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Payday 3 Announced! My thoughts and hopes
8 years ago
So, Payday 3 was announced, albeit with little fanfare via Twitter. There's no screenshots or video yet, and it's likely a long way off. That said, I think now is a good time to talk about my thoughts on Payday 2, as well as what I want from Payday 3.
At time of writing I've put 973 hours into Payday 2. It'll suffice to say that I like the game, though it had some serious issues, the game has gotten better over time. If anything, these days it's hard to find people interested in playing the game.
My first, and main hope that most of the following things fall under is-
-Overkill learn from their mistakes
From the early days of farming jewelry shop, to the whole safe/greedfest scandal. It's my hope that Overkill learned some lessons when it comes to Payday, and game design in general. With that said, let's get to the specifics, starting with the most devisive thing on the list-
-Theme > Competitive Meta
People might not like it when I say this, but I come to Payday for the theme. That theme being heist films like Heat. Stealth is a little more Oceans 11, but that's understandable. What I don't come to Payday 2 for a highly tuned competitive meta game of min-maxing, speed runs, and dick messuring. While much of the Payday community is good, there is a vocal minority of people with the time and inclination to play the game all day every day, who will constantly complain that the game is to easy, while shouting down anyone who hasn't completed Firestarter on Deathwish with no skills.
There is a need for ballance, issues such as grinder proved that much. There's also nothing wrong with diffucult content, with completing tabula rasa being a memorable moment. But I don't like it when the game is damaged for the sake of preserving the high end meta. Stuff like sprinting dozers, cloaker spam, and samey weapons. If I wanted to nit pick, the extreme difficulties that turn half the game into "Stealth only, kill everyone" exploit fests are pretty bad as well, but are easily avoided so I don't mind them to much.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22628206/
Another related problem is time limited events. Stuff like the Overkill safe, the Humble masks, and the Payday Con masks that create a haves vs have nots situation. Call me a filthy casual if you like, but I have other things going on in my life that aren't Payday. And while I understand the desire to reward your most die hard fans, from where I sit, this is like denying content, as minor as it may be, simply because I didn't go to a certain convention, or buy some crappy games on a certain date. The good news is Overkill has been improving, making the Halloween and Christmas heists available year round, but it's an ongoing issue.
-DLC
It's hard to deny at this point that Payday 2 had waaaaaay to much DLC, and most of it was no where near worth the asking price. While big fans of the game such as myself can argue that you're getting X hours of gameplay for Y amount of money, the rank and file players are left with a bewildering sea of pricey add ons.
I doubt Overkill are going to change this, as Payday 2 DLC has been massively profitable for them. But I would like a smaller number of DLCs with more substantial content. One way of doing this would be, instead of releasing content piecemeal, to instead bundle a character, their weapon, and their heists together.
Another thing they could do to get more worthwhile content for these packs is to make heists from existing content. They did this with the security van heists, and to a lesser extent with Hoxten Breakout. While the former felt lazy, I think people would be more forgiving if these heists came bundled with new content. Imagine if Big Bank came with a few branch banks, or if The Diamond came with other museum based heists.
-Worthwhile Content At Launch
While Payday 3 obviously won't have the same level of content Payday 2 currently has, Payday 2 launched in a pretty sorry state. I don't think Overkill can do this again. They burned most, if not all of their good will over the life of Payday 2. If they launch Payday 3 with little but padding, then it'll be clear Overkill learned nothing.
-A story/difficulty order
This is a minor point, but it goes to making the game more noob friendly. heists like 4 Stores and Jewelry Shop or obviously made for beginners, but this isn't made clear anywhere. Likewise, some heists have a defined story or order to them. The Hector and Jimmy heists for example. While Payday isn't a story heavy game, having these labeled would be nice also.
-Stealth-Loud Ballance (now with extra theme)
I already mentioned game ballance when talking about the 1% and the meta game. But one consistant problem is that, from heist to heist, you either want an all stealth build, or an all loud build. Why waste points on ammo bags you'll never use, and why run a build with C4 if there's nowhere in the heist to use them?
Assuming the game will be similar to Payday 2, I think the sollution here would be to have 2 different skill points. Stealth and Loud. The idea here is that every build will have some ability to go stealth, and some ability to go loud. Maybe you could experiment with some stealth skills requiring loud skills and vice versa? But the main goal is to have no more heist exclusive builds.
Likewise, things like C4 and ECMs have use in loud and stealth mode, other equipment should have these uses too. For sake of argument, let's say turrets can double as spy cameras in stealth.
Another way to do it would require a complete overhaul of skills, which this being a sequel is viable. Personally, I'd give the trees more character, and thus make the classes feel unique. For example, a heavy enforcer might be able to smash keypads to open doors, whereas a tech focused character could hack them. The enforcers skill being faster, but it makes a noise, or is limited use. Such a mechanic would also fit the heist film theme of the game, with the brains character breaking out his laptop, when the bruiser muscles past and gives it a whack.
Likewise, whereas the enforcer has obvious gun related skills, allow a technitian to bring a drone that fetch players supplies, or shoots at enemies. Another idea could be to have the tech not only be good at opening places, but closing them off. Again, this all fits the theme of the heist film, and allows the players act like what their characters are supposed to act like. Eg. a tech player has to plan ahead. Likewise, Masterminds are supposed to be smart and charasmatic right? Why not have them able to talk guards into looking the other way, or getting them to move somewhere else?
I'm not saying to do this exact thing, these are examples of how you can ballance while giving the player options and the character of each tree. A great example if this in Payday 2 is the way dodge players tend to run all over the place like hyperactive puppies, whereas armour players tend to plod around tanking damage, as they should. I think this same gameplay reflected theme should apply to tech and mastermind as well.
-Car Chases?
The Payday games seem to experiment with different things. The inclusion of vehicles in Payday 2 felt incomplete and to be honest, tacked on. Does this mean car chases are going to be in Payday 3?
Phew. This was a long post. I'll leave it here for now. Might make this into a video, I don't know. Agree, disagree, want me to stop leaving loot bags in the fridge? Let me know in the comments.
At time of writing I've put 973 hours into Payday 2. It'll suffice to say that I like the game, though it had some serious issues, the game has gotten better over time. If anything, these days it's hard to find people interested in playing the game.
My first, and main hope that most of the following things fall under is-
-Overkill learn from their mistakes
From the early days of farming jewelry shop, to the whole safe/greedfest scandal. It's my hope that Overkill learned some lessons when it comes to Payday, and game design in general. With that said, let's get to the specifics, starting with the most devisive thing on the list-
-Theme > Competitive Meta
People might not like it when I say this, but I come to Payday for the theme. That theme being heist films like Heat. Stealth is a little more Oceans 11, but that's understandable. What I don't come to Payday 2 for a highly tuned competitive meta game of min-maxing, speed runs, and dick messuring. While much of the Payday community is good, there is a vocal minority of people with the time and inclination to play the game all day every day, who will constantly complain that the game is to easy, while shouting down anyone who hasn't completed Firestarter on Deathwish with no skills.
There is a need for ballance, issues such as grinder proved that much. There's also nothing wrong with diffucult content, with completing tabula rasa being a memorable moment. But I don't like it when the game is damaged for the sake of preserving the high end meta. Stuff like sprinting dozers, cloaker spam, and samey weapons. If I wanted to nit pick, the extreme difficulties that turn half the game into "Stealth only, kill everyone" exploit fests are pretty bad as well, but are easily avoided so I don't mind them to much.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22628206/
Another related problem is time limited events. Stuff like the Overkill safe, the Humble masks, and the Payday Con masks that create a haves vs have nots situation. Call me a filthy casual if you like, but I have other things going on in my life that aren't Payday. And while I understand the desire to reward your most die hard fans, from where I sit, this is like denying content, as minor as it may be, simply because I didn't go to a certain convention, or buy some crappy games on a certain date. The good news is Overkill has been improving, making the Halloween and Christmas heists available year round, but it's an ongoing issue.
-DLC
It's hard to deny at this point that Payday 2 had waaaaaay to much DLC, and most of it was no where near worth the asking price. While big fans of the game such as myself can argue that you're getting X hours of gameplay for Y amount of money, the rank and file players are left with a bewildering sea of pricey add ons.
I doubt Overkill are going to change this, as Payday 2 DLC has been massively profitable for them. But I would like a smaller number of DLCs with more substantial content. One way of doing this would be, instead of releasing content piecemeal, to instead bundle a character, their weapon, and their heists together.
Another thing they could do to get more worthwhile content for these packs is to make heists from existing content. They did this with the security van heists, and to a lesser extent with Hoxten Breakout. While the former felt lazy, I think people would be more forgiving if these heists came bundled with new content. Imagine if Big Bank came with a few branch banks, or if The Diamond came with other museum based heists.
-Worthwhile Content At Launch
While Payday 3 obviously won't have the same level of content Payday 2 currently has, Payday 2 launched in a pretty sorry state. I don't think Overkill can do this again. They burned most, if not all of their good will over the life of Payday 2. If they launch Payday 3 with little but padding, then it'll be clear Overkill learned nothing.
-A story/difficulty order
This is a minor point, but it goes to making the game more noob friendly. heists like 4 Stores and Jewelry Shop or obviously made for beginners, but this isn't made clear anywhere. Likewise, some heists have a defined story or order to them. The Hector and Jimmy heists for example. While Payday isn't a story heavy game, having these labeled would be nice also.
-Stealth-Loud Ballance (now with extra theme)
I already mentioned game ballance when talking about the 1% and the meta game. But one consistant problem is that, from heist to heist, you either want an all stealth build, or an all loud build. Why waste points on ammo bags you'll never use, and why run a build with C4 if there's nowhere in the heist to use them?
Assuming the game will be similar to Payday 2, I think the sollution here would be to have 2 different skill points. Stealth and Loud. The idea here is that every build will have some ability to go stealth, and some ability to go loud. Maybe you could experiment with some stealth skills requiring loud skills and vice versa? But the main goal is to have no more heist exclusive builds.
Likewise, things like C4 and ECMs have use in loud and stealth mode, other equipment should have these uses too. For sake of argument, let's say turrets can double as spy cameras in stealth.
Another way to do it would require a complete overhaul of skills, which this being a sequel is viable. Personally, I'd give the trees more character, and thus make the classes feel unique. For example, a heavy enforcer might be able to smash keypads to open doors, whereas a tech focused character could hack them. The enforcers skill being faster, but it makes a noise, or is limited use. Such a mechanic would also fit the heist film theme of the game, with the brains character breaking out his laptop, when the bruiser muscles past and gives it a whack.
Likewise, whereas the enforcer has obvious gun related skills, allow a technitian to bring a drone that fetch players supplies, or shoots at enemies. Another idea could be to have the tech not only be good at opening places, but closing them off. Again, this all fits the theme of the heist film, and allows the players act like what their characters are supposed to act like. Eg. a tech player has to plan ahead. Likewise, Masterminds are supposed to be smart and charasmatic right? Why not have them able to talk guards into looking the other way, or getting them to move somewhere else?
I'm not saying to do this exact thing, these are examples of how you can ballance while giving the player options and the character of each tree. A great example if this in Payday 2 is the way dodge players tend to run all over the place like hyperactive puppies, whereas armour players tend to plod around tanking damage, as they should. I think this same gameplay reflected theme should apply to tech and mastermind as well.
-Car Chases?
The Payday games seem to experiment with different things. The inclusion of vehicles in Payday 2 felt incomplete and to be honest, tacked on. Does this mean car chases are going to be in Payday 3?
Phew. This was a long post. I'll leave it here for now. Might make this into a video, I don't know. Agree, disagree, want me to stop leaving loot bags in the fridge? Let me know in the comments.
