Recent reviews by Ballo

Okay, so I put in a thousand something hours into this game, and I enjoyed it. It was great. Wonderful game. Really solid gunplay, amazing music, interesting theme, and engaging level design. Never have holding off waves of enemies been such a fun experience. Usually doing that in games is boring and/or frustrating as all get out, but PAYDAY 2 found a way to make it work, and work REALLY well.

So what happened to get this negative review? Long story short: the updates. People began to note that with each passing DLC there was a sort of power creep going on. A pay to win system. Now the latest update promises weapon rebalances to fix this issue as part of this massive community event where we completed challenges for free rewards. What happened instead? Weapons were further nerfed and a microtransaction model was implemented. Get a safe at random and then pay a fee of real world money to get a drill to unlock the safe to get a random skin. Sounds familiar? CSGO and TF2 did the same thing with their key system. Only difference here is that the skins enhance your stats.

So what did this update the community have to work for and were promised a free reward turn out to be? Your guns are rendered useless and the only way to buff them back to where they were before, which means still a power creep and paid DLC guns are still superior, is to spend even more money to have a CHANCE at fixing your loadout. That's BS. What is also BS is that prior to release the company stated in an interview when asked if PAYDAY 2 will have microtransactions, "No. No. God, I hope not. Never. No." But wait, that came from someone who left the company! I hear you, I understand. Here's a link to a statement from Almir Listo, who is still at Overkill and working as the unofficial PR guy because Overkill won't hire a real one for some reason. http://i.imgur.com/wQCwAyd.png This update has turned them into liars.

"Wait wait wait, Bandana Dee," I hear you saying. "Not all the guns were nerfed. Some of them were buffed." Indeed, buffed to ridiculous extremes. For example, pistols are now doing three times the damage shotguns are. This is its own problem. As stated earlier, there was a powercreep going on. It has gotten so much worse now, with specific items at least. The balance has been thrown out the window. So how do you catch up your nerfed weapons to be back where to were, much less on par with the other weapons that were buffed to high hell? Skins! Pay up and MAYBE you'll see your gun marginally improve.

Nerfing weapons to hell and putting buffs to them behind a gambling paywall is wrong.

Buffing weapons to the point that the game is completely unbalanced and Bulldozers, this game's version of COD MW's Juggernauts, are able to be killed in 3-5 headshots and the effect where their mask flies off from the damage taken simply doesn't work anymore is also a game killer. You don't really have a game anymore. Just something to throw money at.

EDIT October 20, 2015: As of today, the option to unlock drills from a card drop has been added. Now there is a free alternative to the new microtransactions. However, this does not change the fact that Overkill lied to the community about this in the first place and are still refusing to speak to us about it. Additionally, we were not informed of a droprate for the drills (just because technically we can get one doesn't mean we will. Technically I could win the lottery. Technically I could survive a gunshot) and Overkill has yet to issue an apology on the lie, making this update send more of a message of "Fine then, here's an alternative. Now will you shut the hell up and stop lowering our score and getting us bad press coverage?"

EDIT October 25, 2015: Almir Listo has made multiple statements today that both the microtransactions AND the stat boosts on skins are here to stay. He has expressed disbelief that people are upset at him for going back on his word and adding microtransactions, and despite the shocking drop into red zone territory on Metacritic and the drop of about 22% score on Steam within a single week, as well as the huge backlash on reddit, the forums, and even gaming media, maintains that the people complaining are a vocal minority. And that "statistically" "from an economic standpoint" the microtransaction update has been very profitable, so it won't be changed. He has just plain out admitted that he doesn't give a damn about the community, all that matters is he's making a quick buck.

When asked about the issue of safes unlocking skins for weapons that you can't use without spending additional money on DLC (yes, this is a thing), he says it won't be addressed unless the statistics show it's a "common enough" issue. Okay, what constitutes "common enough?" In my book, having an issue happen just ONCE where you have to spend additional money just to use the skin you spent money on, is "common enough." What statistical number does Overkill want to fix this? They don't say. I doubt there is a number. They'll fix it if they feel like it. But seeing as it gets them extra money, and they have already admitted that's where their focus is on rather than their customers, I don't see a fix coming.

EDIT November 12, 2015: Now the P2W skins also reward additional xp and in game cash. These rewards technically can be applied to teammates without skins, but the fact that a team (in a coop game) who didn't buy skins will use inferior weapons AND be penalized with less rewards than a team who did is simply absurd.

EDIT Nov 23, 2015: A couple days ago Overkill issued an apology for... well, they didn't clarify. They just said they were sorry. No changes have been made. P2W microtransactions are still here. Earlier I wrote we didn't even get a BP apology, but that has been removed since it would seem we now have. The apology is meaningless if you don't clarify what you're sorry for and fix what you did rather than keep doing it. Jim Sterling made a video about that for BF4 actually at one point. He's... meh, he makes some good points sometimes, even if he can be a condecending pain to watch. Just my two cents though. Pretty popular and reputable guy from what I hear though.

Was this game great at one time? Absolutely.
Is it worth your money now? Heck no. Stay away. You'll just end up having to spend even more of it anyways.
Should you support this developer? I would suggest the opposite. I would suggest not buying a single thing from Overkill and spreading the word far and wide to others not to pick up anything from Overkill Software ever. I obviously cannot control what choice you make, but this is a suggestion I highly recommend not just for the sake of your finances, but for the sake of the gaming industry as a whole. Do NOT let practices like this continue.