Hot Take: The focus on Stealth is killing multiplayer

[ZEARTH]

Disclaimer: Improving stealth is not a bad thing. Improving old mechanics is always a good thing but it does have consequences for the rest of the game.
In Payday 2, loud was the default but with the new focus on stealth, the amount of players of each style are closer to even. However, the issue is that they don't mix well at all.
If anybody isn't in agreement about how they're doing the heist someone is gonna be gimped at best and dead weight at worst.

Ultimately, the loud player has full control over how the heist gets done. The moment they fire a shot in a crowd, you're going loud. Like it or not. If a stealth build is forced to go loud they now have a large amount of useless perks, potentially less armor and lower damage silenced weapons.
On the flip side, let's say the Loud player lets the other players Stealth. Unless they know the heist like the back of their hand and have a silencer, they're most likely just dead weight. You can easily ♥♥♥♥ up Stealth so its better for people that haven't done it before to just chill in spawn. Great.

The easiest way to circumvent this would be if everyone went Loud by default. No one's build gets gimped and no one sitting in spawn. However, Stealthies are everywhere so that's no going to happen. But the minute you reveal you're going to open fire and they can't stop you they're just going to leave so you're now stuck with a useless bot. Great system.

tl;dr The devs really need to implement some way for both playstyles to filter the other out or at least communicate before the heist. Stealth players don't want louds ruining their maskless speedrun and louds don't want to sit in spawn and watch other players have fun.

[Viviana]

sounds like a skill issue, but they said they will look into it (Their generic response)

[kth]

Its.... not exactly gamemode (I mean stealth) fault.
For some reason people like to cut corners, and they think that stealth is easier than loud.
I agree with you however, I play loud because I prefer to have control over the heist.

[Tox]

i really try to not take sides on this one as i thoroughly enjoy both stealth and loud in this game, especially dirty ice being a perfect mix of both in a single run...

But the more of these types of posts I see, the more I'm realising that the loud players who keep complaining about stealth players, especially those that feel entitled to force loud on a group of players happily coordinating a stealth run, are real self-absorbed wankers.

Not gonna knock someone for enjoying loud, but this entitled, trollish bs of deliberately firing shots to selfishly ruin a stealth run is infantile.

I know that's not necessarily what you're condoning here OP, but the mentality of some loud players is undeniably selfish. The idea that stealth is ruining multiplayer simply by existing or having more emphasis/viability, takes the onus out of the hands of these brats who think it's okay to be inconsiderate ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Therefore, I don't agree with your "stealth is ruining MP" premise, it's trolls and selfish arseholes who ruin it - but hey, welcome to online gaming writ large.

[Ailes]

Let people set up and mark/filter lobbies like in PD2, problem solved.

[Rаndo]

Add the lobby filters back so I don't have to share lobbies with these stealth freaks.

[Tera]

Yeah, sometimes I feel so disoriented when I bring my loud on stealth and vise versa. Another solution I might have is, have 2 skill decks with identical points per loudout, 1 for loud and 1 for stealth, and they will switch according to the loud or stealth mode. This way the devs don't have to rebalance or make new skills.

[Netsa]

I agree, but I think you're slightly off the mark. The problem wasn't the improvements to stealth, the problem is the level design, lack of Lobby markers, and the focus on Challenges. Stealth existed in Payday 2, but it was really easy to find loud games. Why was that? Well, many maps were a pain to stealth, most lobbies were not marked for stealth, and there was nothing in your progression that required you to do stealth. Now every map is easy to stealth, there's no way to mark a lobby, and a bunch of your exp gains are locked up in finishing heists quietly.

This is exacerbated by the fact that they did absolutely nothing to fix the Loud/Stealth Build problem. What they instead did was make it so loud builds could still stealth... but since everyone can do it, now it's more common. Loud builds still suck in stealth, but stealth builds suck waaay harder in loud, so everyone just runs loud builds in stealth and start every game by trying to stealth...

...which they can't, because they didn't bring a single stealth skill. You might recognize how that makes no sense, but that's how the devs set this game up. The players go along the most logical route, it's not their fault, they're just doing what the game encourages doing. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

There were ways Starbreeze could have solved these issues if they had any interest in making a new game, but they weren't, they were interesting in making money and cashing in on the franchise, so they just made Payday 2-2.

---

Here's an idea they could have played around with, feel free to shoot at it:
Let players Loud and Stealth on the same heist at the same time.
That means there's 2 routes to the same goal, both valid, and they're just out of the way of each other enough that the stealth players can go around back and avoid the firefight.

Let's take a bank for instance. The loud players rush in through the front, the alarm gets called... but the silent route to the vault DOESN'T disable itself. The loud players just can't activate it, for whatever reason. As long as they keep their masks off, the silent players can go around back and work through multiple layers of security to get the bank vault open without using the drill or thermite. Once they do, everyone can enter the vault and start hauling the money out.

Some maps could even have multiple objectives depending on whether there's a mix, or if everyone's full-loud or full-stealth.

To facilitate this, loud players would have skills that draw extra attention to themselves (cameras only look at you while you're in view, for instance), while stealth players would have much more mobility by default and would get skills that decrease attention to themselves (avoid looking directly at cops and they will think you are a citizen, for instance).

And nothing's locked out. Loud players could still get into the vault via a drill if there's no ninjas around, while the Stealth players could still hack the security and use keycards if there's no tanks around. But if they work together, the map would potentially get done faster, since the spies could work without having to avoid as many guards and cameras, and the rambos could work without having to sit through as many timers.

"What's taking you guys so long?! The dozers are coming!"
"Okay, I'm shutting the gate, the vault opens in 10 seconds!"
"Alright, we'll get the van, you get the bags! Let's go!"

Would probably still end up with people whining that most maps lean too hard on either stealth or loud, but hey, a man can dream...

[Netsa]

Originally posted by Tox:

But the more of these types of posts I see, the more I'm realising that the loud players who keep complaining about stealth players, especially those that feel entitled to force loud on a group of players happily coordinating a stealth run, are real self-absorbed wankers.

Not gonna knock someone for enjoying loud, but this entitled, trollish bs of deliberately firing shots to selfishly ruin a stealth run is infantile.

Dude, relax. It is literally every room. People start with stealth in every single room. Every single room. Of course the loud players are the ones complaining, because they're not the ones getting their way on this. Stealth players are. As much as some people on the forums TALK about ruining stealth and shooting in the air, I never actually see it in-game. No one complains about not being able to do stealth, because everyone is able to do stealth. It's never broken by anyone that's not doing stealth.

And this is a hot take, but frankly, I encourage anyone who wants to ruin stealth on-entrance to just go ahead and do it. If people want to call you toxic, so be it. This has gotten really ridiculous with starting every single game on every single non-Road-Rage map by going stealth.

[Tera]

Originally posted by Netsa:

I agree, but I think you're slightly off the mark. The problem wasn't the improvements to stealth, the problem is the level design, lack of Lobby markers, and the focus on Challenges. Stealth existed in Payday 2, but it was really easy to find loud games. Why was that? Well, many maps were a pain to stealth, most lobbies were not marked for stealth, and there was nothing in your progression that required you to do stealth. Now every map is easy to stealth, there's no way to mark a lobby, and a bunch of your exp gains are locked up in finishing heists quietly.

This is exacerbated by the fact that they did absolutely nothing to fix the Loud/Stealth Build problem. What they instead did was make it so loud builds could still stealth... but since everyone can do it, now it's more common. Loud builds still suck in stealth, but stealth builds suck waaay harder in loud, so everyone just runs loud builds in stealth and start every game by trying to stealth...

...which they can't, because they didn't bring a single stealth skill. You might recognize how that makes no sense, but that's how the devs set this game up. The players go along the most logical route, it's not their fault, they're just doing what the game encourages doing. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

There were ways Starbreeze could have solved these issues if they had any interest in making a new game, but they weren't, they were interesting in making money and cashing in on the franchise, so they just made Payday 2-2.

---

Here's an idea they could have played around with, feel free to shoot at it:
Let players Loud and Stealth on the same heist at the same time.
That means there's 2 routes to the same goal, both valid, and they're just out of the way of each other enough that the stealth players can go around back and avoid the firefight.

Let's take a bank for instance. The loud players rush in through the front, the alarm gets called... but the silent route to the vault DOESN'T disable itself. The loud players just can't activate it, for whatever reason. As long as they keep their masks off, the silent players can go around back and work through multiple layers of security to get the bank vault open without using the drill or thermite. Once they do, everyone can enter the vault and start hauling the money out.

Some maps could even have multiple objectives depending on whether there's a mix, or if everyone's full-loud or full-stealth.

To facilitate this, loud players would have skills that draw extra attention to themselves (cameras only look at you while you're in view, for instance), while stealth players would have much more mobility by default and would get skills that decrease attention to themselves (avoid looking directly at cops and they will think you are a citizen, for instance).

And nothing's locked out. Loud players could still get into the vault via a drill if there's no ninjas around, while the Stealth players could still hack the security and use keycards if there's no tanks around. But if they work together, the map would potentially get done faster, since the spies could work without having to avoid as many guards and cameras, and the rambos could work without having to sit through as many timers.

"What's taking you guys so long?! The dozers are coming!"
"Okay, I'm shutting the gate, the vault opens in 10 seconds!"
"Alright, we'll get the van, you get the bags! Let's go!"

Would probably still end up with people whining that most maps lean too hard on either stealth or loud, but hey, a man can dream...

Yeah I get your point of combining both playthroughs, but I doesn't real realistic. I know it's a video game but there must be some realism sprinkled on. I just don't see how 1 groups and go in guns blazing while another just casually takes the money out with cops all over the place. It's something that's need looking into but I'm just saying it might not be as easy as it seams. Balancing in a video game is hard hard. They even got a delicated person just to balance the economy of the game.

[Old Shoe]

Originally posted by Netsa:

Originally posted by Tox:

But the more of these types of posts I see, the more I'm realising that the loud players who keep complaining about stealth players, especially those that feel entitled to force loud on a group of players happily coordinating a stealth run, are real self-absorbed wankers.

Not gonna knock someone for enjoying loud, but this entitled, trollish bs of deliberately firing shots to selfishly ruin a stealth run is infantile.

Dude, relax. It is literally every room. People start with stealth in every single room. Every single room. Of course the loud players are the ones complaining, because they're not the ones getting their way on this. Stealth players are. As much as some people on the forums TALK about ruining stealth and shooting in the air, I never actually see it in-game. No one complains about not being able to do stealth, because everyone is able to do stealth. It's never broken by anyone that's not doing stealth.

And this is a hot take, but frankly, I encourage anyone who wants to ruin stealth on-entrance to just go ahead and do it. If people want to call you toxic, so be it. This has gotten really ridiculous with starting every single game on every single non-Road-Rage map by going stealth.

gigabased.
I'm tired of seeing all these stealth fanatics act like I'm the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ when I want to go loud when the majority of challenges (in a game with strictly challenge based leveling) are centered around loud. Hell even when I ask if we can go loud nobody responds (not counting console players who can't talk at all), they just assume that everyone wants to go stealth by default. And sure I'll roll with it and try to play along but usually someone screws up and sounds the alarm anyways, which of course leads to instant restart.

I don't care if you people like stealth, stealth is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boring to me. You can whine about how it is "super heckin complicated" when in reality it is just dodging guards, civs, and cams. If you find "clicking on heads" to be so boring than play a different game, Payday as a series has always been more centered around loud.

I do like the stealth improvements that they made in pd3 but man they really dropped the ball catering so heavily to the stealth crowd, really is a shame that the single loud-only heist is bland.

[-Ghost-]

I think we just really need a way to see what kind of game people are running. I'm getting tired of *every* game being stealth too. Sometimes I'm in the mood for it but other times I just want to go loud and actually use my guns. Stealth has weirdly become the default, since as other people said, nobody responds if you ask anyway and no one wants to be the guy who messes it up, so stealth it is.

It might get fixed a bit as we get more loud only heists, but I'm hoping they'll find a better solution than just locking everyone into their own heists.

[Gay Furry Marine]

Originally posted by Tox:

i really try to not take sides on this one as i thoroughly enjoy both stealth and loud in this game, especially dirty ice being a perfect mix of both in a single run...

But the more of these types of posts I see, the more I'm realising that the loud players who keep complaining about stealth players, especially those that feel entitled to force loud on a group of players happily coordinating a stealth run, are real self-absorbed wankers.

Not gonna knock someone for enjoying loud, but this entitled, trollish bs of deliberately firing shots to selfishly ruin a stealth run is infantile.

I know that's not necessarily what you're condoning here OP, but the mentality of some loud players is undeniably selfish. The idea that stealth is ruining multiplayer simply by existing or having more emphasis/viability, takes the onus out of the hands of these brats who think it's okay to be inconsiderate ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Therefore, I don't agree with your "stealth is ruining MP" premise, it's trolls and selfish arseholes who ruin it - but hey, welcome to online gaming writ large.

Thats cool and all

But I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hate stealth, and when Im in any lobby that does stealth (99% of them) my only options are:

-Wait outside for them to finish it
-Wait outside for them to ♥♥♥♥ up and then start playing (if they dont call a restart)
-Just shoot my gun to have fun sooner (everyone else leaves making higher difficulties impossible with the brain dead bots)

Or I could only play Road Rage I guess

[Pilzquadrat]

Stealth initially was bending the game, see how far you can stretch it undetected, and not intended. It's amusing to see how it turned into the main playstyle over the years and games. It's really not that impressive though when maps are explicitly built for it, and ignoring the loud gameplay kinda makes PD boring. Where's the fun walking around unmasked in dedicated areas and "stealing" stuff without any action?

[Munchies]

I have never understood the need for stealth in a game about shooting cops and throwing bags.

Like .. if you make a stealth game - do it. Like Thief, Hitman and many others. If you do a shooting game - do it. But having both in one game makes none of the two good.

Levels done for stealth are pretty bad for Loud and the other way arround.

The new COD is doing the same, but there the levels are huge and you can actually approach the map in different ways, while in PD the levels are small and you have a streamlined stealth where you just do the same things over and over and over and over again. Wait in the same coridors, for the same guards, hack the same computers. I remember in PD2 people were restarting so that they can get a certain room in the place they wanted it to be ... boring.

[Solid Snake]

Originally posted by Tox:

i really try to not take sides on this one as i thoroughly enjoy both stealth and loud in this game, especially dirty ice being a perfect mix of both in a single run...

But the more of these types of posts I see, the more I'm realising that the loud players who keep complaining about stealth players, especially those that feel entitled to force loud on a group of players happily coordinating a stealth run, are real self-absorbed wankers.

Not gonna knock someone for enjoying loud, but this entitled, trollish bs of deliberately firing shots to selfishly ruin a stealth run is infantile.

I know that's not necessarily what you're condoning here OP, but the mentality of some loud players is undeniably selfish. The idea that stealth is ruining multiplayer simply by existing or having more emphasis/viability, takes the onus out of the hands of these brats who think it's okay to be inconsiderate ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Therefore, I don't agree with your "stealth is ruining MP" premise, it's trolls and selfish arseholes who ruin it - but hey, welcome to online gaming writ large.

To add more to this.
It's a combination of toxicity and deep lack of QoL.

That problem wasn't really there before, because people could create lobby and explicity explain what was the intention (loud/stealth) and could kick out the trolls.

Now that this game suddendly decided to go back a decade in the past in terms of User Experience, you are stuck with players that are confused with whatever you wanna do stealth or loud (having a silencer doesn't mean you are not going loud)