Why Tarkov has gone to sh*t and I am escaping it after 3 and a half years (2024)

I happily deleted EFT too two months ago. Largest distressing con was how when trying to solo [even when switching to Columbian servers], it only takes getting steamrolled by a 3-4-man during any attempts at questing on any particular server to want to actually try to socialize on the official EFT to offset the brutality of a gangb*ng, but then you meet, literally, some of the most attitudinous and toxic people that actually have the nerve to be vocally pathetic in an IoT, where usually the pathetic ones are mute and type toxicity instead but EFT official is this special kind of virgin-haven, where people feel inclined to disrespect others, almost as if they enjoy hearing themselves talk in this isolation-tank of delirium, instead of keeping etiquette, saying gg if they die or log, or respectfully allowing games to conclude before yapping, and instead you get people who join the lobbies, and start asking a million questions to people in-raid who need comms to profit from an hour-long schizophrenia-fest, that usually ends in failure if someone asks politely for quiet, and some newly-joined Discorder takes it the wrong way.
What’s even more difficult with this game, is how it rips off the tree bark that is peoples’ character and sanity. Rarely, do you find the Chad that keeps his sanity, even if he’s down to a PM in his stash and just happily chimes about how, “its okay and how he’s farming bitcoin and can re-stack his inventory in a couple of days” -
Tarkov is soiled by and littered with egotistical freaks, that usually degenerate in three stages: first they run SR-25s or M4A1s with gangster grip, then when they’re getting bested they descend into 12Ga MP-153s being fed Piranhas and Flechettes with express grip, then when that doesn’t work they’ll run MP7 or P90s fully tricked out, and if after all that degeneracy they still go bankrupt from rage-queuing and flaming others, they just buy hacks and then ragecheat on servers.
They eventually get banned, but I believe the point of a videogame is for it to be well-made enough and balanced enough where people don’t feel compelled to hack into its code and sell those programs with injectors for $$/month to people who are psychologically-affected by how manically-depressed they’ve become where they’ll liquidate their food money IRL for Tarkov Cheats.
Of course these guys are probably overtime now that Arena was a flop, focusing on how their main formula was such a success back in 2018-2023, but I tell you all, the thing that did it for me was going from being able to carry out a sofabag-full of medical loot, LEDXes and graphics cards from Shoreline in the middle of the night and never running into neither Sanitar, his goons nor cultists for 30 straight raids at a time, exfilling Path to Lighthouse every time, getting out every time, being able to branch out and smile about what I was constructing, being happy about dying on Lighthouse gaining real true experience not in points but in learned lessons…
…to literally 10 steps back, because of the armor “upgrades” and getting two-shot in the back by lead slugs from a scav even when I’m wearing a Banshee on Customs.
TL:DR; Some of you are so sad that the game is too hard and/or too intense of a time-suck regardless of skill diff or not, that many of you hide behind toxicity against others to shield yourselves from the obvious insecurity of boredom so severe that it’s killing you IRL and making many of you turn to snakish attitudes towards your fellow Men, an obvious sign of Psychosis.
Sometimes as a gamer, you just need to draw a line and take care of yourself if you can’t behave in a youtube text chat, let alone a discord voice chat. If you turn to toxicity over the internet, STOP, realize your brain is rotting, seek therapy by playing a more relaxed game or hiring an IRL Therapist, and cut out the games that are sucking the life-force out of you through a straw for money and relevance in an industry, and make the decision to abandon objects that grief you, instead of subjectively blaming that grief on people. Object to the poison and realize what it’s doing to YOU.
The largest point made in this video was how it is a *videogame* and how it should be fun to do. It shouldn’t be stressful and shouldn’t compel people to be venomous to one another. The split second I got venomous remarks from level 10s when I was a level 45 Sherpa, I said “no way Jose” and uninstalled, and while I’m exposing hipocrasy like that, maybe many of you should join in the boycott until the game is in fact dead, because when the servers are all dead? *the videogame is actually not a half bad time, and the infrequent firefights can become enjoyable to lose*
…instead of fretting about every Ruble, in an impossible-to-enjoy cheater den of snakes and wolves in servers over-stuffed, by over-hyped market blitzes, making you feel like a little gear in a giant machine meant to rob every last one of you of opportunity, because literally about 95% of you this month probably all subsisted in Tarkov addiction *instead of seeing the crypto rally and making money from doing something other than TaRkOv.*
Anyone who still wants that tactical shooter experience but demands etiquette amongst the human beings and *not monkeys* while still keeping their soul, I recommend Squad. Cheating is monitored like a hawk and even so much as a single toxic snake is reported and permanently banned, compelling sanity and politeness amongst its playerbase, two things in the real world that you cannot survive without having anyhow.❤
TL:DR; Tarkov went from gratifying the dream of spec ops operations to the fridge with your friends at midnight sleepovers with clotheshangers and sticks as guns as a funny and innocent thing to do while stoned, to vaporizing that old novelty-stoner giggler and replacing it with Hades’ Soul Whirlpool from the Hercules(1998) Movie, and if you actually can’t see that and decide to just shoot shoddy one-liners at the comment like “Skill diff” or “im not reading that”, then you have a lot of reading to do, and considering you’ll be content with a toxic one-paragrapher and will sod off back to Escape From Dorkov mindless to the real-world opportunities swirling around you, *May God Have Mercy Upon Your Soul.* Tarkov is like a snake pit: anything that lives in that hole is probably a predator or dead. Either way, it’s all filth and a cesspit of a videogame. It once had promise, now permanently ruined by people who believe that torturing their minds with depression and implosion is *CoOL*. It was cool when it was niche, and now that it’s mainstream and filled with gen-alpha turbovirgins, it’s like what old people did to Facebook- It’s actually super-lame. ^^^^^^^^^^^^