(& How I'd Fix It)

Red Dead II is an amazing game. I personally consider it game of the century. If the Voyager Golden Record were launched into space today, I would fight my way into NASA's headquarters to make sure that Red Dead II would be put on it.

That being said, I'm not a loon. I can admit that Read Dead II isn't perfect, and that it has some glaring flaws. The three-star pelt and carcass system is a huge time-waster and makes any pelt/carcass that's below perfect useless, and only being able to store up to three horses in a game that revolves around riding on horseback is stupid. I want all the horses dammit!

But my biggest gripe with the game is the bounty and law system.

Look, it makes sense to have this system. You can't do bad things and not expect bad things to happen to you, that's the whole moral of the game. But this game's implementation of the system was so botched I'm surprised Rockstar even allowed it into the final game.

To Start: The Bounty System

My biggest complaint is the frequency at which the bounty hunters spawn. Once your bounty is high enough, bounty hunters spawn literally every few minutes. You'd think that after killing your 10,000th bounty hunter, the idiots would start to think twice before even daring to look in your general direction—but nope! Five minutes later there's a new sucker running at you just waiting to get his head blown off.

And they'll spawn just about anywhere too. You can be in the middle of the New Austin desert, or rowing up Bayou Nwa, or on the side of a random mountain in the middle of Ambarino, or even in goddamn Tempest Rim, and by some dark magic they'll still find you! Was Marko Dragic selling some high-powered satellites in 1899 or something???

It's all just so suffocating. It gets to the point that one can't even enjoy a ride without being harassed by some troupe of clowns. Again, I know that the game is trying to send the message that you can't do bad things and expect good things to happen, and the bounty system is the game's way of punishing the player for their actions, but it gets to the point where it's just plain infuriating and unfun.

People say that the frequency of the bounty hunters is actually good because then you can farm them and loot whatever's on their corpses, but in my experience, bounty hunters' loot isn't worth it, even on the lowest honour (you get better loot at low honour). All I get is a few tonics and a measely sum of cash, maybe a gold nugget if I'm lucky. Gee, thanks. The cost of the bullets I shot was more than the money I looted, and the tonics will dry up quicky when I use them on the next group of bounty hunters that spawned!

But none of this would be without the other side of the coin: The Law System

I swear, the lawmen in this game have freakin' telepathy. Same goes for the witnesses. A witness that saw a crime occur in the middle of nowhere can report it and get the law on you in 10 seconds. And somehow, every lawman in the state will know about it and be out for you. Isn't this supposed to be a game about the Wild West? The era when the law was scarce and information got around slowly? To be fair, the game takes place during the time the Wild West was coming to an end, but that doesn't explain how I can be instantly reported for a train robbery that occured in the middle of Ambarino, a state that's unique for not even having any major settlements.

With all that being said, I thought a lot about how I would improve the system while playing, so here's some of my thoughts:

Reduce How Often Bounty Hunters Spawn The biggest change that needs to be made is the bounty hunters' spawn rate. In general, their spawn rate should be lowered a bit, since at a certain point the game just becomes unfun to play with how often you either have to fight or flee from bounty hunters.

Make The Bounty Hunter Spawn Rate Differ By Region While in general the bounty hunter spawn rate should be lowered, certain regions should have a higher or lower chance than others. For example, areas right outside of major settlements should have higher chances to spawn bounty hunters than more remote regions. To take it further, make certain areas spawn very little to no bounty hunters at all. I think the best example of this is Roanoke Ridge and the area surrounding Beaver Hollow. The game itself tells us that even the law hesitates to go up there, so why not make the area a sort of "safe haven" from the bounty hunters? You can camp out there without worrying about bounty hunters being on your tail, as they'll be unwilling to walk into Murfree Country, but the trade-off is that you'll be facing ambushes and such from the Murfree Brood. Something similar can be implemented in the mountainous areas of Grizzlies West, on account of its harsh conditions.

Remove Telepathy Why does every lawman know who and where I am when I get reported for a crime? And how do witnesses even report your crimes so quickly? Remove the telepathy. News has to get around slowly. Not too slowly of course, or the game would get boring. Just slow enough that it feels slightly more realistic.

Remove Bounty on Death Whatever happened to "Wanted: Dead or Alive"? Whenever you get killed by bounty hunters or lawmen, your bounty should be reset.

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