July 5, 2024 | Posted in: Video Games

What does it take to earn 100 percent completion in the best open world video game to date? The list of achievements one has to complete earn Best in the West trophy and 100 percent completion is not as daunting as one might imagine. For example, you don’t have to find every single animal, bird, weapons, or equipment (things like talisman’s and trinkets).

For example, one must find 10 equipment items, 10 fish species, 10 horse breeds, 20 plant species, and 48 weapons to satisfy the Compendium portion of the Best in the West Trophy and being able to tell people you indeed earned this trophy. Is the trophy worth the time? In my (humble) opinion, the trophy being worth the time invested is going to be based on the individual. How important is it you personally to tell people I achieved 100% completion and earned Best in the West Trophy?

A player does not need to kill every legendary animal or do every side mission or every random encounter triggered by the blinking white dot (chance encounters) on your mini map. Completing ten stranger mission quest lines and completing 25 chance counters will qualify players for 100 percent completion.

What is the first step on the journey to Best in the West?

First, simply playing the game. And, there are still people out there on their first play through objectionable to Spoilers. Six years, and our content contains all kinds of spoilers. One needs to get to Chapter 2, complete Pouring Fourth Oil IV, leaving Marston in Valentine as the next mission. This is the first truly great, and fairly undebatable “best save point” in the game. What to work on first? Acquiring Fast Travel which is going to have you most likely on the Jack Hall Treasure Hunt.

Fast Travel costs $545. I spent 34 minutes getting the Jack Hall Treasure of two gold bars sold for a total of $1,000.

Best in the West – The Satchel Grind

The first thing, after completing Pouring Forth Oil and beginning your “free roam” as Arthur, (this mission unlocks you as the player being able to mark a target with a red x during dead eye opposed to “painting” the target with multiple red x’s) … this is why Pouring Forth Oil IV is cited as one of the best save points in the entire game to free roam as Arthur … is go get the Buck Antler Trinket and shoot everything in sight knowing the 22 perfect pelts one must to collect in order to Receive Legend of the East Satchel.

How long is the satchel grind for Best in the West? Here, we spent 42 minutes acquiring the Buck Antler trinket and a Perfect Cougar Trinket. The satchel grind without this trinket is Futile.

How long does the satchel grind take? Another thing you’re doing on the satchel grind is unlocking each town for Fast Travel and discovering yet undiscovered portions of the map. And hunting literally every animal in sight. A note about Cougars, they find you, you do not find the cougar. In our most recent play through, we have killed at least 25 cougars.

Found the cougar around the two minute mark. The road past Lake Owanjila will curve around a rock and you’ll be riding parallel to a stream. This is the best place for the cougar to find you. If you’re riding around slowly “looking” for the cougar, you will not find him.
Here, we spend 24 plus minutes on the satchel grind netting a perfect beaver pelt and completing Survivalist 1 by catching three blue gill. Accomplishing multiple tasks at the same time is clutch for Best in the West.

We were attempting to document how long it took us to complete the Satchel Grind and earn the Legend of the East Satchel.

Here we spend 17 plus minutes on the satchel grind netting the perfect iguana skin. And others hopefully
Here we spend nearly 47 minutes on the satchel grind. There were surely other adventures or as we like to call them … Distractions.

At this point, we’ve invested around 200 minutes in the satchel grind.

Here we grind for nearly 18 minutes netting the perfect panther pelt and a perfect squirrel carcass. Back in the day, there was some confusion because players cannot “skin” a squirrel. Donate the carcass.

A note about Panthers

They are the rarest spawn in the game. Or one of them. And because a perfect panther pelt is required for Legend of the East Satchel, ONE requirement for Best in the West, and a perfect panther pelt unlocks the best crafted saddle from the trapper, the panther is a source of frustration. We didn’t dodge him very well in the above video, but we did capture this video of slaying a panther, although the encounter did not end with a perfect pelt.

We successfully used predator bait and slayed the panther without an attack.
Here we grind for another 18 minutes on a Perfect Elk pelt and Perfect Bison Pelt. The best place for Elks, hands down, is north of the eastern most trapper. Follow trapper road until you get to until Little Creek River and there Elks galore. Want to be super pro? bring two horses when you look for Perfect Elk Pelts
We spent another 18 minutes looking for Perfect Elk Pelts
We spend nearly 12 minutes taming the White Arabian for a Second Horse for Elk Pelts. Note … the White Arabian will sell for $48 at bonding level one.
We grab the last deer pelt and craft the Legendary of the East Satchel at the 15 minute mark of the video

Legend of the East Satchel – How Long does it take?

We spend roughly 280 minutes meeting this One Requirement for Best in the West Trophy. We also worked on Challenges. Rule #2, after obtaining the Buck Antler Trinket, always be working on challenges and your life is going to be easier once you commit yourself to 100 percent completion if you grind the legendary of the east satchel in Chapter 2.

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