It was, back when there were dummies hovering on the map instead of AI and a couple of builds after, but not anymore. It's not even 2 steps forward, one step back in recent updates, it's basically just a step back. The dev just takes what was working fine and tries to fiddle with it, making it way worse, for the illusion of progress in these updates. The whole map is now connected and the hideout is it's own location, not just a random FOB you go to between raids, just what the Tarkov wanted but never implemented because they actually thought about how it's going to play out.
Now hear me out, the basic gameplay loop is kill shit -> loot shit -> sell shit -> back to step 1.
The most efficient way to gain money now is to exit the hideout, go around the back to the trader, kill ~5 scavs in the vicinity, sell their shit, go back to hideout to reset the trader and the free loot delivery employees, rince, repeat. In a 5-ish runs you can already max the trader with the good and tried method of buying junk from vendors and instantly selling it back instantly.
The gameplay loop is now 100% complete. No extra quests, no extra enemies, nothing.
Well what if we think of this as a sandbox perspective? If the game doesn't give us any goals to achieve how about making our own?
First order of business: let's go to the swamp and max the traders there, the dev even removed one of the traders, surely it's some meta OP hotspot with all the gameplay goodies?
First of all, if you don't ignore scavs on the way there, you are probably 80% full inventory-wise. Second of all, when you get to the traders, you'll be blown away by the astounding stock of pregnancy tests and pills (10 per entry) in the safe zone, and some ammo at the other trader. Wowsies.
Alright, back to our usual grind, where we pick shit up 20 meters ahead of the trader and sell it to them.
Whoops. Ran into a bottleneck there. Each trader has only $150 on them. One of them runs a pharmacy in the safe zone and the other one is a weapons dealer. Must be the day before they get their paycheck, surely.
I don't know if it's a bug or intended literal money sinkhole, but every "restock" each of them sent my hard earned junk money to their off-shore accounts, taking away my option to scam them for money and only letting me buy back whatever I've already sold them.
So that leaves us with what? Broken traders, PRIMITIVE at best, gameplay loop. No reason to go back to hideout (no fatigue/hunger/thirst/lust/home assignments/%your reason here%). Mediocre gunplay. Yes, it's sorta in-depth, aaand... that's it. You don't need anything beyond 5.56 or 7.62 fmj. There's no "this works for that and this for that". It's just "everything below this acceptable level is trash and you are going to pay for using it".
I won't even talk about health and gun durability systems, as they are not even at the level of "Tarkov at home". It's somewhere slightly below "Marauders at home", which was sold on Discord.
I, too, had hopes about this becoming a solid game first of all and then the usual patreon porn milking cow.
Props to the dev tho, before he hired an animator, he managed to squeeze in animations in his usual releases (<3 months>), that's on top of building scenes with assets, coding, bla bla, etc. When he got a guy to work EXCLUSIVELY on animations, we only got a single cowgirl animation. I don't argue that this is a lot of work, but either someone is doing what they are paid for or... you know, getting "supported" for their work.
Anyways, see you guys in three months when we get, I don't know, another trader removed and bikes on swamp?
(ngl it'd be pog)
