Why Does it Feel Like Tarkov Throttles Quest Items?

(Intro)

Has anyone else experienced this in Tarkov, where you get a quest to find some items in raid; nothing that is normally seen as rare like bitcoins or graphics cards. Could be something like Signal – Part 2 from Mechanic, and you’re looking for the rechargeable batteries, but raid after raid you keep looking in locations and loot containers that usually spawn them and they aren’t there? For years now, there has been this waft in the air that for some reason when you need certain items for a quest that need to be found in raid, the game refuses to spawn those items for one reason or another. This will be mainly coming from experience of playing the game overtime instead of any anecdotal evidence because I imagine it would be difficult to accurately collect data to back up this idea. But to me, and others who are in the community, for some reason Tarkov will throttle items you need for quests whenever you accept them and need to have them found in raid. With other quests that require you to find a static item on a map it doesn’t really apply, and for quests that don’t need found in raid status, well that’s easy enough. But even as early on as finding salewa’s or worse, gas analyzers, those can sometimes feel like you’ll hit level fifteen and unlock the flea market before those get done. Again, this is bro science from me, but please if what I am saying resonates with you and your immediate thought is this has happened to me before as well, sound off in the comments because I can’t be the only one.

(The Oddities of Finding Items)

The problem begins once you accept a quest that requires you to find it in raid. Because otherwise, it would still be annoying yes, but once you found whatever it is you’re looking for, even if you die it can still count. The issue, is finding these items in the first place. Let’s use Therapist’s shortage quest as an example. You need three salewa’s to complete it. They can be found in any area that has medical supplies, medical bags, duffle bags, dead scavs, jackets, tons of different locations for them to spawn. With so many different containers for them to spawn, on top of the different maps having different areas where it would make most sense for them to be there, it should be no struggle to find these things. And yet, it took me until I think it was level eleven or twelve before I got all three, and that’s with crafting them because I got fed up constantly searching for them. So, I ended up crafting my last one, because I didn’t think it would take so long. There is an argument for this specific quest that maybe because it’s the second quest Therapist gives you and it’s so early on; tons of people are all looking for these things at the same time. And while there is definitely some credence to that statement, I would also say that It’s extremely rare that I would say more than two at most three people that all load onto the same map, are there for the exact same reasons. Again, the early game because you don’t have a ton of quest variety, has some overlap between players for sure, but even after completing just the first couple quests for all the traders, people are on maps for a variety of reasons. Which means people are going to the same locations for similar reasons. Customs has a ton of early game quests and places to loot. Stronghold, crack house, dorms, big red, and many other buildings on top of secret stashes littered throughout the map. So not only should people be spread out for to find whatever loot they want or need, but finding quest items even as popular as something like salewa’s shouldn’t be so hard to find.

(The AI are like this, too)

And it’s not just finding quest items that can be a truly frustrating experience. Even something as simple as needing to kill a certain amount of AI scavs on a map can prove to be troublesome because for some reason, whenever you need scavs for a quest, they don’t want to spawn, or if they do, it’s not near you and the entire time you are running across the map, you hear other players taking all your scav kills. The worse experience of having to run to the ends of the earth for scavs is when you are on Shoreline doing all of Peacekeeper’s quests, and needing to kill a total of twenty-seven scavs for most of the easily obtainable PK quests. Which isn’t a lot, but for some reason, those kills are a dime a dozen. So many empty raids of just checking the hotspots for them, and then just heading to extract. And of course, Shoreline isn’t the only one that has this problem. Most maps in the game with the exception of Streets can feel devoid of any AI sometimes. But again, this usually only happens when you have a kill quest for AI on that specific map. Never do the AI appear in hordes more than when you don’t even need them. That’s usually where they get you too, which makes it all the more infuriating.

(Does Tarkov truly throttle items in the game?)

At the center of this whole ramble and conversation is a simple question: does Tarkov actually have some backend secret technology to make whatever items or AI you need to complete quests harder to find? The answer is almost 99% a no. With so many people over the years having datamined the game for one reason or another, if there was something in the code, anywhere in the game that told Tarkov to make X item have a lower percent chance to spawn, we’d know about it by now. We’d have too. Unless BSG just happen to have that information under lock and key. But with so many cheaters and the like causing a muck in this game, and having it still feel as bad if not worse than previous wipes with blatant cheaters running around, I doubt something as simple as a few lines of code could be hidden so well. That information would be out in the world somewhere. BSG like to always have some secrets behind they back for a surprise, whether they are good or bad. But imagine if someone made a video or a post somewhere that showed evidence that there is code in the game that checks what quests you need to complete as you are loading into a raid, and will purposefully throttle those items and lower their spawn rates so you don’t see them. That’s a PR nightmare that BSG can’t afford at this point to have happen. So again, I can almost, almost, guarantee that there isn’t any malicious malpractice on BSG’s end that has something to slow your progression down by lowering spawn rates of items you need. But at the same time, I can’t say that with 100% certainty. I’m not accusing them or anyone for potentially making it intentionally harder to find items you need for quests after you accept them. We’re just having a conversation I find interesting. This is just something that over the years I’ve noticed. At the end of the day, it’s just complete RNG; and while it certainly can be annoying to find items, to play devil's advocate, sometimes Tarkov will give you all the items you need in a single raid. It’s rare, but it can and has happened before.

(Outro)

Finding items for quests in Tarkov is more about your stamina and patience than it is about actually finding the items you need. Sometimes, you get lucky and get three gas analyzers in a single scav run on Reserve, and other times you’ll open over five-hundred of those things and never see one. It still baffles me how much the loot in this game and finding items can feel like a yo-yo. Whether or not the game does in fact make it harder for you to find items you need, we might never know. But the experience of looting for quest items can feel so polar opposite depending on how the game is feeling that day. Extremely easy and stress-free, or an eternal nightmare that quest locks you out of progressing a certain trader. I’m looking at you two flash drives for Skier. What sucks too is that there are a ton of roadblocks to getting more quests. Like I just mentioned, the two flash drives needed for Skier prevent you from getting any other quests from him until you finish that one. If we’re going to have quests that are tough to complete because of crappy RNG, can we please have them not be mandatory, please BSG? Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know in the comment section down below your thoughts and experiences are with looting quest items, if you’ve ever felt like the game is out to get you in this regard and be sure to subscribe for more videos about crack-pot theories that have no evidence or data to back them up, and are only sourced by a good old-fashioned trust me bro. I hope to see you in future ones.