Feel like an idiot asking this but what exactly am I supposed to do if I start up an 'invite only' session of GTA Online? I'm doing this because I'd like to get to understand how things work and level myself a little bit but all I see are the option to do stunts. I have a few people on my phone but I can't get jobs from them apparently.
I originally played GTA:O way back when GTAV first launched on 360 and leveled up to 4. I've now imported this character into this version (GTAV for X1) and I have a car. I'd like to find what I'm supposed to do or who I'm supposed to talk to to start gaining some experience.
I also got 3.5m from the Whale Shark code included in the bundle I bought and want to start buying some stuff. Any tips would be great appreciate... I feel completely lost.
Oh and I did start playing with just random people but they all were so much higher than me that I felt it would be better to solo some stuff initially since I have really nothing atm.
This question is actually quite tricky to answer, because GTAO has a lot of complex systems and many of them are never properly explained to the player (and as a Level 168 I feel like some of them I've only just gotten my head around lol).
Invite only session means that you're in a session of your own (i.e. without the public), and the only way other people can get in is if they're invited. It's one way to get started, although I think the fact that they feel very sterile (after all, what makes GTAO special is the fact that you're playing with other people) means that they're great when you're just beginning and trying to figure things out, but as soon as you feel able you should look at plying in a public session in passive mode. In passive mode you're completely safe from other players, but you can still see what they're doing, etc. (they basically look like ghosts to you, and you to them). Public sessions feel very dangerous at first, but they're also much more interesting, even when you're in passive mode
Maybe the most important things to know in GTAO are the two menus. One is the "Interaction" menu, and it's an overlay in the top left of the screen. On PS4 you open it by holding down the trackpad button, on XBOne I'd imagine you just hold down whatever button you would normally press to cycle through camera views. The Interaction menu is where all of the most important 'shortcuts' can be found, so it's worthwhile familiarising yourself with all of the options in it. It used to be a bit of a dog's breakfast, but since the last patch it's quite nicely organised now. Passive mode is the last option in the Interaction menu. The other menu is the main menu (it's the same as the single player Pause menu, only it doesn't pause GTAO!), and that's where you access the full screen map, full job menus, lobby and friends menus, settings, etc. Now there is almost a third menu, and thats the phone. Pushing up on the d-pad will bring it up, and there are a couple of options there (Quick Job on the middle left, SecuroServ in the bottom right, etc.) that basically function like little menus too.
In terms of what jobs you should start out with, well there's a heap of things to do in GTAO: races, contact missions, heists, deathmatches, parachuting, and all sorts of other 'niche' game modes. Heists are best left to when you're a bit more of a seasoned player, and deathmatches and the like are probably painful options for beginners, but the other stuff you can jump into as soon as you like. The main problem you'll have is that most modes sit empty: if you try and join them, you'll often struggle to get other people to join. If you're fine playing some of these modes on your own, then they can be fun (e.g. doing a parachuting mission solo is still fun), but they won't pay much money when you do that. Now there will generally be a featured mode or playlist, and you can see that when youre loading into GTAO (at the bottom of the screen youll see a prompt to press a button to join a specific game type/playlist). At the moment thats the stunt stuff, which is all heavily populated and a great place to start playing around. Other things to try are the Daily Objectives you find in the Interaction menu; theyre often very simple, force you to try things you might otherwise have passed over (and you might find that you really like some of these things), and youre well rewarded for doing it: you get 25,000 for doing all of your daily objectives, 100,000 if you do them every day for a week, and 500,000 if you do them every day for a month. Even if you ignore the weekly and daily bonuses (since most people will never be able to get those), just doing the daily objectives for 25,000 is something I do pretty much every time I jump on GTAO.
If youre just wanting to progress the contact missions, then check your phone for invites to any contact missions. If you dont have any, then try calling the people who give you the lower level contact missions: Gerald, Lester, Martin, etc. One final option is just to go to the quick job icon on the phone and select Contact Mission there, it should put you into one pretty quickly.
In terms of what you should spend money on, thats a personal preference thing to some extent, but Id recommend starting with a proper apartment; itll give you somewhere safe to spawn into the game, as well as a garage for storing cars. Go for one of the high end apartments (the ones with 10 car garages) would be my recommendation (apartments and houses with garages are all 20% off at the moment as well); those ones come with a Heist room, which youll definitely want to have at some point in the future. I think the best apartments for heists are the Eclipse ones, but thats just my personal preference (I just like their location with respect to the Pac Std Heist Setups).
With a proper apartment purchased, go to Ammunition and buy some decent weapons. The ones on the left wall are mostly level locked, and will be unavailable to new players, but the ones on the right wall should be available to everyone. In terms of which weapons are best, Id highly recommending picking up the AP Pistol as soon as you can, as thats the best weapon to fire from cars (which youll be doing a lot). Grab the Special Carbine too would be my advice - it was my workhorse weapon on foot until I unlocked the Combat MG. Youll want the Homing Launcher too for taking out helicopters, and cars as well (until you get access to better explosive weapons for cars). Id recommend upgrading the AP Pistol and Special Carbine before buying other weapons, but thats entirely up to you. The Marksman Rifle can be a useful purchase too, especially if you havent unlocked any other sniper rifles - it lacks punch, but it does give you good range that you wouldnt have otherwise, which can be handy at times.
On the car front, the most important vehicle you can buy is the Armoured Kuruma in my opinion. It is almost completely impervious to bullets, which means that NPCs (cops, enemies in contact missions, enemies in heists) basically cant touch you in it. The downside is that you need to have completed the first Heist (Fleeca Bank) before you can buy one, so that should be a really high priority for you. If you cant get that, then consider maybe getting the Schafter V12 Armoured - it isnt as good in terms of bullet resistance, but it does have some explosive resistance too (which the Kuruma has none of), and that will help you against other players. Beyond that, consider getting a very fast car too - theyre expensive, but there are quite a few good options there depending on your budget.
Outside of cars, one of the most useful vehicles to purchase is the Buzzard (its a small attack chopper). Its quick, its agile, its airborne, it has lock on missiles, it carries four people, and once youve bought one you can spawn them in for free if youre a VIP or CEO (something that you wont have to worry about yet, but is very useful later). Theyre expensive but worth saving towards.
Im sure there are lots of things that arent clear, so ask away. It was painful finding out all of this stuff for myself when I was starting out, so Im exceedingly happy to spare others the same pain and Im sure the other veteran GTAO guys here feel the same
So full disclosure, I think I played GTA:O for about 30 minutes when the game was first released. Seemed fun but I just had other games to play or something.
With that said I am super into the idea of this Stunt DLC.
Can I just dive right into it without having played anything else in GTA:O? Will I be at a disadvantage?
Basically I am just wondering if one would be at a disadvantage or anything along those lines.
Im not sure about this one. In GTAO your character has stats, one of which is driving ability, but Im not sure if it legitimately affects your driving ability. I do know that if you do racing it levels up incredibly quickly and youll be at max in no time.
The only other possible disadvantage you might have is in access to custom vehicles. Whoever is hosting the race generally has the option of having only standard vehicles available to players (where everyone just gets to pick a vehicle from a menu for the race, so that everyone is on a level playing field), or they can have the option of using custom vehicles as well. The custom vehicles option means that people can use their own purchased version of vehicles which are eligible for that race, including any upgrades theyve purchased for that vehicle. That can disadvantage people who dont own those upgraded vehicles. Its not a huge thing though, I regularly win in un-upgraded vehicles because I havent bought any of the newest race supercars - most people havent yet. Just jump in is my advice.
