Role discussion/review: The Bounty Hunter

As I said last time, probably the only RDR posts I'll still make in the near term (all bets somewhat off when the new update comes out) are a discussion and review of the various roles to undergo in Frontier Pursuits and beyond for Online.  Today, let's talk about the Bounty Hunter. This was the one I was the most excited about, the first one I unlocked, but the last one that I finished. In part, this is because this is just a slower playing role than most of the others, but in part, it's also because it's kind of grindy, and I got tired of messing with it for a while.

The strange and creepily marked grave in the hills just west of Fort Riggs. 

The gist of the role is simple, of course. You get (for 15 gold normally, although there have been plenty of discounts over the short time I've been playing Online) a bounty hunter license, which allows you to hunt bounties by taking a poster off the bounty board at any sheriff's office and many of the train stations throughout the map. I couldn't find a handy list online, and I didn't want to take the effort to make my own, but every town and city has one, as well as various rural depots like Wallace Station, Riggs Station, Benedict Point, etc. No matter where you are, you probably can find a bounty board that's not too far away. The Rhodes bounty board is considered the iconic one; it used to be that you had to go there to start the role, although I'm not sure if that's still true or not.

Each bounty board will have three posters on it, usually ranked in terms of difficulty as $, $$ or $$$, and you can also click a button to get the legendary bounties, which you can pick up at any board. The other posters will vary from board to board, but there aren't really as many bounties as you think; most of them end up repeating after a while. Not counting the legendary bounties, bounty missions tend to follow a few patterns:

• Go find the bounty; you'll have a flashing on and off red skull that represents the target, and he'll be moving across the map and need to be chased down. He'll usually be on a wagon or stagecoach or something, and be surrounded by a gang of bad guys that need to be killed along with him. Be careful not to kill the target himself while in a firefight with all of these bad guys. While you can bring them in dead, the payout is less.
• Go to the camp. Here, the bounty will be in a hideout or camp with other gang members. They're usually easier to find in this scenario, but your ability to nab the target and run away with him without killing all of the rest of the gang is more limited. Sometimes the target isn't in the camp yet and you'll have to hide and wait for him to arrive within a minute or two, but sometimes he's there in the middle of the camp.
• Go to the area where the bounty is and follow a series of clues to find exactly within the area where he is. This one has the time consuming but interesting clue following, which is kind of like a more complicated version of hunting legendary animals in single player, and the trade-off is that the bounty is almost always alone rather than with a gang.
• Occasionally I've seen some other scenarios; like one where you had to go to Braithwaite Manor or somewhere nearby and cause enough of a ruckus that the target comes out to deal with you.
• Some bounties have multiple targets, but I usually avoid these, as bringing in multiple targets while playing solo is fairly difficult. I've done it once or twice, but found the prospect mostly just frustrating and irritating.

Bounty targets have different personalities. Some will fight with their gang, but most seem to be runners, so be careful getting too involved in fighting the gang. It does need to be done, but if in doing so you let the bounty get a major head start on running away from you, you will be tasked with a frustrating job of running him down, and he may well escape and you'll fail the mission.

One of the bounty hunter outfits, while standing near my tent. Which is using the bounty hunter camp theme. Aw, isn't my dog cute! While I could of course buy one of the sombrero options for hats, I don't love most of them, and this one has a sombrero look to it that I prefer for a more Southwestern flair to my outfit. I'm also using the bounty hunter gun belt, if you zoom in to see it. I have it in three color varieties, but there are more.

Then there's legendary bounties, which have cut scenes and instant travel to the location (or nearby anyway) and which play out more like a story mission in many ways. You still have to deal with a really big gang, usually, and often runners, which is frustrating, but there are a lot of different types of legendary bounty missions. One of them has you being poisoned or drugged and having hallucinations, one of them has the target come out after his gang has been slaughtered with a hostage and you have to use the quick draw mechanics from single player, one of them has a gang that is nothing but a large pack of wolves, etc. Once you defeat a legendary bounty, you can do it again, but the difficulty is increased; it goes all the way up from one star to five star. I haven't tried to repeat a five star mission; in fact, I haven't actually even played all of the legendary bounties at all (although I've taken some up to five star) so I still have bounty hunter play left that I can do even though I've maxed out the role and usually don't do much with it any more.

Much of the reason for this is that the payouts for bounty hunting are not very good compared to other things you can spend your time on, so you really only do it to max out the role or because you really enjoy doing it. Most bounties pay considerably less than $50, and the XP for doing them is such that you'll usually need to do between three and five of them to hit the next rank in your bounty hunter role. On the other hand, it's the only role that also pays in gold. If you wait out your timer to max out your payout (a dumb mechanic, but it is what it is. I spent lots of time just standing around right next to the sheriff's office or the bounty wagon holding a cursing target waiting for the timer to drop to 30 seconds) you can get almost a third of a gold bar. While that's pretty cool, especially if for some reason you really want to up your gold count, because once you have a streak of doing daily challenges give you a half gold bar for each challenge issued, honestly, the bounty hunter payout is not the best way to get gold either. Nobody is getting rich doing bounties, which means that if you're deliberately trying to earn money, XP or gold, you've got much better options for all three. The best reason to play bounties is just because you feel in the mood to go shoot up some bad guys, lasso a struggling miscreant, and run him to the nearest sheriff where you can throw him down and have that satisfying vigilante feeling going on.

Another bounty hunter role outfit, in an alternate color. While this is the simplest and lowest level unlock, it may actually be the best looking of the four.

What role specific stuff does the bounty hunter give you? Like all roles, the twenty levels are divided up into four tiers of five levels each. Along the top, you have your level specific unlocks, while along the bottom are unlocks that are mostly associated with the entire tier. You have to spend tokens, which you get while leveling up, to unlock these, and you can do so at any time after you move into that tier or beyond. I'm going to list out all of the rewards by level and by tier in annotated format, discussing their merits or lack thereof as I go through them.

While I didn't count specifically, I do note that after maxing out all four roles, I unlocked everything that needed to be unlocked with tokens and spent every token that I have. I presume that each role individually can do that as well, so you get exactly as many tokens as you need over the course of the role progression to unlock everything that needs to be unlocked with tokens.

Tier 1: Novice

Level 1: Two role unlock tokens

Level 2: Two role unlock tokens

Level 3: The "focus" skill which causes bounty targets to glow red in Eagle Eye.  Plus, two role unlock tokens.

Level 4: Bounty hunter events invite (I don't actually recall and didn't notice what this actually does, but whatever it is, it's automatic) plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 5: The Reverse Spin pistol trick, a kind of emote if you will, but activated differently, plus two role unlock tokens

Tier 1 Unlocks: These require you to spend your role unlock tokens to unlock, and then usually quite a bit of money or gold to actually buy after that. Some of them are totally worth it. Others... not so much. 

• Viper buckle (4 gold) This is actually the only of the role buckles that I've bought, and I use it for all of my outfits, pretty much.
• Schofield revolver variant skin ($600) This is just a cosmetic reskin of the revolver. I think I bought and installed this, but now I use exclusively Navy revolvers anyway. Oh, well. The Schofield is certainly the other top tier revolver if you don't use Navies.
• Breton horse - sorrel and roan coats. ($150) Given that these two colors are the lowest of three tiers of horse quality, this is kind of a waste. I doubt anyone ever bought these unless they just really loved the color, and actually these two colors are extremely plain anyway.
• Delgado saddle ($525) This is the first expensive saddle I bought. As I've discussed, I actually have "retired" all of my role saddles from use and only use Nacogdoches saddles now, which is kind of a shame given how much I spent on them. This one is quite attractive, though.
• Wakeenay outfit ($250 each color variant) The lowest tier bounty hunter outfit, but in my opinion, probably the best looking one if you're actually going to wear the role outfits. And if you don't, the hat is a really good looking one two. I have this in (so far, at least) three of the half dozen or so color variants. My daughter also uses this as one of her basic outfits for her character when she plays.
• Guerrero gun belt ($125 each color variant) One of my favorite gun belts too, although honestly, the brass snake icon is a little garish sometimes. It also comes in different colors of leather and metal, though--I have not only the brass on black, but a red on black and a slightly less garish brass on brown. I use role gun belts almost exclusively for all of my outfits, though.
• Reinforced lasso ($350) A must have if you're doing bounty hunts. It is considerably harder and takes longer for targets to escape from being hogtied with this lasso to the point that unless you're waiting many minutes, it's effectively impossible.

The third tier bounty hunter outfit, plus a better view of the tent with the bounty hunter camp theme activated.

Tier 2: Promising

Level 6: Tonics satchel upgrade that bumps up how many of each tonic you can hold. This is handy, because I tend to use a lot of tonics while bounty hunting. Plus, two role unlock tokens.

Level 7: Eagle Eye improvement; you can now use it while running or galloping on your horse. Handy even outside of the bounty hunting role, obviously. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 8: Spin Up; another pistol trick, plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 9: Kit satchel upgrade; same as tonics upgrade, but for the kit category. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 10: Two role unlock tokens.

Tier 2 unlocks:

• Tracking arrow pamphlet ($600) Allows you to craft tracking arrows. I dunno; I haven't really gotten involved in many of the pamphlets in online yet. I've never made or used one of these. Whether they're actually useful or not, it's worth noting that using them is a very frequent role specific daily challenge, though, so extra gold is available for those who want to go to the trouble to do so.
• Bolt action rifle variant ($350) A reskin of the bolt action rifle. I should mention, since I didn't above, that you still have to buy the weapon first. The cost is for the reskin, not for the variant weapon. You have to pay both the cost of the weapon and the cost of the reskin. I also don't like this one at all. Even though I use my bolt action rifle all the time, I haven't bought this, because I think it looks kind of ridiculous.
• Bounty Hunter camp theme ($700) My favorite of the camp themes. I almost always have this active, so I think it's worth it, even if it is pricey.
• Blackbone Ring (5 gold) This is also pricey, although I bought it during a week-long bounty hunter item discount for only 1 or 2 gold. The rings are kind of silly, given that I almost always wear gloves, so even if I have them equipped, they're literally impossible to see. Even if I didn't, they're still practically impossible to see.
• The Bullard outfit. ($348.25--an oddly specific price. Why didn't it just round up to $350?) As with the other outfit, I don't really love this, but I have one. I use the hat associated with it a fair bit.

The top tier bounty hunter outfit, and the tent again. And my doggie!

Tier 3: Established

Level 11: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 12: Player bounty invite, in which you can hunt not just NPCs, but also players who have bounties on them. I've never actually done this, although again, you can occasionally do so for daily challenges. Because it borders on griefing, I never would anyway, and I also keep my own bounty from ever becoming high. I hope, although I'm not sure, that to get a player bounty on your head, you have to be a griefer yourself. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 13: Reverse spin, another pistol trick, plus two unlock tokens.

Level 14: Ducking; an evasion technique while on horseback that makes you much harder to target. Very useful across any activity in game. I really like this one, although I admit that because I play much more offensively rather than defensively, I often forget to use it. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 15: Two role unlock tokens

Tier 3 unlocks: 

• Bolas ($30) Although I have some of these (that I didn't buy; I actually got them as club rewards before I'd even unlocked them) I've rarely used them. There's only a few situations, namely where there are multiple bounties to deal with or you want to tangle the bounty from far away while in a big fire-fight, where this is a better option that just using the reinforced lasso anyway. Given that they can untangle themselves fairly easily, their utility is still very limited. My plan for bounties in a group of enemies is usually to just drink a potent health tonic and run up and hogtie the target with the reinforced lasso, then quickly getting into cover to kill the rest of the gang while he sits there helpless and tied up. I can then loot the bodies and load the target up on my horse in relative leisure. I should note that you throw these, like a tomahawk or throwing knife. If you don't recover them, you just threw away $30.
• Guerrero holster ($93.75) If you have the gun belt and plan to carry two pistols, you need this off-hand holster too.
• Bounty wagon ($875) While this would apparently be useful on those pesky multi target bounties, in actuality, the fact that you have to dismiss your horse, summon this wagon, and then use the wagon instead of a horse, means that this isn't a particularly useful purchase. And for the price, a not very useful nearly $1,000 purchase is one that I never got around to getting. 
• Breton seal brown and grullo dun coats. ($550) Sadly, these are two very good looking varieties of this horse. But because they're mid tier rather than top tier, I doubt many people use them. I really wish that there were a way to upgrade the tier of your horses. I'd replace my current Breton with either of these if I could get the stats of the top tier on it. The grullo dun in particular is one of my favorite colors.
• Slicked back fade and the Count (2 gold) The role specific haircut and beard (in this case a sweet mustache.) I got this haircut as soon as I could unlock it and haven't (nor will I) change it for the foreseeable future. I don't use the mustache, but it's a really cool one. For whatever it's worth, my Arthur playthrough used the center fade and had a similar mustache, so this look is pretty much my default RDR look for everybody if I can get it. I even gave John the same haircut, although I didn't think he worked with the same mustache quite as well.
• The Garwood outfit ($446.75) Another outfit, useful only as a very expensive hat, as seems to always be the case with the role outfits.
• Bullseye gloves (6 gold) I have two of these, again, bought while on discount. They're pretty sweet; padded leather with an exposed trigger finger. However, I use gloves all of the time. I know a lot of people don't.

The bounty hunter horse (the Breton) in steel gray

Tier 4: Distinguished

Level 16: Perception is a skill page that increases the distance at which you can see bounties on your map. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 17: Alternating flips; another gun trick maneuver. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 18: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 19: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 20: Dual gun spinning, the final and most impressive pistol/revolver trick, plus two role unlock tokens.

Tier 4 unlocks:

• The Carthage outfit ($545) Most of the bounty hunter outfits are a strange combination of cool cues and silly ones. This one is no exception, so I only bought one color variant, and as with most of the others, it really is just a super expensive hat, because I never use the outfit itself for anything.
• I'm Watching You ($200) an emote. One of the cooler ones, although if I use emotes at all, which I normally don't, the friendlier ones tend to be much more useful with other players, and NPCs tend to not make a big deal out of your emotes either way. I think spending money on emotes is kind of frivolous and I don't care about them, but some people like them, especially if they hang out more with other players and want to mess with them, in which case this is one of the better options.
• Breton mealy dapple bay and steel gray coats ($950) I have the steel gray. It's actually quite a nice horse. It's got phenomenal stamina and pretty good health, as well as a disposition that allows it to wade into combat with impunity. It's also surprisingly kind of fast for a draft horse, although its acceleration is pretty slow. It's one of my favorite, go-to horses. I do wish that the tier 2 coats could have tier 3 stats, as I said, and I think the mealy dapple is kind of boring looking, but the steel gray is black dappled with silver and looks great. Not only that, it looks very different than any of my other horses, which is a nice touch. It naturally comes with a mane that hangs over its eyes, but as I've said before, I always convert all my manes to mohawk style because otherwise the animation looks stiff and unnatural. Although it's in the unlocks section, you can't actually unlock it as soon as you enter the tier, you can only do so at 20th level.
• Redhart Eyepatch (10 gold) Although this is an unlock, you need to be level 20 to get it, not just within the tier. Although to me this seems grossly overpriced for a cosmetic item, it seems to be popular enough. I see a lot of players use it.