When a story mission puts me in a gun fight with allies and plenty of cover, I generally do okay, but when I'm out in the open and get ambushed or have a fight unexpectedly sprung on me, I very rarely win, and what's more, I die almost immediately. Do you guys have any advice on how to improve my fortunes?

Set the lock-on settings to "wide". This allows you to pretty much just press L2 in the general direction of an enemy and it will lock on. Then just move the reticle slightly upwards and headshot them. Rockstar games shooting feels bad unless you abuse lock-on.

Other than that, abuse the shit out of Deadeye. Use consumables if you know a fight is gonna break out, fortify those health/deadeye bars. The game gives you plenty of items, just chew that wacky tabacky and spam deadeye until everything is dead.

After you kill a guy do not continue to hold down L2 and move the reticle to the next guy. Instead let go of L2 aim in the general direction of the next dude and hold down on L2 again; rinse and repeat until you have conquered all your enemies. Rockstar's auto aim is there for a reason, imo.

Pump Action shotgun is a blessing it's really strong, and the generous auto aim definitely helps. (on by default).

@sloppydetective: Based on limited data, this is the advice I needed. I don't like GTA so I don't play many Rockstar games. Thanks!

@soulcake: can confirm that the Pump Action Shotgun is a beast. I was having a hard time with a bounty and died several times. After feeling very frustrated I ended up trying it again and pulled out the pump action, then loaded it with slugs. I was able to clear the whole camp of the bounties lackeys quickly. Hell, I blew one guys head clean off, it was beautifully gruesome.

Yeah, I agree that the pump shotgun with slugs makes things a lot easier. I still prefer the double barrel with slugs, it's probably not as good as the pump but it's still fun to use. Also using the sawed off with slugs as an offhand weapon is pretty nice.

The game doesn't have the best sensitivity, but that said, I can't stand auto-aim. The easiest way to take enemies down without auto-aim is to make sure you have dead eye, and then zoom in/zoom out when necessary. I never tried the auto-aim in the game. I will say, and I know I'm not the only one that dealt with this, but I don't know how many others had, at the beginning of the game when you have to take out the wolves to protect John Marston, once they start coming down the hill, I must have died about five times before I got past it. It's the only time I had trouble with it, and it was frustrating as I felt like I was such a bad player. It was only after I finished the entire game and a handful of side missions where I went into the options menu and switched around the sensitivity options, as well as started playing in the third person.

tap once to prime your gun, let rest for 1 sec and then shoot, you'll be far more accurate. also all you need to refill your cores is meat, so just always have deadeye. I'm mostly unkillable and Im always at max chewing tobacco, bodies almost always have some.

I've only played about two hours, but I do what SloppyDetective does; click L2 when I shoot one person, let go, and then let autoaim do it's job when I click L2 to get teh next person.

I will say it's a far more relaxing way of shooting than having to manually aim like in a fps. Unrealistic? Sure. But it gets me to feel like a good shooting outlaw.

Wouldn't shooting twice as quickly for twice as long require 24 rounds and not 12?

I had a similar concern which I eventually just solved by Shooting First constantly.

Sometimes there's an honor hit but it's usually reasonably obvious when someones about to draw on you, and at that point the game stops really caring who you gun down.

Once you get to a certain point in the game you'll have an abundance of money and can freely upgrade your guns and buy as much express ammo as you can carry. After that I found that with certain rifles I was one-shotting everyone and gunfights were pretty straight forward - you just have to get into the practice of using the lockon, half-releasing it and then pressing it down again so it snaps to the next target. Also, if you get jumped in the open then your first reaction should always be to just pop dead-eye asap and take out/stagger as many enemies as possible.

One other tip I haven't seen mentioned here is the weight mechanic in the game - if you're overweight you can take more damage (but your stamina takes a hit) and vice versa, so if you find you're getting dropped too quickly maybe start eating more stew? :P

I’ve been using the first person mode with gunfights. You can see more clearly where you’re aiming at on an enemy and feels more accurate.

Dont be upset. Maybe you are good at something else?