Introduction

Hi!

Thanks for reading this.

This "Rework Idea" is something I worked on for a while, more than 2 weeks.

I wanted the skill system to feel familiar, yet distinct and useful.

If reading and browsing through this doc makes you smile or think then I'm happy.

Original Google Sheet with detailed information, notes, comparing current skills and maybe easier to read on big screen version is here

This is the Main introduction page

One other "Skills" -> here <- contains information of skills changes.

Second one "Buffs" -> here <- contains information about the Stances♥♦♣♠ and Buffs.

Last one "Other Stuff" -> here <- contains notes on New player experience, bugs, mechanics or gameplay changes and additions.

Both should have Icons, images and GIFs to make it all pretty and nice to look at.

There is a lot of reading but here: Dallas brought some eye drops to make it all bearable.

Ok why this

I love the game and I think I had to write all of this down to finally rest at night I guess.

I wanted to create a skill system with stronger teamwork focus, add some fun skills and expand progression and build variety.

I also kept development time in mind - re-using mechanics and features already in-game, but also trying to make the skills work with future updates bringing new weapons, tools and throwables.

At the same time I wanted to make the role and skill themes stronger.

EXPLAIN

Stances?

Baseline Buffs are renamed to Stances♥♦♣♠, to differentiate them from special buffs like HIGH GRAIN or PRECISION SHOT.

Stances ♥♦♣♠ will slowly build up when doing corresponding actions and decay when not. ex:

- Gaining EDGE♦ when dealing damage

- Gaining GRIT♥ when under fire etc.

Stances ♥♦♣♠ still grant passive buffs and allow for more movie-like heroics like ignoring damage or shooting more than the magazine should allow.

Lingo used

Explanation of certain words used on the pages:

Stances♥♦♣♠ - Are the four base "buffs". EDGE♦, GRIT♥, RUSH♠ and new FOCUS♣.

Buffs - are all other "buffs" like High Grain, ECM Jammer Active, Precision Shot etc.

Seized - means buff is unavailable to use or gain for X amount of time - such as getting flashed by a Tactical Techie Drone.

Decay - the rate Stances♥♦♣♠ amount is dropping down. By default if you don't gain any, after 1s it'll start decaying at a rate of 1 pip/second.

Marked - Manually marked important enemy. Red like currently.

Spotted - Enemy highlighted by a camera, tool or skills - Orange.

Loadout Weight - Light, Medium or Heavy. Not just Armors! Weapons are also split to Sidearms, Light, Medium and Heavy.

Certain skills will take this into account or work with these weights. Attachments will change weight as well.

BIGGEST CHANGES

Stacks and Pips

Refreshing buffs is now gone.

- You either gain "pips" / Stance♥♦♣♠ until bar is filled / hitting 10 pips and you get 1 stack in return,

OR they decay and when they drop below 1 you lose the stack.

- Hovering between those values will just keep the current stack up.

By default your max stacks are set to 2, but this number and the decay rate can be changed with certain skills or options

Some skills will also slow, pause the decay or generate / grant pips at a various rate that can be re-balanced per skill.

Gaining and Losing Stances♥♦♣♠

If you see that skill gives EDGE♦ (5♦) or "Gain 5♦" that means you're gaining 5 Pips and are halfway to a full stack.

Some will say "Doing X generates EDGE♦ (2♦/s)" meaning as long as you continue the action, every second you will gain 2 EDGE♦ pips.

If skill says : "Gain 1 stack of EDGE♦" - you will immediately gain 1 stack (10 pips or 10♦) and any more pips go towards generating another one.

Example UI

All examples below show: Can be below current Buffs, bottom of the screen, near health bar etc.

No GRIT♥, no pips, no stacks
3 Pips of RUSH♠, but Stance isn't active yet. If we reach 10 pips, Icon outline will be filled and RUSH♠ will be applied.
2 Stacks of EDGE♦, Stance is Active. and additional 8 Pips are going towards the 3rd stack if player reaches 10, or if they fall to 0, bar will refresh and number of stacks will fall by 1
Full Stacks of FOCUS♣ In this example 3. Bar is colored to show that there are no more stacks to build toward, but existing ones can still count down if not kept up. if pips reach 0, 1 stack will be lost.

For comparison one of the Icons - Eye with a question mark, represents a standard BUFF icon placement (COVERT pictured, explanation on Buffs page)

New Buff State: Focus?

One New Stance Type:

One of the main changes is introducing a new Stance♥♦♣♠ called FOCUS♣.

which is more or less the "calmer" or "stealthier" reflection of the current RUSH♠.

Why another buff?

As I know adding another buff to the system seems to complicate it even more, but I try to keep them all thematic.

So both new and veteran players will know what to expect when certain Stances♥♦♣♠ show up or are mentioned in skill descriptions.

Also wanted the skills to work hand in hand with the new Overskill and Armor 2.0 systems a bit better and to Split RUSH into "Fast stuff" and "Precise stuff".

What's untouched

There are no changes to Armor / Weapons / OVERskills nor any new skill lines added here.

I also haven't really "nerfed" any skills, but some could've been moved around or moved to an ACED version (Ammo Funnel) to let other skills breathe.

These skills will absolutely require balancing and there might be some disgusting skill combos that I missed.

Stakes / Risk ?

One option I considered as well was a "Risk" for your loadout.

This might be too much.

May be unlocked after reaching lvl 150 to allow for even more build experimentation?

- Low Stakes (Stances never decay below 1 stack on their own, max 2,

but give a smaller bonus - for new players or playing it safe).

- Gambler (Similar to current vanilla, Stances decay,

max stacks are 2, and they give normal bonuses).

- High roller (Stacks decay faster, default max stacks are set to 4,

and each stack decays % faster from the previous one)

THEME

Visual Themes

By now you've probably noticed some playing card symbols floating around:

The Spades ♠, Hearts ♥, Diamonds ♦ and Clubs ♣.

Visuals for all four Stacks♥♦♣♠

are designed after playing cards and casino chips, similar to Payday 2.

Each one is also color coded,

and assigned card suit symbolizes more or less its effect.

Using handy Alt-Codes 3,4,5,6 ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Symbolism

Each Stance♥♦♣♠ reflects a certain quality of a good heister

EDGE♦ represents Aggression, Dealing Damage and Combat Prowess

GRIT♥ represents Toughness, Endurance and Courage

RUSH♠ represents Speed, Movement and Reflexes

FOCUS♣ represents Confidence, Will and Precision

Gameplay without using Stances♥♦♣♠ should be more-or less grounded,

while using them with skills will allow you to do more "movie-like" actions like ignoring reloading, damage or other heroics.

Cards and Chips

SKILL LINES

Skills

Current 21 skill lines were filled to contain 7 skills each along with their ACED versions.

Can't claim they're all perfect, but I tried to keep the current skill themes, bring back some of Payday 2 favourites

and generally tailor them a bit more towards teamplay, specialization or hybrid builds.

The skills try to be more useful overall both in Stealth and Loud, to mitigate the "I have wrong loadout" feeling

when joining random games.

Same with certain deployables, tools and throwables - They should have more appeal for both Loud and Stealth now.

Skills have been grouped into 7 ROLES with 3 skill lines, similar to previous game - but keeping the 1 skill point price for each.

Mastery and Role-defining skills

There is also a powerful skill called a MASTERY ACED or a "JOKER" if we'd like to keep the card theme

Those skills require 5 or so points invested into the corresponding skill line before they can be "ACED" and equipped.

You would only equip one of them per loadout.

I think it's also a good idea to raise the skill point cap by another 7 to a nice 35? - to allow for both specializing in one role,

equipping the MASTERY ACED while having flexibility to pick and choose from other skill lines

Especially if there are any plans of introducing harder difficulty levels or Infamy that'd reward a skill point.

Skill Icons

Skill Icon Tags:

Having 7+ points invested into a tree gives a corresponding icon to the player name in Heist planning screen and near the name at the bottom.

Up to five icons (for a total of 35 points) can be shown in order of most points (like currently).

Equipping a MASTERY ACED will color the icon gold and will always be placed on the 1st place.

It'll tell players what to more or less expect of my build at a glance, who should trade hostages, who should start bagging or open lockers quicker.

Ex. Player equipped with Master Sniper and 7+ skills in Strategist, Assassin and Hacker.

Progression

As for progression, MASTERY ACED perks and those extra 7 skill points could be unlocked via reworked challenges

(ex. "Do some stuff corresponding with the skill tree X amounts of times to unlock the MASTERY ACED")

GAMEPLAY CHANGES

Marked vs Spotted

Now separated into spotting and marking.

As currently some skills require "manually marked" enemies for certain effects and you won't know which is which in combat chaos unless you specifically focus on tracking that yourself.

Now tools and hacked cameras "spot" enemies - with an orange or light white outline - same as HRT being highlighted when they approach your hostages or cloakers pour acid on deployables.

Routed Ping also changes camera color to Orange so it doesn't look like an active camera and might stop new players from destroying them in confusion

Manual marking or certain skills will now "mark" enemies with a current red outline,those should be considered higher priority and certain skills and effects only apply to those "marked" enemies.

If enemy is suffering a debuff, the outlines will also pulse to show that he's weakened

Highlighted

Spotted

Marked

Health

As of right now If Im correct: Critical Health is at 30% of current Max HP.

Some new skills take this into account.

"Dodge"

Dodge is negative accuracy for enemies targeting you.

Works linearly with movement speed, certain actions, crouching, skills and distance.

Never more than 50%

No more standing face to face with a dozer and "dodging" 60% of shots

Currently there are skills that allow you to "dodge shots" Ex.: in Strategist Skill line

Sentry gun in Stealth

Sentry Turrets now by default could stop civilians near them,

making sentries useful in stealth to cut off civilian exits.

Keeping them from escaping and calling the police, or allowing to have more hostages later, crowd control, keeping them cowered etc.

Just like no mercy!

LOADOUTS

Weapon Stats

One stat that I'd like to introduce to weapons for both realism and fun with skills and builds is their "size"

Primary weapons are split into Heavy, Medium and Light (same as armors)

Secondary weapons are classified as Sidearms

OVERKILL weapons would be considered Heavy and Minigun Very Heavy.

Weight / Size / Threat / Concealment stats on weapons are additional knobs that designers could use both for skills, balancing and flavor

Weight System

Along with armor and weapons the loadout can have a set weight category.

Heavy Armor with Light weapons might feel similar to Medium Armor with Heavy weapons etc.

Light Armor with Light weapons allows you more freedom of movement.

Heavy Armor and Heavy weapon mitigating stagger / recoil.

You can equip any Light weapon in secondary slot. Some skills could allow for heavier ones.

Come on - I would totally squeeze this sawed-off into my sidearm holster

Item Tags

Weapons, tools, throwables and Armor could use "Tags" to explain their mechanics and interaction with skills.

We already have something like that for weapons where it specifies Firing Mode (Auto or Semi-Auto).

We could also have:

Weapon: Scoped, Sighted, ADS, Hipfire

Throwables: Silent, Explosive, Lethal, Tactical

Presets and Attachments

We have a lot of cool preset weapons with unique attachments, and a lot of attachments could be shared between weapons

but aren't for some reason.

Would be cool to allow those special attachments to be applied to other weapons:

Maybe if you own a preset weapon and complete a certain challenge tied to that specific weapon to unlock it's unique attachments or special cosmetics.

End note

If you braved through this wall of text and other pages thank you and I hope it was a fun read

Check other pages for Buffs, Skills and Other stuff!

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