Vaulting is Going to Change Tarkov

With the latest TarkovTV podcast under wraps, we got a good inside look into what’s coming for the immediate future of the game. There are tons of changes and updates coming that have people generally excited for the winter patch of 2023. However, there were a few things that in particular got me very excited and began to wonder how Tarkov is going to shift in terms of its general gameplay and how it feels. For now, we will be going over one of these two major changes in this video and go over the other in a follow up later. The first major update being out ability to move in Tarkov and more specifically, vault and mantle over obstacles now instead of always having to jump over them. The second is the complete overhaul of how armor works in the game and the advanced hit boxes for those zones. It’s difficult to explain how massive of a change this will be to the game, so let’s just go over the movement and how it is right now, and then compare it to what it could be like with the addition of vaulting. So, if you enjoy these dives into Tarkov’s mechanics, be sure to subscribe to the channel for more videos.

Movement in Tarkov has always been critically important to your success in raid. But as time has gone on, the game has become more popular and people have gotten better at the game, how you navigate around maps and especially fights can make or break it for you and whether you survive a raid. And to be brutally honest, the movement in Tarkov has always been slow and clunky. This was more apparent back in the day before patch .12 with the addition of Reserve, because in that update we got a noticeable shift in how we move. The general movement felt like it got faster, as well as the cadence of our own footsteps got faster as well. It’s hard to describe but if you watch any Tarkov footage of someone sprinting around before .12, it sounds noticeably slower than post .12. Now, just speed alone doesn’t cover the full picture, how we jump and traverse over obstacles as well as through them makes all the difference. Which is why vaulting is going to be such a big deal. Being able to simple mantle over a piece of cover or go through a window without having to use a backwards way of getting through it, needing the right amount of strength and being under a certain weight threshold is generally coming to improve the game across the board. And from the short video we got of the vaulting being used in the game, it’s exactly what most of us were hoping for.

The animation itself isn’t taxing enough to get you killed all the time. Sure, if you get unlucky or get too complacent with using the animation all the time, then you will find yourself getting shot at during the vault. But the animation is fast enough that for the most part, you should be able to get away using it freely, without too much worry whether someone is watching you climb over this piece of terrain. And it was especially nice to see the animation from both the first and third person. It looks a tiny bit Jank if I may be honest, but I won’t complain in the slightest. It behaves exactly how we wanted it to, it’s nice and snappy, the only two questions are what’s the cutoff point before something is too tall for you to climb, and how much stamina is vaulting going to take. Because that was one thing that was hidden from us in the video. They did not show the stamina bars, so we are left in the dark in that regard. My prediction is that vaulting depending on what you are trying to get over, will use either arm or leg stamina. If it’s the rocks on Lighthouse and you just need to step over some small pieces, then I can see only leg stamina being used in that instance. But if it’s getting over a railing, then it could just be arm stamina. Or maybe, it will be a little of both; that wouldn’t surprise me either. But that question is still looming in the air.

Just the stamina costs alone could be a dealbreaker for this mechanic. If it costs too little stamina, then people will use and potentially abuse it to get the advantage over others. Now, you might think that since everyone will have access to it, it can’t really be abused. Well, as much as I would hope for that to be the case, with soft skills still being how they are, specifically strength and endurance, it wouldn’t surprise me if these are considered with how fast you vault. Or even, whether someone can reach a certain vaulting spot. If you have high enough strength, you might be able to reach a spot someone who has lower skills can’t get to. So, we might see a new era of jump spots in Tarkov, but instead of jumping you just vault up to them. This is a little farfetched, I must be honest, but Tarkov is so complex that these are elements you need to consider when making huge changes like this.

Or, on the complete flipside, we might see people just ignore this mechanic for the most part. Again, it seems like there are specific moments when a vault will initiate. So, you won’t find yourself doing it randomly out on an open road. This could end up being a feature everyone says they want, but don’t use as often as BSG might’ve perceived. Kind of like the compass and rangefinder, but I digress. And I don’t think that will be the case either. It’s too caked into the core gameplay of Tarkov, being movement, that you will find yourself vaulting up and over stuff whether you meant to or not. And that’s the hope, right? To have it so seamless that you don’t even recognize you are doing it. If BSG can make that a reality, then I would say that vaulting is a smashing success.

Either way, it’s great to see something like this get added into the game. We’ve needed an update to how we move in the game for a very... very long time. And this was just the extra little spice we needed to shake up some gunfights and general navigation in the game. Imagine dorms, how all the windows you normally jump out of can now just be vaulted over. Imagine all the railings in the game, especially on Interchange that you have to jump or wiggle over. My hope is that things feel more seamless in the game. We waste less stamina on stupid things like trying to jump up a one-foot-tall ledge or trying to get over a piece of trash that just has weird collision hitboxes with players in the game. It’s going to be for the better. Maybe not immediately, like how inertia was when it was added, but overtime I see this being a big win for Tarkov as a game. It’ll feel better, play better, and probably look a little better too.

Vaulting is a wonderful addition to the game. It would’ve been nice a little earlier, but hey beggars can’t be chooser, you know? Either way I am excited at the prospect of being able to play and interact with the game in a completely new and interesting way. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know in the comments what your thoughts are about vaulting. Excited, concerned, don’t really care. Let me and everyone else know down below and be sure to subscribe for the follow up video to this one being all about armor and how that might be more impactful to the game than vaulting. I hope to see you in future ones.