I agree with all that, and with the time it takes to craft stuff. It’s a game that doesn’t particularly respect the player’s time. All that said, I loved it to bits overall.
That’s an interesting turn of phrase, could you explain that?
SamS
3256
I played this when it first came out and just gave up around the mid point of Chapter 2 because of the reasons said here - I wanted to get out into the open world and dip into missions every now and then. But the game wants you to do the missions first to unlock stuff so you can then go do the open world stuff.
Playing it again now a few years later, I’m back to about where I was when I quit last time. (The Micah jailbreak). Maybe its because I’ve played before, but you can power through the missions pretty quickly so they haven’t taken up a lot of time. I’m digging more into what you can do in the world than worrying about what you can’t - bought a varmint rifle and spent a few days shooting birds and rabbits. Following treasure maps. Doing random side quests and investigating mysterys. But yeah, I’m still hanging out to get to fishing.
Just to be a rabble rouser, I’ll suggest that it’s the game which sets its own time and pace and it’s you, the player, who must learn to respect it.
Bateau
3258
Long, unskippable animations, forced slow walks in specific sections, long rides to and from missions just to hear NPCs talk - these could easily be cutscenes so the player could relax a bit, but for whatever reason Rockstar thinks that holding A is the pinnacle of player agency.
I still love the game though, and even think that for once these things add to the game, rather than take away from it.
This is how I would see things. The game has its own pace, and it’s deliberately slower than most others. I love it, personally, though I can see how it might not sit well with everyone. But I think it’s portraying a time before cars and cell phones and constant demands of (and answers to) our attention. I wouldn’t change a thing, and I appreciate Rockstar sticking to their guns. So to speak.
ShivaX
3260
I made it to Chapter 3 and I’m enjoying it. Some guns I want are still locked, which is annoying (mostly because I have no idea when anything unlocks so I keep checking), but hardly the end of the world.
I have to say fishing ended up being a nightmare and then fine. If you try to fish with a gamepad it’s straight from Hell. It just… doesn’t work. Like you can spend forever trying and it’s pointless, damages your wrist and controller and is dumb. If you use the keyboard to reel stuff, it’s so easy it feels like cheating. But cheating is better than repetitive strain injuries and frustration, so it works out.
Now my biggest complaint is that everyone thinks I don’t wear enough clothing. No matter the weather. We’re basically in the sub tropics and even if I wear a winter coat people keep telling me I’ll be cold. I had someone tell me as I was literally dying from heatstroke (forgot to change clothing coming out of Chapter 2 and was still wearing a winter coat). Apparently it’s a bug that was introduced because of a Christmas event for the Online or something and never got fixed? Not the end of the world, but I love walking around camp and talking to people and having them tell me I’m going to freeze to death when it’s 80 degrees out and they’re often wearing next to nothing is an immersion breaker.
Still, it’s pretty fun. I wish there were less enemies though. The OK Corral was 9 people and 3 deaths, but I kill like 4 times that many people every other day. Also punching people kills them. Like every single time. Which is weird. You can’t get into a bar fight because you’ll murder like 3 people and then everyone in town starts shooting you. Which is kind of a disconnect from the earlier bar fight quest in Chapter 1 that seemed to emphasize that killing someone in a fist fight was a pretty deliberate thing.
ShivaX
3261
An autoride of some sort would be welcome for these. And just roaming around really.
Of course half the time the person I’m riding with crashes into a wagon or the like, so maybe they had it and there were issues or something.
Setting a waypoint and switching to cinematic mode will kind of do this. I used it a lot late game and would leave the room or use my phone the entire time. I think occasionally it would get broken by bandits.
They want you to go slow to take in all the stuff going on in camp and all the conversations. Problem is it’s an antithetical design choice that just results in the player trying to spend as little time as possible in camp.
Part of the reason it’s infuriating is that we know we can move faster, as we are allowed to elsewhere in the game, it’s like getting stuck behind a car that’s driving below the speed limit on a road where you can’t easily pass.
Bateau
3264
How so? I adjusted some settings before I even started playing so when I eventually got around to doing this activity it felt perfectly fine. I was able to catch every legendary fish on first attempt so far.
Kolbex
3265
Antithetical to what? It resulted in you spending as little time as possible in camp, but I liked those interludes as an oasis away from the hustle and bustle, which grew more poignant over time.
RDR2 seems to divide people sharply into the “games as experience” and “games as entertainment delivery device” camps. The “slow down” ethos is not something people expect from a big budget game, especially from the studio that makes GTA, and it clearly rankles the second camp something fierce; as an enjoyer of The Longing, RDR2 has a bit of the same DNA, and I appreciate it. It’s precisely that DNA which is missing from the first game and that lack has consequently caused me to bounce off of it multiple times both before and after RD2, because absent it I don’t find the total package all that compelling, although I find RDR2 a more convincing “old west” simulacrum in general and Arthur a more compelling protagonist than John in particular.
And of course the combat shoots that all that feeling stuff to shit, but that was by far my least favorite part.
It’s more a problem when there’s a high ratio of player input to game response. Walking through camp is not a hard thing for the character, but being made to slowly make it happen is frustrating. It is harder to make him walk through camp than it is to walk that far yourself. Sort of :)
ShivaX
3267
I’m not alone, there are hundreds of posts about how it doesn’t work for people.
Even people who can get it to work who try to explain it can’t explain how to do it.
I watched Youtube videos, read dozens of posts, spent an hour or more trying. At no point did I even come close to catching a single fish.
Then I used the keyboard and caught one in literally 15 seconds.
Basically: Reeling does nothing. The fish never gets closer. And reeling also hurts your wrist. Catching a random Bluegill can take people 20 minutes or literally forever (because reeling does nothing). Not a legendary fish, just a random bottom of the barrel fish.
The damage to my controller and wrist trying to reel is noticeable. My wrist hurts as I’m typing this because of trying to fish for a hour 2 days ago.
Bateau
3268
What’s the default control for that, pressing? On my setup (xbox one pad, PC) I can just hold the X button and Arthur will reel in, albeit slowly.
ShivaX
3269
The default is rotate the right stick. Speed matters.
Kolbex
3270
I mean, I worried about the stick on my controller but it never hurt my wrist. Reeling obviously can do something, because some people (like me) get fishing to work. I don’t remember having a particular problem with it, except hoping I wasn’t going to wear out my stick. You are trying to universalize your experience, but your experience is not universal. I can appreciate how it would be frustrating to not be able to get it to work, though.
ShivaX
3271
No, I’m saying that it’s a common issue for a lot of people.
Actual fishing is easier. Now I was probably doing something wrong, but literally no one can explain how to do it to people it doesn’t work for. Trust me, I spent fucking hours and every person who explained it was vague or said the same thing. The thing that didn’t work for me and a shitload of other people.
And if you spin a controller stick as fast as you can for half an hour or an hour, you’ll start to feel pain. Obviously you wont if it just works for you quickly because you’re not trying to spin a stick quickly for insane amounts of time while also trying to press other sticks and buttons and a hundred other suggestions that also did nothing.
I think I’m going to need to fire this up again when I get home out of curiosity. I didn’t do a ton of fishing, but I don’t recall having any issues doing so with the controller.
I’m going off memory here, but I wonder if this is your problem. I don’t recall spinning the stick as fast as I could, more of a steady, controlled pace. Like if you were actually fishing, you wouldn’t start twirling the reel as fast as possible when you get a bite. But, maybe I should reinstall and give this another go myself.
