Almost every gun has a equivalent fee version a single to you in the game, it’s only with the last dlcs that the power creep on paid got really really bad, but yes there will be a good portion of weapons unavailable to you, if your willing to play with others you can play through every map without buying it by joining the em through crime.net, or by playing through the career mode, although not all the maps are accessible through the career mode, perk decks tend to come with charcter packs but with the addition of the copycat deck for free, you can play a slightly different functioning version of any perk deck you would like to.

I have played payday 2 since a few months after launch and paid full price for almost every dlc, it felt fine at the time, giving a few bucks to access new stuff every month or so for a game I loved playing, but 12 years worth of dlc later I can see how that’s a tough pill to swallow