Continuous Healing in Tarkov – The Small, Silent Victories

(Intro)

The medical system in Tarkov can be a complex beast when you first start off. Knowing which items do what and when to use them is something you will slowly learn overtime. But a common complaint from many players was the unnecessary need to constantly cancel healing animations when multiple body parts need to be healed. And to be fair, after years and years of having to do this, even though I have the muscle memory down start a heal, cancel it and then heal again, it’s something we didn’t need to be doing. Luckily, it finally seems like BSG agreed and with patch 0.16 added a feature that now allows players to only have to press their heal button once and the medical kit will simply heal them until they hit their maximum HP value, or the kit runs out of uses. Whichever comes first. In the grand scheme of things, this is a small change compared to things like new guns, equipment, major mechanics, events or map alterations. But even the smallest of changes can have massive implications on the game if done correctly. Fortunately for the community, it was implemented correctly, if a little weird looking. But today, let’s go over the continuous healing mechanic, how it works, why it’s so impactful and why little things like this can be such a nice quality of life improvement for the game as a whole.

(Easy to initiate, easier to use)

Continuous healing actually starts turned off by default which I find kind of funny. I’m trying to think of a scenario where you actually wouldn’t want it active but I’m having a hard time thinking of one. But to start, this is a setting you need to manually activate to get the full benefits from. In the settings under the game tab there is a checkbox for continuous healing. Just check that box an hit save. Now, whenever you have HP lost from multiple body parts or enough from one part that requires multiple uses of a healing kit, all you need to do now is press the heal button once and your PMC will simply keep using the kit. No more canceling with mouse one, no more worrying about chip damage not being taken care of. All of that gone with the press of a single button. Interestingly enough, continuous healing actually has a priority system for which body part it will heal first. And also, what status ailments need the most attention. The order goes like this: 1. Body parts with a heavy bleed. 2. Parts with a light bleed. 3. Parts with a fracture. 4. Body part with least amount of HP. 5. Your head. And 6. Your thorax. But you’d think something so trivial would fall kind of on death ears. But on the contrary; it’s changes like these that make me so happy when they do finally get added. It’s something we’ve complained about for so many years. How many fights could’ve been won if we just had the ability to heal without stopping. Or how many limbs we could’ve saved. It lowers the amount of menus and clicks that need to happen to keep yourself alive. And if any system in the game should be streamlined and optimized to the highest degree possible, it’s the one that keeps you alive and in the fight.

(The unsung hero)

Across the entirety of the changes in this patch, it was one of the smaller ones. But don’t think that it’s not as useful, important or impactful. A lot of the times, changes that just make the game better to play kind of go unsung. They are simply added, mentioned in the patch notes and you start using them. You might actively mention something like continuous healing saving your life once or twice but once the novelty wears off, you almost forget it’s in the game. And while that’s not a bad thing, it goes to show how important changes like these are. Where you can unconsciously use them in your day to day play and they just work. That’s important too; having things like this be added and not messed around with afterwards because it wasn’t working as intended or was only implemented fifty percent of the way. Continuous healing was added into the game, it works as intended and you even have the option to either use it or not. It doesn’t really get any better than that. Combine that with the scroll healing that was added last year or so and it makes keeping your PMC or scav topped up in the right places much more manageable in a pinch. Of course, you need to remember to use these mechanics, but if you do, it’s remarkable how much of a direct impact they can have on your gameplay.

(The general clumsiness of EFT menuing)

This one mechanic and implementation really does highlight how obtuse and layered Tarkov can be with its menus. Both at the main screen and while in raid. I mean for years we had to press two different buttons to get to the trader menu instead of what it is now where you press it once and can just browse between each of them. Since the beginning of the game that’s how it used to work. Looting bodies and items is just more menus. It’s not a bad thing by any means, tons of games have you using all types of menus to move items while in game. Whether it’s a survival game, battle royale or extraction shooter, it comes with the territory of these genres. But you don’t realize how much time you spend staring at screens with little squares on them until you sit down and think about it for a moment. And in Tarkov’s particular case, speaking only for myself, before continuous healing was added I still found myself opening my menu and dragging healing items to where I wanted them to prioritize. I know I’m not the only one that did this but I’m curious if people still do. Either way, we do a lot of menu work in this game. More so whilst you are in raid doing what you need to do. But a surprising amount of that is for the specific purpose of healing. And luckily, that is no longer the case should you opt into this. I’m glad it’s an option too; it means if you actually prefer the old method for healing you can still use it. Or you can try the continuous healing and see if you like it. I really enjoy the change. Again, even if the animation does look a little weird. But the more annoying quirk with healing that’s been around for I think two patches now is the unusual delay where your hands are busy after finishing or even canceling a heal. It doesn’t feel as snappy and responsive as it used to. And now that has also bled over onto Arena which for a while didn’t have that problem. I can’t tell if it was an intentional change or something that just got adjusted with the patch, but it’s really annoying. Baiting other players with healing is riskier now because the cancel isn’t instantaneous. And I’ve paid the price because of that fact several times now. Hopefully it’s something that not only BSG is aware of but fixes if they see it as a problem. We don’t know if this is how they want it or not, but my fingers are certainly crossed they don’t.

(Outro)

Continuous healing is one of those changes that you breathe a sigh of relief knowing it’s in the game, use it and don’t think about it much more after that. And it’s those very changes that can sometimes be the most important. The silent heroes listed on a page of patch notes. It’s always appreciated when things the community at large asks for get added. Better late than never is the appropriate idiom that comes to mind. I’m glad it’s in the game, I actively enjoy using it and I hope the delay after canceling a heal gets fixed. That’s pretty much it. Give it it a try if you haven’t already. You probably won’t go back to the old system once you do. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know down in the comment section below your thoughts on continuous healing, small changes like this one being added so late into the game and be sure to subscribe for more videos about the little things in games that truly do matter, regardless of when they’re added. I hope to see you on future ones.