4Game

I've read a lot recently on the casual vs hardcore debate and there's a large focus on game balance, particularly what people want in the closed beta, and I think this is missing the point. I think there's an area that a lot of people don't take into account: immersion.

Let me start by saying I think every person who plays Tarkov is a hardcore player. It's the most hardcore game on the market with the most hardcore mechanics, ergo if you play it, you're hardcore (in my opinion). Currently, as it's PvP only, whether you can play it for a consistently large amount of time, or just intermittently, will largely determine your success in the game, and thus the quality of your experience, that's pretty standard. Where this PvP element affects immersion, though, is in the way certain circumstances of player interaction take the believability of your scenario away from you. With PvP games, players will always be playing the meta and cheesing the game where they can, and this will have an effect on the immersion others feel. For instance, in my opinion, blipping peek is cheesing. Searching in containers, while looking directly away from them, is cheesing. It breaks my immersion in the game. But I will want to do all these because I need to keep up with other players.

It's for this reason that I think Tarkov will really need to feature a well-considered and measured PvE element that allows you to do most of the game elements in a truly hardcore environment. In PvE, you don't need to keep fighting the meta, and even if you find a way to cheese the game, it has no consequence to other players. It's the only real environment in which you can make the game as hardcore an experience as it can possibly be.

A couple of examples of the current nature of the game that for me really break immersion are as follows:

1. Scavs giving all their loot to PMCs for free
2. Magic secure containers
3. No weight limit on carried items
4. Illogical/inconsistent loot spawns
5. BEARs killing BEARs, USECs killing USECs
6. Nonsensical spawn system
7. Unconvincing extract locations
8. Ridiculous tasks
9. Traders don't front money for dangerous tasks.
10. Permanent trader reputation
11. Nonsense insurance
12. Un-prioritised Hideout
13. No direct PMC trading

To illustrate one of the points above (number 11): insurance in an offline scenario would make a lot more sense. Currently, every time I get an item back on insurance I think 'who are these guys that Prapor has sent into this hostile zone and why doesn't he get them to do all his tasks?' and 'how did they know which weapons were mine?' Also, I can commit insurance fraud very easily (and I regularly do) and this makes little sense. In an offline scenario you could have a tracker on any 'insured' items that means if you lose them, they are guaranteed to spawn somewhere on your next playthrough of that map… but you have to find them, and you only have one attempt because the batteries on the trackers will quickly run out. It's instantly more believable in the realm of the game and maintains immersion (though to be honest, you could use this system for PvP, too). There are many elements of Tarkov that, when you think about them, really aren't very hardcore at all, point number 3 above being a really obvious one, and I'm sure the list is much longer.

What do people think? Are you bothered by things that break your immersion of the game? Do you want to see more PvE elements in the final release? Or do you think the opposite of me: that Tarkov is only truly immersive when there is a more human PvP element? I'd love to know what people think.