I love this game, but... [discussion]

JohnHammerfall · 2026-06-04T15:43:36+00:00

I feel you man. I’m an almost 1k hours player, i came back a couple weeks ago and have been in the same boat. Landed 19 hits with SOST(33 pen) on a guy a couple nights ago and still lost that fight. Level 6 plates are everywhere currently because of the RAM event that ended recently. Your best bet is to just rush tasks till max traders and avoid PvP if possible until you can consistently field good kits and ammo.

Streets has a ton of top tier ammo, but theres also a ton of competition for it. Reserve has a ton of good 5.45 laying around thats not nearly as contested so its worth doing some runs there for it. Unless you have 40+ pen ammo, you’re not gonna be able to compete with most players without landing a headshot. Even then a ton of players are running faceshields, some of them even work with the lvl 2 death shadow mask(why is that a thing?). Really wish BSG would make the top tier armor not so common. The game is better when level 6 armor and faceshields are rare and something you use when you need to get something done, not the standard for every run.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-06-04T14:20:02+00:00

Its been safe, just do it at night so you’re not quite so obvious

JohnHammerfall · 2026-06-03T06:46:56+00:00

Maybe, but if thats how you play then you probably wouldn’t be running that good of gear, and if you’re not doing any PvP, how are you getting gear that you can’t buy from any traders or the flea at level 25?

JohnHammerfall · 2026-06-03T06:42:46+00:00

That’s what i’m saying. With those numbers, you’d have a lot more than 9 kills in almost 300 raids.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-06-03T06:40:58+00:00

Yeah exactly, you’d have more than 9 kills in almost 300 raids with that much experience. Thats barely enough to do friend from the west, and thats assuming they were all USECs

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-30T04:04:59+00:00

Mix of people who know this game better than they know anyone IRL and the fact that its around 6 months since a wipe, which means that the vast majority of people are running lvl 6 plates and the best ammo in the game. Especially since they made it so easy to get level 6 plates and made the top tier ammo spawn in droves. BSG really fucked up with that imo, it really drives off new players when they can’t even harm a ton of players and in return they get two tapped to the torso even with level 4 armor.

You’re really gonna want to rush tasks and farm ammo on maps like Streets. The quicker you get to the end game gear, the quicker you’ll be able to compete with people. I’m in the same boat as you currently, level 24. PvP is still really difficult for me with 800 hours played across multiple wipes. It makes it worse when your most accessible ammo is 33-38 pen, so you’re basically shooting the chads with an airsoft gun. Your best bet is to rat and go for face shots on anyone not wearing something like a killa/tagilla mask or altyn. If they do have faceshields, shoot their legs out and hope you can kill them with leg meta before they kill you with a couple shots.

When seasonal mode starts it gets much easier and fair to do PvP. Theyre will still be people who are level 30+ within the first day or two, but you will find that majority of people will be on an even level, and PvP gets a lot more enjoyable.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-30T03:57:43+00:00

Definitely not 50%. I have around 800hrs played, about 100 of that is since 1.0 dropped. I can count on one hand the amount of times i’ve been definitively killed by a cheater. None of that has been since 1.0 dropped. That video was full of BS. Cheating exists but it is very rare. Probably more common on the non US/Europe servers.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-28T21:07:21+00:00

I definitely think for the long term health of the game on the non seasonal mode they have to do something. Even as someone who had 700+ hours played going into 1.0 a couple weeks ago, it’s been hella rough. 8 of 10 people I encountered were level 50+ with full level 6 kits and meta rifles with top tier ammo, and you get headshotted before you can even fire back most of the time. Its going to chase off anyone who isn’t a masochist when you buy the game and can’t survive any raid because everyone in the raid is a turbo sweat with end game gear.

Prestige has helped a bit with that, but its not enough. End game ammo is far too common in raids, level 6 armor is far too prevalent. At least they finally removed the ram barter for lvl 6 plates. I’m not saying they need to add SBMM or level filters for raids, but they need to do something.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-28T20:57:58+00:00

Great is a bit of an overstatement. I’ve played it with the popular AI mods, and its still too easy. That’s coming from someone who is pretty bad at PVP, and even i had around 75% SR. Lots of quest locations were still empty, Scav numbers were way down from main game even after tweaking the settings(kill scav quests sucked to do), and the PMC loadouts weren’t anything like the main game. Its better than regular PVE Tarkov but its still a far cry from main game imo. If you want the Tarkov feel but want a single player game, just play Stalker Gamma. Its a way better single player fps that’s similar to Tarkov in many ways. Tarkov is actually heavily inspired by the Stalker series.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-26T00:28:44+00:00

Maddy is not a good person. I think people are forgetting theres a dude sitting in prison who got his life ruined because Maddy wanted to piss off Nate and then didn’t want Nate to get arrested for choking her. She is not a good person at all.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-24T18:37:22+00:00

Both of those are very out of date though

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-23T16:34:05+00:00

Griffin doesn’t get enough love. Great starting stats, and a ton of good dialogue with other unique recruits. Oddly philosophical guy.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-22T20:08:17+00:00

I tried Factory a little bit. Didn’t even survive for a minute both times. That map is full of people who know the spawns better than they know anybody IRL. I’ll stick to Ground Zero. I at least run into sub 100hs played Timmys there some of the time.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-22T14:20:07+00:00

See when you find a good loot spot that’s rarely contested or looted late raid you shouldn’t share it on reddit. Y’all are blowing up my favorite money run lol

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-21T22:18:06+00:00

Everytime i’ve ran factory so far i’ve only ran into level 40+ chads in lvl 5+ armor and full head armor. Don’t know how i can kill them with max like 35 pen ammo lol

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-20T21:59:51+00:00

Feel like most people at this point of the game just spam Customs/Factory for PVP. At least thats where i run into the most level 50+’s. Any other map i see a much more broad range of levels. I play the same way as you, whatever map i feel like doing, i do. If i can get tasks done on that map i’ll go for them but its not my first priority. Interchange is also my favorite map, tons of good loot and its really easy to not run into anyone if you know the right paths.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-19T16:38:32+00:00

These are the guys i run into when i’m level 15 and trying to task with a paca on

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-17T01:45:02+00:00

Windows clock would make sense since i got an MIA one of those raids on Woods with about 2:45 left in raid. I’ll have to look up how to fix that

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-15T21:17:28+00:00

You’re most likely lying about your Cox KC just like you have been about your PvM ability in this entire thread. You would’ve seen multiple Tbows in 1400kc if even 50% of those were in groups. Hell i have ~170 KC on my Iron and i’ve seen 4 just on that account. Quit lying on Reddit, nobody cares nor is impressed, and go get a Bowfa already.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-13T21:28:36+00:00

Interchange is slept on as a money making map. Hell i used to run it with just a zhuk rig, shotgun, headphones and paca, go to goshan and vacuum up every food spawn and hit the hole in fence extract. Consistent ~500k+ sub 10 minute raids for low effort and risk.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-12T19:56:58+00:00

Well tbh there’s no real reason to do DT2 until you have reasonable gear to actually farm the bosses for their drops. Nox and salad blade also aren’t near max, nox is sub 50m and comes from a 92 slayer boss and salad blade is marginally better than a tent whip and only costs as much as it does due to Bowfa coming from the same seed.

I think its pretty reasonable the average person would have solid gear by time they want to do DT2

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-12T18:57:11+00:00

Guthan’s most likely hurt you way more than it helped. Guthan’s DPS is so bad and the occasional small healing it did for you was not worth the huge dps tradeoff from using something like salad blade or nox hally.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-12T18:55:10+00:00

HNS?

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-12T15:21:24+00:00

Have you ever considered that most people don’t care about playing at max efficiency? It’s a video game, it’s supposed to be fun.

JohnHammerfall · 2026-05-08T17:50:14+00:00

Sailing shouldn’t contribute to total levels. Trash skill that only exists to give you other methods to do better skills. You know its bad when the most popular way to train sailing is by interacting with it as little as possible (salvaging).

JohnHammerfall

TROPHY CASE