Is Escape from Tarkov still worth the player to continue (2021)
Escape from Tarkov is developed and produced by an independent game studio from Russia. The project first started in 2012, and two rounds of testing were started four years later. The game is still in the beta testing cycle. At the end of 2019, Escape from Tarkov suddenly became one of the most popular games at the moment. In the first half of 2020, Tarkov’s popularity surpassed PUBG and Other FPS games. But in the second half of the year, Tarkov slowly reduced his popularity. So in the new 2021, is this game worthy of players to continue? Let’s take a look.
Escape from Tarkov the rules of the game are actually simple to say: each player has his own character, warehouse, and bank account, and the main way to play is to copy copies to “pick up trash”. You can collect all kinds of weapons, equipment, accessories, and materials in the process, and you can trade useless things afterward. As for the source of materials, it can be cabinets and drawers scattered around the map, or the bodies of computer characters and other players. With the accumulation of wealth and materials, you can gradually carry more and more powerful weapons and equipment when you next dungeons and then win at the starting line.
However, the actual situation is far more complicated and painful than this. In fact, I was familiar with almost every battle in “Escape from Tarkov” in the early days, which was a bitter history of blood and tears…
Willfulness & Truth
When I first entered the world of Escape from Tarkov, my biggest feeling was “lost.” The game does not have any UI and goal guidance, the map is really a paper map, which can neither help you identify the direction nor mark your location. Although I know that I need to search for resources and reach the evacuation point-but I have no idea where there are resources and which are the evacuation points. So logically, I “give it for nothing” in the first hand. And because it failed to evacuate successfully, all the things originally brought into this copy, including firearms, backpacks, food, medicine, were all lost…
In fact, the most suitable way for newcomers to get started with Escape from Tarkov should be this: First, you need to query the strategy and find a detailed plan of all potential resource points and evacuation points; then, in the “offline mode”, check the webpage Dislike points on the map. It’s worth noting that, on average, each map has more than a dozen potential evacuation points, and the evacuation points that are actually available in each round are largely random-which means that before you officially start playing, It takes at least a few hours to investigate, to have the minimum ability to play a game normally. However, compared to the actual battle with live ammunition in the official battle, this kind of preparation is probably only a warm-up.
For example, searching for resources is actually a meticulous and time-consuming process. On the one hand, after all, the space that can be stored on the character is limited, so you must memorize the approximate value of almost all items in the game in the market in order to make a correct judgment when you need to choose. On the other hand, whether it’s digging through boxes or licking bags to search for corpses, it takes a few seconds to search for each location or body part individually, and many items even spend extra time alone for on-the-spot identification-in a dangerous environment Once such a flaw is exposed, it is easy to die on the spot. And this also makes the richest resource point in the game likely to fall into the situation of “mantis catching cicada, oriole is behind”, but no one has the confidence to ensure that he is the last “oriole”.
The process of fighting each other is a double test of your marksmanship and resource management ability. Since the game does not have any UI, the only way to check the amount of ammunition in the magazine is to disassemble it for visual inspection. The method of loading is also extremely hardcore-you need to find a safe place to buckle the bullets one by one into the empty magazine. In addition, every bullet you shoot is bought with your hard-earned money from picking up rubbish, and the bill will eventually fall on you. Especially for some of the more expensive bullets, it may only take a few seconds of continuous shooting, which is enough to burn up the money you have worked so hard for several hours to make back. And this also requires you to carefully figure out the damage and cost of different bullet types in various situations, and strive to use every bullet on the blade.
The character’s health status is subdivided into each body part, and when injured, it needs to be dealt with according to the specific part and the severity of the injury. In the event of a serious injury, you may need to use tools to perform surgery on yourself. The fracture will seriously affect your mobility, and the severe pain that accompanies the injury will have a great negative impact on the character’s mental state. Without analgesics, the efficiency of action will be basically the same as that of the disabled. Note that if you join a long battle, you must always pay attention to your hunger and drinking status, and make sure that food and water are sufficient beforehand. Many times when playing Escape from Tarkov, I feel that I am not playing a “game”-many of its mechanisms force me to think like a survival expert.
The authenticity of Escape from Tarkov is also embodied in the cruel “weak and strong food”-in most situations, it is a game that emphasizes “one investment, one gain”. In this game, the defense bonus values of different gears of armor and helmets are exaggerated. In the case of a frontal confrontation, it is almost impossible for a person with poor weapons to beat a fully-clothed boss armed to the teeth. . And this also allows Escape from Tarkov to form several distinct “niches” based on the player’s equipment status: well-equipped players tend to be more confident to challenge the most dangerous but resource-rich places; poorly equipped players tend to It is more favored to maintain daily life by picking up leaks.
However, although the above-mentioned conditions are universal laws, they are not absolute iron rules. There are a lot of variables in the player’s behavior, and the experience and skills of different players are extremely different, and the strategies and skills can indeed make up the gap in weapons and equipment. As long as the poorly equipped players have the right strategy and skills, they have a chance to “get rich overnight” after killing the boss and evacuating. However, the players armed to the teeth are careless and lose their money. Cases are often staged. Compared with other games, Escape from Tarkov’s “high risk and high return” attributes are also more obvious: both the pleasure brought by the “blood earning” and the blow caused by the “blood loss” is extremely deep. From a longer-term experience, playing this game is actually a process of constantly experiencing “big ups and downs” — to be honest, I think such steep emotional ups and downs should exceed the comfort zone of most players; but from the perspective of viewing From a perspective, it is a kind of “fun” to watch others go crazy and exclaim. The principal may be similar to the popularity of horror game live broadcasts-Escape from Tarkov is indeed a treasure at least for broadcasters.
Guarantee & Mode
Although “big ups and downs” is the norm in Escape from Tarkov, it is after all a game that needs to be oriented to the entertainment needs of players. The minimum guarantee measures are complete-of course, these measures are still in a stretched state.
The portable safe is the most important security mechanism in this game, which is equivalent to the “safe area” in the player’s personal inventory. In other words, items stored in the safe will not fall even if they fail to escape. However, the number of boxes in the safe is very small, and slightly larger guns and equipment cannot be put in; its main function is actually to help players store the most valuable small items. The real subtlety is that different versions of Escape from Tarkov have different safe deposit boxes. The more expensive version is more than double the space of the regular version-and this is equivalent to a large increase in the high-priced version in disguise. rate of return. In this sense, if you really like Escape from Tarkov and economic conditions permit, please be sure to believe in the age-old truth that “money can make ghosts hurt”.
The insurance business is a guarantee for firearms and equipment that are difficult to put in a safe. Before the normal start, you can spend a small sum of Tarkov money to buy insurance for your important weapons and equipment. Once you die in a battle or fail to evacuate in time, the guarantor will find a way to help you retrieve the insured equipment. But if your insured equipment is searched away by other players and successfully evacuated, it still cannot be retrieved smoothly; as for those items that can be retrieved successfully, you also need to wait several hours, or even more than a day, in reality before returning Your warehouse. Therefore, on the one hand, this kind of insurance has a large random unknown component. On the other hand, it also requires you to evaluate what kind of equipment you should buy insurance from the perspective of psychological games.
In terms of game mode, in addition to the PMC mode with normal rules mentioned above, the game also provides a SCAV mode that takes more care of ordinary players. In the SCAV mode, the player does not play a role he created, but a randomly generated survivor in the game with randomly generated weapons and equipment. In this mode, the materials brought out by the player’s search and successful evacuation still belong to them, and they will not accumulate any negative states for the characters that truly belong to them. But this mode does not allow continuous play-players have to wait for a cool down after each round of SCAV mode before they can enter the game again. In this sense, although it reduces the player’s economic cost, it still makes you highly nervous during the game because of the time cost.
Optimization & The Future
Although Escape from Tarkov has been developed for 8 consecutive years since 2012, it is still in the Beta testing stage, and neither optimization nor content is perfect. Because the optimization is poor, it requires a very high PC hardware configuration to play this game, and there are still frequent problems such as freezes and screen tearing in the process. If you want to get a normal game experience, I still recommend waiting until the game is officially released, or the follow-up update is more perfect.
The developer has planned a lot of open maps, but currently only launches less than half of the content; and each of these maps is large enough in scale, at least just stepping on the familiar process will consume you several hours. In terms of world view structure, Escape from Tarkov also planned a grand and detailed story background. In the long-term planning, the developers also included the development campaign and plot mode in their plans. In terms of content, as the game continues to improve, I believe there will be more and more abundant gameplay.
Conclusion
Few games dare to challenge the player’s comfort zone so “unreasonably”-in today’s environment, I don’t think it is a game suitable for mass players, or even most of the so-called “core players”. But even so, Escape from Tarkov’s realism and game mechanics still impressed me deeply. Perhaps one day in the future, it can really shine. Therefore, in the new year, whether this game is still worthy of players to continue, or players need to consider themselves.
