4Game

I see a lot of posts asking for help, often people are struggling to get kills and It's like reading about people drowning in the deep end, not knowing how to swim. Now these tips might not be 100% the best, or effective at all for many people but… I'm a dirty casual, and want to pass on things I learned during the start of this wipe (my 4th, I play maybe 50 hours per wipe at most).

1. Sound and movement are pretty much everything. Crouching everywhere is slow and tedious. Don't be afraid to walk without sprinting. Sprint when moving across an open space, or when you have to GTFO. In areas where you're likely to make noise (woods, bushes, gravel, wooden boards etc…), slow to Walk (I rebound this to Mouse 4), and crouch walk over it. You want to be in Solid cover as much as possible, or at least somewhere you can lay down to avoid fire, use the terrain. Second to that, bushes and trees offer concealment from the average player.

2. The first maps you'll want to learn are Woods and Customs.

3. Before jumping into Woods ( Your best and hardest choice to learn first), I strongly suggest becoming one with Tarkovs many mechanics. Get used to peeking, strafing so you can strafe peek, stopping from a sprint, engaging a sprint, using cover, there's a lot…

4. I use this loadout when I have nothing better available, and it's a good enough (cost wise) to be able to at least take some hits. Buy that loadout for around 150,000 then load up Factory Offline mode. Set the AI difficulty to HARD, and amount to HIGH. Run around and practice hip firing your SKS into the Scavs below 50m. If you want to learn weapon sounds and ranges then enable Scav War, you'll start to get used to weapon type and shot distance a bit faster, but with less AI to kill. These skills are paramount in Tarkov, especially at higher levels and for later wipe. Being able to hear contacts better, along with being able aim and shoot from the hip, is how you're going to win most of your PVP encounters. If you get bored or run out of ammo, pick up Scav weapons and get used to those hip fire.

5. Go to Woods, insure your gear, and learn the map. I personally forgot the map since I last played it was that long, it took me around 4 hours of raids to relearn it enough to survive 60% of the raids. Have a look around when you spawn, get your bearings and take cover prone in a bush, until you find your spawn point on the map. I'd advise plotting a route towards an extract routing via Jaegers camp. Loot along the route. Player traffic often moves in arcs from both East and West, towards the opposite sides. Listen for gunfire, if it's close, there's a distinguishable POP to the shot, especially with M32 ears. Don't be afraid to carefully move in the direction of gunfire. It might be a group of Scavs fighting a solo PMC.

6. By exiting a few raids, and experience gained from looting, and examining items, you should be able to then get a mission you need from Mechanic, to unlock Jaeger. Go back into woods, and do the dry run for real. Once you've done this, prepare to learn Customs.

7. So now you should be level 3 – 5 easily, and have so much confidence to take out Scavs, you might have even lost your gear fear, and be more willing to take on actual PMC's. Your next missions will be on Customs, with Therapist and Prapor. You don't have to visit woods for a good 3 – 4 levels, so grind customs on your PMC, and maybe take to learning Interchange on your Scav.

8. By now, you want to be gathering as much loot as you can, selling everything apart from Barter items / Consumables. Anything you can't use, sell. I personally sell anything that's unavailable from traders, that they'll buy. This includes those nice weapons that I can't get nice ammo for, I might as well buy 2 – 3 SKS for that, which I'll get back through insurance. It also includes some armour that's too heavy for my strength level, weapon parts, attachments, magazines, ammunition, end of life meds… Sell what you can't use.

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After all of this you should be enjoying Tarkov a little more, this is what it took me to get to where I am now, a full EOD stash, with 1.5 mil at level 6. I am a dirty casual as I said, and don't take this game all too seriously, I thought I'd share some of the lessons I learned along these 6 levels.

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TLDR; In 200 hours, this guy is only starting to get good. He says to learn Woods and Customs, but before that, kill hard scavs on Factory. Git Gud at the game mechanics, do missions, sell shit you don't use, and make sure you're not making excess noise. By level 5 you're probably good.