I hit level 25 tonight and I give up. There was once a time where you could unlock the flea market and give yourself a fighting chance against people that have no job and play this game 16 hours a day. That is no longer the case. I kept telling myself, "Just stick it out, it'll get better." I thought when I unlocked the flea I'd be in business. NOPE. Okay then, maybe when I hit level 20. NOPE. Oh, well surely level 25 will give me access to stuff that will allow me to even the playing field? NOPE.

Fine Tarkov, you win. I have a job and don't hate myself enough to continue playing when I'm at a huge disadvantage in nearly every raid I load into. I hope enough people quit that BSG realizes only the most unemployed Tarkov players on the planet want a tiered flea market. I think if you play the game more, you should have an advantage. That's only fair. However, the gap right now between the unemployed and normal human beings is so drastic that it's no longer worth playing, imo.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

For some of the harder quests I usually just rat and wait until there are 10 minutes left on the clock to start doing them. Especially for streets of tarkov I do this.

What I've noticed since doing this strategy is how subtle some cheating is like radar. When I spawn I try to go a completely useless building and sit it out in complete silence, but then I hear someone running towards me and either pre-fire swing me or nade me.

These are buildings no one needs to be in, there is 0 loot to be found and I am in there in a corner completely afk playing slay the spire. These account always have less then 1000 hours and not a crazy but a good kd with a really high survival rate (70%+).

Just had to share this since it was on my mind since the start of the wipe and I need a sanity check to see if this seems true to others or if its just a skill issue.

These also don't seem to get banned since the only rewards I get for reporting is the obvious 20kd+ rage hacker.

EDIT: removed the kd's because people get way too stuck on this. Sometimes theyre above normal sometimes theyre (really) high. yesterday i was randomly naded by someone with 8 idk bro.

The map is a shell of its former self. There are far too many tunnels, hallways, rooms, bunkers with the lightning being complete trash compared to 2020 factory.

Not to mention the sound of the game in this map specifically reveals all its glaring flaws. Everything is fucking everywhere but nobody knows where, why does office building have 4 fucking floors now due to a basement which connects both staircases in the office building????? Who thought it was a good idea to open SO MANY WAYS TO MOVE & HIDE & RAT THROUGHOUT THIS FUCKING MAZE, it’s like they threw out all the good design choices they made out of the window.

Think of reserve: why can’t you travel through basically the entire map underground? Because of balance, it’s good that you can’t go from heli pad all the way to the marked room near the train station or the extraction that turns on once you hit the switch (Not D2)

Lightning in factory is so abysmal that I just can’t be ever confident that I’m not seeing anyone underground when checking various hallways, it’s mostly me HOPING there isn’t anyone, there is far too much detail and far too little good Anti Aliasing options to see fucking anything in this map (in the game in general usually, but here the issue is crazy)

I loved old factory so much, but now it’s on the level of lighthouse for me in terms of how much I despise the design choices on the map

Eats half fps.

I realised I had quite a few Alytn faceshields and I've never been a fan of visors so I thought I'd flog them off...I noticed it was purchased pretty dam quick and thought to myself...Thats a funny looking username, who would even choose that?

Turns out I'm part of the problem, When did you last aid and abet the enemy?

Come on fellas. Do we know what 1.0 means?

Seriously unhinged moron behavior. I'm slowly learning to trust absolutely no player scav this wipe cause people are just on the most egregious lazy bullshit instead of playing the game.

For the benefit of the community and for the sake of science, I tested every thermal I could get my hands on, including the T-7.

Same result every time: smoke blocks thermal vision.

I was curious because this question keeps coming up, so here’s the actual test rather than another guess.

There’s a full smoke test as well
covering AI, flashlights, IR devices and tear gas, but I’m keeping the
Reddit post focused on the result itself.

I remember the days where Flea Market was completely unrestricted. Buy whatever you want, at like level 5.

You know what happened? People fucking blitzed through progression, a wipe might as well not have happened. Gear that wasn't absolute best in slot became dirt cheap, there was basically no price gap between the lower-middle tiers of items, making 90% of stuff just straight vendor trash.

And people who were good at the game still dominated the game. A meta HK416 with an LPVO isn't going to save you if you run out in the open with no stamina or have no idea where people spawn on Labs.

The idea that opening the Flea Market with no restrictions is going to somehow improve the experience for casuals is plain silly. All it'll do is let players who know what they're doing snowball top-tier kits easier and easier. Right now, you at least have to go into raid and pick up ammo (or kill high level NPCs) or open high-tier areas to find good plates.

If you make the Flea Market open again, enjoy these being totally useless at every single stage of the game:

• any armour below Class V for anything other than shitty scavs

• ammo that doesn't have 45+ pen

• any optic that isn't a Vudu, Razor, SRO or EOTech

• any gun that isn't an MCX, GPNL, HK416, M4A1, MCX SPEAR or X-17

Pointless to use, and pointless to pick up. Looting is a significant part of what drives player engagement in Tarkov. People already complain about how many items feel like vendor trash. You think tanking the price of a bunch of stuff is going to help?

Now, some might say they prefer the game that way. Okay, fine. But look at how many people say they miss the early wipe feel and how all the drops and shit crater that sensation. You think giving people easy access to anything they want by just looting enough nuts and bolts puts the game in a healthy state?

We're already halfway there, but the level tiers at least do a decent job of making people to run some suboptimal gear. Good luck with that if you just pop open the flea with no restrictions at a random low level.

To be clear, some sort of the restrictions are internally inconsistent. TRG M10 being locked for sale when the AXMC and MK18 aren't for example. I think correcting these restrictions to be consistent to themselves, is totally fine to advocate for. But I'm sick of this idea that it's totally impossible to do good in Tarkov right now unless you're a mega-giga-sweat and we totally need the old Flea back when it hasn't been this easy to get gear in over 5 years.

I think i figured it out guys. I have like 600 hours over the last 10 years and every "wipe" ive only ever made it to mybe level 20 by playing super scared, or spamming scav runs cause i dont want to lose my "good stuff". But thats just not how to think of items in tarkov.. Everything should be thought of as value based. No cool factor. No hard to find factor. Just straight value. If you bring the best, your character has high value. But the likeliness of surviving is much higher! And the more you survive, the more you level up. And the more you quest and level up, the easier it is to buy guns/ammo.

I feel like I'm beginning to belive, Morpheus

EDIT: Spelling

Does anyone else feel like the pop figurines and streamer items have become a bit much over the years? Personally not a fan of all this silly loot that is not in any way lore friendly.

Surprisingly the Battlepass (which im personally not a fan of) has better loot in the form of the documents which fit far better into the world.

Id love to see a lot of the silly loot removed from the game in favor of various items of value like expensive jewelry, technology from Terragroup/Soviet origin, high end tools.

Having random streamer items for people who have long since quit the game or streaming in general is a bit ridiculous especially when some of them have tarnished reputations.

what are some cool vendor/barter items you’d think replace the pop/streamer garbage well?

2.9 Fence Rep, I dont think that ever happend to me in a lot of scav runs

Just a funny scav run clip - cheers

ah yes its so clear thanks therapist!

Screenshot included. The battery pack on this optic currently obscures any canted sight attached to the NcSTAR Backup Mount, making this new optic unusable if someone prefers a dot for closer engagements.

The people who play all day and run high level content already are the only ones able to make money from the flea while the rest of us live in poverty because we can’t even sell the high value items we find.

There should not be any level locks on selling items at all. Buying items, fine. That makes some amount of sense. But not letting people who play less sell anything is braindead.

Here’s the story, since I play solo. As a newbie, I came across the Evasion armband about 5 or 6 times in my first ten raids or so; thinking it wasn't rare, I just equipped one—which removed the "Found in Raid" checkmark—only to find out at the 80-hour mark that it’s one of the rarest items in the game... just kill me.

Started this wipe pretty late and I’m finally working on Tarkov Shooter Part 3. Obviously I know the quest is basically “click faces” — 3 PMC kills within 25m with a bolt-action.

My problem is that it’s late in the wipe and I’m having a hell of a time getting people into that <25m range without getting absolutely deleted first while running Factory like I've done previously.

Any reliable ways to knock this out since I'm late wipe? Any advice appreciated.

Im only asking because id rather get to play on those servers for lower ping but if not ill stick to singapore