Tarkov's Vendor's Won't Ever be Balanced

There are a lot of ways of getting your hands on gear in Tarkov. Whether that’s finding it in raid from AI or stashes, killing bosses for more powerful gear, or taking out other players and looting what they were using, gear comes and goes just as much as cash does. Of course, the most obvious way to get your hands on weapons, ammo, armor, and medication, is to buy it from the vendors. They have the most accessible gear options available to the player, even in the beginning when everyone is level 1 and their wares are so limited. So long as you have the funds for it, you can pretty much survive soley off what they sell; as they cover pretty much all the bases between their royalty levels 1 through 4. There are certainly some items that they don’t sell that are only found in raid, but for the most part, the vendors have great items. Too many items, people have said in the past. This has become quite a topic of conversation across the community; and an interesting question to be asking now that we are this deep into the game’s life. Do the vendors have too many items on them? Should their inventories be reduced? Very valid questions, and honestly there isn’t one right answer. At this point personally, I am of the mindset of the vendors might never be balanced. And while part of me wishes that they would be, there is also the other part of me that doesn’t ever want them to be. I mean granted, this really doesn’t matter until after the game full releases, but until that happens, we might as well have a conversation because we can. And my brutally honest answer is that before 1.0, I don’t think the vendors will ever be balanced. Whether or not that’s a good thing is up to you, I suppose.

The traders have been adjusted back and forth for years now. When the game’s scope was smaller, and there were less items in general, the vendors also just had less to offer. This was also a time where things were much cheaper and the games economy hadn’t been inflated so egregiously. It’s easy to make money, and with so many people having tens if not hundreds of millions of rubles sitting in their stash collecting dust, I see why weapons, armor, meds, it’s all gotten so expensive. Do I agree? Yes and no. Late wipe it doesn't really matter. It’s the early game where these changes are felt, because it seems as though changes are made to resolve one issue, and aren’t really thought through and seen through a wider scope. So, these kinds of changes kind of create a ripple effect across the entire game. Now, we’re paying 12k rubles for a CAR med kit. And this mentality has bled into pretty much every sellable item in Tarkov. It's kind of amusing how at one point I think it was either this wipe or the previous one, a 5.56 MDR was over 1k USD from Peacekeeper, but on the flea market it normally sells for around 50k rubles. Which price the gun is worth is up for debate, but it’s very interesting to see what BSG thinks items in the game should be valued at, and what the community sees items worth. This has always been one of the largest divides between developers and players for Tarkov. Boss spawns, item rarity, and a few other things these two sides always seem to kind of butt heads with one another. But in their defense, it’s BSG game; if they want the humble Makarov valued at 100k rubles, then that’s what they want. We are free to disagree and respectively explain why we think this shouldn’t be the case, but who I am to try and tell the developers what their game should be.

If it isn’t price that people have issues with, it’s overall accessibility. When and how we can use and buy certain items. Guns, ammo, and armor are usually the big three that get tossed around for example. Here’s one for you: right now, if I wanted to go big and use some really powerful gear, before I hit the buy limits and the traders reset, I can purchase, an AS VAL, three RPK’s, 3 SA-58's, 2 .308 MDR’s, and 3 SR-25's. And this was just from Prapor and Peacekeeper. Levels 3 and 4; this is the kind of stuff some people have issues with. Their argument being we shouldn’t be able to purchase all this gear in a single trader reset, which is normally about 3 hours roughly. Looking at the list, it is kind of crazy just the sheer number of weapons that can be bought. Now, it isn’t cheap, in fact just doing the math for those guns I listed is exactly 1,710,265 rubles. PER reset. And that is just base weapons, no mods, meds, armor, ammo, anything else. So, this number will very quickly rise as you build a full kit. But here’s the thing: people with ungodly amounts of rubles in their stash don’t feel this. Price doesn’t matter to a lot of players who can just buy as they please because they have farmed up so much money. So, the next logical step for BSG after inflating the prices of everything, is the limit what vendors sell. They’ve already done this a fair amount, and it honestly is more felt at lower royalty levels. Prapor no longer sells 7.62 PS ammo at level 1 anymore. That alone is a massive hit to early game, but it was needed because the round has 35 pen, making it very strong in the beginning. And a lot of other weapons and pieces of gear and now locked behind a variety of quests, especially all the new Streets quests. So, if you want some of the mid-game gear, your only options are to either get lucky and find it in raid, which is probably the desired goal by many, or, complete tasks that you may or may not want to even try. Eventually, powerful items will be weeded out of the vendors inventories, and we will be forced to find a lot of this stuff in raid, or maybe craft it in the hideout. Which sidenote, I can’t believe we don’t have more weapon crafts in the hideout. No M4 craft, considering there are multiple AK ones, no SMG’s and not a single .308 option either. It can be an egregious craft and take forever to complete, but it would be cool to see more weapons craftable considering that’s what you would do with a workbench. Not just tinker with guns you already have, but collect parts from across Tarkov and make one from scratch. Also, another side not sorry, but why can’t we buy more lower receivers from vendors to build weapons? It’s a now brainer, and I’ve always been annoyed that we can’t build many guns in the game piece by piece. The receivers are the hardest part to find in raid, but having them in vendors, even for a marked-up price, would maybe incentives people to build guns completely. I mean realistically, you need the lower, an upper, barrel, handguard, and buffer-tube, and that only gets you a gun that functions; doesn’t mean it’s best in slot by any means.

So, perhaps it isn’t that the vendors should have less tuff in general on them, but instead a shift in mindset with what they offer. You want an SR-25? Okay, well as Peacekeeper I don’t keep those on me, but here are some of the basic parts you need to build one, you’ll need to find the rest yourself. That gives credence to more attachments being valuable as well, which is good. A lot of items have become useful and more valuable overtime because of the hideout, so it would be nice if some of the vital weapon attachments saw the same level of importance go up too. It’s always more satisfying to build a gun than to just straight up buy one, even if you had to grind levels and quests for it. Something about being in that mod menu and just seeing each part click and snap into place. It’s a serotonin hit for sure.

The reality of our current situation is that the vendors won’t ever really be balanced. They’ll keep getting adjusted every so often as prices rise and fall. Items that were there previously will disappear, and items that weren’t there before will suddenly start showing up. The main question of should there be more or less is up to each individual. Personally, I am kind of indifferent at this point; but I'd say I guess I lean a little more into the vendors should have more camp. But not by a lot. I don’t know, at the end of the day my thoughts don’t really matter. But what are yours? Thank you for taking the time out of your day to watch this video, and be sure to subscribe for more videos about the traders in Tarkov getting their inventories shuffled around every couple of patches. I hope to see you in future ones.