Payday 3 Suggestion: Actually Using Drills in Gameplay

So, currently drills present a big problem. Effectively, drills are the designer's way of saying to the player "stop and defend this point." That would be fine, but they no longer get used as such, they're now more of a roadblock to prevent progress happening too quickly.

A good example of how drills should be used is in the standard Bank Heist. It isn't so much of a roadblock, but as a challenge for the team to participate in. An area must be defended, so players must move hostages, keep tabs on the drill and make sure their escapes are covered, all while fending off the cops. of course, this does tend to fall apart with the new Rambo-style gameplay where one-shotting cops is the norm, but at launch the now somewhat-lacklustre Bank Heist was the bomb.

However, Bank Heist has always had one gigantic flaw, as do most heists in Payday 2: Drills are NOT fun in stealth. Bank Heist is a particular offender of this, having players wait a damn long time with nothing to do but AFK, teabag civilians or maybe shoot all the plant pots on the map. However, this doesn't have to be a problem. There is a solution to having drills be a challenging easy-to-learn, hard-to-master style addition to gameplay which fits well into teamplay and allows for the defend this position style mechanic they were designed to be. The answer is to make the drills into a form of mini-game.

Think of reloading in Gears of war, how the mechanic has it's own mini-game of it's own, making use of the player's skill and ability to time their reload perfectly gives them a small bonus. I suggest that the drilling be made it's own form of small mechanic, maybe having to hold the drill in to the lock but having to do it in bits to prevent it from overheating, similar to [GTA Online's Fleeca Job Drill] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czh0AQB9qwc&ab_channel=xExoticGaming-GTA5CONTENT) . Adding something of this variety would make the drills more of a skill based mechanic, as apposed to standing next to it and clicking on cop's heads.

Mechanics such as this could also be transferred over to other in-game roadblocks, such as hacking computers. A good example of this is in the Fallout series, where a Hacking mini-game is present. However, this exact method wouldn't work in Payday's fast-paced environment without some adjustments.

If you're still reading then I applaud you. TL;DR Drills use a form of mini-games for drilling so as to make it more skill based as apposed to waiting next to it for 3 minutes.