Dissecting Tarkov's 30-Second Loop

Every video game has this idea of what’s called a 30-second loop. And of course, Tarkov is no exception. The idea of a 30-second loops is best explained as a question: “What is the most engaging way we can have the player interact with our game, within a 30-second period?” So, the idea of having someone experience the best parts of your game after half a second, that is so enjoyable that they want to keep engaging with it, is usually the goal for a lot of developers. Tarkov is no exception, but it’s a strange case for sure. Tarkov on its own is such an anomaly, that breaks a lot of the unspoken rules of modern game designs; it’s baffling how it grabbed so many people’s attention over the years. I suppose people just wanted something to really challenge them, and Dark Souls wasn’t doing it enough, or they wanted something in a first-person shooter genre. So, Tarkov is scratching that itch for many people. A game that is both challenging and rewarding with some of the highest highs and lowest lows I have personally ever experienced. I figured it would be interesting and dissect Tarkov’s moment to moment gameplay and perhaps see what is its 30-second loop, and why it’s so compelling for so many different players.

As stated before, a game’s 30-second loop is a player being able to experience most if not all the core mechanics of a game within this short period of time, and having it be so enjoyable that players continue to interact with it. So, the begs the question: what is Tarkov’s 30-second loop? What mechanics does the player interact with that are enjoyable? And after thinking about it for a little while, I narrowed it down to three core pillars that makes Tarkov so addicting and grabs people to do just one more raid. They are: combat, looting/inventory management, and the natrual progression of your character/account. They sound pretty straight forward but let’s dive into the first pillar which is combat. Since Tarkov is a first-person shooter, the gunplay, getting into fights, and just experiencing combat are of course, paramount to the game. While the engagements might not last a long time, hell you might kill your target in one shot, or die to someone in one shot, getting into situations where you are actively shooting your weapons, moving around the map, and engaging with the AI and other players is probably the most important part of Tarkov. Getting kills against AI isn’t too difficult. Sure, you might look at a scav from over 100 meters away, and they just lock onto your location and start shooting, but they rarely ever pose a consistent threat to the player. Nevertheless, taking scavs out is always fun. Plus, the EXP you get from them is a nice bonus too. Now, taking out other players can range in difficulty, Sometimes, you run into a naked player with a pistol and absolutely destroy them. And other times, you run into the biggest, thickest boy you’ve ever had the displeasure of laying your eyes on, before he kills around from around a corner behind a wall. It sucks, but it happens; and everyone who has played Tarkov can attest to this as well. Despite all our personal grievances with the game’s net code and how that negatively effects our experience, when everything is working as intended, Tarkov can have some of the most engaging, heart pumping, adrenaline spiking moments in all online shooters. The only games that have ever gotten close to those kinds of moments for myself personally, are battle royales, which makes sense given the circumstances you’re put into; pitted against 100 other players to be last man standing, and Soul’s games because the challenging bosses are so rewarding to defeat. But, in the context of online shooters, nothing even comes close to Tarkov. Killing a player/s, and trying to figure out your escape plan with 60+ kg worth of loot on you, is stressful, but in the good way. It makes you tense; you get the “gamer lean”, and you hold your breath for a moment, which feels like an eternity. And whether you get out is up to your decision making, which makes it all the sweeter when it works, and painful when it doesn’t. But combat is not the only reason why Tarkov is so repayable, it also comes down to what else you do whilst in raid, and looting/inventory management plays a big part in this loop also.

If shooting is one half of the game, then looting is the other. When you’re not actively shooting your guns, making big flanks to try and over power someone, you are just walking around the maps, finding things that you can search and see what you can scrounge for. Looting has been just as important as combat for Tarkov since its incarnation. And this goes for looting both the world, and the people that inhabit it as well. Whether those are scavs with crappy gear that you turn a blind eye to late wipe, or perhaps take because you’re down on your luck and need whatever you can get your hands on, or it’s another player, and you need to the thoughtful about what you take because you killed this PMC; you earned this gear. You should take as much as possible. Do I dump my kit? Do I try to just fit it all? What about my teammate that died in the process; should I hide his gear too? In a matter of a few seconds, all these questions just surfaced, and created some interesting situations that you need to think about, and execute accordingly. And the thing is; people across the map heard the commotion you made. And they’re coming to see what is going on. So, you need to be fast, loot what you want, and get out before you fight wave after wave of players trying to stake claim in your spoils. There’s a stress there, but it’s a good kind of stress. Where if you don’t loot fast enough, you’ll have more bodies to pile up. Which for some people is the goal; they just want as much PvP as possible, especially at this point in a wipe cycle. Loot can sometimes take a back seat, but for many even 180 days in, it’s still an integral part of the game. Loot comes in all shapes and sizes, so anything we as players can get our hands on is always considered a win. I mean I’ll take myself for an example. I spent about two solid weeks actively trying to get a LEDX. Going to many different locations where it would spawn, and having no luck finding it. Trying different maps, times of the day, bringing a swath of weapons to try and find one. That alone gave me reason to go into raid and do something other than just fight people. And luckily, I managed to find one. On the dead scav in crack house on Customs of all places. And my reaction makes it very clear that this became a stressful situation that I needed to extract from. Either way, loot is important to the gameplay hook of Tarkov. Without it, the game kind of becomes a glorified one life free for all. With loot and gear, there is a penalty for dying; you feel the loss, which makes the highs the best in online gaming, and the lows, absolutely soul crushing.

The final piece of this puzzle is progression. How you level up both your account, as wells as how your PMC evolves overtime. When you start a fresh account, your ability to perform in raids is nothing compared to what happens if you stick with it and play through an entire wipe cycle. Your soft skills get higher, you can out run and out maneuver other players, your ability to handle all variety of weapons gets better. These take a long time to level up all the way, but the dividends pay for themselves should you ever get a skill elite. Which means you unlock a bonus passive buff to that skill. Normally, the main two people talk about are strength and endurance, since those usually level the fastest. But it’s not just your PMC that gets better. As your account level goes up, you can get access to better gear from the vendors should you meet their requirements for loyalty and money spent. Higher levels mean better gear; making you more lethal and dangerous to other PMC’s. It feels very natural as well to work towards getting all the vendors to max loyalty. Account leveling eventually takes a while too, once you normally hit around level 30, things begin to slow down. But like any good shooter, leveling up is all part of the process. It gives you incentive to work for what you want. If you see a cool gun from someone else and want access to it, you can level up and making getting that weapon much more consistent. Now to be fair, level fifteen gives you access to the flea market, which in turn kind of trivializes some of the fun out of the progression. But, BSG has been dialing back slowly what we are allowed to put up for sale. It’s not the wild west of old flea market where you can buy an item from a vendor and then sell it on the flea for more money. It’s much more reserved, which is a good thing. But even the flea can help with leveling up your hideout which in turn can make acquiring items also easier. It’s this very cyclical repetition of playing, completing tasks and taking out scavs and PMCs to level up which in turn levels up the vendors which makes you scarier on the map. It all culminates together to create what many have dubbed, “The Perfect Raid”.

Nikita, the creator of Escape From Tarkov, has said in the past that the perfect raid is a story you want to tell all your friends about. It may not be the most action-packed, you may not wipe the entire lobby and walk out with 70+kg worth of loot, but things play out in such a way that a story is created. Very similar to how stories are made naturally in battle royale games. You are the catalyst for what happens. The decisions you make, how you move around the map, whether you engage other players. All hinge on your decision-making skills. You don’t have all the answers, in fact, you never do. You have no idea if someone is scoped in on you, about to take your head off. It’s good that we don’t know. There’s no radar, or mini-map feeding you information. You need to figure out yourself using clues you either see, hear, or find. Technically, you’re always on edge. Even if you’ve done this a thousand times, you are always worried that you might just fall over dead because someone had a beat on you from minute one. It’s what makes Tarkov so addicting when you initially get into it and triumph over the initial learning curve. That hurdle is rough on new players, but with enough dedication and perseverance, anyone can get the bug and really enjoy the game despite its obvious flaws. But these three pillars come together to help make Tarkov’s 30-second loop so interesting. It gets in your head; you just want to keep playing, even when things don’t go according to plan, it can still be fun albeit frustrating sometimes as well. But what do you think of Tarkov’s 30-second loop? Thank you for taking the time out of your day to watch this video, be sure to leave a comment down below and subscribe for more videos about the micro and macro parts of games that make them replayable. I hope to see you in future ones.