PAYDAY: The Heist is easily one of the best games i have ever played, with friends and randoms alike. Unfortunately, the game stopped being supported a long time ago, and with only a small pool of partially disjointed, dedicated players & (some) returning players, the play experience is both inconsistent and potentially off-putting for those who wanted to give the game another try.

This guide aims to fix this by pointing players to the tools that we have available to modernise and understand the game, and to where other players congregate to make the game enjoyable for what we can all only hope is, forever.

One of the absolute best decisions you can make if you hope to have a good time with this game, is to realise this exists, and install it. Whilst the name of this tool does little to convey its importance, it does so much good that i can't recommend anybody play PAYDAY: The Heist in modern times without it. What's more, there is still ongoing support for both the main tool and modders making various things like further difficulty tweaks and various quality of life stuff that plugs directly into DAHM!

So what exactly is DAHM? It is a mod loading hook that ships with a standard set of mods.

DAHM was made by DorentuZ` and the PAYDAY: The Heist community cannot be more indebted to him. You can download the tool on this page with clear instructions & download link in the pinned discussion.

So why exactly do you need this tool? A fair question. Here is just some of the few:

• Adds an anti-cheat to the game to prevent bad actors.
  
• It fixes many bugs, and crash conditions.
  
• Adds new difficulties, extending the game for veterans.
  
• Adds quality of life patches, like skippable intros.
  
• Gives you the framework to create your own mods.

In my opinion, even 1 of those points makes all the difference. But to see everything this mod can do for you, view the changelog[www.dropbox.com].

It's safe to say the PAYDAY: The Heist community isn't as large as it once was, but there is still a quite healthy daily peak of ~50 players. That's full heists in the double digits at once!

It is unfortunately true that not all of these people open public lobbies, and i believe some of that is the shortcomings of not being aware of things that this guide brings to light. 1) DAHM and 2) When, and where to find players.

Currently, the playerbase peaks daily between the hours of 19:00-21:00 UTC. You can use this tool[everytimezone.com] to help understand what time this is for you.

It is not dead outside of this hotspot by any means, but if you're struggling to find a game at the time you go to look for one, it's worth trying to ride the wave. Weekends also help!

The guy who i personally credit with saving PAYDAY: The Heist (dorentuz) and making it viable to play decades later has also created a discord community & steam group for it! Incredible.

Please, come and join both. With it, you can assure when you sit down to play, you'll always have the best chance of finding people to play with, and have the opportunity to make lasting friendships.

Join the steam group here. Once you have, click 'Enter Chat' and you can find players in the lfg room!

Accessing the desired functionality on the discord server is not as simple as joining, but not too difficult either.

First, your Steam account must be connected to your Discord via 'Connections' in your Discord settings tab.

Usually, completing this step would be enough to have you automatically verified, but the bot responsible for automating this is not functioning. And without being verified, you cannot access the 'lookingtoplay' channels.

Therefore, you should follow the instructions in #info (Which is to type !verifyme in #off-topic and await dorentuz to see this message. The estimated time to be approved appears to be less than 24 hours, so you won't have to wait too long!

The discord link is here[discord.gg].

If you're curious to learn about the games nuances, coming from PAYDAY 2 and want to inform your choices and understand the differences, or struggling with the difficulty, the following guide is packed with information. Unlike the previous sections, this guide is not necessary but will definitely help and inform your in-game time.

You can read it here.

There are so many great guides for this game that have been published, i recommend you have a look around to see what may be helpful to you. I don't think it would be helpful or practical for me to recommend all of the great guides, but if you were to read one other one besides this, this is the one i would recommend.

If you can't tell, i am a big fan of dorentuz. Whatever the motivations, their efforts have lead to PAYDAY: The Heist remaining a viable game decades later, having made various improvements to the game AND creating a community on both their steam group and on discord, organising the remaining playerbase. Thank you!

I also can't pass up the chance to thank Cloaker Hater for continuing, so many years on, to review PAYDAY: The Secret runs, which someday i hope to beat, and for their contributions to the awesome heatstreet guide here which is very useful for tackling the dreaded heist on higher difficulties.

And of course, the other unnamed who i am not aware of but have also contributed to PAYDAY: The Heists continued relevancy so late into the games life. You know who you are, and you have my thanks.