The Naturalist General Thread

[Jason 27,188]

 

"Visit the Welcome Center in the town of Strawberry to meet up with both Harriet and Gus - and document your findings with the new Animal Field Guide - a compendium featuring the abundant species found across all of the frontier’s distinct habitats. Tracking, photographing, and sampling animals will add their information to your Animal Field Guide and progress you along the Naturalist role."

 

Cost: 25 Gold Bars

 

https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/61645/Red-Dead-Online-The-Naturalist-Now-Available

 

https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/61657/Tips-and-Tricks-for-Aspiring-Naturalists

[Waldbear 557]

So far, i like this update! Love the camera filters, much more animals, dripfeed clothing

(i expect). 

Edited July 28 by Waldbear

[ALifeOfMisery 40,244]

"As your Naturalist activities progress, you’ll start to encounter Legendary Animals"

 

Maybe we can't hunt Legendary Animals at low ranks?

[Talisman_83 4,848]

5 minutes ago, ALifeOfMisery said:

"As your Naturalist activities progress, you’ll start to encounter Legendary Animals"

 

Maybe we can't hunt Legendary Animals at low ranks?

One guy, @GazzaRichNUFC, said he killed the legendary boar

[Jason 27,188]

The whole role feels like it has all the right ingredients to be great but they didn't even start cooking it.

 

Exp rates feel completely awful, samples being (seemingly) the only way to get exp right now outside of missions (which won't work for me, and won't tell me why) is shocking. We should be getting exp for taking samples at the very least, I haven't got any Naturalist exp in ages despite doing things directly related to the role, like taking samples, photographing animals, tracking, selling stuff to the guy. I'm level two and the only reason I'm not level one is because of the 2000 exp coupon with the pass.

 

Then we have the actual rewards, which are very light and, going by their messaging, is going to be rife with dripfeed. The result of this is that they've released the highly requested Trapper role for RDO but they've launched it with, give or take, ten Trapper clothing items with four of them being hats.

 

Legendary animals haven't been spawning for me despite using the lure bottle in the right areas, that's not fun.

 

The whole role has zero tutorial or introduction either, you have the cool cutscene and then it literally dumps you into the middle of no where giving you literally no indication on what you're meant to do next, where you need to go, or anything. The only reason I figured out how to take samples is because I figured I needed sleep arrows or ammo, so I went and checked shops and found Gus and Harriet's stores on the map.

 

The whole thing feels rushed, almost as if they got absolutely rocked by lockdown and pushed this out uncooked.

 

I like everything about the role but the pay off. Exp, cash, clothes, trinkets, there's not enough of any of it.

[IzzyBlues 1,604]

Ran to Cholla Springs, used two legendary pheromones and couldn't track the moose or whatever it was that was there, so I'm going to be leaving hunting legendary animals for a while until people work out just how the f*ck to do them at level 1 (if you even can).

 

EDIT: Also, are you supposed to sell the samples as a collection for extra money? Similar to Madam Nazar's collections?

Edited July 28 by IzzyBlues93

[ShadowlessDevil 1,692]

Can we play both roles? or we're stuck with what role we choose?

 

[ALifeOfMisery 40,244]

8 minutes ago, Talisman_83 said:

One guy, @GazzaRichNUFC, said he killed the legendary boar

So it's just RNG, great!

 

6 minutes ago, Jason said:

outside of missions (which won't work for me, and won't tell me why)

 

7 minutes ago, Jason said:

outside of missions (which won't work for me, and won't tell me why)

Someone in B&M said you can't do missions until rank 5.

 

7 minutes ago, Jason said:

I like everything about the role but the pay off.

There's basically no pay off especially as far as XP is concerned. Surely we should get XP for sedating animals and taking samples, even if it's just 10XP per time, rather than only when selling samples.

[Jason 27,188]

I've heard of people doing missions and legendary animals so I dunno if they're doing it before five or what. If they are, I'd like to know what they're doing to level up lol.

[aaron2997 1,063]

I found the Legendary Zizi Beaver just randomly along the river north of Owanjila. Tracked, sedated, sampled, and photographed and went on my way.

[IzzyBlues 1,604]

Just a heads up, if you kill enough animals, eventually you will piss off Harriet and she will spray more of that crap in your face if you try to buy/sell from her camp. You will black out and wake up in the middle of nowhere again. After that happens, her icon is greyed out and you have to wait before you can visit her again.

[Jason 27,188]

Just now, IzzyBlues93 said:

Just a heads up, if you kill enough animals, eventually you will piss off Harriet and she will spray more of that crap in your face if you try to buy/sell from her camp. You will black out and wake up in the middle of nowhere again. After that happens, her icon is greyed out and you have to wait before you can visit her again.

I just had this happen to me.

 

HOW THE F*CK AM I MEANT TO LEVEL UP THE ROLE NOW?

 

I hope there's something I'm missing that they haven't explained to us at all otherwise this is the most ill thought out role they've done yet by a mile.

[aFinn 10,289]

I did the introduction but after that I got nothing else on map except the introduction again. I went in there, but it was the introduction again

Edited July 28 by aFinn

[ALifeOfMisery 40,244]

1 minute ago, IzzyBlues93 said:

Just a heads up, if you kill enough animals, eventually you will piss off Harriet and she will spray more of that crap in your face if you try to buy/sell from her camp. You will black out and wake up in the middle of nowhere again. After that happens, her icon is greyed out and you have to wait before you can visit her again.

This is a f*cking dismal design choice, I'm sorry.

 

So we basically have to progress the Role at a snails pace by selling samples because if we go after the clothing first we'll get locked out of progression.

[IzzyBlues 1,604]

5 minutes ago, ALifeOfMisery said:

This is a f*cking dismal design choice, I'm sorry.

 

So we basically have to progress the Role at a snails pace by selling samples because if we go after the clothing first we'll get locked out of progression.

Don't you get xp for going to the trapper? I haven't tried yet.

 

What I can't work out is why you need to kill the animal to get 100% progression for that certain animal in the animal guide. If you kill the animal after reviving it, you'll just piss off Harriet again... I'm real f*cken confused here Jimmy. Might be Rockstars way of passively dragging the role out by making it harder to progress. I have no idea.

 

And how the FUCC do I sample the snakes that swim in the water after you sedate them? Is there a way to bring them to shore? Lasso doesn't seem to do anything, or maybe I'm just not aiming at the corpse properly?

Edited July 28 by IzzyBlues93

[Jason 27,188]

2 minutes ago, IzzyBlues93 said:

Don't you get xp for going to the trapper? I haven't tried yet.

Nope, he functions like a Butcher with a clothes and trinket shop. I haven't tried buying clothes from him, who knows that might reward exp but I'd be surprised. As far as I can tell, no interactions with Gus/Trapper reward exp at all.

[Don Maximus Meridius 1,097]

So, I played for 3h30 and did all 80 lvs of club/outlaw pass + lvl 5 of naturalist role. The key to get role exp = sedate everything that moves and take the samples, the best ones are rabbits, muskrats and other small animals, since they take only 2 shots to sleep. Every sample sold to the girl will give you 65 xp, but you can carry only 10 samples of the same animal at time.

 

Get the lvl 20 will be fast, but to study/track/photo/sedate/sample/kill/skin of every land animal in the game + all the legendaries will take months (or even years, if the animal spawn glitch returns). Will take a loooooong time to say again "there is nothing to do in this game".

[ALifeOfMisery 40,244]

1 minute ago, IzzyBlues93 said:

Don't you get xp for going to the trapper? I haven't tried yet.

I haven't seen anyone say you can and none of the streams I've watched (can't get online yet) have gone to the Trapper guy.

 

My point was more that you can play one side of the role (samples) without affecting the other (Trapper) but you can't go hunting properly (for Trapper or Trader) without getting locked out of the samples side of the update, even if only temporarily.

1 minute ago, Jason said:

Nope, he functions like a Butcher with a clothes and trinket shop. I haven't tried buying clothes from him, who knows that might reward exp but I'd be surprised. As far as I can tell, no interactions with Gus/Trapper reward exp at all.

So it is as I feared. You have to pretty much ignore Gus to avoid halting Role progression. Smh.

3 minutes ago, Don Maximus Meridius said:

but to study/track/photo/sedate/sample/kill/skin of every land animal in the game + all the legendaries will take months (or even years, if the animal spawn glitch returns). Will take a loooooong time to say again "there is nothing to do in this game".

I already have zero intention of even attempting this. As soon as I hit rank 20 I'm moving on to the clothing from Gus.

4 minutes ago, Don Maximus Meridius said:

The key to get role exp = sedate everything that moves and take the samples, the best ones are rabbits, muskrats and other small animals, since they take only 2 shots to sleep. Every sample sold to the girl will give you 65 xp, but you can carry only 10 samples of the same animal at time.

Thanks for the tip.

[RaigeGames 3,075]

From the sound of it, it's going to take all of us a while to figure out how exactly this role works. At least for me, I'm still confused on how it all works. 

 

I have a degree in wildlife biology and this concept of the naturalist is perfect for me. But I feel like the execution is just awful. But who knows, maybe it will be better the more I play it

[IzzyBlues 1,604]

I honestly think I'm just gonna sedate and sample everything I can and then sell to get XP. I can't be assed saving sets to get a bonus payout. The XP gain seems so much more important than the cash at the moment.

[RockstarPlayer94 1,300]

Do I need to sell samples to Gus or harriet?

[IzzyBlues 1,604]

Just now, RockstarPlayer94 said:

Do I need to sell samples to Gus or harriet?

Harriet.

[Don Maximus Meridius 1,097]

I'm curious about that legendaries with an "?".

[ORLAG 112]

Could someone please give me a few locations for the timber wolf? It's the last thing I need for this naturalist "collection". Thanks in advance!

[RaigeGames 3,075]

Just now, ORLAG said:

Could someone please give me a few locations for the timber wolf? It's the last thing I need for this naturalist "collection". Thanks in advance!

Try Cumberland forest, I got ambushed by some timber wolves earlier 

[ORLAG 112]

Just now, RaigeGames said:

Try Cumberland forest, I got ambushed by some timber wolves earlier 

Thank you! If nobody else has completed one yet, I'll be sure to report back here with the experience payout.

[Tez2 36,295]

God bless Bob Ross, Jeanropke and the other contributors for dis map. It seems like it still works properly, you just need to re-check the animal spawn location two or three times. Comes in handy to collect the samples faster.

https://jeanropke.github.io/RDOMap/

Edited July 28 by Fun 2

[RockstarPlayer94 1,300]

This role feels so slow to rank up.

[Don Maximus Meridius 1,097]

1 minute ago, RockstarPlayer94 said:

This role feels so slow to rank up.

Nah, it's faster than it seems, I think is faster than trader.

[Jason 27,188]

Just now, RockstarPlayer94 said:

This role feels so slow to rank up.

I honestly cannot be f*cked with it while exp rates are what they are, or unless someone figures something out that I'm missing.

 

We should be getting exp for collecting samples at the very least. 50 exp per sample is horrendously slow. Forty samples, a few less with the Pass boosts, is going to take a good while to acquire with the hunt times, sample gathering times and sedation ammo runs. That's just to get enough exp for one level. That's 400 samples for 10 levels and 800 samples for 20, without the Pass boosts. Numbers like that aren't pretty in any game.

 

At the very least we should be getting 50 exp for taking the sample and 50 for handing it in, cutting down the total sample number to level up by half.

 

Unless I'm missing something, cause right now it feels incredibly slow to me.