4Game

One day, in (hopefully) the not so distant future there will be an end to wipes for everyone and instead we'll be getting persistent servers and wipe servers. We have no idea what form this will take, we won't even know what raid and raid timers will look like in open world EFT. However, if there's anything I know its that wipe servers, if properly used, can be an amazing development tool for BSG to push more radical ideas and get a proper test on them without ruining the experience completely.

Currently, a massive issue with wipes is that they're repetitive. Its the same boring tasks, in the same order, over and over again. I'm 6 wipes in, then next will be my 7th, and I took almost all of this wipe off not because I didn't want to play Tarkov, but because I couldn't bring myself to work the task line as its the best method of farming xp outside of spamming labs (which I don't like doing). I'm all for BSG mixing things up, which seems like it'll happen with their dynamic quest system maybe as soon as next wipe, however, I know a lot of people (even popular streamers) that want to be done with wipes permanently. I know even more that have quit the game altogether because of wipes and a few who won't even touch the game for the same reason. For some people, wiping away progress on a game they want to grind is an immediate buzz kill, and Tarkov is fun as hell to grind on.

So the persistent wipes keep occurring, primarily because BSG needs to test systems so that they can get things in tune for everyone so we can all have the optimal experience. However, there's an immediate solution to this which, while probably time intensive on the development side to an extent, would be not only immediately rewarding for the community but an immense asset to the development cycle of BSG: Seasonal Wipes.

Remember how I mentioned how the above how the same crap over and over again is boring? With seasonal wipes this won't change, and so like every game that includes a seasonal system that's successful you need to introduce things that change up gameplay loops dramatically. These are some potential examples: No traders, No flea, all scavs replaced with raiders, labs always unlocked, helmets automatically cover the entire hitbox, cultists randomly appearing during the day, no armors above class 3 (or reverse), no guns of a certain type, no ammo of a certain type, etc. But these are just examples of some random ideas that would shake up the gameplay dramatically, but if BSG wants to test something out they now have a regular cycle to test anything they want without fear about it ruining the experience because seasonal wipes are always temporary AND we still have persistent servers. Literally, WHATEVER they want to test during a wipe they can just throw it into the next cycle as part of the challenge, and if its a successful change they could then move it over to persistent servers or maybe refine it, etc.

You get the idea, so lets now talk about the structure of a wipe. Right now the life span of a wipe is considered "good" (as far as the consensus I've gathered) between 2-3 months. So a seasonal wipe should probably last around that duration, lets say two and a half months with a two week break period in between. I don't think the duration is going to be that controversial so lets discuss why the break: essentially it prevents burnout and hacks the brains of players to cause the right wave of dopamine kicks. So dopamine is the "pleasure chemical" in your brain, to put it in over simplified terms, and the more you take of it from a given stimuli (like drinking coke, for example) the more resistant your receptors become to the dopamine. This means you have to drink more and more coke to get the same dopamine kick you used to get (essentially how addictions form). So implementing breaks will allow all that to calm down, because immediately going wipe to wipe right away is going to kill them eventually because people will burnout, while giving them a break gives them time to crash off their high and build up anticipation of the next wipe. Additionally, the major changes for the wipe should probably be announced a week in advanced to help build anticipation and circulate click traffic on media (thus promoting the game). This isn't necessary, but it would certainly help.

We're finally close to the end but there's two more things we have to discuss: leaderboards and rewards. You can't have seasonal wipes without an in game leaderboard that you can click on to see how everyone's doing and your current progress. Additionally, scoring should be tracked and weighted for different values. For instance, KDA would be your K+A-D in some point score fashion. Run throughs would give you negative points. The amount of wealth accrued across the wipe would be another, tasks completed another, how many times you prestige another, etc. Even the WHO you kill could be weighted differently (so most points for PMCs, then cultists, then bosses, then raiders, then scavs for example). And the best part about establishing this extensive of a point structure with each having their own value is it also becomes dials you can turn to change how wipes are played. For example, imagine one wipe PMC kills gave you the least points of anything whereas Cultist kills gave you an ABSURD number of points, you'd now have people spamming night raids to kill cultists.

For rewards it should be some form of cosmetic (like a shirt or something) depending upon your position in the leaderboard (number 1 gets X, top 10 get Y, you also get something the first time you win a wipe, etc.), as well as something along the lines of your stash gets transferred to your persistent stash. The reason for the second one is it'll give newer players a "safer" place to leap into the game for experience and then some of their progress will be transferred to the persistent account. It'll also have the added benefit of encouraging players that would otherwise exclusively play persistent to give it a try, and thus convert a portion of them permanently.

Now, I want to make something super clear for those of you who made it this far (and to immediately show those who didn't bother to read the post before commenting something toxic), no one is wrong for wanting wipes and no one is wrong for not wanting them. I think persistent and wipes have pros and cons, and your preference for them is completely valid. This is just a discussion demonstrating the immense potential of wipe servers for both BSG and the community as a whole.