I just posted this as a reply to someone, then I realised this might help some people. So here it goes:
Play the game more, spend less time on YouTube and Reddit…
This game is one of the very few games where no matter how many guides you watch or read, you will still SUCK.
In order to get better at Tarkov, you just need to play it. Just keep at it, you will get better. Use your gear, or sell everything at the start and start with just your knife, working your way up. Whatever works, but realise you always have the option to (once a month!) reset your account and start fresh from 0.
Every FPS game you (and every other player) will get better through what I call "trigger time": just get into the game and play, get into fire fights, die, repeat. This works in any other game, because the time between death and your next fire fight is very short and has almost no consequence. As a result, you can pick up any game, play for 10 minutes and suck less then your first 5 minutes. After 2 hours of playing, you are certainly a lot better than during your first hour, etc.
Enter Tarkov: one fire fight, and the game is over, you lose your shit and it might take 1 full hour to get into another fire fight again.
In other words: your chance to 'learn' is very limited with much time in between. In the meantime you know this, so you play way to tense. It's frustrating, it's awesome. It's Tarkov.
Now, onto some tips:
- Play offline mode, choose factory and select scav amount: high. This will allow you to get into a lot of fighting very quickly. This will provide you that "learning experience" AND it will get you used to the sounds in Tarkov so they scare you less when you hear them.
- Pick 1-2, MAYBE 3 weapons (and ammo!) to start with and just use those. Over and over again. Sell whatever you find that is NOT that weapon. When you do play Offline Mode, use this same weapon so you actually become good with it.
- Know that you will suck and that this is alright… It took me 15 PMC raids before I escaped once this wipe, and I have actually played this game a lot before. I also took my time during those raids, so you could say that for my first 15-20h + of INGAME TIME I was piss poor at this game. That's as much time to get "not bad" in Tarkov as it takes to play through some entire single player games! That said, at level 24 now I have a life time survival rate of almost 30% with a 3.0+ KD and 3m+ rubbles in the bank. Not bad.
- Play Scav whenever it comes off cooldown, and just play… whatever if he dies.
- Have a simple goal in mind when you load into a game: explore the map, find an extract, kill 1 scav, etc. Don't think about Tasks too much in the beginning.
- Play 1 map until you know it like the back of your hand. I suggest customs – it's tough, it will fuck you up. It has many choke points, high travelled areas, etc. But it also has everything: CQB, long range, urban, woodland, etc.
- Sell everything you don't need RIGHT NOW. Found a AWESOME weapon for later? Means you don't need it now, sell it. Found a great weapon for now, but you don't really like using it? Sell it. Found something that looks valuable? Sell it. Sell, sell sell. Once you get better, get a feeling for the game, you start to understand what you want to keep, and what you want to sell. By the time you get to level 15 you can start looking up what items you need to "find in raid" for future quests (some exceptions here are items which sell REALLY well on the market, such as Labs keycards. Keep those to sell on the flea markt once you hit lvl 5).
- Sell everything you don't need right now rule also includes AMMO you don't need for the 1-2 guns you decided to play with!
- Sell order: Therapist > Skier > Peacekeeper > Mechanic > Ragman > Prapor > Fence. This order is from paying the most, to paying the least, assuming they even want the item. Always check where you can get more money: market, or traders. I've seen people sell items on the market for the same price or lower than the trader pays for it, but on the market you have to pay a fee to place it! Stupid.
- Don't bother with any body armor below and including level 3 (just … SELL IT 😉 ). This also means PACCA! I know some YT videos say otherwise, but seriously just sell this crap.
- AND NOW GET OF REDDIT, FUCK YouTube and GO PLAY THE GAME!