Is the Hideout Worth Upgrading in Hardcore Tarkov?

(Intro)

A lot of Tarkov’s elements and mechanics have changed with this hardcore wipe. One of which being the hideout. And many would argue it’s genuinely just worse off. While we no longer need found in raid items to count for the module installations and upgrades, to compromise for that BSG has made leveling up the hideout that much harder by increasing how much we need to collect. That alone is a fair trade; I use that word loosely. The things we find now don’t need a survival status to be useful, and we can still apply them to the hideout should we get sent back to our stash prematurely. But now, even after about a week of playing, I don’t even have all my modules installed to level one. It’s been a very slow process even just getting the foundation of the hideout setup. On top of that I am quickly running out of room because I have so many items I may or may not need depending on whether I keep going with the hideout or not, which is a valid question people are probably asking themselves. Which has gotten me thinking: is it even worth it to invest into the hideout this wipe? There’s more to it than just needing more items, so let’s break it down and have a conversation about the hideout within the context of this wipe and what it might look like when 1.0 releases later this year.

(More items, more problems)

The first major hurdle to tackle this wipe is that we now need about twice as many items per module to get the going. Which doesn’t sound too bad, until you realize the number of hoses, bolts, screws, and lightbulbs just jumped up an insane amount. Just for water collector level one, we now need eight hoses. Which, sure we can craft, but that just means we need to either find more items in the world and boof them in our container or spend a ton of time and resources crafting them. And as far as I can tell, the amount you make when you craft items hasn’t been brought up either, meaning we are now in a complete deficit. Which I understand was the point given the context of a hardcore wipe. However, this is maybe one element that I simply don’t agree with. Difficult and tedious are two different adjectives that can be used to describe different parts of this hardcore wipe. No flea market? That’s more difficult. Transit points being the only way to get around for the first two days? That was also difficult. But needing to sink more items into the hideout isn’t difficult, that is tedious. Sure, looting is an important part of the EFT gameplay loop; going in, questing, fighting other players. But the third pillar of the game has always been looting. Not just other bodies, but the world around you as well. We’ve all had those moments where we go into a raid with a gameplan, and eventually while looting find something that makes our neurons activate in our brain and our entire plan to be thrown out the window. Now, the only thing that matters is survival. Which begs the question: is it even worth it this go around to work on the hideout?

(How much do you actually use the hideout?)

A serious question you have to ask yourself this wipe is, how much do you plan on using the hideout? Depending on that answer alone, it should dictate how you manage your inventory and whether or not you hold onto barter items. How much do you plan to craft, now that items for resale are less lucrative than they previously were? How much space are you willing to lose in your stash to hideout items? I’ve already lost about a third of my stash and that’s with no junk box, because even those got more expensive, climbing up to almost two million rubles. Money is tight enough in the game as is, but with it being harder to come by in general, who’s willing to dump that much money into something that stores items you may not use for their intended purpose? Again, this is more of an example of layers of tedium; nothing about the hideout changes makes the game harder because the hideout was already an optional mechanic you don’t need to engage with to be successful. It's something else for you to do with your time. If you’re a scav main, it might be worth engaging with, but then scav timers are much longer meaning those people are going to struggle to get their hideout up and running. But at the same time, who wants to dump eight plus hoses into water collector, or I’m guessing twenty plus lightbulbs into illumination. And what’s worse, is that there is less to craft in the hideout as a whole.

(You’re investing more, for less)

BSG removed some of the crafts that were previously there, specifically, some of the more powerful ammo crafts from the workbench. Now, for some people, this will not be felt, nor would you even know they were removed unless you got to a point where you had access to them in the past. Many of the good crafts in the game were locked behind late game quests. So, if you wanted the ability to make the good stuff, you had to work for it. But now with their complete removal, combined with additional resources needed to build and upgrade, we as players are working harder for less. Ignoring the obvious allegory for what’s going on in the real world right now, it just feels like the wrong approach for how this all should’ve been handled. There should’ve been a ton of basic crafts for the items people use in pretty much every raid. How we are able to craft a variety of AK platforms, but not a single craft for an M4 is wild to me. The timers have also been just an awful mechanic as a whole; it feels like trashy mobile game shenanigans. If we must have timers, they shouldn’t be longer than someone starting a craft, doing a quick scav run and then by the time they come back, that craft should be complete. The hideout still has so much potential, but it’s being marred by atrocious decisions that makes it so toxic to engage with that it’s not even worth it at all. And now, I am seriously considering not using it at all with how many items we need to keep around. It’s just... not worth it, at least to me.

(Outro)

Hardcore has a mix of changes that are both making the game more challenging but still rewarding, but also more tedious and unfun at the same time. The hideout changes while removing the found in raid requirement is nice, the sheer volume of items you need for even the level one module is too high. I figured it might’ve been a ten of fifteen percent increase, but it’s upwards of fifty depending on the module. It’s way too high; how are standard account players supposed to even function? They are so limited on stash space it’s ridiculous. It goes beyond a casual player problem; it’s just a storage problem. What would’ve saved this is of course, allowing players to deposit items into the module they want to upgrade, as they find them. That way, the storage problem goes away and just like with our quests we can visually see and feel the progression go along as we get closer and closer to meeting the requirements to upgrade that module, we’ve spent the last week working on. And this has always been the hideouts number one issue from day one. Maybe with some feedback we can have the number of items reduced somewhat, but unless that happens, I got a decent number of rubles sitting in my stash if I liquidate all my barter items. Hmmm... 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 the hideout in its current form, what would you do to make it not as toxic to engage with and be sure to subscribe for more videos about all the hardcore wipe changes, the good, the bad, and the downright unhinged. I hope to see you in future ones.