So let me preface this by saying Labs is my favorite map and has been since they added it. I'm not pestily but I've been playing since launch and most wipes end up around 50+
Now, for those who don't remember or weren't there Labs was free to access when it was added, to "balance it" they made it paid entry since the loot and raiders were so good to farm. Now since then they have severely nerfed Labs loot as a whole, even what used to be the best loot room in all of Tarkov, Red Room.
Personally this seems like an idea they didn't even think about. When you think about it: Free—>too much loot—>paid entry—->too much loot—>paid entry+terrible loot? If the loot is going to be terrible, why did they increase the price of keycards? Why pay 45+mil for a red keycard if it would take 100s of successful runs to make that money back?
Sorry for a bit of rant, back on topic now, Labs is by far the coolest map to me and also the only truly urban map (outside of factory). It's big, complex, several GOOD extracts, raiders to provide an actual PVE challenge (bosses don't count because they aren't guaranteed), and most importantly just a cool design.
Why is it gated with a 300k+ entry fee? It isn't because of the loot since you A)need 10s of millions of roubles worth of additional keycards to access the "good" loot rooms and B)those rooms spawns have been nerfed to the point of worthlessness. Raiders aren't a good reason either since Reserve has raiders for free.
Truly I feel like they just either forgot about Labs or simply don't care. It should either be level locked or quest locked but not money locked. If their reasoning is "to keep cheaters out" that makes literally no sense. People who aimbot/wallhack/fly through the maps with godmode don't have 300k? What a laugh. Again sorry for such a long post but I mean its such a GOOD map and it's utterly useless to even play outside of end of wipe "eh why not".
