It all depends on what you consider to be the wisest way to level. Personally I am not highly skilled PVP wise so I haven't done a lot of the series and that will nett you the most XP if you are "decent" at it.
If you get a good posse going with several frequent members that do not fool around all the time, but go from stranger mission to stranger mission and in between some hideouts you encounter, that wil be a nice way to level up. Just try to play efficiently xp wise as stated before. A kill is not a kill :
- headshots give extra 5 xp
- from horse extra 5 xp
- special ammo extra 5 xp
running up on enemies and tackling them then execute them gives another 10 xp.
It can mount up to 25xp per kill and even more. Of course there are many other xp boosters around. Also remember to kill animals when travelling from point to point just to get another xp boost in the dead time...
Personally I think hunting is the best way to a balanced level up. Specifically as the ability cards are very important assets and these cannot be acquired through gold, only ingame dollars and they cost 50, 350 and 500 USD per upgrade at I think over 20 cards. I have spent all my earned USD into the ability cards and used a fair amount of gold into getting a fast horse and the entire
What I have done mainly basically from start of the beta is hunt at the swamp area above Saint Denis. Best weapons are the Varmint and a rifle of your choice (I got the rolling block with scope). When you start RDO up spawn in New Austin, go to a fast travel post and pay to travel to Saint Denis, ensuring that the area is as good as empty regarding online players.
Depending on your personal needs you can adapt your hunting. I basically do a 24hour in game cycle of hunting where during the morning to noon session I shoot and skin birds netting 10 xp per kill (also the shooting 1k birds and 1k animals challenges are done). Alongside every alligator gets one in the head giving you 15 xp. pristine small ones skin and put on horse 10 usd) and lasso a 2nd and drag to butcher for another 10. During night shoot every toad and frog and look for boars, the occosianal buck and muskut rats. Perfect rat carcasses nett you 4usd and the pelt almost 2 bucks. In most runs I encounter 5 to 6 of those and regarding birds the spoonbill / pelican / crane and heron feathers stack up to 10 at about 1.5 usd each. in this cycle you can gather a few herbs as well and prep big game meat with thyme/oregano and mint in order to have golden cores and be ready for other gameplay later on. You can also sell most herbs to the doctor (herbpicking and sell herbs challenges as well in between). Stock up ammo/ clean guns get supplies and repeat.
If bored you can do the earlier mentioned ladder in Saint Denis to gather xp (no money there though).
The above is not the fastest way to level, but In a 24hour cycle in game (1hour or less of playtime) you can get half a level done and more importantly get around 100 to 150 USD. I have put all that into the ability cards and have all of them maxxed out in xp lvl 1 and 2 respectively 10k and 15k xp per card and around 7 of them levelled to the max.
Now at a point that the playing field in terms of abilities in pvp either balance me out with better players and give me a small edge on lower levelled players. Also getting griefed is not happening that much anymore.
TLDR : Hunting in Saint Denis (combine with ladder if USD not an issue), shoot everything and collect, and invest in abiltiy cards and level and upgrade asap to max xp collecting. At a certain point if comfortable go pvp.
