PAYDAY 3 News

[p][/p][p]Hey Heisters,[/p][p]We want to hear from you.[/p][p]Help us better understand your playstyle, preferences, and overall experience with PAYDAY by taking our 10-minute Player Survey.[/p][p]The Loot: Complete the survey for a chance to win one of five $70 Amazon vouchers (or local equivalent).[/p][p]Winners will be notified by email within 14 days after the survey closes.[/p][p]Read carefully. Be honest.[/p][p]Good luck![/p][p]Take the PAYDAY Player Survey[/p]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Hello Heisters![/p][p]Last weekend we hosted a public beta containing the Peer-to-Peer system, quality of life changes and some changes to gunplay. A lot of you chose to participate, so let’s have a look at what we’ve learned.[/p][p]In summary, we’re thrilled with the results, but see the need to make some improvements before we completely transition to peer-to-peer. Let’s look at the results together![/p][hr][/hr][h2]Statistics[/h2][p]We had mostly positive feedback across the board. Let’s look at the graphs![/p][p]
This is a high priority for us, and you. So having only 9.1% reporting worse ping is a great starting point. We’ll do what we can to ensure these instances are as few as possible.[/p][hr][/hr][p]This one is also great. We want there to be as much green or yellow on this one as possible.[/p][hr][/hr][p]Also great, while this one is hard to measure anecdotally and over a weekend, these responses give us confidence that there are no major issues.[/p][p]That is great! We’re very happy with those numbers, but see that we have a few items we have to polish before the feature goes fully live. [/p][hr][/hr][h2]Data[/h2][p]We also tracked some general statistics about participation and connection quality:[/p]

• [p]Connections within the same country generally showed excellent performance, typically staying under 30ms.[/p]
• [p]Connections within the same region or continent showed acceptable ping at between 50-150ms [/p]
• [p]Going between continents saw worse performance. Asia Pacific to the Americas averaged about 250ms, and went higher the further the connection went.[/p]

[p]Not bad! Obviously, the longer the distance in connection the higher the ping, but that’s something we are looking to mitigate. [/p][hr][/hr][h2]Positives[/h2][p]Two questions had free-text fields, even though the questions differed, “Did you notice any gameplay that felt different on P2P?” and “Did you experience any new defects with the enemies?”, we’ve bundled the top recurring answers together for the purposes of this blog.[/p][h3]Performance[/h3]

• [p]Most mentioned on the positive side were, by far, that you experienced the game as significantly smoother, more responsive. With less occurrences of lag, stuttering and rubberbanding, and less latency on interactions.[/p]

[h3]Loading Times[/h3]

• [p]A good amount of people experienced considerably improved loading times when creating lobbies or loading in to games.[/p]

[h3]Quality of Life Changes[/h3]

• [p]Lockpicking and safecracking received resounding praise, many saying it felt both faster and more satisfying than before.[/p]
• [p]Hitmarkers also got positive feedback, mentioning color-coding and audio feedback feeling rewarding.[/p]
• [p]The removal of WiFi circles was overwhelmingly positively received.[/p]

[h3]Enemies and Gunplay[/h3]

• [p]Many reported guns feeling better, with enemies feeling more responsive, aggressive or alert. Some noted that the new enemy “intelligence” made the game harder.[/p]
• [p]Movement was generally reported as feeling smoother.[/p]

[hr][/hr][p]We’re very pleased with these results. We saw more positive feedback than negative by far, showing us that we’re moving in the right direction. [/p][p]Peer-to-peer will still be included in a future update, but will keep the game primarily running on servers until we can be certain the feature won’t give players a worse experience than they have today. We’ll be able to switch the P2P feature on or off from our end, enabling us to run tests in the “live” game, we’ll announce any such tests ahead of time and provide a feedback form for those who choose to participate.[/p][p]Speaking of, a huge thank you to everyone who participated in the peer-to-peer playtest. Your participation makes all the difference![/p]

[p]Hello heisters,[/p][p][/p][p]We know the connection to our servers has been a frequent topic, and our team will always strive for providing you the best possible experience. As a result, we have been working on developing a Peer-to-Peer connection for a while now, and we're finally ready to let you all get hands on with it and see how it works.[/p][p]We hope to see as many of you as possible hop in and play during the Open Playtest, and let us know how you get on. Please make sure to have your telemetry enabled as well, so our data team can get a full picture of how your connectivity performs on this build. We also have a survey available to capture even more data on your experiences: https://forms.gle/8fmw4kk6GKXGbagv6[/p][p]The playtest will be running from tomorrow, Thursday, 13PM CET until Monday, 2nd of February, 12PM CET. Details on how to switch to the playtest branch are listed below.[/p][p]Update: Keep in mind that this is a playtest and not a full release, so expect to see some weirdness or unexpected behaviour as you play. This is part of why we do this test, to ensure we can catch and fix as many of these as possible before rolling this out fully later this year.[/p][p]We have added a Known Issues section to this announcement. See below![/p][p][/p][p]The playtest will be running on a separate branch on Steam. To switch branch, you need to right click on PAYDAY 3 in your Steam Library and select "Properties".[/p][p][/p][p]In the window that pops up, navigate to the "Game Versions & Beta" tab. Select the Open Beta in the list you see here.[/p][p][/p][p]When you go to launch the game you may get met by the following pop-up. Make sure to once again select Open Beta, and you should be set![/p][p][/p][p]As this Playtest runs on a different backend than the regular live version of PAYDAY 3, your progress WILL NOT CARRY OVER. You will be starting from the beginning in terms of progression in the playtest build. We recommend playing the Crowd Control Tutorial before you start playtesting, to quickly gain 150 levels and millions in cash.[/p][p]Your progression in PAYDAY 3 will not be affected by what happens on the playtest branch. You'll have your regular level and weapons/loadouts once you're back to the normal version.[/p][p][/p]

• [p]The first client to join an ongoing game can get stuck on the Heist Info screen, requiring a restart (alt-F4)[/p]

[p]Hello Heisters![/p][p]We started the new year strong with the release of PAYDAY 3 DLC Shopping Spree, a brand new heist with a great deal of variety. Today, we’re joined by Paul, our General Manager of Live Service who gives us a brief overview of the things we are working on in the coming three months for PAYDAY 3. [/p][p]You can watch the full video here, or read the summary below. [/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][h2]February[/h2][h3]Peer-to-Peer[/h3][p]First mentioned a few months ago, we’re aiming to move away from dedicated servers in favor of peer-to-peer hosting. We’re starting things off on Thursday by hosting open beta-tests on Steam, where we’ll collect feedback and data, with the intent to improve the experience before the feature goes live later on.[/p][h3]QoL Improvements[/h3][p]Also in February, we’re resolving some pain points identified by both our players and developers. These include the full removal of wifi circles, polish on lockpicking and safecracking, adjustments to gunplay such as racking shotguns while sprinting, reducing camera shake while firing, and more.[/p][p][/p][h2]March[/h2][h3]Questlines[/h3][p]The quest system is an evolution of the old challenges and meant to give you something additional to do within the game and a way for us to deliver rewards and items that’s also fun. This is the first iteration of a feature that we intend to grow over time. The scope, complexity and variety of quests will evolve based on your feedback.[/p][h3]Events[/h3][p]The event modifiers, such as Titan Camera, Elite Guard etc. have been a fairly underutilized feature since launch. In the short term, we’re mixing them up to increase heist variety.[/p][p]The long-term intention of modifiers is the same as with questlines, where we’re making a small change now that we’ll adjust it over time based on your feedback, so don’t be shy![/p][p][/p][h2]April[/h2][h3]Mission Clarity[/h3][p]In April, we’re making improvements to heist clarity. That is, how information is presented and the time you have to react to that information. These changes include UI tweaks, enemy behavior and spawns. [/p][h3]Heist Reworks[/h3][p]We’re going back to some of the launch heists and improving things like mission structure, objective types, and randomization. Our intent is to improve heist clarity, making them easier to understand while making sure the game is fun on every difficulty. [/p][p]We won’t release these for all heists at once, instead you’ll see the first few in April with more coming throughout the year.[/p][p]Also in April, you’ll start seeing the first tweaks to the quest and events systems. [/p][p][/p][p]If you have any questions on the road map, feel free to reach us at [email protected].[/p]

[p]We've released a hotfix for PAYDAY 3 to fix several issues found since the release of Update 3.1.
No downtime is required, simply update and play![/p][p][/p][h2]Changes[/h2]

• [p]Increased headshot damage and lowered ammo pickup on the RG5[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue preventing successful escape when the Nobleman Lounge is the main objective, if doing objectives out of order[/p]
• [p]Fixed a crash that could happen to the game's host, if all other players leave the lobby in the results screen[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue preventing additional thermite from spawning in the Nobleman Lounge[/p]