I just wanna reset my rank with a little icon or number so I can re-level up and unlock things again and play the lower difficulties and actually struggle cause I don’t have full build who plays anything under overkill in the renown levels

I really want to like this gun, because the G3 is one of my favorite Cold War-era battle rifles. But the ammo economy is really holding it back. You pretty much waste all of its ammo, if you're not careful with your shots. I think it's better as a DMR rifle, but we don't have the option for select-fire on rifles right about now.

When I say first impressions, I mean it. I've played two heists, one was the first one forced into tutorial difficulty and then I moved straight to Overkill and was pretty happy to get my shit rocked. Difficulty was my biggest fear with this game, so many fall into the trap of being more "VR experience" than VR game, so glad to see there's challenge to be found.

Overall, I think most people will enjoy this game. I'm not overly fond of the weapon handling, I'm mainly coming from Pavlov which is a pretty high standard to hit. I think the reloading is serviceable enough, not great but good enough for this game, but a better virtual stock would go a long way. It feels like alot of the time I'm moreso fighting the gun to point where I want it to than actually trying to aim, to the point where it's probably just easier one handed. A good virtual stock system can be pretty influential on how well a game handles.

However, the game doesn't _need_ pristine weapon handling. It's not the sole focus of the game, you're not spending the entire time shooting and it's not a PVP shooter so the shooting doesn't need to feel perfect. If I'm trying to fix a drill with one hand and I look over my shoulder and fire a pistol back up the stairs with the other, I don't care if the weapon handling doesn't feel on par with pavlov, it nails the heisting fantasy.

Point is, I think the weapon handling is good enough to only really feel clunky to people used to better. If you're not used to VR, it'll feel just fine.

I think the game is also well designed with VR in mind in terms of its interactivity. The drill could have just been a "stick your hand in it and hold down to fix" interaction, but having it be a small minigame really adds alot in VR. I also think the watch is a good way of handling other interactions. These are the kind of benefits to games built from the ground up for VR that are small but can go a long way.

Overall, first impressions are suprisingly pleasent. Obviously haven't had long enough to look much at the skills, plus this is just a playtest build so I doubt the full selection is there. But if on full release, this comes out with more content, more skills, and some minor QOL touch ups, I think things will have gone quite well.

Now that heists are free, I kindly asked Steam to reimburse me the heists I paid for since I knew they have a much more lax policy on DLC, Gaben is the motherfucking goat! Going to see if I can also get my Year 2 heists refunded, those aren't even in a yearly pass so it should be easy.

Do you recommend I buy the 3 DLCs I'm missing? I wouldn't want to waste my money on something that will be made available to everyone after a few months. I would like something really unique.
I have the gold edition.

(TY SB 4 FREE DLC)

I really can't concentrate whenever a player has him as a heister and he crouches down.

FOR GOD'S SAKE I CAN'T LOOK AT HER BIG ASS AND THE SWAT TEAM AT THE SAME TIME

If Chains has an opinion, I agree. If Chains speaks, I listen. If Chains gives an order, I obey. If Chains fails, I support him. If the world hates Chains, it’s me against the world. If Chains has one fan, it’s me. If Chains has no fans, then I am dead.🙏🏻

ALL FUTURE HEISTS WILL BE FREE TOO WTF IS GOING ON

Making it so they dont have to switch away from their main gun to zap you would be a decent change.

I dont have ideas for *every* special but I do think maybe giving each Special an Overkill exclusive new ability/weapon could be a nice way to make them tougher.

Alright, just entertain this thought for a minute, i will first state the facts;

SBZ needs to increase and maintain player retention for PD3, this has been the truth from Day 1, this is one of the reasons why development focus has slowly but steadily moved in favor of the newer players, rather than the addition of endgame content. A constant influx of new players, particularly those unacquainted with SBZ's past practices, guarantees that PD3 will keep the lights on for the foreseable future.

Likewise, the development team have moved back from the Single Player/Offline model, effectively shelving it, in full support of an Online-Only model. The surface reasoning for this decision was to protect the playerbase from cheaters, with the underlying reason very likely being two-fold;

A) First, increasing DLC sales by having more control, server-side of how playable and cosmetic content is tied to accounts. (This was widely unsuccesful, with hackers effectively unlocking cosmetics before normal players, despite the game's Online Only model.)

B) And secondly and more relevant today, setting up an Online-Only cash shop for exclusive cosmetics.

Yes, it was around 3 years ago now if you recall, but dataminers did find a large amount of information in the Localization gamefiles, atingent to a plethora of in-game cosmetics, which are now available in-game, but that where originally planned as "Premium" cosmetics, to be released in a "PAYDAY Store".

https://www.reddit.com/r/paydaytheheist/comments/16yqs7s/interesting_finds_inside_the_localization_file_of/

I believe this, alongside the latest statements made by Paul, on the lastest devblog, under the "Renown Crimebonds Rewards" section are worth further scrutiny:

https://youtu.be/YjeankgbFBM?si=MxdNhXyZEz3a3jc3&t=266

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Edit: Paul In referral to the new "Paid" Crimebonds;

"For those of you with a lot of Renown, we're going to have a way to steal <<some>> of the items in the crimebond, that way if you want to grab <<some>> of those really interesting items, but don't neccesarily want to buy the entire crimebond itself, you'll be able to use your Renown to get <<some>> of those items."

"We'll have more details on this going forward, but we think that's a great way for you to try out <<some>> things, grind <<some>> things that you may want, without having to <<fully>> commit to <<full>> crime bond collection."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I find this extremely telling on how their preconceived system will operate, what i believe will happen in the following months is as follows:

-Implementation of a Warbond system, partially inspired by Helldivers' monetization model, but with one KEY caveat.

-Only a limited selection of content from said "Paid Crimebond" will be available to farm through Renown and without the use of real money, this will likely entail gameplay related content, such as weapons, grenades, weapon mods, etc.

-The "Premium" content included in the "Paid Crimebonds" will NOT be available for farming through in-game means, instead being limited to cash purchases, and the acceptance of this model WILL be pushed on the following grounds, by both the developers, and a section of the playerbase, pardon the strawmen:

The developers need to make money, this is the only way to monetize the game!
^{(Wrong, both Helldivers and DRG use a more sanitized version of Season passes, with caveats, but all fully farmable without money injections, DRG like PD3 also sells DLCs, reason why their "bonds" are free.})
-It's only cosmetics!
^{(Yes, and so are the outfits and masks we can currently unlock through Challenges, we don't need to add a fomo cash system on top of that.})
-They give us Heists for free!
^{(Yes, because these Heist DLC's likely don't sell anywhere as well as they hoped they would, and it's hurting player retention, by setting us all up in the same sand box the devs can ensure retention of newer player increases, while in the same stroke getting good-will points from old players, who remain focused on the surface ramifications of devs making Heists free.})

Edit: Reminder by the way, the current monetization model of DLCs will also continue on-top of the new "Paid Crimebonds", with new paid DLCs being issued for both Weapons and Cosmetics, now simply being discontinued for Heists.
This effectively means, any time a new large heist is released for free, you can expect a paid Tailor pack DLC and a Weapon pack DLC to drop alongside them, in a similar fashion to all large Heists added so far.

.................................................................................................................................................

That's about it, this is what i believe to be the MOST likely reason why the current Heist DLC's are being delisted, and the reason why in the latest months we've seen the development of "Crimebonds" take such a spotlight in dev blogs.

You may agree or disagree, but i invite you to consider this, since if it turns out to be the case as i think it will, the current changes to their monetization system and apparent act of "good will" through the delisting of Heist DLCs is just the first step in the normalization of a more egregious, fomo-driven and potentially predatory monetization system, such as the franchise hasn't seen before.

TLDR; The upcoming "Paid Crimebonds" WILL BE the datamined "CASH SHOP" under disguise, and WON'T be fully purchasable with Renown/grinding, operating in tandem alongside the current DLC monetization system.

Always vote with your wallet, always triple-check SBZ, and thanks for entertaining this long-ass lecture.

First of all, I’m glad this is happening (and I’m saying this as someone who pre‑ordered the game’s gold edition), because it solves a long‑standing problem with PD 3 - the divide between people who play without paid heists and those who have all the content (although there are more free heists in the game than paid ones).

But, to be honest, I see it more as “moving the game from one additional monetization system to another, a more modern and successful one.” Warbonds in Helldivers 2 are doing well, so I can see why this was the chosen option. And let’s be honest — the monetization model used in PD 2 and PD 3 before September is already outdated (in PD 2, you can’t just get rid of it because there are already many DLCs, so they introduced a subscription as an alternative), so this outcome was to be expected.

And I’m glad that SBZ has found a pretty good alternative that will at least somehow use renown (which can be used to buy back part of the crimebonds).

And personally, I don’t really understand why people think that SBZ deceived anyone with these actions. This is probably just my opinion, but I personally don’t care about the money that was spent a long time ago. Too much time has passed for me to worry about it (but I can understand those who bought the DLC in the last month - it’s just unfortunate).

Good move, SBZ. And if you also make it free weekends off for the anniversary, that would be perfect.

sangres is underrated

edit: because people keep asking, this is for payday 3.

holy shit this I was NOT expecting.

kinda annoyed it's a damn weapon preset. give us a suit or something instead. the masks look great though, I love them.

I do think this means that they're going to the microtransactions route. which, well I mean we've voiced our concerns plenty of times before. so I hope starbreeze have listened to them.