Poggy

Yes. In this game, without using any guide, that would literally take you months of solid playing and would be very, very difficulty. To see every cutscene, hear every line of dialogue, trigger every stranger mission variable, loot every box, see every time sensitive Easter egg, collect every collectible, get every award and every trophy - my life, it be a full time job! And even then, it's better to go through the story missions having FUN, and not redoing them again and again then and there, coming back to them later and fresher after doing other FUN stuff. Trying to hit Gold every time, first time, or before moving on, is a recipe for frustration. Imagine doing that with other areas of the game - every time you miss a perfect hunting shot reloading and trying again?? Seems a bit OTT. Clearly the lack of goals prior was to encourage a RPG mindset to missions, with gamist/completist mindsets to be left until after you've 'told the story' and 'played the character'.

The guide goes into great detail about what weapons and what shots for what animals.

The gold trophies are pointless really, they are just for one award and no in game benefits. If you want to know the criteria in advance, buy the guide. I'm just ignoring the mission trophies until I'm bored with everything else.

The guide notes that special tonics (like moonshine and aged pirate rum, can be gained either as rewards, random drops in specific encounters, looted in specific stranger encounters, or found in certain hidden locations (for rum). I've been pretty lucky finding these all over in bandit camps, moonshine camps, home robberies, deserted shacks and ghost towns, stranger encounters, loots, lock boxes etc. If you free roam enough you accumulate all kinds of stuff fairly easily. Good luck!

This game is chock full of weird and interesting NPCs!

Well, I assume there will also be a legendary one. But I don't know about ordinary ones.

Squirrels aren't too bad once you get the knack. Small game arrow, eagle eye track on foot until they are still, shoot. Biggest challenge for me is finding enough hours to play! After that, it's probably ... Higher levels of five finger fillet. I really suck at it.

It obviously has tokenistic diversity NPCs and political agenda-heavy stories and things. You're right. It's a shame. I've kinda gotten used to this sort of stuff in media these days and mostly just block it out and try to enjoy the characters and missions regardless of the SJW spectre in the background. If I got annoyed at every PC storyline a tick box character in modern media, I'd either have to give up all cinema, music, TV and games or explode One day I think the whole SJ fad will go away. Until then, I just try to have fun regardless.

I think the problems with PS blur and DLC loss alone, for a game massively delayed specifically to polish, warrant the epithet 'too buggy'. YMMV.

No guns, but a wide bladed knife.

There's a difference between 'normal' bugginess and faults, and 'too many to be acceptable'. Rdr2 is more the latter than the former, IMHO.

I donate money and provisions and items to camp, mostly for rpg reasons, but also to get upgrades and restocks, increased honor, better mood in camp (side quests).

I think you might be right. Something odd for sure.

I have a similar problem. I assumed you needed the squirrel and rabbit both together simultaneously to send in one package, which makes some sense, I guess. It's a real pain getting perfect squirrel and rabbit carcasses before one or the other deteriorates.

According to the guide, if you kill maximo the map will later become available from fences. You haven't missed it Guide is really useful

I suggest only doing minimal free roam until chapter 3. Do some, definitely, to get used to the slower pace of the game. But mostly missions and side missions. Chapter 1 is tutorial; Chapter 2 unlocks stuff. And I thought a number of missions for chapters 1 and 2 were great fun and quite engaging

Existing bugs fixed.

I personally have benefited from the soft cover one. I wouldn't splash out for the collectors edn, but the normal one I'd say is worth it, yes. Mainly to be able to get a handle on all the mechanics more easily, and use the challenge checklists etc. I've avoided looking ahead to missions I haven't done yet. Beware of that temptation

I don't recall ever having that problem with that mission. Bizarre! Sorry I cant help. Is this another glitch??

Totally agree! This is why I put 'get the guide' at the top of my recommendations for new players - it saves a lot of trial and error, wondering, and hassle about even the basic stuff!

It might be really interesting to see how it plays without the patch ... for the sake of experiment/comparison. There's a fair few bugs, it seems, after patch - so what was it like before? Inquiring minds want to know

I suggest starting a new topic thread on this to see if anyone else has encountered this and hit upon a solution. Good luck! I'll get back to you if I figure it out.

Weird??? I've never had Arthur punch his horse whilst dismounting. First I've come across it.

I haven't had a problem in towns since I became hyper careful. Ride slow, tie horse to post, walk slow, be nice.

It's true that people might be quick to call something a bug - but this is because there's already been so many bugs found/reported in combination with there being a lack of detailed explanation about in-game mechanics easily available as you play. I agree people are too quick to label things as glitches or broken mechanics, but that atmosphere could largely have been avoided if the game have so many genuine issues at release. It'll settle down over the next month, I reckon. I hope!