3 PvP Places in Tarkov I want to Improve On.

If you had to pick a location in Tarkov that you wish you were better at fighting in, where would it be? For me, there are many locations where I personally struggle with getting good pvp engagements that end in me being victorious. With how complex the game is already, when you stack certain highly contested PVP zones on top of later game Tarkov and people looking for fights, and having the gear to deal with those threats, it can become really chaotic when you engage in those fights. PVP in Tarkov as a whole can be really tricky and challenging to become even remotely decent at. I still suck, but every once in a while, I have my moments where I make every right decision and/or hit all my shots. They are few and far enough between that it’s kind of like a unicorn sighting, you know? But besides just improving at raw PVP, there are certain spots all across Tarkov that I would love to invest some time at improving upon. Three immediately come to my mind when I asked myself this question, so I figured I share them and see if anyone feels the same way, or has other spots they want to get better at.

Before we get to the main locations, I wanted to give a quick honorable mention to the mall on interchange as a whole. I decided not to include it in the main three because considering the mall is the main and arguably only attraction on interchange, it kind of feels like a cheap answer. It’s kind of the whole map, with the exception of the power station. Regardless, fighting in the mall can be really tough with the long sightlines combined with how damn dark the mall is as a whole. I’m always torn as to whether or not I should go in with some kind of range, or just a red dot for closer quarters. Sure, I can do both with certain optics and mounts, but then you spend so much time switching back and forth between the two, you get blown up by someone you didn’t even see in the first place. Most of the time though, I settle for some form of range. And that usually gets me killed because people push and have superior short range fighting abilities. It’s usually a lose-lose. So, I don’t fight on that map. Either way, it is a place where whenever I do go, I want to get better so the Ragman tasks that need to get completed can become easier.

The location that I want to improve on maybe the least out of the main three is the dorms on Customs. The only reason I say the least, is because of out all the places I go to fight, I spend the most time here. I still suck at it, but there are moments where I go big brain and shoot out a window and reposition or do something crazy like that. It’s also one of the few places in Tarkov where the audio is sometimes really unreliable, so trusting just pure instincts and reaction times can prove to be both more effective and consistent if you’re looking to win more fights and survive. Don’t get me wrong, I like dorms as a concept, and having Reshala spawn there can also help attract the attention you will need if you do want to improve at fighting. My personal biggest crutch with dorms is the 50-50's you find yourself in most of the time. For example, if you enter on first floor and go up to second from the main start, if you hear something but aren’t exactly sure where it’s coming from, you have to make a choice: do you look left or right down the hallway? Yes, there’s some cover on the left so it makes more sense to always peek the left side of the hallway first, but even then, someone could get aggressive and just run into you with their weapon ready. Dorms is a great example of what good decision making can do for someone who knows what they are doing. If they are confident, and pay really close attention to all the audio cues they are given (or not and just go off of gut instinct), they can be really successful in dorms. It’s a great place for PVP and why I want to improve there. But to be fair, there are two other places that I feel as though my time could be better spent.

Reserve as a whole is a tricky map. With no real flow or sense of direction in regards to where you need/should go to extract, it can be one of the more challenging maps to survive in. It feels kind of like a huge circle instead of something like customs where it’s very obvious that you need to go from one side of the map to other. Regardless, the main PVP attraction most people would agree on is D-2 and everything it encompasses. With so many different ways to enter and exit, plenty of side rooms and hallways for flanks and repositions, it can be very overwhelming to figure out where any and all noise is coming from. Combine that with now, instead of a potential chance at running into scav boss, bumping into raiders, not once, but twice, and you have a warzone that can get messy really fast. On top of that, it’s dark. Like, really dark. Even when the power to D-2 is turned on, the little lights that illuminate the hallways and main room at large don’t provide enough light to really see what’s going on most of the time. So, it ends up turning into a flashlight show where everyone just flings a corner and prays that they hit the head. On top of that, D-2 is certainly one of the more attractive locations for player scavs to come and interrupt the action, making the chaos another layer deep. I find that out of all the hot spots currently where a lot of raw PVP takes place, D-2 is by far the location where it can have the most bodies alive in one location at the same time. It could be wise to even just lay low and let everyone else do the fighting for you. But then again, we’re trying to get better at fighting, not necessarily just get loot. So, that’s antithetical to the point of this video. But, a viable strategy nonetheless. For actual improvements though, the only thing I’ve tried to incorporate whenever I find myself down in D-2 is to heavily prioritize positional advantages making use of all the different ways to enter and exit D-2. You really have a lot of freedom to move around underground if you know where you’re going and how all the different pathways connect to one another. You can take people for some surprising chases and surprise them when they least expect it. Overall, D-2 is a chaotic ThunderDome that can be one of the most lucrative locations to loot, should everything go according to whatever plan you can come up with. And definitely a place I want to experiment with more and see what happens. I’ve had success in the past, so I’m eager to try and improve how I fight underground.

And the one location that I wish I was better at more than anywhere else in Tarkov has to be the resort on Shoreline. Very similar to D-2 in how you can navigate it, and the overall feel of the spot. I remember going to resort way back in the day for the first time. It was crazy; checking every single room to make sure it was all clear before going wherever I needed to in order to get a task done. The resort on paper, is one of the coolest locations to walk into and be clear slowly and be all tactical. But in reality, again, like D-2 it’s a ThunderDome for the most geared players to go and duke it out for pretty much a winner takes all situation. And unlike D-2, it’s rare to find yourself against both other PMC’s and player scavs at the same time. Not too many people scav on Shoreline for one, but to run into the resort is another entirely. It can certainly happen, but the odds you find yourself in the resort long to run into scavs is rare. But the resort has one distinction: it’s all primarily very close quarters. Even more so than dorms, because while there are hallways where having range can be really effective to look from one end to the other, the fighting ultimately ends up happening on the ground levels, and the staircases. Which, has notoriously had some of the worst audio localization on any location in Tarkov. So, that’s kind of out of the question. Then it really boils down to having good reflexes and reaction speeds. And again, I’ve said this before, but being the aggressor in these kinds of situations truly is a boon; making everyone have to react to you instead of the other way around. You never want to be caught with your hand in your pants first, especially in the resort. The nice thing about it, is that while it’s very vertically focused having three floors, there are many different ways to move up and down, without being very obvious and one-dimensional. Multiple staircases on each wing, and some holes in the flooring so you can get from a higher to lower floor very quickly. Alongside that, there are a few spots with “audio checks”; basically, places where you’re going to make noise whether you want to or not. Which I find really interesting. My main issues with the resort is the lack of reliable audio. It sucks so much thinking someone is on your floor, only to swing a corner and have them be either above or below you. Especially if they didn’t know you were there previously. But I think resort is the one place where you kind of just have to say fuck it and go full savage mode and just hunt people down. It'll work sometimes, and other times you might just run into a squad and die instantly. That’s kind of the fun of it, though.

Tarkov while not primarily focused on the PVP, at its core, has enough mechanics and locations that are interesting that people want to engage with these systems and become the best they can be. Myself included; but it’s a long journey of trying to get better at these spots, on top of the rest of the maps as well. Hopefully as more of the important and game-changing mechanics get introduced like advanced armor hitboxes, we will see a large shift in how people approach combat in the game and the potentially many new ways people discover successful ways of fighting each other.