4Game

I was thinking recently about the situation where people are outraged about the recent changes, how they are wrong and appeal to streamers whim and are against casuals players. And then a thought hit me that I've decided to share. It's kinda not simple to formulate such a thing so bear with me here.

As a Tarkov player with not as much experience, I've started just this wipe, I kinda gravitate towards the casual view on the issue in question. However this is because I tend to play this game somewhat as a side gig, for fun and pleasure. Don't get me wrong, I put a lot of effort into research and learning the game while not playing the game itself, running maps in offline, watching hours of youTube guides and stuff like that. So I am very serious about the game and deeply passionete about it. But I do not consider it my main gig and I just have fun in it on a casual level. Hitting lvl 25 in like a month or something.

But I am attached to another online game for over 7 years now, that I play very competitively on somewhat semi professional level. It's an esports discipline with endless pit of knowledge and learning to do. And I've been dedicated to play it on the highest achievable to me level since I've started it 7 years ago. And here is what I suddenly realized. The times that the developers were catering to the casual masses were the worst years and almost killed the project. This approach also killed 2 competition projects in the same niche. I spent years raging about the dumbing down of the game and quitting it multiple times because developers never cared about their esports scene in favor of stupid casuals and console stuff. There was so much catering to not only the dumbest and worst players but also to a console in general. This changed a few years ago and now the project is going through some of the best times since like its release. They started addressing the Ranked scene, listening to esports pro for input, actually gathered a group of proffesional players to advise on from the standpoint of the player base. This effectively led to a comeback in prominence and an overall better and healthier experience for everyone. Because these esports players have dedicated their life to playing this game and know every aspect of it, while simply playing the most than anyone other in the player base. As a player who have sank thousands of hours into it I mostly allign myself with that part of the playerbase in that project.

Basically I spent a significant portion of my life to the game. I know it's in an outs and constantly reseraching and learning. I would hate to the point of quitting if I see that the game is getting twisted again to the whim of those who barely invested into it and probably would quit it soon and go back to call of duty or minecraft or whatever other garbage they are playing. This is how streamers, for lack of a better player minority, feel themselves in Taarkov. You don't have esports scene and streamers that play this game religiously are the best you can get in terms of how to gauge player experience. They know in and out. They make guides thus research the game constantly. They see the issues and they address them. And as a game developer (Nikita) who else would you rather listen? People that are lashing back at any unpopular change you make while not dedicated or passionate about the game itself. Or people who can understand reasoning behind the change or provide it themselves and literally spend their life wishing the best for this game to be as successful as it possibly can be? Imagine you half assing your time in the game and not caring if tomorrow it stops to exists and a developer is catering to you instead of people who stood by his project for years and would probably not know what else to play if tomorrow its stops? How would you feel as that dedicated player?

TL:DR; Im casual, and mosing nerf sucks. But if someone started catering to casual player base in my other game that I am a lot more dedicated to, I would lose my fucking mind.

p.s. automoderator of this sub is the most retarded i've seen, really.