Tarkov’s Found in Raid Hideout – 51 Days Later

(Intro)

So, alongside the flea market changes that we discussed in the previous video, BSG also made it so that upgrading your modules in the hideout now needed the found in raid status for most barter items. A month and a half later, and we’re going to talk about the impact this change has had on the game and how people go about interacting with the hideout. Between the hideout and the flea market, I’d say the latter being locked off for two weeks was more impactful because almost everyone uses the flea market for one reason or another. But the hideout? Technically, you can play the game and never use it. You don’t have to invest any time, money or items into it. But EFT heavily incentivizes you to do so. There’s a lot of good that can come from the hideout, but you need to put in the work to see the fruits of that labor. Either way, a month and a half later, and people are still struggling to get even the basic modules upgraded to progress through the rest of the hideout. I know I was, and honestly are still there. It’s been quite a challenge that will hopefully be either adjusted going forward, or simply reverted for whenever the next wipe will occur.

(It isn’t you... it’s me)

The biggest conundrum with found in raid hideout items is that in a vacuum it can make sense. It’s going to slow people down from being able to use whatever items they have laying around in their inventory, while also forcing players to make the tough choice when they do find something they need of either trying to extract as soon as possible, or staying in the raid and risking that item becoming useless. The problem with this mindset however, is that this massive change also came with the flea market being turned off for two weeks. Yes, not being able to buy weapons, ammos and armors is good, what people are actually using the flea for in the early game is to speedrun their hideout as fast as possible. As soon as you hit level fifteen, if you have the rubles, you can either liquidate all that money into your hideout and upgrade module after module, or do the opposite and sell all the items you’ve been collecting to make tons of money because the found in raid restriction on the flea has been gone for a wipe now. But when these two massive changes are introduced at the same time, obviously some level of frustration ensues. That awl you found and need for lavatory level one? Well, you died so now not only is it useless to you, but even if you were going to sell it on the flea, nobody would buy it. It becomes a paper weight in your stash, or a little over twenty-thousand rubles to Therapist. Knowing that these items can become useless is the biggest flaw with found in raid... anything. I have the item. I got what you asked of me. Let me just use it. Please.

(Ways to staunch the bleeding)

In my mind, there are two ways to help resolve some of the frustrations with the found in raid hideout. And it’s nothing that would be out of this world, or wouldn’t make sense. The first would be that if we are hellbent on having found in raid connected to the hideout modules, then lowing the number of items needed across each and every module would make this process feel so much better. Do we really need fourteen found in raid lightbulbs? Funnily enough, lightbulbs aren’t even that hard to find. It’s other items that become so problematic. I think the best example of the shortsightedness of BSG when it came to adding found in raid to the hideout was that you know the barter at Mechanic for a toolset? You know the one; you had to have a bunch of different tools for it. Well, the hideout needs a lot of toolsets. Eleven to be exact. Finding eleven was hard enough, but now make them found in raid. And it becomes a nightmare. Well, because we need found in raid items, that barter at Mechanic is now at least for this wipe completely useless for upgrading modules. Which BSG at least realized and retroactively added a craft for toolsets using the same number of materials. And it only takes seven minutes! If only all crafts were that quick. It’s funny how many layers these problems have once you begin to break them down.

The other alternative solution would be to still allow the use of non-found in raid items for upgrading modules. However, if you do end up having all your items be found in raid, then the build time of that module or the upgrade time is drastically reduced. I would say something like twenty-twenty-five percent. So, if it takes an hour and a half to upgrade, now it will only take roughly an hour. It doesn’t sound like much, but there are so many time gates in the hideout, you’d think you were playing a shitty mobile game. Where you can pay to speed up the process or give you more times to engage with the game before you get paywalled again. And people wonder why Tarkov can be so annoying; it’s a second job that demands the rest of whatever free time you have. Combine that with some quests also having time gates now (gunsmith and pretty much every Lightkeeper quest), and it makes you roll your eyes constantly. I’m getting off topic, these two ideas are the only ones I can think that sound reasonable, without taking away from the philosophies of what BSG thinks they want these mechanics to behave like.

(The community is in agreement)

In the previous video, we talked about the survey results that BSG released on the client and how while most of the conversation was about the flea market, the second question asked what were some challenges players experienced with no flea market. And the second highest voted answer was found in raid items needed for the hideout. Almost twenty-one percent of players who took part in the survey said that the hideout could use some form of an adjustment. Which tells me that while the change is definitely in line with what BSG and the community ultimately wants; a longer early game that feels more rewarding to play, there has to be another way that isn’t so toxic and demoralizing when you find the thing you need, die and can no longer use it. People are okay with change (well some are); people are okay with having to work a little harder to achieve similar results. But their time cannot feel wasted or stolen from them. It’s the ultimate form of disrespect a video game can employ, and can create such a negative feedback loop that ends up having people just walking away. The greatest sin video games make these days other than trying to milk you for every single dollar attached to your name, is stealing your precious time. And Tarkov for years now has not respected the player’s time. This is something we’d need to dive into a little more in a separate video, but the found in raid hideout is the antithesis of this problem.

(Outro)

Overall, people didn’t necessarily mind the idea of the found in raid hideout changes. It was the reality that items can essentially become useless to them and other players should they die. And nothing hurts more than having an item collect dust in your stash because it serves no purpose other than some rubles. I get it; dying is a part of the game. You need to feel the sting of loss and failure every now and again. But the hideout changes at least to me, left me feeling like my time was being wasted because this one barter item that isn’t used anywhere else in the game besides the hideout, now has no use. It’s like when you die with a flash drive for Skier; there are still some uses for that flash drive, but now it isn’t serving its intended purpose, and I just stare at it in my stash with scathing contempt; hoping I find another one sooner rather than later. If we’re going to keep the found in raid hideout, let’s make just a little less toxic, shall we? Thank you very much for taking the time out of you day to watch this video. Let me know down in the comment section below your thoughts on the found in raid hideout, how it could be made better but still existing as a handicap and be sure to subscribe for more videos about Tarkov mechanics that have more layers than a strawberry short cake. I hope to see you in future ones.