Longform review of Buluc's Mansion Heist

[Malidictus]

I've been away from Payday 2 for quite a while, after Breakfast in Tijuana proved to be... Kind of crap? Not the worst thing out there, but still. Buluc's Mansion and the new outfits brought me back, however, and what I found was a genuinely pretty good heist. Mechanically it's one of the more complex ones out there, visually it has a large number of unique assets and overall looks good, and loot-wise it's like a more modern version of The Diamond. With both decent Loud and Stealth options, this is easily the highlight of Payday since Overkill came back from the dead. This right here is your "shortform review blurb" by the way, for those looking for tl;dr.



The heist

Buluc's Mansion is (as the name implies) the mansion of a Mexican Crime Lord named Buluc, an old friend of Vlad's and apparently the person who sent his brother to jail in the previous heist. The Payday Gang is tasked with infiltrating the mansion, breaking into Buluc's office and killing him (potentially via shark) while also boosting anything that's not nailed down. And boy, is there a LOT that's not nailed down, I tell ya! Narratively, the heist plays out like Scarface Mansion, with the gang needing to go through an elaborate process of getting into Buluc's office before offing him. Gameplay-wise, it feels closer to The Diamond, with a large amount of loot scattered about in cases and bags (and small safes) all throughout the building, including a "loot area" in the basement.

The Payday Gang has the option of going in guns blazing, having one of the thickest, most crowded firefights I've ever seen this side of Henry's Rock or Shacklethorne Mansion. Be ready for a serious brawl. Alternately, the Payday Gang has the option of sneaking through, silently taking out Buluc and driving off in one of his expensive sports cars "like a boss." Preplanning does exist, but I dare say it's fairly restricted and underwhelimg - similar to what you'd get in, say, Framing Frame Day 3.



Loud

The loud version of Buluc's Mansion is all sorts of fun, at least if you come prepared for a close-quarters brawl. The map is predominantly made up of narrow hallways and small-ish rooms, with only a single courtyard where snipers and long sight lines exist. Cop can spawn from just about every window and every roof and they'll gather in large numbers if you let them. DON'T let them. The players need to break into Buluc's office, which is guarded by a stone puzzle door. To open that, they need to break into his "inner sanctum" where clues to the puzzle can be found. To do this, the game actually randomly chooses one of two paths. Either players need to hack a keypad door via the mansion's server room, or build a home-made ANFO bomb to blast through a wall. The former is just a triple computer hack while the latter requires gathering components from around the location.

From there, the paths converge once the inner sanctum is accessible. A secret entrance behind a bookcase leads to a room with Mayan names linked with symbols (after finding a way to open it and then cutting through a door). Throughout the inner sanctum are documents which names and numbers. Link the number to the name and eventually to the symbol in order to figure out the correct symbols to open Buluc's office. The rest is rote - open the office, kill Buluc, loot his safe and leave - optionally stealing a couple dozen bags of assorted loot.

Now here are the good bits: Randomisation, hostages, loot, tools. Buluc's mansion always has the same layout, but three rooms have the potential to move around and trade places. A server room where hacks may be had, a staff rec room with the security code for the cellar and a PC with guard names and their masks, and a storage closet with a blowtorch can appear in any of three places, making for a somewhat unpredictable experience. Hostages exist aplenty as Buluc is hosting a mask ball event. If you can avoid shooting them, a large cache of hostages can be acquired. Loot there is in large numbers. Multiple small safes contain coke, an additional stash of loose coke can be found in the inner sanctum and the cellar holds a treasure trove of guns, money, coke and other things.

Finally, this heist does make SOME use of situational tools. All small safes can be drilled, picked or blasted open via C4. All doors are standard, meaning they can be picked, shot, cut or blown up. The three special rooms are warded by metal doors which can't be shot, but can still be opened via Portable Saw. All windows are breakable, most of them can also be picked open. I didn't find any keycard doors (aside from one custom objective one) so no opening doors via ECM, but hey - most everything else is there. Buluc's Mansion is an objective example of how to reward players for bringing breaching skills - something a lot of other heists even from Payday's golden age can learn a thing or two about.

Finally, the heist has a pretty good potential for multi-tasking. Many of the objectives are of the "scavanger hunt" type, where players need to find a list of specific items. Having multiple people look speeds this up significantly. When objectives are simple (wait for a hack/drill), the heist offers plenty of secondary objectives to keep the rest of the team busy. Plenty of safes to drill, plenty of bags to secure. Now, Buluc's Mansion does a thing I'm not fond of by locking the bag secure point to the end of the heist so collecting loot early MIGHT be problematic, but if a single player (or bot) can be spared to guard a room of loot and hostages, this can be mitigated. There is a fair bit of puzzle-solving in this heist as well, but I'll talk about it in the Stealth section since that's where the majority of it is.

Stealth

Cards on the table, I'm really rusty at this game - especially at stealth. Even so, however, I found this heist to be neither particularly slow nor particularly unfair. There do exist a LARGE number of guards on the premises, many with overlapping paths. However, they do have their own patrol routes so it's possible to clear out important areas of the house. Not ALL of them, obviously, but some lower-trafficked areas can be made secure. A security room exists on the premises, so a pager can be traded for the removal of the camera guard. All guards (with one exception that I'll get to) carry pagers, so plan accordingly. There are also a large number of civilians on the premises, but they're largely confined to a courtyard and two rooms - similar to the Golden Grin.

A point of note here is the preplanning. As with most heists, the majority of Preplanning assets are stealth-related... But there aren't many. The most prominent is a "stealth entry" which costs 6 Favours and... Doesn't actually do much. It puts players inside the mansion's cellar, but the cellar door is right opposite one of the building's main entrances. Entering the mansion is trivial, so spending 6 favours for that is wasted. Worse, it places players in the cellar with additional guards and tasks them with finding acode to get out, which makes the heist actually longer if one isn't planning on raiding the cellar anyway. This should have cost 0 favours, is my point.

Stealth proceeds pretty much the same as Loud, but for two major points - accessing the inner sanctum and escape. Where Loud asks players to brute-force their way in, stealth requires some finesse. Players need to defeat either a keycard door or a statue puzzle. The keycard door requires - you guessed it - a keycard. This keycard is held by a specific guard who - I should stress - DOES NOT have a pager. This is important because I believe he can be taken out "for free" even if the keycard isn't needed. To find out who has the card, players need to find a note citing them by name. To avoid asking them their names, players can hack a computer to find a list of guard names and the masks they wear. Find the right mask, shoot the guard (or yell at him, I guess) and get his card. Simple.

Slightly less simple is the other approach. There, a statue wall blocks the way. Players need to find two items - a large scythe and a globe - to place on it. This has the potential to turn into a MASSIVE pain in the ass similar to Framing Frame Day 3 finding all the items, but the game will actually drop waypoints to the items if the player takes too long. This, however, is where I ran into a problem. On one run, the globe spawned in a location in the heavily-populated civilian areas. I have not found a way to sneak to it or take out civilians around it without blowing stealth entirely. Your mileage may vary.

The Inner Sanctum plays out exactly the same, as does the confrontation with Buluc. Glad nobody can hear him scream as he plummets off his balcony. After that is where stealth kind of goes bad, in my opinion. To escape, the player needs a car, which requires finding keys (in the same room) and opening the garage door. However, loot can't be secured in the car. The only secure point is a slow zipline on the second floor of the mansion. That's a bit of a problem considering where the majority of the loot is. Most of it is either in the inner sanctum in the basement of the mansion... Or in the cellar in the basement of the mansion. Both of these have roaming guards. With civilains blocking the main spaces, players are forced to navigate a really long, guard-infested path over and over again. In other words, it's the worst part of Framing Frame Day 3.

Securing loot solo HURTS. The inner sanctum has 5 bags, the basement has around 10 bags, and 5 other bags are scattered around the lower floor. That means SO many trips, SO much chance of running into guards randomly, and all for what? A few extra bags? I'll admit it - I couldn't get all the bags. Had to run off with about a quarter secured. I get that - based on the layout of the building - there aren't a lot of places to put a loot zipline, but... Well, there's a fairly quick route to the zipline, which just so happens to go through an area blocked by civilians. I tried clearing them out once. The party saw them...

It's still a decent Stealth heist, but securing all loot is more pain than it's worth.



Overall

Considering I'd given up on Payday entirely, Buluc's Mansion turned out to be a lot of fun. It's a good-looking well-designed heist with a lot of fighting and decent stealth opportunities, only slightly marred by a WEIRD loot secure location relative to where the loot actually is.

[Delumen]

Great review, but just one small remark. The boat entrance counts as a loot drop off, even though it's not marked. So even if you're packed for loud, you could in theory easily secure the whole basement's loot before kicking it off.
But yeah, outside of the achievement for cleaning the mansion, I'll never bother with all the other loot scattered about, not worth the effort.

[Malidictus]

Delumen の投稿を引用：

Great review, but just one small remark. The boat entrance counts as a loot drop off, even though it's not marked. So even if you're packed for loud, you could in theory easily secure the whole basement's loot before kicking it off.
But yeah, outside of the achievement for cleaning the mansion, I'll never bother with all the other loot scattered about, not worth the effort.

*sigh* Well, sure wish I'd know that on my runs :) Thanks for the heads-up, though - that's certainly useful. Still a fair trip from the inner sanctum, but that only has five bags in it. The Basement has closer to 10. I'll consider using that, instead. I mean, it's not like there's a lot else to spend Favours on. It's mostly spycams and body bags. Would certainly negate some of the trouble, for sure.

Honestly, though, I tend to try and gather all the bags regardless of reward. It feels... I don't know - "thematic?" That's one of the things I feel sets Payday apart from a lot of other horde shooters. The "physicality" of having to manipulate bags as permanent objects in the world and move large quantities of them is fun. Not so much in Stealth, granted, but definitely in Loud.

[Copy & Cat]

*cof* mansion *cof*

[Malidictus]

*revolver noises* の投稿を引用：

*cof* mansion *cof*

Fixed, thanks. Oh, what I wouldn't give for spell check in Steam :)

[Tommy Gray x Land Raider]

I wish Buluc's Mansion in going loud, you'll face alternating waves of Murkywater and Federales. After all, this takes place within Mexico and Buluc has ties with Murkywater. The Federales don't want the game to make trouble and the Murkies don't want to lose one of their valued assets.

[Sunday Driver]

I'm glad you made this thread. I was interested in seeing what the long form review of it would be. I was pleased at the design of the mansion. We see a lot of nice unique items and look to the place. It feels fresh. The rooms are not too claustrophobic, so you've room for some movement in the firefights, especially compared to most of the Shacklethorn interior that felt like being in a packed concert crowd. It feels and looks new. I particularly like the verticality elements. Rooms with two open levels and stairs between. It's something that just changes up the feel of the fight enough to make it interesting to the standard level corridor.

Perhaps the map would benefit from some kind of favor purchased or even better, some kind of in-map operable loot chute/drop off? Kind of like in Green Bridge, but it can be hidden or obscured or activated in game by some mechanism and exploration. The favor based can be like in the Nightclub or The Diamond or the others with purchasable drop off points.

[Malidictus]

Hoxilicious の投稿を引用：

I'm glad you made this thread. I was interested in seeing what the long form review of it would be. I was pleased at the design of the mansion. We see a lot of nice unique items and look to the place. It feels fresh. The rooms are not too claustrophobic, so you've room for some movement in the firefights, especially compared to most of the Shacklethorn interior that felt like being in a packed concert crowd. It feels and looks new. I particularly like the verticality elements. Rooms with two open levels and stairs between. It's something that just changes up the feel of the fight enough to make it interesting to the standard level corridor.

A friend of mine was joking about how the mansion does, indeed, have a toilet. It's an old joke from the time of Scarface Mansion, because THAT building is just atrocious. It's pretty clear Overkill (or whoever it was farmed to) just created a bunch of sets from the movie and threw them together with no concept of how a real building would work. Buluc's mansion feels a lot more like a real building, with a garage, a kitchen, a guest bedroom room, a dining hall, etc. My impression is that the second floor is where Buluc actually lives, with the first floor being mostly for staff and guests. I do wish the second floor weren't so closed-off, but it does imply there's more to the building - something Scarface's Mansion didn't do.

Oh, and quick extra note - there are several guards on balconies high up where players can't get to them. Those guards don't have pagers - obviously, because they can't be reached. Someone actually thought about the playability aspect of this map, and did a damn good job of it. Just having the objective guard not trigger a pager alone is really, really nice. Would be pretty unpleasant otherwise, if RNG decided that you have 3 pagers now, because one has to be spent on an objective. Plus, it means clever players can use this to take out the keycard guard in order to reduce foot traffic even if he's not needed for an objective.

Hoxilicious の投稿を引用：

Perhaps the map would benefit from some kind of favor purchased or even better, some kind of in-map operable loot chute/drop off? Kind of like in Green Bridge, but it can be hidden or obscured or activated in game by some mechanism and exploration. The favor based can be like in the Nightclub or The Diamond or the others with purchasable drop off points.

Agreed. Being able to pay favours for an extra loot secure location for Stealth - especially if it opens up early - would be really nice. As for Loud... I don't know. Ideally I'd like to be able to secure bags at my discression, but I also have to admit that having to guard a hoard of bags is fun in its own right. Plus, most newer heists work this way, where a loot secture point doesn't pop up until right near the end - usually the escape vehicle. So YES for steath, MAYBE for loud.

In general, the heist could have benefitted from more Preplanning assets. Posioned food, free keycards, "intel" which gives you some answers to some of the puzzles, etc. As it stands right now, the heist barely benefits from Preplanning, but for the Entry/Escape choice.

[Doktor Vic Tim]

Unlike the other Silk Road heists, this one was the only one not to feature a new type of loot.

Border Crossing had Roman Armor (reskin of Samurai Armor, but still)
San Martin had Romanov Treasure and Fabergé Egg
Breakfast Tijuana had Colombian Cocaine (Return from White Xmas)

And Buluc's Mansin only had Coke, Cash and Weapons. Would've been nice with some unique little thing.

I know the most unique is probably the Romanov Treasure because it also has a unique value. And I've always been fascinated by Fabergé Eggs.
While we had Pure Coke from White Xmas it was nice to see a return, and same thing with the armor in Border Crossing.

[Malidictus]

Doktor Vic Tim の投稿を引用：

And Buluc's Mansin only had Coke, Cash and Weapons. Would've been nice with some unique little thing.

Agreed. A friend of mine complained that we didn't get to steal any wine from the wine cellar :) He has a point, and we even have a "Wine" loot item from the rework of Framing Frame. Granted, that still wouldn't have been a NEW loot item, but at the same time it would have been a revisit of a loot item with a single use anywhere else in the game. I mean come on! Buluc is an extravagant rich crime lord. Surely he has at least a few bottles worth boosting...

With that said, I'm not actually that upset about no new loot items, myself. While I'm a huge fan of baggable loot, the exact nature of it doesn't really bother me so much. I do wish Overkill had taken my suggestion of colour-coding bags by weight so it's easier to tell which is which, but I have a bag contour mod now which does a similar thing.

I do have quibbles with Buluc's mansion, but they're generally fairly minor relative to the criticisms I had for Breakfast in Tijuana. I'm... Really not fond of that heist and it's part of the reason I'd written Payday 2 off.