Ok, you bought the game already, so you probably know what this game is already but you might not really know how it works, lets start at the basics. After you finish the cutscene or whatever is at teh beginning at this point you will be at the main screen, you can see your character, your stats, and the different tools that you will use to become BLOODY RICH. The main idea of this game is simple, do a job, carry it out, and bathe in the paper, simple, yet so very easy to mess up. Now let's get this party started

This is your main screen, here you will carry out your operations




Here is crime.net, this is where you will find all the missions you will partake in.



They each have a special classification. If there is a large white box with a circle shrinking in it, that is a singleplayer mission, or at least you just start off with AI as your teammates, others can drop in and out as they please if you do not make the match private, after the circle dies out, you lose your chance to take it, when you are the host you pick these mission when you are in the planning phase of the match. The small yellow skulls by the mission indicate teh difficulty, no skull - normal (i suggest levels 0-19), one skull - hard (i suggest levels 20-39), two skulls - very hard (i suggest levels 40-59), 3 skulls - overkill (i suggest levels 60-79), and finally 4 skulls - deathwish (i suggest levels 80+). Start a t normal and work your way up. If you see a blue box with white figures in it, it is a multiplayer match, the figures indicate how many people are currently playing. If it says PRO JOB on the mission it just means that the mission gives out more EXP and cash, the difficulty is still shown, the only difference is that you only get one shot to complete the mission, you lose, you're out. The blue letters indicate the host, they decide when the match begins and if they leave the match is closed. The white letters indicate the name of the heist, each one is different, try to play each one to get a feel for it so you don't mess up royaly later on. If there is a blue ghost by it, it means you can complete the mission with stealth, no ghost, you go loud. The - and + signs mean EXP bonuses, - means less EXP and + means more, the contract will say how much (%) will be taken away on a completed contract

On to the rest of the menu before we get more into the matches.

First, the inventory



Here you can choose each weapon, mask, armor, and character you use. Here is the primary weapon menu, choose a slot and buy a gun, after you equip it, you use it in battle, this is the same for most of the inventory menus, for weapons you can customise them with the buttons on the right (you can get modifications at the end of a match).

Each gun is measured by a list of things:

magazine - how much ammo do they have per mag
total ammo - how much total ammo do they have
rate of fire - how fast do they fire
damage - how much damge they do
accuracy - how accurate they are
stability - how much recoil they have
concealment - how much they account for your detection risk
threat - how easy you can overpower civilians and police (spam F to make them submit)

detection risk - How easy you can be detected in a mission, this counts for all armor, guns, melee, whatever

All stat numbers are affected by the gun, its mods, your skills, etc.

You can modify your weapon with modifications you have unlocked too.



You can even customise your mask (you can earn one at the end of a mission)



You can change the material it is made out of, the picture that is painted on it, and what color the picture is (you can earn each of these at the end of missions).

You can change your character by selecting the one you would prefer to play as, if no one else is using it in the match you join, you get to use it. (it is also the character that shows up in your menu)

Next - Skills

Every time you level up you get skill points, you can spend these points on skills, skills allow you to get new abilities and items during the missions, after purchasing a skill you can ace it, which is hyper-upgrading it for about double the amount it took to buy normally, to give you a better ability on top of the one you already have. Each skill tree gives different skills, you can purchase and own as many as you want from each tree, purchase enough in one tree, gain the next branch of it.



Right next to the skills logo on top there are perk decks, these are simple passive abilities you can use during the match. For each EXP point you earn, you get a very small amount of skill, deposit it in a skill in a perk deck, put in enough, you get that skill and you can work towards the next one in that deck. You can only have one deck at a time equipped, so i suggest putting all your EXP towards one deck, as you can see, i put them all in the hitman deck.



Next - Infamy

This is for when you get to level 100, like a sort of prestige mode in COD, you cash in all your money, skills, guns, etc, to get a prestige point added to your account, you restart the game basically and you work your way back up (you get cool items when you prestige, upside?), then you have an ace symbol by your name and your level reads 1(amount of prestige you have)-20(level) so maybe you are prestige 3 level 30, it reads as 3-30, in lobbies you get a flaming card to show your awesomeness based on your pretige level. The max level in Payday 2 (at this point) is prestige 5 level 100.



Finally - Safe House

This is just a place where you can test out guns and equipment, look at money, nothing special. You will find out more about it in the tutorial.

You have finally joined a mission, you are now in the planning phase (if the match has not started yet), use this time to change up skills, inventory, plan strategies, and decide a heist to pull off.



Once the host has decided the heist you go into the job overview stage, here you get the overview about the mission, you edit your loadout, plan some more, then start the heist.



You can buy assets to help your team, you unlock most of them when you get skills, to buy them, hover hover to them to see how much it costs, if it is right for you, it. These are small tidbits of help, like hidden health bags, better getaway driver, just random stuff to make the match easier.



You can go to crew setup to see what your team's loadouts are, use this to make sure you have a all the neccesary supplies for the heist.



Also, towards the top you can see how many days there are (mini missions total you have to complete to get your payout), the blue ghost mean that day can be completed with stealth. You get a day bonus if you have a multi-day heist. The small circle-like object signifies how easy it is to get caught by guards and cameras (detection risk), this is affected by the weapons and armor you have on, go by any security and they can easily tell you are a criminal (depending on how high your detection risk is), stealth bonus is taken away.

Mouse1 - fire
Mouse2 - aim
R - reload
Shift - run
Ctrl - toggle crouch
E - melee (hold to charge heavy attack)
F - interact, shout, spot (most of the time you have to hold for interaction)
#s - weapons
G - put on mask, throw the item you are carrying, place equipment
Space - jump

These are the basic controls, very easy to figure out.

Now I am going to take you through the process of a heist, map - jewelry store.

We are in casing mode right now, you can see the objective and you can put on your mask at any time.



In this mode we can look around, plan strategies, and really just see what security has been generated for this specific mission.



This is a security guard, stupid, easy to fight, let's say hi!



He saw us, now we fight him.



We killed him, you can put him in a body bag if you choose (aim and press F if you have the bags for it), but we set off the gun alarm, so we fight this out rambo style. You can overpower civilians and make them fall to the floor by pressing F multiple times (threat level decreases the amount of times you need to press), then you can cable-tie them (if you have enough) with F.



You can tell them to follow you, so you can put them in a safer position because cops can free them. Hostages are very important because they act as respawns, you get killed, you can trade civilians for your downed teammates. Kill a civilian however, you lose cash in cleaner costs.



Now we rob, in this mission you can take small jewelry by clicking F, you can take the cases of jewelry by holding F, this makes a bag, you can carry the bag and drop it with G.

First we smash the case with E, hold to charge the weapon's heavy move for extra damage.



Now we loot.



Try to keep all your bags in a pile so that when the getaway car gets there you can pick them up easily, bags decrease your speed, so carrying them around is not a good idea.



Hey look, this is a gage pack, you can find these hidden in each map, don't have the Gage DLC? just pick them up for an EXP bonus at the end of the heist.



Hey look, a safe.



All unlockable objects have white, floating icons on them to show what they can be opened with, default is drill if you have nothing else. The drill automatically says how much time it will take to complete.



The drill jammed, whenever it is outlined orange you need to restart it, get used to it, you will be doing it A LOT. (sorry, this pic stopped working and i'm too lazy to replace it)



Oh no, the police are snatching our bags, stop it SWAT guy, you are hurting my feels.



You can patch yourself up if you have a medkit, drop it with G and use it with F, you can change your equipment in the inventory screen.



You then take the bags to the dropoff point indicated by the logo on you screen, use G to throw the bags into the van and leave.

YAY! we made it, now the game totals up our EXP and cash, adding all the bonuses and reductions to the total.





Now we get to pick a card, this card can be anything from a new mask, gun mod, paint, EXP, whatever. Beat a mission, get a card.





Now we are back in the lobby, job's done, our wallets are a little fatter. Easy.

Here are a list of facts I did not cover in my mission example:

- After a little while of fighting, an assault begins, the music gets awesomer, the police come at you harder, you can't overpower police, and you can't trade hostages.

- You can capture police with F, when an assault is not happening, do a little damage and shout at them to get them to submit. (certain skills can give you the ability to brainwash captured police and make them to fight for you!)

- You can help downed teammates with F

- When you are downed, you can fire your secondary, take enough damage and you lose this ability.

- After killing guards, they have PDAs, which can set off an alarm if not answered, hold F to talk to the operator.

- Always use melee when in stealth mode, if you have a silencer, you can use it.

- If caught, do not destroy cameras, you might be able to hack into them later on.

- You can destroy cameras with melee.

- If you do not take care of the civilians, they can call the police.

- The cake is a lie.

- There are different types of enemies, major types include guards, police, swat, tasers (they tase you, you are incapacitated when this happens), cloakers (run away, FAST, i'm not going to ruin the suprise ;)), bulldozers (giant armored dudes, do not fight these alone), undead dozer (halloween event, look at the floor and they will not attack, just bulldozers on every steroid in existence).

- You can't place equipment while carrying something.

- Cloakers can come through vents, manholes, really anywhere that they can scare the living crap out of you.

- You can unlock the saw for fast lockpicking, along with other perks

- You can unlock the akimbo skill in either the hitman perk deck or the fugitive skill tree, it allows access to the akimbo weapons tab (dual pistols).

- Compare your guns before switching them out, find the best one for you.

- Try to complete, or at least try, every mission on normal before trying them out on harder difficulties, this will save you from being kicked for being a noob.

- If you are pressed for time, do not play multi-day heists

- You can unlock Hoxton (best character in my opinion) by beating the Hoxton Breakout mission.

- Follow Payday 2 in the community, this allows access to dozens more guns, masks, and melee weapons.

- There are some free masks you can choose from, so you do not have to stick with the default one.

- Even just equipping certain community items can get you achievements, you can check the full list to see which ones.

- By investing some skill points in the ghost tree, you can spot cameras and guards while in casing mode.

More to come :)

- If you are being hit hard, make one guy sit at the extraction point, just in case the rest of the team dies. It still counts as a win.

- If you are being hit hard, DO NOT GO AFTER LEFTOVER BAGS, people always get this wrong, they always die and lose the heist.

- Try to formulate a plan before harder missions.

- Ask your team beforehand if they want to go loud or try to stealth, adjust your weapons accordingly.

- Try to use stealth, if you get caught you might have to complete an extra "escape day" at the end of a heist, thus making the mission much harder then it needs to be.

- Offer your teammates help in the form of cover fire, ammo, and health

- Make use of sprint when you are in a hurry.

- Try to always have a silencer when doing stealth.

More to come :)