To the surprise of no one, Red Dead Redemption 2's online component is shaping up to be a disaster akin to GTA Online. Everything in the game has been given up to a 5x price hike right off the bat. For example a plain shirt that cost 5 dollars in the single player now costs 60, with missions rewarding players a couple bucks a pop you can see why that sucks. Apparently it takes upwards of 8 hours to get 1 gold bar, which is their premium currency and many items you can only purchase with it. Keep in mind a good horse costs 40 gold bars, so if you don't shell out some cash you better buckle in for a hellish grind.

More info here https://kotaku.com/red-dead-onlines-economy-is-broken-1830751794

It's still a beta supposedly, but I can't imagine this thing not being a pain in the ass and totally not worth playing. It's a shame, too. The singleplayer is fantastic.

I've played a few hours so far and I think ill have to step away from it for now, its a slog to make money to buy the fun stuff. The cynic/realist side of me says they are doing insane pricing up front with the intent to listen to "feedback" (backlash) from the community. Then, to "earn" back goodwill they will balance the economy out a bit and slowly ramp up prices again as they add new features like property owning/business managing or train robberies down the line.

The prices are ridiculously grindy right now, its like 1.25 to sell a looted gold ring and 1.50 to buy canned beans. Looting bodies after a fight yields 10-15 cents a body and maybe a tonic if you get lucky. Stranger side quests yield $4-10 for a quick mission and the gold nuggets are intentionally rewarded in small amounts to encourage whales to buy gold bars. Rifles cost $300-600 with the most expensive gun, a pistol being $999.

Like you say it is a shame, although not surprising considering all the money they made from GTAO. I enjoyed the single player but man, online not worth it at the moment.

I booted it up last night and basically hated everything about it. From the busted economy to immediately getting griefed upon completing the tutorial, to the game not keeping a posse together when loading into missions, to trying to wrestle with the awful gameplay for PvP.

But the economy thing is so egregiously gross that I have to believe things will become more fair once the "beta" is over. Or hell, maybe it won't. With how insanely profitable GTA Online proved to be, I'm sure Rockstar knows they can milk these suckers for all they're worth. Either way, I don't think I have any interest in becoming invested in this mode at all.

It's not that bad. I bought clothes and a bolt action rifle day one after playing for like 4 hours. Besides that rifle I just want a pump action shotgun and maybe a bow for stealth missions - screw the other weapons. One of the missions I did last night gave us $200. Only the early missions pay you small. I'd focus on the gold missions if you're after money.

I had the same feeling getting payed out nothing or a few bucks for story missions is weird. But the the comment above me tells he got payed 200 bucks so there might be more money on the horizon. played about (4 hours).

That's pretty much GTA Online. Most of the rinky dink missions you do early pay out peanuts. It's only when you start getting into the bigger missions and heists and then the business ventures they brought in later did you actually start making real money.

I'm willing to wait and see if they make adjustments in their beta before I'm willing to complain.

The economy is kinda fucked with how expensive anything is, but that said I am having fun just playing it. Getting together with a group of people to do a story mission is fun and the moral choices that let you fork left or right in the middle of one are also a nice twist. I like the social experience and some of the modes that instance you into a deathmatch or free for all are a nice way to do an event without riding around.

If you're a decent shot then the guns don't really make much of a difference because a headshot is a headshot and the gameplay aspect of it is pretty fun so far. I can see how having a big posse might be a cool idea as well. The money issue isn't really gating me off from activities or competing with others.

I felt like I always had a really hard time making money in GTA Online as well, but still had some fun goofing around with friends. Doesn't seem like that big of a deal, especially if later missions pay better.

Also for anyone playing on PS4 - I didn't know about this but apparently you can pick up exclusive items for free. An Arabian horse at a stable, a fancy looking double action revolver at any fence and the Grizzly outfit from the catalogue. All free of charge which is pretty cool because the double action revolver while not the most powerful is convenient for not having to cock each shot individually. A faster horse for free is also nice.

I was concerned about the money at first but as I played more of the story missions I pretty quickly got enough to buy a Schofield, a bow and a shit ton of consumables/ammo etc. Trouble is I've finished 75% of the story missions (that's a whopping 6 apparently) and so getting more cash has involved replaying the missions several times which is already getting old.

Also, it seems I can't choose which mission I want to replay (the option's unavailable as of yet but visible in the progress menu) and have to rely on quick join which invariably puts me in one of the missions that pays at most $5 and not the more profitable options. I don't have another story mission available atm and I'm not sure what rank it unlocks at (if this is how it unlocks), now finding myself with very little motivation for repeating the same 3/4 missions ad nauseam until the game sees fit to let me play something new.

I'm gonna stop playing until they add significantly more PvE content (8 missions is a piss take tbh), I've played for 2 days and seen pretty much everything they have to offer. Hopefully all this is resolved when they come out of beta and they have a bunch of stuff waiting to be added because I've enjoyed what's there and for my part have seen very little griefing (certainly less than GTAO).

@someoneproud: Yeah, lack of content is the real problem, not the economy. There's only about a handful of real missions (the gold ones, not the stranger stuff), which is pretty crazy. I'm hoping that's because this is the beta and not the actual launch of online. I really only want missions and free roam stuff, the PvP modes aren't that good since the gunplay isn't good enough to be PvP. I'd say the same for GTA. Also, that game had a ton of missions, so hopefully that is the case here too.

About the economy, I would say that it's bullshit that certain things are gold only. They need to change that ASAP.