Patch 12.11 did BSG pull off a win?
I’ve been sitting here the last few days pondering over this article. I’ve been playing
Escape from Tarkov nonstop and almost exclusively on stream as twitch.tv/ruinhatter…hey come
on I get at least one shameless promotion!
As I sat here looking at this blank page staring back at me I wondered exactly how I feel
about this latest patch. There are moments where I’m overjoyed! The raid went great, got out
with some good loot and the gun fights were actually fun! No one is running around in super
high tier gear with the best ammo. No fights that end in like half a second cause the round rips
right through your armor like paper mache.
Other times I’m almost pulling my hair out. Moment after moment of frustration by
something that felt broken or out of sync. Feeling like there’s always this little tweek or
adjustment I can make to my computer or game that’ll make it run just that much better. As if by
magic.
Then there’s those bugs that have come into the game that make me scratch my head
wondering how it even got past testing. How were some of these missed. Then there’s a simple
issue of a game mechanic brought in that had significant holes in the design that for the life of
me I cannot understand how they weren’t considered or even handled better.
Well right out the gate I’m sure you’re expecting to strap in and read what should be a
good thrashing of Battlestate Games. The community certainly hasn’t been vague about their
feelings in regards to patch 12.11 and another round of good old fashion brow beating will no
doubt make them jump with glee. This isn’t that kind of article. Oh yeah I’m going to put a
spotlight on some of the more glaring issues, but I also want to showcase when they’ve done a
fair bit of good!
Back in college I would often start my papers by bringing up the less than favorable
points and 12.11 definitely has them. I’ve honestly found myself more than a few times
scratching my head and wondering how certain things got through playtesting…or if 12.11 was
even playtested. That sounds harsh I know and I’m sure there was some testing done…but I
digress.
First on the block was the Shoreline extract bug. PMC would find that when looking to
extract from a raid the extract wouldn’t work and the PMC couldn’t safely leave the game. At
that point the only option is to die to leave the raid and start fresh with a new raid…losing
everything you had on you in the process. This could mean you’ve wasted 30 to 40 minutes just
to lose everything. All your loot, all your guns, and gear..just gone! To make matters worse this is
a pretty popular map that was basically shut down. Not for a few hours but for days. What
made this particularly egregious was the fact that as of the last wipe there was no extract bug.
Shoreline didn’t have this issue. What’s enough to scratch your head is the fact that Shoreline
received no additional content. Nothing was added or changed to the map. Nothing was mentioned
in patch notes and since this was never a bug before it wasn’t a “various bug fix” that Battlestate
Games often puts into their patch notes. The fact alone that it took days for them to sort out just
boggles my mind. Now I’m not stating that any of their changes couldn’t have caused this bug, it
is wild to me that during testing this never came up! Not once? I believe if Battlestate Games
came to the conclusion that the patch was big enough for a wipe then I would assume then all
maps would be tested as both scav and PMC.
Next was finding that after a raid using Therapist to fully heal from your injuries didn’t
always work. Simply you’d spend the money which could range from 14,000 Rubles to as high
as 40,000 Rubles if you’ve been poisoned by a cultist dagger. Now there isn’t a whole lot else to
go into on this one. Outside of the fact that again how was this missed? Just in the usual time of
playtesting the patch this should have been encountered. As I encountered it within a day of
playing. More head-scratching as Therapist also didn’t receive any changes, at least none noted
on the patch notes.
Then we have your entire stash coming in with you into the raid! Yeah you heard that
right. Another bug that was discovered that had never been present before. Players were
discovering that when they went to their inventory screen their entire stash was still there. Now
there is a chance this bug may have not been caught in testing. It seemed fairly rare, but again
that was one hell of a bug. Now apparently you couldn’t interact with the stash or it would crash
the game. So it didn’t seem like you could lose your entire stash if you were to die in a raid but
the thought alone is terrifying!
Now let’s focus on what is no doubt something that really needs a closer look at the scav
karma system. Now I’ve touched on some issues with it in a previous article. So what I want to
shine more of a light on is simply fairly large design holes that somehow went unnoticed
throughout its development. In particular, how while playing as a scav how to defend yourself
from fellow player scavs that have become hostile. When the system first came online you could
lose Karma for killing another scav, even a player scav that shoots at you. Players were finding
themselves losing karma for simply defending themselves from another player scav, because
they were able to kill them before the aggressor did. Now Battlestate Games did implement a fix
but honestly, it wasn’t much of a fix. Now players playing scavs can kill other player scavs, but
you have to be shot first. Meaning that until you actually take damage from that player scav you
cannot kill him, even if you see them firing at you. Battlestate Games didn’t implement proximity
detection for being shot at, a solution that would have been far more effective. This is puzzling
as currently there does seem to be some form of proximity detention running in the game. If you
fire near an AI scav they will turn to look at you and return fire. Meaning the game is able to
determine who shot or relative direction. From there it’s able to determine with an amount of
certainty that you shot or that you’re a hostile faction and can open fire. So one could assume
that some form of this could also be used to mark a player scav as hostile.
Now I can already hear arguments that misfires and accidents could lead to being
marked as hostile and it wasn’t with intent. I’d offer this solution. If you fire close enough to a
scav as a player scav you can have a hostile status for sixty seconds. For that time frame the AI
would treat you as any other marked player. So long as in that sixty seconds you don’t do
anything that would lose you karma to Fence or shoot near another scav then the status would
go away. Think of it more as a temporary debuff. A warning to behave or it’ll get worse for you.
This in my mind takes pretty much all into account at least when it comes to player scav on
player scav violence.
The other issue with the karma system was the lack of clarity. Sure we knew that scavs were
off-limits but what about bosses, their bodyguards, raiders or cultists? I’m still not certain about
what would happen if you killed a cultist as a scav, though I’m certain you’d likely lose karma. It
was eventually explained that bosses and their guards are still off-limits which makes sense.
Raiders on the other hand seemed weird to most players as being off-limits. As raiders seemed
to only keep their own company, though they will work alongside the bosses and their guards.
Battlestate Games did eventually make raiders fair game again to kill as a scav without any loss
of reputation with Fence. This was good as honestly, scav was a bit boring to play with so little to
engage combat-wise. Even that was bugged and lead to popular streamer Onepeg losing his
max Fence reputation and going to the lowest possible reputation not just in one raid..but in
three kills!
After hearing that raiders were fair game once more he went to Reserve where raiders
spawn in plenty. Shooting the first raiders he got a notice that he lost 6 points of reputation with
Fence. Not .6 not .06, which had been more common modifiers, no he lost a full six points!
Considering that max Fence’s reputation was just over six meant he lost all his positive fence
reputation in one shot. To continue the test Onepeg killed two more raiders and found his new
Fence’s reputation, his scav karma, was now below -12! Battlestate Games did realize they had
made another big error when they were made aware and have since corrected it. Though at the
time of writing this those players who were affected by this bug have not had their previous
karma returned. Having a max reputation is a big plus as a scav. You get better loadouts, good
items and gear. You also have more extracts you can take, AI scavs work with you and bosses
will even let you act as bodyguard gaining more positive karma. Also your cooldown timer
between scav runs is by far less,
