I keep seeing bitching in this subreddit and cries to “make the game easier!” and it pisses me off because that’s the antithesis of what the game is at it’s very *core.* I know that this is a long read but try to read to the end.

This game is advertised as a hardcore shooter. When you make your character the game straight-up tells you something to the effect of: “This game is unfair, Tarkov is a harsh environment, do not expect to survive. Use your failures to get better.” When you buy the freaking game it tells you this game is in beta and to expect changes. Yet, everytime something is nerfed or changed in a way that might slightly negative effect someone this subreddit has a melt down and there’s always an upvoted post with someone bitching about it. [This post for example](https://www.reddit.com/r/EscapefromTarkov/comments/lvu9ag/korund_change_is_another_terrible_choice_by_bsg/) And I want to make it clear that I have nothing against this guy, I disagree with what he’s saying but everyone is entitled to their opinion.’

>Good job BSG. Way to stick it to the 90% of your playerbase by making the game easier at high levels instead of… well… what every other game on the freaking planet is doing by providing a endgame challenge at… ENDGAME!

He’s basically bitching that they made Korund armor (the level 5 Prapor armor) a barter trader rather than being able to just outright buy it with Roubles. This is armor that you can (still obtain, but for some reason he’s acting as if it’s removed) from Prapor level 3. It’s level 5 armor that’s available at a relatively low level and for cheap. He also seems to be implying that that game should be somehow more challenging at higher levels than lower levels by “providing a challenge at end game” and that the game design is “upside down”. Which I don’t understand at all. Tarkov is a shooter with strong RPG/looting elements The game is meant to be crushing and anyone who’s played any game with RPG elements knows you get stronger as you progress.

You start out with some basic POS guns and gear in your stash. The traders offer you pretty crappy stuff until your prove your loyalty to them by completing quests, spending money with them and levelling yourself up by doing well in the game. All your core stats are crap. You have level 1 in all your skills. Take endurance for instance, you can’t run very far without being out of breath but as you do raids and as you practice that skill you get a little better a bit at a time until eventually you’re a marathon runner. If that doesn’t scream “this is an RPG-shooter” I don’t know what else does. You’re meant to start weak, you’re meant to be crappy at first. It’s incredible to me how many posts I see of people who bitch about “overly geared chads” dominating the meta. No shit, cheeki-breeki. I’ve seen people say “Oh you know he has to wear that level 6 gear and use that fully-modded gun because he’s bad at the game and needs crutches” Fuck off, fuck off with that shit *right now.* That dude grinded hours of shitty quests, hours of raiding to level up and spent millions of roubles with the traders to be able to run that gear affordably. Sorry if that “sticks it to 90% of your playerbase” but this game is about progressing.

And running high level armor isn’t even *that effective* I mean the amount of times I’ve been headshot by a skilled person with an SKS or just shot in the leg by a KS with shrap-10 for an insta kill is more times than I can count. This game is about your personal skill level just as much as it’s about getting better gear. Does having tons of high level attachments on your gun yo ugrinded for make getting headshots a little easier? Yeah, but you worked for that shit. You can still one tap that “chad” running naked with an SKS, a shitty little 74u or even an mp-133. Hell I’ve been one tapped by *PMs* before.

This all stems from the fact that a good portion of human-beings, and gamers in particular, cannot deal with/accept failure in a healthy way. How many times have you been playing with your buddy and in no matter what game you might have been playing, whether it was Tarkov or something else he/she calls “hacks!” or makes up some sort of excuse as to why he died. You especially see it with streamers, making up any excuse but their own mistake as to why they failed at something. I swear half the time people die to someone with better gear they just blame it on that when you could have just headshot him. You could have run decent ammo to pen his armor. You could have leg-meta’d. But people would rather blame the fact that their gear wasn’t good enough or that Nikita made it harder to get good gear and that only the people who worked for it have it.

You see it in this subreddit all the time. I swear a good 15-20% of players on this subreddit do hatchet runs as their primary loadout. I see people who say things like “sometimes I just look at my stash for 30 minutes and move stuff around then get off because I can’t deal with a raid right now” I got my kappa the first time ever this wipe and when I was looking up advice on SBIH I saw someone on this subreddit basically describing how they would only buy 5 VPO snipers and 2 magazines for each one, keeping one of the mags in their container and after they lost all 5 they would *stop playing for the day and wait for the insurance to bring them back the next day* there are people who suffer gear-fear so much that they play like that. VPO snipers. The 20-30k ones. And I’m sure that a lot of people are thinking “this guy is an elitist chad, of course he wants things to stay difficult at low levels!” I’m not trying to gatekeep how people play, I’m not a crazy good player myself. My surv rate is around 45%. I don’t run meta sick guns because they’re just boring to use to me. I usually I”ll mod an AK to make it look cool (I’m a real sucker for FDE parts) or run something silly like an Orsis sniper or DVL and have fun sniping.

I know the game is hard, I know it can feel unfair sometimes and it is. But you can get better by working on your skills. You can get better by clicking heads faster, by your positioning, by utilizing grenades properly. Stop blaming the game for being hard, stop blaming the game for rewarding players for grinding. You can click their head just as easily as you can click theirs. There’s tons of good low-recoil guns available at low level you don’t even need to mod that will let you spray a chads head down.

The reason AAA studios don’t make hardcore games is because the formulaic garbage they churn out appeals to the masses of people who just want to win easily or just play casually. There’s nothing wrong with that if you prefer that, but don’t buy a game advertised as hardcore and bitch that it’s not Call of Duty 15: Cheeki-Breeki edition. If you bitch and bitch and try to have high level gear put into low level traders then everyone will be on an even playing field and this game will lose the emergent gameplay a lot of us love it for, there will be no sense of progression and this game will become COD with 15 minute respawns. Tarkov fills a really good niche in the gaming community. There’s similar games out there that have gunplay similar to Tarkov with a respawning system if you don’t like risking gear and losing it. Look at Squad or Insurgency.

I know that this game is hard, I know it’s frustrating. I know that losing gear sucks scav nuts but that’s what makes Tarkov what it is. My best tip for people is to work on getting over gear fear, work on practicing your aim and adjusting your settings so aiming is comfy for you. Go into scav runs to practice your PVP rather than rushing loot spots and then yeeting out with your 22nd screw nuts of the day. Just put down the hatchet, drop the rushing out of the raid mentality and you’ll enjoy the game *so much more* once the fruits of your labors pay off and you drop a chad like my Mom dropped me on my head as a baby. I mean, she must have for me to be willing to take all the time to write this post. And if you still don’t enjoy the game, try something else that you might like instead rather than torturing yourself by playing a game you don’t enjoy.