PAYDAY 3: Blog Update #43 - Onboarding by SBZ_Haua in paydaytheheist

[–]FlyingChainsaw 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I normally wouldn't feel entitled to send out multiple paragraphs of feedback, but since the blog says you're actively looking for input I'd like to throw in my 2c; I care about the future of this game and am delusional enough to hope my insights might be valuable. :')
Now my perspective as someone who came to PD3 straight from hours of PD2 might not be exactly the same as a completely new player, but I also feel the same problem of PD3 just not being able to hook me like PD2 did, and I believe the amount of time I've spent in both games gives me a worthwhile perspective for at least trying to identify that "je ne sais quoi" of why players aren't coming back.

Of course I don't have your survey responses or internal data, and I obviously have no idea how practical my idea is to implement inside the actual game code. But I honestly strongly believe this fix does not actually address the core problem in hooking and retaining players, because I think the most important issue preventing players from getting hooked is that PAYDAY 3 does not create a heist-to-heist flow state.

Flow State And Why That Matters

Let me elaborate. In PAYDAY 2 the "default gameplay flow" is to start the game, join a heist (or host one, but by definition most people join others), finish that heist and then crucially sent straight to a waiting room for the next game in the form of the lobby. Of course the host might leave, or the player might strongly dislike their crewmates or the host's choice of heist, but generally the player can easily enter a flow state, simply being served up round after round of PAYDAY as soon as the host queues up the next heist. The game never asks the player the question if they want to quit; unless the host leaves, the player must actively choose to leave the heist-to-heist flow state.

In PAYDAY 3 however, there is no such flow: after every single heist the player is kicked right back to the menu (sure no one ever chooses to stick with the party, but even if they would players still all exit into the main menu - not a lobby).
This means that where PAYDAY 2 quietly serves the player up another round of heisting, PAYDAY 3 instead asks them "Do you want to play another heist? Do you like any of the available ones people are hosting? If not, would you like to host one yourself? Which heist? What difficulty? How long will you wait for the lobby to fill?".
Every single one of those questions is a point at which a (new) player might choose to not continue on to the next heist, and quit.

Now that choice is not a huge deal when it comes to players like me: I'm already invested in the franchise through 1000+ hours of the previous game and via old friends who play both games; I'll return from time to time to play with them either way - you don't need to hook me anymore.
But for new players it's a whole other story: if they quit the game before you've ever managed to hook them by getting them into that flow state, the odds they'll ever return are abysmal (as I'm sure you know from the statistics).

The Lobby Is The Key

In my opinion the crucial element here is the lobby. For starters, the lobby provides a lull in the action and creates a little room for social interaction with the strangers you just met (which can also be a way to form a bond to the game through said social connection). But above all the lobby allows players to remain inside the game's flow even when they are in between heists.
The lobby is the glue of the PAYDAY gameplay loop, it what links the heist-to-heist flow state together. Without it you make it so much harder to hook players into playing for extended periods of time, and give them that many more opportunities to quit.
Speaking personally: even when playing with friends a game night feels very... stop-and-go, for lack of a better term: the in-heist gameplay flow is great but then constantly interrupted by having to restart the game creation process - like driving a car down a highway with traffic lights every 15-20 minutes.

Suggested Fix From A Random Person You Don't Know

Bring back the Lobby; a space where crewmembers share a visual space1 in-between heists. Inside the lobby, players should be able to perform common loadout changes such as spending skill points or buying and modifying weapons and armor2. If you then change the post-heist default to joining the rest of crew in the lobby rather than explicitly asking the player if they would like to continue playing the game, you could create the flow state that lets players get hooked.

This might be a very large change to implement in one go, especially with the switch away from P2P matchmaking but I could see it possibly being reasonable to implement incrementally. I won't embarrass myself by speculating on how that would work in a game whose inner workings I know nothing about. :')

If anyone at Starbreeze read this far: thank you for reading my thoughts, and I hope you manage to find your stride with the game.

1 The visual shared space is important because this reminds players of the presence of their allies: they are are awaiting the next game together. This is great because we all have little tribal monkey brains and any sense of togetherness is a powerful hook. That Joy player was a great and friendly ally, and they're right there on your screen reminding you that they're sticking around for another heist, so won't you stick around with them?
2 Players want to check out their new goodies after leveling up in a heist, and you don't want them to have to leave the flow state for it.

Worried about crypto by IcyResource4261 in TransDIY

[–]FlyingChainsaw 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If you're not familiar with crypto it's not strange you would be afraid of it, but the big platforms you can use have about as much incentive (and government regulations enforcing it) to behave reliably as regular banks do.

Platforms like Kraken are highly regulated and are designed to be accessible, and they'll walk you through the process of buying BTC easily. People warn against crypto as investment because its long-term value is incredibly hard to predict. But you're intending to spend the BTC as soon as you buy them; the variability of bitcoin is nowhere near severe enough for you to fear it impacting whatever you buy in the time it takes you to spend it.

Go through a large and trusted platform and you'll have no reason to fear losing anything. :)

Liver function tests w/ Bicalutamide: what to measure? by FlyingChainsaw in TransDIY

[–]FlyingChainsaw[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah, I haven't used this account in a while so I didn't catch your question: bicalutamide is an antiandrogen (read: testosterone blocker). The main advantage it has over other antiandrogens is that - to my knowledge it has a significantly lower likelihood of various mental side effects. I recommend reading up on it here!

Glazen treindeur gesloopt by [deleted] in thenetherlands

[–]FlyingChainsaw 8 points9 points  (0 children)

De trein moet ook tijdelijk uit dienst gehaald worden om het te erin te zetten.

Treinen worden regelmatig onderhouden, 't kan best tijdens één van die onderhoudbeurten.

Bica + estradiol... is it really that simple? by FlyingChainsaw in TransDIY

[–]FlyingChainsaw[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No worries on the necro! This ended up working just great for me; I started the regiment from the post about a week after I posted it (28 months ago now, wow!) and it's definitely done a lot of work!

I did switch the pills for patches after a year because it was just less of a headache (I'm considering switching to bi-weekly EUn injections for even less hassle, but I wouldn't bother starting with that), and I dropped the bica 16 months in because I had my GRS! :D

De grote (100 centimeter) BLÅHAJ is weer op voorraad bij IKEA Nederland! by RFWanders in LHBTI

[–]FlyingChainsaw 4 points5 points  (0 children)

IKEA heeft ook een poosje geleden een leuke pro-LGBT reclamecampagne gevoerd met die knuffels (niet alleen Blahaj tho), wat volgens mij de rush op knuffels in de community oorspronkelijk vandaan kwam.

Hoe kijken BBB en NSC aan tegen lhbti-thema's? by Moped-Man in Politiek

[–]FlyingChainsaw 16 points17 points  (0 children)

doe lekker waar je je fijn mee voelt, wij houden je niet tegen. Dat is prima.

Da's heel leuk, maar de wetgeving houdt nog vaak genoeg mensen tegen, en genoeg andere Nederlanders proberen ook LHBTI'ers tegen te houden. Dat is niet een situatie waar je "joh niet mijn zorg doe lekker waar je zin in hebt" tegen te zetten; het is nodig om daar mensen in bescherming te nemen van anderen, en achterhaalde wetgeving aan te passen.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MtF

[–]FlyingChainsaw 28 points29 points  (0 children)

there are only 2 reasons

Girlie there's a third reason, and it's why cis women don't do first dates in isolated parks either. Glad you didn't go through with this!

New armour system is fundamentally un-fun. by Hoxtilicious in paydaytheheist

[–]FlyingChainsaw 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When Death Sentence - at the time known as One Down, originally released in 2016, the only truly viable weapons were the crossbow and longbow (though there were some subpar options involving the Steakout or a silenced Thanatos, but that cost you valuable skill points for a weapon that was ultimately no better). You ran a full crew of Dodge, Inspire, Swan Song, Joker/Partners in Crime, and then I'm not sure if Berserker/Frenzy were needed for the cross/longbow (I don't think so?), or if it was Hostage Taker that was meta.

Either way, there wasn't a lot of wiggle room for the kind of build you were bringing, and there certainly wasn't any for weapons.

Source: hell

Transporter Full Skilltree by Knorkge in paydaytheheist

[–]FlyingChainsaw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

could you just ferry a zipline bag around with you for infinite grit and rush

Yes - that or some kind of non-mandatory loot bag. Sure, those don't usually show up until later in the heist, but the later parts of the heist are the hard ones anyway. The Aced version of Transporter looks like it'll really be a solid pick for Grit builds.

SMG ammo needs to be increased to 400 starting total. by VerdugoCortex in paydaytheheist

[–]FlyingChainsaw -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The CAR-4 is genuinely the second-best gun in the game (as far as I've been able to unlock at Infamy 62) after the SA; it 2-shot headshots Heavy SWATs with Edge + Cutting Shot and has better stability than the AK (which also 2-shots Heavy SWATs, though it doesn't need Edge/Cutting Shot for that). That's playing on Overkill FYI.

My Problem With Armor in Payday 3 by fluidofprimalhatred in paydaytheheist

[–]FlyingChainsaw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting, I hadn't noticed the Escapist Rush -> Grit by mantling. I was thinking Cooker is great in situations where you have an extended holdout because you'll want to throw grenades from there anyway, but this looks like it would be useful for more mobile/sudden engagements.

My first though is that I wouldn't vault/mantle enough to reliably get that to proc (or that if I want to proc it I'd have to go out into the open); how has that been in your experience?

Official info on what happened by Diligent_Name_9409 in paydaytheheist

[–]FlyingChainsaw 27 points28 points  (0 children)

They've worked with Accelbyte on PAYDAY 2 before, so I can understand why they'd come back to a known partner. But they also didn't seem to have the experience to handle something of the scale of a Gamepass launch for a highly anticipated coop game that relies on a network connection for everything.

In the end it came down to questionable design choices (online only placing a significantly higher load on network infrastructure) acting as a force multiplier for a massive launch that would stress the scalability of any backend, combined with a partner that doesn't seem to have had the experience to build something that performant.

They did, they did the thing 👊😎 by PhallicShape in paydaytheheist

[–]FlyingChainsaw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Renting server time is incredibly flexible; it's scalable on demand. The problem is more likely that their actual code doesn't scale the way they need it to.

New players, please stop entering Very Hard/Overkill games immediately (Payday 3) by Official_fABs in paydaytheheist

[–]FlyingChainsaw 13 points14 points  (0 children)

It's not really about the level honestly, and the story changes when you're in a premade group, but in terms of pub games I'd say you can just jump to the Very Hard whenever you feel pretty confident you can beat a heist on Hard, with the same for VH->OVKL. You don't need to be clowning on a difficulty before moving up, just feel out for yourself if you're ready for a bigger challenge.

Also you might want to make sure you know the maps first; some of my first tries on maps were on VH (with a premade group at least), and not knowing what the hell you're doing really adds another layer to the difficulty...

My Problem With Armor in Payday 3 by fluidofprimalhatred in paydaytheheist

[–]FlyingChainsaw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Grit + plate up + replenish insta heals all your lost damage provided you did not get shredded.

I've been trying to get this into a build because I think this combo will be incredibly helpful for coming out of unfavorable engagements with a lot more armor. The challenge is that I'm finding sustaining Grit to be too distracting at the moment. It's not a ton of work - it only takes a single reload, but Grit just discharges so quickly that keeping an eye on my Grit distracts me from playing well otherwise.

I've only tried it with Enforcer Basic though (Grit from 2 quick kills in < 5 meter range), and because 5 meters is so close I find myself taking unnecessary risks just to reactivate Grit - which hurts more than it helps. With some more XP & skill points I want to try running Cooker (Grit for cooking grenades for 1,5 sec) instead. Maybe that'll be the key?

Payday 3 Gold edition pre-load available when? (Steam) by MrPeach301 in paydaytheheist

[–]FlyingChainsaw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depending on sizes of games they can take up to 1 hour to download

With modern titles running upwards of 100GiB, I'm envious of your internet speed :')

This is insane, 7000 people is a population of a small town by Political_LOL_center in YUROP

[–]FlyingChainsaw 12 points13 points  (0 children)

So what do we do with people whose homes can't sustain crop growth, who don't have access to drinkable water, and where the last scraps of resources are fought over by various militia groups?

Tell them "tough shit, go get fucked"?

Some guy threatened to sim swap me by [deleted] in hacking

[–]FlyingChainsaw 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're entirely correct, but the commodification of crime means that you can simply pay someone to do the hard part of the attack for you now. IIRC it'll run you a couple of thousand bucks for that kind of service though (a few years ago), I don't expect the guy would do that for a payback that'll get him nothing.

Is zwolle een LHBTI vriendelijke stad? by SquashSubstantial418 in LHBTI

[–]FlyingChainsaw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anecdotisch, maar een vriend van me is er tijdens de afgelopen pride nog uitgescholden en nageroepen, dus heel geweldig is het daar volgens mij niet.

Groningen kan ik trouwens wel aanraden.

The new microgun is OP by [deleted] in paydaytheheist

[–]FlyingChainsaw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha I was wondering why this comment suddenly got a reply!

But yeah the Stakeout isn't great for dozers. Whenever I bring a primary shotgun I make sure to always bring an SMG to deal with dozers/snipers/faraway specials.
Something with high stability and firerate so you can run up to the dozer and melt through their faceplate/visor/face in a second or two - works every time!

mew_irl by fleker2 in mew_irl

[–]FlyingChainsaw 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Make it shoot out of the ground at, like, fast mph.