Why Tarkov gets Boring after a Wipe (and how to fix it)

[@madrandomize5115]

As a new player I have not experienced the whole game yet only lvl 12 this wipe and lvl 16 the previous. People who are playing for 3 to 4 years are normally burned out because they have spent 4k hours into the game. Also the game becomes easy the more you play and if you have 4k hours under your belt you are running in godlike mode towards the best armor and weapons and most of the newcomers stay in the first levels with sub optimal gear playing in hard mode. So you have the people with extreme knowledge of the game and end game gear facing noobs with sticks and stones, killing them in fractions of a second while the noob gear does not penetrate their armour. Time to kill is either instant or it takes 20 shots. The Chads become bored, the noobs become frustrated, noone wins. I have unloaded 12 shots with ps rounds to a lvl 4 armor Chad and he hit me once and died instantly in the chest through my paca. Also progression is limited and hard locked by level and quests that don't make sense, most of the time send you to the meat grinder of Chads to obtain an item.also Chad squads facing solo players make the game extremely easy and quest progression faster for them. Just my 2 cents from a noob.

[@Gambet]

Yeah, this is great feedback. The thing is while it might be true that a lot of veterans, especially Streamers, might be getting burned out just because they've put thousands upon thousands of hours in the game, I actually don't think that's it exactly. A lot of these guys LOVE the game, they just exhaust the content the first week of every wipe. But in my experience there's plenty of people, content creators or just normal players, who burn out much faster than that. I mean just my personal experience, I've maybe got 500 hours in the game, spread out over 2 years, and am far from the most knowledgeable player out there, but I still get bored. Hell, like I said in the video, I got bored this wipe as soon as I hit level 10 and got access to the flea market. Everything else you said about the noob experience I agree with though. So many people are unaware of how important ammo is in Tarkov, and grouping up stacks the deck in your favor in a very unbalancing way. Some people say it balances out because they have to split loot, but I don't actually think this really balances the game at all, as there's usually far more loot than one, two, or even five players can handle, and even if that were the case, the fact that you're far more likely to survive a huge percentage of your raids is going to mean that overall you make vastly more money than you lose.

[@deerdear4686]

Lmao Same.

[@lewmaca]

This video was spot on, the game is in a really bad state at the time of this comment. You was right

[@drakefruit]

im level 27 on my second wipe at the moment, I currently love the flee market and I enjoy finding high value items, it makes my heart pump. The more money you get, the better gear you get, the better players you can kill. theres always that thrill of finding something expensive.

[@denver_exe]

I recently started playing around March and I got to level 28 last wipe. I am lvl 32 in this wipe and don't really have any motivation to play the game that much.

[@Gambet]

I feel you for sure. It's hard to pin down exactly what it is, but I think it's some combination of a lack of meaningful progression mixed with a lack of stakes. Good loot doesn't feel that amazing, and death isn't that painful. This leaves just the highs and lows of combat, which mostly comes so infrequently and is over so fast that it's hard to sustain the game on it. Or at least that's my view.

[@denver_exe]

Yh i wish there was more meaningful progression . Once I get the flea market and a good amount of money I feel like there is no reason to do quests which are the only kind of progression

[@Gambet]

@@denver_exe Yeah, and it's ultimately meaningless because leveling up traders only gives you access to things you already have access to with the Flea Market.

[@MrBelanbelos]

I dont know, this wipe was frustrating. It wasnt a lot of fun to me until i had some stuff and wasnt fucked when i lost a good set. Questing is super boring, i dont care about my hideout, i just want to pvp and be happy if i kill a dude with big gear. There is probably way too much loot but Tarkov has to watch out to not be too frustrating, being too easy is only one way to fail a game. I think what you forgett is that the game when it comes out will be majorly different to how it is now. Runs will be way longer, probably throuhgh multiple maps, with traders only being available on the map. This is just the base that is getting build up and i think they will change alot. Its probably not even too much worth thinking about how you could fix the game now because it will change so much in the future. Also if i fight a 4 man, kill 3 and then my gun jams i will quit the game.

[@Gambet]

I think you've got a lot of great, earnest thoughts here. And I agree BTW, that the game is subject to change a LOT before it's released fully, and so a lot of this might be addressed with more creative solutions than just gutting traders/flea. But I also think now is the time to give the devs feedback and create discussions, so that they can at least be thinking about these problems. I've heard around the grapevine that BSG doesn't play Tarkov much, so a lot of stuff is theoretical and based entirely around feedback from the community. Not sure if it's true or not, but it seems worthwhile to throw out my thoughts. Things are far less likely to change dramatically once the game is fully released, so may as well give them feedback now, y'know? That said, I have a question for you. Was the game frustrating until you got good gear because everyone else had good gear and you were getting killed all the time by people who drastically outgeared you? Because I agree that that sucks, and that's a big reason why I don't like the Flea Market or Traders, because think about how awful the new player experience is going to be if you show up a year into 1.0 and there hasn't been a wipe that whole time. Like 99% of the playerbase is going to be using Class 6 armor and HK's with M995 or whatever, and you're gonna have to somehow try to compete with unmodded AK's and PS ammo? I think that would be endlessly frustrating.

[@Gambet]

BTW I agree about the gun jams just sounding entirely unfun. But I don't get the point of even adding the game mechanic in the current climate, where nobody will ever experience them unless they aren't paying attention.

[@Gambet]

@J3M That's awesome, dude. And yeah, I love this game too, and I too sympathize with all the shit Nikita has had to go through, especially lately. I mostly don't mind how people choose to play the game (aside from hackers, obviously), but I just think the meta taking over a week after a fresh wipe is crazy, and is probably leading to a lot of veteran players burning out lately. This video is mostly just my attempt to brainstorm a way to keep that early wipe feeling going longer, which would make the game more interesting IMO. It'd make it tougher, but not oppressively so since everybody would be going through the same stuff. Cheers, my dude.

[@MrBelanbelos]

@@Gambet I think youre right there. I probably have fun now beacuase i have a better chance killing meta dudes with my own meta gear. Also a friend of mine is starting right now and i see that he is having a very hard time.

[@MrBelanbelos]

@J3M How the hell are you lvl 16 and have 17 mil roubles? Im lvl 31, have 8.5mil and a stash value around 37mil. Am i really this bad at this game? xD

[@Dimitri1221XxX]

I have a maxed out hideout, i'm just missing a few quests until i get Kappa. I'm already pretty bored. Bitcoin farm lvl 3 makes me feel like not even playing anymore. I get half a mil rubles every few hours from the bitcoin farm, and i don't value rubles anymore. I don't care about loot anymore. I kill a thicc boi, and i don't even care about looting them anymore. As boring as the quests are, they are the main motivation for playing the game.

[@enderkara3421]

Meanwhile there are streamers with over 200m rubles and plus more valuable items in inventory keep looting in every god damn raid. I don't get this actually. Some of them say "oh I want pvp" he gets some kills and then gets the loot, hears gunshots and leaves the fucking raid. If you want pvp, you don't give a fuck about loot , right?

[@OChuckDuck]

Best way to hunt for the perfect solution (including trying what is suggested in the video) = >> Make a public experimental branch that runs parallel to the main game, have it wipe as often as the devs want to try new ideas

[@Gambet]

I'd play it. Though it might slow down development even more if they have two branches of the game they're messing with. But still, I'd be down.

[@madrandomize5115]

You can also remove money from the flea market and just only exchange loot and barter items.If I want a dfuel and I have an sks I can put up a wanted list for my wanting a dfuel and giving an sks plus some painkillers p.e. .

[@L-Lowe]

I think I would like that, remove cash because it would struggle with an economy of a fallen city, barter trades should be the norm wherein we decide what item is equivalent of another.

[@Gambet]

So this isn't a bad idea, and might even help to delay that early wipe feeling, but I think that eventually the game would devolve into a very specific meta where everyone has the best gear in the game. Actually I think it would be worse than that, where it would be extremely good for all of the people in the know, who are maybe Tarkov veterans, but be really, really rough for all the new players, who might not know how exactly to navigate the Flea Market, and are even slower to develop wealth than they are now. I think this could be disastrous for new players, because the rest of the playerbase would be armed with their Class 6 Armors and VAL's and HK's and whatever, and new players would pretty much be playing how I mention in my video, like Scavs, basically, with really bad guns and worse ammo, with no notion as to why they can't seem to win any of their firefights. How do you account for that?

[@w.parkermarks3790]

Pestily and deadlyslob do a series very similar called hardcore Tarkov. I’d definitely like to see some of the new series on KZbin. Very insightful video! I’ll be popping into the stream sometime.

[@Gambet]

Yeah! When we were coming up with the rules for the Apocalypse Challenge on stream, people mentioned Hardcore Tarkov to me. They're very similar! Mine is a bit more insane, as I don't allow for the secure container at all, not even for keys or money, and I also don't allow Insurance, and I can only Solo, which really amps up the challenge. But I think everything else is pretty much the same.

[@fktm1211]

Really dope vid, agree with scarcity being the best factor of a post apoc game

[@Gambet]

Thanks man. I hope they tweak some things to bring the game more in line with this.

[@CoffeeFresh_]

I am still somewhat new to tarkov. I think removing the flea market or limiting it would be a great option. Personally I think the vision of this game is to scavenge and then use what you scavenged towards your next raid.

[@Gambet]

I fully agree. I know there's people who disagree, some who are new, and some who aren't. I think it would take some adjustment to get used to, but I think if EVERYONE is in the same boat it would be a lot easier to get by then people think, and would make fights so much more interesting.

[@cruxer666]

Flea market and magic cellar that generates money brake the game. Bringing stuff from raid makes no sense anymore. Game is too easy because of this. You do not need to bring things from raid to survive, you bring garbage to do annoying tasks and feed magic market that teleport stuff and money to your cellar. PMC operator with diarrhoea looking for toilet paper that cannot climb 1.5 meter wall, has no compass and cares more about taking sugar or stupid hat out of raid than optic or rifles.

[@Gambet]

@@cruxer666 Yeah I totally agree.

[@zerint]

I almost never like a video, but i felt i had to like this one.

[@Gambet]

Thanks dude

[@KeepTheGates]

How generous of you. We should all be grateful that you even bothered to watch.

[@zerint]

​@@KeepTheGates I'm still the same way. It's not my like, that matters. It's the meaning behind it. Pretty sad of you taking the time to reply to this 1 year old comment, just to be negative. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter who we are, your like is gonna worth the same as mine. I'm surprised someone was able to shout negativity towards a comment, where the purpose was to make the content creator feel good for their good work.

[@hunttheog969]

First of all I understand where you're coming from this is basicly my first wipe, I'm lvl 31 and only scavenging for value. I feel this. Tasks is what gives my raid purpose next to accumulating money for the next gear set. And I fear the next wipe when the tasks may not be interesting to me anymore. Still, I would like to offer a variation of your idea. Don't remove the traders, but lower the baseline they provide. I'd probably like Tier 3/4 armor to be the average, Tier 2/3 ammo and low tier meds. Here is my reasoning: Always being either at the bottom or the top is frustrating as hell. It'll feel more like DayZ and thats honestly not what I would want. Give a player a feeling of progression while keeping things scare and give them another purpose for the raids. Like daily, weekly, montly missions of different typs that provide you the ability to a certain number of a higher value item (And with the gun durability being a feature these wont stay in the loot cicle for ever either). Mission types could be scavenge or recon missions. Or transporting post (Someone more creative than could ab a lot here). Edit 1: Maybe change all keys to limited uses. Edit 2: Make Barter items high value sell items and in high quantaties tradeable for lets say up to tier 4/5 Gear so that you can either buy a fuckton of midtier gear from them or a very little amount of mid-high tier gear amount from it.

[@Gambet]

Yeah, for sure. And right now Tasks are sort of boring once you've been through a few wipes, but I know they're gonna get a huge overall before 1.0, so I'm not too worried about it on that front. I like your ideas about lowering baseline gear, and think that would probably make a far better compromise than my notion of just ripping Flea & Traders from the game entirely, so the playerbase would be happier with it. The problem for me is, if you have access to Class 1-4 armors, why would you ever use worse than class 4? If you wouldn't, aside from maybe the first few days of a new wipe, then what's the point of even having those items in the game? Armor aside, it feels like 50% or more of the armor/bullets/guns would fall into this category of "useless after the first week of the game", which I don't see how you can avoid if you allow for the purchase of mid-tier gear. My example of the AI-2's and bandages holds up. Once you get access to the Car medkit, why would you ever go back to an item that you need several off, cost more, and does less? If you'd indeed never go back, what's the point of having AI-2's in the game? I LOVE the idea of having all keys have limited uses. I hate how they're untouchable on all PMC characters permanently because of the secure container. It's not very realistic to have keys have limited uses, but screw it.

[@dnawrapsatl]

A level wipe every 60 days, but keep your trader level may help

[@aaronmulvaney]

Remove guns and gear from the flea market and make them available via Find in Raid. This would prolong the early - mid game as people will only have access to the best gear by finding in raid or getting to higher levels, hence circulating less of the best gear. Personally I think if the flea market didn't exist this game would be what everyone wants it to be, the problem with that is the casual players struggle with survival sometimes.

[@Gambet]

We didn't always have the Flea Market though, and while you're right that it prolongs the early-mid game, it still doesn't take that long before a high percentage of the playerbase starts to get access to all the meta gear. Right now it takes like, 2 days to a week. Without the Flea Market it might take a month to get to that point. But we're still only getting a wipe every 4-6 months. That's still a huge period of time being stuck in meta hell, IMO. That's why I don't think removing the Flea Market alone will fix it. Also keep in mind that Nikita has said in the past that when 1.0 releases, they plan to stop doing wipes. He's occasionally walked that back, but personally I think the community only tolerates wipes because the game gets stale and it's in beta. I think if we're forced to do wipes after the game fully releases, some people might like that, but a lot of people will get sick of it and move on.

[@nocodenoblunder6672]

Very very good video 100% agree. All the points are valid and would imo also make the game better. Tarkov is not meant to be a trader game it is meant to be a hardcore survival game. In an apocalypse there is not shops where you can buy stuff. You only get what you find with your own hands risking your life. I had feelings also where basically meta makes the game boring. Slick is best Armour by far and only a few viable weapons that are the standard everything else is shit compared. Ever time it’s slick with either vss, Val , m4, m416, juice cannon that is almost it. Only a handful weapons. Basically once you get to mid late game looting becomes redundant as 90% of the items becomes useless in terms of value. You basically enter the game only to play for pvp at this point. But Tarkov is not meant to be a PVP game at least not as its primary objective. It should be a byproduct as you are fighting for survival and the city with limited resources which is not big enough for everyone. If you want a game with pure pvp you should look at battlefield, cod etc. Tarkov is different and should be different. Get rid of flee get rid of traders. Maybe have the traders exists but only in game at a random location on the map also not selling the same gear every time. They should have variable gear. Also the loot system needs a remake items should spawn randomly so there is tension everywhere on the map like it was when you played first time. Now there is only tension around the spots where everybody knows there is always good loot.

[@nocodenoblunder6672]

I mean traders that spawn randomly on the map somewhere also not all of the time they are a special occurrence with random loot and you have to physically go to them to actually make a trade. Trade weapons for food. Make food and medicine the most important basic good and weapons are only important if you are not starving to death.

[@Gambet]

@@nocodenoblunder6672 That's a neat idea. Like roaming caravans in Fallout. Only issue is you tend to have to plan out your raids, and you're unlikely to be able to plan on bringing barter goods you might lose if you don't know if a trader will be there. But very interesting.

[@nocodenoblunder6672]

@@GambetThats true yeah planning would not be possible with how I imagined it but it is meant to be something rare so if it is there every raid that would not make it special. It was a sudden not fully thoughtout idea that came to mind. I just really dislike how it is atm you get free access to sell/buy items with no risk involved which as you said eliminates the scarcity effect.

[@Gambet]

@@nocodenoblunder6672 Yeah totally!

[@cyliemyrus]

Have to agree with you about the flea market. I just bought the game and once the flea market was available for me, the game dramatically became less interesting

[@algaioselder7652]

Its crazy, i forgot what i felt when i first saw the game. I had forgotten that at first I thought it was all about the raids and with no market. I was puzzling why it felt so different to what I had imagined why it seemed like such an awesome concept. And when he said to get rid of the traders and market I scoffed. But then I thought and realized that's exactly what got me so excited in the first place which even I forgot.

[@dollarbill93]

I agree, 5th wipe. Lost motivation to play at lvl13 this wipe. Just needed to gwt to market in case boys wanna play together.

[@Gambet]

Yeah! And that's sort of a double-edged sword, isn't it? Because if you team up you want to make sure everyone on your team is useful/competitive. But at the same time if nobody could purchase anything, fights would be far more varied, and if "the boys" don't have access to much then you're more like a hodgepodge team of bandits than a fucking SEAL Team 6 squad. There's not inherently wrong with either of those situations, I just think that the SEAL Team 6 situation gets boring far faster than everybody running with crap gear and having to fight with unmodded AK's and crap armor or whatever.

[@spooky4223]

so remove the flea market ???? I like your how you mentioned how you loved the initial grind to lvl 10, I was the opposite as I came later after a wipe. scavenging for loot against full juggernauts made me lose interest really quick, that and joining a discord where everyone just runs to the same spots for loot, it got old fast.

[@Gambet]

Obviously removing the flea would be a major change. It's effects would ripple out in a variety of ways. You can't simply assume you'd be fucked and everyone else would be fine.

[@dubmeisterxd2133]

What if flea market was only for barter items, and traders would not sell ammo? i feel like the game has 2 types of player, one who runs the best and the other who runs the cheapest

[@enderkara3421]

This game needs different modes to play rather than normal gameplay. It gets boring after 3 months past from fresh wipe.

[@ph00lish1_]

holy shit your right g i think they should just get rid of traders but not for everything just high tier attachments and guns

[@Invertmini1212]

The flea market makes it where you have no real worry about truly losing your gear.. You just but it back and rinse/repeat.

[@connerisaacs2625]

Just make certain items unavailable on flee market. Etc. Removing guns and increasing their spawns will reintroduce that feeling again.

[@Gambet]

I sorta doubt it. And I'm extremely wary of creating an ever-expanding list of gear that we're NOT allowed to put on the Flea Market. What the hell is the point of the Flea Market if we're not allowed to put any of the good stuff up there? I'd argue there isn't any point, which is why we should just dump the flea market entirely.

[@DarthVaizard]

I agree that scarcity is the answer, but I don't think the traders should be removed. I think they should serve as the player's only contact to the outside world (even if it doesn't make sense lore-wise) which is why they have the most basic things to sell infinitely. The baseline that they're able to sell you, which effectively becomes where the meta sits, needs to be lowered DRASTICALLY though. Everything else needs to be scarce and find in raid only to the point that running into a guy with a slick and a juice cannon should be unheard of. Players should also be able to TRADE items between each other without using currency. Realistically they would and the logic behind not using the currency that the traders use is because it's simply not valuable to a PMC the way it is to a trader. Maybe the traders have a monopoly on commerce in Tarkov and will either not sell to players that sell what they find or they send raiders to kill you because they can. It honestly doesn't matter so long as the ONLY way you can use currency in game is with them.

[@Gambet]

These are really good thoughts. So when you say the traders should sell really basic goods, do you mean like the equivalent of level 1 trader goods? Or less than even that? Or more than that? As for the Flea Market, a barter only Flea is a great notion, but personally I can't think of a way for it not to devolve into just a more cumbersome mode of what we have now. There are so many items in the game, that there's bound to be some new standard of a barter currency, whether that's bitcoin, or bullets, or bottle caps, haha. Or even if it's not quite like that, there will be a "value" to things that we wind up exploiting, that puts us right back where we are now. There might be some ways to mitigate it. One thing I didn't mention in the video cuz it was already getting too long was the prospect of having to travel to a physical flea market, where you'd have to survive to get to with the gear you want to buy or sell, so you're risking the very things you want to barter, rather than having it all just be automated. But this sounds like a pain in the ass that wouldn't even work in the long term, as eventually people would figure out a way to exploit it and a new Meta would form. Once a meta form in Tarkov I just think it'll start to get stale. What do you think?

[@DarthVaizard]

@@Gambet I think the baseline will need some testing if they decide to go that route. If the baseline is a paca and an AK, I'd personally be OK with that but the community as a whole may want it to be level 3-4 armor and BP ammo just so that there's more of a feeling of progression with leveling up. I'd also be OK with just getting rid of the flea entirely if they can't find a solution that makes at least most of the community happy. I wouldn't want it to devolve like you describe either and I hadn't thought of that. And having to survive a raid just to sell something you found would be monumentally tedious.

[@Gambet]

@@DarthVaizard Yeah, I agree. Though they are talking about doing Open-World things with the game too. Makes me wonder if the eventual 1.0 Tarkov will have more in common with an MMO than whatever it is now. Could be quite unrecognizable if they wind up making huge changes. I'm not for or against that, I just want to make sure that whatever they do, people won't be dropping off 2 weeks after the game fully launches because the meta gets boring.

[@Aruhito_0]

This is perfect! Now all I want for Christmas is a post wipe event with : - removing trader lvls except 1 - making flea market barter trades only - traders buy less items -> making fence interesting - secure container take out only (no prison wallet) - unsurance returns only when you died

[@Gambet]

I think this would be a great experiment to run, but I don't love it as a end-of-wipe event, as basically there would be your ultra rich players with ten thousand meta guns/armor/ammo who've stockpiled absolutely slaughtering all the more casual players who weren't able to stockpile before the event started. If they did this at the start of a wipe I think that would be very cool, though.

[@Aruhito_0]

@@Gambet thats why I called it 'Post Wipe event'

[@Gambet]

@@Aruhito_0 Ah, so you mean at the start of a wipe then. Yeah I'm totally on board with it!

[@nightvolf8395]

I'd love to see a hardcore mode as an option in the game with a separate stash and character. The traders sell things and give quests but the items are very limited (some food and water maybe some basic weapons and a very small amount of ammo)and very expensive and no flea market. Maybe have a message board where you can let people know you have something to trade, if you want to do trades you have to do them in raid.

[@Gambet]

My only issue with this idea is that because the Tarkov community is still relatively small, having multiple game forks like this is only going to split the community, increasing raid times and slowing down development as BSG will basically be working on two different game modes in tandem, at that point. And you might have to make different balancing decisions for each one. If Tarkov had a few million players it could work though, dunno.

[@nightvolf8395]

@@Gambet I think if they changed the entire game to that model you'd end up with a lot less players anyway, likely leading to long queues and less people wanting to play the game. This will lead to less investment and maybe killing the game. That's a worse case scenario of course but definitely not unlikely, look at some of the reactions that the community has had so far to some small changes making the game only slightly harder.

[@martingschirtz8708]

I really like where you are going with this idea. Do you think we could have a similar effect by adjusting money sinks and money sources? If it were harder to get rich, by reducing what traders pay for your stuff and increasing the prices they charge you in a big way, you would often be forced to settle for lower lvl gear and whatever you find in raid. Imagine a stock AK costing 70k and they would be appropriately rare to find (in usable condition). Same goes for lvl5 armors, salewas and operation kits. Flea market probably still needs to be scrapped. BSG could manipulate flea market prices by adjusting the ingame rarity of items but i dont like that this should determine how hard it is to find stuff.

[@Gambet]

That's a very good question, and I've thought a lot about it, and I just don't see how it's possible. If we kept Traders and Flea Market intact, but messed with a bunch of other systems, like loot tables and Hideout Upgrades being way more expensive or something, or creating entirely new money sinks, I truly don't believe anything would change, as far as the meta being established super fast and people burning out on the game, the game needing a wipe every so often to stay fresh, and so on.The thing about money sinks is that they tend to be for luxuries. Once you get access to the Flea Market, being able to purchase something from a Level 4 Trader for cheaper is purely a luxury, not a necessity, as you can already buy everything on the Flea Market. Almost every aspect of the Hideout is so you can craft your own crap, but you really don't need to, since you can get everything on the Flea. Worse, the Hideout has really become this useless thing IMO, except as a way of easily creating Found in Raid items for tasks and Flea Market sales, without having to actually find them in raid. But all of this basically is stuff you don't _need_ so much as want. So in a world where everyone has full access to Traders and Flea Market, are you ever going to let yourself go into a raid where you're woefully underequipped, making you far less likely to survive the raid, so that you can level up your Bitcoin farm or some shit like that? Haha. Probably not, right? You'll spend that money on making sure you've got the best gear you can possibly afford, making you more likely to survive, making you more likely to profit, which is far more valuable to you anyway in both the short and long term. Do you agree? Assuming you do, I just don't see a way out of that that keeps traders/flea intact. What do you think?

[@martingschirtz8708]

@@Gambet I agree with a lot of what you just said. But I am not suggesting to leave fleamarket or traders intact. I agree that we should scrap the flea market and I suggest to increase trader prices dramatically. I think that you are on point, where you say that i would spend everything I can so my survival rate and my profits go up. At the moment, more spending equals more profit and I dont think that this is a good thing. Imagine we could calculate an expected profit for a loadout. This expected profit increases if we expect to survive multiple raids with the loadout, becomes zero if it just manages to pay for itself and becomes negative if not. Then I would want the lowtier loadouts to have high expected profits. They would achieve this by being dirtcheap, so dying a lot is not an issue. But dying a lot is not fun, when you know that you would have gotten that guy if you had a better weapon, so i think players would favor midtier loadouts with zero expected profits. And if you are on a lucky streak and have built up some cash you could invest in the metaguns. They would be so crazy expensiv that you would need to survive 15raids to profit but it doesnt matter because it is fun tearing up 7 factory raids in a row. My concern of not having traders at all is mainly a convenience thing, where you looted an amazing AK but you dont have any 30round mags to use it with. Maybe this wont be an issue if we could craft this stuff in the hideout. But I am still curious how scrapping them entirely would play out. Ill probably stop by your stream sometime and see how this experiment is going for you ;D

[@Gambet]

@@martingschirtz8708 Yeah dude, for the foreseeable future this challenge run is the only thing I'm doing on stream, so definitely step by. I feel more engaged by the game than I ever have before, so I think it's promising. It has definitely changed my playstyle a lot, though I think a lot of that is due to the fact that everybody else has access to the Flea Market so they're all using meta builds and meanwhile I'm running around with no backpack or vest with a PM pistol with 4 mismatched bullets, but it forces me to almost be a rat, which is very unlike my playstyle, but rather than hiding at all costs and just going for random scraps, I'm charging for all the loot boxes and buried stashes and putting myself in situations where I might run into players, but I try to avoid them if I hear them. It's very exhilarating in a way I wasn't quite expecting. It also means when I find something stupid, like a Salewa medkit, or even a basic 30-round magazine, it feels a bit like Christmas to me. It's very interesting to have that feeling with something like 70% of the loot in the game now, instead of less than 1% of it which is how it used to be. I'm not sure how it would wind up working out if we could buy mid-tier gear from traders, but at a prohibitively high cost. You might be right that a lot of people would go for it even if they're unlikely to profit from it. Personally I doubt we'd see anyone who isn't new running worse gear than the best you can buy from traders. Most likely people will always figure out a way to make it work for them, so it might be really tough to figure out how to discourage them. I think there are ways to do it. If you force players to bring their tradeables into a raid, make it to a Trader in person to make the trades, and then have to get out of the raid with their profits, that could actually be pretty neat and could help to balance things out a lot. Just a random idea though. I know they said they plan to put Traders in the game, but I suspect you could run there naked and then just trade them with the full value of your stash like you can now. If they do that, I think that'll be a big mistake. Anyway, hope to see you on my stream dude!

[@eljuancho2]

Lv1 player vs a max level player,beginner vs pro,is what every match feels like,nothing will change

[@Hammy_J]

I agree with you with one minor change, get rid of the flea market as it's only caused problems. Traders should only sell rudimentary gear with random wear on it. That way you still get the upgrade when looting in raid and you won't be ground to a holt after 1 or 2 bad raids and be forced to hatchet run. maps.

[@Gambet]

I don't mind this. If it's basically the equivalent of Level 1 Traders, or even slightly worse, so that you never feel like you have to go into a raid naked, that's probably an ideal compromise. One thought I had was that maybe you could leave Fence in the game, but make him the only trader. That way he only possesses things players have given him, and every time you go to him he just has a random assortment of gear, most of which is probably the kind of stuff other players don't want to deal with. He'd buy ridiculously low and sell quite high. Could be neat.

[@Hammy_J]

@@Gambet I like that actually. If it's all traders I'd make them level 1 and then the quest rewards like salewas would be a one time thing instead of unlocking them for sale. Maybe not less than level one but make the items barter only since there isn't much need for cash in a warzone that you have less than 50% survival rate in. There's alot that can be done when you start thinking like this but BSG would babe to go 180 from their current path.

[@nesano4735]

Just do what Path of Exile does. Have one main overarching league and another league that wipes every few months. At the end of the league that wipes, everything the player earned is rolled over into the main league that doesn't.

[@monsieurfrank8069]

THIS

[@Gambet]

I've heard this solution before, but I'm not so sure it's as well thought out as you think. Lemme propose some problems with it, and everyone is welcome to tell me how they'd solve them. 1. First and foremost, having two major game modes of the same exact game will literally split the playerbase in half. This will raise queue times and eventually cause huge problems. Look no further than PUBG for examples as to why this is bad. They had to take away your ability to choose your own map because queue times were taking forever. 2. Worse, IMO, this doesn't even solve the problem. The server that never wipes will develop a meta after a week and grow stale for everyone rapidly. Worse, this will become the server for the megachad who always groups up, because these players are going to be all about going in with the best of the best gear and getting into PvP. Meanwhile the server that does wipe is going to feel identical to the other server except for the first week of the wipe, so the vast majority of the time you won't be able to tell the difference, and it won't actually make the game feel any fresher. 3. Even if it doesn't work out exactly like that, it doesn't really solve the problem that I bring up, which is that beyond a certain point, the game just seems to get stale for a lot of people. Having a wipe cycle built in will just get people to play early on, then drop out, only to come back at the start of each wipe. That's what happens right now. It's not healthy for the game to only have it be interesting for a week or two every several months. Thoughts?

[@nesano4735]

@@Gambet Nobody would use the main mode, that's the point. It'd only be there so that your progress never truly "wipes," it just gets moved. It'd function as a feature tester like in Path of Exile, but it'd also be a way to prove to the player base that the game needs regular wipes in a way that wouldn't piss them off.

[@jamesfry7954]

I think you're definitely on the right track! But i think it should be more of a change rather than a complete remove! For example i think the traders should have gear upto 2nd tier assuming there is 3 tiers and that you should unlocked that til like level 30/40. So you can only get tier 4 armor at level 30 on wards. The flee market should also become a complete trade hub! So for example ill give you this AK for your ADAR kinda thing. You put up say an AK and people can send you offers that you need to accept. Not just a flat money transaction cause thats soooo boring and simple. All in all im very glad someone else has this idea and maybe just maybe the game will change for the better of all players cause at this point the game is gonna die when they stop wipes

[@Gambet]

Thanks man. And I'm fine with not removing Flea/Traders if we figure out a way to keep them that doesn't create a new meta. I'm just worried that there's not a way to do that realistically. Once scarcity is gone, the game just gets boring IMO. Barter trades might fix that, but I don't think that's a guarantee. I never underestimate the ability for people to find exploits in videogames. If it's barter only, people might start bartering bullets as a new currency, or bottlecaps Fallout style, y'know? Someone more creative than me might be able to figure something like this out, but I just don't know what it is. Maybe forcing people to do their trades in game, rather than in the menu's, basically forcing people to risk their lives to make trades, potentially with double-cross potential, would cut down on it a lot. But I worry about that too since I think it'd benefit the no-lifers who'd be happy to make deals on Reddit or something, while the casuals would never trade. I dunno though!

[@jamesfry7954]

@@Gambet That is a great point! I didn't even consider that.. It kinda screws the free trade system in everyway! I completely agree remove the flee market. I still stand by having the traders but not being able to buy any guns better than say AK, ADAR and mosins. And ramping the price up of them so they are a big decision to run with! Only because i feel there still needs to be that minor economy for the individual player! Cheers for the response too! It's rare to have a content creater reply with such a genuine response.

[@solarplexusclowngliders]

Remove the ability to use currency to buy things outside of very few select cases. By making the economy barter oriented you make it harder to get gear, thus making every piece of gear more valuable. You cannot easily stockpile stuff to then purchase your equipment. With this change you are now encouraged to scavenge for specific items to get what you want. And killing another player suddenly becomes very rewarding as you get access to their equipment without the hurdle of getting it from traders. Additionally, a change should be made to scav's AI. Right now getting a gun and sub-par ammo for it is very easy as all scavs on the map share a total of 7 collective brain cells at any given point of the raid.

[@Gambet]

Yeah, this could potentially work. My fear is that even if you went to a full barter economy people would figure out a way to exploit it so that we get right back to where we are now. Like people start exchanging some easily purchased type of crappy ammo from traders and use that to barter, for instance.

[@skasfaqhossain6076]

i think flea is really important if this is your first wipe and you are still learning the game.....for me at least to keep the money flowing to afford at least a decent ak to go to raids......i play casually and do not have enough hours to put in the game....the survival aspect is still there for a guy like me because of the chad lords who roam around without any fear......if you are bored just play the game less from the beginning of the wipe....have a life outside of the game....it will intensify those tarkov moments automatically.......any game is stale if you play and see too much of it...anyway i thank the armored chad lords and jaggernauts for making tarkov fun for me and making the game interesting :D

[@killer30556]

I think they should have test servers where things like this can be tested. It sounds good but could straight up kill the game if it just gets changed on the main game version and it doesnt work out.

[@Gambet]

Yeah, I'd be in favor of that, although right now since the game is in beta I do wish they'd be a bit more liberal with taking chances. If it doesn't work out they can just plug that stuff back in, you know?

[@SilverMiraii]

I never played the game yet but I watched videos of it, I agree there should be scarcity, weapons should be a rare thing to find, they should be hard to repair, ammo should be scarce, and there should be a priority on finding guns in raids, and there should be no "safe container" where you don't lose those items, that's kinda bullshit and unrealistic

[@KeepTheGates]

Remove the flea market. Make progression slower, take level 6 armors away from traders, remove the best in slot ammo per caliber. I have a list of things that I think would help.

[@ImJBTPG]

if they don't get rid of the flea it'll kill the game for sure. nothing worse than having a job so you only play a few hours a day or week and running into full kitted players 2 days after wipe. no battle items on the flea imo and it should be bartering only and very limited in what you can trade.

[@KeepTheGates]

I think the traders being removed is a little extreme.

[@letssuperfuntime]

@ 2:22 this is definately what's not needed. MORE content is the last thing that Tarkov needs tbh.

[@Gambet]

I'm confused. Isn't that what I said?

[@deerdear4686]

So. For me tarkov is big pain. Im bad at the game. When i get some good gun my heart start beats like 120bpm. Im still level 6. I have been playing for 2 years. I was something like lvl 35 ans had like 18mil. I was So enjoyjng this game. Im still enjoyjng. I dont feel like Its boring. If they Will change something like this "need to be found in raid" mechanicks. Its getting extra hard for me. I dont have any progres. Im a slow learner. But i enjoyed the game when its more easy. Idk. Jesus my english Is bad.

[@Gambet]

That's fair.

[@moby1kanob]

what about setting a strength value to all weapons and gear and then making maps where you cant go in unless you are under a certain strength value..limit how much you cant take into a raid...so you have to make a decision between gun and gear..if you go with high armor, a pistol is all you have room for under that strength value or if you take a chad gun, no armor or tier 1 is all you can wear to go into the map. Each map will have a difficulty and experience given accordingly. SO say Reserves has tier 1,2 and 3 maps. The strength requirement for tier 1 is set at say 30 (out of 100) and you have to stay under that to enter the map. The map has a higher drop % for better loot, you get more experience per kill etc. Then tier 2 (under 50 strength) and tier 3 (under 100) with each higher tier lowering drop rates and experience you get per kill and for the map overall. I think it would have a domino effect. Plus you can make quests in each tier. Also make the flea market ONLY available for items found in tier 1 maps and the items are worth less to traders if the item was found on a tier 3 map than say a tier 1 map where traders value those items more. The idea could go on and on as to how to make rules for each tier.

[@Gambet]

I understand what you're going for but this will never happen. Nikita does not want this game to ever feel fair, where you only face off against people of equivalent level or with similar gear, or same team sizes and whatever. And I agree with his vision here, BTW. Also doing it this way would split the playerbase in a way that would result in much longer queue times, and would be a pain in the ass. Plus never underestimate people's ability to exploit systems. People would figure out the absolute best gear they could use to get into the crappiest tier maps, so that they could wipe the floor with everyone. I don't think this would work as well as you do.

[@elysiaisalive]

Seeing this video during the 12.12 late wipe hits every same note. Flea PERMANENTLY breaks progression and any meaningful scavenging because you have access to every item at your fingertips. I would love a barter only flea, or even a level 30 or 40 flea. Making late wipe bearable means lots of changes to how we treat the economics of tarkov. Rouble should really not have any value in a breakdown society. Why is a rouble worth more than food? Why does tushonka even have a rouble value? imagine if you could only trade equivalent "value" items with traders.

[@Gambet]

Yeah, I made this video two years ago, and knowing that basically nothing meaningful has changed in the game in that time is a huge reason why I haven't felt compelled to come back to it.

[@lisior1975]

I'm bored with the current wipe, got only to level 26 and have zero passion or incentive to keep grinding... in the past wipes I got to level 43 or so... this wipe had nothing exciting, no new content, Customs Expansion got pushed out... hoping that with 12.7 there will be enough to bring me back... right after the wipe the game is as its best with people running basic gear and that was super fun... all the Pestily wanna bes rush to level ASAP and the game becomes imbalanced very quickly... progression is too fast and needs to be slowed down... I remember the game before the Flea Market and the game was better back then... but Nikita won't remove the Flea unfortunately

[@Gambet]

Yeah, he probably won't, but hopefully he'll come up with something creative to help rebalance the game and add some actual scarcity to it. Honestly I don't even feel like the issue is people rushing. It's too easy to level once you learn the game. I got to level 10 in two days, and I was struggling hard, dying all the time, and I was streaming it so I was spending half my time talking to chat and not actually raiding. I know it slows down the higher you get, but once you hit level 10 you suddenly get access to every item in the game, which sorta gives this feeling of you having basically maxed out.

[@terryman0]

what if they make traders IN-RAID only? What i mean by this is what if you would have to go to a specific part of a map in order to deal with traders? This probably might get farmed tho lol

[@Gambet]

I think this could work if you were forced to bring the gear you want to sell to the traders in raid with you. If all you have to do is reach the traders and then you get full access to your stash for exchanges, then there's no reason why people wouldn't just hatchling over to them. Even if this were to work, I think it would still eventually lead us down a path where we reach a point that there's an established meta sort of sucking the life out of the game, and a wipe will be required. I was hoping to find a way where a wipe wouldn't be necessary.

[@terryman0]

Gambet Oh, what if you could only do transactions with traders with your inraid inventory so that would mean you would have to extract with the gear you purchased from them instead of just simply buying it and having it transported to your stash

[@terryman0]

then again people would just camp the traders then

[@Gambet]

@@terryman0 Yeah! That's what I was saying. I could see something like that working, but I still think they should sell far less than they do at present. If they're selling top tier ammo, guns, and armor, it's still going to lead to a meta, just a really unbalanced one.

[@Kappi1997]

Another problem is them trying to force people into buying the premium edition of the game by making the first missions for like jäger a pain in a** and everyone wants the +0.2 reputation in the beginning which is given with them

[@Gambet]

I'm not sure they're trying to get people to buy EOD with trader reps. More likely they're just haphazardly adding quests and don't realize some are a big pain to complete and are blocking their progress, but it's probably something they should do away with.

[@Kappi1997]

@@Gambet I can live with the extra 4 mils i need to grind for the stash to build the inteligence center but the dealer thing is just a pain. I had only 2 missions on jäger. one was 8 kills in office and the other one was kill 3 pmc with tremor by a headshot....

[@Gambet]

@@Kappi1997 Yeah you're not wrong. Those Jaeger quests. Hoo.

[@coolbrosryder12]

The post apocalyptic feel in the beginning is what reels me in. Running around with shitty Soviet era gear is more fun than running around better equipped than the American or an other strong and advanced military. Struggling is the fun. I want to feel like I’m clinging onto life, I want to feel like someone that only has the basic essentials and every little item is vital. That is why the early and mid game I so fun. Traders, and especially the flea market need to be “nerfed” in a way.

[@alexander10122]

There is no "mid-game mid-wipe" and the early wipe last only for 1 week because of nolifers that play it 7 days straight without eating. I fucking hate this game

[@regiszzz1234]

Nikita should watch this video.

[@jumblestiltskin1365]

I am a "casual dad" with 2 kids, wife that hates my "habit" with the PC and a busy military career....and I agree with this video. Despite everything and the effects change would have it would utterly enliven the experience again. This is my 2nd wipe and I love the game. 800 hours of play now. I can hold my own in tarkov. I'm very picky about what combat I get into. I would endorse: Get rid of flea as it is and introduce a system of barter either with players or with AI traders preferably for the items I need. This could have endless possibilities which I think is beyond the scope of this comment. I would remove the buying of all ammo, weapons and nades from traders aside from the most basic. Rebalance the current ammo/armour as it applies to Time to Kill. It needs to be a little longer. Currently the difference between level 3 and level 6 armour is negligible. Level 6 armour should mean something if you are lucky enough to have it. But easy to lose if you get that headshot on you! I'd vastly increase the amount of things you can craft in hideout from basic items. Skill levelling allowing more items to be produced at same time and in higher qualities in the case of weapons, armour and ammo.

[@Gambet]

I love this comment, and agree with a lot of what you say. Especially increasing the usefulness of the Hideout, although I think they should remove Found in Raid status from crafted items, as it just seems like an easy way to unbalance things. The Hideout should be solely for crafting items you want to actually use, IMO.

[@jumblestiltskin1365]

@@Gambet I think in any rework of game to your ideas and mine above the concept of Find in Raid would need to be looked at as a whole indeed.

[@josephrogers847]

I’m clearly really late to this videos release but there’s the sign that the game hasn’t improved. Even in beta that end game boredom could be fixed. I’m new. And as the creator of this video said as soon as I reached lvl 15 and could buy anything from the flea that I wanted or needed the game became sooooo lackluster. There’s no excitement in raid and really not much disappointment when I die. Push a 3 man, kill them all. Take everything you can possibly carry, actually extract and then it’s like welllll I don’t need this or want this and don’t even have space for most of it. So I sell it. Then again buy what I want and there’s no like he said “stakes”. As an avid rust player for years the exact opposite is the problem in that game. There’s too many stakes. Needless to say I love Tarkov but am already bored and this is my first ever wipe. Love the details and mechanics into gun building and progression through your characters skills and hideout but as previously mentioned the attraction quickly dies and there’s still a want to play the game but with no goals really. Wouldn’t really want it to be harder because it wasn’t easy getting to the flea and having the guns and gear I want but unfortunately that would probably fix that yearn for a challenge and the joy mentioned in fulfilling the challenge. It would also probably kill a lot of the player base so as the devs wouldn’t make sense to do. Seems like it’ll take a long time to figure out to keep the game interesting and not just relevant. Which it’s been in beta for like 5 years I think, maybe longer so you’d think that’s long enough. But it is a cool game, great concept and I don’t think I could’ve done it better but the attraction which is that race to end game maybe could be extended. Or longer raids carrying map to map with options for solos like on interchange with hole in the fence extraction. Not preferable but could save a raid in a pinch.

[@josephrogers847]

I’m also curious as to how the total apocalyptic challenge went. That would undoubtedly make the game way more engaging.

[@Gambet]

@@josephrogers847 I enjoyed it a lot, but it really only worked at the start of wipe. A week or two in, it becomes nearly impossible to stay competitive when you go up against a three man team, all outfitted with the best of the best, and you've got a busted AK with no stock and PS ammo. At one point I unloaded 3 mags into a guy and didn't kill him. My after action report showed I got 47 hits against him, and no kill. No joke. The fun in the challenge basically stopped at that point. I still think it'd be the most fun way to play, but the game has to support it. Between the flea and the leveled up traders and the hideout, it just doesn't.

[@Invertmini1212]

Im the same way… Once the flea market was unlocked I stopped playing

[@rodiculous9464]

Here's the thing: this happens with EVERY shooter. Theres a reason why COD comes out with a new game every year, why the zoomers jump onto some hot new flavor of the month BR or hero shooter like it's candy, theres too much stimulation coming at us out there in 2020 and at the end of the day tarkovs development pace is absolutely glacial and they struggle to get things to work that AAA companies take for granted. The game still stutters and desynchs and glitches like in beta, you cant just ignore that and these little things all add up to make a boring and irritating experience after a while. The game needs more content, just because people leave towards the end of a wipe doesn't mean they're leaving forever. I think the game is still reasonably enjoyable and hell a rat like me doesn't mind the slower pace. I think all the ideas nikita has like open world and cultists and arena are good, it's just that I can't help but wonder if they actually have the ability to execute on it and also make it a well optimized and smooth experience without delaying release to 2030. Alot of the idea you mentioned are good and it will likely be many things. I think they need to take a hint from cod and start adding unlockables and cosmetics, some may not like it but that model keeps people playing. Prestige makes perfect sense imo, some kind of small but meaningful reward each time. Maybe add clans too and clan resources, clan wars etc. End game maps would be cool, you could even segue into contract wars (hint hint nikita) and have like a giant warzone map with various modes, different team sizes different objectives etc, it could be a seasonal rotation like what cod does. Just need more content. I dont think people leave becuase it's late in a wipe they leave becuase of dry spells in content. They could add cultists tomorrow and I guarantee you the servers would explode in flames

[@Brisingrr_]

Level 51 max hideout 105 mill stash with this being my 2nd wipe (started end of last wipe). I'm personally loving it at the moment. I've finished all the quests over a week ago and have just been searching for the pestily mask ever since. At the moment, I'm greatly enjoying Tarkov. Perhaps once I get the kappa container that feeling would go away but it's still very rewarding when you drop a geared player and extract with a million worth of loot. I don't really see any solution to keeping the enjoyment aspect of the first few days of the wipe ongoing as there'll always be methods to min max and the players with ridiculous gear will just shred everyone else endlessly as they'll never be able to reach their level with how hard gear is to get. What I dislike is how quick you die. Fights where you spend 10-60 seconds going at one another are much more satisfying than firing a couple M62, M995, 7N39, 7N1/SNB and dropping them regardless of armour. Headshots are great but when you kill someone in a fraction of a second from blasting their chest it removes the adrenaline of the fight.

[@Gambet]

Great feedback, and I'm glad you're enjoying the game. I'm definitely interested to see how you feel a year or so from now after you've been through a few more wipe cycles. For me it changed dramatically once I started to realize how many systems there were in the game that promoted wealth. The Hideout is basically one gigantic cash cow once you level it up, and can pretty much permanently keep you feeling rich even if you die the vast majority of your raids, for instance. Once you realize how easy it is to make money in the game, coming out with a million roubles worth of loot no longer feels quite as cool as it used to. At least that's how it was for me. One thing I'd say though is while there will always be god-tier players capable of min/maxing or people who can figure out ways to exploit the game to keep themselves permanently in amazing gear, I'd say this would wind up being a very tiny subset of the game. Right now it feels like 75% of the playerbase has amazing gear. My guess is that if we implemented my idea, at the very least we'd flip that to just 25% having great gear, and I suspect it'd be much, much lower, like less than 10%. And while it's true that if you were to get your hands on Class 6 Armor, and a VAL or an M4 with 995 rounds, you'd probably be very difficult to kill and could kill everyone else very easily, 1. The nice thing is that nobody is completely unkillable in the game, even if you have to leg meta people there are ways to win fights. And 2. Because you'd run into these people only occasionally, MOST of your fights would be far more interesting. You mention you hate how fast the time to kill is right now. I totally agree, and the game wasn't always this way. IMO it became this way largely after the Flea Market was introduced, and it became too easy for the entire playerbase to get access to the best gear possible very early on. Prior to that you'd have to either find the gear in raid, or max out your traders, which wouldn't happen until level 40, so it took much, much longer.

[@Brisingrr_]

@@Gambet Thanks, yeah I'll see how my perception of the game changes over time. I see how easy it is to make money and yet am ecstatic at big loot raids haha. I'm still bothered when I lose a 400k-1.5mill kit. Yeah you're right, 25% of the player base being super geared would still be very enjoyable when running into the other 75%. One of my friends has been around since the very beginning of EFT and is always talking about how drastically different it was. Even hearing a nade being thrown at you would strike fear as it indicated they could afford them. I really hope they find a balance which doesn't ruin the game for too many players. As much as I love the flea market its impact on the flow of the game is RIDICULOUSLY big. It was so difficult until I hit level 10 due to space issues alone. I know many people who quit Tarkov because they couldn't get to level 10 and felt like the game was unplayable without it lol.

[@Gambet]

@@Brisingrr_ Yeah, and strictly speaking I wouldn't say they're entirely wrong. I've been doing my Apocalypse Challenge Run for about 3 days now, and it wasn't until my final raid on the 3rd day that I managed to kill my first PMC. Now, keep in mind I literally deleted my entire inventory to start, including my melee weapon and secure container, so most of my raids in the beginning were me running around with just four 1-square pocket slots for inventory, and no way to do damage to anyone. But even once I picked up some guns it became extremely difficult to kill anyone because my ammo was trash and everyone is wearing Class 5/6 armor, and it's hard to leg meta anyone with an unmodified AK. That said, it wasn't *too* hard for me to get some gear, and I'm actually really, really enjoying this Challenge Run, but I can see how it would be extremely frustrating for new players without the Flea Market to come into a game late wipe when everyone else has had access to the Flea Market for weeks and feel like the game is impossible.

[@madrandomize5115]

@@Gambet the removal of the flea market must be made universally though and from the start of the wipe,my 2 friends didn't reach lvl 10 ( brand new accounts so we can play together) because they were starting out 25 days after the wipe and they got shredded but everything. I grinded out to lvl 10 and reached a point I can get some ammo and armor. For me now the flea market is necessary so I can enjoy the game Vs the geared players somewhat. But if the flea market was absent from the start of the wipe things would be different I imagine. At least people might think twice of bringing very expensive items that could be lost easily, items could be used more than just sold to market or to vendors for money. Guns could be repaired again and again if they were hard to find, there would be an insentive to repair and use them with risk of jamming .I struggled a bit to get to lvl 10 so I can close the gap that flea market created but with its removal or it's rework it could mean that items could be meaningful. Also I like the fir changes, but I also think that hideout crafting should be for own consumption. Still think that flea market could be only for barter items without money. And also the quests should not be only in the form of chains because if you got stuck on one you are stopped advancing to another, there should be branching quests or many different running parallel to each other.

[@Brisingrr_]

@@Gambet haha wow, that challenge sounds insane it's hard enough for me using kitted guns. Glad to hear that you're enjoying it though!

[@letssuperfuntime]

Sorry dude, none of these fixes make any sense. Especially when the flea and in raid healing were teased and hyped up by none other than BSG themselves, and traders have been around from at least when I started playing in patch .6. Players always leave game in droves each wipe because honestly, the whole thing seems like a chore after you've done some boring-ass quests and unlocked the flea market, the game gets stale because it's always the same gameplay loop with one game mode. Basically none of these fixes will go over well; hell they could possibly destroy the game.

[@Gambet]

I mean fair enough. But just because BSG made the systems doesn't mean that they've worked out for the game the way they wanted. There are unintended consequences of adding in new systems. Nikita suggested he wanted a player-driven economy ala EVE Online. But that's not really what we have. We just have 100% of players getting access to 100% of the gear in the game at level 10, and literally looting gear for its usefulness isn't optimal compared to looting it for its raw monetary value. You don't think that may have been unintended by BSG?

[@rodiculous9464]

One last thing,, I dont agree with your idea of enforcing "scarcity". You're basically just forcing a hardcore challenge in everyone, if you don't know thats been done to death. let's be real everyone's playing the game with a loot map on the second monitor, or knows every single loot spawn in their sleep, you take away traders and flea market and every raid just becomes a loot run where you run between random slotcoin drops hoping for that next dopamine fix. Almost like a BR game, it will get boring quick too. Honestly they need to balance the game better, "meta" is a symptom of poor balance. Make it so that there aren't things that are blatantly better than other things in every way. It's hard to get that balance but I think that is the key. I think it will take away from the realism a bit to achieve that though which nikita might be against.

[@Gambet]

The problem is Nikita has flat out said he doesn't believe in Game Balance in items, and instead mostly wants to model weapons/armor/ammo/whatever on their real life counterparts. Because I believe in respecting the author's vision, I think that only leaves scarcity as a method of balancing the meta. I understand what you mean when you say that's been done to death, but there has never been a game like Tarkov before, so applying DayZ or PUBG logic toward it isn't fair I don't think. And ultimately this is a post-apocalypse-vibe game where the primary motivation for going into raids is coming out with more loot. I just fundamentally disagree that scarcity of high-tier loot isn't a severe requirement for this kind of game. To each their own, but I doubt we'll see eye to eye on the game as a whole if we can't see eye to eye on this detail. Which is totally fine!

[@rodiculous9464]

@@Gambet thank you for responding. When I said "done to death" I was referring more to the hardcore challenge series that pestily and deadlyslob do, not necessarily other games that are similar though that is a factor as well.. Generally every streamer that has done it eventually hits a point where it's the same repetitive loop and then they get bored and quit. Sure it takes longer than with traders and flea market but it's still a bandaid solution. Personally I think Nikita is probably reconsidering just by looking at some of the actions they've taken like buffing certain items beyond their realistic limits or even adding fake items like armor piercing .366 ammo, armor piercing .45 acp, armor piercing shotgun slugs etc. In reality these calibers have no hope of penetrating armor. Same for the helmets, all the russian shmaskas and altyns and such are actually very weak irl, much weaker than modern helmets like exfils and even lshz, but also heavier and less comfortable and obscure your vision/hearing. There would be zero reason to use these if they were modeled realistically but they buffed them for gameplay balance. He also has been recently saying "as realistic as playable" so I think maybe they are moving away from full realism.

[@MyNameIsTimIThink]

I like all your ideas but I dont see any of them ever happening. If anything they might remove the flea market. They will probably do what every other company does(epic games). They will make it to where any 8 year old or in this case 18 year old can come into the game and be able to succeed. I have over a thousand hours in tarkov and I have never got to the point where I could lose a slick and it didnt hurt a little. I guess that's why I'm still playing. I rarely run meta gear. I just build what I think would be fun to use and play it slow. Or run in like a maniac and see what happens lol after seeing a couple videos of people flying around the map, full auto sr-25ing people in the face on accounts that are months old. Idk if nikita will ever get the game he wants. Partially due to all the idiots that weren't loved enough as a child and feel they have to cheat. And partially due to nikita actually being afraid of backlash. As long as they end with something close to what tarkov has the potential to be. I'll be playin

[@Gambet]

I dunno. Nikita keeps saying he doesn't think this game is for most people, and he wants an ultra-hardcore experience. I don't know where Tarkov will end up, but I hope he tries to get back on the right path. But I agree, a lot of my ideas will never happen. Videos like this just help me vent a bit and put my thoughts in order while I work through what I think some problem areas are with the game. And maybe influence the discussion a bit.

[@ganjatheninja]

that would literally limit good gear to people who wanna play the worst maps in the game no just no.

[@ganjatheninja]

also tarkov is not post apocalypse its literally a region that is locked in war.

[@Gambet]

Most likely you'd have to change things up with the loot spawns. Make most things significantly easier to come by, since you'd have to earn everything in game personally. You know?

[@Gambet]

@@ganjatheninja I get its not exactly post apocalypse in terms of its lore, but it very much has that feeling as a huge amount of the focus of the game comes down to looting, and gear accumulation. I get that you might not dig my idea, I even said in the video most people wouldn't. But how do you fix the fact that the meta gets stale a week after the wipe and the playerbase literally starts dropping like flies until the next wipe?

[@StovnOG]

You're a PMC dude. You buy loadouts before you go to tarkov.. thats just how it is.. I agree with removing the fleamarket.. but I dont agree with removing traders. The time Pestily is talking about came before the Fleamarket where some guns were only either found in raid or through barters. you remove the fleamarket and keep traders and you could probably get away with a wipe every 8 months or something maybe even longer. However tarkov will never be in a state where it doesnt have wipes.

[@Gambet]

Never will be, or never could be? I understand the lore of why your argument is what it is, but do you not think it would largely solve the need for wipes if we removed traders/flea? And honestly I disagree. Prior to the Flea Market existing a huge amount of the playerbase would be gone within 3 months of a fresh wipe, yet they'd always come back for the next wipe. There just seems to be something about the start of a wipe that reinvigorates everyone. My guess is that it's because Tarkov is at its most fun when everyone is using crappy, scavenged gear, which raises the time to kill, and makes the loot and fights more varied and interesting. Do you disagree with that? And assuming you agree, then why should we create mechanisms that destroy the funnest part of the game?

[@StovnOG]

@@Gambet oh I agree with you that it is the most fun part. But with every iteration of the game you can think of eventually the game won't be fun without a wipe. I think the best way to make the game more enjoyable would be to have a season based system.. where how the meta works changes based off the season. And the higher level you get each season you get rewards like voice lines.. or skins for clothing or different faces or something. Now imagine.. this season is you can get up to level 6 armour. But the best ammo youl have access to will be 5.45 bt and worse. Firefights will feel good again. You only really take away the fun of the game once you start Introducing things like m62/61/igolnik/m995/apsx you get what I mean. With flea market gone and traders remaining it give the players enough without giving them too much pacing the game appropriately to fit into a season format. Or say fuck all of it and make it so you have to scavange everything better than BT and equivalents lol

[@Gambet]

@@StovnOG Sorta my grand idea for Tarkov would be the system I mention in this video, where everything you own must be scavenged, but then combine that with a gameplay loop so that you "beat the game" by "Escaping from Tarkov", which would result in you wiping your character for some kind of Prestige effect. This way everyone would stay pretty poor, but whenever they got really rich they'd wind up wiping their characters, without needing to wipe everyone's character.

[@StovnOG]

@@Gambet see I do like the idea... But then you'll just have people who get to the end staying at the end and won't prestige. I mean... I wouldn't spend all this time working to become the loot Lord just to do it all over again for status. And there are many more people who also wouldn't.. unless it's forced or there's a significant reward for it

[@Mostasteless8805]

i wont ever complain about it until i finally get all the quest done then ill bitch about being bored ingame, im sorry but if you are bitching that you are bored in the game and it needs a wipe and yada yada yada and you only have done a grand total of 8 quest and just want to pvp! the quest are in the game for a reason. i dont have all the time in the world to game and have never even came close to getting all the quest done or even had kappa, i also have no been playing for 1 wipe i bought the game when it came out! so i have not hit that roadblock in this game yet! but gambet you alway have great ideas so i put faith in you.

[@Gambet]

Thanks man. And yeah, I get that this won't be everyone's cup of tea, but if you've been playing since the beginning then you know that before 2020, around mid-way through every wipe cycle more than half the playerbase would leave, making queue times take forever, and leaving you playing with the same people over and over and over again. There's gotta be a reason for that, and if that reason isn't solved before 1.0 releases my fear is the game will be dead a year later. That's basically what happened with PUBG, IMO. And I really hate the idea of the game wiping after 1.0, specifically for people like you who don't have time to ever finish the game before the wipe cycle concludes. There's gotta be a way to balance everything without constant wipes.

[@Mostasteless8805]

@@Gambet yeah they do leave, its the same tho in every other game that dose a wipe, like with Rust its the same, but rust has no quest and that shit gets boring quick! a balance for tarkov would be amazing and i personally have no issues with it, they could turn around and change it back and make shit crazy hard and Fuck it, it is what it is! ill stlll play it.

[@Gambet]

@@Mostasteless8805 Yeah, Rust needs wipes though because after a month of that shit the whole map is dotted with abandoned buildings and a lot of the resources are gone. I'm not sure Tarkov is the same. Tarkov really only needs wipes (outside of because it's easier for certain types of patches) because the meta gets extremely stale, and there's nothing to do past a certain point in the game.

[@Mostasteless8805]

But you see the same behavior with the player base

[@Mostasteless8805]

That’s what I was saying with bring rust into it

[@spyrospapasykiotis]

Just release, keep wipes and wipe after a season end. Add ranks (or keep lvl) and give start rewards for new season wipe regarding to rank/lvl.

[@cruxer666]

They do not work already, they just annoy normal people that can play one raid per day or two days. Streamers made a complete piece of shit from this game.

[@Gambet]

How so? I'm not sure what you mean. How did Streamers make the game bad?

[@cruxer666]

@@Gambet Nolifing to lvl 40 in 24h then devs panic and nerf the game(mosin, hahaha), "because you can lvl too fast and you get elite skills too fast". This is minor but a frustrating thing. But game braking thing is still market and cellar. These two stupid ideas create the ultimate purpose of leveling in Tarkov. To level everything to a point where you do not have to do anything and the money is generated without you being in the game... Remove market, remove cellar so there would be no dodgy ways of making rubles, then they have 100% of control over the items and do not waste time on developing this useless tumor. Make people survive, make them find things in the actual game... Not to mention that the market is probably eating huge chunk of budget and server resources and provided a reason for cheat developement to make real money trading very profitable. People will always find a way to brake it and exploit it, they outnumber devs 1:100000

[@bishbish9111]

For me wipes are rubbish. This game does not know what it wants to be.

[@dellix6635]

Only play scav...most rewarding play

[@Gambet]

I'm doing something similar with my Apocalypse Challenge run on Twitch. No scavs, but I'm also not allowed to use Flea/Traders/Insurance or even secure container. So it's like my PMC is a scav, basically. Extremely challenging but also a lot of fun and pretty rewarding to know I've earned 100% of my gear.

[@OfirWasHere]

they should make the game less punishing for people who are not good at video games

[@Gambet]

No. It's a COMPETITIVE multiplayer game, dude. Not all games need to be for all people. Tarkov is allowed, and IMO should be geared towards people who can actually land a shot. Not trying to be a dick, but almost ALL games these days are designed for people like you. Let there be one or two where if you're not good at it, then you gotta put in the time to get better.

[@Constantine906]

There is something wrong with this game.

[@Gambet]

How so?

[@movros99]

1. EFT needs a matchmaker. Solo players should never queue with groups. Also the game should attempt to pair similar level players with each other. I don't mind losing, but I want a fair fight. Being farmed by super-geared Chads sucks. 2. If you want to play hardcore mode, go ahead. Hell, we might even need Hardcore servers. It works for Path of Exile. I am personally not interested in that type of play.

[@Gambet]

1. I respectfully, but strongly disagree with this. I get that the game can feel entirely unfair a lot of the time, but that's how the game is meant to feel. Just about every other game in the world does what you're suggesting, and I think it's fine that there's one game that doesn't. I agree that being farmed by super-geared Chads constantly does suck though, but there's also super-geared extract campers, and super-geared non-chads. The premise of this video is that it's the fact that it's pitifully easy to become Super-Geared that sucks, not the fact that solos play against groups, or whatever. As you learn the game it actually becomes pretty easy to avoid the groups, since at most there can only be like 2 or 3 sizable groups per raid, and most maps are huge. 2. I'm playing Hardcore mode as a challenge run, but I don't think this is necessarily the way to play. I don't think removing the Flea Market and Traders would turn Tarkov into Hardcore mode. I think it would just drastically change the economy in a way that would fix a lot of things for a lot of people.

[@Brovrt]

I like running into groups as a solo, even higher level players - its way more rewarding if you come out on top

[@Gambet]

@@Brovrt Same, although I do understand why it can be frustrating for people. I usually die when I run into groups, and I'd wager most people do too. Your skill level has to far outmatch your competition if you're gonna come out on top, which is very hard to do.

[@WolfszeitYT]

I hate wipes they are shit.

[@cj_thegamergoon1201]

Get rid off the bitcoin farm and flea market

[@lastcrusader101]

Ah there it is, 10 minutes in to say "remove flea" Bruh if you don't like it just don't use it lmao

[@Gambet]

Stupid fucking comment.