Each game has such an event that unites almost all categories of gamers associated with a given project. In DOTA 2 and LoL, these are world championships. In the Call of Duty community, it is the release of a new part. In Escape from Tarkov, such a holiday is a “wipe” – a major update followed by a reset of the players’ progress. Such an event allows newcomers to join the game on more or less equal terms with the old-timers. And veterans return again to participate in the race for the championship in the unofficial rating.
A review of any Tarkov update can begin with literally one hackneyed phrase: “The new patch has brought a lot to the game and now it plays differently than before.” But this “a lot” is different every time, which is why the players’ reactions vary from divine praise of Nikita Buyanov and Battlestate Games to demands to return money for pre-orders through their bank. And I will tell you about the innovations in patch 0.15 in this review.
Previously in the series “Nikita Buyanov’s Mistakes”
Speaking about the new patch, I can’t help but recall the previous important innovations, which I will refer to during this review. To begin with, it’s worth recalling version 0.14. Since its launch, Tarkov has reworked the recoil mechanics, thanks to which almost all weapons have become playable. In addition, the previous patch introduced an “incredible” mechanic, which consists of climbing over various obstacles.
But the joy of the new patch quickly faded. After all, at the end of April, the very same “Unheard of” edition went on sale with a price of 11 thousand rubles (excluding VAT), which was then conceived as dividing the community into ordinary players and “true believers”. As a result, the western part of the community began to return their money for the pre-order, citing a violation of consumer rights. And because of this, Nikita Buyanov had to do everything possible to hush up the scandal and people did not demand a refund.
Speaking about the activity of the head of BSG, it is worth remembering that starting in May he decided to return to the X social network to share future innovations for the patch and accuse the Arena Breakout Infinite developers of stealing code and assets. Considering the fact that Buyanov never apologized for deceiving the owners of the Edge of Darkness edition, the audience hinted to him that karma punished him.
It is also worth remembering the studio’s massive failure with the release of the Arena mode, which was supposed to become almost a new word in eSports. Many did not like its leveling system, which is why everyone left it after a couple of months. Well, and today it is not customary to talk about the eSports component at all…
With this background, the Battlestate Games studio is releasing patch 0.15, which, according to rumors, may be the last patch in the beta version of Escape from Tarkov, because the game will definitely be released soon. But that’s what Buyanov says. And what will happen in reality is unknown.
Now you can actually escape from Tarkov! (no)
Each update should bring something new to the game and around which the gameplay of the entire patch will be built. In 0.13, such an innovation was random loot boxes. In 0.14 – opportunities for parkour and normal shooting. In this patch, the main innovation was a completely new game mode, which players have repeatedly asked for on the studio’s streams. The name of this mode is “Marathon” and its essence is that now all the locations of Tarkov are truly interconnected and players can move between them.
This mode has a much more aesthetic focus, as many still play regular raids, completing quests and getting resources to upgrade the shelter. But the developers have nevertheless been busy in this regard, and for the marathon they have also made many quests that can only be completed in this mode. This means that Tarkov residents will have to spend several hours to get to the desired location and complete everything necessary.
It is also worth noting the fact that thanks to this mode, activity on the Epicenter map, which few people liked in terms of gameplay, has increased dramatically. The fact is that this map is the starting point. And any exit from the raid, death and other outcomes completely end the marathon. In other words, if the next marathon has to be started again from the epicenter, then here you have an asset on a map that is not loved by everyone.
On the other hand, I personally noticed that during the marathon people try to negotiate with each other much more often. After all, no one wants to go through such a long and useless path again without guides from the wizards’ site.
The factory workers underwent major repairs
In this patch, the developers decided to improve the “Factory” map. Before the patch, this expansion of the location raised big questions because it was the same miniature location where players could try their hand at pure PvP before the Arena was released. And even after the release of that DLC, players preferred to sit in the factory rather than in the Arena. Therefore, the expansion of such a small location could harm the vigorous pace of the game. And with the release of the patch, all these concerns suddenly disappeared…
The main goal of the plant update is to set normal spawn points for PMC fighters in the raid. The fact is that before the update, players could spawn at a distance of 5-10 meters from each other, which is why someone would inevitably die in the first seconds of the raid and lose all equipment. Now all spawn points have been reworked in such a way that everyone has the opportunity to run to the battle site, and not immediately find themselves in the epicenter.
Speaking about the visual component, the plant has become even more “vertical”. The developers have expanded the network of basements and added a couple of stairs to the upper levels. Thus, the threat of attack from above has become even more frequent, and thanks to the underground tunnels, you can calmly do quests and safely exit raids.
Of the less significant changes, it can only be noted that the developers have carried out a major redesign of the location, due to which the abandoned factory in some places does not look abandoned at all. They also threw corpses into the shower room where the events of the CG trailer took place.
The developers are trying to teach life lessons again…
Whatever anyone says, but in Tarkov, 3 categories of players most often win: sedentary, sighted and those who are lucky with ping. And for all of them, they decided to bring a couple of interesting innovations. They were supposed to impose on players the “correct” styles of play that the developers from BSG want to see. But Buyanov’s game design vision is very different from the sad reality.
The new patch added two interesting things that are rather strangely connected to each other. The new patch did add such an incredible and bombastic innovation that caused great controversy and indignation on the Internet – grenade banners.
Yes, yes, now in Tarkov you can make your own booby traps, on which all sorts of poor fellows will explode. This is approximately how everyone described this contraption… Until today. Despite the fact that these tripwires are not always noticeable, they are very easy to escape from, since the sound of a torn fishing line and a torn pin sounds incredibly loud. In addition, the explosion of the trap itself is completely tied to the timer on the grenade. In other words, grenades with a small delay before the explosion are well suited for such traps, despite their power. Although you can simply run away from such traps, which completely nullifies their potential to destroy manpower.
These traps are much more useful in tactical terms. Their detonation allows you to understand where the enemy is. If he finds it, he can defuse it, which will allow the owner to take advantage of the moment and put him {head, eyes}. Well, you can also deceive the enemy by installing a smoke or flashbang grenade in place of the fragmentation grenade. Such a bluff will not be revealed immediately.
Another moralizing innovation was the introduction of a “karma” scale for PMCs, which is not displayed anywhere and currently has only one purpose – it is tied to the new boss Partisan. Let’s start in order.
The principle of “karma” does not require much explanation, since it is literally taken from the role-playing games of the 2000s. You do good deeds – karma grows. You do bad ones – karma falls. And in Tarkov, everything is similar. Only these very good and bad deeds are determined by the developers themselves. In other words, they are trying to impose their opinion on role-playing on us.
For example, karma will definitely drop if a player kills his partner. And no one will care whether he does it intentionally or accidentally (the game still does not have a partner identification system). Karma will also drop if a fighter sits in one place for a long time, waiting for another player, which already sounds disgusting because this game does not encourage activity at all.
The new boss is completely tied to this very “karma”. As the developers say, the new reputation system is now a distinctive feature of the Partisan from other bosses. He will appear much more often in raids where there are “dishonorable PMCs” and will hunt them. The second problem of these reputation innovations is built from this: the battle with the boss is valued much more than some mechanics taken from single-player role-playing games. In addition, the area around this boss is hung with those same traps. Thus, it will not be difficult for players to understand whether the boss is on the map or not. And he can accidentally commit suicide on these same traps …
Ultimately, BSG’s attempt to re-educate players and make them play more openly and actively ended up being a complete failure and a reinforcement of the passive and dirty gameplay that was always encouraged anyway.
New weapon that is needed
As in previous times, the developers continue to add more and more new guns that no one will ever need because the meta in Tarkov has almost never changed. And this time, nothing has changed. The game added 4 new weapons, 2 of which have several variations:
- Desert Eagle in both caliber variations: .50 and .357 calibers;
- UZI submachine gun;
- The American M60E4 machine gun, which is now known to gamers thanks to the Call of Duty and Battlefield series;
- SR-3M “Vikhr” is another copy of VSS “Vintorez”, which no one will need.
The first two barrels are pretty fun, you can play around with them and they can be unlocked at the first levels, but you definitely shouldn’t take them on a permanent basis. The Deagle doesn’t have large magazines, and the UZI has one of the lowest rates of fire among submachine guns. You’ll have to look for the machine gun or buy it at a flea market, but even so, it’s not worth it. It weighs several times more and has a lower rate of fire than any other rifle of the same caliber. Well, there’s nothing to say about the fourth barrel, since it costs more than the same Vintorez, it only opens at the maximum level of relations with the Ensign, and it can’t be resold at a flea market.
In general, all these weapons, although they look cool, their practical use really raises big doubts and questions. The developers did a much better job of introducing bipods for weapons. Quite an old mechanic, which has existed since the time of Battlefield, plays comfortably and does not cause any serious complaints, except for the fact that it was not introduced earlier.
Nikita can’t leave Arena
At the end of the previous wipe, Battlestate Games finally presented its first DLC in the form of EFT: Arena, which is entirely dedicated to PvP on maps borrowed from the studio’s previous game – Contract Wars and the original Tarkov. And already at the very start, this piece of work seemed rather dubious due to the mechanics of pumping like in some “World of Tanks”. In addition, Nikita always said that this project is completely aimed at eSports. But there is still no eSports for this game. Also, there is no audience that would like to play it, and not the usual Tarkov.
A year later, the studio finally began to make some attempts to save the game and finally introduced a preset editor, like in Call of Duty. That is, now you can safely play with what you like, and not with what you have to.
But this is not even the main innovation. The fact is that the developers were finally able to implement synchronization of Arena and Tarkov accounts. Now leveling up a character and earning currency no longer requires raiding. All this can be done in the Arena! And it all works in the opposite direction: money can be transferred to your Arena account, which is still needed to unlock certain pieces of equipment.
Another patch with claims
Despite the fact that Escape from Tarkov is a unique project, capable of attracting an audience from all over the world, it is a typical online game-service, which has a lot of complaints about the work of servers, bugs, abundance of cheaters and negative attitude towards gamers from the developers.
Each new patch tries to eliminate some or other vulnerabilities, but their noble impulse always gives rise to new bugs. This patch was no exception. The most interesting problem of the patch was that some players suddenly had a relationship progress bar that was supposed to reset with the wipe. Other players suddenly had their progress in merchant quests reset (me included). So I had to search for the necessary items or get kills in the raid all over again…
In addition to the above-mentioned problems, the developers do not hesitate to present the audience with very questionable solutions that are aimed at some optimization of the game. In this case, we are talking about cutting locations: in some locations, the doors no longer work, in others there are no more small points with loot.
And almost all the cards were subjected to such castration to a greater or lesser extent. But the fact that BSG is cutting content is very clear.
Diagnosis
Every major update of Escape from Tarkov is a celebration, during which you try to understand how much progress the developers have made. However, these celebrations last no more than 1-2 months, after which people start to run away to do their own thing. And this patch will not be an exception. Personally, I was not seriously impressed by it: the game still feels like a raw piece of code and all these innovations do not really contribute to improving its quality. In addition, all this content filling causes only disgust towards the developers, who do not understand their audience, and do not want to listen to it at all, preferring the opinion of individual users and bloggers.
It is quite possible that the new “Marathon” mode will be able to knock out another month of big online in the project, but nothing more. In addition, most of the innovations in the form of traps, karma, new guns, will not force Tarkov residents to play more actively and aggressively for the reason that such a style of play is not encouraged here at all.
It would be cool if Battlestate Games finally got their act together and dedicated the next major update to fixing the network code and bugs. They should also get a decent anti-cheat because their free BattleEye has been doing nothing against cheaters for 8 years now.
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All images used in this article are copyright of Battlestate Games. Cover image source: EscapeFromTarov.com
