Payday 2

- Buy the Gage Mod Courier DLC first.

- HOLD F to do things, don't just press it.

- Don't rush off on your own. Payday 2's like Left 4 Dead, in that being a loner will get you blown away.

- The quality of life skills are Transporter Ace, Endurance Ace, Nerves of Steel basic, Sprinter Aced, Fast Hands Aced, and Shinobi basic. Unless you know what you're doing and need to squeeze points into something else, every build should include these skills.

- The AMCAR and Chimano that you have at first absolutely suck. Ditch them as soon as possible.

- The CAR-4 is a freaking Lego gun. Buy two, and mod one for stealth and the other for war.

- 42 damage and 18 accuracy is the magic number for a CAR-4. On Overkill and under, it'll let you kill most regular units in 1-2 headshots. I believe 48 is the magic number for Death Wish.

- Always mark special units by hitting F on them. Not only does it let you see them everywhere, but it warns your team about them too.

- Playing offline is not that great compared to online due to boneheaded AI, but playing heists on Normal will help you get used to them. Also, Shadow Raid Deathwish offline is an incredibly good way to gain EXP.

- Stealth is pretty much learned by doing it. Don't be afraid to mess up--unless you terminate the contract or you're on a Pro job, you have unlimited attempts.

- After killing a guard in stealth, be sure to answer his pager. Otherwise, an alarm will sound. Your team can only answer a max of 4 without an alarm going off, though.

- Practice getting headshots while hip-firing.. The more you can land, the more unstoppable you become.

- If you don't know what secondary to pick, bring the Locomotive unless you're heavily into pistol skills.

- If you don't know what skill tree to try first, try Enforcer. It helps you shoot guys, bring more ammo, and wear lots of armor, and those are all very useful things for a group.

- Don't spread yourself thin. Pick two skill trees and specialize in them, except for the aforementioned quality of life skills.

- Call out specials with the shout button whenever you can. Especially if you do not use a microphone.

- Familiarize yourself with each special unit's sounds. Cloakers in particular. The sound you hear when they are very close was changed a while back and it is easily drowned out by gunfire.

- It is okay to disengage in a bad situation. Even if it is a single bulldozer that you are not equipped to handle easily. Call it out and stick with your team.

- It is also okay to NOT try and revive someone who has been downed in a terrible place. If you do, thin the enemy near your teammate as much as possible before attempting to get him up.

- Related to the above, all players now have the ability to dominate enemies without spending any skill points. An easy way to get a great boost to your domination chance is to knock the dude down.

- ALWAYS shoot snipers. Pubbies have something against killing them, resulting in a pile of downed players.

- Headshots at every opportunity.

- For anyone just starting out, choose one perk deck and stick with it until you max it. All decks have some incredibly useful skills in common, including increased ammo pickup and 45% more experience gained. Crew Chief, Armorer and Muscle are all solid and do not require DLC.

Specific Heists

- If your group's playing Shadow Raid and you're lousy at stealth, haul bags back to the van. Hug the fence and crouch.

- Don't smash cases in Diamond Store until you disable the alarms. You do that by getting a keycard off the manager, or off a desk, and using it in a slot upstairs.

- Day 1 of Rats, or the Cook Off heist, requires coordination. When Bain calls out an ingredient, ask your teammates what he said to them--if two or more people got the same ingredient called out, dump it in. If you're not sure what he said, wait for him to repeat himself.

- When doing a stealth Bank Heist, or in Firestarter day 3, shoot the tellers and guard the panic button in the back hall with extreme prejudice. ECMs don't turn these off, and civilians can and will go right for them.