Covert Movement in Tarkov Works Again

(Intro)

It finally feels like Tarkov has allowed players to be sneaky in combat once more. For the longest time, players had major difficulties with being sneaky in raid; finding opportunities to ambush a player or even group of players without being heard from a mile away. There have been a lot of changes culminating in this style of play feeling viable once more. Funnily enough, none of them directly targeting covert movement the soft skill. But a lot of other changes around audio and how players move. From headsets sounding and functioning differently, to a new audio system that is now universal across all players, after what has felt like years of not being able to be quiet when you want to be, there is now reason and advantage to sometimes slowing down and just listening to what’s around you. And I don’t even mean in the sense of holding out in a single location waiting for someone to walk into you. I am talking about aggressively being quiet, and taking out other players before they ever even knew you were there. Covert movement is back in full force; it’s been a long time coming.

(The changes that got us here)

Patch 0.16 had a surprising number of changes directly tied to the game's audio, how it works (or doesn’t usually), new systems being added and taken away, as well as other changes that all culminate in the game sounding more different than it really ever has since the first introduced binaural audio years ago. As someone who never did end up using binaural audio after the first day because it was too weird for me, audio has always been such a touchy subject in EFT’s life. Some people say it’s basically never worked properly, and others say they barely have any issues with it. Speaking from personal experience, I might sound like a lunatic here, but audio in Tarkov for me has always been... okay. Never stellar, but nothing that’s so bad it gets me killed on more than one occasion in any given day.

However, with patch 0.16, man oh man has the audio been absolutely wild for me. It felt SO different compared to anytime BSG fiddled around with audio. For the first week, I was certain without a doubt they added stinger sounds into the game, like the sound a horror game plays when it tries to jump scare you. I was convinced they were in the game, only to found out later on that the sounds I mistook for stingers were just crazy instances of the new reverb system. So yeah, in general, audio got its biggest shakeup this patch. But what does this mean for being quiet, and sneaking up on other players? Well, it got a lot easier. Because other than tons of new audio queues occurring in a raid that will catch people off guard, the general sound of footsteps has been reduced from what I can tell (this is bro science please don’t scorch me in the comments). But the main change was to the headsets in the game. For a long time, the general consensus was that they were too strong and needed to be toned down by a significant margin. And to our surprise, BSG delivered on that. The range of how far audio can be picked up has been reduced across the board for all headsets in-game. This is actually a massive change because it means for example, that people in dorms won’t hear you as you approach from the back of three story. If I recall correctly, when the ComTac IVs were the best headset in the game, they could hear a running PMC from about one-hundred meters away which is insane. But now, even with new headsets like the ComTac Vs and VIs, their max hearing range for sprinting is sixty-one meters. But their minimum crouch walking distance is fourteen meters; that is almost touching distance in the grand scheme of things. Being quiet in this game, actually works now because of these changes. It may still be a little iffy on the scavs in the game, but for players it can absolutely work.

(Implication and execution)

This revival of an entire style of playing Tarkov has some implications behind it, but they are generally good across the board. For years, being able to be quiet (not silent) has been tricky because the ranges at which people could hear was kind of absurd. Headsets were too strong, and people made too much noise even when they are in the quietest stance possible. But now, both of these problems have been adjusted, so much so that now it feels incredibly satisfying to use slow walking or crouching aggressively; Walking up a flight of stairs, around a corner, or into a new position that is more advantageous than your previous location. People are less prone in this patch to react to the slightest sound, and in general it’s just harder to hear when people are actively trying to be quiet. Which is how it always should’ve been. I remember years and years ago I made a video talking about covert movement and how awful it felt to try and utilize that skill and style of play. But having it back, and work to an alarming degree is so cool. Tarkov has always been seen as a hold down your “W” key kind of game. With how bad the net code is, being the one making things happen, starting fights, being proactive instead of reactive, the game kind of always benefitted the player who was the aggressor in fights.

It’s why so many people leaned into that style and stuck with for so much time. But again, we can finally switch to a more covert and lurking in the shadow's kind of gameplay which, hey every once in a while, is good to see and use. The bright side to being sneaky is you can strike when the opportunity is at its most palpable. People are in their inventories looting, organizing, healing, whatever they might be doing. The one thing they didn’t account for was you in the other room ready to sprint up to them and take them down. This kind of instant chaos is especially useful when you come across a group of PMCs. Something like a two, three, or even four-man team will most certainly have moments where their guard is down. And that’s when being quiet is the deadliest. Because once you start, their communication will be going crazy trying to figure out what is happening. Whereas you, the solo player, can just focus on taking each member of that team out. One at a time. Of course, being sneaky doesn’t always work.

(The trials and tribulations of being quiet)

Before patch 0.16, the toughest part about trying to be quiet was having scavs get in the way of your route. Nothing sucks more than when your plan to infiltrate a team is squandered by stupid scavs and their ability to hyper-fixate on your location from potentially hundreds of meters away. Depending on where you are, or how large the enemy group is, this can be the biggest deterrent to trying to sneak in as best you can. What can also ruin being sneaky is something that is very difficult to fully realize and that is timing. You might know someone is in dorms, so you creep into it, they sound like they are just walking around, unaware of your presence. That’s good. The difficult part is knowing when to strike. Go too early and you might catch them looking at you as you swing that corner. Wait too long and they could just leave the building, never to be seen again. In those latter cases, I suppose it isn’t the worst because hey you’re still alive. You just didn’t get to ambush that player. Which hey it happens. But knowing exactly when to switch to the offensive will take some playing in this particular style to get it down pat. Of course, the best thing to do coincidentally when you are being quiet and unsure when to attack is to listen. See if there are any obvious sound queues you can take advantage of. Healing, stitching a limb, pulling out a grenade if they suspect you might be close. There are moments that regardless of how close you are to that player, when you hear them, you need to switch immediately to the offensive. The sound of using a CMS or Surv12 kit is the easiest to understand. Give it a couple of seconds so the entire cancel animation has to play out for them, and then take their head. The more you play like this, the better you will get at it, like anything in life. If you want to do it, you will. And you will quickly adapt and get better.

(Outro)

Covert movement and being sneaky in Tarkov had been lost for years. And while I and many others are happy to be able to play like this again, it will never truly beat holding down your run key at someone and getting them with their pants down. But the general balance of Tarkov is always better when there is more than one answer to a problem. Whether it’s guns, ammo, maps, it even trickles down to playstyle. And being able to be sneaky, use covert movement and get the jump on unsuspecting players is a very satisfying gameplay loop that I hope more players begin to employ now that it actually works once more. 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 covert movement, whether or not you have been using it this wipe and be sure to subscribe for more videos about the unique and interesting ways of engaging with EFT that have basically been brought back from the dead. I hope to see you in future ones.