Tarkov is better without suppressors

Okay, the title is exaggerated. My real complaint is that suppressors are almost always best-in-slot for recoil. This means that most "meta" guns are running suppressed, which means that by mid-to-late wipe, most people are running suppressed guns.

I think this is responsible for a lot of "dead lobby" complaints. Early wipe, you hear every shot, you feel like the server is alive, and you have a sense of what is going on around the map. It is much rarer to experience the feeling of "where the hell am I being shot at from??". When somebody starts fighting Rashala, it sounds like WWIII, and you're tempted to run over and Get Involved. On the other hand, when you have three quest items up your butt, you might stealth past a scav to avoid making noise and drawing attention.

Fast forward to late wipe. Even though matchmaking ensures that servers get mostly filled up, every raid seems dead. You hear nothing except the scav 50 meters away (who sounds like he's inside your skull). Eventually you get jumpscared by a single suppressed shot to your head and fall over dead. A 3-man could be fighting Rashala and you might not even know it unless you're literally right outside dorms/stronghold/newgas. Unless you're rushing the close-quarters PVP area every raid, low recoil + suppressors + AP ammo mean that most fights are decided by who sees the other person first.

I think suppressors are cool. They look cool, and sound cool. But I'd prefer that they represented a tradeoff rather than a straight upgrade. Their ergo penalties can be ignored in almost all cases, so in my opinion, a nerf would have to be based around the recoil stat. Allowing suppressors to benefit from their own recoil reduction, as well as the muzzle device that they're COMPLETELY ENVELOPING, seems more like a bug than a feature.

If suppressed builds had slightly poorer recoil than best-in-slot loud builds, you'd have a choice to make. Do I want to be sneaky, or do I want to maximize my combat potential? If playing solo and questing, I'd probably opt for the stealthy utility of a suppressed build even if my recoil was higher. When playing in a group or rushing close-quarters PvP, I'd probably just roll loud and want every gun-handling advantage possible.

It'd be cool if there were a few exceptions, especially in the SMG category, where the best in slot build was still suppressed. That'd give those weapons some unique flair.

"But realism", you say. Well, in Tarkov you can fix a point-blank shotgun wound with first aid kid, lip balm lets you run at top speed with a broken leg, and if you don't eat, you starve to death in 35 minutes. Games are balanced to FEEL realistic, not BE realistic.

Anyway, just my thoughts, curious to see how others feel. I think a big part of early wipe being so much fun is the fact that you can hear other players navigating the map, and it feels like you're playing in an active server with tons of other people.