Recent reviews by Haze

Is it the Payday 3 many of us were expecting? Definitely not. Is it worth the $40 price tag? At the moment, not really, but the addition of more heists progressively in the future is a good enough reason in my opinion to spend that money.

Pros:
• The environment and the graphics of the game are much better than Payday 2 without being too taxing on your system. While it’s expected, it’s still nice to see because that still somehow gets messed up in modern games.

• The story of the heists we’ve gotten from release is very clear and a solid story so far helped by the progressive lord videos. I assume it’ll only be growing as the new heists roll out with the season pass.

• Stealth is much less frustrating compared to Payday 2. Getting spotted no longer spells instant restart, but gives ways to improvise and get out of that situation.

• Going loud is more challenging now as you can’t make the insane perk builds that you used to be able to. It feels a lot more balanced out without having to do a ton of technical research into a build.

• With the perk trees it’s a lot more straight forward now on what’s good for how you want to tackle a heist. Not nearly as many insane or cool options as Payday 2, but to someone who isn’t as in to making a fine tuned perk build and just wants to have fun in the heists whether it’s loud or stealth, I see the appeal.

• While melee weapons aren’t a thing anymore, I do like the addition of just punching someone to make them hit the floor faster and the stun when against a guard or cop. Im not going to act like the removal of melee is a game breaking deal when a silenced gun or throwing knife reaches the same outcome.

• Gun cosmetics are better imo. The old Payday 2 cosmetic stuff just wasn’t it and the unlocking customization of gun cosmetics while not the best is definitely a step up.

• Guns are currently pretty decently balanced. I’ve seen several reviews saying they feel underpowered when the AK or SP pistol one or two shot most regular units. That being said, SMGs are underpowered. The highest damage SMG not being able to one shot headshot a guard is not it.

• Lock picking and general interactions overall are much better during heists.

Cons:
• The new leveling up system is not ideal. I don’t want to have to do every mission with every different weapon every which way in every difficulty just to reach max level so I can use a chrome paint finish. I prefer the older Payday 2 system by far.

• The menu and overall layout are below average. Sticking to a map where you can just see who’s doing what publicly and how they want to do it would’ve been much better. It does feel like it’s made for Consoles more than PCs and even then it isn’t a great Console layout.

• Gun classes (primary and secondary) aren’t really defined anywhere. They should be, or have separate tabs. I get not having separate tabs for rn cause there’s just not that many, but there should be something that indicates primary or secondary. People complaining about buying a weapon they thought was a secondary but is a primary, if you’re not talking about the Uzi equivalent then idk what you’re on. It’s pretty obvious for all of them except the Uzi which is which.

• No safe house kinda sucks, but it did just launch so I’m not counting it as a huge negative currently in the hopes they’ll add one later on.

Neutral (I guess):
• The servers aren’t great, I see a lot of people complaining about them, but I always got in a server within 4 minutes so I personally won’t complain.

I personally enjoy the game, and I have a fairly baseless faith that the big issues like the menu and levels will be fixed, but I’m not going to nit pick the small stuff when it’s still a fun game for my friends and I.

Overall, this game is pretty amazing but there are a few MAJOR problems with it. The controls are so complicated and there are so many you either need a paper in front of you reminding you how to do things or a far beyond average memory which I don't have. The playing with your friends function is horrible. I tried getting on a private group server with my friend, invited him to a wing, and went to the exact location the map said he was at and nothing was there. It's impossible to join a private group server or open server and can't find him. Only way I can find him is luck out or find the IP but I haven't been able to do either of those succesfully. The tutorial doesn't teach you much so you have to look things up on forums which takes a ton of time up trying to find someone who can answer the exact problem you had. Finally, there isn't as much to do as it looks like there is, I can't find pirates or even a federal ship in 10 minutes of searching which is ridiculous. I bought the game because of the gameplay I saw and how fun it looked but the game isn't as good as they make it look.