Red Dead Redemption 2

You do indeed need PS Plus. I've played a bit of online myself and I've enjoyed it for the most part. It's VERY different from GTA Online, which I admire, really. I admire how the game keeps up the spirit of Red Dead, just... online. The game still feels lived in, open, and atmospheric.

That said, one thing I REALLY miss: the interactions from single player. I don't need the player to be voiced. I'd just love to be able to antagonize, defuse, etc. with NPCs.

One thing I really don't like, and a sentiment I've seen around: the economy feels broken. Very, very broken. It's only a beta so far and I'm really hoping they tweak things but stuff just feels WAY too expensive and the rate at which you get money encourages gold bar purchases way too much. I personally just don't have the drive (or time, for that matter) to grind for this stuff as much as I did in GTA Online. Hell, even Rockstar realized how broken GTA's economy was (albeit too late) when they just started giving away money like it was nothing. I'm cautiously optimistic considering it's a beta butttt I'm also worried because, well, it's Rockstar and GTA Online's economy sucked. Red Dead doesn't have as much to "worry" about, I suppose, what with the fact that it doesn't have insane supercars and mansions and such but the game's systems also have stamina and health cores and all that stuff that makes basic supplies necessary and even those are insanely expensive. Add stuff like the horse revivals and insanely expensive outfits and it just feels unbalanced. Especially consider you can just use gold bars to get around level requirements for horses/outfits/equipment. Again, I wanna hope for the best especially since it's a beta but just personal experience so far with Red Dead Online (which has admittedly been limited) has me worried.

That all said, just the... approach to Red Dead seems different from GTA—both online and off. Red Dead feels much more leisurely and that extends to the Online. So if the game is just kind of a glorified chatroom for me to hang out with friends, fuck around and hunt shit and do a mission every so often then maybe the broken economy won't annoy me too much.

I don't play online even close to as much as I used to even say like three months ago, but the free games and discounts on sales on the PSN Store make PS Plus almost worth it for me alone. The extra time when I finally am able to rustle up a few people to play an online game once every few weeks or so is just gravy, really. But that's just me, personally.

Also: I forgot one thing I absolutely detest about this game lol. Its tutorialization is HORRID. This game is so god-damned complex with so many systems and gameplay mechanics and its unintuitiveness goes way beyond just its control scheme or its plodding animations—which are things you can get used to.

I was just tooling around in the menu and JUST DISCOVERED NOW after like 30 hours that you can go into the compendium and if you've studied animals enough you can get very useful info like what kind of ammo to use when hunting them (or bait in the likes of fish) to result in the best skins. You even get stuff like locations of spawns—and even some hints at the location of legendary versions. When you sit down and really think about it it makes sense that that stuff is in there in the compendium kind of in the same way that, say, a treasure location or the location of the famous gunslingers shows up on your map once you've actually physically looked at the map. I get that. I'm not against not wanting to hold a player's hand. Make them work for it. I get it. But at least with map locations it becomes pretty obvious that you can physically look at a map and that location is then marked on the in-game map. Unless I just totally missed it it's never made clear that if you study animals you can go into the compendium and learn very useful stuff about them. You should read the compendium anyway because it's very well done but I shouldn't have to just stumble into a very useful and interesting mechanic that enriches the game.

On that train of thought: seriously holy fuck the bounty system is unclear. So are the stamina and health cores. That shit is explained so terribly. I shouldn't have to go watching like ten "tips and tricks" videos on Youtube to be able to understand what ought to be some very basic core things about this game. It's funny for a game with so much polish when it comes to an immersive, lived in world—even for things like pretty good and diverse representation, very strong voice performances, and story, and even to the technical level, they really did not polish up the on-boarding of players whatsoever. This game is already uninviting enough to a subset of players just because of the animations, the control scheme, the plodding nature, arguably the setting, and so on. To then just not explain large swaths of the game's mechanics or systems well is insane.

yeah I can't justify spending the money on a PSPlus sub since RDR2 online is literally the only thing I would use it for. I buy like one game a year, so discounts/freebies don't mean much to me (especially if I can't access the freebies any more once I let the sub lapse).

I sure ain't paying a premium price to play an online mode that seems to be just a grind specifically designed to infuriate me into spending more money to speed up progression.

I looked at a couple of RDR2 online videos...the prices of all guns (and each upgrade you can buy for them), food items and ammo seems to be about 4 TIMES the price of the identical items in single player. Your cores drain at least twice as fast, and completing missions pays out a few pitiful dollars. I'm hearing stories that you are basically spending everything you earn just to buy enough food to live and ammo to keep playing, unless you want to repetitively grind hunting/fishing activities. Even the most lucrative of these activities will net you around $200 per hour of grinding, and the Lancaster Repeater costs close to $800 (and is gated behind level progression).

Ridiculous doesn't even begin to describe it.

Add me to the list of people that didn't realize you needed PS Plus to play online 😬

I thought online play was free just like it was with PS3.

Oh well.  Maybe in the future but definitely not until I finish the story and not until invite only servers.  


So last night I did something for the first time in single player - I robbed a train.    

Possible spoilers but probably not for most people past Chapter 2:

Wow, I hadn't thought of doing that. I could see how useful that would be!

Would be funny to watch the NPC's doing their little "circle around until they can pass through" dance while I rob the train in front of them.  The bounty wouldn't rise that much since I wouldn't have to take them out til the end. And I doubt it would end up anywhere close to $300 like it did last time. 

I've heard that you get tons more money after Chapter 2 and I'm not really hurting that much for it but I just wanted to see how the scenario played out. It was pretty fun overall. But mostly, it just led me to where I'm at on the map now so I'm glad that I gave it a shot. 

Oh wow, I didn't even realize you were playing this too! 😀

I explored that burned town but didn't see that gold bar. I'll have to return when I'm back in that area. 

I'm really happy with the clothes I found early on too but I'll probably get some more down the line when I have more money.  I just want to put more into the camp's ledger so I can unlock the leather working tools and some of the other upgrades. It seems like the story missions provide plenty after the point that I am at.

I was expecting the train robbery to initially pay out a ton due to the eventual bounty offsetting the gains.  It seems like the highest pay is after using dynamite but that just increases your bounty even more. I read somewhere that freight trains have more valuables but I haven't seen any of those yet, just passenger trains. 

Approximately where was the puzzle in the mountains?

yeah Robbing trains to make money isn't really necessary. the only reasons I can see to do it is to intentionally lower your honor, or to try and find a couple of the rarer jewelry pieces you need for crafting talismans, which only seem to drop off of rich ladies (and it's not advisable to start holding up rich ladies on the streets of St Denis).

The game seems to be balanced so that you'll get enough money just from doing story missions to afford all the clothing/tonics/weapons you'll ever need....so people who don't engage in the side activities can still finish the game. Of course this means if you DO engage in those activities you end up with tons of money you'll never be able to spend anyways. The economy of the first RDR was much the same.

For example, there's a single mission about 2/3 of the way thru Chapter 3 that nets you up to $2500. That's enough to buy every single camp upgrade if you've been ignoring them up to that point in the story, and more than enough to buy every gun in the gunsmith. Personally, I spent tons of money on clothing pieces and spent hours fashioning my own cool outfits and switching them up often. A shame you can only save up to 4 custom outfits. I understand only being able to carry a limited number on your horse, but why can't you have like 50 custom outfits saved if you want?

and yeah Spunk, the lack of poker in RDR2 Online is a deal breaker for me.