Small PSA to new player / potential buyers

So this sub sees a lot of new player questions, I thought maybe someone can find his answer in here.

– The game just went on sale and it went by. There are multiple sales throughout the year, so it probably wasn't your last chance. Eduacated guess of mine, is next sale will be around Christmas / New Year.

– The game is expensive, yes. And on top of that, they have a shitty purchasing site that will add VAT to the advertised price. Usually around 20%. Plus payment method fee (recommend paypal, as it's only 3-4%). No way around that except VPN, but do it on your own risk.

– The game will receive a major update in the next days. Currently the gameplay experience is pretty damn hard for a complete new players. We have an event running where the most dangerous scavs roam the maps, without map knowledge or any experience fighting these guys, your experience will be very one sided.

– Mentioned events will start shortly before a big major patch, which will come with a wipe. Wipe means, all progress will be set to 0. Everyone starts fresh with a new wipe (yes, everything will be wiped. Quest progress, Stash, Money, etc.)

– This leads to people now playing mostly with the best of the best gear, making it even harder for you to get a foothold currently.

– The game itself is hard. Maps are big and need to be learned, alongside with lots of stuff in all aspects. Be prepared to read a lot at the beginning and watch some youtube videos. Your fist focus should be to do some quests. See below what I said about the tarkov Wiki, there you will find all infos to the quests.

– The "I just started playing, what to do?" recommendation from my side: If you want to start a raid, on map selection, chose "offline". This will enable a locally hosted raid that has no progression (meaning, if you extract, you can't keep the stuff) but you also don't lose anything if you die. Good to learn maps.

– Maps! See my point below regarding the wiki. But you should leave a map open at any time to quickly find the next exit (double-tap O in game to find out which extracts were selected for you)

– If you wanna try online, start with Scav runs. You spawn as a Scav (enemy NPC) with a basic weapon and some stuff, randomly in the map at a random point of the raid (time progression wise) and can loot and exctract like with your PMC. Good way to do a no risk run with potentially good haul.

– Look for the Escape from Tarkov Wiki. It has all information you will ever need about the game, detailed and easy to find. How to do all the quests, what items are good and which ones don't, maps with locations marked, all sorts of useful tips and tricks. I can only encourage everyone who doesn't know this site to put it as favorite if you intend to play the game more dedicated.

I hope some found their question answered and feel free to add them, I try to answer you.