Payday 3 Has Failed Again
Starbreeze need to be careful
Okay, so a couple of weeks ago, I made a article touching on why I believe Payday 3 needs to be careful with the next update. The main reason being that if Boys in Blue releases in the next update or so and there haven't been any of the major operation medic bag improvements, then any returning players the DLC's release may bring will just be a flash in the pan.
Update 5 is coming soon
We now know that update 6 will be released either this week or next week and brings with it the new shot grenade Quick Play and Party merging, and thanks to Dev Update 4 that came out on Tuesday , we also know that the ability to skip intro cinematics is coming as well as a lot of crash fixes that apparently address 98% of crashes.
New update 5 features
Of course, none of these are major operation medic bag changes.
I␙m worried about payday 3
Just another two ticked off of the initial Focus list , this does worry me because as I've said if some of the larger changes aren't in the game by the time a new Heist comes out the players will leave just as fast as they've come back and I'm pretty sure or at the very least I bloody hope that star Brees know this and it's one of the reasons why we've not got a new Heist just yet but if so that means the next update won't have one either given that star breze have been aiming for a 4 to 6 week window between update releases, and granted they are staying closer to 4 weeks that still places us at least 8 weeks away from another Heist of course star breze could release some of the big operation medic bag changes alongside, a new Heist but from where I'm sitting I see that as very risky, so 8 weeks seems to be what I think we'd be waiting for the next heist, or at least that's what I would say if it weren't for this week's blog post about difficulty and loud modifiers.
12 weeks until a new heist?
Before we talk about this blog post in depth, let's stay on the topic of dates for a moment longer. These modifiers are not part of the upcoming update, nor is the LMG, which we'll learn more about next week, but as they are mentioning them now. I can imagine that they'll be included in the next update.
In fact, the blog post actually goes on to say that they're aiming for a release window of May to June, and looking back at the last few updates, a new weapon has loud modifiers and maybe one or two items from the operation, such as medic bags. The initial focused list seems like the amount of content we've come to expect from a Payday 3 update at this point, but if these things do become Update 7, we then need to hope that Update 8 includes some of the headlining operation medic bag features so that Update 9 can have a new Heist, which then places that new Heist at least 12 weeks away.
To put that into context, 12 weeks after this article goes live is the 21st of July. Just two months before the game's first year comes to a close, we were supposed to have had four fully fledged DLC packs, and who knows how many free heists there are anyway.
Closing thoughts on the timeline
To conclude, that rant about updating Windows I wanted to highlight that I think Payday 3 needs some of the promised big changes before releasing a new Heist, and currently, if we're going to get these changes before a new Heist, that is what the timeline could look like at the at the end of the day.
That is highly speculative, but based on enough facts that I can say, I hope we don't have to wait 12 weeks for a new Heist, but it wouldn't surprise me if we do now.
This week␙s blog post
Let's talk about this week's blog post, and I'm sorry to say that this article isn't really going to be getting more positive. I'll be honest and say that I don't really like how this blog post is laid out; it's stylized.
like an interview with the games director Mio, but also tries to deliver facts and intended changes like a traditional blog post and ends up looking like a spillage of words onto a page. It almost feels like this is the kind of page someone internally at Starb is always given, and then they write it up in a consumer-friendly manner, which is then put on the website, but I don't mean to be nitpicky.
I'm always happy to get more information. Just last week. I called out the brevity of the last blog post, but I almost feel like I needed a guide article to break down this week's blog post, so I'll do my best to sum up the post and give my thoughts where I feel it is necessary, so.
Mio talks about difficulty
Moo starts off by addressing how the recently added adaptive armor and fortitude skill line have impacted the game's difficulty.
He goes on to explain that he knew it would make the game easier but also saw that it made the game more entertaining, which I do agree with, but now he plans to increase the difficulty in other ways to counteract the lower difficulty, and I just hope this doesn't mean that the game's difficulty will become balanced around fortitude and adrenaline to the extent where other builds suffer.
After all, this system and skill line were introduced as an alternative to the armor meta and have since taken over as the new meta. What that says to me is that these things need to be nerfed and rebalanced, not that the game needs to be made harder, as that really runs the risk of leaving other builds behind.
Moo says they want to alternate, giving players more power and options by making the game harder, which from my perspective sounds like a terrible idea. To be completely honest, it runs the risk of simply shifting the balance of the game too far with each update. One update makes the game too hard, and the next it's too easy.
I'm sure Star Brees would eventually work out the right way to change things with each update, but how long would that take them anyway?
Cutting shot addressed
The next section of the blog post is actually one that I'm quite happy to see, as long as this segment may seem. What it actually boils down to is armor penetration. Cutting shot is being moved to the high grain skill, so instead, high grain will offer players 30 seconds of armor penetration, and it's noted that the 5% damage increase from each other player running the skill is still present.
