I Tarkov Poorly

Customs  I've been playing Customs a lot this wipe. For every spawn I have either a destination to rush where I can hopefully catch other players when they are moving, or a place to hide and wait for five minutes, so the scavs can spawn, the players can move.  Either way, I often spend the first part of the raid just sitting. I haven't died to an AI Scav in a long time. But I still die a lot. And on customs that death is usually just me walking by a bush or a dark corner and getting blasted unawares. Probably half of my deaths I don't see my assailant, and maybe in a quarter of them I don't even hear them beforehand.  While I've had a lot of fun raids, it is tiring doing nothing at the beginning of the raid for five minutes and then getting killed later without much warning - without conducting a "real fight". Factory So I started running Factory, a map I normally don't like. It's been awesome.  I'm still dying. Killing too. Surviving a bit.  B

How It's Going I haven't been actively questing this wipe, so my progress has been slow. I'm not complaining. It's been fine - the raids have mostly been fun.  Unless there are connection problems, or just really bad luck, I'm rarely killed by AI Scavs anymore.  That's nice. After BSG increased their banning activity and posting the names of ban recipients, it has seemed to me like cheating has lessened.  I'm definitely surviving more raids, winning more fights, and having fewer "sus" deaths.  All good. Level 15 Achieved I needed just over 5000 XP to make Level 15. I figured that'd take me about 5 raids, maybe more, because I have to plan on the failed 0XP raids that I'd inevitably have.  As luck would have it, I garnered those XP in two raids, without any quests.  On my last scav run, I'd gotten myself a Level 5 armored rig and a 9mm Vector with mag after mag of AP 6.3 off of some unfortunate PMC.  In all my wipes, I'd never run th

To Not Lose Goat released a second video discussing cheating.  The part that I found the most compelling was the interview with one of the anti-cheat devs who work on The Cycle Frontier.  He made the comment that while RMT was definitely a motivator for cheating, their experience suggests that "most cheaters cheat to win. Or, more specifically, to not lose." I feel like that's the crux of it right there, and it aligns with the various comments I've seen elsewhere on the internet from people who admit to cheating.    People cheat to not lose .    Frankly, I'm sympathetic.  Tarkov is difficult and has often crossed the line from grueling to grinding. As a casual player myself, who still hasn't even reached the flea market (where the game becomes an entirely different game), I can understand the motivation.   But if "to not lose" is the main motivator, that's entirely within BSG's control.  Here are some suggestions.  Lower the Flea Market Leve

 No doubt, anyone following Tarkov has seen the video from Goat:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LfGcDB7Ek If you've read my blog before, you know I've tried tracking cheaters in the past by checking all my kills and killers in the in-game chat tool over time. I made several posts, the last of which was this one:  https://itarkovpoorly.blogspot.com/2022/06/counting-cheater-part-4.html My take on the video?  The reason it's called "The wiggle that killed tarkov" is because if cheaters are signaling each other via wiggling, it means there is a CULTURE of cheating and cheaters. And that's the shocking thing. It's not just "some people cheat", it's that there is a whole CULTURE of people cheating, with their own set of spoken/unspoken rules, behaviors, norms and manners. And if you've got a whole culture around something, then it's likely widespread and endemic. And disappointing.  Someone made the remark on Reddit that watching the vi

My progress this wipe is slow. I don't even care.  I made level 9 yesterday. Survival rate of 29%. I inadvertently formed a collection of SMGs: three Vityaz and three Kedrs.  What's a good map for an SMG? Factory, obviously. But what about Reserve?   I decided I would run Reserve until the SMGs were gone.  Took about 5 raids to go through the Vityazs.  Survived one raid, insurance brought it back once, but otherwise they were gone, looted by my killers or player scavs.   But the Kedrs were a different story, no one wants those. I'm not sure how many raids those lasted, 10, 15? I took screenshots, so I could go back and check if I wanted, but I don't. It was a long string of death mostly, and I finally gave up. Still had one last Kedr which no one was looting, so I vendored it and moved on. Experiment complete. This experiment was mostly unfun.  The combination of weak ammo and PACA armor meant I couldn't take on real fights with PMCS. So my strategy evolved to hidin

Two Psychos Destination: Customs.  Level 4.  PACA armor and a VPO-136.  Raid before this I had a lot of luck killing scavs in the storage shed area. It was great - no one bothers me over there, and I racked up a bunch of kills. The fights weren't ever exciting, but PACA and VPO-136.   Spawned on the river Customs house side. Awesome! I back tracked toward the storage sheds.  A player could easily be heading in my direction this early in the raid, so I ducked down into a bush and decided to just wait and listen.  Supposedly half the players die in the first five minutes of the raid. I have no idea if that's true or not, but I'll pretend it is. At around the three minute mark a grenade launcher began firing.  Sounded like it was on my side of the river, firing across.  A grenade would fire, small pause, and then another. Grenade, grenade, grenade, grenade, grenade. How many grenades does this guy have? Five minutes have passed. He's still firing. Should I move? Well, I  n