Aval0n

Wildlife is almost non-existent since the Moonshiner update. It is extremely frustrating. There's no way for us to know if R* nerfed animal spawns or if it's a bug introduced into code with the Moonshiner update.

I've been hunting in New Austin the last couple of days and found almost no wildlife day or night. I found one ram yesterday and found a couple of small varmint type animals. That's it. No pigs, no pronghorns, no iguanas, almost no animals anywhere since the big moonshiner update.

I have been trying to cook minty, oregano and thyme big game, but can't get the minty and oregano choices to appear in the cooking menu. I have plenty of big game, mint and oregano, but am not being given the choice of making either of them. Is anyone else having this problem? Is cooking broken?

Nacogdoches is the best because it is the only saddle with 4 performance improvement stats instead of only 3. I don't like skull themed things, so wish there was a non-skull option for it, but the white version at least makes the skulls nearly invisible. Add the hooded stirrups and it does make a big difference in performance.

@SimonTemplar thanks very much for confirming the draw that the beautifully made RDO horses are for some people. I realize others do not understand this, but it's ok. Your kids understand, and I would rather have their agreement than "wise" adults.

Thank you for your very thoughtful and detailed reply. I genuinely appreciate it. Thanks to you, I now understand parlay and other game mechanics that I didn't understand before. Let me clarify a couple of things that people have missed or misunderstood about my post. I don't mind if another player kills my character. What I do mind very much is that they kill my horse. It would take far too long and be too personal to explain this, but I don't play RDO for the game. I play it for the horse. So my big question about parlay is this: what happens to your horse while you are in parlay mode? I have two horses and have insurance on both, but it is still genuinely painful to me when they die. Yes, they are just pixels in a computer, but again, there are personal reasons why this matters a great deal to me. The other thing I wanted to get across is that this game mixes players of all levels without providing any substantive protection -- or maybe the better word is separation -- between new and low-level players, and much higher level players. I don't know where the cutoff should be, but new and low-level players should have the ability to totally opt out of all pvp until they reach a certain level. If they wish to participate, that's fine, but they should be able to opt out. I just got to level 40 tonight, so maybe that's why I think 40 would be a good level to remove that protection. 40 is when you can get the third passive card. I have two cards at level 3, so now have some reasonable self-protection, plus I now know enough about weapons, food, tonics and how to protect my horse.

@Kean_1 and @Freakshow9191, why didn't I use Press Charges or Parlay? (1) As has been said many times here, Press Charges is useless. (2) I don't have a mic for my PS4, so Parlay is out. Also, those two didn't even give me a chance to do anything. (3) I was 36 at the time (now 39). They were literally hundreds of levels above me. Hundreds! Whatever max level is in this game, they had to be at or close to it. They could easily have done a quick check to see my level. (4) I had reached the wounded animal spawn before them, but stopped when they raced up to me. Didn't draw a gun. Nothing. Just started to turn away. That should have given them a clue, but they didn't care. They just started firing away. Fine. I can deal with that. It is a game, after all. But when I respawned and ran to my horse they blasted away again. That is stupid bullying by any standards. Now you two might not mind online bullying, but I do. There is playing the game, and then there is being mean for no reason except to be mean. You tolerate it. I don't.

I was in New Austin heading for camp when a white dot appeared indicating that a wounded animal had spawned. Being nearby, I turned toward it, dismounted and was walking up when another "blue" player ran up fast. I stopped to let him have the animal and turned to leave. He shot and killed my character anyway. I respawned and as I tried to mount, he and his friend started shooting at both me and my horse. Killed me and nearly killed my horse. I respawned again and ran fast as possible to my horse to revive him. 1) At the time I was only level 36. They were both extremely high level players, several hundred levels above me. 2) I was in defensive mode. I'm always in defensive mode. 3) Whenever I see another player dot on the map, I go out of my way to avoid them. I did see blue dots that time and took a route out of their way. 4) The two who rode up on me did not appear nearby on the map. It was dark, they rode up very fast and seemed to come out of nowhere. 5) Once they shot me and my horse, their dots turned red. I looked at the list of players in my session and saw them both, so I reported them. Defensive mode does not work to protect low level players from higher level ones. Defensive mode is actually useless for almost all situations when a player wants to not participate in PVP or to be a target for idiots like these two. I strongly urge R* to find a way to offer players better protection when needed than the extremely weak defensive mode. In this situation even the limited boosts offered by defensive mode were useless for me, lvl 36, against two players several hundred levels higher. I cannot begin to express just how discouraging this sort of thing is to people like me who only want to enjoy the game for relaxation after work. I spend money on this game too. Lower level players deserve space to do what they can in the time available to them.

Twice this weekend, I was just standing in my camp when the white flag went down by itself and my status was changed to Offensive. Reason stated was that I had acted offensively. But I was just standing in my camp. Nothing else. No gun drawn. No other player anywhere nearby. Nothing. Status and flag changed on their own for no reason. Between disconnects that cause all progress made during a session to be lost, to other problems, to this new camp bug, the game is very discouraging these days.

Guess I'll have to brush up on what defensive mode is actually supposed to do, because far as I can see, it doesn't do jack. Maybe the real defensive mode is to simply avoid any places where other players are likely to be, such as towns.

It is supposed to protect players from griefers and back-shooters like the two I encountered. It does not and you still have to be watching your back, so what's the point of it? What protection does it actually provide?

Why not let it bug him? A player has every right to be bugged if not royally pissed off in such circumstances. For me, having a remarkably realistic virtual horse is the main reason I play this game. I love horses (all animals, really) but will never be able to afford one in real life. So I do everything possible to protect my horse in the game. Whenever I go to a town, I try to put the horse in a stable before walking around. If that isn't possible, I try to hitch him in an out-of-the-way place. There are too many things about this game that are difficult anyway, but griefers who shoot horses are among the worst scum. To me that's equally as bad as the frequent random server crashes...worse in some ways.

Yesterday afternoon, I had just found the 3rd arrowhead location on a collector's treasure map. Had hit X to dig when suddenly the server crashed and I was kicked off line. When I came back on, the 3rd arrowhead location was no longer on the map. While I was trying to figure out what to do, two player characters rode up. One dismounted and also started looking for the arrowhead. I stayed in the spot where it had been before the server crash, thinking that might help the other player locate it. I was in DEFENSIVE mode, no weapons drawn. My character's back was to the player still mounted. Suddenly that player started shooting at my character and killed him. I did "press charges," but this whole thing really stinks. It is tremendously frustrating to be kicked off line so often, but is even worse when it completely disrupts a player's game progression. Then, I woke up about 2:30 this morning. Could not get back to sleep right away so I turned on the game. Again I was in DEFENSIVE mode, as always. This time all I did was go to the saloon in Valentine, sit down and listen to the piano player. It was working to get me sleepy again when all of a sudden BAM! Again some other player shoots my character in the back, killing him. I "pressed charged," respawned outside town and ran back toward it. Sure enough, the cowardly idiot was still there shooting at everything. I jumped up on a roof to try to stay out of the way, but he spotted me and BAM again. So defensive mode does not work. Quietly minding my own business does not work. Thanks to frequent random server crashes interfering with progress and stupid griefers, the game is becoming impossible to enjoy. BTW, my character is only level 27, and I am always in defensive mode.

I have the "chestnut bay" Arabian. Turned him into a genuine chestnut by changing his mane and tail colors. I love this horse and probably won't stop riding him while progressing through the game. (I'm lvl 26 or 27 at the moment.) Although he doesn't have the absolute best stats, he suits me just fine. He's fast, agile, not easily spooked and just fun for my character to ride. If players like the black Arabian, or any other horse for that matter, enjoy it. The differences between the horses are relatively minor, so enjoy whatever pleases you, and to heck with what others say is "the best."

Thanks for your reply, Dragon. Sadly, I did try the post office, but did not receive the gifts the messages said were downloaded. I guess the next thing to do is open a ticket.

Today when I logged into Red Dead Online on my PS4 Pro, I got messages about downloaded items for Special Edition and being a PlayStation 4 member. But I looked through every possible thing in the game: satchel, wardrobe, gun locker, post office/camp lock box, stable, all shops, etc., and do not find anything new. Where are gift items from R* and PlayStation stored in the game? Does anyone know? Thanks in advance...

I played the solo/story mode for nearly two months before trying the online mode. Overall, it's a good game, but some things are very frustrating for me, at least: Nights are way, way, way too long. Seems like night is the default time. It's night almost every time I log in. Night almost every time I try to do a mission. Night when I try to see my wardrobe in the dark. So frustrating. Wildlife is very distant and not nearly plentiful enough. Yet it seems that whenever I'm on a timed mission, all of a sudden there's a lot of wildlife very close. If that's really how Rockstar built the game, it's terribly unfair to players. Racing through a timed mission (and mostly at night), you can't take advantage of the suddenly plentiful game animals. Logging back in at wildly random places far from where you logged off is also very frustrating. If it happens to be daylight, you spend most of that precious light racing to where you actually want to be. In addition to it being night for so long, there's the fog or mist atmospherics that make it very difficult to see much detail a lot of the time.

I started playing the story mode about 6 weeks ago and enjoyed it enough to try the online mode. So far I'm at level 8 and enjoy it except for one thing. It is night so often and for such a long time. Is there any way for the player to go into daytime? Not everyone has great eyesight. I don't, so the dark times in the game are difficult and not fun. The atmospherics make it worse because it is often foggy and/or rainy. I wind up sitting in one place until daytime comes, which means half or more than half my time in the game is spent doing nothing.