What would you have changed to make this game a true masterpiece? I'll start
Story
>start the game in New Austin with John gone. The gang establishes safe spots and moves up to West Elizabeth. Here John returns from his yearlong hiatus and we see Micah, Jenny, and Lenny added to the gang. Ferry job is planned and happens.
>Drop Guarma and make each Chapter longer. Have the Horseshoe Overlook chapter involve dealing with the O'Driscolls entirely and have the fallout be what drives you away from the location.
>Deal with Native stuff before the final chapter which should be entirely devoted to the gang falling apart
>Dutch and Arthur are more clearly delineated as being opposing leaders rather than Arthur being mutinous. Arthur eventually opposes Dutch and wants the gang to take a safer path, leading to the split.
>Make Arthur try harder to get Dutch to see reason.
>Make Micah a much smoother and more manipulative character that charms everyone in the gang instead of being a weird creep.
>Epilogue is shorter and focused only on revenge against Micah
>Epilogue takes place only a year or two after the main story
What would you have changed to make this game a true masterpiece? I'll start
Gameplay Mechanics
>horses more like they were in the first game
>more weapon variety
>able to do all challenges as Arthur and make them more interesting, they all lead to one big capstone challenge which is kind of a unique quest
>fix the wanted system and make it more realistic, no telepathic teleporting cops
>more bounties and shoot outs
>develop camp upgrades more and have lines of companion quests for each of the important figures in camp, somewhat similar to Persona's S.Links. For example the Sean questline might be joining him on the homestead, then robbing a coach with him, then kidnapping a local figure for ransom, and finally ending in a quest wherein you help him with something personal. Afterwards you have a better bond
>you can bring companions out with you into the world and their effectiveness or willingness to help you with specific tasks depends on your bond
>have lots of different robbery types that you can bring a small crew with you to do
>axe the tutorial shit
>rein in reticle sway a little
>you can name your guns and outfits and share designs online
>more freedom to arrange camp in different ways, more depth to the upgrade system
drop the SJW shit
Also
>have unique dialogue with characters depending on your bond level and unique reactions from Arthur to their deaths
>make the missions more free form and combat based with unique setpieces unaccessible in the regular free roam
>flesh out NPC dialogue options just a tad more, maybe more options to manipulate NPCs with, like Charm or Bluff or Intimidate being things you can try
>make crafting easier and allow upgrades to camp that make for better crafting options, like maybe a moonshine setup to quickly make incendiary ammunition as one example
If you have to have black people in the gang, at least have everyone openly calling them nigger or coons, for historical accuracy. I only remember one racist remark in this fucking game,and it was from Micah in the first chapter.
Also, don't give the main character super aids. At that point the game became unfun to play.
I at least agree wholeheartedly for the Southern state but I feel as though that was addressed at least somewhat well
I think i heard the term "nigger lover"
Just get rid of the stupid injun bullshit filler at the end. I've never rushed through a chapter so fast.
I just don't understand how they spent 9 years working on the game and still didn't fix obvious flaws in it. Things like having to reselect your guns over and over. I never figured out how to drop or sell the ones I didn't use. There wasn't a box in my camp where I could leave them. The menus and general UI were so clunky. How many hours of QA went into that game and they just thought these things were okay?
What was the point of the good/evil bar? I shot everybody on sight and at one point I went into my camp and a woman said "there's rumors of someone going on rampages wink wink". It changed how you died at the end but who cares? You get shop rebates for being good? There's a big focus on narratives and yet no good/evil angle.
You had to complete missions a certain way. Shoot the wrong guy? Fail. Shoot in the air just for laughs, fail. One time you find that the fence has slaves in his basement. I didn't want to rescue them because I'm RPing as a bad guy... I walk away, out of the mission circle and fail it.
The core gameplay was fucking boring. They added nothing. Improved nothing.
I do agree with a lot of this. Considering the sometimes painstaking attention to detail in the game some of the things they missed are completely baffling.
> I never figured out how to drop or sell the ones I didn't use. There wasn't a box in my camp where I could leave them.
Yep, agree. Arthur was supposed to be the weapons guy of the camp, although its more implied than outright stated. Was it really so much of a stretch to create a gun rack off of Arthur's wagon in addition to the ammunition, where the gang and yourself would store arms? Honestly it seems like more of a stretch that there WASN'T such an implementation.
>There's a big focus on narratives and yet no good/evil angle.
I'm not so much into making it have lasting effects on the story because I feel as though Red Dead works best as a linear, fixed tale. But it should have had more effects on the world. There should have been permanent changes to the world that you could affect, i.e. Megaton from FO3, not the same scale obviously but maybe you help save or condemn a village, you side with the Natives or against, etc. There also should have been more reflection of your karma from the world. Would have been great if high karma had people saying nice things to you and gang members and criminals detesting you more and low karma had the reverse effect - outlaws and criminals express a kinship towards you and give you more robbery tips and such and other folk detest you.
>The core gameplay was fucking boring. They added nothing. Improved nothing.
Most of the improvements were done to the open world. Those I was pretty impressed with but yes core gameplay did not really improve.
Yeah the Native stuff should have happened in a previous chapter and it should have led into the final confrontation in chapter 6. I feel like chapter 6 should have had more of an extended confrontation between the two sides. Dutch, Micah, Bill and Javier on one side and Arthur, John, Charles and Sadie on the other. That should have taken place over several missions with some final confrontation.
As a sidenote it sucks ass that there is no savage Indian gang in the game. Skinner brothers was such a lame cop out of what could've been a cool gang of Indians scalping homies
Also to add to this it would have been cool if other gang members are alive and die out of loyalty to Arthur. Like maybe Lenny is alive in the final chapter and is killed by Micah/Dutch for opposing them or something. Would've done more to paint Dutch as the villain because IMO as it stands you could make a case that Dutch didn't have bad intentions and was just misled, yet in RDR John is adamant that he's an insane monster.
>Make it not boring as sin.
>Give it some actual style instead of going for washed out realism.
>Take out the cutscenes or the include a trip skip when on horseback.
>Take out all the stupid bars you have to keep refilling.
>Make the movement not feel like your walking through treacle
I like the idea of the cores but they weren't implemented as well as they could have been. Dead Eye in particular was incredibly irritating with how fast the core would drain.
i love how you put so much thought into it.
personally, i think it's already a masterpiece as is.
better online less PVP more cooperative gameplay more PVE gameplay, the audience for this game doesn't really like PVP, they just do it because their is nothing else to do.
Rockstar already knows this but doesn't care
>there is nothing else to do
Multiplayer of the game is so bad that it drops the score of the game to 8/10, even if you absolutely dont have to play mp. The game is worse just because you CAN play the multiplayer, thats how bad it is.
I'M GONNA TAKE MY HORSE TO THE HOTEL ROOM
I'd drop the 2
for me red dead is a 10/10 but massively felt this way about gtav. it's tarnished my memory of an otherwise amazing single player game
game should have taken place several years earlier and just been about being in a rough riding gang, going around and robbing shit across the west. i think the game we got is too tame and communal.