I was gifted this by a friend because I loved Payday 2, though I got most of my DLC from when they consolidated a bunch of the DLC at some point (and then removed that?).

This is the stupidest thing. You have to create an account with a service called Nebula to even play the game. It's always online and guess what, the servers have been down all day. You can't even do a private match with your friends because it uses their servers. How does this keep happening with games on day 1? How has nobody learned to combat it? Regardless, I have a special hatred for always online games that very obviously do not need to be online. Give us the option for peer-to-peer or something.

Always online, live services, are almost as big of a bane on the gaming playerbase as microtransactions. It does nothing but give the devs control over how and when you can play their game, and often doesn't help with actual connection/ping issues.

It doesn't help that the Payday devs have a horrible track record of actually listening to fans, and making excessive amounts of DLC with honestly very little content not worth the price.

A majority of the skill trees rely on these temporary buffs you get from doing specific actions reliant on the skills themselves. Some skill trees require a buff that the skill tree doesn't even offer a way to get.

There are a very small amount of guns, only two "heavy" weapons which have their own slot, and an equal amount of masks/paints. The gun customization looks decent at least but I haven't actually been able to play so I haven't unlocked anything. Even from looking around the non-gameplay part of the game I can tell there are going to be dozens of DLC on top of the 4 DLC that have been announced for each quarter of the year after release. This isn't some guess, they have a track record plain as day.

Their previous game, Payday 2, has 81 DLC available for purchase right now.It currently costs $253.23 to buy all of the DLC for Payday 2 without a bundle. The bundles weren't added until much later into the game's life cycle and even then some were removed after a while. Check SteamDB if you don't believe me.

If you had bought all the DLC when they released individually, it would've cost you $462.17
(DISCLAIMER: Some of the prices on SteamDB's pricing history were real wonky and I definitely made some mistakes but most were priced correctly. This is almost definitely off by some amount, but only by around a maximum of $50 I'd say.)

So let me reiterate: A very very large chunk of DLC is just weapon colors, a handful of masks, a handful of guns, or a single heist. They cost $253, and if you had bought them as they came out it would've been SIGNIFICANTLY higher. This is pure greed, plain and simple and yes I believe it back then too. Game companies do not use online service for anything but greed or MMOs, and this is certainly not an MMO.

Look, y'all, you can't just say "it doesn't really affect gameplay" or "go play something else then" for various issues because companies (corporations, not the individual devs) will take your complacency and push the boundaries even more.

I was gifted this by a friend because I loved Payday 2, though I got most of my DLC from when they consolidated a bunch of the DLC at some point (and then removed that?). This is the stupidest thing. You have to create an account with a service called Nebula to even play the game. It's always online and guess what, the servers have been down all day. You can't even do a private match with your friends because it uses their servers. How does this keep happening with games on day 1? How has nobody learned to combat it? Regardless, I have a special hatred for always online games that very obviously do not need to be online. Give us the option for peer-to-peer or something. Always online, live services, are almost as big of a bane on the gaming playerbase as microtransactions. It does nothing but give the devs control over how and when you can play their game, and often doesn't help with actual connection/ping issues. It doesn't help that the Payday devs have a horrible track record of actually listening to fans, and making excessive amounts of DLC with honestly very little content not worth the price. A majority of the skill trees rely on these temporary buffs you get from doing specific actions reliant on the skills themselves. Some skill trees require a buff that the skill tree doesn't even offer a way to get. There are a very small amount of guns, only two "heavy" weapons which have their own slot, and an equal amount of masks/paints. The gun customization looks decent at least but I haven't actually been able to play so I haven't unlocked anything. Even from looking around the non-gameplay part of the game I can tell there are going to be dozens of DLC on top of the 4 DLC that have been announced for each quarter of the year after release. This isn't some guess, they have a track record plain as day. Their previous game, Payday 2, has 81 DLC available for purchase right now.It currently costs [b]$253.23[/b] to buy all of the DLC for Payday 2 without a bundle. The bundles weren't added until much later into the game's life cycle and even then some were removed after a while. Check SteamDB if you don't believe me. If you had bought all the DLC when they released individually, it would've cost you [b]$462.17[/b] ([b]DISCLAIMER:[/b] Some of the prices on SteamDB's pricing history were real wonky and I definitely made some mistakes but most were priced correctly. This is almost definitely off by some amount, but only by around a maximum of $50 I'd say.) So let me reiterate: A very very large chunk of DLC is just weapon colors, a handful of masks, a handful of guns, or a single heist. They cost $253, and if you had bought them as they came out it would've been SIGNIFICANTLY higher. This is pure greed, plain and simple and yes I believe it back then too. Game companies do not use online service for anything but greed or MMOs, and this is certainly not an MMO. Look, y'all, you can't just say "it doesn't really affect gameplay" or "go play something else then" for various issues because companies (corporations, not the individual devs) will take your complacency and push the boundaries even more.