get a cop to surrender (yell at him (left A)) multiple times until you can interact with him to convert him. Doing this will make him fight on your side and act as a bullet sponge as well as give you 30% hp AND 10% movement speed |
There are plenty more of them, as well as really gimmicky ones, but again look them up on youtube or whatever if you wanna read into them
I think this is about it as far as tips and tricks go, have fun