Tarkov's Patch 13.5: My Initial Impressions

Well, we have finally arrived. Patch 13.5 is out and with it came a slew of new changes, updates, and of course, a fresh wipe to satiate us until the real game begins in December. But in the meantime, there is still a lot to go over with these changes. I figure for now because it’s still so early, we can just do a brief overview of the patch notes and talk about it. And then in future videos, we can go over individual changes more in depth as they become more prevalent. So, be sure to subscribe if you are interested in those future videos. Otherwise, let’s not waste any more time. Patch 13.5 has a solid set of patch notes. Some good, some decent, and others that could be interesting down the line this wipe.

Right off the bat, let me also mention my personal experience with the wipe so far. This has easily been the roughest start to a wipe I’ve had in a long time. Low survival rating, which to be fair, doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things. But man, it has felt like everyone got amazing at the game overnight. Because almost all of my PMC encounters have been instant one taps to my head. Now granted, they are hitting some good shots, but that scrappiness that we come to expect with a reset has been replaced with insane one taps. People are just wild, I guess. Quest progression has been slow but is starting to pick up a little bit. But yeah, hasn’t been all smooth sailing. I’m working through it. As for the game itself. I mean, it’s still Tarkov. I have the patch notes up just so I can reference them. I’ve only been on Streets once and spawned in the first chunk of the map, and tried to go explore, but died to a player so I can’t say anything on the new area yet. I didn’t see the new boss either, but after watching the trailer BSG put out for the patch, I don’t want to. The last clip is the new boss snapping onto the PMC 90-degree and two-tapping him instantly. That clip shouldn’t have been in that video, but hey. My performance wasn’t fantastic, but honestly right now, the entire game’s performance is put into question. There are some serious memory leak issues where after three or four raids, my FPS tanks drastically. So, if you have FPS problems and you’ve done a bunch of raids, do a quick reset, it might help.

I haven’t messed with kit presets much, but I see myself doing so in the future once I have all my traders at least level 2. That will be so convenient for re-kitting up after a death. The game also has a bunch of default presets, and I made a YouTube short about them because they are kind of funny. It’s laid out nicely, and something I noticed is if you have gear in your stash that can fill an empty slot on your PMC, you get this cool new menu, that shows everything available you can wear on your character, which is neat. There’s no more searching for body armor, you know is in your stash but might be buried in a stack of backpacks somewhere. BSG has been making attempts to clean up the game in terms of QOL changes, and this patch has a lot of them, which are all welcome this late into the game.

Random containers are something I have very mixed feelings about; this will definitely get its own video at some point. But I am interested in why they made this change, what their goal was with it, and what kind of impact they wanted it to have on the game. Because honestly, I can’t tell whether it’s a good or bad adjustment. Not having loot always be in the same spot so you can’t route it I guess is cool, but also sometimes having nothing spawn kind of takes away from the fun of searching for supplies. I don’t know, I need to sit on my feelings about this change a little more before I give and yay’s or nay’s.

Sidearm quick swap is also something I appreciate BSG attempting to combat. I say attempt, because its implementation fixes some aspects of it, but also causes more problems now. Again, this will get its own video, but I also have mixed feelings on the fast swap.

The sweeping AI changes are something we as a community will need more time with. Because peaceful scavs have completely different behavior now. I’ve seen clips of them gobbling up a full dead PMC kit before a player scav can get to it. Also, being able to issue commands and have local AI scavs assist if you need help could become incredibly interesting, but only if it works well. So, at least I will need more time before saying anything concrete.

The new UI on the menus is awesome. While the loading of items isn’t as instant as it was previously, not having to press back to reach every new trader we want to interact with is so nice. I still have the old muscle memory, but I am slowly getting the hang out just pressing the icons of each vendor to switch between them. But overall, its design could be a tiny bit better, but functionally, it’s great. Well done, BSG.

I’m still at a low level so I haven’t messed with any of the new guns, except the updated Makarov pistols. And I don’t know why, but I am obsessed with them. When you put the new grips on them that allow a flashlight spot, they look so cool. So, I’ve been taking one in with me almost every raid. This gun might get its own video I’m not sure yet. But I love the new look. I’ve seen the SVT in action and that gun might actually become what we thought the Vepr Hunter would become. That thing looks awesome.

One more honorable mention: I’m so glad that painkillers no longer increase the sharpness of your game. It visually looks so much more pleasant to stare at. Granted, there were some moments where the sharpness was kind of cool, but having a desaturation effect plus blurriness around the edges of your screen is so much easier on video and stream, which is wonderful. Some people might dislike this change, but it feels like a net positive.

But other than that, there is still a lot to go over. But again, I feel as though I need to put more time into the game before saying anything else about this patch. It’s been a slow start for myself personally, but once I get out of the early game hump, I will be able to really experience what 13.5 has to offer. So, for now, I’ll leave it at that and ask what your thoughts on this patch have been so far? How’s your initial wipe progress going? I hope to see you in future ones.