Ref is Still Broken in Hardcore Tarkov

(Intro)

Ref has been a trader in the game for a while now. And before this wipe, he was already considered to be an arguably too powerful dealer within the world of EFT. Tons of fully modified weapons, the best ammunitions in the game, all being sold with GP coins instead of rubles. Even if you didn’t have him leveled up all the way to four, at three or even two, he still provided tons of equipment for you to use that can give you a fighting chance against other players. And with the release of this hardcore wipe, we all thought surely, surely, he would get nerfed to a point where people might dabble with his wares, but it doesn’t feel necessary in order to be successful. Well… he was nerfed, technically. But his inventory has been revealed and man, Ref is still easily the best trader in the game. His existence breaks the rules of Tarkov, and combined with this being a hardcore wipe, he ruins it completely.

(Cross integration shouldn’t be a thing)

You still unlock ref through a Skier quest where you put down the posters on Customs. Pretty easy, but now you need to be level twenty before you can accept that quest, which means you do need to play a fair bit of the game to unlock that quest. But to me, this is a band aid fix; very similar to how the level to unlock the flea market was moved all over the place during the years it was the most egregious. This guy could be unlocked at level twenty-five or thirty; it doesn’t matter. Ref gives you instant and easy access to weapons with attachments that we shouldn’t have. Armor and helmets that break the pacing of this wipe that was made very much apparent to be slowed down so people could enjoy the early game for much longer. Now, I understand the elephant in the room: you need to own and play arena for him to be powerful. Okay, so? If you own Edge of Darkness of higher, you own Arena. And there is nothing stopping you from warming up with arena for a game or two before you switch over to EFT and run some raids. A free for all game takes ten minutes to complete; if you’re lucky, you might have a daily or weekly you can work on, netting you more money coins and experience that can all be transferred over to the main game. It’s become very apparent that BSG is really trying to incentivize players to engage with Arena, I get it; they made this bonus game for people to play that gives you the best part of Tarkov for many players without the sting of losing gear sets all day. There is an inherent benefit for allowing players to engage in PvP freely. Tarkov, when it’s working correctly, has some fantastic moment to moment gunplay that a lot of other shooters can’t replicate. And arena creates those moments freely and without worry. But the entire idea of cross pollination between the two games is a mess and will never be balanced correctly. Under normal wipe circumstances, this could be overlooked; people would already be at endgame a week into the wipe, so having this kind of gear for those who invest some time into arena would honestly be evening up the playing field. But during a hardcore wipe, I don’t care how you try to balance Ref; this dude is toxic for the game right now.

(He's still strong after the nerfs)

They have had to nerf Ref not once, but twice this wipe to get the cost of his gear to an appropriate level. The first time was within the first two days of the wipe, and the second time was after the first week. I don’t understand why it was so difficult to set his prices to be around what they are now; hundreds of GP coins for anything in his inventory. And I still think it’s not enough. And again, it’s GP coins; they are not hard to get your hands on. Arena quests will supply you with more than enough to keep you satiated in EFT. Combine that with new event quests in Arena for the upcoming tournament to also incentivize players, and you have a mess of balance ready to rear its ugly head in about a week or so. The items he sells should’ve always been hundreds of GP coins; an amount that really makes you sit at his inventory and debate on what you would like to purchase. What also makes this worse, is that if you play arena and have been leveling up the battle pass, you will have more available options for gear to the point you won’t run out of options in a single reset. Tons of different armors, armored rigs, and the like all for reasonably priced coins. Level four and even five armors at the higher tiers of Ref. Granted, we only have the first two levels and we’re not sure if we will see levels three and four later. But just these two alone is enough to break the entire balance of the game. It sucks.

(The implications of his existence)

Maybe I’m being a bit pedantic and over the top with Ref. He’s just a trader in Tarkov. You have to play arena and not work on your quests in order to him to be powerful. It’s really not a big deal. Maybe, but I truly don’t think I am being hyperbolic with this guy. It’s been proven that you can easily play Tarkov proper and be successful with just Ref by himself. Last wipe, everyone was in agreement that Ref was busted beyond belief. All his items were stupid strong, the ammo along was enough to break the balance of the game. Most people had access to M61, BP, and the like which for super late game Tarkov was fine. But even just his basic supplies at levels one and two, he has an SR-25 with a Burris on it for seventy-one GP coins. That thing should be two hundred and fifty coins, minimum. It has parts you can’t get from the other traders until level thirty plus. Part of me wants to believe this was all just not thought out well enough. That by putting him at level twenty it should offset and potential balancing issues. But we only have three traders right now that can be level two. And their prices are high enough that building up a weapon is going to be costly. But part of me also thinks this is them just trying to shoehorn players into Arena; largely because there is a tournament happening soon, so it gives them an excuse to promote the game and offer extra rewards for players. But it must not be doing so hot if they are making it this obvious. Ref, in his current form is a disaster in the game; fundamentally ruining the entire point of the hardcore wipe by himself. It’s bad enough many of the hardcore adjustments have been either dialed back to the point they have no impact or were simply removed without even trying to figure out an alternate solution, but Ref is the icing on this shit cake that is the hardcore wipe. In a week or two, we will basically be back to how EFT was operating before this wipe, with some extra restrictions to try and salvage the feeling. Again, I feel like I’m being overly dramatic, but if you’re going to have everyone engage with a hardcore wipe, don’t let the guy that ruins the balance of the game into the fray, especially a week after the reset. Give it like a month of something before he ruins the fun.

(Outro)

If you can’t tell by now, I hate Ref. I hate his existence in the game and how he operates. And I used the guy a ton last wipe. Because you had to. When everyone else is using best in slot ammo to one tap you, sure you can try and use worse ammo, but you are simply going to get rolled. I’m all for funky gun builds that aren’t meta and trying to make silly builds work. It's part of the charm, when it comes to EFT. There is a level of creativity and freedom that not many other games replicate. But the ammo is something that is sadly non-negotiable if you want to stand a chance. We don’t know what his other two levels of gear will look like; hell, he might only get the two we currently have. But if they allow all four levels and he still has the insane ammos on him, the games entire balance is dead, and it’s going to suck when everyone migrates over to arena and power levels him so they can compete. Man, we were so close to greatness with this hardcore wipe. So close to it feeling like a proper return to form in the modern day. Everyone in the game, struggling to get their quests done, using relatively tame gear sets trying to make it work. And now it feels like we’re back at square one. I’m honestly just disappointed by how this has all gone down as someone that was excited to see what a hardcore experience was going to look like. 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 Ref as a trader, should he be included in EF proper and be sure to subscribe for more videos about the ass backwards mentality when it comes to creating a cool wipe experience like never before, only to ruin it a week in because your other game is sucking so much you need to give players a reason to play it. I hope to see you in future ones.