Tarkov is not an easy game. Small miscalculations in your strategies can lead to your abrupt demise, and fortunes lost in mere seconds. For the longest time starting out in Tarkov, I was fighting a massive uphill battle. You might even consider it running into a wall over and over again. Death after death as my ruble count dwindled with each desperate SKS purchase, with crappy ammo in hopes that maybe I might survive just ONE raid. . . but somehow, something eventually changed. I started doing research, I started learning map loot locations, spawns, and most of all: practicing my head shot game. It took a while but out of nowhere I went from around 8K Rubles to my names with an empty stash, to about 2.8 Million in a day or two, and a stash full of tricked out guns, good armor and cases. I felt as if something just, clicked. That was when I realized what I was doing to win: I was playing very very differently than how I was before.
I am sure anyone on here is familiar with the classic Rat VS Chad stereotypes of players in this game. Most of us aren't really either of those stereotypes, but rather a mixture of both when necessary. However, if I were to recommend a Stereotypical play style for consistent success in this game, I might call it the Panther Play style. The play style I abide by every raid I go into, Scav or PMC. What is it though? Well, I will explain. Some people spawn in, and immediately go head first into high traffic areas, risking it all for the high end loot, and some PVP action. Thats fine. Some people get in and proceed to loot stashes, and hidden little areas well out of sight of most other players, and avoid all confrontation out of pure fear. That is fine too, however, I have found a hybrid of these two play styles works beautifully for me. I usually get into a raid, and try to stay away from other people while I loot key locations around the outside of the map. I play SLOW, and usually take up most the raid timer just looting everything I can, and carefully surveying everything I do. I go in equipped with my best gun I have, and usually pretty serviceable armor that blends into foliage well. The difference here is that anyone I run into, or see in my way, I make a deliberate effort to kill. Even if it means me fighting a two man squad. This is normally easy, as I play so slow and cautiously that most people I run into never know I am there before I line up a head shot and take them down after stalking them around for a minute or two. I live by the idea that I should only ever need one single shot to take down another player or I am playing the game wrong. When I miss my shot, and they know where I am? I am already gone. I give people no opportunity to face me on level ground. I will run far away to ensure they never know where I am going to show up from again.
Call it cowardice? I call it understanding the Art of War. Typically I end a raid with 13+ kills, with about 75% being Scavs and 25% being players, and can usually pull no less than 400K Rubles out of a raid. I usually die 1/5 raids I go into, and that is typically because I run into larger groups of players that simply out number me, or play very smart. This isn't me soap boxing and bragging, I am here to share this sort of ghost like take on Tarkov that got me out of the gutters a week or two ago, and hasn't failed me yet. If you are new, and rocking a Mosin, this play style still applies. If you are geared, it works even better. Focus on looting Stashes, and less trafficked areas early into the raid, and late raid focus on hot spots before you extract. The key is to give no other players a chance at taking you down before you already end the fight, and to above all else: be sneaky. Very sneaky. Pay attention to sounds, and never let another player get a drop on you. The whole play style could be summed up as: Move slow, fire the only shot in a fight, never be seen, loot everything you can, and be ready for anything. Hope it helps.
