Shoreline in Tarkov - What Makes It So Detested by Players?

(Intro)

Shoreline is one of the defining maps of the mid-game for EFT. It sits nicely next to Interchange as the two maps that really open up to you once you begin acquiring quests from Peacekeeper and Ragman, respectively. And although the other traders will also provide things for you to do on Shoreline specifically, it’s really Peacekeeper who will send you there again and again; back-to-back. And because of this consistency with going back to the map, players can sometimes feel and overwhelming sense of dread when it comes to completing quests to get off the map. But those negative feelings towards Shoreline go much further than that. Just the structure and layout of the map itself proves to be quite challenging as well as annoying for many. But why? What about Shoreline has ground the gears of so many players for so many years? Today, we will be talking about Shoreline’s design, the different landmarks across it, how it’s evolved over the years and why it’s up there with a map like Lighthouse that have people detest it so much.

(Shoreline’s Typography evolution)

Shoreline has been through a lot over the years. From being a small section that was worse than Woods, to getting a full update in regards to how you move and navigate the more elevated areas, this map has definitely grown up more so than others. Which has been a breath of fresh air. I didn’t play Shoreline when it was tiny; at least for myself the map already had the resort at the very least but not much beyond that when I started playing. Because fun fact, the resort was actually not there when Shoreline was first playable. It took a couple of expansions before that section of the map was added. But excluding the points on interests around the map, it’s the landscape across Shoreline that has changed the most. The typography of the map; how you navigate around certain hills and cliffs has evolved so much over the years. It used to take a lot of effort and stamina to climb the rocks that surrounded the resort. But nowadays, it’s much easier to work your way up to the perimeter of the resort. But even with these improvements, people still find it troublesome to play around the areas of elevation. The sheer size of the map also lends to some of the frustration that can be felt. It takes a very… very long time to work your way across Shoreline. And when you have to get from side to the other, unless you make a b-line to that destination or have stimulants on you to help with the process, it really wears you out, even if you don’t come across any PMCs or scavs.

(There are no Scavs...)

Speaking of scavs, that’s been one of Shoreline’s most egregious problems for so many years; the sheer lack of consistent scavs across most of the map. Yes, they do spawn at all of the points of interest spread throughout the Shoreline, but with how much dead space there is in between those points, you’d think on some of the trails or hidden on the apex of hills there would be some AI skulking around waiting to ambush you. It would make sense too; for having so many places where AI can spawn, it feels ridiculous sometimes how little they are actually around. Combine that with having to kill almost forty scavs just for Peacekeeper through most of his questlines, and when those moments occur where the map feels like a desolate wasteland, it can be infuriating having to constantly need to reset and try again. Now don’t get me wrong, you can get lucky and in one raid get a quest like Spa Tour – Part One done in a single raid. But again, with how big the map itself is, this should just be more common than it already is. Nothing sucks more than looking for scavs for a quest and being unable to find them. It really feels like sometimes EFT goes out of its way to throttle the amount of scavs on maps sometimes, which is something we talked about a while ago in a previous video. When you don’t need them, you run into hordes, and when you do there is little to be found.

(We are on Shoreline for so long)

Another point of contention for many is how often you will come back to Shoreline once you start getting quests to do there. The pacing of this map feels off; once Peacekeeper starts sending you there, with the couple of exceptions he has you going somewhere else, almost all of his quests are only on this map. And they are back-to-back from one another. It isn’t spread out evenly like other maps are. Something like Customs or Woods has you initially going there, but then coming back to it later. Maybe perhaps it’s because you should be using Ragman is a kind of break when you get sick of Shoreline, or any other map really. Because he is pretty much in the same boat as Peacekeeper. He is pretty much the only guy that asks you to go to Interchange. And yet for some reason, maybe this is hypocritical of me to say, that feels fine to me. To be fair, the Interchange arc in Tarkov isn’t as long as Shoreline or any map for that matter. It might technically be the map you need to spend the least amount of time on. I could be wrong, but over the years, places like Reserve, Lighthouse and Streets have gotten so many quests that you will spend an inordinate amount of time on those maps. Maybe it’s also because he has several quests where you just need to hand in items; meaning if you already have them, you can simply breeze through a chunk of his quests on offer, I’m not too sure. It could also be that Interchange when compared to Shoreline, is much smaller and you can navigate your way around the mall much easier. It won’t take you half the raid to simply extract off it, or you can stay until the last five minutes and even then, running to either Emercom or the Railway from inside the mall is easy enough. The sheer time commitment to Shoreline is something that can’t be understated; unless you die off the spawn which can happen a lot if you spawn by the road to Customs or tunnel extract, you may find yourself spending easily over twenty minutes on Shoreline doing very little other than walking and running. Now granted, Shoreline has some of the best unexpected moments where you come across another player in the most random locations. It can be really fun when that does happen because the map allows for so many different ways of engaging with one another. There’s a lot of counter-play, flanking, repositioning; it’s genuinely good fun when you are able to fight other players in unexpected locations. Obviously, the flagship location on the map, the Resort is fun too. But the audio prevents it from being one of the greatest PvP locations in the game. When you are outside on a random hill, and someone spots you, your options to try and get the better of them are surpassingly high.

(Nowadays, it’s better, but still)

With all this talking about how bad Shoreline was and sometimes can be, I do need to bring up the relatively recent revision BSG did to pretty much the entire map. I mentioned it briefly early on, but they completely reworked the entire typography of the map and how it feels to simply walk around Shoreline. Places like the weather station, and climbing up the resort are so much better. Combine that with the new little FOB area with the shooting range, the new car extract, general ease of maneuverability around the old chunks of Shoreline, and simply walking around does feel better than what it was before. Having more extracts on the map is also a good thing; but even then, there are a temporary solution to a permanent problem; being that Shoreline is just too damn big. It's better; way better than older versions of Shoreline, but I question whether we will ever get to a point where people don’t hate playing on this map. Some simple solutions would be just more scavs, maybe some small little huts or houses in between the main traffic points on the map, and it could play so much better. Maybe better pacing for the quests too so you aren’t going there three, four, or even five times in a row for a single item and then immediately extracting. That would help too.

(Outro)

Shoreline is such a complicated map to enjoy. When everything works out, you get some quests done, engage in a little PvP and manage to survive, it’s such an exhilarating experience. But when things are rough and you have died multiple times doing on quest, it can be some of the most miserable experiences to have in EFT, rivaling Lighthouse in terms of sheer frustration and lack of fun. Dying on any map multiple times in a row, sucks in general, but it’s a special kind of despair when it happens to be on Shoreline. So, to answer the question posed at the start of the video; is Shoreline a bad map in general? No. Are there problems with it that make it difficult to enjoy? Absolutely. Could some of the problems be resolved to make the experience better? Yes, of course. Personally speaking, I like the idea of Shoreline. But there have been miserable moments from memory, that give me a chill down my spine thinking about how long I have been stuck on this map in the past. I want to like it more so badly; I remember the first time ever going into the resort, not having a clue what was going on, and just slowly clearing room after room hoping there wasn’t someone in the there with me. That stress and tension is something that can’t be replicated ever again because everything about the map and EFT was still so alien to me. That lives rent free in my head. And it’s why I hope that maybe one day with a little extra polish Shoreline can turn into a map that everyone can look back on fondly. 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 Shoreline, whether or not you hate it, what could be done to improve it and be sure to subscribe for more videos about the different locations in EFT that are better or worse for a wide variety of reasons. I hope to see you in future ones.