Steam Community :: Guide :: [Interesting Facts] All you need to know about the old version of PAYDAY 2

Store Page

PAYDAY 2

All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews

PAYDAY 2 > Guides > Debosy's Guides

380 ratings

[Interesting Facts] All you need to know about the old version of PAYDAY 2

By Debosy and 1 collaborators

Payday 2 was released a long time ago.
Many things in this game have changed. I have created this collection of interesting facts together with the community, for players who want to know how this game looked like in the past and how much has changed.

Award

Created by

Debosy
Offline

Vatx
Offline

Category: Achievements, Game Modes, Gameplay Basics, Secrets, Story or Lore

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

12 Dec, 2014 @ 3:00pm

9 Nov, 2017 @ 2:12pm

18,247	Unique Visitors
222	Current Favorites

Guide Index

Overview

Experience & Money

Gameplay & Crime.net

Weapons & Equipment

Skills

Achievement

Heists

Nostalgic promotional sites.

End

Comments

Experience & Money

1. In the old version of the game the max level was 100, there were no Infamy tiers.

2. There was another payment system, you could earn much more money from heists. For example on Rats heist you could steal 24 milion dollars.

3. Train heist gave you incredibly huge amounts of experience right after the Armored Transport DLC was released.

4. In the first version of Payday 2, there was a bug allowing to restart missions after the end. Players used this bug to restart heists after taking money, exp and cards. (OFFLINE Mode)

5. The Growing pile of loot in escape car/boat/chopper didn't exist in the first version of the game.

6. There were no bonuses for stealthing missions, except for the gold in Framing Frame.

7. Instant cash did not scale with difficulty, meaning there was little incentive for picking up loose items for cash.

Gameplay & Crime.net

1. Overkill was the max difficulty level. It was also much easier.
Original changelog text from Update #11: "Much harder OVERKILL! Yes you got it - now dont cry."

2. Ealier in the game the difficulty and paygrade on the Crime.net map was represented by dots instead of skulls. White dots stood for the paygrade and the yellow ones for difficulty.

3. Players could grab loot bags though walls.

4. Players could revive teammates though walls.

5. Other players couldn't upgrade drills.

6. You had to have a skill in order to answer 4 pagers. People without the pager perk answering the 3rd or 4th pager would screw you over.

7. Dominated guards didn't have a pager.

8. Only way to kill shields was to flank them.

9. There were no cloakers.

10. In first version of the game we could meet only the green dozers.

11. First version of the headless dozer from Halloween event had a sword on his back.

12. Civilians couldn't be moved.

13. Flashbangs had shorter time duration.

14. Cops didn't have ridiculously overpowered melee attacks.

15. No titan safes. C4 was much more important.

16. You could restart missions after the end.

17. Most requested community feature was adding an FOV slider and reducing mouse lag (which still an issue but it used to be worse).

18. The most hated enemy was the tan cops because of their bullet deflecting front armor.

19. People wanted Old Hoxton back from the moment the PD2 beta released.

20. You could stealth a heist in full body armor.

21. In first game build the game crashed many times when you were choosing cards.

22. There was no EXPERIENCE cards in first version of card system.

23. There was no Pattern Cards & Colors Cards. Masks, patterns & colors could drop only from Masks Card.

24. There was a Joker cards with infamy items.

25. You used to have unlimited domination slots, allowing you to dominate every guard on the map during stealth. It was later changed so that you could only dominate one cop/guard globally, rather than the "one domination per Mastermind" that is used now.

26. You used to be able to use Joker during stealth, allowing teams to bypass the one domination limit (a strategy that was really only used for Train Heist).

27. Recently, the ability to restart heists from the pause menu was added to online games. Before that, having the team kill themselves was the only way to restart (outside of using mods like HoxHUD).

28. Civilians and Guards had unlimited vertical hearing. (Shoot a guard on the roof of any Bank Heist, and all civilians below got alerted)

29. In first version of the game you can't change music in heists and main menu. Payday 2 soundtrack had only 15 tracks.

Weapons & Equipment

1. M308 was a very strong weapon.

2. The player had an infinite number of body bags.

3. Mosconi was a very useful gun with good accuracy, you could kill snipers using it. Players use Mosconi on stealth missions to increase concleament.

4. There were only 6 sights and no melee weapons.

5. People used C4 to kill dozers.

6. Weapons, attachments and armors having descriptions.

7. Shotguns could instant kill things on 40 feet away.

8. There were no grenades.

9. There was no gun stats, just bars.

10. When Payday 2 was released, we had only 9 weapon & mask slots.

11. You had to rely on luck to get your 1st silencer.

12. There was no small modification icons on weapon images inside inventory.

13. This is old Drill ToolSys Monitor without technican icons.

14. Before mask stash update, when you wanted to buy a mask you saw only the mask that you dropped earlier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xALnmPInPo

15. Assault rifles were the weapons of choice. There were only four shotguns, no LMGs or sniper rifles, no explosives except C4, and very few noteworthy SMGs.

16. You couldn't change the optics in your scope. The little red dot was all you had.

17. When customizing masks, the mask would slowly spin in the preview, something that annoyed a lot of people who were trying to see how their masks looked.

18. You couldn't change a firing mode.

19. ECMs were originally thought to have a limited range before it was discovered that it affected the whole map.

20. You originally weren't able to use ECMs on ATMs, you could only use ECMs to open ATMs with the perk that allowed you to open doors with it.

21. Loud drills could alert people by the sound, now they need to see it and sound only attracts them to investigate it.

Skills

1. Inspire only had a 50% chance of working.

2. We could get 100% more armor with bulletproof.

3. Iron Man ace being the best way to counter shields.

4. There was no skill stats, just descriptions.

5. Unless you had a Mastermind or Ghost build crew member, you had no chance whatsoever of stealthing anything.

6. There weren't any perk decks. Instead, you got perks as you unlocked tiers in the skill trees.

7. There was no skill builds.

8. There was many changes in skills. This is a list of all old skills.

Changed:

8a. Lucky Charm used to be a Ghost skill (replaced by Camera Loop) that increased the chance for infamous drops by 50% for basic and 300% for Ace.

Achievement

1. There was achievement for beating Train heist on Deathwish (icon: Team fortress 2 turret with four deathwish skulls ) [deleted after 3 days]
Deathwish website with achievement icon: http://www.overkillsoftware.com/deathwish/

2. This was the first version of the icon for beating Watchdogs & Watchdogs Pro Job on Deathwish difficulty.

3. Dr. Missarable achievement was created by community in Payday 2 steam forum thread.
player Yogzula created this achievement in "Suggest new achievements" thread.
Thread: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3196546&highlight=achievement

4. Payday 2 had only 43 achievements.

Heists

1. In first version of the game Rats was a very good heist to gain experience. Experience was not reduced for repeating heists all the time. Players grinded exp on this heist all the time.

2. On Rats Day 1, escape car waited for us since the beginning of the mission. You could finish Day 1 in 1 minute if you decide to blow the lab.

3. In old version we could not buy contracts.

4. 30 second Ukrainian Job, there was no Titan safe.

5. People didn't know how to find the right engine on Big Oil, so it was the hardest map.

6. There were no escapes on 1 day heists.

7. Stealth maps were easier than now, you could kill all guards on the map and then finish the mission without any risk. Try to think about train heist without guards. MAGIC. :)

8. In preparation before starting the mission, where you can buy assets and change your equipment we can hear "Master Plan" music but in the old version of the game we could hear "Blueprints (Old Version)"
THIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCCjF1HLU3Q

9. You had to be the host in order to buy inside man assets.

10. In old version of the game you couldn't buy the Expert Driver asset.

11. Players farm Jewelry Store and Ukrainian Job in 30 seconds to get weapon mods and infamous items.

12. Blowing up meth labs was more profitable than using them.

13.Being in the Van on Jewelry Store and Ukrainian Job when it leaves after the alarm is triggered resulted in you being dragged out of the map never to be seen again.

14. In Framing Frame Day 1 & 3 you could kill all guards on stealth. New guards never came.

15. Music that you can hear in the DeLorean (Hotline Miami), could be heard in Four Stores on TV in the 24/7 store. TV was deleted in first Update.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxIm3uROQlI

16. Big Oil Day 1 layout was completely redesigned and rebuilt. There is a video from the old version without the pile of car wrecks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65LEdpHpdTw

17. Nightclub layout was completely redesigned and rebuilt. There is a video from the old version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceGzEyON3Ls

18. The safe was always in the same spot in Nightclub; Manager's office. There also was never a second safe with cocaine in it.

19. On Framing Frames Day 2, you used to have to trade one painting at a time, since tossing multiple paintings to the helicopter would result in them not being traded and stuck on the roof of the train.

20. Pickup Truck was never an asset in Nightclub, you always had to wait for the van to come by.

Nostalgic promotional sites.

End

Thanks to all who love Payday 2, and have great memories of this game in the old and the current form. I created this guide with Payday fans.

All the facts about the game comes from this thread:
http://steamproxy.com/app/218620/discussions/8/626329186877386120/

Thank you all.

155 Comments

< >

Debosy [author] 7 Sep, 2023 @ 10:14am

Good to hear that you enjoy reading. :)

Vectorman 7 Sep, 2023 @ 2:01am

I definitely miss getting hyped reading the websites they would post for each heist DLC.
Simpler times, I guess.
Thanks for chronicling PD2 history and for the reminder of how much more fun it used to be before all the promotion/crossover nonsense, Steam marketplace skins, and the dreaded HyPe TrAiN.

_galaxy 9 Aug, 2022 @ 11:36pm

@bryan give payday: the heist a go, it's more of this old payday you want.

Debosy [author] 28 Aug, 2019 @ 9:20am

Good to hear that people still read it. :)

ricey 27 Aug, 2019 @ 9:43pm

as a payday 2 veteren ever since beta, i strongly dislike the direction that payday has headed ever since the release of perk decks, the game got immediately much more ridiculous per dlc, as well as the amount of effort you put in with difficulties. the game has gotten more casual for the playerbase, overall reducing difficulty and making every perk deck recieve a whopping 25% increased headshot damage. (i would explain more but i know i'm going to get roasted by the steam community just by speaking my opinion why this game sucks shit now)

obviously this account cannot prove that i have played payday 2 in the beginning, as my achievements are unlocked in 2017. but my previous account has a receipt of the game being bought in 2013 two months after release, as well as several dlc's. my first time playing the game fully on the xbox 360. i've invested at least 5k hours in this game before the payday "elitists" took over.

all in all, thanks for this guide. it was fun while it lasted.

Garfielf 25 Jan, 2018 @ 8:53am

hey dude i think you missed the fact you could reaplce drills with saws with a skill tree
if you can still do that today, can u tell me how?

Debosy [author] 27 Nov, 2017 @ 11:07pm

Dll files mostly dont help you anymore, you shouldnt use it.
Payday 2 forum have moderators with very well knowlege about Pd2 problems. Ask Sylvanas Wildrunneron discussions.

Dank 27 Nov, 2017 @ 8:06am

thanks for trying
..

Debosy [author] 26 Nov, 2017 @ 10:48pm

I helped some people but this problem was permamently fixed. So i dont really know current problems with game lunch. Check this: http://steamproxy.com/app/218620/discussions/14/1489992080513928306/

Dank 26 Nov, 2017 @ 9:09pm

You helped someone, having problem with launching payday 2 can you help me too. The game says running for 3 secs and sycning then nothing happens, i downloaded the file you said and copy the dll.3.9 file but it did not work. I could not find any else ways to communicate with you plz help .d

< >