[Mod Request] Humble Suggestions for Free Roam Gameplay Longevity

[TroggiSnotBeard]

First I'd like to say I'm aware that most of these ideas are probably a pipe dream that would take a full game development team to make and that I don't know the first thing about modding or how difficult and time consuming it must be especially for a game as complex as this. What I do have is a passionate fanhood for this game that feels like a rental experience after you've 100% completed it a few times :laugh:.

Adding a wedding ring to John's finger after "American Venom" would be really cool since that is so essential to his character. It is probably the the most feasible out of my ideas and I wasn't sure where it would fit under a bulleted list so I figured I'd put that down first. I'd like that to be a part of one the existing mods like John Marston Restoration Project or at least be compatible with them.

• Load Different Save Files From Main Menu
• John giving Mary Linton Arthur's cut of the MONEY and his Journal
  Of all the retcons I hate, John using Dutch's Gang's blood money to buy Beecher's Hope is one of the worst. John giving it all away to Rains Fall and the other gang members would be preferable. After achieving 100% completion and getting the cutscene at Arthur's grave Mary Linton and her brother should be there having been driven by coach by John and Abigail. This is basically just my head canon/fan fiction but seriously how else could she know where Arthur's grave was and John has her letters. Having a mod of John fulfilling Arthur's last will would be great.
  
• Remove Horse Targeting Priority during Combat + Horses are Aggressive
  Even in free-aim sometimes taking aim will focus the camera on horses and open the command menu during a shootout. I don't know how this made it past testing, but it's definitely the most annoying problem in the game. Horses never actually get attacked by predators nor do they kick anything besides the player. They should get into fights just like all the other beasts. I think using deadeye and horse reviver to save my horse from a cougar would be great. The rearing mechanic should frighten OTHER animals not your horse.
  
• Change Button Input for "Stop Tracking" on Horseback
  On foot the right bumper/R1 buttons are fine for canceling a focused on track, but on horseback it's the same input as hitting the brakes. So if you're chasing down a critter or bounty and need to slow your horse you have to lose the track first!
  
• Disable Automatic Weapon Holstering on Horseback and Camera focusing on Predators
  
• Infinite Random Events + Stranger Activities
  The only events that persist when you've done all of them are the two Murfrees looting their victims and the blind prophet begging. Also being able to repeat some of the one time activities like the remote control boat or doing missions for the widow Charlotte and other Strangers who are still around. Restoring all the ones from RDR1 would be great and adding some more for the new mechanics like fisherman contests while out boating, or animals caught in traps.
  
• Honor Tweaks
  Ideally a menu allowing players to change settings to individual taste, but mainly I don't want to lose honor for defending myself from bloodhounds or gain honor for stopping robberies.
  
• More Unlockable Weapon Customization & Gun Perks
  I loved the hero grip for the cattleman and the gunslinger grip for the double action, but imagine if you could increase a weapons stats by unlocking new parts or "appraisals" at the gunsmith by achieving a certain number of kills in deadeye, duel victories, executions, hip-fire headshots, etc. This would really help personalize each gun and add meaning to your "favorite weapon ranking."
  
• Riverboat Bars, Gambling, Robbery, & Fast Travel
  Reusing assets from the mission "A Fine Night of Debauchery" the player could board the Grand Korrigan from the ticket office at the Lemoyne Eastern Riverboat Company Blackwater Pier and travel to the other major piers in the game (Saint Denis, Braithwaite VIllage, etc.) functioning just like train travel but with services onboard. Maybe gamble on prize fighters or Guarma travel.
  
• Horse & Wagon Fence in Thieves' Landing + Import/Export Cattle Rustling
  The fact that there is only one location you can sell stolen/recovered wagons and horses is ridiculous. This would require changing the settlement from a Gang Hideout to the way it is in RDO with the mute Del Lobo item Fence. Maybe the stable near Van Horn could be one too. Adding the boat with horse stable from "A Rage Unleashed" to these locations would be really cool for immersion.
  
• Mute Gunsmiths
  or at least remove their commenting every time I select a weapon to customize. This issue could also be solved If there was a blacksmith station in the barn at Beecher's Hope.
  
• Freeroam Music Variety
  There is so much good music during missions, but the tracks that play while free roaming get really old and sound like something from a horror movie. Also add a few different tracks for the fast travel sequences.
  
• Hunting Grounds
  Make Legendary Animal Territories work like Hunting Grounds from RDR1 Online. [
  | https://reddead.fandom.com/wiki/Liars_and_Cheats#Hunting_Grounds ]
  Essentially functions like a Gang Hideout but the Legendary Animal will attack after defeating waves of its aggressive kin, and of course it would be repeatable. Perhaps this activity would be activated by Potent Bait to keep the world cells open for other events. Also making the Legendary Bull Albino Gator spawn after "Country Pursuits" would be great as that is the only thing Arthur can't get by chapter 4.
  
• Falconry
  Remember the cool gauntlets on John's Rancher Outfit in RDR1? The Trapper is always talking about his falconer friend Jerry in Roanoke so I thought John could meet him and get a trained hawk to accompany him and Rufus for hunting. Seeing it perched around Beecher's Hope and whistling for it to land on your arm would be so cool.
  
• Races
  Ever thought it was crazy to play a Rockstar game that only had 2 races in the story and a few random events? I still can't believe there isn't a racetrack in Saint Denis. Being able to participate in challenging horse and wagon races all around the map would add another source of legal money, let you put your riding skills to the test, and earn some new horse perks and cosmetics. Stables would be a good place to access them.
  
• Quick Draw Duel Tournaments
  Like the Brimstone Championship from Red Dead Revolver.
  
• Melee Throws and Tackle Counters Ragdoll Enemies
  Grappling and throwing a weakened enemy into Euphoria during a fist fight would provide endless entertainment.
  
• RDR1 Ragdoll Intoxication + Wolf Heart Trinket Buff + More Blackout Scenarios
  It's already hard enough to get and stay drunk without the Wolf Heart Trinket so I'd change it to buff the effects of all alcohol or something. I think the perfect compromise of merging the new active drunkeness with the old is to have it be the classic way only when you drink at saloons. A dream come true would be active ragdoll where you can still talk to people and shoot your gun. Adding in more blackout scenarios reminiscent of the gta5 character switch scenes would be hilarious. The player should only have a chance to wake in jail if they blackout with a bounty in civilization not in the wilderness. At most one should wake up to being tracked or in the middle of drunken rampage.
  
• Bring Back the Wilhelm Scream!
  It was implemented tastefully in RDR1, only occurring every so often when killing enemies at a distance. The vanilla game already has the stock movie gun ricochet sound effect at least, but there should be a chance for the Howie scream when enemies are dying by fire or explosion. Also, melee knockouts should have a chance to make the old western movie punching sound effects. The option to implement sounds from Revolver and Redemption 1 in general as well.
  
• Hold Lasso & Be Dragged While Wrangling Large Animals as Long as You Want
  
• Gang Hideout Challenges
  Rdr1 had unique social club challenges for each hideout that unlocked new cheats and even had leader boards.
  
• Enemy Weapon and Tactics Variety
  More fire bottles, dynamite and mix ups like trampling and lasso wrangling. Maybe even use tonics and armor.
  
• Journal & Compendium Unity
  Being able to turn directly to the corresponding journal entry from whatever you're looking at in the compendium would be a really nice feature. Also the map icons/journal drawings of flora and fauna being displayed in the compendium would be great. Kind of like a map legend. A journal section in the pause menu could be put back in like from RDR1 to show if you're still missing entries or something.
  
• More Statistics
  I miss being able to read ALL of my gameplay stats. For example imagine if the "Player" section tracked your crimes and money. Make the Weapon Compendium appear in the main pause menu section like RDR1 and expand it to display even more like duel victories, executions, hip-fire kills, etc.
  
• Choose Horses pulling Owned Wagons and Reattach Them After Crashing
  
• More Animal Fat
  Ever thought it odd getting the same amount of fat from a duck as a bear? I think more animals should have it as well. ex: Bear = x5 units of Fat
  
• Craftable Torches
  Make torches melee weapons like in Undead Nightmare. More things to craft in general.
  
• Gang Member Grave Map Markers
  After paying respects the grave would get a drawing on the map like all other points of interest.
  
• Trapper Provides All Crafting Needs
  Going to the Fences to craft Trinkets and Talismans out of Legendary Animal parts is out of place. Also I'd like to be able to buy all recipe pamphlets from him right away. It'd be awesome to add a new mission in the replay menu where John and Charles aid the trapper in Tall trees.
  
• Purchase Boats
  
• Pay Bribes Instead of Bounties
  I understand that this is just for convenience, but for immersion I'd rather have the same mechanic changed to bribing local officials to avoid Marshals and Bounty Hunters.
  
• Camp Supplies Matter + Story Mission Restrictions/Requirements
  In GTA San Andreas CJ had to complete the driving school to progress in the story and if he was too fat he couldn't do the flight school. It'd be really cool if gang's supplies had to be maintained and upgraded to access major story missions and if their performance was better or worse depending it's status.
  
• Better Guarma Camp Weapons
  The Machete should've unlocked here since it's a sugar plantation
  
• Delete Arthur's Outfits from John's Wardrobe
  
• Arthur's Deadeye is Different
  Stronger melee in deadeye as Arthur and turn the filter red after his diagnoses. I think his hud being TB themed with blood stains and damaged lung tissue/ alveoli would create a really distinct experience with the epilogue.
  
• Classic Red and Black Pause Menu and Loading Screens in Epilogue
  
• Journal/ Mission Flow
  Fix continuity error of "Pouring Forth Oil IV" train robbery being accessible before "A Fisher of Men" and make Arthur's Journal entry about Colm hanging appear after "Goodbye, Dear Friend" instead of after "Mrs. Sadie Adler Widow II." Obviously this is an error but beyond that the whole entry is missing if the player chooses not to help Sadie.
  
• John Illustrates Guns
  Display his passion as a shootist by adding simple renders of weapons after he cleans or maxes familiarity with them. I wonder if there are cut drawings that could be added back in like helping the Widow Charlotte.
  
• MAP CHANGES
• Epilogue Gang Hideout Overhaul
  The major idea here being that times have changed and Dutch's gang helped the law crush the old gangs so most of them have been replaced, and the map east of Beecher's Hope is organized crime and law while the west is chaos.
  Beaver Hollow is no longer a hideout, sealed off by rubble with Pinkerton Memorial
  Guido Martelli Mob Gang Hideout at Angelo Bronte's Mansion and Shady Belle
  Night Folk at Lakay
  Six-Point Cabin Occupied by Laramies
  Ewing Basin occupied by either Micah's gang or Skinners
  Fort Mercer is occupied by the Military and off limits to maintain some level of respect for rdr1.
  
• Iron Cloud/Tempest Rim Restored + New Trapper Location in Grizzlies West
  Hidden Area outside the map used in Intro sequence [
  ]
  and unmarked trails at Tempest Rim that could connect Adler Ranch to Wapiti.
  
• Another Red Dead Revolver Location
  Outside the map north of Rathskeller fork Brimstone or Tarnation could be added.
  
• Epilogue Map Changes
  Remove Rains Fall's still burning Sacred Site ruins, delete trees, and perhaps create a Memorial that isn't in the way of the trail to Col. Favours and all those soldiers who died.
  Clemens Point/Cove or Braithwaite Village become a new port suburb of Rhodes to add another riverboat fast travel landing. Also make the stables from Braithwaite and Gray manors provide services and work.
  Mercer and Bacchus Stations restored with Post Offices and travel.
  Horseshoe Overlook civilized tourist area of some sort. I like the idea of all the former Dutch's gang campsites being urbanized to show the wild west dying.
  Annesburg could be a ghost town with a gang hideout in the mine while Van Horn could be expanded to make up for it's absence.
  Wapiti could be a trading post, a trapper location, or gang hideout anything is better than a tiny abandoned oil pump. Repairing the bridge south of Dodd's Bluff where Dutch and Arthur made their leap of faith could open a new route for races.
  
  Anybody can come up with ideas, but executing them is something special. Most of these ideas would probably conflict with the existing popular mods, and I do have more, but I just wanted to get these out there without cluttering up the posts on mod pages. Some really big stuff I didn't write because it seemed better to leave as comments on existing relevant mods. I don't care about intellectual property or whatever I just want the community to flourish.

Edited October 1, 2022 by TroggiSnotBeard

[SnakeSlippers]

I didn't want to read too much through this cause there are spoilers and I haven't finished yet. I just been free roaming during CH. 2 and alot of the things you mentioned I like the sound of. If you don't mind I'd like to add some more ideas to your post so I don't make a whole new topic.

 

More fire spread: Something like Farcry 2. Setting a field on fire for it to only burn that little section is kinda weird.

 

More options for corpses: Skin humans, bury them, chop em up, cannibalism. Something other then loot, pickup.

 

Skin options for: Horses, cats, dogs. Dont care about anyones feelings on this. They are a animal in game, let me skin them too.

Also catch bugs for something. I see moths, butterflies and stuff flying around. Maybe put them in jars?

 

Also option to search both saddlebags on dead horses.

 

There needs to be more interactive items in this game. Houses full of stuff but can only interact with like 4 items. Boring... Basket full of apples? Can only pick up 1. Wtf?

 

Some kind of building mechanic? Something little, not Fallout 4 type but if you find a building, it would be cool to put wood over windows and stuff or flip tables to hide behind.

 

I have alot more but don't want to hogtie your thread.