Payday 3's First Content Update Is Amazing

Is the update good?

Okay, so Payday 3's first content update is here, and it's pretty damn good. The game is starting to reflect what I reckon we all would have wanted it to look like at launch, and given that we're getting another update within the next month. I feel like I can confidently say that the pay-A3 hype train has officially left the station.

I can't believe that event was nearly 10 years ago now.

What's in update 1.0.2?

Well, as we've discussed in previous articles, we got two brand new Legacy heists in the form of Cookoff and Turbid Station. I'll be making a separate article on each of those heists, so what's this space for? And there were also two new cosmetic items in the form of the Underwraps mask and Lyen preset weapon, both reasonably priced and pretty good.

Looking Cosmetics, if you ask me, this update also saw the addition of the long-awaited transporter skill line, most notably granting heisers the ability to carry two bags at once while also providing some other perks relating to bag carrying and just sort of transportation of loot in general firstperson.

Animations also make their debut alongside Weapon Inspection, giving a much-needed increase to the pace of some interactions. No longer does it feel like bagging up some loot takes forever, despite the time it takes to do so. Staying the same, these new animations really increase the perceived speed at which these interactions happen and overall bring a nice sheen of polish to the game when it comes to progression.

Progression changes.

This update changes a fair bit, primarily in how the game allows you to track challenge progression.

There are now two recommended challenges: general challenges on the main menu and heist-specific ones on the heist page.

Recommended challenges need to change.

I'll be honest, this is a great system on paper, but I think there are a few changes that need to be made. First, I'd remove challenges with 0% completion from the pool of challenges that can be recommended, and allow me to give you an example to clarify what I mean by that.

One of my recommended challenges at the moment is Easy Pickings 3 for the Renfield 900s. Defeat 200 enemies with the weapon. what's wrong with that you may ask well nothing at first until I head over to my full list of combat challenges where it quickly becomes apparent that I'm closer to completing other challenges leaving me questioning why that challenge was picked additionally I think a further check should be run to make sure you're being recommended the challenge that you're closest to completing within a given series, remember I'm being recommended easy pickings through three but I've not even completed easy pickings one for the very same weapon do you see why the challenge that I'm being recommended seems rather random, and secondly I'd remove the repeat offender challenges from the poll two these challenges being the complete X Heist y times on Zed difficulty or above again let me explain given the sheer quantity of these challenges that exist in the game currently they're the only high specific challenges I'm being recommended.

Now again, why is this so bad? Well, why recommend these challenges when they are much more engaging? Fun and Frank It's pretty difficult to discover high-specific challenges that exist. Examples of these challenges are being shown on screen now, and if you don't know about them, you're hardly going to come across them by chance, which to me seems like the reason why a recommended challenge system would exist, but these aren't the challenges getting pushed by the players anyway.

Infamy points for heist completion!

Thankfully, we now have another way of earning infamy points. Heist completion simply beating a heist will reward you with IP, and you can increase the amount you earn by doing so in stealth and securing all bags. As I've said before, I think the bag bonus should be applied per bag and not just if all bags are secured.

A perfect, if a little exaggerated, example of why this should be the case is Cookoff. If you secure all 19 bags on Overkill difficulty, you will receive an outstanding 600 infy points, but if you only secure 18, you'll only get 40, and that's a lot of value for just one more bag. I also think that the overall amount of infamy points you receive should be increased, as currently, if you want to level up at a decent pace, you're still best just grinding out challenges, but hey, at least you're not incentivized to sit in a bathroom anymore, but that's the bulk of it.

Speculating about the future!

Update, 1.0.2 in a nutshell, I just want to take a minute to acknowledge that if Payday 3's launch wasn't as tragic as it was, I reckon we would have seen this update a lot sooner.