Writing a paper for College on Game design, and I’ve Chosen Tarkov as my submission for the Action/Adventure Genre. Looking for community feedback.

Hi there, as the title says, I'm writing a paper on game design, specifically, how certain aspects are implemented poorly. I'm not looking to just crap on the game. I've put nearly 2600 hours into Tarkov and I love it.

I'm currently looking to cover the following topics.

  • What is Tarkov?

  • Game UI (And the lack thereof)

  • Sound design/Audio queues.

  • The Medical system/Player health/What causes death.

  • Gear/Equipment/Loot and the stash.

  • Gunplay & Gun moding.

  • The Skill system.

  • The Core gameplay loop (getting into/out of/dying in raids)

  • The Quest system.

  • PVE/PVP.

I intent to go over each point with how it works in game, then going back down the list for why In my opinion for the purpose of the paper, Tarkov does it poorly. It is important to clarify, my Professor has set a clear distinction between design and development. Here's a few examples of what does or doesn't count

The Audio queues aren't bad from a design standpoint because they don't work on stairs in dorms. That is a coding/implementation issue and doesn't count.

Rampant cheaters making PVP untenable isn't a design issue, because that's an external variable not accounted for in the design stage, and doesn't count

The game not (yet) having an in depth tutorial without relying on an external wiki isn't a design issue, it's a coding coding/implementation issue and doesn't count.

The Game using Audio queues instead of a mini-map or something to give the player information on the location of other players/scavs, and that leading to confusion for anyone without a surround sound headset IS a design issue, and counts for this paper.

The Lack of UI to distinguish one player from another, forcing the player to make the distinction based on appearance alone in a split second and leading to frustrating Friendly fire incidents IS a design issue.

The Player dying due to confusion on how the medical system works (not being able to distinguish/treat a light or heavy bleed for example) and being frustrated by that IS a design issue.

Quest progression being soft locked to the player because they've not found a given Key IS a design issue.

I've already got a basic outline of my script (yes, I'm submitting this in video format), but I was hoping to get extra feedback from the community on the topic as another source. I might even plug some of your comments in the video with the users permission. Any additional Citation you could provide (i.e. Nikita talking about the game being "As Realistic as playable") for your arguments would be immensely appreciated.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EscapefromTarkov/comments/y9wv8f/writing_a_paper_for_college_on_game_design_and/

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