My experience with the Golden Grin Casino

[Malidictus]

I am pleasantly surprised by this heist. Not really sure what I was expecting and it's far from perfect, but here you go:

The Casino map is very cool. It's quite large, but nevertheless offers decent cover even in its open areas. That casino floor has more things to hide behind and gain full cover than one might think. The layout is a bit confusing at first, but it's really not that complicated. Took me a while to figure out that the stairs to the second floot move around, however. Good touch.

Graphically, the map is quite gorgeous, though it does have a few... Weird slips in quality. The manager's office is basically a giant box with a few props thrown in it, which gave me a very odd Tomb Raider 2 Venace feel walking through it. The shower area in the locker room is even worse, with that thick blocky wall and floor, walls and ceiling covered in the same tiles. Floor tiles and wall tiles are made of different materials, folks. There's a strange but noticeable performance drop in the Archives area when looking towards the casino, and I'm running a GTX780 card. Not cutting edge, but it ought to be able to handle Payday 2 without inducing input lag.

I really like the asset choices on this one, especially the absolutely free option to drive up guns blazing. I wish more heists had that as an option. I'm going to do it Loud anyway, may as well skip masking up and looking for my gear. There are so very many options, too - some for stealth only, some for loud only. There's a bit of everything. We may end up falling into a routine, but it'll take a while. Iliya the Sniper seems pointless, though. There's not a lot to do outside in those very small areas. Still, extra points with "go loud" being an option :)

I'm very impressed with the amount of skill-specific interaction possible in the Golden Grin, too. I don't know about ECMs, but most doors can be picked, blown or cut, and the one which can't I can sort of see why. Annoying, but understandable. Overkill (or is this Lion Game Lion?) really learned their lesson from Hoxton Breakout. Even lockpicking becomes useful as a vault can be picked by hand... Though with a 60-second drill time, I'm not sure how useful that is outside of stealth. Which reminds me:

This feels like a VERY fast-paced heist for how bloody long it is. Bag-moving aside, it took me something like half an hour to get through the whole thing, and I never felt like I was sitting on my hands waiting for things. Drills exist but they're quick, deliveries need to be waited for but they're also quick and objectives pile on top of each other. I LOVE it. This is precisely what I always wanted out of a Payday heist. There are many things which can be done simultaneously if people want to split up, speeding up the process but exposing people to more danger. Excellent!

I was quite impressed with the loot in the casino. It's not just what's in the vault, there are plenty of things to steal along the way, too. There are cabinets in the lobby offices full of valuables, money in the manager's safe and even the painting you move to expose the safe is loot. This is a dream come truem. My only real complaint (outside of the vault, which I'll get to) is that there are not guns to steal in the Armour. Why? There's a shelf of shotguns, why not let us rob that for an extra bag? It's already there.

The safe is where my real complaints start. There seemed to be a tad too few baggable money piles but a few too many stacks of cash. In fact, FAR TOO MANY stacks of loose cash. I ran the heist twice, and I seriously have wanker's cramp after spamming my use key picking all those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stacks of bills up. Jumping grandma on a stick is this annoying! Call me crazy, but I'm not too keen on gameplay which can be accomplished just as proficiently by a drinking bird.

The metal detectors are a ton of fun. At first I thought they were broken and beeping all the time, but no! They actually beep when cops pass by them. Cool, so they basically warn me when cops are approaching. Clver mechanic, interestingly done. The metal detector at the front can kiss my ass, though. I had to move a dozen bags through it, and it beeped every time both ways, and beeped extra long when I stood in it. Seriously, can we please disable that one when the heist goes loud? It's so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying!

The drill is pretty cool, as well. Bolting down the winch gave me Car Mechanic Simulator flashbacks, though (or Monster Garage for the PC, if you're old enough). I'd argue that was unnecessary, but no big deal. Most of the extras you can buy for it seem like a waste, though. So I bought a water level indicator. For what reason, when Bain will warn me of low water anyway? So I bought a timer for the drill. Well, great, but couldn't they just sync the cutter speed to the drill time? My drill finished with 3/4 of the circle still uncut. Now THAT looks bad.

Still pretty cool, though, and I like the giant metal frame. I don't know that I like this better than the Beast, but the modularity of it is very interesting. I'd definitely like to see that show up in future heists. Mounting Turrets on it is even smarter. Would not have called that. I didn't, since I ran out of favours, but I could have if I'd just killed the timer and the water level gague. Speaking of, isn't HoxHud going to show drill time anyway without the 1-favour timer? I know, I know - "haxhud," but a timer should be standard, not purchased.

All in all, I'm VERY impressed with the Golden Grin in Loud. Let's see about Stealth.

[Black Iron Cryomancer]

be glad you ran out of favours before you got the chance to mount any sentries on the BFD. they're as worthless as standard sentries are since they run out of ammo near instantly and cant be refilled (I presume if you have the perks this may be different).

agreed that there was far too much loose cash in the vault. also in my opinion there is far to little loot all together. what with all but 1 bag of it being cash as well makes the heist feel very undramatic at the end. to have robbed this huge casino with this giant laser cutter delivered by a turbo blimp. To then leave with 20 odd bags of cash and the dentists favourite music box.

harvest and trustees from my past have bordered on 15 bags of cash. where's the gold, and the jewels and the drugs. the Grin is supposed to be built from mob money and infamous for its connection to crime. yet it seems almost whiter than white in comparison to the other heists.

something doesn't add up and I'm not just talking about bains meth recipe

[Malidictus]

Stealth in the Golden Grin casino is... A bit weird. On the face of it, I like just HOW different it is from Loud. It's a big map and most of it gets used for either stealth or loud assets which makes it basically an entirely different heist depending on how you run it. Two for one, if you will. However, that also means switching from Loud to Stealth is highly discouraged. None of your Stealth objectives contribute to Loud and the heist's Preplanning encoruages you to go all the way towards one or the other. At best, losing stealth means you'll end up with an underpowered BFD.

Stealth itself is fun, though, if a bit... Scripted. The objectives are interesting and creative, though they often feel like busywork. "Hey, find a scanner and fax me the building plans from the archives, for we have travelled back in time to the 90s." Why can't I take a picture of it with my phone? Why do I need to return to the IT room twice? It feels padded, honestly, and that's not counting having to track down three laptops with a giant coloured number on them in order to bypass the Fisher Price security system.

However, for as open and crowded as the casino is, I never really felt like the game was being unfair to me. The copious amounts of cover during loud turn into numerous hiding spots in stealth and it's pretty easy to crouch around in the open if your visibility is low enough. I was PARANOID about how hard this would be, but it turned out to be quite a bit easier.

Like the Alesso heist, guards tend to keep to their patrol routes and areas, which is good. They also don't stand around for long, though they do loiter slightly longer than the Alesso guards. Guess those jacked up ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ were antsy. It means less sitting on my hands waiting for the ceiling to fall and more moving around dodging patrols. It's actually exciting, as opposed to being dull. No more waiting for the guards to randomly congregate on the other end of the building. Yay!

The bit where I have to make a character ♥♥♥♥ himself was annoying, though. Not only does it require me to walk up to a civvie in the big room where all the other people are, it's a silly excuse, too. And woe betide you if you try to be clever. So Bain says the "poison" he gave the guy will make him crap himself, so I presumed he'd rush for the toilet. He being a HE, I presumed he'd rush for the men's room. Instead, he ran into a corner outside behind the ladies room... For what reason, exactly? So he can cack his pants in private? Would it have been too easy to have the guy rush off to the men's room and jump into a stall? I understand we can't have him pull his trousers, so maybe have him vomit in the bowl? Something?

The pit boss laptop can kiss my ass, too. I hired what was supposed to be a bombshell lady to hit on him, and she turned up wearing a pink bag instead of a top. This was supposed to benefit me, somehow, but all it did was put his laptop in a crowded room with six people in it. Worse - his was a gold laptop on a gold counter. I ended up tying down or shooting all people in the room so I could have a better view of the VIP lounge. THEN I found the thing camouflaged against a countertop. Really?

I also have to ask - what's the point of hacking a computer for 60 seconds to turn out the lasers in the vault? All the guards in the security room are asleep, nobody's going to walk in and see it. All this does is buffer the game for 60 seconds. This caused me to shoot arrows into a wall out of boredom, hit a camera on accident and then have to jump in my seat every time a passing guard caught a brief glimpse of it. And how did putting the guards to sleep not trigger their pagers when yelling at them to kneel does? Why haven't we used this gas before?

Those are all niggling complaints, though. Truth be told, I had fun once I learned the heist. It's not easy and there's a lot of running around, but this is ACTIVE stealth at its best. Minimum amount of time spent sitting on my hands, maximum amount spent doing things.

The best part of this, though, is it actually benefits from bringing multiple people! One of my biggest problems with Stealth in Payday 2 is you really only need one person. In fact, adding more people just introduces more failure opportunities. Here, however, the objectives can be multi-tasked so multiple people speeds the heist along. Moreover, because not taking your gear makes you invisible, people can act as scouts in a way that far exceeds all other heists I can think of. Hell, if you want to have a Plan B, simply have your heavy-armour dudes stay in their civvies and spot. If you succeed, great. If you fail, they get dressed. This is better than an armour bag :)

All in all, I'm happy with the Heist. Will feature that in tomorrow's scheduled even with my friends, but this one was a success.

[Malidictus]

Messaggio originale di The Gene Genie:

agreed that there was far too much loose cash in the vault. also in my opinion there is far to little loot all together. what with all but 1 bag of it being cash as well makes the heist feel very undramatic at the end. to have robbed this huge casino with this giant laser cutter delivered by a turbo blimp. To then leave with 20 odd bags of cash and the dentists favourite music box.

Personally, I feel that a lot of the loose cash should be replaced with baggable cash or other valuables. It's a pain in the ass to collect and feels very unsatisfying to do so. Bags you have a physical reminder of how many there are, but stacks of bills? Eh, a number at the end of the heist is all you have to show for it. And yeah - a few more different types of loot would have been nice. I still want to see stealable guns in the armoury and maybe a few extra paintings. Maybe god in the manager's safe :)

I'm fine with the vault holding only money if we had other places to steal from. Indeed, Bain mentions how we can leave or "clean the place out," but there's nothing to clean out. Save for a few trinkets, it's all in the vault.

The Dentist's music box is, I believe, the Arc of the Covenant. I would not have called it, but based on Bain gawking at it, that's the only "big thing" I can think of which would surprise him after we stole six nukes.

[Black Iron Cryomancer]

have to agree again to an extent with the busywork idea. but it is a nice step up from previous stealth heists which often devolved into you guys wait here while I play the game and then you can help my schlep this loot back.

ended up playing the suspension of disbelief game a bit as well, when I hid behind the bar while like 20 people all stood near me and no one looked down enough to spot the bloke holding a as-val behind the vodka.

heist also unfortunately drives home the point about detection needing a rework, as collecting the guest list was for me a huge pain, since the damn cashier woman had grown eyes in the back of her head and spotted me the instant I entered her room. resulting in me again playing the suspension of disbelief game as no one looked down enough to spot the helpless woman bound behind the counter crying.

but again this all comes out as complaints and it shouldn't. the heist is immensely fun to play and I recommend it to everyone, more so if the theory's about the dentists loot being a ruse turn out to be true and a real reward is discovered later on.

[PrivateKI]

On a side note, I found the GGC to be severely underpopulated.

Are casinos in Vegas usually this empty?

[SleepyNBDisaster]

Messaggio originale di gdiforces:

On a side note, I found the GGC to be severely underpopulated.

Are casinos in Vegas usually this empty?

Nah they're pretty crowded. Alot of glamblers and some soldiers, and they do have a post war look to them but thats not special really.

Or um... Are we talking about the old vegas?

[*.)]

8 nukes^^

Anyway, GGC is a nice map :D I restrained myself from the hype build, so no dissapointment here (a few mates felt let down a bit)

BFD (or cutter) is great. Guarding and maintaining it was pretty awesome. Cool mechanism and a nice way of doing objectives.

A gorgeous map on it's own

Stealth was kinda easy, but we had one guy doing all the work on the first time while me and a friend just spotted. We masked on at the end. I did got a chance to play some slots so that was pretty funny as well. It was pretty great for the "High roller" achievement. Still gonna have to complete this solo for personal achievement.

The buzzer. Friggin nice.

One big big big dissapointment. The sentries. I was really sad I was unable to mount 4 of them on the BFD. With 2 the assets and my own that would had made 8 at the same time. I was hoping on a RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRealy good party XD

Other then that it's a great map. I already have a XP penalty and expect that to build up more.

Well Done Overkill

(o, you can reload the sentry btw, the placement is however not well so I would advice against that. The reloading is the only upgrade available).

[Adze]

Been encountering an annoying bug with guards just spawning in the employees only area (and getting alerted), but besides that, I love it.