Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 is a beautiful game, rich in narrative and graphical beauty. But the game’s online mode, which pitches players against both computer characters and other human players, has its problems.
Some of these challenges have been addressed by Rockstar. But sadly a new problem has arisen over the past few weeks: cheating. Specifically, cheating by players who band together unfairly in online multiplayer game modes.
First, in the “Gun Rush” mode, which requires multiple players to fight each other individually to the death, players (presumably friends) are repeatedly banding together to kill off opposing players. This destroys “Gun Rush’s” focus on individual play, as the cheat teams are grouping together to overpower and eliminate lone players. Once they have killed all other players, these friends simply stop fighting each other and wait around until the game clock runs out, in order to maximize their winner reward of experience points and cash.
The utility of this cheating is based on Rockstar’s provision of maximal rewards based on time survived during each particular “Gun Rush” game. My photographic evidence of cheats can be found here.
A similar situation is occurring in “Gun Rush Team” mode. Here, players assigned to opposing teams are cooperating with each other. Each team is identified by a different color uniform, and the presence of multiple players from multiple different teams sitting in a room undercuts the ability of the best team to win.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with teammates in this team-based game mode sitting together in one location: that multiplication of force makes obvious sense. The issue is in different players from different teams abandoning their team effort in pursuit of individual interests: Again, the longer you last in this game mode, the more experience points and cash you get. My evidence of such cheating can be viewed here.
To make matters worse, Rockstar’s cheating report system is a complete joke.
I have filed multiple reports on multiple cheating players and not once ever hever seen any remedial action taken. No punishment is imposed and no deterrence exists. More aggravating, Rockstar continues to put the same players together over and over again, even on different days and at different times. I don’t know if this is because of some geographic allocation of server space, but it is deeply frustrating.
So unfortunately, Red Dead Online is again broken. Rockstar seems to have no interest in fixing it.
