Escape From Tarkov

[Curratum]

I stopped overthinking and bought it. Had some good fun with it so far, currently on pause, will play more after another really major patch. Ask me for specs / performance.

 

[Matador]

This game manages to look both shady and brilliant at the same time. I just can't make up my mind whether to get it.

What's holding me back at the moment:
1. Hackers galore.
2. Not very well optimized, apparently.
3. Minimum system specs posted on their site == complete bollocks. No demo to run tests.
4. Netcode issues?
5. What toro said.
6. Forever in alpha/beta.
Having said that, it looks damned impressive. Especially when it comes to ballistics, survival and customization. To buy or not to buy.

It's a shame they didn't design a SP or PVE COOP mode to enjoy shooting mechanics, sound, survival aspect, healing system and customization; the strengths of the game. So it can be enjoyable without spending your life on it and have a great rig for good performance to be competitive.

I'm glad I bought it because I appreciate the ambition and some achievements made, but it's extremely unforgiving and the progression and quest system is not well thought. They want it to be a PVP game, but I think PVP competitive games should be based around a blank slate each match or well designed asymmetrical scenarios. Here the progression system makes you have uber equipped and wealthy players (probably on groups) preying on poor alone noobs with bad equipment each match. The first quests send you to the harder and more PVP oriented map (aside from Factory which at least is small and crazy for everyone), Customs, which is filled with terrible chokepoints where expert players hunt for noobs trying to progress in the game.

In a game like Street Fighter or Counter Strike you are going to get killed by expert players, but each match you both start with the same health and conditions, making learning easier. Not mentioning the existence of matchmaking to make things fair.

Even in a PVP survival game like Dayz everybody starts with nothing and reset to nothing after death, no progression beyond death, period. In EFT it is very hard to a noob player to get decent equipment and his economy healthy, because the expert players have OP armor,custom guns and high damage bullets.

So I think this game has a problem with the only option available being PVP being in tension with its mechanics.

 

[Obsequious Approbation]

Thanks for the heads-up, Matador. In the end, that sweet 27% VAT (which I had sadly overlooked on the EFT site ) convinced me to hold off for now. €35 would have been acceptable, albeit just barely, but not more than that. When it's on sale in the coming centuries, perhaps. More time for me to upgrade my PC and for the game to improve, I suppose.

 

[Baron Dupek]

new shotgun is gut

 

[spectre]

Gotta say, I'm pretty much fed up with the base game, sick of hearing "but the finished game will be SO different from the beta",
while the devs keep meandering between keeping the pew pew pew streamers happy, adding pointless crap and NOT addressing any of the game's core issues.

HOWEVER, I've recently been made aware that there are server emulators available for Tarkov, and this is a fucking godsend for people who want to take the game in at their own pace,
enjoy the gunporn, without worrying about taking a surprise BRRRT to the face from an extract camper while scavenging the IKEA for fucking lightbulbs.
Takes some digging to find this software, it's mostly tucked away on github and various discord channels, I tried something called SPT (single player tarkov) AKI,
https://mods.sp-tarkov.com/files/file/16-spt-aki/
and it pretty much works as advertised. You make a separate installation with separate login and it lets you raid ofline while keeping your progress and letting you do quests. Though not sure how it handles quests where you need to score PMC kills. Probably some json scripts?
It even has mods, e.g. one that makes all traders only use barter.

Only encoutered a handful of bugs so far, skill levelup popups are not there, one icon missing, the most severe bug was with the Pilgrim backpack, the emulator
doesn't seem to know about the item limit and sent the second one I picked up to dev/null, along with the extra items.
All in all, a small price to pay to be free from desync and nyetcode or competing with scripters for who can click buy first on Fence.

 

[Matador]

Gotta say, I'm pretty much fed up with the base game, sick of hearing "but the finished game will be SO different from the beta",
while the devs keep meandering between keeping the pew pew pew streamers happy, adding pointless crap and NOT addressing any of the game's core issues.

This is key. Short-time twitch bait is harming the long term game vision.

 

[spectre]

This is key. Short-time twitch bait is harming the long term game vision.

They like the smell of money, can't say I blame them and I've made peace with the implications.
Worst bit is watching them spin their wheels like so, just crapping out half baked content like the Hideout.
Whoever thought that UI is anywhere near good enough...

I mean, at this point, is there really going back to the hardcore survival, seamless world spiel in which you count every bullet and run around with a beaten down AK with no stock?
Even scavs don't seem to be rolling like this no more.
And suppose they go back to the whole hardcore survival/exploration aspect. If they do that, will all the prior twitch footage become false advertising?
How will they hold the attention of the zoom zoom zoomers who want to KOS everything?
But I am rambling on again. I don't think they have what it takes to make that long term vision a reality.
It's been said ages ago, no way in hell is fucking Unity going to support a seamless transition between all the maps and I believe the train for ditching the engine for something better has long left the station.

Still, I really wanted to drop the info about server emulation. It was the bestest birthday present I could get tbh,
if they ever shut down the servers or fundamentally fuck something up, I can keep whichever game version worked for me best zipped and
get it out when I need my fix. Not sure why the fuck are they so opposed to having a separate offline progress mode. It's not that it hurts the twitch crowd in any way,
and it's way better than wasting time on the offline raids with no progression, a half-baked feature the game has relied on for...how many years now?

 

[Matador]

I tried some months ago "Just Emu Tarkov" and worked very well for Single player.

https://justemutarkov.eu/

It can't do magic. But you can find fun trying to survive against all the bots and complete quests for some hours and enjoying the gun porn.

 

[cretin]

AI routines aren't developed enough yet that i would find SP or even coop only enjoyable tbh.

 

[spectre]

I still would recommend this mode to people who want to smooth out the learning cuve for themselves and get the feel of the different mechanics.
Sure, you can all do this in the built-in offline mode, but it feels so fucking pointless with no progression whatsoever.

I think it's actually enjoyable. Totally different game for me without desync and other nyetcode issues.
I'm not a great FPS player, not really a competitive one. For my skill level, the AI isn't that bad. But that's just me. I absolutely loathe the typical fps gameplay of head-bobbing, jump-strafe dances, etc.
Obviously, the AI will be predictable and the scavs don't really work together and telegraph their attacks, but the bosses can actually give you a decent challenge unless you cheese it.
You can easily outclass the AI with high tier equipment, that's probably the worst bit. Nothing the AI can do against thermals and long range sniping, the regular schmucks are also not equipped to defeat armor,
even if they have 5.56x45 or 7.62x51, they give them the absolutely worst hunting-grade rounds, meaning you can sit there picking your nose, taking shots on your Fort, the only inconvenience being leg damage.
They will get to you if you underestimate them.

Thus far, I am making it work with self-imposed limitations. Scav runs are basically cheat mode, because outside of bosses nobody will ever attack you, so I don't do them.
Obviously, don't give yourself any preorder bonuses, earn everything the hard way.
Fence is scripted and randomly drops all kinds of stuff, including high tier. Same for flea market, I wouldn't really use those features because it's easy to break balance.
However, if you resort to using only stuff you find in raids, especially ammo, it becomes a totally different game. If you no longer rely on scav runs for "eco mode",
it turns out you actually need to scrounge for food and meds to sustain yourself to be able to raid repeatedly.

The SP_KAI thing works for me on the most recent build. Didn't bother looking up alternatives. Not sure if there's any differences between this and just emu tarkov.
Looks like they're the same thing that diverged into two branches after some modder drama?

 

[Matador]

The SP_KAI thing works for me on the most recent build. Didn't bother looking up alternatives. Not sure if there's any differences between this and just emu tarkov.
Looks like they're the same thing that diverged into two branches after some modder drama?

I don't know, have not played it for months. When I tried "Just emu Tarkov" worked flawlessly, but they got DMCA'ed so they had to keep a low profile to keep things going.

 

[Ol' Willy]

It's speaks a lot about player-dev communication when people start undercover pseudo-servers just to play the game in comfort.

 

[Matador]

They have an amazing core to give a good PvE or COOP experience. It's a shame that they only focus in PvP.

We have to remember also that the "genre" starter and the inspiration of the game is Stalker, a SP game. Their product started running due to people thirst for a more modern and polished game in that vein.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Yes, Tarkov could have been (and still could be if the devs wanted to) the new STALKER. Frankly, I would say that all the highly developed survival and gun modding systems are wasted on a mere PvP game.

 

[spectre]

Yeah, all the damage effects, fatigue, etc. are very impressive. Thing is, you never really see it because it usually goes like: desync, BRRRRT, dead.
(bUt ItS nOt hOw Teh fINaL gAEm wiLL pLaE, automatic weapons and ammo will be scarce, just give it one more year).

The best Tarkov memories was raids when I extracted barely alive from starvation, dehydration or bleeding, or even collapsed seconds before reaching exfil.
I don't think I've ever seen this happen on the typical streamer "yo, I'm fucking up the entire server john wack style" vid.

There is also poison and radiation damage stats coded into the game, but it isn't used in any meaningful way, it's just there like a bad tease.

I know it's not going to magically transform into Stalker at some point, but they should really start getting their shit together real soon,
cause there are already contenders out there (SCUM) that take a similarly autistic approach to the system, already look better and aren't dragged down by bad tech.
The only other thing Tarkov has is the weapon modding system (honestly, the only reason why I'm still bothering with it), and even that is becoming pointless.
What's the point of 7 different types og 9x19mm ammo if everyone is just packing armor piercing?
What's the point of tricking out your AKSU if everyone is running the same cookie cutter meta setup for PvP?
(Cue: ReEeE bUt ItS nOt hOw Teh fINaL gAEm wiLL pLaE)

 

[cretin]

They have an amazing core to give a good PvE or COOP experience. It's a shame that they only focus in PvP.

We have to remember also that the "genre" starter and the inspiration of the game is Stalker, a SP game. Their product started running due to people thirst for a more modern and polished game in that vein.

Yeah this isnt true at all. This is a narrative a lot of people want to make but its just not true. Stalker and tarkov have nothing in common other than being slavic.

ones a game where you attach magic orbs to your belt to run like sonic, jump higher and survive more boolet with mutants and magic, and the other is an autistic milsim PVP looter shooter.

The "genre" starter for tarkov et al is DayZ Mod. Not STALKER. This entire genre and now barely related derivatives come from DayZ. STALKER wasn't about scrounging around for valuables and looting, it was a conventional FPS with a highly unconventional setting. And it may have been more "realistic" compared to other 2007 shooters, but it was still a far cry away from being anything close to say, ArmA. It was mods such as MISERY for call of pripyat that would introduce a looting and junk collection focus, and its been stuck in the scene ever since like staph bacteria, it just does not fucking go away and if you try to kill it you just get some mutated form of it.

To reiterate, this subgenre of high-stakes looter-shooters started with DayZ mod on arma 2. A lot of people want stalker to be like tarkov (just look at all the popular modding efforts to turn stalker into some shitty version of tarkov) and seem to have post-fact come up with this story that tarkov is supposed to be a spiritual successor to STALKER. But its not lol, BSG never said this or even implied it.

 

[spectre]

It was mods such as MISERY for call of pripyat that would introduce a looting and junk collection focus, and its been stuck in the scene ever since like staph bacteria,
it just does not fucking go away and if you try to kill it you just get some mutated form of it.

Funny you should mention this, but to a lot of folks saying they enjoyed STALKER, they really mean Call of Pripyat rather than Shadow of Chernobyl. It never really went off until they modded it and added the scrounger aspects.
It's a bit like Jagged Alliance 2 and the 1.13 mod. There's really no going back from this development, and when people discuss JA2, they usually mean the mod, and Jagged Alliance 1 is completely outside the discussion.

I don't disagree that people try to spin a certain narrative in their heads. Perhaps quite a bunch only know the game from memes, cheeky breeky, etc.
Still, what it comes down to is people longed to play a new STALKER, yet what they keep getting is another multiplayer oriented thing, entirely missing the point.
It's about scratching an itch and if you compare (some) screenshots from Stalker, Tarkov and DayZ, might as well be from the same game.
A lot of people buy into Tarkov expecting Stalker and get burnt (and won't be getting any refunds because fuck you, caveat emptor). Sure, that's entirely on them, but the devs were rather happy to ride that bandwagon.

I remember there was an official statement about Stalker and Tarkov,
https://www.escapefromtarkov.com/support/knowledge/27
It's less about "we're not developing a successor to Stalker here, so don't come here expecting Stalker" and more about clearing the misconception that they are the team that used to work on Stalker (only one guy actually did),
though judging by code quality, it's not an implausible case of mistaken identity.

Now, Tarkov in SP mode comes dangerously close to scratching that itch as far as I am concerned. I made enough attempts to like the PvP aspect of the game, and decided that it isn't for me,
but this way I can recover some of that sunken cost and keep enjoying the parts I like about the game without being inconvenienced.
So I get my tracksuit pants on, socks and sandals and get going to raid that IKEA flipping off every cunt I meet on the way. Put a mask on, and it's starting to feel like real life.
Come to think of it, it's not really what you did in the original Stalker, but somehow it works just the same. It's not necessarily about getting a 1:1 copy.

The Stalker experience being attaching magic orbs and running like sonic is a massive oversimplification (you could say that zone artifacts was the way for the game to provide character builds and progression, a pseudo RPG if you will).
The role description of a Stalker is all these things: Scavenger, Trespasser, Adventurer, Loner, Killer, Explorer and Robber. While it's debatable if the largely on rails SoC managed to actually give you that full experience, it's been like this for a lot of people.
So, what you do is slip into a hostile environment to find sought-after stuff for the rich people. As you go, you explore and uncover secrets. That's essentially what you do in Escape from Tarkov (or what the developers of say you will be doing).
The way gunplay, inventory, traders and quests are handled is very Stalkery, with some aspects being pushed to the extreme. The setting is obviously not unimportant. The debatable thing are the supernatural trappings, while there won't be monsters and anomalies in Tarkov,
it remains to be seen how they handle the whole cultist plot they've got going on, as well as the environmental hazards.

 

[cretin]

played this a lot lately...

The servers and netcode are the best theyve ever been.... but thats not saying much because its still fucking shit. At least however, the playerbase seems to have woken up to the fact that almost all of the problems with the game can be traced back to shit servers and desync, and not whatever boogeyman of the month they were blaming it on before.

As such, the game still feels very unsatisfying to play. It feels extremely random. When you die, sometimes its because you made an obvious mistake, and you can learn from that. But more often, you die and its not exactly clear why or what you couldve done to avoid it and thats horrible for a FPS especially one with competitive aspirations. And currently the meta makes a mockery of the game's intentions (supposedly intending to be the most realistic shooter ever), you have to play ridiculously aggressively because of the massive first-mover/peeker's advantage and things one expects to do in tactical shooters like controlled, accurate shooting and carefully considered maneuvers are in fact the exact opposite of what you want to do if you want to win consistently in the current state of the game.

 

[Matador]

Just got the itch to play this again. I think I will play SPT- KAI because I don't have the rig or the time to compete in PvP.

Have to make some self imposed rules to make the SP progression interesting, because the game is not thought to be played PvE out of the box.

Previously on this thread someone said he didn't use shops and rely on equipment found on raids, and find it a very good idea to keep the challenge and tension.

Any other ideas to make a SP campaign enjoyable?

 

[blessed king of longing]

Any other ideas to make a SP campaign enjoyable?

Yes, wait for them to be done with Tarkov (never, huge cashcow and streamerbait) so they can go back to making the singleplayer game they wanted to make from the beginning (never happening probably)

 

[cretin]

If you want singleplayer tarkov just go get stalker anomaly mod and all the addons from the fags working overtime to turn that into a tarkov clone.

Im absolutely sure that is more fun than a half assed "sp" tarkov

 

[Matador]

If you want singleplayer tarkov just go get stalker anomaly mod and all the addons from the fags working overtime to turn that into a tarkov clone.

Im absolutely sure that is more fun than a half assed "sp" tarkov

I like Stalker a lot, but the gunplay is very lacking. Hard to come back after shooting guns in Tarkov.

 

[spectre]

Hard to come back after shooting guns in Tarkov.

This. After Tarkov, there's just no coming back to the popamole pew pew pews. I tried some recent Far Cry, but the guns are really all bad.
Even with Stalker (which wasn't that bad when it comes to its boomsticks), stuff like crappy animations become more and more jarring.

Previously on this thread someone said he didn't use shops and rely on equipment found on raids, and find it a very good idea to keep the challenge and tension.
Any other ideas to make a SP campaign enjoyable?

It might have been me. Not using shops is tricky, because if you take vendors out of the equation, the whole progression in the game becomes pointless, so why even bother to play?
The whole point is to preserve the challenge vs. AI, normal scavs stop being a serious threat after you've learned all the spawns and get class 4+ armor. The only way they can get you is
a glitched silent grenade or a lucky "head, eyes" with the mosin. This leaves raiders, bosses and cultists as the only legitimate threat. Just doing boss runs will get boring after a while,
so it's mostly about making up a bunch of self-imposed restrictions to keep things spicy. I wouldn't consider them set in stone, because locking yourself out of chunks of the game
by, say, not using high tier stuff will wear you out and is also self-defeating. It's a single player game now, just you and your PC, so nobody really cares if you break a rule.
Anyways, here's some thoughts on the matter, I'm not saying I use all of these all the time, it's more of a set of house rules to juggle.

(o) Shops and vendors - like I said above, ignoring shops cuts you out from a big chunk of the game. You likely won't be having any problems with money playing single player, so some self-imposed limitations are in order.
I think a good starting point is: don't buy any ammo from vendors, don't buy anything from Fence (unless it's for bypassing a bit of that obnoxious grind, in that case, te absolvo), don't buy high tier guns and armor - but feel free to use what's found in raid.
A good rule of thumb is to prioritize barter trades with vendors, avoid buying stuff directly with roubles. Not sure about dollars and euros. They can be found in raid, and you can get some from quests, so maybe rely on those?

(o) Secure container - since you won't be dying as much as in MP, might be good to limit yourself to alpha only? Perhaps not even use a secure container at all if you want extra challenge.

(o) Scav runs - don't do them. Same goes for loot runs i.e. runs where you don't engage any enemies and only run a bunch of hidden caches on Interchange.
Make sure there's always a threat during your runs. Instead of using the most accessible exfils, try using the less popular options. Especially those that require
having paracord and ice pick. If you have to make some hard calls and lose your armor or a backpack, so much the better.

(o) Healing and nutrition - IMO the game gets so much better if you actually feel the pressure to heal and find food. There's plenty of house rules to use here,
for starters, I'd never buy and meds and food from vendors. Just rely on what you find. The rapist healing you after the raid? Just forget the option is there.
Always use your own stash of meds. Would be cool if we could turn off natural healing and hydration outside of raid, as it is, I try to avoid spending too much
time healing between raids. I either use my own food and meds, or go out hungry and with broken limbs.

(o) Guns - force yourself to use suboptimal guns, loadouts and ammo from time to time. Take a Toz out for a walk every now and then, even if you have a tricked out m4.
It's a bit too larpy for my tastes, but perhaps you could make every quest out there be like th Punisher Questline? Say, if you have a quest to kill scavs (no additional requirements),
kill them with a gun you didn't use in a while.

(o) Armor - like I said above, you're pretty much immune to scavs while wearing 4+ class armor, so start wearing lower grade shit more.

(o) Don't keep too much spare shit in your stash. If you can immediately replace your entire kit immediately after death it's not really challenging.
Zero to hero runs after you die can be fun.

 

[Matador]

Spoiler

Hard to come back after shooting guns in Tarkov.

This. After Tarkov, there's just no coming back to the popamole pew pew pews. I tried some recent Far Cry, but the guns are really all bad.
Even with Stalker (which wasn't that bad when it comes to its boomsticks), stuff like crappy animations become more and more jarring.

Previously on this thread someone said he didn't use shops and rely on equipment found on raids, and find it a very good idea to keep the challenge and tension.
Any other ideas to make a SP campaign enjoyable?

It might have been me. Not using shops is tricky, because if you take vendors out of the equation, the whole progression in the game becomes pointless, so why even bother to play?
The whole point is to preserve the challenge vs. AI, normal scavs stop being a serious threat after you've learned all the spawns and get class 4+ armor. The only way they can get you is
a glitched silent grenade or a lucky "head, eyes" with the mosin. This leaves raiders, bosses and cultists as the only legitimate threat. Just doing boss runs will get boring after a while,
so it's mostly about making up a bunch of self-imposed restrictions to keep things spicy. I wouldn't consider them set in stone, because locking yourself out of chunks of the game
by, say, not using high tier stuff will wear you out and is also self-defeating. It's a single player game now, just you and your PC, so nobody really cares if you break a rule.
Anyways, here's some thoughts on the matter, I'm not saying I use all of these all the time, it's more of a set of house rules to juggle.

(o) Shops and vendors - like I said above, ignoring shops cuts you out from a big chunk of the game. You likely won't be having any problems with money playing single player, so some self-imposed limitations are in order.
I think a good starting point is: don't buy any ammo from vendors, don't buy anything from Fence (unless it's for bypassing a bit of that obnoxious grind, in that case, te absolvo), don't buy high tier guns and armor - but feel free to use what's found in raid.
A good rule of thumb is to prioritize barter trades with vendors, avoid buying stuff directly with roubles. Not sure about dollars and euros. They can be found in raid, and you can get some from quests, so maybe rely on those?

(o) Secure container - since you won't be dying as much as in MP, might be good to limit yourself to alpha only? Perhaps not even use a secure container at all if you want extra challenge.

(o) Scav runs - don't do them. Same goes for loot runs i.e. runs where you don't engage any enemies and only run a bunch of hidden caches on Interchange.
Make sure there's always a threat during your runs. Instead of using the most accessible exfils, try using the less popular options. Especially those that require
having paracord and ice pick. If you have to make some hard calls and lose your armor or a backpack, so much the better.

(o) Healing and nutrition - IMO the game gets so much better if you actually feel the pressure to heal and find food. There's plenty of house rules to use here,
for starters, I'd never buy and meds and food from vendors. Just rely on what you find. The rapist healing you after the raid? Just forget the option is there.
Always use your own stash of meds. Would be cool if we could turn off natural healing and hydration outside of raid, as it is, I try to avoid spending too much
time healing between raids. I either use my own food and meds, or go out hungry and with broken limbs.

(o) Guns - force yourself to use suboptimal guns, loadouts and ammo from time to time. Take a Toz out for a walk every now and then, even if you have a tricked out m4.
It's a bit too larpy for my tastes, but perhaps you could make every quest out there be like th Punisher Questline? Say, if you have a quest to kill scavs (no additional requirements),
kill them with a gun you didn't use in a while.

(o) Armor - like I said above, you're pretty much immune to scavs while wearing 4+ class armor, so start wearing lower grade shit more.

(o) Don't keep too much spare shit in your stash. If you can immediately replace your entire kit immediately after death it's not really challenging.
Zero to hero runs after you die can be fun.

Thanks, I think those are a very good set of rules to enjoy SP Tarkov.

 

[spectre]

Matador
You can also try to waffle through the mods for SPT-Aki. I don't really care about rebalance mods by some randos, but a few new guns or gun options could be interesting.
Thing is, I don't really want to deviate from the base game too much.
Didn't have time to actually test it, but at least the AI tweaks and the configurator look interesting:
https://support.sp-tarkov.com/forum/thread/79-fin-s-ai-tweaks/
https://support.sp-tarkov.com/forum/thread/148-spt-aki-configurator/