The Failure Of Payday 3
Of course, live service also has the nasty side effect that I mentioned before, which is making their games exorbitantly grindy to keep people around. While the players are grinding for the morsels of fun, the developers can release small updates to renew interest, and of course, alongside that, maybe release some cheaply made DLC or microtransactions for better monetization and integration, and yet all of these problems or failures that I mentioned before are minuscule in comparison to the biggest, probably most single-handed, shittiest thing about payday three.
No offline mode; this rang over and over again after the launch. Why does the game have no offline mode? Why is it always online? What are the servers doing? [__] So let's go over the launch first. The game had been in beta before the launch, and some smaller things changed, but largely, it was the same thing, and those who had a chance to take part were cautiously optimistic.
I'm sure Logan Paul's cryptozoo, you know, enjoyers will probably get paid back a lot quicker than it'll take STAR Bree to fix these servers; servers broke down, and basically the game was only playable for a few people in a few places in the world now, according to the later notes. The issue caused an unrecoverable situation for Star Bre's third-party Matchmaker partner, but you had beta before, and yes, they did address that the beta didn't catch that, and let's say that was a free accident and the love of the fans was so overwhelming.
Okay, but you know what would have saved all of this, offline mode, so let's not tiptoe around this issue as soon as I saw it was always online it went from a buy to a hard pass fans expected the same functionality as its predecessor and offline mode was a very big part of it seeing games go always online is a massive pill to swallow and often it's only for the worst as the case of this launch particularly so painfully indicated, even if we set aside the game preservation arguments of what will happen when the servers close will the game even function or be dead and unplayable once that happens offline mode simply offers more than just being able to play the game alone or with no internet and then of course there's also modding involved as well however according to developers they chose payday 3 to be always online because, we wanted to find a new way to both avoid negative aspects like rampant cheating and add capabilities for the game to be more engaging and rewarding for our player.
Base I smell [__] so cheating well, okay. I could understand it for a competitive shooter, but payday is mainly a co-op game, isn't it, so cheating couldn't have been such a big issue besides the benefits of the modern community far outweigh the negatives. Uhhuh, my god, yeah, here the yep, there we go, yep, there we go.
In fact, it keeps games alive for far too long, like, for example, Skyrim. As for adding capabilities, this is pure snake oil. See, many times I've heard companies just add online features, especially ones that could be. I don't know, used, for example, to monetize your gameplay and enjoyment by adding options and capabilities.
Now, this is literally just a result of wanting to embrace live service. However, another more interesting story I heard was that it was almost exclusively done to combat piracy. This is where you read articles like the one where the performance-sucking DRM anti-piracy crap was shoved into Payday 3 and then later removed for the launch of the game, and it kind of does start to make sense.
See, apparently Payday 2 and its DLCs were heavily pirated to the point that hearing about financial problems from his developer Overkill at the time in those 10 years would not surprise you, and you know maybe it was Starb learning the wrong lesson here: the piracy will kill our company. So to avoid it, let's overcorrect.
Let's remove offline play, which makes the game both modable and very, very pable, and I hope no one bats an eye. Sadly, this lesson is the worst one to learn. You should not combat piracy. My point is that companies often give you a worse experience when you pay than when you pirate. When you pay full MSRP, full asking price, and don't ask for a discount, you should at the very least get an experience that is on par with what pirates can provide you for free.
Unfortunately, many companies nowadays, because of the way media companies work, do not respect the user; they don't respect you, and they treat you like they don't respect you, which is why many people turn to piracy, and there couldn't be a better example of this than what you have today with Sony.
The point is, like with steam back in the day, the right lesson here should be no, rather than thinking of how to stop people from pirating our game; instead, let's offer more convenient, better service, access, or product than piracy. So tell me, is payday 3 with its always online lockdown, not modable grindy [__], a better experience?
than what piracy offers. Seriously, this is like the lesson a toddler learns in an internet school: you do not fight piracy; you beat it. I can't tell you how happy the fan base would have been to support and cheer you on if Payday 3 was just a better Payday 2, even if it was just a one-to-one copypaste job with a new engine.
Just think about it, and if you need a very similar example, the Stellaris Hearts of Iron and Europe Universal are from Paradox games. All of their games are single-player and multiplayer, but generally speaking, they're really easy to pirate. However, the company also sells expansions and DLCs at Nauseum.
However, they do not sell [__] microtransactions. No live service crap, just great games with good prices, and as an added bonus, you only need one person in your party if you're playing with somebody to have a DLC, and everyone suddenly has access to that game. Now that is how you make great games, and people are happy to buy this stuff rather than pirate it, so turning back to Payday 3 is why even today, with these minor hinting changes at something positive, it's simply not enough to turn around Payday 3 from being a Dead on Arrival game because it's simply not as friendly to the customer as its past self.
And there you go, that's the failures of Payday 3, and you know it's kind of funny that I Del back into a game that honestly I didn't like at all but came out really liking it. I've learned what made Payday 2 so fun, and though it's not my style. I've grown a whole new appreciation for it, and I'm not just saying that because they have my favorite rival, the F2000, on its roster, so now looking at Payday 3 and the fact that it stumbled on its gameplan, regressing it and putting in more pointless grind all in the service for the life of Serv his dream of doing less work for more money, it's just kind of disappointing.
And like I said, they broke even on the second week, so clearly, no matter if it's always online or not, the game would have done Gang Busters already because its community loves the game, but no, let's fight piracy and prepare for future monetization. Let's corporatize; this anti-corporate game wouldn't be ironic.
But all the more devastating in the
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