Why PAYDAY 3 Feels So Much Harder After Update 3.9
PAYDAY 3 really did get harder after Update 3.9, but not because Starbreeze simply dumped another van full of cops onto every heist. There are actually slightly fewer enemies now. The problem is that the ones still coming through the door are faster, better organised and accompanied by specials that have apparently decided your continued existence is optional.
Dozers take roughly 50% more punishment before their faceplate breaks. Naders can throw grenades every three seconds instead of every fifteen. Specials stick closer to assault groups. Police attack from more concentrated directions.
And then there are the Cloakers.
Players are reporting an absolutely stupid amount of them at the moment, but this is the one part we cannot neatly pin on the patch notes. Starbreeze never said Cloaker spawn rates were increased.
Something clearly feels different, but whether that's intentional, a side effect of the new enemy behaviour or PAYDAY 3 accidentally turning every ventilation shaft into a Cloaker maternity ward is still unknown.
Update 3.9 has made playing alone considerably less relaxing. See which PAYDAY 3 heists are actually worth tackling solo before a Dozer turns your evening into structural engineering.
Fewer cops somehow made the cops worse
This is probably my favourite part of the whole thing because it sounds completely backwards.
Update 3.9 slightly reduced the amount of enemies across every difficulty.
Good news, surely.
No.
Because Starbreeze also changed what those enemies are doing.
Squads now attack from more concentrated directions, most specials gravitate towards groups and normal cops and SWAT move slightly faster. So rather than having police scattered all over the place, occasionally appearing to conduct six separate investigations into the same robbery, more of the pressure now arrives together.
That changes a lot.
A Dozer by himself is a Dozer.
A Dozer arriving with SWAT, a Nader and whatever psychopath has just climbed through the ceiling is a situation.
And that's basically what Update 3.9 seems to have done. It hasn't necessarily given you more problems.
It introduced your problems to each other.
Dozers actually feel like Bulldozers again
The Dozer change is probably the easiest one to notice.
Their faceplate is roughly 50% tougher now. Starbreeze's own example puts the CAR-4 at around 22 shots before the update and roughly 33 afterwards.
Eleven extra bullets doesn't sound terrifying when you write it down like an accountant.
Unfortunately the Dozer isn't standing alone in an empty warehouse holding a clipboard while you calmly conduct ballistic testing.
You're in the middle of an assault.
Someone needs reviving. Your armor is disappearing. Police are coming through another door. Something has exploded. There's probably gas somewhere. Then the enormous angry fridge in front of you needs another magazine because his face has apparently been reinforced by whoever builds Belgian motorway bridges.
That's what makes the extra durability matter.
The Dozer occupies you for longer.
And while you're occupied, everything else gets more time to become a problem.
The new grouping behaviour makes that even worse because specials are more likely to arrive as part of the assault rather than wandering around independently doing their own little side quest.
You can absolutely still kill Dozers.
But ignoring one for a few seconds because you're dealing with something else has become much more expensive.
Which, frankly, is probably how a Bulldozer should work.
Someone gave the Nader unlimited enthusiasm
Then there's the Nader.
Before Update 3.9 his grenade cooldown was 15 seconds.
Now it's three.
Three seconds.
He also throws faster, has more health, got additional ammo protection and can use frag grenades.
At fifteen seconds, throwing a grenade is an ability.
At three seconds, it is a personality disorder.
And this is where all the enemy changes start feeding into one another.
Naders are fundamentally about controlling space. They make an area unpleasant enough that you have to move somewhere else.
Fine.
Except enemy squads are now pushing from more concentrated directions, specials are travelling with them more often and the rest of the police force is moving faster.
So the Nader doesn't necessarily need to kill you.
He just has to look at the bit of floor you were planning to use and declare it closed for renovations.
Move away from the grenade and you may expose yourself to the Dozer.
Stay where you are and you're now inhaling whatever Starbreeze has decided counts as crowd control.
Move somewhere else and congratulations, you've discovered the Cloaker.
This is why the difficulty increase feels bigger than individual balance numbers suggest. These enemies don't exist separately. Their jobs overlap.
Update 3.9 has made them better colleagues.
Terrible news for us.
If the police have suddenly become competent, you may as well rob somewhere worth the trauma. See how every PAYDAY 3 heist stacks up, from glorious criminal playgrounds to jobs we'd happily leave to someone else's crew.
The Cloakers are suspicious
The Cloaker situation is less straightforward.
Players are reporting a lot of them.
Multiple Cloakers appearing within short periods. Another one replacing the one that was just killed. Moments where it feels as though the entire criminal justice system has been retrained exclusively in running very quickly at your head.
That absolutely makes PAYDAY 3 feel harder.
But the official patch notes do not say Cloaker spawn frequency was increased.
What Starbreeze did confirm is that Cloakers who cannot reach you can now throw gas grenades.
Because apparently the man who already sprints across a room, launches himself through the air and rearranges your skeleton needed ranged capabilities.
Fine.
But that's separate from how often they're appearing.
So for now I'd be careful with this one.
There is enough player feedback to say Cloakers are contributing heavily to how brutal Update 3.9 feels.
There isn't enough evidence yet to say Starbreeze deliberately increased their spawn rate.
Maybe the new group behaviour is simply making them more noticeable. Maybe the way assaults work now means they're staying in your face more consistently. Maybe something genuinely is wrong.
Until Starbreeze comments or changes it, we don't know.
And I'd rather leave one question open than confidently invent the answer because several men on Reddit have spent the evening being kicked through furniture.
Overkill is where this all starts becoming horrible
The early complaints are especially noticeable around Very Hard and Overkill, which isn't surprising.
Those difficulties already give you less room to screw up.
Now imagine all of these changes happening together.
The Dozer takes longer to kill.
The Nader attacks your position every three seconds.
Police push together more aggressively.
Specials arrive with those groups.
Normal enemies move faster.
Snipers punish armor harder.
And somewhere, inevitably, you hear that noise.
This is why I don't think the useful lesson from Update 3.9 is simply “bring a better gun for Dozers.”
The bigger change is that special enemies now demand your attention much earlier.
Let one Dozer hang around while dealing with normal cops and you're creating tomorrow's problem today.
Ignore the Nader and eventually half the room becomes chemically unavailable.
Allow several specials to remain active at the same time and the situation can go bad absurdly quickly because their pressure overlaps.
That's where Update 3.9 feels different.
The specials are no longer colourful interruptions in the assault.
They are the assault.
What I wouldn't do yet is start rebuilding everything around whatever someone currently claims is the definitive post-3.9 Overkill meta.
The update has been out for two days.
Anyone declaring THE BEST BUILD AFTER UPDATE 3.9 at this point has performed the gaming equivalent of licking a battery and announcing themselves as an electrician.
Give that part a bit more time.
Still not finished robbing things? Excellent. Head into CRIMENET's Best Heist Games and find more places where careful planning eventually becomes four idiots shouting beside a getaway van.
So why does PAYDAY 3 feel harder after Update 3.9?
Because Starbreeze made the police better at applying pressure.
There are slightly fewer enemies, but they're faster, more coordinated and more likely to arrive with specials attached. Dozers keep you busy longer. Naders attack your positioning constantly. Snipers hit armor harder. Cloakers can throw gas when they can't reach you, while their current apparent population boom remains something we still need an answer for.
Individually, most of these changes are manageable.
Together, they mean one problem is much more likely to create another one.
And I think that's the real difference.
PAYDAY 3 didn't put more cops in the building.
It taught the existing ones to work together.
I'd honestly rather have the extra cops.
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