Many words could be used to describe the Payday 2 experience — chaotic, pulse-pounding, hilarious, and exhilarating, just to name a few. Above all, Payday 2 can be summed up in a single word: grind. Starting out from nothing and turning into an unstoppable crime lord is not an easy feat.
RELATED:10 Shooter Protagonists Better Than Master Chief, Ranked
After reaching level 80, it'll take players longer and longer to rank up, leading to a potentially frustrating wait for adding new skills or perks. This headache can be avoided, or at the least minimized, by taking smart steps at the start of the game, making it easier to level up faster.
10 Find Friends To Play With
Payday 2 is better with friends, much like most multiplayer games. In this case, playing with friends (or online in general) vastly improves the game, as players can communicate and plan with one another. It also allows for more flexible gameplay. With different players using various abilities and weapons, one creates a balanced team able to handle any heist.
Playing online with friends also aids players in other ways, such as adding more courier packages to find, enhancing the power of the team boost, and letting players to try higher difficulty levels or stealth mode. Playing Payday 2 with friends will make the grind easier and allow for greater build specialization, but it also makes the game more fun.
9 Use Payday 2's Team Boost
The humble team boost might be the most useful weapon mod, other than the silencer, in Payday 2's entire game. The team boost grants both the player who equips it and their entire team with three percent more experience and cash gain from every heist they complete with it.
While three percent might not seem like much, the team boost can be applied to almost all of Payday's iconic weapons, and so each player can bring two weapons with a team boost mod equipped. If all four players do this, the three percent bonus jumps up to a whopping 24% increase in all experience and cash earned.
8 Play Payday 2's Career Missions
Payday 2 doesn't have a story mode, per se, but it does have an overarching narrative that connects its various heists. By taking the time to visit the career screen and complete the heists found within, players will gain money and experience for completing the heist as normal, but they'll also acquire an extra reward once they finish that section of their career.
RELATED: 10 Games That Were Critical Failures But Developed A Cult Following
Players should take advantage of this while it's available. In fact, it may be smart to wait until the higher ranks to do the career heists, as about halfway through the experience rewards get replaced with continental coins (used for purchasing weapon mods or safe house upgrades). Those experience rewards could help speed up the slow grind after level 80.
7 Complete Payday 2's Side Challenges
Like many games, Payday 2 features an assortment of random daily and weekly challenges that provide random rewards. In Payday 2, these range from money, continental coins, masks, new weapons, and most importantly, experience boosts.
RELATED: 10 Scariest Video Games Of All Time
Payday 2 players should check the side jobs every day and finish as many as possible. This helps players level up quickly but also allows them to try out different heists and play styles. In the end, they'll gain experience points and actual experience in stealth, using different weapons, and more.
6 Try Payday 2's Stealth Heists
Stealth heists in Payday 2 are incredibly difficult, relying on speed, planning, and with only a limited number of stealth kills available. However, if completed, the potential rewards are enormous. Because players actively avoid killing and combat, it's possible to complete a stealth heist on the highest possible difficulty, resulting in massive rewards in cash and experience.
More importantly, completing a stealth heist will grant players a five percent boost in experience that can be stacked on other experience boosts. Going stealth is another reason to play online. Having actual companions who play much better than AI proves a valuable asset to any player operating in stealth.
5 Play Payday 2 On A Higher Difficulty
While playing on higher difficulties is best reserved for stealth heists, it can be done for loud combat-based heists as well. Not that a new player should jump from normal to death sentence, but going up a single difficulty level can sometimes be beneficial.
If attempting this, it's best to find some higher-level players to assist in the assault. It can be a frustrating experience, where players find themselves outgunned by the law, but with determination, it is possible and can grant much greater paydays. After finally beating the heist, the satisfaction will feel amazing.
4 Pick The Right Heists
The variety of heists keeps Payday 2 fresh, despite how old it is, with each offering something that no other has. When it comes to ranking up, there are a few heists that are better than others, and it all depends on what the player needs. Random Bank Heists are normally short and simple: crack the vault, shoot the enemies, and get out.
Doing these, one after another, players will quickly rack up experience. However, longer, more elaborate heists like Shacklethorn Auction or White Xmas are essentially horde maps, where players can continue to fight and gain loot for as long as they can survive. This makes them the best for a one-stop shop with levelling up several times in mind.
3 Find Gage's Courier Packages
Gage's Courier Packages can be found on every heist, regardless of if a player owns the titular DLC. The more players in the game, the more packages that spawn, and the more experience and cash are granted for finding them at the end of the heist.
RELATED: 10 First-Person Shooter Tropes That Are Overdone
However, if players own the DLC, collecting the packages grants more than just experience. Collecting all the packages will unlock unique weapon mods. In either case, it's a good idea to take time to look for the packages on every Payday 2 map.
2 Choose The Right Build
When spending skill points, the smartest thing to do is know what the end goal is. Spending at random, just aiming to get a single perk at a time, will work in the beginning. At the higher levels, it will become an incredibly frustrating wait.
A better idea is to map out the path from the start. If players favor combat, they should try to ace important skills like ironman and surefire as soon as possible. Because aceing skills can cost up to eight skill points, fast-tracking the way to the top tier while ranking up is still quick and easy, making the late-game much smoother.
1 Invest Perks Wisely
Perk decks work differently from the skill tree, with a percentage of all earned experience points getting converted to perk points. Each perk deck has nine different perks, and each will take more perk points to unlock than the previous one. Therefore, as with skills, it's smart for players to know what kind of game they'll be playing.
Primarily, players go for loud tank builds, meant for soaking up damage and dishing it back out in combat. Or, they go for stealth dodge builds, aimed at literally dodging bullets and avoiding detection with extra gadgets. If players plan it out, they can easily speed their way through entire perk decks while the points are still coming fast.
NEXT: 10 Best Shooter Games That Reinvented The Genre
