Payday 2's Controversial Microtransactions Removed

[sonicneedslovetoo]

Don't worry about it, they'll probably bring micro-transactions back in Payday 3, AND there is still plenty of advertisement DLC for the game. I would only touch Payday 2 with a stick being held by one of my mortal enemies to see the look of betrayal on their faces when the devs inevitably go back on their promises.

 

[thewatergamer]

HUZZAH! I know what I'm reinstalling!

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

So, is this a PR stunt to get people soured over the microtransaction snafu to become re-interested in the franchise before Payday 3 hits? (It might be too late for that, considering the devs themselves said too much and promised there would be no MTs in Payday 2, ever.)

I mean, it's good they have full control now, but things aren't as good as they could have been for the franchise. It may have been the publisher forcing the MTs on Overkill, but Overkill's people handled the situation poorly for a long time. I hope the price of the rights didn't set them back too far, because they have a long hill to climb back up.

This is kind of a funny cycle Overkill is in here. "We will not ever put MTs in PayDay2." "MTs are here to stay." "We're getting rid of MTs!"

 

[Hawk eye1466]

Eh I was already losing interest since all they were doing was pumping out character and weapon dlc, once the microtransactions came I gave up. It was a great idea and I have like 300 hours or some insane number like that in the game, but at this point I don't trust them to not just make 3 just like 2 and put out like 200 dollars worth of dlc just because.

 

[TheScorpion]

Talk about damage control, but I'm glad they took them out because that's what kept me from installing it. That and its insane file size.

 

[Schadrach]

But disgusted with the loss of integrity once P2W was introduced, I didn't touch it since.

I'm no fan of the way they did microtransactions, but P2W is pushing it.

Some skins had specific sets of weapon mods attached to them, such that using the skin would apply those mods. Generally, this was stuff you could already attach to the weapon, and you could swap them out for different mods if you preferred. Legendary skins are an exception, and I'll get to them in a moment.

There's a small chance that a given skin would have it's own bonus stats. The specific stats were unique to the skin, and at the launch of MT they could not be obtained any other way. About two months later, a new mod slot was added to all weapons, and skins that granted this bonus now do so by installing a mod to the weapon, as described above. Every bonus available in this fashion, and some additional ones besides are available this way without MT and have been since about two months after MTs were first added.

It's worth noting that these bonuses are small and typically made no difference in actual gameplay (for example, +4 accuracy is basically meaningless unless the weapon accuracy is already extremely high because of the way the stat scales), except in a couple of cases where a weapon sits very close to a threshold and the bonus made it a valid option where it otherwise wouldn't have been.

Legendary skins are where everything I just said gets thrown out of the water -- legendary skins are basically variant guns and are often radically different than the parent gun in terms of use and function (for example, take an assault rifle, add a bunch of accuracy drop the rate of fire and add a scope, and what do you functionally have [even if it's technically still an assault rifle]?). At the same time, legendary guns were generally no better, and often worse, than a well-modded regular gun for the same purpose.

Trust me, I hated the MT thing before they made the stat bonuses from it available as weapon mods (and ignoring that there was an game mod you could use to gain full access to them across the board), but even then most people were blowing out of proportion how much of an effect it actually had in actual play.

Don't worry about it, they'll probably bring micro-transactions back in Payday 3, AND there is still plenty of advertisement DLC for the game. I would only touch Payday 2 with a stick being held by one of my mortal enemies to see the look of betrayal on their faces when the devs inevitably go back on their promises.

I'd argue the advertisement DLCs are a bigger offense than the the MT were, TBH. Of course, they get away with that stuff because the game is a ton of fun, no one else really does it well, and even the advertisement heists are on par with the other stuff in terms of quality (and only the host needs to actually *have* the DLC). I wish they'd expand the classic heists to cover, you know, all of them though.

This is kind of a funny cycle Overkill is in here. "We will not ever put MTs in PayDay2." "MTs are here to stay." "We're getting rid of MTs!"

It's been suggested that the publisher pushed for MT and the developer was in no position to fight it. You'll note that getting rid of MTs coincides neatly with the developer purchasing the full rights from the publisher. It could just be a PR move to help drum up support for the next project though.

 

[Headsprouter]

snip

Well, I was aware of the stat changes, going against their word, ability to be rewarded with something you didn't have the dlc to use, but I wasnt aware of the extent of the former.

Even if it's as small as you say it is and if the guns you get can function differently it's still locking gameplay behind a paywall within a game that isn't free to begin with. I think it all depends how strict you are about what microtransactions should pay for.

You may be right to call me out on calling it P2W, considering DLC, which I think is not strictly bad, can be poorly balanced and cause players willing to pay to win because of it.

 

[Schadrach]

Well, I was aware of the stat changes, going against their word, ability to be rewarded with something you didn't have the dlc to use, but I wasnt aware of the extent of the former.

You'll never catch me defending them doing it, but there was a lot of hyperbole used when attacking them over it regarding how much of an effect it actually had on gameplay.

Even if it's as small as you say it is and if the guns you get can function differently it's still locking gameplay behind a paywall within a game that isn't free to begin with. I think it all depends how strict you are about what microtransactions should pay for.

After they made the change adding the mod slot, the only thing actually locked behind a paywall by the safe system was some cosmetic options and the legendary guns. None of which were the technically most optimal choice for doing what they do, but some were on par, or let you get to the same place with a different kind of build.

You may be right to call me out on calling it P2W, considering DLC, which I think is not strictly bad, can be poorly balanced and cause players willing to pay to win because of it.

The DLC for PD2 has historically been considerably more P2W than MTs ever were, especially the weapon packs. For example, grenades were a DLC item at one point, as in there was nothing you could equip in the grenade slot without DLC.

 

[TwoSidesOneCoin]

They own the game now? Cool. They removed the microtransactions? Cool. They more or less confirmed Payday 3? Cool.

Now then, how about those console patches your promised us? Do that and I'll wearily keep an eye out for Payday 3.

 

[Erttheking]

Microtransactions really have no place outside of F2P games. They're designed to batter you over the head and make you enjoy the game less because you COULD be paying money. In F2P games that's ok, that's the price of entry because you didn't pay anything to get in. For games you already payed for, (or as I like to call it, P2P. Pay to Pay) is just douchey. Even if it's just cosmetic stuff like Overwatch did.

Glad to see these devs are reversing some of their more asshole decisions.