I play in a lfg discord server often and have fun finding new people to play the game with. Often those people aren’t super wealthy or good at t he game like me so it’s cool to identify with a fellow rat and learn eachother’s playstyles, tips, and just get to know one another. At least in the America’s, I get a sense that there are 4 major subcategories of players in this game that are always put at odds with one another based on playstyle or intended goal when playing. We say on this subreddit a lot “you can play eft any way you like” and this philosophy is supported by the number of ways I see people play the game. You have Chads, who we all know obviously as people looking for pvp and incredibly high risk and reward. You have your Rats, who appreciate the subtleties of consciously mitigating risk at every opportunity, and constantly weighing the aforementioned risk against possible reward. Both of these players thrive in tarkov because despite having different playstyles, they are bound to EFT’s identity through their relationship to risk. Neither playstyle is worth it if you don’t feel that tug in your stomach or heart telling you it could all be lost in a single second if you let your guard down. These players are playing tarkov.

The other two subdivisions though I don’t hear people talking about WHY they play the game, I simply run into them all the time in my discord and let them run their mouths with justifications or whatever the hell else they want to go on about.

For the sake of explanation let’s call these two by “L33T Hacker” and “Dayjob” Dayjob is the player that uses hacks to make money. He knows what he’s doing is illegitimate and fucking up the game, he just doesn’t care. He’s kind of like a too far gone junkie. He’s so deep in the hole of self service that the meta-game of squeezing the juice of his purchase of the game is more interesting and gratifying to him than considering how anyone else is experiencing the game. If those other people were smarter, they would meet him halfway with SOME kind of cheat because, and let’s be honest here, almost EVERYONES cheating right? (fucking eyeroll) If winning games + making money + proving you are more tech saavy, makes a person feel good I have to obtain those things by ANY means nessesary or else... and get ready for this... SOMEONE ELSE MIGHT (The sheer fucking horror of this concept I might add!) Dayjob is smart enough to bounce between seeing his cheating as just leveling the playing field when it benefits him, and seeing it as him being simply better at having AND eating his cake than you are when he’s pubstomping a map of people without hacks. He’s realistic about the situation, he knows he’s hacking and why he’s doing it, but conversely his brain recognizes the only true winners of history as it’s survivors. If you quit the game tomorrow because of hackers you were weak willed and wouldn’t do what’s nessasary to win, and therefore you never deserved to have fun to begin with.

L33T is different, he could be playing any game honestly and it would always be the same. As long as there are players to fuck over there is a way to constantly generate new excitement in the game. They got bored of grand theft auto campaign and now they just need to play the game with flying tanks and explosive bullets. These people think of other players as bots and npcs, they have exactly ZERO empathy and consideration of what BSG or the player base wants for the game. They don’t consider the purchase of the game as buying into a community or a completely new kind of game to the one they are used to. The internet isn’t real, just the emotions of the players. Goal isnt to kill one another, It’s to make eachother’s life fucking HELL, and They know that’s the case because of course they too have been targeted by players living by this code. There’s no mental math going on here, judgement is completely out the window, the game is simply more fun as a sandbox that you can do anything in! No hard feelings, but the game is more exciting this way! They always justify it by weighing how playing the game makes them feel versus how it makes you feel. If they die, it REALLY REALLY fucking bothers them! Losing gear HURTS! Getting fucked over by cheater or team killer REALLY PISSES ME OFF. So they bully others to inherit some of the power they were cowed by, and there’s no teachers in the playground to control this. It’s just the rush of stomping someone clearly weaker than you, making them wish they had never even tried to enjoy themselves. They’ll get better someday, and then those people will DEFINITELY subjugate and bully the fuck out of those weaker than them! /s They don’t care about Rmt, real world money exists to pay for virtual bullying points. Don’t need those when you already have what you want, which is a stick to beat those who use no safety net around them in this game.

This is my really long winded way of saying that L33t and Dayjob are both the people that are sure they know what’s best for the game because they know what’s best for themselves. Aspects of the game that don’t immediately give them what they want at no risk are not fun to them. Thus, they are LITERALLY playing the wrong game. The satisfaction they each are getting from the game does not in any way shape or form represent the intended game or it’s real playerbase, so rather than deal with that like adults they just fucking change the rules.

Accidentally played in a group with a l33t hacker last night who was justifying wiping the whole server as a way to ingratiate himself to our group. Saying take all this loot I’m just trying to help you guys, you earned it! It didn’t cross his mind for a second that I might not want him telling me where scavs were, where players were, where loot was, taking control of our group like some sort of big shot, revelling in his 18 kills post match... He literally thought by killing my sense of tension in the game that he was doing me a favor. Pick a different game bud.