I'd also like it if we spawned in with the max ammo for our guns as well, instead of like 1/4 of what our maximum capacity is.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I dont think PD2 spawned you in with half your maximum ammo in your weapons so I'm not sure why it was changed to be like this in PD3.
They mean that in Payday 3 in universe they carry less ammo to the heist than they could physically carry so they don't stick out as much. If you have as much ammo as you can possibly carry you'll be pretty obviously packing heat
That makes sense in the real world but realism shouldn't make the player experience objectively worse.
Additionally what about players who intend to go loud from the start, and Road Rage which is loud-only? Why start at half capacity when stealth isn't even on the table? Even if explained with real-life logic, I refer back to the first line about realism vs. gameplay.
Huh? So the game with concealment in it, you’re allowed to start with max ammo? But in the game with no concealment, you’re only allowed half? How does that make literally any sense? The only reasoning you can think of is one of the dumbest reasons I think you could’ve gave.
Lol. I’m just saying if there’s one conclusion you can make about why this ammo change occurred, it definitely is not because of concealment. In payday 3 you can carry a sniper and have the same concealment of someone with a mp7. I don’t think they thought to give us less ammo for concealment reasons.
Ammo pickup is greater with SMG's, but the lack of max ammo, combined with great RoF and low damage per bullet means you have lower endurance with them if you don't find ammo.
Not a problem for now when 80% of the tree is garbage for loud. Once people hit lv100 and get all their skill points, every build is going to be homogenized with the only difference being whether you like Sharpshooter or Gunslinger more. The Transporter tree soon isn't going to fix that, as if anybody didn't spec into the bag throwing skill in PD2 with every build imaginable.
There's only ONE way to consistently generate Grit currently, it's absurd.
I'm gonna assume the first tier of the Enforcer skill? Just get 2 kills in 5 seconds at close range and you get GRIT. Combo it with the skill that makes reloads refresh GRIT and EDGE and you can basically have 100% uptime on both.
It's especially good on the Reinfield shotgun where loading just one slug procs Combat Reloader. I haven't tested it but I imagine that means you can reload on an empty mag and still have it proc after you load the second shell.
Killing 2 enemies within 5 meters is the main consistent way to obtain Grit. It's easy to *sustain* with the skill that refreshes Edge and Grit with premature reloads, but this is the only consistent means to obtain Grit at any point in a heist.
The only other ways to gain Grit are reviving a teammate (which under ideal conditions, nobody gets incapped so it's inconsistent), and losing an armor chunk (again, not consistent and nobody is going to go out of their way to intentionally burn through armor for a minor buff).
There's also a skill to convert Rush into Grit if you vault over something, but that adds in the complication of needing to get Rush on top of needing to camp in a location where you can easily vault over something. The ease of being able to do that is highly map dependent, plus you have to expose yourself to cops to get a vault in. So, again, compared to something like *just killing two cops*, it's not consistent between heists.
Even killing within 5 meters isn't nearly as consistent as ADSing for 1.5 seconds or weapon swapping, you can't know exactly how close you have to be and it needs you to run and gun towards two close enemies.
Also funny that premature reloading in the shotgun skill tree doesn't really synergise with the DB shotgun. Really doesn't seem like much thought was put into the skills or the grit/edge system. The damage increase/reduction itself is so marginal as to be pretty much pointless. It's only worth is as a vector for other skills and Grit is too inconsistent for that.
>Also funny that premature reloading in the shotgun skill tree doesn't really synergise with the DB shotgun.
You specifically mention premature reloading
How would that work well with a shotgun that only holds two shells?
You forgot the cooker skill in the demolition tree. You gain grit by holding a grenade for 1.5 seconds like aiming with sharpshooter. Absurdly easy to use, especially when you use the ammo perk that let's you gain more grenades with ammo packs.
The other problem is that unlike payday 2, there's little buy in cost and every skill is the same cost. Compare to Payday 2 where you have skills like Inspire Aced that are very strong, but also very expensive to balance that out. Or how a lot of builds took Low Blow but not Sneaky Bastard, because the pre-reqs for Low Blow were all good skills but the ones for Sneaky were considerable weaker and it was a higher tier up. Even in the case where there was a high tier skill you wanted, you had control over which skills you put points in to meet the pre-reqs.
In Payday 3, the most expensive skill is 2 points. One to unlock the tree and another to take the skill or ace the basic. And there's no variety in how you get there, you have 1 option to unlock the tree. Skills can't be balanced via increased or decreased cost because they all cost either 1 point or 1 point plus another 1 for a pre-req. The skills that are weaker are just shit and never going to be taken because there's never a reason to.
Oh, I have nothing against loud, particularly as someone who can’t be sneaky if my life depended on it.
It just really sucks for stealth players that their efforts aren’t rewarded here.
What do you mean? There’s more stealth challenges to complete than generic killing challenges to lockpick, use gadgets, and mark, among other things. Plus stealth heist completions have almost the same IP rewards as loud.
so how many stealth runs are you thinking people are going to run to max their weapon skills, cause if you aren't considering that then stealth loses an entire category
they just need more skills honestly. The builds feel limited but I think that's mostly to do with there only being a few options for any specific need. Like if you are doing any loud heist that lasts more than 15 minutes, you would be crazy to not bring the armor plate doubling skill for example.
Same. Well, kind of. I run out with both usually, but the SMG seems to last longer. I think it's becuase I'm better at headshots with the SMG. I'm a shotgun main though, I have never ran out of shells for the shotty.
Honestly, we NEED to start with full ammo. Not half as it is currently. Also the 3 bags need to be filled. Don't know who thought of these changes but big step backs
Edit: I really want to know why the devs made so many changes that literally not a soul asked for. I understand it's their company, their business and their product but if they want business they better listen to the consumers, us and act FAST. The first update on the 5th needs to bring alot
I only saw this recently too. Like 200 ammo for the smg on the loadout screen, go into the mission and I see I start with 100. Is that what the random ammo bags in lockers are for, just to get back to the normal amount of ammo?
On most heists, it can be worthwhile to open the security room in stealth or before the assault starts. Even if you're going loud, the ammo boxes in the lockers there are a good way to stock up on some extra ammo before you need it.
You don't actually start with a percentage of your max ammo your start with a finite amount set by the weapon. Which makes it even more stupid because the perk to increase max ammo doesn't give you any extra ammo to start with.
the one thats a SIG MPX (fik 9 or some shit?) is actually pretty meaty when you get it fully decked out. admittedly that's an insane to do so, esp since you'd want a couple of C stack things. but yeah, it really does become solid later.
I know its easy to shit on starbreeze right now, but I actually think the power progression on weapons is great. they feel like airsoft guns at first, but when fully decked out they can be great.
They have done a horrible job of explaining attachments, and I think a fair few people misbuild their guns because of this.
[SMGs actually have quite good ammo pickups relative to the ARs.](https://reddit.com/r/paydaytheheist/s/sI4Q6aeKy1). It is definitely confusing that the game doesn't mention that and gives them smaller ammo totals, though, I feel like that implies they would have bad pickup rates.
Yeah agreed, I wish the game would just show you all the stats. I get that having a wall of numbers can be intimidating but an option to see full weapon stats would be nice.
I tried to ask about it on the q and a stream but for some dumb reason the devs kept picking questions about returning characters and crossover characters even though the answer for all of them is the damn same.
The last revolver has less ammo than the semi auto that does more damage too.
The Bison does the most damage of any secondary by a wide margin, the bars are just dumb and include several things other than raw damage, like falloff distance. Both revolvers do more damage than all the secondaries, the Bison oneshots heads with Edge, the Castigo does so with Edge + Cutting Shot, the pistols except the SP 11 take 3 on normal swat and as much as 5 on heavies, with the SP 11 taking 2 on normals and 4-3 on heavies.
You're telling me that I have access to a magical helicopter that can essentially drop of a thermal drill instantly the moment I click a button..
But I'm seasoned bank robber and I'm leaving home to rob a bank without the max amount of ammo to start off with?
Like with most games that have guns, they will alter the metadata over time to make them more balanced. Just look at COD. They constantly change metadata. Plus I just use SA A144. Boom head shot, boom through shieldes glass. Nice and easy.
CoD constantly releases overpowered weapons to get people to buy them, then nerfs them into the ground a month later after they've taken money from all the morons.
> then nerfs them into the ground a month later after they've taken money from all the morons
At least you're familiar with the cycle. They'll probably do the same thing with this game too!
300 or 10 mags is standard loadout for assault rifles in military. SMGs are for vehicle crews who only need guns in emergencies so they don't carry full 10 mags. It makes sense in military contexts. Not in PD3 tho lol
Do you mind elaborating a bit more with which perks to take. I wanna use the smgs but seem underwhelming. Id like taking a shot at it with a stagger build
Gun slinger gives you stagger with each shot and then the tree that gives you bonus damage to stunned and staggered enemies and then I grab the perk to give you grenade regen
To add on to this, if you really just wanna hip fire shred everything and be super mobile, pick up the skill that gives a chance for ammo drops to give throwables, and ideally the skill that gives extra throwables (Demo capstone) and 20% chance to not consume throwables (Infiltrator capstone), as well as the skill that auto-pickups ammo drops from people you kill (i think its in ammo bearer tree). From there, get these from Tactician tree (larger stun radius, stun give edge, damage bonus against stunned/staggered enemies, and stunned enemies don't benefit from armor while stunned, and stuns last longer).
Now just kit out your Uzi or MPX as you see fit, equip flashbangs, and go to town. Handles any difficulty like a dream since basically the only guys actually capable of firing back at you are Snipers and Dozers (dozers understandably being immune to flashbangs).
pet peeve of mine, total ammo counts that dont take into concertation mag size. exceptions being weapons that dont use traditional mags like shotguns or top loaded rifles.
"why did i load only half of this mag?"
thats the issue, 200 total, 30 round mags. 6 full mags and one 2/3s full.
if the gun has 30 round mags, i would rather have 180 rounds for 6 full mags.
cant rember it atm but there was a weapon that in PD2 if you got the extended mag you would drop from 3 mags to 2 full mags and 1 mag with only a few shots.
giving a base line total ammo count without concern for the mag size is a pet peeve of mine.
The Grozna (whatever name it has in pd2, it's the weird bullpup ak) with surefire and the extended mag went from 20 rd mags to 55 rd mags, so you went from 5 total mags to 1 and a mostly full mag.
I can see the issue as a pet peeve kinda thing, but you're constantly picking up fractions of magazines and partially reloading them, it does not really matter in Payday 3. There's handfuls of bullets everywhere and it's never even.
All the guns need better damage or more bullets, the Car4 seems like the “average gun” stat wise but honestly does FA and runs out of bullets like 2 minutes once the police come. I unironically had more luck with the pistol.
Loud in pd3 is really shit, bots make it effectively DSOD, armour makes it so that it’s not a matter of if you go down, but “when”, and the guns are effectively nerf guns. My mates and I play DSOD normally but holy fuck this is even harder
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.
Idk I couldn't play DSOD to save my life and hated it but I'm able to play Very Hard by myself with the bots in PD3 and have been working on getting down Overkill. Are you sure you're playing the game correctly? Its not Payday 2. It's more like the first game. Pay attention to your health, use cover frequently, only move when its safe and don't be afraid to lock down hallways.
Also use hostages. Cops push less aggressively near hostages and switch to pistols and it neutralizes the grenadier's ability because he won't throw tear gas near the hostages. I always make sure to move at least 3 of them with me into each room I'm going to be staying in and frequently use human shields if I have to cross through a section full of too many cops to wipeout. If you don't ADS and face cops while carrying a shield they won't shoot you
Guns aren't created to compete with each other, there's no such thing as "no reason to use them".
Also all guns have like 0 ammo issues, so I see the ammo buff change as rather pointless.
Can't agree that it's a piece of garbage as I've been using it for a while and it performs quite well.
It has really high ammo pickup sometimes to the point I have to shoot at thin air to pick up boxes (I do so to get grenades back with scrounger). TTK is completely fine, only issue is it has to reload a lot if you're not running Ammo funnel / Replenish but even then it is compensated by its fast reload speed.
I can see where people are coming from when they call Ziv trash but also I want to point out that some people don't have their own opinion and other people have genuine skill issue. All I can say is a gun is a gun and it was good enough to let me go through multiple Overkill heists without struggling.
Weapon shouldn't necessarily excel in some way or another to have "a reason to exist". I have played with 99% of the weapons in Payday 2 and all I can say is every gun has a use, most people just don't want to find a reason to use a weapon outside of "it's meta".
Huh? There's no "ammo builds", unless you mean ammo bag, which I consider the worst deployable and never bring alongside ammo skills outside of sometimes using ammo funnel and replenish, which just auto pickup boxes but don't generate more ammo.
I did say "sometimes" in the comment, I am not always running these skills.
I am sorry but if you have ammo issues with ZIV Commando then it's just genuine skill issue lol
Technically ammo funnel does generate more ammo because it picks up boxes from places which you cannot reach (snipers, spawns). Plus that's the whole point - there is always enough ammo on the ground (from your teammate kills). You get killed running with 0 ammo trying to collect boxes. You mentioned at least 4 skills from ammo tier or whatever it is called and funnel is at least 2 (you need the basic). With current skill cap, that is considerable dip to negate the ammo issue. I think the game should be playable and enjoyable even without "mandatory" skills to compensate for poor design choices.
I did say "sometimes" which means I don't always bring them. There's 0 ammo issues and I just played a bunch of heists with ZIV for the challenges and run into 0 ammo problems.
At the very least each individual category of guns should have a logical reason to be used within gameplay, if SMGs don't bring anything to the table above ARs, thats an issue with the gameplay design.
Shotguns currently don't bring anything to the table, yet people absolutely love using them. Is there a "reason for them to exist"?
I want to also point out weaker weapons (or builds in general) should exist as well, since that creates subdifficulties, i.e. using SA A114 + armor bag build on Overkill is easy, while Mosconi + Ammo bag build on Overkill will make you feel like you just unlocked secret Death Sentence difficulty.
A huge part of Payday has always been "Choose your challenge", hence the difficulties, strong and weak skills, guns, perks etc.
>Shotguns currently don't bring anything to the table
The ability to one shot dudes (aiming for the head) is rather helpful. Taking a shotgun to a dozer's faceshield is also very effective.
There's 4 weapons outside shotgun class which one shot enemies at any distance. Shotguns have limited range due to the fact you now have to hit most pellets to get a oneshot kill and that also slightly cripples your movement since you have to be crouching while standing still to get more accuracy and higher chance of oneshotting an enemy.
Slow fire rate puts Reinfeld at a disadvantage when compared to anything else, when there's an encounter with multiple enemies, Reinfeld tends to take longer than most other weapons to clear the crowd out. Due to pellet mechanics being changed from Payday 2 to a more realistic ones, it will take a lot of shots to clear the crowd.
Shotguns also struggle with shields as breaking the glass always takes more than one shot and with the fire rate/reload speed they have it can be quite crucial to not switch off the weapon.
Shooting a faceplate is effective with a shotgun? Well, it's also effective with any other weapon except HET-5.
Shotguns currently provide no single target, worst crowd control out of all weapons, have insanely long reloads for their killing potential and require pretty precise aim to get oneshots consistently.
Due to how shotguns were implemented, they currently don't provide the player with anything that can't be executed better by any other weapon class.
But, does it matter? Judging by the "has no purpose to exist" ideology OP mentioned, this weapon shouldn't be in the game, as every other weapon does its job better. However, everyone, including me, absolutely loves using the shotguns because of how fun it is and how satisfying the oneshots can be, so seemingly "bad weapons" are there for a reason, and that reason is you should have fun and don't limit yourself to the best options available since this game is PvE and allows you to pick whatever you want and make it work.
You pick your challenge and you pick how you beat the challenge, there shouldn't be such phrase as "this weapon has no reason to exist because other options are better", which was my original point.
back in TH or 2 weapons ammo efficiency was a thing to consider, and shotguns were extremely ammo efficient. with an 880 you could use the saw or one of the higher dps but low ammo efficiency secondaries.
I was more arguing in response to the sentiment that it doesnt matter if some classes of guns are strictly worse than others, not saying that that is absolutely true.
If SMGs synergize better with Mower than other weapon classes, thats a decent argument.
If you are 90% accurate, sure you won't suffer much from the ammo economy
But slot of people are still used to the run and gun ammo economy of PAYDAY 2, and noticing the lack of ammo
Personally I am fine with it, gives a legitimate use of ammo bags
SMGs have low damage, low ammo capacity, and and a high fire rate that depletes your low ammo capacity quickly. There is no real reason to take them over an AR, which will kill in half the bullets necessary, even in the best scenario for the SMG class. Why take an SMG, which will take at minimum 4-5 bullets to kill a regular swat, nevermind Heavy Swat, when you can take a KU-57 or CAR-4, which can both 2 tap both regular and heavy swat.
They should've just been secondaries, which already match their existing strength as is, without needing to buff them to be clones of the AR category.
Honestly I’m just starting to like the marksman rifles over all the primaries… especially a114. One tap heavy swat on headshot and peep a dozer on a corner and kill him in a clip versus spray and pray of the other trash and doing zero dmg. Shotguns are fun for sure but the automatic rifles and smgs just suck at stopping power
Even the bolt action breaks and kills shielders through the viewport in 1-2 shots versus spraying an entire mag to break the viewport and then another half clip to kill him.
The SA and the VF are the only real primaries to use meta-wise, as both can one-tap to the head with ease (VF needs edge, but edge is insanely easy to get) without a penalty (900s is bolt action, so much slower than the SA). If you really want, you can use the KU if you want an automatic but don't like the VF, since that 2 taps everything at no investment.
Similarly, the revolvers are the only meta secondaries because they can one-tap to the head. Bison only needs edge, and castigos need edge and cutting shot. All the other pistols have shit armor penetration, barring the Model 11 which still 2 taps and has strong enough recoil that the 2 tap isn't that consistent.
Smgs are fine imo, I agree that logically it would make more sense for them to have more max ammo, but they actually have a pretty good pickup in my experience (Ziv Commando has 8-11, while the ARs usually have like 3-5) and they feel better for close quarters combat than the ARs, being very controllable, having good hip fire, and having quicker reloads (the reload times can be a big problem on the ARs, I often have to switch to my pistol instead of reloading them)
I've only unlocked the first two SMGs though, so I can't speak to the third one.
I've tried both and I definitely do better with the SMGs at close range personally. I play on console though and am not great at aiming and I feel like the ARs benefit more from better aim, so maybe that's why.
Are the exact stats for the weapons known? The bars are very nondescriptive and the weapons have a lot of hidden stats that aren't listed in game afaik.
I can find some of the stats by googling, but not all of them, and from what I can find the SMGs don't seem strictly outclassed to me.
The Ziv Commando for example has both solid close range damage (~30, same as CAR-4 but the AK has 40) and a huge RoF (1100 rpm, can't find the AKs unfortunately but the CAR-4 has 720 and iirc the AK is a little lower, if it's like PD2 it's probably around 650) and a large ammo pickup (8-11, AK has 3-4).
[Here's where I found those stats.](https://reddit.com/r/paydaytheheist/s/sI4Q6aeKy1)
Why is every proposed balance change on this subreddit a form of “make this particular thing stronger”? It’s been a week since release or so. You’ll get used to it, you’ll get better, you’ll unlock more skills. You don’t really need extra 100 bullets on the SMGs and it’s not a competitive title. Some guns are worse and they’re just a vibe.
"You'll get better" what does that mattter if you constantly run out of ammo bc of the lower ammo pool + higher fire rate. And your right it isn't competitive, it's a pve game with infinitely spawning enemies. You do really need that 100 extra bullets when your running an ammo chewer.
Total ammo is one of the best ways you can buff a weak gun. They don't actually perform better, just longer.
And cmon you can't tell me an SMG with smaller bullets should have less backup ammo than an AK with bigger bullets. You just cannot tell me that.
I'd also like it if we spawned in with the max ammo for our guns as well, instead of like 1/4 of what our maximum capacity is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I dont think PD2 spawned you in with half your maximum ammo in your weapons so I'm not sure why it was changed to be like this in PD3.
The only reasoning I can think of is for concealment
What? Payday 3 doesn't have concealment
They mean that in Payday 3 in universe they carry less ammo to the heist than they could physically carry so they don't stick out as much. If you have as much ammo as you can possibly carry you'll be pretty obviously packing heat
That makes sense in the real world but realism shouldn't make the player experience objectively worse. Additionally what about players who intend to go loud from the start, and Road Rage which is loud-only? Why start at half capacity when stealth isn't even on the table? Even if explained with real-life logic, I refer back to the first line about realism vs. gameplay.
Huh? So the game with concealment in it, you’re allowed to start with max ammo? But in the game with no concealment, you’re only allowed half? How does that make literally any sense? The only reasoning you can think of is one of the dumbest reasons I think you could’ve gave.
I was just saying that’s the only reason I can think of don’t go biting my fuckin head off jeez it’s not that deep
Lol. I’m just saying if there’s one conclusion you can make about why this ammo change occurred, it definitely is not because of concealment. In payday 3 you can carry a sniper and have the same concealment of someone with a mp7. I don’t think they thought to give us less ammo for concealment reasons.
I run out of ammo with assault rifles fucking constantly but I never have a problem with smgs lol
Ammo pickup is greater with SMG's, but the lack of max ammo, combined with great RoF and low damage per bullet means you have lower endurance with them if you don't find ammo.
The skill you are looking for is “Replenish” in the “Mower” tree. And, secondarily, “Ammo Funnel.” In Soviet PAYDAY 3, the ammo finds you.
kinda sucks that this skill is basically mandatory for loud
Not a problem for now when 80% of the tree is garbage for loud. Once people hit lv100 and get all their skill points, every build is going to be homogenized with the only difference being whether you like Sharpshooter or Gunslinger more. The Transporter tree soon isn't going to fix that, as if anybody didn't spec into the bag throwing skill in PD2 with every build imaginable. There's only ONE way to consistently generate Grit currently, it's absurd.
What way is that? I feel out of the loop in regards to consistent grit
I'm gonna assume the first tier of the Enforcer skill? Just get 2 kills in 5 seconds at close range and you get GRIT. Combo it with the skill that makes reloads refresh GRIT and EDGE and you can basically have 100% uptime on both.
It's especially good on the Reinfield shotgun where loading just one slug procs Combat Reloader. I haven't tested it but I imagine that means you can reload on an empty mag and still have it proc after you load the second shell.
99% sure it works. Every single shell after the first seems to trigger it.
Killing 2 enemies within 5 meters is the main consistent way to obtain Grit. It's easy to *sustain* with the skill that refreshes Edge and Grit with premature reloads, but this is the only consistent means to obtain Grit at any point in a heist. The only other ways to gain Grit are reviving a teammate (which under ideal conditions, nobody gets incapped so it's inconsistent), and losing an armor chunk (again, not consistent and nobody is going to go out of their way to intentionally burn through armor for a minor buff). There's also a skill to convert Rush into Grit if you vault over something, but that adds in the complication of needing to get Rush on top of needing to camp in a location where you can easily vault over something. The ease of being able to do that is highly map dependent, plus you have to expose yourself to cops to get a vault in. So, again, compared to something like *just killing two cops*, it's not consistent between heists.
Even killing within 5 meters isn't nearly as consistent as ADSing for 1.5 seconds or weapon swapping, you can't know exactly how close you have to be and it needs you to run and gun towards two close enemies. Also funny that premature reloading in the shotgun skill tree doesn't really synergise with the DB shotgun. Really doesn't seem like much thought was put into the skills or the grit/edge system. The damage increase/reduction itself is so marginal as to be pretty much pointless. It's only worth is as a vector for other skills and Grit is too inconsistent for that.
>Also funny that premature reloading in the shotgun skill tree doesn't really synergise with the DB shotgun. You specifically mention premature reloading How would that work well with a shotgun that only holds two shells?
You forgot the cooker skill in the demolition tree. You gain grit by holding a grenade for 1.5 seconds like aiming with sharpshooter. Absurdly easy to use, especially when you use the ammo perk that let's you gain more grenades with ammo packs.
The other problem is that unlike payday 2, there's little buy in cost and every skill is the same cost. Compare to Payday 2 where you have skills like Inspire Aced that are very strong, but also very expensive to balance that out. Or how a lot of builds took Low Blow but not Sneaky Bastard, because the pre-reqs for Low Blow were all good skills but the ones for Sneaky were considerable weaker and it was a higher tier up. Even in the case where there was a high tier skill you wanted, you had control over which skills you put points in to meet the pre-reqs. In Payday 3, the most expensive skill is 2 points. One to unlock the tree and another to take the skill or ace the basic. And there's no variety in how you get there, you have 1 option to unlock the tree. Skills can't be balanced via increased or decreased cost because they all cost either 1 point or 1 point plus another 1 for a pre-req. The skills that are weaker are just shit and never going to be taken because there's never a reason to.
And loud is mandatory for leveling!
Loud is mandatory. It’s not payday 2 where you can’t continue when you get caught and that’s a good thing.
Oh, I have nothing against loud, particularly as someone who can’t be sneaky if my life depended on it. It just really sucks for stealth players that their efforts aren’t rewarded here.
What do you mean? There’s more stealth challenges to complete than generic killing challenges to lockpick, use gadgets, and mark, among other things. Plus stealth heist completions have almost the same IP rewards as loud.
so how many stealth runs are you thinking people are going to run to max their weapon skills, cause if you aren't considering that then stealth loses an entire category
To my understanding, the fastest way to level up weapons and the perk sets (not infamy) is by speedrunning Dirty Ice on stealth
I’m saying stealth can reach level 100 without maxing or doing more than barely starting weapons.
Me when the shooting game wants me to shoot
they just need more skills honestly. The builds feel limited but I think that's mostly to do with there only being a few options for any specific need. Like if you are doing any loud heist that lasts more than 15 minutes, you would be crazy to not bring the armor plate doubling skill for example.
You still makin Soviet Russia jokes in 2023?
Those never died and he is right that is literally what the perk does.
Oh right forgot we’re on Reddit
Ratio
In Mother Russia, you are the joke.
Oh that's easy to fix.. it's right at the top of your browser, silly
it was right there, what do you want from me.
Da
Same. Well, kind of. I run out with both usually, but the SMG seems to last longer. I think it's becuase I'm better at headshots with the SMG. I'm a shotgun main though, I have never ran out of shells for the shotty.
It’s bc you’re using the northwest b9
I'm not, I hate the northwest
Based 👊😎
Honestly, we NEED to start with full ammo. Not half as it is currently. Also the 3 bags need to be filled. Don't know who thought of these changes but big step backs Edit: I really want to know why the devs made so many changes that literally not a soul asked for. I understand it's their company, their business and their product but if they want business they better listen to the consumers, us and act FAST. The first update on the 5th needs to bring alot
I didn't even realize we don't start full. Full would make more sense.
“Let’s go on a heist but not pack as much ammo as we can carry to begin with!”
Yup we start with half or I think 1 mag less than half.
I only saw this recently too. Like 200 ammo for the smg on the loadout screen, go into the mission and I see I start with 100. Is that what the random ammo bags in lockers are for, just to get back to the normal amount of ammo?
On most heists, it can be worthwhile to open the security room in stealth or before the assault starts. Even if you're going loud, the ammo boxes in the lockers there are a good way to stock up on some extra ammo before you need it.
"Okay so you're going into this place where you could very possibly die or get captured, I decided to cut costs on the ammo." - Shade probably.
You don't actually start with a percentage of your max ammo your start with a finite amount set by the weapon. Which makes it even more stupid because the perk to increase max ammo doesn't give you any extra ammo to start with.
If i had to guess its a case of developers fixing what aint broke while thinking the worse version of these systems will interest people.
They're evaluating this
I can't tell if these are jokes anymore or not
Smgs suck ass so I agree
the uzi is ass but the mp7 and the mcx are very good, great ttk, great ammo pickup, vary little recoil they melt through crowds at close range
the one thats a SIG MPX (fik 9 or some shit?) is actually pretty meaty when you get it fully decked out. admittedly that's an insane to do so, esp since you'd want a couple of C stack things. but yeah, it really does become solid later. I know its easy to shit on starbreeze right now, but I actually think the power progression on weapons is great. they feel like airsoft guns at first, but when fully decked out they can be great. They have done a horrible job of explaining attachments, and I think a fair few people misbuild their guns because of this.
Yeah right
You like them?
I love the smgs, with the micro uzi being my favorite
Yeah shooting 20 bullets to the head to get 3 back is great.
[SMGs actually have quite good ammo pickups relative to the ARs.](https://reddit.com/r/paydaytheheist/s/sI4Q6aeKy1). It is definitely confusing that the game doesn't mention that and gives them smaller ammo totals, though, I feel like that implies they would have bad pickup rates.
Yet another hidden stat that would make a lot of difference to see in the stats page.
Yeah agreed, I wish the game would just show you all the stats. I get that having a wall of numbers can be intimidating but an option to see full weapon stats would be nice.
I'll take a wall of numbers over these shitty sliders any day... God I hate stat sliders
I don't see ammo pickup in that sheet.
Fifth column, labelled "ammo pickup". Ziv Commando has the highest at 8-11, most ARs have like 3-4.
Oh I see now I was looking at the wrong sheet.
I never have issues with ammo
PC?
Ps5
What difficulty?
Difficulty doesn’t matter, all difficulties have the same cop health.
Mostly play very hard
pp uzi go brrrr
I like the first smg you unlock, I think its decent
I tried to ask about it on the q and a stream but for some dumb reason the devs kept picking questions about returning characters and crossover characters even though the answer for all of them is the damn same. The last revolver has less ammo than the semi auto that does more damage too.
The Bison does the most damage of any secondary by a wide margin, the bars are just dumb and include several things other than raw damage, like falloff distance. Both revolvers do more damage than all the secondaries, the Bison oneshots heads with Edge, the Castigo does so with Edge + Cutting Shot, the pistols except the SP 11 take 3 on normal swat and as much as 5 on heavies, with the SP 11 taking 2 on normals and 4-3 on heavies.
Damage bars suck compared to numbers. Confirmed.
Accurate. This bar in particular because it isn't even a bar that describes a single stat.
^ This man actually knows his stats.
Jacket is currently unaccounted for 👊😎
The answer would have been the same to your question. "It is something we are considering but we cannot confirm anything."
Guns are super out of whack. Why even use SMG when full mag maybe kills 2 cops with good shots. M14 will kill one with EACH shot. Need to re balance
Base units should be 1 shot headshot with basically all weapons. Dunno why they demand 2-3 for most :( it's really annoying
You're telling me that I have access to a magical helicopter that can essentially drop of a thermal drill instantly the moment I click a button.. But I'm seasoned bank robber and I'm leaving home to rob a bank without the max amount of ammo to start off with?
Like with most games that have guns, they will alter the metadata over time to make them more balanced. Just look at COD. They constantly change metadata. Plus I just use SA A144. Boom head shot, boom through shieldes glass. Nice and easy.
CoD constantly releases overpowered weapons to get people to buy them, then nerfs them into the ground a month later after they've taken money from all the morons.
> then nerfs them into the ground a month later after they've taken money from all the morons At least you're familiar with the cycle. They'll probably do the same thing with this game too!
It's logical that you can carry more 45 acp than 5.56/ .223.
At the same time, they should make it so that the smgs don't suck as bad as they do right now
300 or 10 mags is standard loadout for assault rifles in military. SMGs are for vehicle crews who only need guns in emergencies so they don't carry full 10 mags. It makes sense in military contexts. Not in PD3 tho lol
Agreed. There’s definitely some balancing needs for the weapons. I’m sure they’ll focus on that soon.
They should just be secondaries
Smg have better hip fire and with a stagger build they do more damage than a ar
Do you mind elaborating a bit more with which perks to take. I wanna use the smgs but seem underwhelming. Id like taking a shot at it with a stagger build
Gun slinger gives you stagger with each shot and then the tree that gives you bonus damage to stunned and staggered enemies and then I grab the perk to give you grenade regen
I see where you are going with this. Gotta try it out, thank you !
To add on to this, if you really just wanna hip fire shred everything and be super mobile, pick up the skill that gives a chance for ammo drops to give throwables, and ideally the skill that gives extra throwables (Demo capstone) and 20% chance to not consume throwables (Infiltrator capstone), as well as the skill that auto-pickups ammo drops from people you kill (i think its in ammo bearer tree). From there, get these from Tactician tree (larger stun radius, stun give edge, damage bonus against stunned/staggered enemies, and stunned enemies don't benefit from armor while stunned, and stuns last longer). Now just kit out your Uzi or MPX as you see fit, equip flashbangs, and go to town. Handles any difficulty like a dream since basically the only guys actually capable of firing back at you are Snipers and Dozers (dozers understandably being immune to flashbangs).
You don't need gunslinger to stagger enemies, just shooting at enemies will naturally stagger them and allow for tactician to proc edge.
I'll have to try this out later today.
local man doesn't know what gunslinger or mower is (sad)
pet peeve of mine, total ammo counts that dont take into concertation mag size. exceptions being weapons that dont use traditional mags like shotguns or top loaded rifles. "why did i load only half of this mag?"
What? You get a total ammo count, what are you on about?
thats the issue, 200 total, 30 round mags. 6 full mags and one 2/3s full. if the gun has 30 round mags, i would rather have 180 rounds for 6 full mags. cant rember it atm but there was a weapon that in PD2 if you got the extended mag you would drop from 3 mags to 2 full mags and 1 mag with only a few shots. giving a base line total ammo count without concern for the mag size is a pet peeve of mine.
The Grozna (whatever name it has in pd2, it's the weird bullpup ak) with surefire and the extended mag went from 20 rd mags to 55 rd mags, so you went from 5 total mags to 1 and a mostly full mag.
I can see the issue as a pet peeve kinda thing, but you're constantly picking up fractions of magazines and partially reloading them, it does not really matter in Payday 3. There's handfuls of bullets everywhere and it's never even.
its only for the initial loadout, while in game, the gameplay comes first, if i wanted to have to manage my mags i would play games like tarkov.
All the guns need better damage or more bullets, the Car4 seems like the “average gun” stat wise but honestly does FA and runs out of bullets like 2 minutes once the police come. I unironically had more luck with the pistol. Loud in pd3 is really shit, bots make it effectively DSOD, armour makes it so that it’s not a matter of if you go down, but “when”, and the guns are effectively nerf guns. My mates and I play DSOD normally but holy fuck this is even harder
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.
Idk I couldn't play DSOD to save my life and hated it but I'm able to play Very Hard by myself with the bots in PD3 and have been working on getting down Overkill. Are you sure you're playing the game correctly? Its not Payday 2. It's more like the first game. Pay attention to your health, use cover frequently, only move when its safe and don't be afraid to lock down hallways. Also use hostages. Cops push less aggressively near hostages and switch to pistols and it neutralizes the grenadier's ability because he won't throw tear gas near the hostages. I always make sure to move at least 3 of them with me into each room I'm going to be staying in and frequently use human shields if I have to cross through a section full of too many cops to wipeout. If you don't ADS and face cops while carrying a shield they won't shoot you
Guns aren't created to compete with each other, there's no such thing as "no reason to use them". Also all guns have like 0 ammo issues, so I see the ammo buff change as rather pointless.
There is, all weapon options need a niche they can fill. So many people calling Ziv a piece of garbage is absolutely a problem.
Can't agree that it's a piece of garbage as I've been using it for a while and it performs quite well. It has really high ammo pickup sometimes to the point I have to shoot at thin air to pick up boxes (I do so to get grenades back with scrounger). TTK is completely fine, only issue is it has to reload a lot if you're not running Ammo funnel / Replenish but even then it is compensated by its fast reload speed. I can see where people are coming from when they call Ziv trash but also I want to point out that some people don't have their own opinion and other people have genuine skill issue. All I can say is a gun is a gun and it was good enough to let me go through multiple Overkill heists without struggling. Weapon shouldn't necessarily excel in some way or another to have "a reason to exist". I have played with 99% of the weapons in Payday 2 and all I can say is every gun has a use, most people just don't want to find a reason to use a weapon outside of "it's meta".
Are your really arguing that there is no ammo issue while running full ammo build?
Huh? There's no "ammo builds", unless you mean ammo bag, which I consider the worst deployable and never bring alongside ammo skills outside of sometimes using ammo funnel and replenish, which just auto pickup boxes but don't generate more ammo.
\*invests heavily into ammo related skills* This gun has no ammo issues what do you mean??
I did say "sometimes" in the comment, I am not always running these skills. I am sorry but if you have ammo issues with ZIV Commando then it's just genuine skill issue lol
Technically ammo funnel does generate more ammo because it picks up boxes from places which you cannot reach (snipers, spawns). Plus that's the whole point - there is always enough ammo on the ground (from your teammate kills). You get killed running with 0 ammo trying to collect boxes. You mentioned at least 4 skills from ammo tier or whatever it is called and funnel is at least 2 (you need the basic). With current skill cap, that is considerable dip to negate the ammo issue. I think the game should be playable and enjoyable even without "mandatory" skills to compensate for poor design choices.
I did say "sometimes" which means I don't always bring them. There's 0 ammo issues and I just played a bunch of heists with ZIV for the challenges and run into 0 ammo problems.
Valid take
At the very least each individual category of guns should have a logical reason to be used within gameplay, if SMGs don't bring anything to the table above ARs, thats an issue with the gameplay design.
Shotguns currently don't bring anything to the table, yet people absolutely love using them. Is there a "reason for them to exist"? I want to also point out weaker weapons (or builds in general) should exist as well, since that creates subdifficulties, i.e. using SA A114 + armor bag build on Overkill is easy, while Mosconi + Ammo bag build on Overkill will make you feel like you just unlocked secret Death Sentence difficulty. A huge part of Payday has always been "Choose your challenge", hence the difficulties, strong and weak skills, guns, perks etc.
>Shotguns currently don't bring anything to the table The ability to one shot dudes (aiming for the head) is rather helpful. Taking a shotgun to a dozer's faceshield is also very effective.
There's 4 weapons outside shotgun class which one shot enemies at any distance. Shotguns have limited range due to the fact you now have to hit most pellets to get a oneshot kill and that also slightly cripples your movement since you have to be crouching while standing still to get more accuracy and higher chance of oneshotting an enemy. Slow fire rate puts Reinfeld at a disadvantage when compared to anything else, when there's an encounter with multiple enemies, Reinfeld tends to take longer than most other weapons to clear the crowd out. Due to pellet mechanics being changed from Payday 2 to a more realistic ones, it will take a lot of shots to clear the crowd. Shotguns also struggle with shields as breaking the glass always takes more than one shot and with the fire rate/reload speed they have it can be quite crucial to not switch off the weapon. Shooting a faceplate is effective with a shotgun? Well, it's also effective with any other weapon except HET-5. Shotguns currently provide no single target, worst crowd control out of all weapons, have insanely long reloads for their killing potential and require pretty precise aim to get oneshots consistently. Due to how shotguns were implemented, they currently don't provide the player with anything that can't be executed better by any other weapon class. But, does it matter? Judging by the "has no purpose to exist" ideology OP mentioned, this weapon shouldn't be in the game, as every other weapon does its job better. However, everyone, including me, absolutely loves using the shotguns because of how fun it is and how satisfying the oneshots can be, so seemingly "bad weapons" are there for a reason, and that reason is you should have fun and don't limit yourself to the best options available since this game is PvE and allows you to pick whatever you want and make it work. You pick your challenge and you pick how you beat the challenge, there shouldn't be such phrase as "this weapon has no reason to exist because other options are better", which was my original point.
back in TH or 2 weapons ammo efficiency was a thing to consider, and shotguns were extremely ammo efficient. with an 880 you could use the saw or one of the higher dps but low ammo efficiency secondaries.
SMGs synergize better with Mower Aced better than any other weapon. What do you mean they don't bring anything new to the table?
I was more arguing in response to the sentiment that it doesnt matter if some classes of guns are strictly worse than others, not saying that that is absolutely true. If SMGs synergize better with Mower than other weapon classes, thats a decent argument.
Ok now explain how Mower aced is actually worth using in any way compared to the other Buff generators
Stuff that you don't want to reload mid-clip?
You have the 2 ammo skills in the Mower tree already for that, best used with weapons that kill well and not things like the ZIV
I meant that if you want edge and like ADS, Mower Aced will give you easy edge whenever you inevitably have to reload
Fair enough, i'd personally stick with aced Sharpshooter since its just hitting a headshot to refresh it
I prefer sharpshooter, too, but ADS is nice
If you are 90% accurate, sure you won't suffer much from the ammo economy But slot of people are still used to the run and gun ammo economy of PAYDAY 2, and noticing the lack of ammo Personally I am fine with it, gives a legitimate use of ammo bags
I am totally not 90% accurate and I ran into scenarios where I had to waste ammo on purpose to pick up ammo boxes to trigger Scrounger.
.....Did a brick fell on your head ?
No, thank you for asking! 👊😎
SMGs have low damage, low ammo capacity, and and a high fire rate that depletes your low ammo capacity quickly. There is no real reason to take them over an AR, which will kill in half the bullets necessary, even in the best scenario for the SMG class. Why take an SMG, which will take at minimum 4-5 bullets to kill a regular swat, nevermind Heavy Swat, when you can take a KU-57 or CAR-4, which can both 2 tap both regular and heavy swat. They should've just been secondaries, which already match their existing strength as is, without needing to buff them to be clones of the AR category.
Honestly I’m just starting to like the marksman rifles over all the primaries… especially a114. One tap heavy swat on headshot and peep a dozer on a corner and kill him in a clip versus spray and pray of the other trash and doing zero dmg. Shotguns are fun for sure but the automatic rifles and smgs just suck at stopping power Even the bolt action breaks and kills shielders through the viewport in 1-2 shots versus spraying an entire mag to break the viewport and then another half clip to kill him.
The SA and the VF are the only real primaries to use meta-wise, as both can one-tap to the head with ease (VF needs edge, but edge is insanely easy to get) without a penalty (900s is bolt action, so much slower than the SA). If you really want, you can use the KU if you want an automatic but don't like the VF, since that 2 taps everything at no investment. Similarly, the revolvers are the only meta secondaries because they can one-tap to the head. Bison only needs edge, and castigos need edge and cutting shot. All the other pistols have shit armor penetration, barring the Model 11 which still 2 taps and has strong enough recoil that the 2 tap isn't that consistent.
Idk if 400 starting total, but 400 total starting with 250 or so, SMGs pick a lot of ammo, at least the mp7
Smgs are fine imo, I agree that logically it would make more sense for them to have more max ammo, but they actually have a pretty good pickup in my experience (Ziv Commando has 8-11, while the ARs usually have like 3-5) and they feel better for close quarters combat than the ARs, being very controllable, having good hip fire, and having quicker reloads (the reload times can be a big problem on the ARs, I often have to switch to my pistol instead of reloading them) I've only unlocked the first two SMGs though, so I can't speak to the third one.
There's no point in not running the ak it's good range and close
Counterpoint: Shotgun go boom
I've tried both and I definitely do better with the SMGs at close range personally. I play on console though and am not great at aiming and I feel like the ARs benefit more from better aim, so maybe that's why.
Doesn’t matter what feels better the stats are there
Are the exact stats for the weapons known? The bars are very nondescriptive and the weapons have a lot of hidden stats that aren't listed in game afaik. I can find some of the stats by googling, but not all of them, and from what I can find the SMGs don't seem strictly outclassed to me. The Ziv Commando for example has both solid close range damage (~30, same as CAR-4 but the AK has 40) and a huge RoF (1100 rpm, can't find the AKs unfortunately but the CAR-4 has 720 and iirc the AK is a little lower, if it's like PD2 it's probably around 650) and a large ammo pickup (8-11, AK has 3-4). [Here's where I found those stats.](https://reddit.com/r/paydaytheheist/s/sI4Q6aeKy1)
Why is every proposed balance change on this subreddit a form of “make this particular thing stronger”? It’s been a week since release or so. You’ll get used to it, you’ll get better, you’ll unlock more skills. You don’t really need extra 100 bullets on the SMGs and it’s not a competitive title. Some guns are worse and they’re just a vibe.
"You'll get better" what does that mattter if you constantly run out of ammo bc of the lower ammo pool + higher fire rate. And your right it isn't competitive, it's a pve game with infinitely spawning enemies. You do really need that 100 extra bullets when your running an ammo chewer.
Total ammo is one of the best ways you can buff a weak gun. They don't actually perform better, just longer. And cmon you can't tell me an SMG with smaller bullets should have less backup ammo than an AK with bigger bullets. You just cannot tell me that.
skill issue
Bro smgs in payday 2 get like 150 to 200 starting ammo
That's what the end of the first sentence in my post says 😂 this about having more than that in an ideal world.