No Mercy Analysis + Review

[lexilogo]

The final Classic has come, so let's talk about it.

• First, here's something fairly frivolous but still cool: The scrubs have returned! Albeit with a bug I encountered with the Akimbo Crosskills (don't know about other weapons, the Kobus worked fine) where my first person arms were blinking in and out of existence, but still, they're back.
  
  
• Okay, yeah, yeah, down to the big buisness: This heist on DSOD is a nightmare, as a lot of people were able to predict. You can see via my achievements that I have managed it (with two friends), but it definitely requires far more reliance on cop stunning and pure DPS than most people will be comfortable with. Even though I was running a shotgun Sociopath build with a Dragon's Breath Grimm shotgun, the cop hordes were still pretty massive. I personally believe that while No Mercy's map features obviously extaggerate this, the main issue are the enemies themselves. The sheer quantity of cops that come at you is ludicrous, and the vents do NOT combine well with most normal cops being able to kill you almost instantly. This ends up resulting in people who run builds that can take cheap shots (Anarchist, Stoic) doing a lot better than people running builds that can't afford taking cheap shots anywhere near as well (sociopath, for example), which doesn't make for a massively fun experience. However, IMO tuning down the quantity of cops and making them kill a bit slower is already something that kinda needs to happen in the game as a whole, so...
  
  
• One of the most interesting changes made (unless this mechanic was in The Heist, but I really don't remember it) is the new vial breaking when you get downed, and I actually think this is kind of a stroke of genius. Some people were wondering if additional vials were going to be made bonus loot (and by extension, if no mercy would go so far as to be an infinite heist), but this is a really good way to encourage production of more valid vials without actually changing the objective that much at all. It also adds a nice bit of additional tension to the heist. EDIT: It was in The Heist originally and I'm just misremembering things. It's definitely more prominent and relevant as a mechanic in 2 I think (as being downed in 2 is less consequential and happens more often, when compared to The Heist) and I think it returning was a good move, though.
  
  
• Stealth, too. Unless I missed something, I'm pretty much certain that a full stealth route has not been added, though for some reason OVK still mark it as stealthable- Still though, the stealth is pretty good overall with the one main problem being the way the alarm buttons are currently set up. Much like the original No Mercy, the alarm button in the far corridor is very annoying, but unlike the original No Mercy, civvies behave very strangely. Civvies in The Heist would all be alerted at once when you masked up, so that was at least consistent, but in the port for 2, the civvies appear to go for the alarm buttons regardless of if they've seen you or not, resulting in severe consistency issues. Either reworking this so they only go for the alarms when alerted, or scripting it so every civvie gets alerted when you mask up (noise carries fast in a hospital, I guess, using an excuse like that) would solve the consistency problem, because at present it's way too frustrating. I've also heard some complaints about civvie control but to be honest I didn't have a problem, as long as I got every civ on the ground (which took a few tries thanks to the damn alarm buttons) I could control them solo quite easily. I don't have a problem with the heist being forced semi-stealth, and I actually quite appreciate the fact that Overkill kept this element.
  
  
• This isn't directly related to the heist, but if there's one part of this event that OVK should probably get some kudos for... It's the melees. It feels weird actually praising the addition of new melees for once, but Kento's Tanto is a free max concealment katana family weapon, and the syringe is a free poison weapon. Both of those implementations actually do help non-UE users out, so they're actually pretty good to have.
  
  
• So, uh... This is canon. I was afraid of this, though thankfully it's clarified that it's taking place in the past (so, ironically, this is the best-explained and arguably most canon Classic out of all of them, seeing as the original few classics had absolutely 0 explanation, and the later ones were very fuzzy), so it's gone about as well as a canon No Mercy could. I'm very glad that it still preserves a lot of the No Mercy feel, though some elements like it being implied the heisters getting infected and displaying symptoms of turning into zombies did have to be scrapped for it.
  
  
• As for the "meatiness" issue I brought up with Hell's Island, this heist is definitely more substansial and replayable than Hell's Island, because, well, it's No Mercy. While it's long lost its distinction of being one of two heists with stealth elements (and, if I'm being honest, in The Heist, No Mercy was the only good one. Diamond Heist is great and all but the stealth elements simply weren't fun, especially with the awful RNG that was involved), it does still have the unique puzzle, easter eggs like the Witch, and is one of really only two "proper" control stealth heists, with the other being Go Bank. (there are a lot of control stealth heists, but Go and No Mercy are the only ones where the control is actually kind of a challenge, and not just something you can easily do because the security in the building is laughable)
  
  
• Code Silver 2018 wasn't what I was expecting- While a more electronicy version of Code Silver was definitely what I was expecting, I wasn't expecting Simon to lean into a traditional, actiony and enjoyable beat, I was expecting him to go for the more eccentric aspects of the original Code Silver, but I'm really not complaining. Code Silver 2018 is a bangin' track, and it also makes me wonder who's composed the track for the final heist of this event. It's probably Gustavo, I believe that was his name, the guy who did Underground Lockdown and Joke's on You, but we might get a blast from the past with Carl Noren, and either way I'm fine with it and have high hopes for the next track.

However, I don't have an overall lot to say about the new No Mercy. There's a lot of issues, but I think most of them stem from the current state of the game as a whole as opposed to map-specific ones. As a map, the new No Mercy is pretty much exactly what I wanted minus the canonicity element, so I'm pretty happy to have it.

To bring something else up, and it might be a bit early to discuss this kind of thing- It's fairly obvious that no real rebalance or rework is coming this event at this point. OVK generally launch stuff like that early into events if they have it prepared, so I think it's safe to say we're not getting anything along those lines, which is a real shame as the game kinda needs it IMO (going by current trends, IF OVK are planning any large changes to the game, which is something of a crapshoot, it'd probably launch next spring) at this point.

I guess what I'm trying to say is as this event almost certainly has no rebalance/rework content in it, and at least in my opinion the game's currently in a very unhealthy state with the spawnrates and assault waves working as they currently are combined with the general cheesiness of player optimal strategies... I'm sincerely hoping OVK aren't just ignoring the symptoms of a clearly somewhat sick game. I'm not a doomsayer claiming that Starbreeze is gonna go bankrupt next week if OVK don't launch a rebalance or that this is a dead game, but I do think that the current spawnrates are compromising the amount of hype/additional sales this game's generating as well as causing the game to hemmorage players slowly but surely, which is very much an issue.

No Mercy, even though it's nice to get it, might be making this issue even worse. The heist has been quite hyped by players over the years we've been waiting for it, and to be frank I wouldn't be surprised if No Mercy's tight corridors and endless vents everywhere have finally made a good few dozen more players quit the game, as well as people coming back to see No Mercy in Payday 2 after it's finally been added being disappointed with how incoherent the gameplay feels now with cops behaving the way they are.

If I was Overkill in this situation, and let's say I had a rebalance to cop spawnrates and/or other features in the works, because if I was Overkill I would absolutely be working on that right now as it's been an extremely common player complaint for a good few months now... I would, at the least, be a tad more public in telling players that it's in the works, or, far better yet, making public testing for certain aspects of the rebalance. While I'm well aware rushing a rebalance like this would probably do more harm than good, I think if, in the next major patch, Overkill make slight tuning to the current state of the game (literally just "we universally lowered the max spawns on Overkill and above by 10, and maybe also increased the assault break times by a few seconds, because we noticed you guys were really frustrated with No Mercy and stuff, we hear ya", for example) as well as promising that depending on feedback more changes like it are coming, I think that'd go an absolutely massive way for the community right now, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it brought in even more players than anything else in this event. Just saying.

Okay, mildly threatening thoughts on the game as a whole right now aside, what do you guys think about No Mercy and how it's been handled?

[Seven]

They did a straight port with zero effort put into adapting it for the game as it is today. The original was a decent heist, with a stealth aspect that worked mostly due to novelty. The new one is a rather bad heist, with slow and awkward stealth and completely unable to handle the volume of enemies. In particular the existence of enemy medics that will happily heal through walls, and the tight quarters and numerous rooms and corridors all but guarantees that they'll be within range and will be hard to focus down. It was never a particularly complex heist in terms of objectives, but now it's just completely overwhelmed by the horde shooter aspect to the point where it might as well be a wave survival level. It takes everything I hate about Henry's Rock and if anything dials it up a notch, while at the same time removing anything about HR that was actually interesting.

I had hoped for a FWD treatment. I expected less. I got nothing.

[СефСвіт]

Vials definitely broke in pd:th. ;n;

[lexilogo]

Originally posted by ☣Chris Redfield, Panda Rider:

Vials definitely broke in pd:th. ;n;

Alright, that's mostly my ignorance with The Heist then. It's been way too long.

Originally posted by Seven:

*snip*

I don't know about a Henry's Rock comparison, considering No Mercy does actually have cover. I think the comparison mostly comes from Henry's Rock being the first big taste of the higher spawnrates.

If I had to make a comparison, and this might be a weird one, but it feels more like Brooklyn 10-10? Might just be me, but I get the same "Hole out in a few highly defensible locations, take potshots, and let the objectives pretty much complete themselves while occasionally rushing out" vibes.

Though, one issue I have that "slow and awkward stealth" comment made me remember: The damn 20-ish second mask up restriction is bad and needs removal, or at least extreme lowering to something like 10 seconds at most. I appreciate that OVK don't want people immediately masking up and not understanding the heist properly, but it ends up being frustrating on repeat playthroughs.

[СефСвіт]

Originally posted by lexilogo:

Originally posted by ☣Chris Redfield, Panda Rider:

Vials definitely broke in pd:th. ;n;

Alright, that's mostly my ignorance with The Heist then. It's been way too long.

I remember because it haunts me to this day hearing it and knowing we were just screwed and it was *me* who screwed it. Ooops.

But bad memories aside, I can definitely not disagree about the spawns. I love a bit of *heavy* chaos. I don't think it should be 30 min of straight chaos. They seemed to have difficulty retreating from some of those side rooms, too.

But I'm veering a little off topic. I had fun with it but I can see where it would be overwhelming for a lot of people.

Oh, and screw those medics healing through walls more than ever.

[lexilogo]

Originally posted by ☣Chris Redfield, Panda Rider:

But bad memories aside, I can definitely not disagree about the spawns. I love a bit of *heavy* chaos. I don't think it should be 30 min of straight chaos. They seemed to have difficulty retreating from some of those side rooms, too.

Regarding that, I should also mention that it's not just the spawnrates, it's also largely the fade rework.

A fade rework was needed, but the game needed other changes to compensate for it that it didn't get. The actual base break time should probably get an extension.

[Flashbaxx]

I love that we're seeing No Mercy once again, but I was seriously thinking they would use it as their noncanonical Halloween event heist for this year, not put it into the ongoing storyline, considering its origin as a L4D crossover in the previous game. This canon rewrite confuses me further with the fact that the No Mercy heist we got is a flashback, rather than a rewrite to directly correlate with the story like the more recent classic heists. After Hell's Island, I expected to play No Mercy under Locke's guidance to cure Bain's illness, and our clue for day 8 doesn't appear to relate to curing Bain, so now I'm lost on whether or not Bain is getting saved.

[lexilogo]

Originally posted by DJ Pon3:

I love that we're seeing No Mercy once again, but I was seriously thinking they would use it as their noncanonical Halloween event heist for this year, not put it into the ongoing storyline, considering its origin as a L4D crossover in the previous game. This canon rewrite confuses me further with the fact that the No Mercy heist we got is a flashback, rather than a rewrite to directly correlate with the story like the more recent classic heists. After Hell's Island, I expected to play No Mercy under Locke's guidance to cure Bain's illness, and our clue for day 8 doesn't appear to relate to curing Bain, so now I'm lost on whether or not Bain is getting saved.

I was personally hoping that the new No Mercy was going to be a traditional noncanon Halloween heist as well, but that's not what happened.

However, it IS better explained than the rest of the Classics, at least, as it seems to have a concrete answer as to why it exists in PD2. I'll go over all the different Classics and their explanations:

First World Bank, Slaughterhouse, Panic Room, Undercover, Counterfeit: Seemingly no explanation whatsoever (with VERY scarce references to these heists happening twice that appear to just be meaningless easter eggs). Personally, as far as I'm concerned, these heists' PD2 variants are plain and simply noncanon and just retellings of what happened in The Heist, though Slaughterhouse notably has a Vlad cameo and Panic Room does have the (probably noncanon) Sydney line from the HHP site where she literally just says "Hey, remember that Panic Room heist you guys did in 2011? Let's do that again". First World Bank is ESPECIALLY confusing, because it's explicitly the first heist the Payday gang ever did, and it absolutely took place before the events of Payday 2 (because the gang's first interaction with Hector was when he bought the Overvault gold, and he would later rat out Hoxton prior to the events of payday 2 thanks to his contact with the payday gang), and yet the FBI Files refers to First World Bank as if it just happened, and as if the First World Bank being robbed is a totally new occurence.

Green Bridge: Evidently takes place in the current storyline because the prisoner we rescued was a totally new character, Kazuo, who we saved to get information out of. (though WHAT info we got is totally unclear, he kinda just flew off into the sunset with George) Seemingly retcons the old Green Bridge, because Garrett states in the FBI Files that a crime on this scale is unheard of in US crime history.

Heat Street: Quite explicitly, both Heat Streets are canon, and it's just a coincidence that Matt FOOLED YOU GUYS not once, but twice, both in very similar locations and with very similar events taking place.

Diamond Heist: It's supposed to take place directly after Alaskan Deal, with the Payday gang hitting the Garnet Group because Locke's got investments there. However, this makes no sense in the wider storyline, because Bain knew that Locke wasn't actually betraying the gang, and the real purpose of Alaskan Deal was to get the gang out of DC (because Kataru activity was ramping up, presumably) and make them travel across the entire country. Reservoir Dogs is apparently meant to be an opportunistic detour on their journey back, during which Bain's fears get validated when he's kidnapped. Diamond Heist simply does NOT fit into that.

No Mercy, meanwhile, is just a flashback that's retconning Payday: The Heist's No Mercy as being based on true events. It's a LOT more clear cut than that convoluted mess above.

Regarding Day 8, it's absolutely going to be related to Bain's illness, though the jury's out on him being saved or not. Chains stated in No Mercy's contract description that Bain apparently "only has a few days left", so there isn't exactly much time to wait until Christmas for another heist.

My thoughts are that one of these two things are gonna happen:

-Whatever's in Washington that we're going to find has the ability to cure Bain, which it might. Either it's a Secret-related artifact that has some kind of weird healing properties, or maybe we're going to intercept Kataru operations that'll help us discover the cure.

-Bain is going to accompany us, either in person or on radio, to the heist to help, and is going to die during the heist with his final act being assisting us in closing out this whole Secret buisness.

[staryoshi06]

I found it kinda cool (but also annoying) that cops 'take ground' when you leave an area. Like if you leave the ICU hallway it'll be filled with cops.

Also I like how stealthing it sorta makes it easier (the more assault waves you suffer, the harder it gets).