Recent reviews by Taralash

First i would like to say that at the time of writing this review, game is experiencing a problem with servers which caused many people to write negative review about state of the servers and pleading for offline mode (something that was present in Payday 2).

I must say that even with bugs like:
- Bots being stuck in the walls for the entire heist. (Happens rarely)
- Not being able to revive teammate (Happens rarely)
- On Under the Surphaze map, in the vent on the bottom floor from "hidden" staircase to wall next to room E1. Without putting an extra input or running into the vent, your character just slides through it into the other side of the vent. (Sometimes/Often)
- Some challenges don't give you xp right away but later (Often)

I would still recommend the game if you play with your friends. What makes it hard for solo player currently is the matchmaking. System that many players complain about it. Compared to the Crime.Net from Payday 2, matchmaking is very dissappointing downgrade. Matchmaking currently works like this: You choose a map from 8 available that you want to play, you decide on which difficulty you want to find lobby, choose public mode and you start matchmaking. After you've done that you are placed into a public queue and you're waiting for system to let you join other people's lobby or it'll make you a new public lobby which makes you it's leader and allowing other players to join you via matchmaking. However when you're in matchmaking queue it will only look for the heist on difficulty that you've chosen. Not only that but the game doesn't show you how many public lobbies there are on this map/difficulty so you may sit alone in the matchmaking or later your own lobby for some time waiting for people. Compared to the Crime.net from Payday 2 where you could see on a "map" which lobbies were playing which map, on what difficulty, how many people are in party, if they are playing stealth or not and also filter them by showing you only specific maps or specific difficulty or both. So as you can see Crime.net was superior "queue" system. Also since i forgot to add it before, even when playing solo in "invite only" lobby, you'd still need to wait 1-2mins for your lobby to be created.

Next thing is a bit controversial: Leveling system aka. Challenges.
In Payday 3 you level up by doing challenges. There are 639 Heist, 89 Career and 408 Combat challenges.
Heist challenges focus on doing something with maps like:
- Finish X map, on X difficulty before/or after assault (Stealth or Loud)
- Finish X map X times on X difficulty
- Escape without being downed during loud mission on X map
- Get every bag on the X map

Career challenges focus on your level. You get them by reaching certain level and instead of XP these reward you with in-game special currency (which you can buy via in-game money only).

And also Combat challenges, which require you to:
- Kill X enemies using X weapon
- Slide X meters
- Kill X enemies with X weapon via headshot
- Kill X enemies while using Human Shield
- Save a crewmate from Tazer X times
- Deploy X times ammo/doctor/armor bag or sentry turret
etc.

Around level 40, time required to level up is longer due to easier challenges were been finished already.
Outside of character level, every weapon could also be leveled up. By using them in your heists you gain weapon xp which in turn unlocks new attachments for that weapon. Due to weapon leveling system, many combat challenges are unlocked just by playing the game.

You can change appearance of your character by choosing which character you want to play and 3 backups if they are already taken in lobby. You can also choose different suit, gloves and ofc customizable mask.

Your loadout consist of few things:
- Primary and Secondary weapon (I believe that for now the only secondary weapons availible are the pistols)
- Deployable: Ammo/Armor/Doctor Bag or Sentry Turret
- Throwable: Frag Grenades/Flashbang Grenades/Smoke Grenades and Throwing Knifes
- Overkill weapon: Grenade Launcher or Special Sniper Rifle
- Armor (Armor only affect how much "armor" chunks you have and how fast you're moving. More armor chunks = Lower speed, Less armor chunks = Faster speed)
- Tool: MicroCam/Infrasonic Mine/ECM Jammer/Motion Sensor

And ofc skills. There are 17 different archetypes. Some focus on Hacking Cameras, others on Movement, another one is for Trading Hostages more efficiently or improving one's Armor. Possibly one of my favorite changes from Payday 2. Where you're limited (on higher difficulties) to 2 maybe 3 working builds.

One of the many changes we'll recieved in Payday 3 compared to Payday 3 is difficulty spike. Not only loud missions feel harder than on Payday 2 but doing stealth on overkill (highest difficulty currently) is also difficult due to changes on the map. Key items might be placed in different places, you have only 2 pagers (instead of 4 in Payday 2), codes seem to be different. Certain areas of the map could be harder to navigate on higher difficulty. And not to mention new stealth system. Now you can do a lot more in stealth while you're in casing mode (mask off). Taking items, carrying bags, interact with objectives etc. However i feel like casing mode is a bit too op at least with moving bags. While you're carrying a loot bag in casing mode guards don't notice anything wrong with it. Because of that you can finish stealth mission with "mask on" or maskless, giving you advantages from being in the casing mode like: guards when alerted by your presence only make you follow them to nearest public area.

Speaking of which, now we have 3 different areas in the map:
- Public Area - While in casing mode you won't be detected by anything outside of doing illegal things like lockpicking
- Private Area - While in casing mode only guards and cameras can spot you. If guard spots you he will make you follow him into the nearest Public Area. If camera spots you it will alarm nearest guard to check position where camera saw you. Guard then will come to that place and if he finds you he'll lead you to the nearest Public Area. If guard doesn't find you there he will trigger "Search" - guards will leave their patrol routes to try to find you.
- Secure Area - Area where even being in the casing mode doesn't help you, if you're found out there, guards can shoot you or trigger an alarm.

Pros:
- New stealth mechanics and interactions
- New systems like: Human shield, Overkill weapons, Tools and many more
- New skill system with different archetypes to choose
- No concealment (it was Payday 2 stealth system)
- Changes on map depending on difficulty in stealth
- More tactical gameplay than in Payday 2
- Difficulty spike (compared to Payday 2)
- Ability to cross-play PC with Console

Cons:
- (At the time of writing) Server issues
- You can't create offline lobby
- Matchmaking system is bad
- (For some people) Level up by making challenges instead of doing heists
- (For some people, At the time of writing) Only 17 weapons available
- (At the time of writing) Worse mask customization than in Payday 2

My raiting 8/10.
I was really hyped for Payday 3 and I'm not dissappointed. Server issues should be fixed soon, and bugs I've encountered aren't gamebreaking. Changes to combat and stealth are really cool and make game more tactical for me. There is also high incentive for taking hostages due to changes in this system which makes it a lot different than in Payday 2, where people rarely cared about them. I see a lot of potential moving forward, I'm looking forward to changes in Matchmaking and adding Offline mode.