Red Dead Redemption 2

[Art Blade]

Something else I had long planned that actually worked:

I finally, on purpose, set up camp with John near the trapper NE of Emerald Ranch, where I first found the original SPT. And because I never set camp with Arthur in that Murfree Brood region, I indeed got that expected "first encounter" with those two Neanderthal muppets. One had a Nakota, the other "my" Tennessee Walker with those special SPT stats, and I finally got her.

This playthrough, SPT will never have to die.

I decided to speed up bonding with her as she's now my main horse, as intended, so I went after that Shark Tooth Trinket that speeds up bonding by 10%. Quick fast travel to Annesburg and from there on horseback all the way round the hmm, lagoon? River bend? Essentially it's out of town heading North and from there East to the water, following the coast line all the way to the East until you find that wrecked ship where the loot box with the trinket is located.

On our way, level ONE bonding, a local cougar suddenly popped up and went straight into attack mode. Horse gets quite nervous but doesn't buck me off. I had time enough to carefully select a weapon (Lancaster repeater to make sure I had enough power and fire rate in case something went wrong) and then I killed that cougar from horseback. From a level one horse. Just a few pats and she was calm again. I love that horse!

She had to climb a couple of rocks and then swim a good bit which she really didn't like. You could tell by all the grunting going on But she did everything I wanted and I got that trinket, the horse, the new start with John, all satchels after a very short shopping spree (lol) I never upgraded the camp nor did I grind for those satchels.. and I retrieved Arthur's money from the Aberdeen Pig Farm. I got as few weapons as possible and most of them are good, only a few that I won't use, and I managed to avoid getting all the other guns that I knew I'd never use. Got the bandit and weapons expert challenges already done while I was still Arthur, so now John is up to speed with a starting setup that I couldn't improve any more.

All in all, this is bloody excellent

[Art Blade]

one important thing I just found out:

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The bow you get as Arthur ("Longarm Shoulder Bow") is WAY better than the one you could pick up in the New Austin area which is called Longarm Back Bow. That one is essentially the same as picking up a any "worn" weapon dropped by bandits, only this time it doesn't say "worn."

I just double-checked and only now found out that IF you pick it up, you can either select the slot to the left (which is the good bow) OR the slot to the bottom which is the bad bow. You'll never notice that because you only get to see ONE bow, depending on the slot, never both bows. And other than fire arms, you don't see bows when customising stuff at the gun smith. I got two Lancaster repeaters but can only equip one at the time, like the bow, but unlike the bow, I get to see both repeaters and can choose which one to use and I can use any of them in any of the two slots. Like the two pistols you see, those doublets have either a clubs or a diamond icon to distinguish them and they can be individually upgraded and customised, unlike the bows. If you acquire any doublet weapon, the older one will always be clubs, the newer one always be diamond.

Luckily I am used to selecting the left bow so I even though I didn't know I had two bows until just now, I likely never used the bad bow by accident.

[Art Blade]

Something else I found out.

During my new playthrough I picked up a unique Sun Hat while I was on that island Guarma during chapter 5 and it stayed in my inventory for later use. I never picked up that hat during my first playthrough and decided to replay one of those missions using a savegame from my first playthrough, found the hat, equipped it, but I couldn't keep it.

So.. either you take your chances or it will be gone forever.

Sun Hat from Guarma
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[Art Blade]

Regarding the Bandit challenge 2 (rob 2 coaches or sell 2 coaches) (or a combination of both)

I found a very funny and easy way of completing it in one go. Assuming you unlocked Seamus as a coach fence: Just ride to the train/post station at Emerald ranch, equip your bandana, go to the coach waiting there, press whatever key you use to get on a vehicle so you actually steal the coach and DRIVE like hell away from that place, like towards the nearby stable while avoiding the law coming from about that direction at you. Wait until the investigation has cleared off (in those cases bandanas actually w0#k.. unlike massive robberies during missions or train robberies) and open the trunk to steal the content. Ding, 1 out of 2 goals for that challenge.

Now the fun part.

Drive the very same coach to Seamus and sell it.. get paid and complete goal 2, challenge 2 done.

[Art Blade]

heh, the same worked for bandit challenge 4. I stole the coach at the same location, broke its lock (you have to take something from the trunk or it won't count) and sold the same coach, that was already 2 of 3. I then stole a random coach (involved a few kills.. driver, co-driver and a witness) but it's impossible to just grab a wagon from under someone's arse. Anyway, sold it, challenge done

Before that, challenge 3 was to rob 4 stores in one day. When I first tried, I was immediately recognised as John Marston. So reload, "legally" stole a Tennessee Walker in Valentine, stabled SPT for the time being, rented a room, and created an outfit I'd never use again or have used before. Like for hat I used the silly pirate tricorn, then the worst combination of plaid brown trousers and chequered brown shirt and a chequered green coat and horribly decorated greenish boots with grey spurs (normally I don't equip spurs) and all that stuff, bandana part of the outfit, and slept until night. Then whipped out the pocket watch (in John's hand) and I went for a tea and when it was early morning 5.30AM (in-game) I saved the game. My first try was kind of too late, by the time I got to the doctor's office, the sheriff was already up and outside, I wasted time by hogtying the doc trying to carve out some time but the sheriff came running in, yelling I had half a chance now and wanted me to turn myself in. Well. Reload, which put me in the street at 5.30AM and that was much better. I waited in front of the office, bandana already equipped, so actually that reload prevented anyone from seeing me in that outfit anywhere as I had created it and saved inside the hotel room.

From then on, it went like clockwork. Rob the doc, immediately grabbing the cash, running out front and around the back through the back door of the general store, robbed him, the new TW was already waiting for me, ran away without any problems, no bounty. Robbed Wallace Station without a problem, rode off to Strawberry at perhaps 9.30 I robbed the general store without problems and could even ride away without any alarm raised.

Challenge done, no wanted levels, nothing. And they won't know it was John as nobody ever identified him.

Yiehaw!

[Dweller_Benthos]

Are those theft challenges just something extra to do? None of that sounds appealing to me.

[Art Blade]

you used the right term without realising its meaning I guess "Challenges" are things to do in order to gain several bonuses and can be found in your progress tab. There are 9 challenge groups consisting of 10 challenges per group. The least appealing but most appalling one is the bandit challenge, the second least appealing but also less appalling one (to me) is the weapons expert challenge. Those were the ones that I did with Arthur during my second playthrough but never during my first playthrough.

Now that I know what they are and that they can actually be mastered, especially for me now it is something I had been thinking about a lot regarding my first and second playthrough and comparing them with each other. The second one has still TONS of stuff to do, actually virtually everything except the bandit and weapons expert challenge, that it would be a huge effort if I wanted to complete all of that stuff, including side missions. On the other hand, in my first playthrough virtually everything is completed except the bandit and weapons expert challenges.

The choice is somewhat easy now.. I'm finally sure that I want to complete the first playthrough by "only" doing those two missing challenges (2x10, that is) and I'm already in the middle of both of them.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Thanks, yeah I ignore most of that stuff and file it with steam achievements, if I get them in the normal course of the game, fine, but I'm not going out of my way to do them. Unless there's a huge payoff in a nice weapon or some money, I won't bother.

A funny thing did happen though, mostly my fault. I had been playing GTA where my keybind to enter a vehicle is set to F, and interact is set to E. Well, after playing GTA for a while, I switched to RDR2 and walked up to my horse and wanting to get on, hit the F key by habit. Only thing is, the F key in RDR is set to make your horse flee, which makes sense, right? F for flee. I had seen that prompt when doing horse stuff and figured it was for when you wanted your horse to go away, you'd say "shoo" or "git" and it would run away a few steps and wait for you.

No, that's not what it does.

What it does is makes you haul off and punch your horse across the snoot as hard as you can. It then, of course, gets agitated with you and runs away making all sorts of noises and jumping around. After the shock wore off to what I'd just done, I laughed a bit. And changed the keybind in GTA to something else lol.

[BinnZ]

here is the answer to one of my questions

Epilogue: Fence sells all satchels, no ingredients needed.
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Yes, three thumps up for the effort in nailing this shizzle matey!!

[BinnZ]

I just found out I don't have to wait any more when I want to give more than just a single thumpsup? Nice

[Art Blade]

thanks Binn, and yes, I did the same with mandru and his horse story. 1: erm, did it register? 2: weird, can I actually... let's try.. 3: yes, it works indeed

Dweller, LOL@horse story

[mandru]

Art.  Don't leave us hanging.

After pulling the Mongo on your horse were you able to catch up with it and make peace again?

** Start at the 0:46 mark for Mongo and horse:

Spoiler

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVpypcLbbIE 

[Art Blade]

Art.  Don't leave us hanging.

After pulling the Mongo on your horse

it wasn't my horse.. you were referring to Dweller!

[mandru]

OH MY. 

[Dweller_Benthos]

LOL, that movie is so funny. But yeah, the horse was not amused with me and ran off a distance, complaining all the way the same way they complain when there's a predator nearby. But it did stop eventually and took some calming to get it settled, but I eventually made peace with it and rode off. The only other time it's reacted that bad was when I was too slow in shooting a cougar and he dumped me and ran off. But once the cougar was dead he was calm again pretty fast, where after getting punched, it took a while to calm him.