As a result, the game has over 36,000 "Mixed" reviews on Steam, of which only 40% are favorable, and the player base appears to be a fraction of that of "Payday 2". With just under 30,000 playing "Payday 2" and 605 playing "Payday 3" at the time of this writing, Starbreeze is having problems with the game and seems to have been completely taken by surprise by the sheer negativity of the response. Some players who like "Payday 2" really like "Payday 2" and consider the sequel's problems almost insulting.
So what the plan is, remains to be seen, but the plan is definitely there, and according to Starbreeze,
"We are well aware that many of you are not happy with the current game," said Almir Listo (brand director and Community Lead) and the Payday 3 team in a new blog post. Since launch, we've been reading through your valuable feedback, which has been a huge help to us and essential to the continued development of Payday 3."
Listo says, "We have assembled a strike team of veteran developers in design, community, communications, and production who are focused on bringing 'Payday 3' to the point where it meets your expectations."
"This team is currently working on plans and determining what will shape the game into the heist experience you would expect from a "PAYDAY" sequel in the short and long term.
No doubt it would be hilarious for a heist game to gather a crew of old graybeards for One Last Job; what are the main complaints that Starbreeze is concerned about and intends to address?
"We are currently looking at two different categories of feedback. Our feature upvote page and feedback from the community on our social media channels and forums," said a Starbreeze representative. 'We'll be able to talk more about specific improvements when we release our roadmap in February. But in general, it comes down to server and matchmaking experience, user experience, and player requests for features and improvements.
"We won't be able to do everything at once, and it is essential to do a reality check on some feature requests. But with this initiative, we want to properly investigate what can be done, how, and when."
So while there is not a huge amount of detail, players will at least be satisfied with the broad areas of focus; Starbreeze has not mentioned a progression system, which has drawn enormous ire from the community. But if the studio is really listening, this little phrase "user experience" could be crucial to Payday 3's future prospects.
As for the veteran robbers assembled for the last gray-haired job, I asked who they were and where they came from.
"Over the fall and winter, we did an outside and after-action investigation and came to a clear understanding of what we needed to do, along with community sentiment," Starbreeze said. The staff included in the strike team was assembled based on these findings and includes a mix of "Payday 3/2" veterans and staff from other projects who offer expertise having worked on similarly situated games at other studios. "
According to Starbreeze, specific details will be announced around February "with more information about the upcoming improvements and when they will be seen in-game. Whether this will be enough to bring "Payday 3" out of its slightly depressed state remains to be seen, but it is at least thematically appropriate to bring old friends back together again.
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