Read Dead Redemption’s Online Multiplayer is expanding in the best of ways, developers have kept one ear to the ground in terms of consumer and fan feedback. Purchasale wagons, boats, homesteads, businesses, weapons and mounts are just some of the tantalizing updates developer Rockstar has announced for future updates. While RDR2’s 23 million plus fans await the arrival of such content installments, online communities such as Reddit and Youtube are ablaze with ideas and suggestions on some of the critical things they feel need to be added.

Crafting Gear

Generating income and purchasable content may be some of the core issues that online players outline in posts concerning limitations with the beta currently. Craftable gear is an option that would help to resolve both of these immediate issues by capitalizing on the immersive world fans and player have come to enjoy. The story mode does have a crafting system in place that allows player to skin legendary animal’s and turn them into a tracker for creating unique garments. This is one of the more interesting and involved ways a player can customize their character adding an option that allows the outfits to be sold due to their rarity would create additional avenues for income.

Simply using legendary animals that spawn at a lower rate is something that would require less design work compared to creating a complete new system devoted to crafting clothing. Just as animals in game have a pelt ranking system from one star to three, legendary animal could be given a similar system that in turn create different types of clothing for each animal. At this time players are restricted to creating items such as tonics, cures, medicines, recipes etc. that are unable to be resold  for a profit.

Meat Wagons

With the current limited set up for generating high dollar income in Read Dead Redemption 2’s multiplayer many players have found a niche in Rockstars well polished hunting system. The general process involves a player equipping the right weapons and ammo for a variety of animals that can be hunted/harvested and sold to the local butcher shops for a nice profit. Seasoned players develop a “keep everything system” and harvest any animal they find and re sell all the gathered parts without keeping any.  Even this system has its limits, players are only able to carry one animal carcass at a time on horseback and if they dont mind a 15 minute real time walk one additional animal over their shoulder. This limits most players to hunting near the outskirts of towns to keep the method quick and efficient.

A quick fix to this dilemma would be a designated  meat wagon designed to haul and store an additional number of small to large animal carcasses. Design variations could exist for players to assign a specific horse to a stabled meat wagon or allow these wagons to be hauled by current player horses. Furthering this improvement and expanding on content players could be allowed to purchase one directly from butcher shops to own and on the rare occasion stumble across one spawned in the open world.

Metal Helmet & Accessories

Any player that has braved a showdown series or gun rush series (any online PVP situation honestly) has felt the bitter sting left from the abuse of RDR2’s auto aim system. Players are able to almost instantly set their crosshairs to an enemy players head with little to no aim thanks to the current auto aim system. A minor adjustment is needed before the crosshairs are locked on to an enemy players head, by squeezing the left trigger the crosshairs will automatically be drawn to the nearest player within a limited range, the player then has to apply slight pressure to the right thumb stick to adjust the auto aim for a perfect headshot. This can be countered by turning off the feature, online players that play with traditional shooter aiming can feel they are at an unfair advantage in terms of friendly competition.

Taking a lesson from real life improvements in military gear shortly after the games set time period, one way to fix this would be adding a metal helmet that buffs against headshot damage. It should be mentioned  there is a metal bucket accessory that has all the aesthetics of wooden teeth but it does nothing in terms of damage resistance. For design variance developers could strive for badges, metal playing cards, gun belts and such that can be added around the base of the players equipped hat to activate the damage buff. This of course means if a player is without a hat they are without the additional protection.

Job Opportunity

RDR2 encompasses breathtaking countryside and endless roaming opportunity but for high level players there is definitely room for wanting more content. Rockstar is not short on plans for there flagship title but the most immediate fix for a bored cowpoke is to develop some type of  job opportunity for players. While hunting, fishing, bandit riding, stranger missions and train conducting are entertaining, they limit the fantastic world that is available to just a few repetitive farming and nostalgia tasks. The array of jobs that players could perform is wide with; cattle driving, transporting goods, player shooting competitions, high end good requests (meats, feathers, herbs) just to name a few

Developers could even consider  a deputy system that allows players of high honor to employ as deputies, tracking down bounty contracts and assigned against NPC’s and players. This could be similar to the hit system that was introduced into GTA V that allowed players to assign hits on other players for a cash and experience reward.

If players can count on one thing from Rockstar it is the constant fluid change they invest in perfecting their products. As updates are released and the impending full multiplayer release approaches we can only hope to see some of the fantastic ideas fans have come up with make their way into the game.