"Payday 2": Grinding away... At a Snail's Pace...

[American Tanker]

Some of you may realize that I had already posted a thread about me getting back into Payday 2, but it hasn't been posted on in weeks.

So, where am I in this game, at present? Well, I've hit Reputation Level 81, and have gotten close to 3800 of the 4000 Perk Points into the final card in the Muscle Perk Deck. I've got three loadouts that I'd like to try out, even though I really only use one of them: The primary is still a Muscle TechForcer with Ammo Bags, Shaped Charges and a Power Saw, drill skills and silencer skills; one of the other two is just a "goofing off" loadout built around using Akimbo weapons with the Hitman Perk Deck; and the third runs the Muscle deck just like my main setup, but instead focuses primarily on Sentry Guns instead of more practical things, though it still brings Ammo Bags and a Power Saw.

I'm going to admit it: I'm extremely wary, in fact all but completely unwilling to attempt heists at anything above Normal difficulty. I've actually considered doing something extremely low and simple like Jewelry Store or Four Stores or maybe Mallcrasher on Hard; but I've ultimately always instead stuck with doing Normal heists, even much bigger jobs like Golden Grin Casino or Hoxton Breakout or Hotline Miami or etc. etc. And as much as it sucks to admit, I feel as though the AI bot allies carry me through most of the combat most of the time anyways. This most likely stems from the fact that I play using a controller instead of using my mouse and keyboard like most people would say I should. It's just because this wired X360 controller just feels comfortable and familiar to me, while M+KB feels awkward and clunky at the best of times.

I'd like to level up faster, I really would, but I feel like I'd be weighing down other players if I were to try to work with a crew. Otherwise, I might actually be willing to try higher difficulties in order to rank up faster. I just don't know what to do...

 

[Schadrach]

It's unfortunate he's banned, but there's a simple answer to levelling fast in PAYDAY 2 -- learn how to stealth run a couple of basic heists, then do it on the highest difficulty. If you trip alarms, just cut your losses and restart.

I'd personally recommend Jewelry Store and the various Trustee bank heists for this. If you also need more $, spending the time to pick the deposit boxes clean is worthwhile, especially on the top difficulties.

When I gain infamy (for those not familiar, this is similar to gaining prestige in CoD) I usually do a max difficulty Jewelry Store or Ukranian Job (they use the same map, and it's an easy to stealth map -- Ukrainian Job is very slightly harder because of the possibility of metal detectors) which gets me enough levels to get some basic stealth skills, and then 2 or 3 banks which is enough to re-unlock all my weapons and get a decent build setup.

Jewelry Store and Ukranian Job are both easy to stealth solo, banks take a bit more effort but become trivial with a partner (literally the only difficulty is stopping the tellers from trigger one alarm button and the civilians in the back from triggering the other. You have to be more careful doing it solo because you can't watch both at the same time).

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I saw this thread and thought to reply but with the OP banned wondered if there would be any discussion value in a reply. I remember how slow levelling used to be at first. On realising cloakers never appeared on Normal, I stayed on that difficulty for a long time and it is not a quick way to level up. You do get to learn the maps however, and earn lots of cards which means weapon parts which means better weapons...sometimes.

The big change will come on the leap to harder difficulty levels. Once you have some weapons with good mods and a good deck (I wouldn't put muscle in that category however), Overkill is a lot of fun and quite rewarding. I did have some strategies for levelling quickly however...these were effective enough that (granted an infamy bonus was involved) that I could get back to lvl 40-60 in one evening after a new infamy level.

First thing, I usually do Jewelery Store (Normal or Hard) just to get the initial level or two. Then onto Four Stores on Overkill. Don't need AI but need some luck and patience. When you spawn in, check the convenience/grocery store for the ATM. They actually moved it like a year ago because of this exploit, but it is still doable. With the ATM in the store, you have to wait till you aren't seen, pick it, take the money (completing the objective and triggering escape van) and run and hide in the alley behind the store where the getaway van usually comes. There is some luck involved to not get spotted but it's doable. It only takes a handful of runs to get into the 30s or even 40s. Have max concealment, ECM just in case but it works.

After that, or instead of (if you have a high level friend who plays), I would usually do a few Hoxton Breakouts, also overkill. This is good for quite a few levels and doesn't slow down until the 60s-70s. It gives great XP, good cash, takes about 25mins, is fun to do and can be easy if you have a friend to help, even from level 1. From the 70s, the player could tackle most heists fairly straightforwardly since most builds are online by this point. Rats (day 1 in particular) is great for XP but hard to do in public groups, but 7 bags day 1, escape, all bags and cash day 2 and all money day 3 gives shitloads of XP.

The most important thing really is to be enjoying whatever you do. It's not worth farming XP for the sake of it...at least not until high infamy levels ;-) You'll get XP just by playing and card drops from shorter missions are also valuable early on, as is the cash to buy stuff.