Payday 3‘s Infamy progress can already be slow, but challenges not working at the end of a heist can make the grind to raise your account level even slower. And odds are, the issue is likely not your fault.
Challenges are the only way to progress your Infamy in Payday 3. Regardless of how well you run the heist, you won’t raise your account level at all if you don’t complete any of them. To Starbreeze’s credit, there are over 1,000 challenges in the game (over 600 dedicated to heists and another 400 more exclusive to combat), but you could still finish a heist without crossing out a single challenge from that list.
Finishing a heist without any challenges will still give you weapon and skill XP, but you’ll be locked out of progressing your account to unlock weapons, masks, and more. Sometimes, this may be intended (there’s only so much Dirty Ice you can farm before you run out of challenges), but the fault may lie on the servers. Here’s why your challenges may not be working and an official suggestion on how to fix that.
Why are challenges not working in Payday 3?
Challenges that don’t complete aren’t necessarily due to something on your end. Payday 3‘s servers have been under considerable strain since launch and some remnants of this may still affect server connections.
“I believe we’re having a bunch of issues tied to challenges not progressing due to the current backend issues,” lead producer Andreas Häll Penninger said on an update stream on Sept. 27. “I also know that sometimes it’s delayed, so it can take a little bit of time for your to see your progress.”
Connection issues may also cause challenge rewards and completions to be delayed. In that case, Penninger has a potential solution: Restarting the game might fix the issue. This seems to be a way to force the game to fetch the latest data, including any challenges the game may not have tracked.
The developers are “definitely working on resolving this as soon as possible,” Penninger said on the broadcast. Payday 3’s first patch is scheduled for Oct. 5 and it will fix over 200 bugs, though it’s unclear if this specific issue is among the list. With more patches lined up for October and the matchmaking issues dying down, however, the bug may end up disappearing on its own.
Fixing the challenges not working is the first step in the batch of changes coming down the road. Developer Starbreeze aims to work on communicating and presenting the challenges, giving time for players and developers to settle on a verdict on the system. If the challenge structure still needs improvements, the team may consider adding different ways of obtaining Infamy. Stealth-oriented players may also find more objectives for them in the future, though they’ll still have to complete loud heists to advance their account level.
