Tarkov Just Changed the Game

(Intro)

So, on March 4th, BSG released an update with the patch notes giving a general overview about changing their approach to how they handle weapon attachments and the stats associated with them. And with no specific examples in the notes to give players an idea of what they mean, I read those notes and didn’t think too much of them. That is, until the weekend where I went in and was just messing around with some weapon builds. And man, the changes across the board are way more noticeable than I initially was thinking they would be. There is a now a serious argument for running some of your weapons loud if you want the most recoil reduction possible. Suppressors are not just the solution to every problem. Alongside some pistol grips now providing a slight benefit to recoil reduction, and generally less ergonomics. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let's talk about the changes BSG have made to weapon attachments, because they really have fundamentally changed the game across the board. We now have to relearn how to make effective weapons. But the nice thing is that there is more freedom to how your weapons will look visually. Variety has always been the spice of life, and it’s nice to see Tarkov finally embrace that mantra in the game that kind of started it for weapon customization. But whether that means players are going to like the changes, that remains to be seen.

(What actually changed)

The major changes to attachments are twofold. Firstly, the numbers across the board aren’t as over the top as they were previously in some areas, while toning down the detrimental effects in other areas. For example, suppressors have way less recoil reduction when paired with their respective muzzle device. But, to compensate them for not being the best in slot muzzle attachment, their ergonomic penalties have been reduced somewhat. Let’s use the 5.45 AKs as a primer. The waffle suppressor was not only the best suppressor option, but it also gave you the best recoil reduction too. Which meant that the loud options were kind of moot, unless you wanted to specifically go loud with your weapon. But now, the waffle is only on par with some of the mid-range recoil reduction options. It’s now the JMAC muzzle device that is the king for pure recoil reduction. It gets even more complicated with platforms like the M4. I won’t go into specifics, but you should really open the game up and just mess around with building some weapons. You will instantly notice the difference in the weapon’s stats. It’s actually wild; let me try to explain how we were so used to the attachments before the change. The RK-3 or MOE grip for AKs was the go-to if you didn’t want to spend a ton of money for the top tier option. The GRAL-S for any 5.56 weapon, the Saker suppressor for them as well. There was just best in slot options for pretty much everything. And it had been this way for years. Sometimes, they were introducing a new option, and it would usurp whatever was the best before, but we have never seen a shakeup to the game like this before. Things had just been established for so long, and the impact this will have across the game is immediately palpable.

(The impact across the game)

The biggest thing I’ve noticed immediately after spending like an hour just messing around is that generally, the recoil numbers for a lot of weapons are higher even when fully modified. The best recoil I could get on an M4 as another example was fifty-six. I’m sure there were options that I was forgetting, but I remember seeing recoil numbers years ago that were as low as like thirty-nine. I tried the M4 and some of the AK platforms. A 5.45 AK I got as low as sixty-seven recoil. Again, I’m not adding things like thermals or heavy optics to lower the recoil down intentionally. I built weapons that I could see myself realistically using. So everyone is going to have to reevaluate how they design their weapons. Because attachments don’t have these blanket options, that do everything you need them to. Now, you need to use parts based on what you want. What this naturally does is throw the balance of the game into chaos, which I’m not entirely against that idea. A shakeup every now and again is necessary to keep things fresh. I guess the question that should be asked is was this handled well? And we will need to spend some time with these changes to get the answer. What this also throws into chaos is of course all the gunsmith quests. Now, because numbers are so drastically different, all the quests are going to be so vastly different from what they were previously. And most likely not in a good way. Because anytime this questline gets messed with, people get upset, which I also understand why. Because now these quests that had been figured out need to be completely redone by the community and let’s be honest, gunsmith is cool in concept for a quest but in practice it’s kind of a headache having to follow the wiki just to make the guns exactly to their specifications. Overall, I imagine some people may not even really notice the changes, but again if you just spend maybe fifteen minutes in the weapon building screen, you’ll see how different things are. But is it better for the game?

(Is it for the better?)

It’s extremely difficult to assess whether or not this will be a net positive for the game. If we look to the patch notes and read their reasoning as to why they even did this in the first place, BSG writes quote:

“Our goal was to bridge the gap between the most popular, high-tier attachments and those that are currently rarely used. We believe this will allow players to make builds based on visual preference among other things, eliminating the established flow of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ attachments.”

And to their credit, the second half of that statement has definitely happened. Although I question whether or not they were successful with the former. Sure, attachments are closer in line with each other, but it feels rather sporadic and hand-fisted instead of something that was done rather meticulously. You know, the BSG special. They implement something randomly with enough testing, we end up having to be the testers and give feedback, and then slowly they fix it over time. We’ve done this song and dance plenty of times. This has uprooted our understanding of the attachment system in this game, what was the best, and what could be used for specific niche cases. But now, with all the numbers being thrown out in favor of these smaller numbers generally across the board, the available options that will help your weapon but are not the single best in slot option have gone up. However, immediately one thing I noticed that I do not like at all is the decimals now plaguing most attachments.

Do we really need a buttstock that gives 4.9% recoil reduction? Could we not just round up to a whole number? Before, there were extremely rare builds that would give you a decimal number for either recoil or ergo, and it was kind of funny to see that. But now that’s kind of the norm, again, something I am not a fan of at all because it’s just messy. Do you know how many people are going to get even more pissed off at gunsmith because their weapon’s recoil is 0.01% off the requirements and they can’t find the part that’s wrong? I mean man, this game is already complicated enough, it’s the one instance I was okay with the numbers being nice and simple. Some are better, some are worse, but at least you won’t ever have a case where less than a single percent was the reason you won a gunfight or not. This is still early, and things are most definitely going to get tweaked in the upcoming weeks ahead. Things can’t stay this messy without a ton of pushback from people. I haven’t been doing a ton of reading online about what has happened, but I can only imagine there is a huge uproar from a lot of people. Which on the one hand I understand because it feels so random and sporadic. But I think most people would've agreed that the attachments getting a shakeup was warranted. Just not like this. You know, in typical BSG fashion. Now we basically need to fix this for them with feedback. Whether or not they listen is a different story entirely.

(Outro)

The attachments in Tarkov and the sheer variety of them is what makes this game so special for many. The ability to take some of the most iconic weapons ever made and create thousands of permutations of them is unlike any other shooter out there. Of course, that level of freedom came at the cost of genuine balance, and having simply superior options compared to some others available. And with this shakeup of the statistics on attachments, the idea was sound on paper but executed poorly once again. I’m sensing a pattern. Jokes aside, this is something that will take some time to experiment with and figure out what’s working and what needs some tuning. Should we be having to test stuff like this in a game that is technically 1.0? No, definitely not. But what else are we going to do, you know? I can see a world where these changes develop into something that is liked by the community, but it’s probably going to take a long time to get there. For now, experiment and find some new weapon builds you mess with. Let everyone know what they are. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know down int he comment section below your thoughts on the attachment shakeup, if you like it or not, any builds you’ve come up with that are both functional and look cool and be sure to subscribe for more videos about insane changes that should’ve happened a long time ago, but for some reason are after the game’s release months into a wipe. I hope to see you in future ones.