Red Dead Redemption 2

[Art Blade]

@ ignoring

Yes, that hat would have been on your horse anyway IF it was a flashing item on the ground.

Eagle eye is indeed what you use for tracking.

Tracking

..is a bit stupid in this game and doesn't really w0#k so well. Generally speaking, and ideally, you see an animal, hit "track" and that gives you two variants.

In eagle eye you'd see a blue serpent-like line representing the movement of the tracked animal. Other lines are white-ish. Best if you hold still for a moment and observe the blue line as to which end fades while the rest keeps going. The fading end is from where your animal came so the stronger remaining line is to where it's headed.

The other variant is when you ran out of eagle eye. The tracked animal now leaves yellow-ish flashing footprints instead of the serpent line but the fading thing works the same.

What I find stupid is the fact that oftentimes neither of those variants is well visible which depends on the ambient light and the colour of the ground or simply too much foliage.

The trick then is to keep switching eagle eye on and off so the tracking stays active and you may reach an area where tracking is easier.

Cover scent usually is not necessary. I spent 500 hours without any baits and that cover scent. It is useful, however, if and when you're indeed wanting to lure animals without giving away your position (you should still try to keep a little distance and perhaps crouch) and that is a good idea specifically when luring predators.

[Art Blade]

and again, "it finally happened." Today I had a similarly bad encounter as getting attacked by wolves while cooking at my camp fire..

I was attacked by a cougar while picking herbs

Just try to visualise it. You see a plant, and start the slow and lengthy animation of getting on your knees, ripping out the plant, getting back up, ripping off the leaves or whatever, stuffing it in your satchel, and then idle for a moment before you regain control over Arthur again.

The moment Arthur bends over to pick up the plant, I see a red dot on the mini map homing in on Arthur. So all the time Arthur was busy with his plant, I was busy staring at the cougar getting ready to catch Arthur.

I was trying to interrupt that plant stuff in order to prepare to defend myself.. it was useless. In his own time, Arthur picks his plant peacefully and calm as a coma finishes the whole process. Meanwhile, a drooling cougar is only a few strides away, ready to jump..

It was just enough time to go into eagle eye and whip out my Lancaster, aim at the jumping cougar and BANG! end him with a clean headshot. The carcass landed on my feet.

Damn, that was intense.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah I recall using the eagle eye on the bear hunt, but the lines I saw I don't recall any of them being blue. Just whitish colored, and not very distinct. I do also recall seeing some glowing footprints on the ground, but only a couple and only vaguely between the grass. It wasn't a "trail" you could follow. They soon disappeared and I just kept walking in the same direction in wider circles until I got the next prompt to do something. Without a mission active to get those prompts, following the animal would have been impossible, so hunting one out in the wild is pretty much pointless to me. I've tried it when I saw some deer that ran off, but either the trail went cold fast or I didn't get any indication that there was anything to follow to begin with. So, it's another thing in the game I ignore for the most part.

Funny at getting jumped while picking herbs, but it made for an exciting time, though, right? lol

[Art Blade]

yes, it did

And the trail thingy is really badly done. The only way is to keep toggling eagle eye on and off to maintain the bottom right message (something like tracking animal X) because if you run out, it will only offer "focus on X" which is likely a different animal or that message disappears completely. If you lost track but are still tracking, you may want to walk back to where you came from to pick up on where you left.

However, today I had a really bad moment and I'm still having to deal with it:

POST BUG.

I mailed animals requested for some wildlife art exhibition (woodpecker and other stuff, 3 animals) and got the prompt to return to the post office after at least 24 hours. After that time a message popped up that I had received mail and was supposed to pick it up from a post office. The map icon shows the envelope for the post office and it looks different, a letter is sticking out of the envelope, kind of. So when I arrived at the post office to reclaim my reward,

THERE WAS NO OPTION to receive mail, not even greyed-out, despite being told so and despite the map icon showing mail.

Looking up the issue online reveals that it is a somewhat common bug, that Rockstar hasn't done anything about it despite the oldest reports being from 2018, and none of the "solutions" worked (save the game and close the RDR2 application rather than exiting, or shooting the clerk, pay bounty, I also tried sleeping, travelling, using different post offices..) so I can't get my reward.

I had received a reward for something else before but this time the option just doesn't exist. It would be really bad if this bug continued so other mail-related quests bugged out as well, which is in particular bad for the cigarette cards. The reward for a whole set is an item you need for crafting a trinket/talisman and there is no other way to obtain it.

FAN-TAS-TIC.

[Art Blade]

I just tried it, mailed cig cards, and can't pick up the reward. I used a savegame from before sending the wildlife stuff, got the message to pick up my cig cards reward, nothing. Then mailed the wildlife stuff, reward message, nothing.

[Art Blade]

yep, doesn't w0#k.

OK, so now I can't get anything any more that arrives at any post office, GREAT, ROCKSTAR!

If you were wondering how I could so quickly try the cig card reward: I had one set almost complete, 10 of 12, and simply kept buying premium cigs at a general store until the set was complete, then mailed it. Now I'll revert to a previous save from before mailing that stuff (and from before spending a lot of $ on premium cigs) because it doesn't really matter any more and I'll be better off not to think about that *bleep*

[Art Blade]

I have a feeling the reason for this bug was a fish I picked up somewhere before I had a fishing rod. When I was at the post office to mail dinosaur locations, I was also able to mail one fish, so I did. I mean, why not, if I can. Didn't say "DON'T." Maybe that fish was part of the wildlife stuff for a later request and sending it "ahead of time" bugged out the whole post office system. Just a theory.

[BinnZ]

Damn that is a nasty bug indeed. I always get my rewards when visiting the post office, so it apparently is a random thingy. Still pretty dull

Good read on the tips.

D_B, I also ignore the tracking for the most part, except with legendary animals and some other occasions. When you hunt a legendary it will always bring you to the next tip. Just reuse your eagle eye ability and you'll see the yellow bees floating from a certain point. It is also nice if you are looking for a specific animal, let's say an Opossum, and you want to check whether the quick escaping creature was your desired Opossum; then use eagle eye to check its tracks. It will tell you what animal it is, except for the case that it is still an unknown animal to you. Which is interesting anyway, because it might actually be something interesting... or the desired animal if you hadn't seen it before

Yesterday I focussed on bonding a bit more since my new horse needs 2450 points to reach lvl 4 bonding, which is a lot! I found out that basically anything you do with your horse, will add to the bonding exprience points. Even just riding it will give you points. And Art confirmed that even leading it and hitching it makes the horse happy, lol

Oh, and on the fish thingy; in that case you should hop to chapter 3, finally, and find the legendary fish buyer. He will trigger the event you somehow must've freaked by sending a fish. That might reset things, you never know what rockstar logic wants you to do

[Art Blade]

Ah.. maybe

I did get the reward for the dinosaur locations, however, which was obviously after sending the fish, so that didn't break that reward. Who knows what R* did to allow such a bug to happen and they NEVER FIXED IT! The posts I read were from console players so the bug has been ported. It also excludes the possibility that remapping keys were the reason because consoles don't remap their keys and still got that bug.

[Dweller_Benthos]

That sucks about the mail bug, I've only done a couple for the dinosaur lady and the the rock carving guy, and got the rewards for all of them. I'll be careful to not mail anything unless I for sure know I have the quest for it.

I had a strange encounter that I was wondering about if I could have profited from it. A guy was driving a wagon and in usual NPC manner got stuck making a turn. So he hopped off the wagon and started walking away, leaving the wagon and horses behind. There were other situations where I could have gotten a horse and wagon but didn't, and I still didn't on this one either. But if I had, could I have taken it to the stable and sold the horses, and possibly the wagon too? Most likely not the wagon, but I had two decent horses I could have sold. I didn't want to leave my regular horse behind and it didn't seem there was any way to make him follow, I couldn't give him the command while in the wagon. So I freed the horses and left.

But after that, I was trying to catch that Arabian up near the whale skeleton and of course didn't succeed because I am terrible at roping things while riding the horse, but came across a guy hunting who was telling me to be quiet. Out comes a grizzly bear and kills him, and I kill the bear. So I loot the guy, skin the bear, and take the guy's horse to the nearest stable and sell it. Only got $2 for it, but hey, it was money. But in the process, I lost the temporary horse I had back at the camp but really I'm not bothered by that as I wasn't to much involved with keeping it and it was getting in the way a lot anyway.

I wonder though, what I could have sold that Arabian for.

[Art Blade]

you can't sell a wagon at the stable. Only to the fence at the Emerald Ranch. And you'll need the horses to get it there and drive it inside the fence's barn. Sounds as if you hadn't yet done the mission from the camp given to you by Hosea.. you should find him and take on his mission.

You could have sold the horses for perhaps $2 or $3 each, without the wagon, at the stable but that would have required commanding more then two horses and you said that just two is already more than enough for you. So the best way is to sell an entire wagon with horses to the fence. Your horse(s) will follow the wagon if you tell them to follow you (or just whistle) so that wouldn't be a problem. The best price for a wagon with horses is $40.

I'm not sure where the whale bones are you mentioned, with an Arabian next to it, but I assume it's not far from the pagan mask so it would have been the red Chestnut, right? The price for the Arabians (except the white one) is $22.5 per level of bonding. Fully bonded to level 4 they're worth $90. The white sells for $240.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Ah, OK, I'll see if I can find Hosea and get that mission. Funny how they spell his name that way instead of José like it is now. Anyway I need the fence to sell gold bars to as well, then I won't have those bouncing around in my inventory. Also have a bunch of jewelry to sell as well. As for selling just the horses from the wagon, I could drive the wagon to the stable, then unhitch the horses, and bring them in the stable one at a time I think. But selling the whole thing is much easier.

Yeah that Arabian was in the general area of the pagan site, just south at about the same level above the lake. It's marked on the map as a spawn site for it, so maybe it will be back there again sometime.

I did do a little experimenting with eagle eye and tracking last night. I saw a few deer run off as I rode up, so I used it to follow them. The blue lines are very pale blue, and I'm not sure how to focus on just one set, as there were three, one from each deer. And I did see the tracks glowing on the ground, though the grass blocked them a bit, and following them, they disappeared over a cliff, so I guess they jumped? Didn't see any bodies at the bottom, so they must be hardy deer lol. But I did get a hang of how it works, just a little weird in practice really. As it was, I didn't need it, because as I was crouching there looking at tracks, a pronghorn comes wandering up across the field and I shot an arrow into it's face. I like to bring some game back to camp every time I pass through, so they complain a little less about food. They are starting to get almost as annoying as taking care of horses.

[Art Blade]

 

[Art Blade]

YAY!

Now I've got everything there is except those animals and legendary animals that will only be accessible in or after chapter 6. I'm in chapter 2. It took FOREVER to get all the skins for the trapper and Pearson but I've got them all now, the bloody Robin was the last, after getting the last opossum (also annoying haha)

[Art Blade]

after completing all available missions, I have now officially arrived at CHAPTER 3.

Man, the long-scoped sniper is fantastic. I had no problem at all with that "at least 660 ft" distance kill. Shot a guy in the head who was in a camp that was so far away that all I could see without that scope was their camp fire.

At least something they did well in this game: no bullet drop, and comparatively extreme distance sniping kills are possible.