Red Dead Online has now been accessible to all Red Dead Redemption 2 players for a few days now, which means a large number of people are messing about in its online open world shenanigans. With that, though, plenty of doors have been opened for criticism, the most prominent of which seems to be related to the in-game economy.
The economy of Red Dead Online is tied to gold bars, which are required for upgrading and customizing of a number of things, but as a Reddit thread has pointed out, the prices being demanded for these things in the game are very high, while at the same time the game’s very conservative about how much gold nuggets (a hundred of which constitute a single gold bar) and cash it gives out to players.
For instance, as the thread points out, customizing the pistol you start with to make it all black requires 12 gold bars, while a haircut costs you a single gold bar. Some of the fastest horses in the game can also only be bought with gold bars, while the same is true of horse insurance as well, which is quite vital in the game (though the very first horse insurance is much easier to come by).
The issue is that you’re not rewarded with a lot of gold nuggets, and gather a hundred of them to make up for a single gold bar can take multiple hours of grinding. You can see how that would be a problem. Even beyond gold bars, the in-game economy tied to actual cash also seems very punishing, with activities in the game giving out very small sums of money, and actual purchases in the game requiring being quite demanding.
It’s worth noting that Red Dead Online is in beta right now, so there’s every chance that Rockstar takes feedback into account and makes the in-game economy less restrictive. As it stands right now, though, things aren’t looking very good.
Recently, Rockstar also confirmed that when the game’s online component does exit beta, there’s a chance that your progress may not be carried over. Read more on that through here.