Yes, I haven’t posted anything in nearly four years. But we can talk about that later.
I have recently gotten into Escape from Tarkov, and I watched probably the best “real talk” beginner advice video yesterday. And believe me, I’ve watched a lot of them, because I’m bad at this game. I’m going to show you the TL;DR version below the link, along with a schedule I’ve ironed out that I will be following over the next advice to put this training to the test to see if it really, actually works.
Now, to break it down briefly for everyone (though I recommend checking out the entire thing at some point), here are the basics:
To Get Gud: Play Factory Offline, with a High amount of Easy Bots
Use These Training Rules:
1) Single fire only, iron sights first
2) Headshots only
3) Timing – 20m, 5m, 20m. Rinse and repeat, then 30m break, and then do a real Raid.
Next Add Variation:
AI Difficulty
Gun Game – kill each Scav with a gun looted from the Scav before. Survival is still priority though, so don’t stop and loot if it means you will die to an incoming or still active Scav.
Start doing this more times a day.
Start doing this in Online Raids
Add in Some Advanced Learning:
Active vs Passive Engagements (when to push and when to ambush)
This set up acts as Exposure Therapy for Gear Fear, but if you want to push it, consider using gear for only two raids anyway, whether you come out with it or not.
Record yourself with OBS/ShadowPlay to see your mistakes.
Now, with all of that in mind, and a few things I wanted to work on for myself, I came up with this training regimen, that I intend to follow for the next five weeks. The only part I can’t follow is the recording. I play on a potato (GTX 1650, 8 Gb RAM, external SSD), so recording while playing is not going to happen.Now, there may be some variation as I discover things while playing – like I may need to tweak difficulty or what have you, but here it is.
Oh wait, almost forgot, I’m committing to this 3x a week minimum, with more if possible:
Tarkov Training Schedule
(3 Nights Minimum)
Week 1: 4 reps Offline Factory (Easy, High) with 5min breaks between. (Last one Tagged/Cursed)
30m break
1 rep Online Raid (Goal: Dailies)
Week 2: 4 reps Offline Factory (Medium, High) with 5min breaks between. (Last one Tagged/Cursed)
30m break
1 rep Online Raid (Goal: Quest advancement)
Week 3: 4 reps Offline Factory (Hard, High) with 5min breaks between. (Last one Tagged/Cursed)
30m break
1 rep Online Raid (Goal: Level 15)
Week 4: 8 reps Offline Factory (Hard, High) with 5min breaks between. (Last with Bosses)
30m break
1 rep Online Raid (Goal: Hideout Advancement)
Week 5: 4 reps Online Factory with 5min breaks between.
30m break
1 rep Online Raid (Goal: Team Play)
I’ll do check ins every couple of days to let you know how things are going. Last but not least, I’m the best person to test out this training advice on, because I am a rat who spends more time playing inventory tetris than raiding, and because I’m now residing in the 40+ age category of life. So, if this can make me a better player, it definitely has merit for the general Tarkov population. So, embarrassing as it is, here are my starting stats. Check back later and we’ll see how I’m doing ::gulp::
Harbinger Zero 