Skill issue or does this game just seem way too hard?

[Nul1fy]

I ended up refunding the game but might pick it back up (edit bought it again gonna give it a second try) because to me the game just feels way too difficult for no reason, enemies take like 10 bullets to die but i go down instantly if a cop so much as sneezes in my direction.

The "rouge lite" element to the game is fun but hoping in multiplayer what i assume to be the games main attraction, is a nightmare. The damage scaling in this game just feels terrible. My friend who plays it and toughly enjoys it says the game feels like it was made for stealth only, and i'm not that big of a stealth guy, never was in payday 1/2 and even 3 and was hoping i could have that again with this game since it plays kinda like a payday game.

But idk am i just ♥♥♥♥ at the game or is there some validity in this?

[Doktor Vic Tim]

Trust me, I sucked a lot when I first played it.

But once you unlock permanent boosts, it starts gettin geasier along with you learning the maps and other tricks.

In a way you're "meant to fail" the first few times.

If you've played PAYDAY 2, you'll feel that this game's stealth is extremely forgiving as long as you don't destroy cameras and kill guards. And once you nab some good team members that learn Ghost perks (Especially Runaway) it gets even easier.

[Falx]

For stealth, the game is a puzzle game - learn the potential patterns of movement for guards and positions of cameras and most importantly, the layout of the maps!
For combat, take the damage reduction / health perks, use cover and try to engage in bottle necks and move when the wave ends (look at the fuse burning along the top of the screen). Don't move up to Hard/Extreme until you've unlocked the stronger defence perks (health 2 for example). The bots have no survival instinct at the moment sadly.

[Viscount Danku]

What do you mean? This game is extremely easy compared both to PD2 (death wish) and other fps in general. I would even go as far as to say that it is braindead atm. The only thing remotely resembling a challenge are droids and 5-heat loud missions, but even then, kinda meh. There should be even higher difficulty setting.

[M.E.R.C. Ravin]

this is not umbrella corps where it takes a mag dum to kill something most of the time in this game im with a LMG not even reloading im doing one tap or 2 to get a kill head shoots kill in one shot at least it feels like that

me and 3 others had no trouble doing loud on hard even loud at the start of the mission we was fine even extreme u can one hit cops

[Flavio93Zena]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEeYFJ8B8Yo
Cagnali's Fortress solo loud on extreme... I'm not sure you would like my take :(

[Wingnut Mcmoomoo]

Originally posted by Falx:

For stealth, the game is a puzzle game - learn the potential patterns of movement for guards and positions of cameras and most importantly, the layout of the maps!
For combat, take the damage reduction / health perks, use cover and try to engage in bottle necks and move when the wave ends (look at the fuse burning along the top of the screen). Don't move up to Hard/Extreme until you've unlocked the stronger defence perks (health 2 for example). The bots have no survival instinct at the moment sadly.

? stealth can be brute forced pretty easy if you want to, you can tie alot of people down at once and subdue more guards then you think. The most puzzle it gets is in the gold cup with the laser fences (since it has that weird color change thing to force you to follow the wire)

Originally posted by Null:

I ended up refunding the game but might pick it back up (edit bought it again gonna give it a second try) because to me the game just feels way too difficult for no reason, enemies take like 10 bullets to die but i go down instantly if a cop so much as sneezes in my direction.

The "rouge lite" element to the game is fun but hoping in multiplayer what i assume to be the games main attraction, is a nightmare. The damage scaling in this game just feels terrible. My friend who plays it and toughly enjoys it says the game feels like it was made for stealth only, and i'm not that big of a stealth guy, never was in payday 1/2 and even 3 and was hoping i could have that again with this game since it plays kinda like a payday game.

But idk am i just ♥♥♥♥ at the game or is there some validity in this?

Honestly because its a roguelite you're gonna lose alot at first by design, but by around the 5th run or so things should start to smooth out. Use cover, there is a peak mechanic that works pretty good. if you want to hunker down as far as you can then don't move and don't aim down sights. If you move or aim down sights your character will stand up a bit. Learning to not have the top of your head poking out of cover by simply standing still and not aiming can make alot of encounters alot easier.

Aiming matters, aim for the head and you'll get alot more kills. If you can't be asked to aim that much then use shotguns, the urban striker can chew through anything the game throws at you and its not super expensive at like $39k. Any of the yellow shotguns will also make it so aiming isn't needed (but it will take time to unlock those). You will still need to aim for shields and the big bulldozer types in the body armor but even then you can have less good aim and still get the kill.

Learn to use the bots like tools and not teammates and they are very good. If you give them shotguns they tend to do really really well (they also do really well with the urban striker). You can swap to a bot for a second to use a tool like a grenade or a turret once you unlock those.

But yeah use cover, cover is king on all difficulties, aim for the head or use a shotgun and still aim for the head but you'll kill more when you miss heads still.

Learn to maybe start some heists in stealth (like the first literal minute) just to get some steps done quick before holding G to make the bots spring into action. It can make some of the heists alot more smooth.

quick edit to add: the enemies come in waves and it is always worth while to hunker down and clear things out before moving forward in this game (outside of a couple of scripted big heist things but that will be clear).

I play mostly loud mostly on hard, but have been moving up to extreme lately, the game isn't that hard on the shooter side of things. I'm not a great shooter guy. The game does punish mistakes but not overly harshly until you get to extreme. Even hard you can get pretty tanky pretty easy.

[Muu]

Its a number of things when you first start... It takes time to get familiar with the jank, you start without boosts/gear/characters/perks etc, and lastly learning to create proper loadouts.

I recommend mastering stealth as a large portion of those early game jobs are actually easier in stealth than in combat, in the long term this will be more rewarding both with the literal mission payout and also in terms of learning curve.

If you wish to be effective at stealth I strongly recommend using the brick to move guards off their patrol routes, unlock silent weapons as soon as possible (preferably a sidearm), and if you find the AI is spotting you too quickly you can look for characters with the "Ghost" perk. Ghost slows down the AI's alert meter when spotting you.

If you want to be better at combat, focus on using shotguns (the late game ones are very far range and pack a punch) and look for characters with "Sturdy" and "Vigor" perks to be tanky, or "Marksman" and "Gun Nut" if you want high damage.

Sturdy makes you resistant to firearms, and vigor makes your health regenerate faster. Increased health is okay but you dont get more HP out of it than the health you save with sturdy, and vigor's faster recovery lets you survive a lot more scenarios. Stack both in multiplayer to be a lot tankier.

Marksman is for massive damage increase when using guns, while gun nut gives a slight damage bonus (according to the devs) and better handling to make guns even more effective.

My 50/50 stealth and combat loadout:
shotgun, silent pistol, brick
ghost 2, marksman 2, gun nut 2. (Sometimes I swap ghost for vigor or sturdy if its a combat mission)

A combat only build is more like this:
shotgun, revolver, sentry gun
vigor, sturdy, marksman 2

[[YT] Ali.Chitax ✪]

I think Payday 3 is much harder and it takes the right skills to deal with, just look at the number of skills in Payday 3 and Crime Boss (skills are broken AF though and Overkill in Payday3 is not hard at all, somewhat similar to Payday2's Mayhem which was also easy) but still, in my experience with almost 200 hours on each game on different platforms , Payday is harder in both loud and stealth since you can't take more than 4 guards

[Heraclius Caesar]

Originally posted by Null:

I ended up refunding the game but might pick it back up (edit bought it again gonna give it a second try) because to me the game just feels way too difficult for no reason, enemies take like 10 bullets to die but i go down instantly if a cop so much as sneezes in my direction.

The "rouge lite" element to the game is fun but hoping in multiplayer what i assume to be the games main attraction, is a nightmare. The damage scaling in this game just feels terrible. My friend who plays it and toughly enjoys it says the game feels like it was made for stealth only, and i'm not that big of a stealth guy, never was in payday 1/2 and even 3 and was hoping i could have that again with this game since it plays kinda like a payday game.

But idk am i just ♥♥♥♥ at the game or is there some validity in this?

It's a good game but it does feel excessively difficult at times even on normal difficulty.

[Coffee]

The more you unlock, the better you are.

[Nul1fy]

Thank you all for not being toxic and actually explaining , bought the game again to give it a second shot

[Boboscus]

As every rogue lite you will get naturally stronger as you replay, due to more knowledge and how to "abuse" the systems in the game, but also, as you would in a rogue like, you just start learning the mechanics and upping your game. I had a terrible time at start because I simply ran out of time in the investigation, the game doesn't really tell you the real focus you should be doing is going for turfs and turfs mainly.

[DUCK]

payday is overall harder and got way more limits, but has more skills to mess with.
I agree some functions in this game has its limits too and one can notice it from time to time.

but as some say, getting the right weapons and perks will likely do a massive difference on higher difficulty or stealth. which I guess the progression and randomization of content per level is maybe a bit off in this regard than an stable progression when it comes to handling "difficulty progression". Also you just have to get used to some things.

notice on some maps health regen can be awful, if not having the right perks with no good recover/hiding/cover spots, also depends on the AI if they shoot through the walls or small holes.

another issue is reloading, as some types of enemies take a bunch of bullets, but there is a lot of reload restrictions and it doesn't save progress, unless you have the reload skill you would get f***ed by using certain guns.

[Zigzag9000]

Originally posted by Null:

I ended up refunding the game but might pick it back up (edit bought it again gonna give it a second try) because to me the game just feels way too difficult for no reason, enemies take like 10 bullets to die but i go down instantly if a cop so much as sneezes in my direction.

The "rouge lite" element to the game is fun but hoping in multiplayer what i assume to be the games main attraction, is a nightmare. The damage scaling in this game just feels terrible. My friend who plays it and toughly enjoys it says the game feels like it was made for stealth only, and i'm not that big of a stealth guy, never was in payday 1/2 and even 3 and was hoping i could have that again with this game since it plays kinda like a payday game.

But idk am i just ♥♥♥♥ at the game or is there some validity in this?

I managed to complete a run through the game after about 60 or 70 hours. But, I had to do A LOT of CTRL-ALT-DELETE to close out the executable so that I would not die permanently.

Game should have a limited retry feature for each map:
2 times for Normal
1 times and then 0 for the hardest difficulty.

[DUCK]

2 retry for each map is too much, but I guess an retry or retry purchase through 1 campaign could be decent or an goal mission. also various QoL that could be done to the campaign, but might want more of DLC.