Tarkov’s Map Difficulty Ranks Are Silly

(Intro)

Every time you are about to load into a Tarkov raid, you need to make a choice. Which map are you going to load into? And everyone has a reason or at least should have a reason for going onto any given map. Whether that’s to progress the main story or any side quests, look for other players and fights, or hunting for specific loot drops, you make this choice every single time you want to play the game. And for almost Tarkov’s entire life, whenever you select a map, there has been this difficult indicator on the map telling you how challenging the map is. But there isn’t much context after that, however. No explanation, no reason why the map is rated the way it is. It feels very tacked on and arbitrary. So much so that the map difficulties have constantly changed over the course of the game’s life. Which begs a few questions: what are the criteria behind the scenes that dictate the difficulty of any given map? Why did those ratings change so much over the years? And what does the community think the most challenging maps are in this game? Well, with some help from the community in a few recent posts I made not only on my own channel but on the subreddit which I understand isn’t the entire player base speaking on this but I wanted to at least reach out and hear some opinions and reasons why people think what they do, I was able to come to a few conclusions on this topic. So, let’s go over both map difficulty as a concept in this game and also the ratings each map currently has. Because to be honest, it’s a little silly.

(The ratings have always been there and been inaccurate)

It’s such a novel concept to attach a difficulty rank to something like a location in an extraction shooter or any game, really. Arc Raiders does this and because that game has a much larger focus on working together and taking out the arc threats, sometimes those ranks can be deceiving if not inaccurate completely. Whereas in Tarkov because people are much more prone to hostility and shoot on sight, combined with the computer opponents as well, it can feel much more overwhelming when trying to tackle one of those maps. But then again, do they attach the difficulty to the engagements you might have on that map? Or the general layout and complexity of the map itself. It’s tough to tell because all they give us for information is a one-word description for the difficulty. Some of the highlights I remember are breeze meaning fairly easy, normal, hard, insane, and I think there was one more to describe a difficulty even harder than insane, but I can’t quite remember. And while the description of the map can add a little context to this arbitrary ranking, at the end of the day, different players are going to rank on the maps based on their experiences. With one exception: I think most of us agree that labs is supposed to be a hard map. You can’t bring any insurance with you; the computer opponents are all raiders, and under normal circumstances, some of the best loot can be acquired there. So, players typically bring their most powerful gear to risk it all. I suppose the accolade for the hardest map in the game would now go to Terminal; given the exurbanite requirements to even see that location on top of having to fight your way out in order to escape. Combined with the black division breathing down your neck the whole time, and you have a recipe for lots of people having to try again and again in order to be successful. But what about other maps in the game? What about customs? Shoreline? Interchange? Where do these maps stack in the difficult tier list? We’ll get to that in a little while, but suffice to say, the game has made it a point to attach a rating to the locations across Tarkov, but we never get any details or descriptions as to why. So, what goes into giving a location in this game getting a certain rank?

(What constitutes a map being challenging?)

Generally, I think there are a few important factors we need to consider when trying to attach a rank to a location. First and foremost, the layout and design of the map play a major role in what players think of it. The setting, terrain, points of interest, extractions; these are all crucial in what someone will think of a map and whether or not it’s difficult. But I think ultimately, what matters the most out of all these potential factors is the ability to extract consistently from a location. And some maps have done a better job than others over the course of the game’s life. For example, customs for the longest time was considered a hard map to extract from because back in the day, the map wasn’t as wide as it currently is. Customs was a much narrower map; with only a handful of ways of navigating across it. Meaning the likelihood of you coming across another player even if you didn’t want to was much higher.

Nowadays, the map has been expanded several times to help widen the sides of it and allow for more direct traversal through the middle of the map too. Which, at least in my eyes if we are going by this scale, makes customs a slightly easier map to extract from than versions prior. A similar story could be applied to something like woods. Before the major expansion not only where there less points of interest as a whole, but if you wanted to survive, you almost had to work your way through the lumber mill in some capacity. Which meant that there was a high chance of bumping into another player because the map was so much smaller in general. And this can be applied to any map that has been expanded and made larger and easier to navigate, which is pretty much every map besides labs and lighthouse. Since those are the only two maps in the game that have not been expanded as of a few months ago. Regardless, everyone will have their own opinions on which map they feel is the most difficult and their own reasons as to why they feel that way. So, I wanted to reach out to the community and ask what they believe to be the hardest map and why.

(What does the community think?)

Over the weekend I made both a post on the subreddit for the game as well as my own channel about a tier list I made so people can rank the maps of their own choice and explain why they made those choices. I used the in-game difficulty names as the tiers and was able to get a couple of people who not only made lists but also explained why they placed maps where they did. I’m very grateful for anyone who even interacted with the post in the first place, so from looking at the lists and descriptions the commenters made, anyone that has played Terminal agrees that map is just wild. Which makes sense given the context of how significant that location is to the climax of Tarkov and what you need to do to finally escape. The labyrinth was also another map that people seem to think is incredibly hard. Due to both the nature of how you just get into the map itself, but also how challenging it can be when you finally spawn. Solving your rooms specific puzzle, hoping you do it fast enough so that there isn’t a player just sitting outside it waiting to ambush you, and all the traps and powerful computer enemies you need to deal with as well. At least the loot is still somewhat valuable even after the massive nerf once the map had been in the game for some time. And the last map that most people were in agreement with was Streets being hard. Its large size, unorthodox layout, and multiple bosses create a pattern where you never know where the players are going to end up. The map seems bigger than it actually is sometimes and combined with the gaggle of player scavs that will inevitably spawn in, you always need to be aware of your surroundings and never get too comfortable. Of course, the elephant in the room with Streets as well is the performance, which can’t be ignored for something like this. After that, the lists deviate somewhat; with maps shuffling around anywhere from hard, normal and easy seeing some variance across the lists that were posted. And people had their own reasons as to why they placed them in certain tiers; reading them was both cool and interesting to hear some different perspectives on this.

As for myself, I took the liberty to make my own tier list and curate a personal list of what maps I think are the hardest. The only map I haven’t played is terminal, but I think at this point we all know it belongs in the insane character as probably the hardest map in the game. Labyrinth is easily the second hardest one, which we went over as to why. But after that, I would say labs is next because of the inherit risk you take entering because there is no insurance; all the computer enemies are raiders, and the players are always trying to fight on this map. Lighthouse because of the generally poor design and layout of the map, and Streets because it runs like ass still. This might be a shocker but as simple and easy to understand as ground zero is as a map from a design perspective, that map is a pain in the ass to extract from. Too many players all trying to at most three or four things that force them to all congregate at a couple of points of interest. If there were less players on this map, it would probably be a breeze, but the sheer volume of activity makes it more challenging to work through than you might initially think. Interchange is basically a mad dash to get into the mall and once you’re inside, you can kind of take your time and listen for activity around you and play accordingly. Plus, the new expansion makes the permitter much easier to navigate too, which is a huge bonus.

Reserve is normal because of the confinement of extraction choices. You can go down into the basement sections, but you are almost guaranteed to run into players in some capacity. The extraction that requires no backpack is available but obviously comes at that cost, and the train you need to hang out until the last quarter of the raid, which means you need to stay alive. Shoreline is here because of how large the map is. Pretty easy to understand, but the sheer amount of running you will do makes the chances of fights happening way higher. Don’t get me wrong, the resort is easily one of the top five wildest locations to fight, but across the whole map, shoreline can feel kind of tame but always on edge. Customs and woods are easy; they’ve been in the game for so long, have been expanded and provide everything you would need to have an awesome raid in this game. There’s a reason why customs is still my favorite map; it just does everything right and so well. And of course, factory can be a breeze to extract because it’s the smallest map, but that doesn’t mean you won’t fight for it sometimes. A lot of people have nostalgia for old factory as do I, but this new one allows people to use the tunnels to get around safely and avoid a lot of fights occurring above you. But factory is where a lot of us got our metaphorical sea legs for Tarkov, and that is still special even a decade later.

(Outro)

Tarkov has a wide variety of locations players can engage with and experience, and for years now, the game has given you a vague idea as to how difficult these maps can be. Even though there wasn’t a reason in-game for the ranking and they constantly changed for years, patch after patch, at least the game tried to inform you how challenging some of these locations might be. And as pretty hollow and empty those one-word descriptors were for the maps, I felt like there was an opportunity to get some feedback from the community on how they felt about all the playable locations. As well as sitting down and really thinking about these maps from many different perspectives, which isn’t a bad thing to do every now and again. Either way, this game's map difficulties are kind of silly, but provided a chance to collect some data and see what people who have invested hundreds if not thousands of hours into the game had to say. Which I think is pretty damn cool. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know down in the comment section below your thoughts on this game's map difficulty rankings, where you would place all the maps on a tier list and be sure to subscribe for more videos about reaching out to the community for some insight into how they play the game and where their thought process might be. Both links to my post on the subreddit and the tier list itself are down in the description below if you would like to participate, and a big thank you to anyone that already has or plans on doing so after watching this video. I hope to see you in future ones.