- Tarkov's Lost Identity & How to Fix it - KRASHED
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Thanks for sharing this on here!
ID: gq878hf -
I've always said through the years that people are getting to know Tarkov the "wrong way" because they get used to things that might be changed/removed later on. For example take medical animations. In the early times everyone was spamming their med kits while fighting for the instant heal/painkiller and there was such a large portion of players against medical animations because for example "blacked out leg would be death sentence infight".
I think everything that makes the game more dangerous is not liked by the vocal community. Take for example the ADS-speed based on weapon weight. It was implemented and was gone in minutes after people complained about it. Which makes me think what it would be like, if it had been in the game since day one: people would be already be used to it and it would be a good thing to balance out high recoil-reduce high-capacity meta builds on heavy caliber rifles. But you can't take away things that benefit the players without backlash, which in my opinion hurts the development and made tarkov what it is today, not a bad game, but tweaked in some ways which made it differ from its original vision which many fell in love with so bad and are now disappointed or bored by it.
ID: gq8rsy5The only reason why it is not a death sentence is because of painkiller addiction
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I've been playing for about a year now and I actually like his ideas. I would fucking love to play a wipe with his proposed format, just to see how it goes. I don't think a radical change in wipes would be best tested on the ETS, I think that it's worth doing on live servers at least once.
If any adjustment could be made to his suggestions I guess it would be to add the flea-market back in after the very last stage, but personally, I'm fine with it staying out for the whole wipe.
ID: gq8qunbI've played since 0.10, and I can hardly disagree more. I remember the juggernaut meta. Imagine fighting someone with an FAL, Fort & Altyn but you don't have 9mm RIP, the KS23 or any of our other current leg meta weapons. When it took longer to get to level 40 to have access to all the traders (and traders were the only way to get better gear).
You wanna complain about the top tier of players now? The top tier of players then were worse, because you simply had less tools to deal with them.
The single biggest thing that Krashed and alot of other nostalgic "the game used to be better" streamers mistake, is game knowledge. The overall playerbase has simply gotten better at the game and have learned more about how it works.
It wasn't because no one wanted to use the super sweat loadout back in the day that made it rare : It was there was so many less players and the majority of them just never made it to 40 because of how much harder the game was.
Krashed also mentions but discounts how badly the FIR system has distorted the gameplay loop. He mentions the flea market, but not that the only things on the flea market were FIR. FIR makes it so that fighting Raiders & Scav bosses are infinitely more valuable than fighting players. Additionally, FIR makes you want to survive and extract with something you find, whereas before you would stick around in raid to get as much as possible (because player gear was worth exactly the same as Raide
boss loot).Krashed is also incorrect on the playerbase. I used to be able to consistantly get empty maps back when I first played Tarkov. Now, the majority of the RAID's I play will be full on start. That said, the lobbies will very quickly empty because the majority of the fighting happens in the first 5 minutes of the raid because of the FIR system, which encourages very fast raids.
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Some good thoughts here.
I guess a lot of it comes down to what the ultimate end state of the game is supposed to be. I got into Tarkov at least partially due to the idea that the finished product would end up being something like an online Stalker without the sci fi. Also the survival game elements. So for me, no flea market and dynamic loot spawns (in addition to the Karma system and VOIP) is exactly what I want to see, rather than the 'sprint to the hotspot, quick bit of COD-on-crack and then head for the exits' that we often have now.
This game is all about lootin' and shootin' for most people though, so I dunno how popular cranking up the RPG/Survival elements and making the game less C.O.D-like would be.
(This is my first wipe, for context)
ID: gq8f7o6I hope that in a year's time (at the very most) the most egregious cod-like issues like bunny hopping, and being able to jump off of buildings with zero recovery time are gone.
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I like all of these ideas except for time-gating and automatically granting access to higher tier traders. If I understood his point correctly he advocates for everybody to be granted LL2 trader access at the same time, regardless of quest progress. I do not think this is a good idea as it basically removes the importance of questing at all. I can see the value of creating an alternative way to gain reputation to increase levels, maybe handing over specific items to specific traders for reputation. As an example, giving therapist 5 FiR morphines gives you 0.01 rep with her. Do this enough times and you get enough rep to level her up without doing quests, or you can do both and just get the little bit of extra rep you need to unlock the next loyalty level.
I think progression would definitely get slowed down a lot even if only the Flea was removed, and I would be super down to play a wipe without the Flea.
ID: gq8jmyxI think it would be cool if quests unlocked chunks of new items from traders. So in other words, tier 1 consists of several chunks of items to unlock, and you can't unlock tier 2's chunks though its quests until x amount of time.
ID: gq8p8btI mean, if they remove the flea, they need to find other ways to make 'ok' ammo/armor etc available to people who just joined as well. I assume that some of that would come from traders - hence giving everyone access to higher trader levels, regardless of where they're at could be a decent idea.
If one were to remove the flea, and not add ways for people who are behind in a wipe to access decent stuff and allow them to catch up, people would leave, as it's too hard to compete against whatever the current meta would be without it.
ID: gq8i6bzimportance of questing
Ah yes, those important fetch and kill quests. I can't see why anyone wouldn't wanna do those.
It's not like they're utter and complete trash.
ID: gq8674dThe goal is to prevent players from being able to run meta guns after only a few weeks of the wipe and slow down the gear progression overall. I agree with your point of not automatically giving trader access. I think you should still have to meet all of the requirements to gain the trader level, but I do like the idea of it also being time locked. In the early game the best way to get good gear would be to hunt the bosses, but you will have to do this without meta gear so it will take more skill to pull off, and once you get that gear it will mean more to you.
ID: gq8kijhremoves the importance of questing at all
In their current form, I'd be 100% OK with this 🙂
But you go on to suggest good ideas. Having merchants have open quests where all you do is submit items that help them (or selling them items increases rep???) is a good one. I can see Jaeger wanting bolt action rifles that are at least 50% wood and I am 100% OK with that.
ID: gq8rs39Yeah, fuck that. The whole point of Tarkov is for it not to be balanced. If I’m level 5 I should be put in the same queue as a level 50.
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I like your ideas a lot. Here's one modification to consider...
Labs is not available until stage 3. Key cards won't spawn until then. Raiders on labs are there from the start at stage 3. Raiders on reserve start spawning at stage 4 just like in your idea.
ID: gq84pltI not neccesarily agree with everything said by KRASHED but i think he generally describes the problem pretty well. If we really assume the stages one could argue that the fleamarket doesnt even have to be removed but only be unlocked in the so to speak 5th stage where you also have fixed 6 month wipe cycle. I also generally dislike stuff being changed midwipe because i honestly dont believe BSG is getting clean data from that. It feels like putting in things just for the sake of putting them in. Also i think barter trades and hideout crafts are more of a secondary crutch feature with the fleamarket while they could switch every 2-3 weeks and be something really interesting to keep an eye on and not just learn them in and out. In order for this of course to work i think FIR has to compeltely go. It maybe has decreased the RMT problem or made it less lucrative but i feel like these things are adressed with those changes too.
Why not test something on that level out and if it doesnt work throw it out again. or change it for the better. Also why not have Raiders generally spawn randomly on all maps (maybe with different weights) in the later stages of a wipe. -
I would love a wipe without flea, or some kind of modified version of flea maybe to just allow certain item purchases like keys. I just don't think BSG is thinking in this direction anymore, sadly. All I see indicated from their current moves is that they want the game to be super grindy.
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I understand your point of view but I will have to disagree that the flea market only helps players who play for 40 hours a week. I am attending University full-time and can barely play 7 to 10 hours a week and the only way I can compete with the full-time player of EFT is by buying things on the flea market. When I only have two hours to play I don't wanna have to grind farming, I wanna enjoy the game by going in raids with friends killing thicc boys and being killed as it was intended in the beginning. Personally, I feel that there is no better feeling than clapping a guy with fat loot on him and extracting with said loot when you are low levels and used tactics to kill them without fighting them head-on. I don't want to go in 10 different raids just to find a pack of screws to upgrade my hideout when I only have 2 hours to play. But I will have to agree with you about the find in raid system, I don't like it either. As I said I understand your point of view and respect it, but for me, having the ability to buy guns, ammo, equipment or anything I need off the flea market is the only way for me to enjoy the game and compete with the little time I have each week to play the game. Love your work Kevin
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I'm watching the video now and fundamentally agree with what I'm hearing so far, but I just wanted to say for now:
My god, look at the beautiful flashlights at 5:45 in the video.
Flashlights were really, really good before they changed to volumetric lighting.
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I think the price of Bitcoin has really shown how broken the economy is overall and has revealed other problems in the game's design. Anyone that plays a lot or simply focused on the farm early can roll pretty much whatever equipment they want whenever they want without ever having to worry about doing any type of money runs. Bitcoin allows for 3 REAP-IRs per day right now (a farm with 50 GPUs yields 1 Bitcoin every 7.5 hours and Bitcoin is around 700k roubles). A lot of players will go an entire wipe without having enough wealth to obtain even one of these scopes. Or if you want to go a little more conservative, nearly infinite mid-tier equipment with class 5 armor (korund) and the best bullets.
With respect to respecting the player's time, I agree and have always agreed. Krashed has brought this up many times. But if you have a farm, you can play your way. There's little need for quests. Their rewards and vendor unlocks are merely convenient. Otherwise, for me personally it all has to do with quests. I don't like that I will suffer through one quest just to get another from the same vendor telling me to go back to the same place and kill some more scavs in a slightly different way. Quests should just be piled on so I can try to finish or progress more in one run. Or just make it so that one can level up their vendors more easily and in fewer quests.
I'm up for thoughtful experimentation but the problem is very much multi-facted. To change one or two things is just going to reveal further weakness in something else.
ID: gq8lynyIf there is one obvious thing that I think everyone can agree on, it's that the bitcoin farm is a gigantic problem for this game right now.
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I like your analysis and I agree, especially about the flea market. However, I think part of the issue is that Tarkov is essentially two games: the brutal survival game and the gear-up PvP game, and these two games are at odds with one another. Right now, the EFT approach is to have you play the survival game for Levels 1 through 9, and then you play gear-up PvP after that.
I like your proposed solutions, and I think they would help the brutal survival part of the game a lot. But at the expense of the gear-up PvP game. Consider this: the weapon modding sub-game has thousands of different attachments and millions of possible combinations, and that is entirely enabled by the flea market. Without the flea market, that whole aspect of the game becomes irrelevant. If I was limited to modding only with the parts I found in-raid, it would be some pretty sad modifications.
I have a suggestion which I think might work: have there be some maps, or map variants, that have a "maximum loadout" value. For example, there is Customs like we have now. And there would also be a Customs variant where you can't bring in more than 50K rubles of gear on your person. The "maximum loadout" limited levels would be friendlier to new players, and reduce the "bullyling" aspect where Slicc Chads just wipe up the lobby by virtue of their kits. If it helps, think of the limited levels as "Tarkov Day 0", after the cordon has fallen but before the smugglers start bringing in all the gear. Or maybe instead of limiting it by money, limit it to gear you've acquired, instead of purchased. (
)ID: gq8llszyour suggestion has merit but i'd like to offer a counter suggestion
namely that instead of doing it per map, do it per levels and have 0-10s fight in the same lobby etc
obviously the main drawback of this lies in a potential lack of players yet i still feel it's better than certain maps becoming boring to play as the money you've earned can't actually be put to good use on maps you might very much enjoy otherwise
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Just seen the vid on YT. Totally agree with the idea that tries to show.
First, let's be clear: game has improved a TON in the last 12-16 months, specially in some aspects. Period. But not in what we could call "gameplay".
Right now, I personally (and I know of many more players that think similar) see the game as a wannabe-kinda CoD, focused around total PVP and with a gameplay that seems done by and for streamers and so on. But that's not the esence.
Wasn't this game supposed to be hard? As long as I remember, the game had in its core being totally unforgiving.
If so, gameplay should be slower. And by this I mean some things:
Ammunition should be scarce. You should take into account EVERY bullet you shoot, because perhaps you're just wasting them and after firing 10, you're left with only another 10 for the whole raid as you only had 20 from the beggining. This will be specially important in the early stages of the wipe/final game. Good ammo should be even scarcer. That means, it's totally absurd that in a hell and total-war region like Tarkov is you can have piles of crates of top-tier military ammo. Getting bullets it's not as easy as rock-grabbing in the forest! Meds, survival basic products (food&else) should also be scarce. Game shouldn't be focused around PVP. I know, I know. Karma system and everything is on the way, but I don't really think it's gonna solve the problem. Of course, there has to be PVP. But in a totally hostile environment, do you really think that going around with kits that are god-tier has sense, specially when some people that are just the few that can grind 16 hours a day in this game have them in like a week because the game is not unforgiving.The point of letting the traders improve their "stock" with the weeks (that means, lvl 2 traders unavailable for like 1 month) is quite a good point. It would need tweaking, but I think it's a good idea as to allow the playerbase to have milestones and objectives to continue playing for months.
In line with this, the marketplace is a bit more tricky. I totally agree that eliminating it could help gameplay, specially for players that can't spend 8 hours per day here, and will make the game more hard. But perhaps it shouldn't be totally eliminated, but reworked from the ground.
I've always thought of this game as a FPS hardcore game, not focused around PVP and with the spirit from series like STALKER. Because it's a totally hellish world. Because it has to be hard and you have to struggle to survive, not going flying 2 weeks after wipe running in god-tier meta equipment.
ID: gq892ufAgree 100%, but I seriously doubt it'll ever be that. Why? I'm leaning towards the theory that BSG just doesn't have the stones to piss off that many players with all these changes and more.
But who knows....
ID: gq8d91kNothing against your vision for the game at all, but what percentage of Tarkov's current playerbase do you think would actually enjoy that game?
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Here's the thing about the flea market.
It is not a bad thing. It can't really be. The flea market just saves you time. Instead of having to find the gun you want in a raid, you instead find some metal scissors and a couple of light bulbs. Then, using a system of currency, you can trade those scissors and light bulbs to people who want those and you get your gun from someone who found it. Now you don't have to find it, but someone did. You could maybe argue that it makes loot less special since anything can be traded for anything else, and that's a fair point, but I don't think that's ruining the game.
yes, people are buying crazy high tier ammo off the flea market. But the problem is with CRAFTING AMMO. If people had to find ammo in raid to sell it, there would be a different dynamic. Look at magnum AP, the best ammo in the game. No one uses it because it can cost 100k to kill someone. If m61 cost 10k, 20k a bullet, would people still use it as much? Or would they go into a raid looking for ammo spawns which creates fun gameplay?
The ammo system also begs a different problem, that high tier ammo creates a sitaution where you might as well not bring armor. Armor only protects you from players who are poor, which makes no sense. High tier ammo needs a nerf like magnum ap. Time to kill needs to be longer.
I think another major issue is with the speed that people can run in this game so it encourages you to avoid conflict, run in and then leave before there's a fight, plus fights revolve around crazy fast pushes that no one can react to. That was brought up briefly in the video. Strength and endurance should really get nerfed. Penalties for weight should slow your run speed more. Class 6 armors also shouldn't be as light as slick or hex. They'll be balanced if/when the armor hitbox change comes, but their current implementation is whack.
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I couldn't agree more with Krashed's view one it. Really really would love to see this happen.
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One thing I would like to see with the trader level if it is to be done in phases. Is that traders level up when they are given funding from players. So for Prapor to level up from 1-2 he needs like 500,000,000 roubles and anytime you buy from him he gets that funding. It sort of fits in the lore where he's able to start supplying more as his profit increases or something, but also allows giga-chads to sort of level up the player base with them.
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The only changes I really want are the quests to actually be fun. I hate that SBIH has to be unlocked before you make progress, I hate that Jagaer quest to get headshots with broken limbs can only count after you've started it.
I hate I have to memorized all the items I need for quests 20-25 levels in the future or feel like I'm wasting time. Make the quests actually fun to do, make the goals less specific and more open to interpretation. Generate maps traders give you with clues to spots that have an item you need to extract with or give more options for the quests to kill scavs (25 scavs with AKS-74U? It's not even hard the entire map is scavs just lame.)
Have 100 difference gunsmith quests of different challenges and just toss 16 to each player so they're varied and the stupid attachments don't fetch for 10mil roubles 2 days into the wipe.
If the quests were fun and creative and enjoyable, people would enjoy the grind to complete them. Everything about tarkov is trying to be unforgiving, the least BSG could do is make the quests actually fun to complete. Clearly they're capable of making quests fun to do (I loved headshotting scavs with shotguns tbh) or the gold pocket watch quests was so simple and fun.
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I adore krashed's videos generally and I agree with some of his points but I think he misses the mark on several other points in this video.
The main tension running through all of these debates is a simple one and it's no one's fault: the original vision for Tarkov was too ambitious for the resources available to build it. As a result, BSG has, correctly in my view, made compromises to deliver an experience that is overall still pretty compelling and fun.
The flea market wasn't as big of an issue until two things: the unexpected consequences of tying BTC to real-life prices and the inflation that has resulted, and the fact that lockdowns worldwide have meant that more players have had the time to grind.
Mostly I disagree with eliminating the raiders from reserve and labs. I think if someone wants to try and kill raiders as a scav (still a challenge), or spends the money on a labs raid to try and kill raiders with a hunter, more power to them. It's a challenging way to play the game, and a high-risk/reward scenario.
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I do agree with Krashed strongly on one point - the transition between early game gear and late-game gear is too severe. At this point in the wipe, when I kill other players, they either have nothing because they were loot running or are very low level, or they are geared to the teeth. For the players that are geared to the teeth, I'm often surprised at how low level they are. I completed test drive on night reserve the other day a looted a duo that was level 17 and 24 - both had hex grid, the best NVG, and meta 308 MDRs.
It is a bit of a shame because there are so many mid-game attachments and armors that have cool trade-offs and designs that simply aren't used anymore. Even last wipe I feel like I ran into far more players rocking TV rigs and AK's with some good attachments but not best in slot.
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You're complaining that it's too much of a grind, but that people can get to end game in a matter of days, with the same breath.
Can you not remember that we could run around, shooting and medding at the same time?
People complaining about BC are missing the point - people put in the time to get that farm up and running, the BC is their reward. Work to get it.
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I think a lot of the suggestions are good and that some combination of them would help Tarkov regain its identity. Time gating always feels bad, and a Trader rework might be a bit better. I feel like Traders should only provide the bare minimum and should not sell any higher end gear which should be found in raid, or possibly bartered. When I think of Tarkov I think of people with lightly modded AKs, ADARs, and shotguns shooting 5.45 BP, 855, and buckshot with level 3-4 armor. When I first started playing killing a super geared player was a rush when you saw the good loot. Now every single person I kill has lvl5+ armor and meta guns. Though for this to work like what was mentioned in the video the flea market would need to be removed or completely reworked. One suggestion would be for the flea to only be barter trades (which makes sense for a post apocalyptic scenario where money loses value).
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Bloody good video
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Alpha.*
The game is in alpha. It's not a beta. It's nowhere near feature-complete.
ID: gq8may1What does it matter, seriously?
You’re just looking for an arguement, it makes no fucking difference where it’s at lmao.
ID: gq8jdodThe game is very much in beta
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haven't watched the video but he doesn't suggest something stupid like removing the flea market does he?
also yikes at the people who want this to become some sort of dayz clone, where just having an sks counts you as blessed and having so few rounds that you're forced to not engage enemies just due to an ammo shortage
the game needs to focus around pvp, not pve - that's the only way the game will hold its current playerbase (even though this sub is FULL of people who seem to have a true hardon for hardcore survival aspects and suggest dumb shit like "hurr durr why doesn't your character have to take a leak mid-raid after drinking so much liquid hurr durr") and to continue to grow
the survival purists have other games they can play but those who enjoy the pvp-side of things and the ability to run meta-loadouts of various flavours don't really have other games that offer the same experience in terms of weapon modding, resource management, looting, progression, realism in healing, detailed & in-depth mechanics
the latter is the far greater portion of the community as proven by the explosion of new players after big streamers picked up the game and showed its potential for high-octane action where player skill can truly shine
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Thanks for the video! I stopped playing some months back and have been telling my friends the reason is because the game doesn't respect my time (particularly with quests), but felt like they didn't understand my point. You summed up my issues with the game perfectly, so just had to share.