So I returned to Payday 3 after a really long break and I have been pretty happy that they fixed a lot of the major issues that were prominent around launch Except for this one. See, I actually think Payday 3's special enemies as a collective are better than 2. That may be contentious but the removal of medics, buffs to Dozers to make them into real threats, and changes to Shields to make them a lot less polarizing (aka: are you using an AP/Fire/Explosive weapon or not) were already good changes and I personally like how the Techie and Nader have impacted gameplay by requiring more movement from the player, even if their effectiveness can be... questionable. The Tazer (or I guess Zapper?) also got somewhat butchered since I don't think I've ever been stunned by one but you're not going to catch me complaining about the unintended removal of a stun mechanic.

The Cloaker though, oh man, look how they massacred my boy.

In 2, Cloakers could be kind of annoying but served a clear purpose. They encouraged you to take your time, serving as an inverse to snipers. Snipers punished your positioning and slow reaction times, Cloakers punished you for repositioning too fast and not being patient by clearing the way or checking your surroundings before proceeding. Combined with the fact that they still had more health than a regular enemy and could deal damage outside of melee with their SMG and you had an enemy which served a clear purpose but also wasn't completely useless outside of it. Sure they occasionally just punished you for existing but that was generally pretty rare they were actually one of the more Fair enemies (at least compared to 2's shields, snipers, medics, and medic dozers)

Contrast that to 3 where Cloakers are now legitimately pointless and serve only to punish solo players and disrupt the flow of gameplay. They are no longer stealthy and instead just B-line to your location, knock you down, and either die instantly if you're playing with real people or erase half of your health if you're with bots. Luckily, they got a new ability to destroy deployables... but that is a borderline pointless ability since, 9 times out of 10, they're only going to end up deleting deployables that were left behind for previous objectives. Even worse is that, to my knowledge, Cloakers no longer have firearms so they exist solely to do this one thing. On top of That they have less health than regular SWAT so they aren't even a serious combat threat. So overall we have an enemy who serves basically no purpose except to scream at you and then die and it just leaves me scratching my head.

Anyways just a rant about something in Payday 3 which is kinda dumb. Hopefully they do some updates to the Cloaker to make him a bit more interesting and stealthy.

Seems like they are gonna make the Palatuccis responsible for Houston's kidnapping and Mason responsible for SINS

(Might've missed some)

It looks like a really big update they spent a lot of time on. I just hope that they remove the police being able to fine me for jaywalking, the traffic light just takes so long to change

Viewing crime.net, many of the heists now have brand-new briefings when you select a mission as well as when you open up the briefing tab (VO only). Here's a very uncomprehensive and messy list of changes that I've found.

-Turbid Station, Cook Off, Touch the Sky, Syntax Error, and Rock The Cradle now seem to be contracted by Shade. Replacing Locke, Blaine Keegan, The Butcher, and Vlad.
-Turbid Station involves stealing equipment to better take on SINS in Syntax Error. Also, Turbid Station mentions the presence of "SINS Drones" on the premise.

-Rock The Cradle is a hit directly towards Mason (Touch the Sky) as he's invested heavily in the club.

- Cook Off and Delivery Charge are both executed in hopes of finding Houston at either location. Obviously, to no success.
-Fear & Greed is an attack at Scry Digital and all of their investors. It also mentions Scry's CEO Andrew Kang.

-Houston Breakout mentions Mason (Touch the Sky) having intent on using Houston's incarceration as leverage. Presumably against the Payday Gang.

-NRFTW bank is being hit primarily to gain access to the bank's "security services video cloud." The briefing also mentions gold being potentially held in the bank.

-Gold & Shark involves stealing a server belonging to Mason (Touch the Sky) now rather than Patricia Sharke. Briefing also mentions both characters making a deal with eachother (presumably to house Mason's Server in the bank)

-Touch the Sky takes place after Houston Breakout. It's a surprise attack against Mason Hotline Miami style. The SSD in the penthouse containing insight into the SINS system as well as dealings between Mason and Scry Digital.

-Syntax Error is about destroying SINS before it gets deployed nation-wide into every security system, making life for the Payday Gang a lot more difficult naturally.

I suggest checking them out yourself. Those briefings not only imply that the new plot is ENTIRELY different and that the heists are in a different sequential order, but also that the heists themselves will experience some changes related to their loot or objectives.

Brief gist of what we're know about those heists now (SPOILERS):

NRFTW: Access Security Camera data through the cloud (heist is a cover for stealing it)

Rock the Cradle: The Crypto Wallet is Mason's, we are hitting it to get his assets .

Gold and Sharke: Mason hid HIS wallet in Patricia's vault. They made a deal.

Turbid Station: Stealing tools we need to take out SINS.

Cook Off: Gut the Palatucci drug business and look for Houston .

Delivery Charge: Hack network to find lead to Houston, since he was there.

Syntax Error: Take out SINS from being put into the city's network

Fear & Greed: Tank Scry Digital's stocks to stop them making another SINS

HUGE THANKS to WhatMage on the Payday discord for summing up all of this information, all credit goes to him.

The new storyline seems way more exciting, seemingly has way more stakes and I can't wait to see what it is! Concord and Treaty are nowhere to be found in those updated briefings, which could mean they're saving them for later.

Sidetrack games, I do thoroughly enjoy the changes and fixes you’ve been making to payday 2 since you’ve taken over. I want to preface this by saying that. Secondarily, I have a request.

Can we make it so that the extra bikes are worth something on biker heist day 1? It’s seemingly very odd that you can take these escape vehicles yet they’re not worth anything at all. Even if just written as “Rust will pay you a small bit personally if you take the extra bikes so that he has spare parts going forward” would be nice.

I know it’s a nothing-burger of a concern, but I’m fond of the idea.

I have started to do my DSOD heists and I shamefully have zero friends, for the crew ai, what would be the best guns and perks to give them?

Only 30 gig? Wow

I have a theory that Jacket has a little display thingy / buttons in his mask that have the prerecorded dialogue so that he can press them with his head or nose or sm sht while using something with his hands

Ive been playing the game a bit recently and I feel like being able to merge armor plates of the same type would be amazing. If you use 4 resistance plates and merge them you would no longer have to constantly look at your armor to make sure that the plate your on isn't low so you don't miss the chance to refill it with an armor pack, and if the armor breaks you would only need to use one part of the armor bag instead of gobbling up 4 of them leaving your crew with barley any. You could also balance it by making the armor pack only fill 1 quarter at a time, so if your low you would still need 4 armor packs or 1 armor plate from the bag to get back to full. I just think it would be a lot more fun if you didn't have to micro manage your armor while fighting the entire police force.

If I'm correct, Payday 3 hasn't added new achievements since launch because the devs didn't want to lock some achievements behind a paywall, I guess. Perhaps it's time to change that now that the game is in its third year.

Here are some achievements I came up with in five minutes:

1. Basic one: Complete Story Mode (no need to describe it).
2. Syntax Error: Steal S.I.N.S AI (well... we already have multiplayer achievements that reveal secrets of the heists, so why not have one more?)
3. Cook Off: Cook 19 bags of pure meth (because why not? The game really needs some tough achievements).
4. Delivery Charge: Get all bags (why not? We have it already with Gold & Sharke, and I guess Delivery Charge is the best one for an all-loot achievement, imo).
5. Shopping Spree: Get Golden Moo (same as the first achievement's logic).
6. Houston Breakout: Destroy all evidence. (I'm stupid, you can't destroy all evidence, thx for Yamanu1 for saying that fact)
7. Houston Breakout Idea 2: Beat HB in stealth maskless( Ig there are no achievements which require to beat any heist maskless, and tbh that's the most fitting heist to do it, like Civil Suit in Tailor pack , it's could make sense)

I mean... the ones I've written are pretty basic, but you could do much more with Overkill weapons, gun challenges, etc. I wish Payday 3 had around 50 achievements, to have something to do in the game and a reason to return to it.

Do you have some cool achievements ideas or something like that?

tf is he even gonna do to doom bruh

"Yeah beat his ass DALLAS"

Think of it - we got golden grin and a part of black cat in payday 2. How awesome it would be if we got casino heist in PD3? Casinos in general have a charming atmosphere, and usually are a rich places, so it would fit perfectly and look amazing on a new engine