Escape from Tarkov – Impactful changes to key features

After a few turbulent weeks including a boiling cheater discussion, the developers of Escape from Tarkov are finally putting their money where their mouth is.

In the last few days, there have been some very significant changes that affect both the topics of cheaters and real money trading, but also other areas of the game.

No more identifying?

Until now, the restart to a new wipe in Escape from Tarkov also consisted of identifying as many items as possible as soon as possible. To do this, you had to either click on the item with the middle mouse button or right-click on it and select the “Identify” option to examine it more closely.
Unidentified items could be recognized worse in the raid and the correct use of weapons is partially limited.

The process took only 1-2 seconds, but with the mass of items it could be rather exhausting, especially at the beginning.

This should be over now, because most items will be already known from now on and don’t have to be identified anymore. Which items are not affected by this is not yet clear.

No more player bartering

Until now, it was possible to trade items for other items on the flea market. On the one hand, this was used for practices that were difficult to see through, where – due to the use of different currencies or item stacks, for example – it was often difficult to assess whether the offer was fair.
The more important point, however, was probably real money trading (RMT), for which this exchange feature was also used.

The exchange for items is now also history – only at merchants can now still be exchanged for items.
In the flea market, everything is now only available for cash.

More possibilities in the flea market

At the same time, the flea market fees for many items have been adjusted – for the benefit of the players. It now costs significantly less to put many items on the flea market.

In addition, the number of possible offers that can be set per flea market reputation level has been increased.

LED-X Changes & Market Change

The developers have also changed the probability of finding a LED-X in a raid – as well as the number of available THICC containers at the merchants, which can be traded.

This circumstance led to a price crash for LED-X, however, other items needed for this exchange are more in demand and have risen in price.

Items that have now risen in price significantly and are experiencing increased demand as well as further, temporary price increases include:

• Defibrilator
• Ibuprofen
• Toothpaste
• Moonshine
• Vodka
• Bottle of Dan Jackiel Whiskey

So if you find or can craft any of these items in the raid now, it might be significantly more worthwhile than before at this time.

Player scavs spawn later now

Since the recent wipe, many players have noticed that they started some raids as a scav with a lot of time remaining. This change has now been reversed by the developers.

You should now tend to encounter player scavs much later in your rounds.

Boss changes

The spawn chance of almost all boss enemies in Escape from Tarkov has been significantly increased, including the chance of Reshala spawning (to about 30%) and Cultists spawning (to about 10%). In addition, the boss trio (Big Pipe, Deadeye and Knight) spawns with a chance of about 20%.

At the same time, some changes have been made to the reaction time of the bosses. So there is a time between the moment you target bosses and their reaction, which used to be relatively short. This time has now been increased so that the bosses react less quickly, effectively making them slightly easier targets, if you can say that about a scav boss.

Quest adjustments

Also adjusted were some of the quests in the game, some in terms of their requirements and others in terms of their rewards.

• Shooter Born in Heaven – The distance for the shots has been changed to 100m.
• No Place for Renegades – Experience points increased from 8,500 to 15,300.
• Best Job in the World – The goal is now to take out all enemies, not just scavs.
• Test Drive. Part 2 – Experience points increased from 20,000 to 28,000.
• Decontamination Service – experience points increased from 7,400 to 30,500.
• Friend From the West. Part 1 – Experience points increased from 7,400 to 10,000.
• Long Road – Experience points increased from 8,300 to 15,300.
• Humanitarian Supplies – Experience points increased from 6,700 to 11,500.
• Overpopulation – Experience points increased from 8,500 to 12,000.
• Worst Job in the World – The goal is now to eliminate all enemies, not just scavs.
• Textile. Part 1 – Now grants 32,000 experience points (previously: 0).
• Textile. Part 2 – Now grants 34.800 experience points (before: 0)
• The Huntsman Path. Secured Perimeter – Experience points increased from 5,900 to 9,800.
• The Huntsman Path. Evil Watchman – Experience points increased from 6,000 to 10,000.

Thousands of cheaters banned

Since the big discussion about the cheater problem of Escape from Tarkov, Battlestate Games publishes the lists of banned hackers in regular intervals. These often contain hundreds to thousands of names that have been banned recently.

So the fight against cheaters seems to be picking up – although it is unclear whether this information is simply made public for more transparency, or the recent discussion has led to more movement – or both.