4Game

Last couple of wipes, I found early game (level 1-10/15 or so) to be especially brutal. The first wipe because I was totally fucking new and the second wipe because I tried to do PMC runs early game with the absolute cheapest gear. In general:

1. I was outmatched in skill in every fight because it seemed that many to most PMCs I ran into were pro gamers who fucking streamed all day while I would only play a few hours a week and on weekends;
2. I was totally outclassed in almost every fight by said streamers' gear, which was in another league, Makarov vs. AS Val is no contest unless you're lucky (which happened exactly once with a face shot);
3. because I got used to running low-end random guns, running even a slightly better gun like a shit AK gave me the Gear Fear;
4. as I ran a random assortment of said shit weapons every raid, I'd have to get used to how each one performed in-raid, having never fired some of these guns before;
5. I got into a defeatist attitude during the 1-10 grind, figuring even a Scav would wipe me easy if I'm spawning in with a TT, and I started to neglect even basic armor and load bearing stuff;
6. It's just no fucking fun to get waxed every game and it just lacks style.

So what I decided this wipe, was to start with a new attitude. I remembered watching Karmakut's vid on Investing in Yourself last wipe, and although I'm not a huge fan of his stuff, it certainly was a novel idea. His central premise was that if you can get out of a Scav or PMC raid with a decent gun, you should invest in mods for that gun and in armour and other gear, to give yourself an edge and not just be another walking target, and then build on that. If you get killed, so be it, choose another decent gun and start again from there. You're upping your chances of a successful extract with better gear and you're eventually going to survive sometime, while levelling faster, and getting valuable in-game skills so that you can get better at the game instead of staying a miserable noob.

This wipe, I took the central idea from above but instead, I sold all my starting guns and then proceeded along these lines:

1. From previous experience, I felt most comfortable with the M4/Adar (AR-15) platform. It has decent iron sights, good trajectory and hits relatively hard for an early game gun. For you, it could be an AK, MP5/Saiga 9, whatever. But I felt it was important that I concentrated on one platform that I could actually get early game, get consistent practice with it, and mod it, for which ammo was available as were sights and magazines;
2. Shotguns can be devastating, but they are specialty weapons and very short ranged, unless using AP slugs, and you have to grind up levels to get those, consistently;
3. I didn't even consider pistols as serious weapons;
4. I was given 2 M4's due to starting gear, the New Year's pack and so on. I modded them with Burris sights and Mk12 low profile gas blocks (and other parts) all from Peacekeeper for $;
5. AR-15s are also decent early game as you can get 30-round Stanags from Peacekeeper right off the bat so I bought a pile of those;
6. While click-fest examining gear at Dealer, the odd M4 or Adar or pieces of those would come so I bought those too and built as many complete AR-15s as I could, a total of 5, with as many red dot and holo sights and other mods as I could find/buy;
7. Instead of going in as a hatchling each raid, I put on the best armour I had or could afford (typically PACA but whatever) to increase my survival chance;
8. I also bought cheap load bearing stuff (typically bank robber) and backpacks bigger than the sling bag plus any headset I could get my hands on for cheap;
9. I also stashed 7000₽ in my container so that I could use certain extracts (north of Dorms, for instance)

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My stash at Level 3

I'm actually enjoying Tarkov now. I feel confident enough that I can easily win a gunfight vs. Scavs, and although I get wasted by PMCs now maybe 50% of the time (often because they're in a team and I'm running solo), I'm dropping some of them too. First raid I killed 3 Scavs and 2 PMCs on Customs and managed to extract. I'd say this strat is working. Worst case? Run out of money and do some Scav runs to get back in the game. Best case? Looks like I'm getting ahead and having fun. Hope this helps some newer players.

inb4 GITGUD scrub