Notorious - Level 50

[Narniak]

The grind is real for level 50.  My character is at level 42, so I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Some advice for any trophy hunters getting into RD2 Online.  Best way to quickly earn XP for me has been the Showdown Series Large (32 players).  If you are not very skilled at 3rd person shooters, then you will need all the help you can get to hang with the Ultimate Edition PAY-TO-WIN crowd that will be at least 20+ levels higher than you.  As far as I can tell there are currently no restrictions or controls in the matchmaking levels, meaning level 5 newbie characters are thrown into matches as fresh meat for maxed-out Level 100+ players (those are fairly regular at this point).    

 

First of all, the "Disputed Territories" matches are completely broken, and you can easily use this to your XP advantage.  At the start you simply sprint to the closest open spot (A, B, C, etc.) and claim it with teammates.  Very often (especially if your teammates are good and aggressive) you can just camp within your colored zone of that first spot for most if not the entire match, only rarely ever having to fire your gun for a kill or two.  You can quite literally just sit there doing nothing while everyone else is running around the map.  I have dozens of MVPs where I did absolutely nothing to deserve it with this method, usually good for $20+ and 300+ XP.  I guess this mode currently gives massive "score" points for "holding" a territory.  Rockstar will probably patch this soon so get the free XP while you still can.  Unfortunately the match modes are randomly set right now so you can't just keep playing this mode alone.

 

For the other match formats where you actually have to engage the other players regularly, Ability Cards are CRITICALLY IMPORTANT.  I would argue they are the single most important aspect to the competitive mode.  Note that these upgrades cannot as of yet be purchased with gold bars, only the RDO $$$, making that currency much more valuable at this point.  These upgrades are what you want to be saving for.  At level 30 and 40 you will get 3 and then finally 4 ability slots available, and matches will suddenly become much easier (go figure!).  Each ability requires $50 for Tier 1, $350 for Tier 2, and $500 for Tier 3.  They are insanely expensive, much like everything else in the game.  Do NOT upgrade abilities to Tier 2 unless you are 100% certain they are helpful to you in competitive matches.  When you find the ones you like best, get their XP gains growing as quickly as possible.     

 

I use the currently run the following 4 abilities, which I find are a good balance of damage boost, dead eye management, and health regeneration.  Even with my limited skill I usually get top half in the large events, which generally means you have more kills than deaths, earning ballpark of $10+ and 150+ XP

--(Dead Eye Ability) - Focus Fire - Damage boost every time you activate dead eye, not just for you but for your teammates too.  Insanely powerful, but it takes a lot of practice to get the timing and mechanics down for quickly activating it and firing your weapon.

--(Passive 1) - Peak Condition - Damage boost when your stamina bar is 75% or above.  Although there is quite a lot of sprinting around maps chasing colored dots like a crack head, I find it pretty easy to keep my Stamina above the required level.  Just don't spam the "belly flop dive" too much trying to avoid the cheap headshots, as that will eat your stamina quickly.  When you die your stamina ring also fills.  Obviously getting your Stamina ring to 10/10 as quickly as possible is incredibly important (health ring too, go fishing to increase that quickly).

--(Passive 2) - The Unblinking Eye - Dead Eye drains more slowly.  Goes with Focus Fire.  Dead Eye is an extreme pain for me to manage, much more so than Stamina.  It does not refill when you die.  You can try using consumables like cigars or Snake Oil Tonics, but as with everything in RD2O they are expensive.  I am not good enough with head-shots to use the other ability which restores Dead Eye.    

--(Passive 3) - Strange Medicine - Replenishes your health every time you do damage, but your health regenerates more slowly.  As you will quickly learn in competitive matches, you often will not even have time for your health to regen before your character is killed with a head-shot or a cheap spawn from off screen.  I tried the ability Cold-Blooded for a while, but that one requires KILLS to replenish health, with Strange Medicine you only have to do damage.    

 

Almost everyone uses the currently broken OP Varmint Rifle because it's easy to pull off the aim-assisted 1-shot head-shot kills against less experienced players, especially when they are more familiar with the maps and spawn points.  Against higher level more skilled players it can be outmatched with a Dead Eye tank build using the equally broken OP shield called "Slow and Steady" as protection from headshots.  I was already too invested with my damage-oriented build before I learned about Slow and Steady though, so I am putting up with too many cheap headshots.  I use mainly the Pump-Action Shotgun, which is fairly affordable and efficient with ammo, and can 1-2 shot most players with easy body shots, even from medium range.  Obviously whatever your favorite guns are, make sure you fully upgrade every component that improves stats, including the stock wrap which will significantly slow down weapon degradation.        

 

Split point ammo becomes available to craft at level 28, but it might be better just to save the cost of that crafting recipe and wait to purchase Express ammo at level 31 (you will need either the SP ammo or the small game arrow recipe for the ammo crafting trophy, and both are expensive).  Once I hit level 44, the insanely power Slug ammo becomes available for my shotgun, and it should be smooth sailing to the level 50 trophy.  Good luck trophy hunters!!   

[damon8r351]

I wouldn't recommend anyone immediately jump into the competitive modes at rank 5, only because people have been enjoying multiplayer since the very first day the beta opened and their rank reflects appropriately. I would open up in Free Roam to increase your rank by clearing gang hideouts (there's more than 17 of them), doing story and stranger missions, and completing challenges for belt buckles. I'd also recommend unlocking the Fishing Rod and Lake Lure with gold bars and fishing for salmon and trout in some out of the way lake like O'Creagh's Run. Alternatively, I'd acquire the Varmint Rifle and hunt Spoonbills and Herons in the Bayou, their feathers are worth a lot. Then I'd use the money to buy a better sidearm and an upgraded rifle or repeater, then acquire the offhand holster for a second sidearm. And then acquire upgraded deadeye and passive abilities. Then, and only then, would I recommend going to the competitive modes.

[Narniak]

8 minutes ago, damon8r351 said:

I wouldn't recommend anyone immediately jump into the competitive modes at rank 5, only because people have been enjoying multiplayer since the very first day the beta opened and their rank reflects appropriately. I would open up in Free Roam to increase your rank by clearing gang hideouts (there's more than 17 of them), doing story and stranger missions, and completing challenges for belt buckles. I'd also recommend unlocking the Fishing Rod and Lake Lure with gold bars and fishing for salmon and trout in some out of the way lake like O'Creagh's Run. Alternatively, I'd acquire the Varmint Rifle and hunt Spoonbills and Herons in the Bayou, their feathers are worth a lot. Then I'd use the money to buy a better sidearm and an upgraded rifle or repeater, then acquire the offhand holster for a second sidearm. And then acquire upgraded deadeye and passive abilities. Then, and only then, would I recommend going to the competitive modes.

Yes, all good points.  When starting out definitely just focus on basics in Free Roam, hunting for $$$, story missions, the easy trophies, etc.  Fishing becomes available at level 14, possibly earlier using gold bars from the General Store catalog, not sure.  Fishing is easily the best way to rapidly increase your health ring maxed out early on.  Swimming (sorry John Marston) and sprinting a lot to get your Stamina ring maxed is very helpful too.  The river lure for 1 gold bar is a great deal, I had to use "rank gold" from the General Store catalog, it wasn't available early from the catalog my character carries around.  Salmon was nerfed but still go for $2.50 each and you can carry 10.  You can Google or YouTube search for the $$$ spots for each type of fish.  There are lots of in game "awards" that are a pretty easy +500 XP each, great for leveling up early.  I'd try to get to level 20 before going into the competitive modes so you have at least 2 ability cards and don't get completely slaughtered.

[JPageMartin36]

I sat holding a territory I'd taken over for ages and earned just 39XP at the end screen. My team won too.

 

My best hauls have been in the knife and bow and arrow showdowns. 350-600XP just for surviving a long time in the game.

 

That said, better players than me are probably raking more in during the main gun modes. I was getting 150XP a game (usually) but going 3-9 k/d a lot of the time. Last night I was more of a 6-6 or 7-5 standard and got quite a few 300XP hauls.

 

Level 19 now and played an hour a day since the beta started.

 

[Mori]

Biggest gamechanger for me was the Lancaster Repeater. The default weapons are trash.

Also changed my looking sensitivity to maximum. Helps a lot for example on Tall Tress you can spin your camera 360 degrees and any enemy nearby will get marked on your minimap. Just make sure you dont go crazy and too fast with it.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Mori

[Narniak]

7 hours ago, Mori said:

Biggest gamechanger for me was the Lancaster Repeater. The default weapons are trash.

Also changed my looking sensitivity to maximum. Helps a lot for example on Tall Tress you can spin your camera 360 degrees and any enemy nearby will get marked on your minimap. Just make sure you dont go crazy and too fast with it.

Yeah settings are important, look sensitivity all the way up, dead zone all the way down.  The overpowered auto-aim "wide" setting and assist strength are extremely annoying, Rockstar needs to tone them down for PVP, or else remove the Varmint Rifle from competitive modes.  Another quick way to turn around is clicking R3 thumbstick to look behind you, then pulling L2 to aim weapon with instantly turn you 180 degrees.  Works especially well on your horse in Free Roam against troll griefers.     

8 hours ago, JPageMartin36 said:

I sat holding a territory I'd taken over for ages and earned just 39XP at the end screen. My team won too.

 

My best hauls have been in the knife and bow and arrow showdowns. 350-600XP just for surviving a long time in the game.

 

That said, better players than me are probably raking more in during the main gun modes. I was getting 150XP a game (usually) but going 3-9 k/d a lot of the time. Last night I was more of a 6-6 or 7-5 standard and got quite a few 300XP hauls.

 

Level 19 now and played an hour a day since the beta started.

 

I tried again last night, Rockstar may have nerfed this method.  I was still getting MVPs with 0-0 K/D, but the $$$ and XP payouts were only like $10 and 150 XP, slightly more if my team won the match.  

[damon8r351]

Another about Free Roam, don't forget to go looting, you'll get a lot of good dead-eye items for free that way. Basically, if you can remember any location from the single player that had a lot of good items to pick up, it will be the same in multiplayer. And you can go back multiple times to re-loot the place. For instance, Ewing's Basin, the place where you first get in a shootout with the O'Driscoll's in single player, still has the same 3 cigars to loot in multiplayer. Hanging Dog Ranch is another good place. And there's a watchtower in the northeast corner of the map that has 4 boxes of high velocity rifle rounds for free to loot in the basement.

[Rally-Vincent---]

After I finished grinding money for the other trophies, all I did was doing that Fort Mercer story mission, change to a Lemoyne session so to avoid being killed when returning to free roam, and then do the Dispatch Rider event. Dispatch Rider is the free roam event where you have to deliver a horse. It is a good opportunity to farm headshots, and shooting people from their horse gives extra exp. With headshots, it doesn't matter which repeater you use.

 

Sometimes the opportunity arises to win the event. So all I did was story mission - dispatch rider - story mission - dispatch rider - refill ammo.  Leveling gets quicker after level 31 when you can buy special ammo that gives extra exp for a kill. I didn't bother to buy cards until I was >40 and the first beta money gift rolled in.

 

Also, each bird killed give 10 exp. If there is a flock of ducks, go get that extra 100 exp.

[Mori]

2 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

After I finished grinding money for the other trophies, all I did was doing that Fort Mercer story mission, change to a Lemoyne session so to avoid being killed when returning to free roam, and then do the Dispatch Rider event. Dispatch Rider is the free roam event where you have to deliver a horse. It is a good opportunity to farm headshots, and shooting people from their horse gives extra exp. With headshots, it doesn't matter which repeater you use.

 

I also farmed the event for kills/headshots for a while. Everyone rushes for the horse while I just camp it.  

Also the reward for actually delivering the horse is embarissing low. Not worth the hussle.

[stu_0089]

I definitely just farmed the final story mission (Fort Mercer), it is boring yes, but I was level 50 about 15 hours of grinding from about level 15 to 50.

[vegetollo7]

2 hours ago, stupid0089 said:

I definitely just farmed the final story mission (Fort Mercer), it is boring yes, but I was level 50 about 15 hours of grinding from about level 15 to 50.

 

Pretty much what I did as well. Another bonus by using this method is that you rack up tons of kills so it's easy to get multiple gold buckle awards over time. I lost count of how many times I reset awards related to kills.

[ExquisiteSteez]

Hopefully they will not patch the Disputed Territories method.

 

Still need 1 MVP for the trophy lol.

It's an easy method to get this trophy. But you need good team mates.

If you get killed to much, while camping. Someone else will be the MVP.

 

It has happened to me a few times.

Edited December 18, 2018 by ExquisiteSteez

[BlackTorito]

The fastest method is still the co-op mission by far, only downside is you don’t gain money.

 

Second in the line is Showdown, Large Series are not worth! Normal Showdown will eventually throw you: Most Wanted, Name your Weapons, Survival. Which are the most rewarding modes if you are able to stay at the top of the table. XP is fast because of the combination of how many kills you can achieve during the game plus the final bonus between 300-600 XP; and also you gain some money

[Smuiq]

So can someone do a poll? is it large series or small that reward you the most? as I have really mixed feelings and it seems sometimes that it doesnt matter what you play

[Mori]

38 minutes ago, Smuiq said:

So can someone do a poll? is it large series or small that reward you the most? as I have really mixed feelings and it seems sometimes that it doesnt matter what you play

 

It probably comes down to preference .. I pretty much disliked small series, because of that "battle royale" mode. In large series you have more enemies thus more kills, but its also harder to get top 3 in Deathmatch modes.

 

The payouts and XP should be the same. Its 660XP for first place in DM in large series matches (once I got over 700 dont know why or what was different). Teambased gamemodes are all over the place when it comes to XP

Edited December 18, 2018 by Mori

[ExquisiteSteez]

Finally got my mvp trophy.

Now on my way to rank 50 (i'm at rank 18 at the moment. The grind is gonna be real. ?

[Hunt4Platinum]

The easiest way without doing allot effort i found was buying dynamite in "Van Horn" and go to the light house nearby and blow up the groups of fishes over there. You get around 200-500xp each dynamite, then just reload the free roam and repeat. if you run out of money just do a couple of missions and repeat

[iFraaN97]

I made it to rank 50 in 45 hours just playing the Large Showdown Series (the first few hours I just beated the story missions and the other free roam stuff, but that's all)

And well, that's definitely the best way to level up, I'm a pretty decent shooter player so pretty much all my games I end up in top 5, which gives me a crazy amount of money and xp, especially winning the Most Wanted mode (which is a ton of fun) gives around 650xp and 50$!

 

My setup: Varmint rifle, there's no other freaking way to play PvP, this gun is crazy, then I like to run a double barrel shotty, which is pretty useful and if you upgrade it you can take adventage of it in the Choose your weapon mode as well, then just pick a revolver or whatever you feel comfortable with, it's more than enough just with the Varmint in every situation

My best advice would be to get used to the dive mechanic and aim always for the head, bodyshots take forever to kill in multiplayer.

 

I gotta say I don't think card abilities are that useful unless they're upgraded, besides, the best ones for me come at ranks 46 and 48, so you will be pretty much done at that point.

 

I found Free roam pretty boring because there's barely nothing to do right now, and I wasn't feeling like doing the last story mission over and over again, so PvP was the thing for me and god, I had a ton of fun, still going strong after getting the trophy, currently I have more than 5000$ saved after getting everything that I wanted (included the Missouri Fox Trotter :P) and I'm aiming for that rank 100!

[ExquisiteSteez]

1 hour ago, Franciscoo- said:

I made it to rank 50 in 45 hours just playing the Large Showdown Series (the first few hours I just beated the story missions and the other free roam stuff, but that's all)

And well, that's definitely the best way to level up, I'm a pretty decent shooter player so pretty much all my games I end up in top 5, which gives me a crazy amount of money and xp, especially winning the Most Wanted mode (which is a ton of fun) gives around 650xp and 50$!

 

My setup: Varmint rifle, there's no other freaking way to play PvP, this gun is crazy, then I like to run a double barrel shotty, which is pretty useful and if you upgrade it you can take adventage of it in the Choose your weapon mode as well, then just pick a revolver or whatever you feel comfortable with, it's more than enough just with the Varmint in every situation

My best advice would be to get used to the dive mechanic and aim always for the head, bodyshots take forever to kill in multiplayer.

 

I gotta say I don't think card abilities are that useful unless they're upgraded, besides, the best ones for me come at ranks 46 and 48, so you will be pretty much done at that point.

 

I found Free roam pretty boring because there's barely nothing to do right now, and I wasn't feeling like doing the last story mission over and over again, so PvP was the thing for me and god, I had a ton of fun, still going strong after getting the trophy, currently I have more than 5000$ saved after getting everything that I wanted (included the Missouri Fox Trotter :P) and I'm aiming for that rank 100!

Ya,i think just playing the Showdown Series is the best (and most enjoyable) way to level up.

Repeatedly shooting cops, blowing up fishes, playing the last mission 100 times.... It will get boring really fast.

I can't see myself doing this for 30-50 hours, over and over again.

 

Let's hope for a double XP weekend around Christmas/New Year. ?

Edited December 19, 2018 by ExquisiteSteez

[Feral]

I'm waiting for online to be out of the Beta to actively go for 50. That way there'll be more to do and it won't be such a chore.

[SuzyRed]

On 12/18/2018 at 1:13 AM, BlackTorito said:

The fastest method is still the co-op mission by far, only downside is you don’t gain money.

 

 

Yes you do get money and gold when playing co-op missions. We do them all the time. On average we get 300XP .04 or .08 Gold and anywhere between $10 to $20 depending on if anyone died and how many lives you used.

It's easy and fun. I'm already at Level 36 with over $2400 and with the 30 free gold they gave us I am at 68 Gold.

 

Playing the same mission for 15 hours doen't seem like fun lol.  Why?

Edited December 19, 2018 by SuzyRed

[BlackTorito]

13 minutes ago, SuzyRed said:

Yes you do get money and gold when playing co-op missions. We do them all the time. On average we get 300XP .04 or .08 Gold and anywhere between $10 to $20 depending on if anyone died and how many lives you used.

It's easy and fun. I'm already at Level 36 with over $2400 and with the 30 free gold they gave us I am at 68 Gold.

 

Playing the same mission for 15 hours doen't seem like fun lol.  Why?

No, I was referring to the mission in singular. The last one where everyone is farming executions.

Edited December 19, 2018 by BlackTorito

[iFraaN97]

On 18/12/2018 at 8:13 AM, BlackTorito said:

The fastest method is still the co-op mission by far, only downside is you don’t gain money.

 

Second in the line is Showdown, Large Series are not worth! Normal Showdown will eventually throw you: Most Wanted, Name your Weapons, Survival. Which are the most rewarding modes if you are able to stay at the top of the table. XP is fast because of the combination of how many kills you can achieve during the game plus the final bonus between 300-600 XP; and also you gain some money

 

On 18/12/2018 at 8:42 AM, Smuiq said:

So can someone do a poll? is it large series or small that reward you the most? as I have really mixed feelings and it seems sometimes that it doesnt matter what you play

 

I can absolutely guarantee as a rank 60 player that the Large series are definitely the best option, not even close.

There isn't a Survival mode there (the one with knives/bow) which is a camp fest and the slowest online mode to get xp, the rest is the same just with the double amount of players, 32 instead of 16, which is even better, since you can constantly face more people, which are more opportunities to get  xp, besides, maps are huge, there's barely any action in Standard games, the Large ones feel way better to play.

[BlackTorito]

23 hours ago, Franciscoo- said:

 

 

I can absolutely guarantee as a rank 60 player that the Large series are definitely the best option, not even close.

There isn't a Survival mode there (the one with knives/bow) which is a camp fest and the slowest online mode to get xp, the rest is the same just with the double amount of players, 32 instead of 16, which is even better, since you can constantly face more people, which are more opportunities to get  xp, besides, maps are huge, there's barely any action in Standard games, the Large ones feel way better to play.

Definitely not, unless you have a full good posse. All you will get is between 100-200 xp because you won’t likely win anything so, yeah, no, the best option for the average player is to farm the co-op mission.

 

You paint Large Series like it will be a kill festival but to be honest you wont likelly get better than a 2-1 ratio unless they are all really really bad players, and people is getting better at the online with better guns and cards, and since Rockstar dont give a shit about matchmaking you will likely end up against 70+ levels wich obviously have a huge advantage over you.

 

 

[HusKy]

Well... PvP is not for everyone of course. I get around 500XP at minimum per match (kills + bonus) but sometimes it goes as high as 1000XP if I'm lucky. I guess there are multiple ways to get XP and everyone should try to find the one which fits their playstyle the most. I for one don't enjoy playing the same story mission over and over again.