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.

RDR a few more pictures

A few more self portrait style pictures. Mostly to show outfits that I'd tinkered with, but also for a few other reasons; I like the weird pagan ritual thing that I found recently; I don't know how I missed it for as long as I had (it's not that pagan ritual that Arthur draws in his journal, nor is it anywhere close to it geographically. Nor is it as graphic or obvious.)

I've also picked up two Nacogdoches saddles, and have really noticed a difference. I was adamant for quite some time that I wanted to use the role saddles with the role horses, but the difference in stamina drain and speed and acceleration is so noticeable that I can't not use it anymore, I think. A real shame, because I had five very expensive saddles, which I now will probably rarely if ever use. And they mostly all looked great too.  Like I said, so far I have two Nacogdoches saddles, fully kitted out, including with lanterns. The saddle itself is over $500, the lantern is $350, and the saddle bag and stirrup upgrades are somewhere between $100-150 each. A fully kitted out Nacogdoches saddle is over $1,000; more than the horse, even, even if you get one of the most expensive ones.

I also, after not using my Kladrubar much, have really felt like he was super slow using him recently. I just put the second Nacogdoches saddle on him, and I'll run him around for a while, but I'm not sure that I love that horse as much as I thought. He's great when you want to get into gunfights or if you run into a cougar or wolves, but given that I spend most of my time on horseback just crossing space on the map, I've come to really appreciate the Criollo, which had been my least favorite of my horses. I now think that if I were to rank my horses as most likely to use to least, I'd put the Criollo and Norfolk near the top, the Breton next, and the Turkoman and Kladrubar near the bottom. Sigh.  So now I'll probably want a Missouri Foxtrotter even more than I did before, because it's much more likely to be a top tier horse even in my own personal stable, having almost identical stats to the Criollo, but a significantly different look.

My dog is named Robin Hood, and my horses, in order that I got them, are Little John, Will Scarlet, Alan-a-Dale, Friar Tuck and Guy of Gisborne. I'm running out of Robin Hood related names that are meaningful enough to use. King Richard and Prince John are about all that's left; and I'm almost at the point that I'd rather get a mare and name her Maid Marian anyway than use those. But given that I can see myself getting at least two more horses in the relatively short term; the Missouri Foxtrotter and whatever the new role horse will be (I presume that there will be one, and I hope it's significantly different than what we have. A noticeably shaggy little horse of some sort would be cool) and maybe still a white Arabian, that'll use up my stock of names. Not to mention most of my available stable stall spots, even if I buy up all of them that are available.

The only downside with the Nacogdoches saddle is that the single colored Collector's saddle bag doesn't match them very well, and they do have improved saddle bags that specifically are designed to match the various colors of this saddle. While mostly this isn't a big deal, it means that the max number of outfits I can carry on my horse is now five instead of seven. Because I leave one space blank on my horse, to make room for the inevitable "custom outfits" that it creates when my hat falls off or my bandanna glitches away, that means that I can have one cold outfit, one hot outfit, my basic outfit, and only one other. So, I'm spending a bit more time making outfits that I actually want to wear, because I can't quite as easily swap between them if after a while I think I look silly.

Anyway, on to the pictures. A few feature horses, mostly my Criollo, Will Scarlet. In keeping with his name, I tried to give him a reddish mane and tale. I also exclusively use the "mohawk" style mane, because in cinematic mode, it doesn't wave behind the horse's head like a weird, stiff flag. Same thing as the longer tails on my coats; the animation for them just doesn't look right, so I prefer not to use them and look silly. After all, when running across the map for long distances, I have to look at it quite a bit.

The weird pagan ritual site. It was also the location of one of the treasure maps, as you can see by the chest at its foot.

I prefer camp in the Heartlands, although Great Plains would probably be more convenient, being significantly closer to my moonshine shack in Tall Trees. We'll see what the new role brings and where the best place to set up ends up being, but I like the Heartlands prairie for aesthetic reasons as well. Here I am with an outfit I tried out using the weathered blue Hartman jacket. Which, I believe, is the same "design" as the scout jacket from single player, which I also really liked, although most of the colors are completely different.

In the Great Plains with my basic outfit. I'm actually showing off my new reddish beard, which I "grew" as part of a daily challenge, which asked me to change my appearance at the barbers. I'll probably keep it for some time; maybe even until that challenge comes up again in the rotation. And my Criollo and my first Nacogdoches saddle are in the background. I don't like all of the colors, but I'll probably end up with at least three or four of these saddles before I'm done. I have two now.

Another outfit that's not too different; it uses a different hat, vest and shirt (and probably a few other minor things like gloves, bandana and gunbelt, etc.) but which especially uses the tan cordury version of the Hartman jacket. I really need to find another jacket that I like as much as this one, but I'm unlikely to, I admit. With a similar jacket and the same chaps and boots, it looks very similar to my basic outfit. 

A different take on the blue weathered jacket outfit. And my horse, again, up near the foot of Window Rock where I like to fish. I think Madame Nazar was there when I took this picture, which explains what I was doing there too.

Another Hartman jacket outfit using a different variety. It's surprisingly not very warm, even though it really looks like it should be, so not having a vest means I need to try extra hard to make it warm enough to qualify as appropriate for average temps. In this case, part of what I did was put these big furry warm chaps on.

The same outfit, out in Tall Trees where I'd just spawned after starting the game in West Elizabeth free roam after having to switch servers because of a glitch with my moonshine shack (luckily, I was very close to it, at Bear Claw camp.) Without crossing my arms, I was trying to show off my sweet green patterned shirt, but the shadow makes it difficult to make out anyway. Oh, well.

Another outfit and another spot in the Heartlands, this time near Emerald Ranch. Bad weather looming ahead. It rains quite a lot in this game, one of many clues that points to a spring time setting. 

A hot weather outfit made entirely of black leather. Black leather hat, vest, shirt, pants, boots, gloves, sunbelt, and half chaps. In real life I doubt I'd ever wear so much black leather. 

The black leather on a rainy day at Braithwaite Manor. Shortly after this I deleted the outfit and tried out a different look. 

Another average temperature outfit with a new jacket.  I do need some hats that match my tan and brown leather since I wear that so much. 

It wasn't cold, obviously, but this is a cold water outfit with a new color of the sheepskin coat, one of my favorites. I've probably got one more variant color of that that I'd like. Let's see if we get any new limited time clothing options tomorrow first, though. 

My replacement hot weather outfit. The black version of this jacket was rhe first cosmetic piece of clothing I picked up, but I haven't used it or this brown one much since. Unfortunately, it has a short "butt tail" of sorts, and looks a bit stupid from behind, which is how I, as the player, see it most of the time. If the back were the same length as the front, it would look a lot better.

Signs

Just a few more pictures from my Rockstar social club feed. When I was still dabbling in the post-game stuff with John, and taking pictures, I decided at one point to run around taking pictures of signs that showed state borders or city limits. I didn't capture all of them, but I did do quite a few. Some of them are just pictures of the signs, but some of them are "selfies" with my version of John standing next to the sign.

Since they're self explanatory, I don't think I'll offer any commentary.

RDR sales

As an aside, I deleted many of those outfits already. There's a HUGE sale on clothing this week (and Red Dead's week always starts on Tuesday). I've been picking up stuff like crazy, and running my money out. And then I spent many more hours than I'd honestly have liked chasing around all of the three most valuable lost jewelry collections and the coins collection this evening after it reset at 8 PM. I wasn't completely uninterrupted, and I did get a few extra things too like the creek plums and some vanilla flowers, etc. so I can keep making wild creek moonshine. I went from having no money; like 77¢ and my camp disappeared because I couldn't afford the maintenance of it to suddenly having over $1,600 once I got to Madame Nazar. (Where does she come up with the cash to fund me, I wonder? Not to mention all of the other players that I always run into when at Madame Nazar's.)

Of course, I've now spent most of that too. The most expensive thing I got was a pair of semi-automatic pistols, because they were 40 or 50% off. I got several gun belts at a major discount, but the matching off-hand holsters were not on sale, so I spent a fair bit there too. And I think I've bought all of the clothing that I could possibly want until some new stuff gets released, or goes on discount. I even broke my own rule and went below 100 gold bars to fund some of the discounted stuff that I wanted. I probably should have just been patient; I have until next week to buy all this stuff before the discount goes away. But I had time today, and I may not later in the week, so I bought it now, and I'm down at 95 and some change gold bars. Not to worry; I usually get between 3-4 gold bars a day doing daily challenges. If I just do a few fast and easy ones, I could get as low as about 2, but other days I easily get 4-5. It all depends on what the challenges are, and how much time I'm willing to dedicate to them. In general, I'm certainly going to slow down significantly after peaking today in terms of how many hours I spend on the game.

Because it was after midnight, my son was begging me to get off the PS4 and make room for him, and it was dark in game anyway, I didn't really have a good chance to redo outfits. Because I have so many new clothes, I was really looking forward to coming up with something new, but I only made a quick new cold and new hot (blue) outfit, so I have the bare minimum on my horse, and then I logged off after giving it a moment to "save." I'm not even sure that I like these new outfits; like I said, I couldn't even see them really. Sometime in the near future, I'll redo them if I don't, and create some more alternates so I can go back and forth while out and about. Not only did I not have time to do that, but I certainly didn't have time to sell the moonshine that had been sitting there waiting for me, which is good because I'm back down to $30 or so after the huge splurge I just had.

But I hadn't had a any pistols the entire time I've been playing; only revolvers, so it was nice to get some really quite pricey pistols that I enjoyed a lot in single player, get two of them even, at about half price, and load up on clothes for my cowboy fashionista. Clothes horse, maybe, is the better expression to use for him.

I also haven't used my Turkoman horse much since maxing him out. For whatever reason, I switched fairly early back to my Kladrubar, but he seemed really slow to me after running with some other horses. I also used the Norfolk roadster a bit, but I ended up doing the four hour collector marathon with the Criollo, which seems appropriate, given that that's the collector horse. In the past, I haven't loved that horse, but today it was my favorite. I'm kinda starting to think that rather than getting two more top tier horses--a white Arabian and the champagne dapple Missouri Foxtrotter, that I'd do better getting rid of the idea that I've locked certain saddles with certain horses, get a couple of different Nacogdoches saddle color schemes, and use them more often, assuming that they really are as good as everyone says and that they do really increase the speed and acceleration like everyone says. That's certainly a cheaper option than doing that plus getting two more stable stalls and two more really expensive horses, and then having to go through the painfully long horse bonding procedure with them before they're really "usable" the way that I'm used to. There can be time to eventually get them later. If I decide that I even still want to.

I'm determined to spend a minimal amount of time, relatively speaking, on the game tomorrow. I'll do a few daily challenges, and a moonshine run for the cash, and go back to the shack and start another batch of moonshine so I can do it later. (Actually probably in the reverse order. There's a chance that when I finish with the daily challenges, I'll be able to sell a second batch right away.) If the challenges aren't very good, I might even do a bounty hunt or two, because they pay in gold as well as cash (although a relatively small amount of the latter, it's the only role that actually gives you gold. But even then, the daily challenges are usually more lucrative.)

And then I'll get on the PC and maybe write a bit. I did start up a DH5 story, but I wasn't liking the way my intro was turning out, so I'll probably scrap it and start again. I'm mostly just noodling; I don't have a plan. But I've learned that with this enforced shut-in and even mandatory paid vacation that I'm on this week, if I don't do something other than play the game, I'll just end up playing the game. And I'd rather add something at least a bit more productive to the rotation of things that I'm doing rather than play 6-8 hours or so. Not non-stop, at least, but today I might have even logged more hours than that, and I kinda feel like while I accomplished some things in game, those obviously aren't real things that I've accomplished. I'm going to peak with the game and dramatically and quickly lose interest if I spend too much time on it, and the only mitigating factor is the upcoming update, new role, and new outlaw pass that we're all expecting.

Anyway, that's what I've done today. Ugh. That and running a few errands with my wife earlier.

RDR2 pictures

I finally got off my duff, created a Rockstar Social Club account, and downloaded some of the pictures I've taken in game to my computer. Actually, I mostly took pictures months ago when I was pretty much done with single player, but still dabbling in challenges and exploration and stuff with John Marston. Then, after my big months long hiatus and coming back to online, I hadn't really taken any pictures, so I took a bunch just recently.  First, some long-range views; one of the main reasons I love hiking in real life, and one of the main reasons why this game, when I'm stuck literally in the house in an midwestern suburb during the winter, scratches an itch for me. Kinda a surrogate, I guess.

A crossroads in the desert of New Austin

Wide view of much of New Austin from the top of the mesa, looking out into the desert valley.

Less dramatic, but beautiful in it's own way; Great Plains, the region where John ends up settling, and where I spend a fair bit of time in the Online mode.

A view into Nuevo Paraiso across the river. This area was part of the game in the first one, but is sadly not available for exploration in this one (although in return, we got a HUGE new area added. Even without this, the de facto area of the game is almost three times what the firsts' was.)

Next, a small handful of my John pictures. Without caption; they just are, mostly. The first one was a somewhat tongue in cheek attempt to create an Indiana Jones looking outfit. And by bizarre coincidence, he's smoking in both pictures.

I like John's build, although Arthur's is even better. Sadly, none of the build choices available in online really look quite as athletic. But we do our best. Here's my Online character in a variety of outfits and locations.

If you pay attention to that kind of thing, you'll notice that many of my outfits use the Hartman jacket. I've found that I really like that jacket, and I have every single color variation available, and use them often. My character, as I mentioned, looks a little round-shouldered without a jacket, so I like wearing them if I can. This one is light enough (although it doesn't look like it) that most of my outfits default to being appropriate for hot weather unless I pair it with some other, warmer accessories; warmer hats, warmer vests, gauntlets, gloves, chaps, etc. Even then, sometimes it's hard to get it into average territory, and I can only get them appropriate for cold by pairing them usually with a vest that's guaranteed to make the outfit cold weather appropriate. Most of these outfits are average temperature, but some of them are hot.

I also prefer shorter jackets without tails or other really long accessories. I find that the animation for them works very poorly when you're riding your horse, especially in cinematic mode, which I often use to just grind out long distance chugs without having to pay all that much attention because the AI steers your horse. Although I do use and like a few longer coats, I find that even more I like coats that don't hang down lower than the characters hips. There's plenty of them that do this, but most of them are quite warm. The Hartman coat is one I can use in milder and even hotter temperatures.

Because of the vest and hat, I call this my Everyday Gator outfit

Here's another view of it. These two pictures are at the lake in Aurora Basin in Tall Trees. I'd just done a bootlegger delivery to the shack in the first area. It was pouring down rain when I started, but when I finished, it was bright and sunny; perfect picture taking weather.

Experimenting with trying to capture some motion while changing poses in front of my Tall Trees moonshine shack. This outfit I call my Everyday Blue (because of the jacket) and it uses one of the Collector outfit hats.

One of my hot weather outfits. I thought the ivory color scheme worked; made it feel like a boater outfit or something.

Blue again up near Window Rock. This is one of my two favorite fishing spots too, although now that I've maxed out my health ring and usually have better ways of making money than fishing, I mostly only do this for various daily challenges. It's a bit of a shame, though. I do kinda enjoy fishing in game. (More than I do in real life, actually. Probably because they bite much more often.)

Another of my more unusual average temperature outfits, with a very short jacket and a hat that looks almost like a sombrero. I also was experimenting with setting up my camp in Cumberland Forest, because I felt like I didn't utilize or explore that area as much as I'd like. I didn't really love having my camp there, though, so back to the Heartlands I go. I'd really love to set up in Calumet Ravine. I know it's far away from everything, but I'd deal with it for the pleasure of waking up every time I logged in to Calumet Ravine.

I'm not quite sure what I was thinking with this outfit, and a ruined campsite near Plainview. I often experiment with a handful of outfits that are unusual, that I wear around for a little bit and then decide I don't really like them so I delete them and replace them with something else. This was one such; an attempt to use some of the Pittman outfit elements that I got from the Outlaw Pass 2.

An earlier version of the Ivory outfit out near Plainview. You may notice that the hat is not quite the right color; it's a light colored Calgary hat from the top level bounty hunter outfit. The ivory colored Kennedy hat that I went out and got looked much better.

Two views of my most default outfit, the Everyday Original. No hat, so I wouldn't lose it in fights, a weathered brown jacket and chaps, and a furry vest, it's still average temperature rated. Also showing is one of my five horses; a dark bay Turkoman.

I've already showed all of these outfits, but here they are again where maybe you can see them a bit better, and with in the case of all but the last one, a more intriguing scenic vista in the background.

And finally, the Black Mask; my character's alter ego. Maybe I should have put the bandanna up over my face for the pictures, but in reality, I don't do that when I'm playing very often, so probably won't for the pictures. As you can see, the balloonist goggles do a credible job of standing in for a Lone Ranger style eye mask.

The default average temperature version. The holsters and gloves and bandannas all have minor red highlights, as you can see, because it's hard to get just plain black everywhere.  Actually, that's not really true. I just have used the role gunbelts and holsters rather than the non-role ones, and they all have highlights of various colors on them.

The cold weather version using the black leather version of the winter shotgun coat, one of the few long coats that usually looks pretty good. In fact, the entire set-up just looks really bulky altogether. I also am using a different hat that has slightly smaller gold decorations on the hatband, and a lower profile compared to the previous, "regular" version. All three of the hats used in these variants come from bounty hunter outfits.

The hot weather version, without chaps, a lighter jacket and vest, and a different hat. I actually used this quite a bit because it's hot in most of Lemoyne and most of New Austin frequently. On the other hand, I don't use the cold weather variation all that much because I rarely go where it's sufficiently cold. That's one of the reasons I thought the all day snow day we had not too long ago is something that should be repeated regularly. Let us wear our cold weather clothes without having to sit around by ourselves in the West Grizzles without anything much to do!

New RDR pursuits

Well... I've given this some more thought. I'm sitting right now at a little over $500 in my wallet, and a 3-star bootlegger run soon to do, which will give me enough to get the last camp theme that I still lack, the Collector one.  In fact, let me make a list of the things I want to buy, not counting, of course, the new stuff once it's available, and any weekly drip feed items that get added for a limited time to the clothing store that I might want to pick up while it's available. Later, when I've got the time to do this, I'll try and put costs from the game in an update so I know how much money I truly need to earn to get what I want. There's no way (probably, unless the update is significantly delayed) I'll be able to get all of this before the update is out, but I still want to list it anyway, because I still want all of these things.

• Collector camp theme
• The remaining Cripps outfits that I don't already have
• Four new stable stalls (one is extra, for the upcoming horse. I like to have at least one more stall than I do horse as long as I know there are still more horses I will want in the game.)
• A turkoman horse
• a Missouri foxtrotter horse
• A white Arabian, unless there's a great deal on black Arabians, because I hate spending gold. Either that or a second color to one of my favorite existing horses. I'm kinda been a little bit jonesing for the other top tier color kladrubar.
• A panther saddle (the gold cost is killing me, though. This won't be urgent.)
• A Nacogdoches saddle
• A cougar saddle
• Hooded stirrups for both of the saddles (panther saddle has it's own improved stirrups built in)
• A lantern for all three of the saddles
• Improved saddlebags for all three of the saddles (the collector saddle bag is the best I believe, but it doesn't look as good with the Nacogdoches saddle, depending on the color that I get.)
• Lancaster repeater collector variant skin (I don't like the bounty hunter bolt action rifle, so I won't use it. I also don't use the pump action shot gun ever, and I don't even have the sawed off shotgun, so I don't care about the variant appearances much.)
• Two semi-automatic pistols plus functional upgrades. These are my favorite guns from single-player. Of course, I have two Navy revolvers, which I quite like, which aren't in single-player, so this is a lower priority buy.
• At least one color variant of the remaining role outfits that I don't have; maybe more if I can't decide on the colors. I think I'm done with buying bounty hunter outfits, but maybe while they're still on sale I'll have a quick look at the colored variants to see if there any that I really want to have. I also have one color of the first two collector outfits, but only the first two, not the second two, and I don't have any of the moonshiner or trader outfits. To be fair, I don't know how often I'll use any of these role outfits, but I do use my bounty hunter outfit hats quite a bit, at least.
• That weird tall moonshiner hat.
• The bounty hunter eye patch
• A gun belt flask
• I have one of the rings, but I still need the other one.
• Some braided horse tails for at least one or two of the horses
• A few leather pants variants (although they're only three gold, it still kills me to spend gold on pants of all things.)
• I'm still missing a bunch of the pamphlets. Like, 10-15 of them. A lot. I got most of the ones that I have for free as part of the club membership over time. I'll probably wait until after the next outlaw pass is done to see if I still need more or if that covers most of what I don't already have. If these are the last things I get, though, they won't be much use to me, of course. Unless I keep playing far longer than I think I'll play because the roles that they keep adding are worth it.

For the horses, the Arabian or second Kladrubar plus the cougar saddle would probably be the lowest priority to buy of almost all of the items on this list. By the time I get it, I'll have at least six if not seven horses already (I have the four top tier role horses now, but no non-role horses.) The stats for horses and saddles aren't all that they're cracked up to be; once you've maxed out your horse bonding, most of the performance is about the same anyway unless you're literally in a race or drawn-out combat with someone, and even then, the differences aren't usually as big a deal as they're made out to be. I say buy what you want for the look, and go with it. I do like having the role horse with the proper role saddle on it, though--so I've got all four, and presuming that there's a fifth one on the way, I'll get that too.

Of course, some of my order will change. I'll take advantage of weekly sales when they pop up, and other things like that. New clothes and other bonuses will appear that I'll want to get. I imagine that the Collector will be nerfed as an easy source of money, so I'll continue to slow walk the trader role and do moonshine runs as my main source of income. Plus, whatever the new role is and whatever opportunity it provides for money and other stuff. But I imagine that it'll be similar to the Moonshiner in the sense that it will provide a relatively decent source of income, will have some story missions, and will have a bunch of stuff to unlock as you go through the 20 level role progression, including a new type of horse and tack. There's a lot of hints that it will also have a property associated with it, or if not this one, then some other future role.

RDR Online update

Well, I did end up grinding through the five bounty hunter levels, although I mostly did it without doing the generally kind of frustrating Legendary Bounties. Most of those are still out there for when I feel like I want to do them, but now that I've got a maxed out bounty hunter role, and the cash payout for bounties isn't very high... I don't know. Maybe I won't do any more. That's kind of a shame; the bounty hunter is the first role I got, expecting it to be my favorite, and it ended up being by far the last that I finished, and I consider it generally often the most frustrating. Some of the missions are fun to do, but many of them are not. I also don't know how many times I've started a bounty only to have the bounty spawn really close to the edge of the map and he "escaped" long before I had any chance at all to catch up with him. Sometimes I hadn't even had time to leave the town I picked up the bounty in, having just barely gotten on my horse, ridden a couple of hundred virtual yards, and then told the mission failed.

Even when that didn't happen, the fact that you can see your enemies on the minimap but that bounties only flash in and out (mostly out) meant that runners were always frustrating. By the time I realized that they'd run, especially if I was in the middle of a battle royale with their cohorts, I had a big and hard ride ahead of me to chase them down. The reinforced lasso also didn't always work as advertised; I had bounties manage to wriggle their way out of it many times and need to be rechased, when the whole point of the reinforced lasso was that they couldn't do it. Certainly it was better than the regular lasso, but it wasn't always foolproof.

The moonshiner, on the other hand, was the role that I was reluctant to dive into for some reason, but now it's the one that I probably put the most effort into. The fact that I can easily make two or three moonshine wagon runs with strong, flavored moonshine for nearly $250 every hour or so means that it's an easy avenue for cash. Not as much cash as a full trader wagon, or a coin plus lost jewelry run to the collector, but one that is considerably less time intensive; rather than running all over the map constantly grinding, you can start Marcel making up a batch, go do something else, and then come back in about 45 minutes to an hour, or next time you log in, or whatever, make a quick 5 minute wagon run, and be $250 bucks the richer ($200 net, because I don't spend the time reducing mash cost anymore. It's too much trouble and not worth it.)  This is nice, because while I'm never flush with cash, I do have a decent steady stream of it. I often do this around daily challenges, so I have a decent steady stream of gold bar fragments too; usually I get a net $400-600 from the moonshiner, and 3-5 gold bars from daily challenges, depending on how many are relatively easily and quickly done. I tend to spend that nearly as quickly as I get it, but that's because I can; and when I want to save up for a bigger purchase, like a new expensive camp theme (I have one left) or horse, or the moonshine bar, etc., I usually do it after I've found time to do a trader run or coin run. I still do about one of those a week too, which is a bigger chunk of cash in one go. With an average ambient cash level of a couple hundred bucks, I can take that $545-625 additional money, hold back spending a couple of moonshiner runs, and have a good $1,000 or nearly so at my disposal.

On the other hand, I'm also not sure what I'm doing other than earning money for it's own sake to buy on cosmetic things. I've maxed out all four roles. I've just hit level 100, I think (maybe I'm still 99, but if so, not for long), so there isn't anything to "unlock" for me to do anymore; just money to be made and spent on cosmetic updates. And even then, I'm starting to feel like the new shiny feeling of buying something new is wearing off. I've only got a handful of Cripps outfits left to buy, only one more camp theme, and one additional camp upgrade (the weapons locker, which I've held off on because I'm not sure that I understand exactly what the benefit of having one is other than to keep your weapon wheel trimmed down. Considering that I use the same weapons pretty much all of the time anyway and have them in my default load-out, it doesn't seem particularly important.

What else do I even want to buy that's available right now? I'm not exactly swimming in clothes options, but I do have quite a few, and only relatively rarely come across something now that I really, really want to buy. Although when I do, it's often pretty pricey. So, there's some of that, plus the role outfits to buy (although other than for the hats, I don't know what I'll do with these. I really dislike that the role outfits aren't capable of being broken down to their constituent parts like most other outfits in the game and all of the outfits in single player.)  Like I said, I do have the Collector camp theme to buy, but I doubt I'll use it much. When I bought Traveling Opulence, I had it on for one session of about an hour, and then changed back to the Bounty Hunter, which I think is by far the best looking theme, and now that I have it, I doubt I'll ever change except to meet a daily challenge, or occasionally just for a bit of variety. It hardly matters, as in game you don't really hang around camp like you would in real life anyway.

I've got the four role top tier horses now, although the Breton still needs to be fully broken in, i.e. horse bonding maximum. That'll no doubt happen relatively soon, though--it doesn't take much other than riding around on it to hit a new level of horse bonding every other day or so. I'm already halfway to three, so I've only got a level and a half left to do. My stable is maxed out, though. I'll probably want to spend a decent chunk of money getting a spare stall free so I'm ready for the next role horse when it comes out. I'm also thinking of getting a non-role but really good horse, like the white or black Arabian or a Missouri Foxtrotter, along with a Nacogdoches saddle. And fully upgraded stirrups, collector saddlebag, and a lamp. All told, that's a good $3,000 or so investment on its own for a good horse, including stable stall, and fully kitted out saddle.

But mostly, I'm waiting for the update to come, with it's new role(s?) and new outlaw pass. Honestly, that's another reason that I was reluctant to finish all of the roles; it felt nice to have something to come back to besides just grinding money to spend on cosmetic things like new clothes and upgraded camps and horses, etc.

As cringy as it kinda sounds, this is my blog, so what the heck--let me tell you a bit about my character. Sure, this isn't a true role-playing game, with a real characterization options available, but I've kinda evolved into a kind of sort of characterization for my guy after all. I named him Joshua--not very original, but what the heck; it actually sounds like a period appropriate name too, when Bible names that have fallen out of fashion were more common (besides, that name has really come back into style in recent years anyway.) Although he has my same first name, I never intended him to be an idealized Mary Sue gamer-insertion character, and I didn't make him to look like me, necessarily. I originally gave him the athletic build, but curiously found it often too skinny looking, so I switched to average (none of the character build options really look like the good, big and athletic Arthur Morgan build, who's tall, very broad-shouldered, etc. I kind of like the leaner, underweight Arthur option, but ideal weight Arthur looks good too. In Online, it seems like you either look a little fat or a little skinny. My guy isn't skinny exactly, but he's a bit too round and weak shouldered.

He also looks young, although that's mostly just to smooth out the face without all kinds of "features" on it, and he's a sandy blond. I was blond as a kid, but I'm a darker brown now, that's gone quite salt and pepper, making it look lighter. There isn't even an option for that color, but again; I picked blond and very clear eyes, not brown and hazel eyed like I am in real life.

On the other hand, once I got the brass spectacles unlocked, I bought a pair and wear them with most of my outfits. I wear glasses in real life, and I like that--it's kinda sorta part of my character's look now, and without glasses (or at least a monocle) he doesn't look right to me anymore. I also started with a rather long pony tail look, but once I unlocked the bounty hunter haircut, I got that and haven't looked back. Even my daughter said that the swept-back fade looks a lot like my actual haircut. Whoops. My not at all Mary Sue idealized version of myself actually does look a little bit like an idealized version of myself in some ways after all as the haircut and glasses evolved. And like I said, even though I know that I'm not blond-blond, I do kind of think of myself as blondish. In fact, it's a long-standing argument I have with my family, where they as little kids would draw my hair with the black crayon, and my wife would say I was much darker than I thought, etc. I told them that because I wear gel most of the time it looks darker, but it's not actually as dark as they think it is. It's probably not really as blond as I think it is either.

My default, average everday look keeps my head bare, both because I don't like how it creates a "custom" outfit when you lose your hat, and bumps something off your horse (I should probably just by default only carry six outfits so I have a spare, and clear it out in the camp or stores whenever I'm in them.) He wears a bulky but surprisingly cool leather jacket, a leather vest, a dark shirt with a bandanna around it, and a pair of leather chaps over his pants, so you can't really see them anyway. He also has a rotating set of outfits that I make up and keep for a while, but eventually replace because I'm never quite as happy with them as I am with the Everyday, and I haven't yet found any hot and cold weather outfits that I love so much that I don't swap them out from time to time.

I've also developed, kind of by accident, but now I'm really running with it and love it, an alter ego for this Joshua, called the Black Mask. (No relation to the Batman villain of the same name, the Victorian anti-hero A. J. Raffles who also went by that name, or the Jet Li character from that mid-90s movie.) Inspired by someone's attempt to create Lone Ranger characters in RDR Online, using the balloonist googles available from the collector as a stand-in for the mask, my Black Mask character was originally an outfit used specifically to do bounty hunter missions, where I kind of flattered myself that he hid his identity and did it as a masked vigilante. He was dressed all in black; a black hat, the mask, a black bandanna, black shirt, black vest, black coat, black pants, black boots and black chaps even. (I realized only recently that I didn't have black spurs, so I've added them just now.) I found that I was doing a lot of bounties in the south and southwest, so I also created a hot weather version of it, using mostly all different elements, but still all black and still using the same mask. Recently, some limited time clothing options came up like a black leather winter coat that looks awesome, and some furry black chaps, so I also created a cold weather version of the outfit. In fact, I wore it all day yesterday while we had the one-off snow all over the map weather and had to wear cold weather clothing everywhere (which was a great idea, because otherwise, I don't really use my cold weather gear very often at all. I know Rockstar often does that around Christmas time for a week or so, but they should have odd days like yesterday interspersed through the year here and there. Maybe one a quarter there's a cold day, and then in December do a full week or even two.)

So now with three Black Mask outfits, I've really embraced the Black Mask alter-ego of my character. Right in time to finish with bounty hunting entirely; so I'm not quite sure what to do with them from now on. I could of course adopt it to criminal enterprises, like my moonshine runs, or whatever, but I dunno. We'll see.

I'll also see if I can't get some kind of screen grabs of my outfits and my character, so I can post them, or even a full-on YouTube video of me doing a mission, or something. But mostly likely, I'll go with screen grabs first. There is a decent photography mode in the game, so I could take pictures of my character and figure out how to export them from the PS4 to the general internet so I can post them, I suppose.

Movies

I'm a sucker for these kinds of things, so here's one that I saw going around social media.

Annotated version, because I like to bloviate.

Favorite Movie: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Movie that makes you remember your childhood: Tron
Favorite Tom Hanks movie: That's strange. I don't really love Tom Hanks. Splash, I guess. Let's go old school. That's the first time I noticed him, anyway.
Movie that makes you cry: Breakthrough
Favorite 80s movie: Ferris Bueller's Day Off--thinking of the category as not just a movie made in the 80s, but one that's definitely about 80s pop culture.
Favorite Comedy: The Naked Gun, I think. That's a tough one for me.
Favorite sports movie: Egh. I don't watch many sports movies, or remember them much if I do. Rudy, maybe, because at least I remember it?
Favorite courtroom movie: I don't watch many of these either. Do they even make many of these? Liar Liar, maybe, just to be different.
Favorite superhero movie: Winter Soldier, although to be fair, it's kinda sorta not a superhero movie but a spy movie in tights.
Favorite horror movie: The Ring
Most overrated movie: Avatar or Titanic. Both James Cameron. That says something, although I'm not sure what.
Most underrated movie: Solo got a bad rap. It's not really terrible, but it got caught in the crossfire of the Last Jedi hate.
Favorite gangster movie: The Untouchables
Movie you can watch over and over: Hatari!
Movie with the best soundtrack: Gladiator. Because I've already got Pride & Prejudice, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back in other categories, although I actually like those soundtracks better.
Movie you're most embarrassed you love: I don't really get embarrassed by this kind of thing, but I'd say Pride & Prejudice is the most unexpected.
Favorite Christmas movie: A Christmas Story, definitely
Favorite biopic: There's so few of these, that have even a passing relationship to real life so... I dunno. Braveheart?
Favorite war movie: Where Eagles Dare
Favorite musical: Singin' in the Rain
Favorite Disney movie: Sleeping Beauty
Favorite sequel: The Empire Strikes Back
Favorite Sci-Fi movie: Thinking of this as a genuine sci-fi (hard) movie, I'll go with something like... I dunno. I don't love a lot of these types of movies, although I like them. The Martian, maybe?

Why no spy movie category? It's a close one there between some of the newer James Bonds and the newer Mission Impossibles, but I'll go with Casino Royale.