The History of Escape from Tarkov - Part 3 (Early 2018) 

Lots of you guys seem to forget everything I said in my caveats and showed in the clips before the “then vs now” segment. Armor was far more effective, ammo wasn’t as good, there was virtually no blunt damage, no face hitbox, and movement from sprint to standstill was very different. Combine all of that with no med animations and instant mag reloads and it was both fast-paced AND longer fights. You’re free to disagree that this was a golden age, it’s a subjective opinion, but luckily for me it’s my video so I get to share mine :)

The gunplay/gameplay loop feels at its best when everyone is running class 3/4 armor with 5.45 BT rounds or an equivalent, 5/6 and super rounds like M995/7.62BP should be more of a rarity.

I joined tarkov late 2017 early 2018 and can say defo golden age of tarkov. Also i discovered your channel so that was pretty cool. :)

Man.. just listening to you and seeing all the old pictures and gameplay just lets me remember how i loved finding your videos in 2017. I really love how far you and EFT have come. Seeing that you have uploaded another GREAT video just makes my day every single time. Thank you very much for all that you have done. Much love from Germany

Watching this video makes me realize how much I also liked the old footstep/ supprssed ak aswell as the older style of combat

The "Then and Now" comparison portion really hits home. I was only a Tarkov viewer at that point and man did I enjoy watching the longer fights. The fights usually had so much tension and payoff. Now it feels more like sprinting, leaping around and 1 tapping. Just not something I like watching anymore.

This was amazing, I can't wait for the next part man, we can all see how much effort you put into these videos and we all appreciate it

My theory is that you played this game for many years, gained a lot of experience and now you "play the game with your eyes closed" , so there's no more adrenaline and no "emotion" like in the first days. All points, pixels, maps, builds and etc, are memorized. A person who started playing tarkov a short time ago will play more slowly, and will have adrenaline pumping in their veins during the Raid. BTW nice video!

Let’s go! Been waiting for another video in this series. Thank you for all the work you’ve put in on this series!

Quality as always V! As someone who started playing right before the fated Twitch drops of 2020 New Year's I love learning about how the game evolved, keep it up !

Dude I've been playing since the beginning more or less, and this has been the best tarkov video's I've ever watched. So many good memories and awesome experiences and to be honest so much bullshit I forgot about that gave the game some glitchy charm. Thank you so much for this series of video's. I know putting something like this together has been a ton of work! (I've gotten into arguments with buddies about previous game states and tried to look up stuff. Really the only way is forums and old videos with is a lot of leg work.) Absolute king. Thank you.

Great video yet again! Can't wait for part 4

Awesome work as always Veritas!! Loving to find out more about this insane game's history!!

Great work as always. That last clip of Kotton sneaking into that squad is hilarious.

This is right when I started playing and seeing clips from this time is taking me baaaaack. Love to see it.

yoooo! been waiting a lot on the next part of this series! keep it up man!

This is a really informative video, although I also played during this period and in my opinion I think the quality of gameplay has increased a lot. I really like the lower time to kill, especially seeing the insane mag dumps it took to kill people back in .7 and stuff.

I absolutely love this series! I hope to see more of this series, I love reminiscing of how tarkov used to be. Thank you Veritas ❤️

Man, the OG 5.45 AK sounds... I wish they came back

Amazing! Looking forward to the next. Also need to rewatch part 1 and 2 to refresh memory=)))

omg thanks veritas these videos are great. I may not miss the old days at all but its cool to see where we have come from

you have really captured the excellence that was early tarkov, ive been watching since 2017, but only recently got a pc to play it on, it makes me wish i was able to play back then

back in "the day" as it were, everyone was a massive bullet sponge and we all complained about it. One taps were kind of rare and we got kinda upset when we would put half a mag into a guy and he was able to turn around and shoot you back. Well we got what we asked for, but it turns out we didn't know what we had to begin with.

Good content, as always. Love your soundtracks. So good :)

I definitely miss the slower movement everyone had back then, I feel like my play style is still stuck in the golden era, here's hoping inertia levels the playing field again.

I think we can all agree old tarkov was awesome despite it's flaws but I also have a deep appreciation for how far the game has come and will continue to go. Sometimes I feel like people don't miss "old" tarkov but rather miss going into the game blind and learning everything along the way. One more thing I may add is that back then people were horrendous at PVP and just the game in general but nowadays there are a ton of absolute slayers who have years of experience in the game which for new players and even returning players can make the game seem damn near impossible starting out and tends to push people away from the game. Regardless, this was an awesome video Veritas, Keep it up!

been waiting for this

Amazing documentary thank you!

Great video!!

top notch .. thanks for the flash back

Vertas you make the best Information/Tarkov science vids. we are all blessed with your content.

finally!!! Love it. Thanks @Veritas love you

You always have awesome content! Glad I still support you even though I don't watch as much

can't wait for Part 4

great job mate

Yayyyyyy! I've been so hyped for this episode :)

I love seeing these, well done sir

Can we appreciate something that I haven't noticed so far or has been talked about? *The ground doesn't sound like you're stampeding on cornflakes. how fucking amazing*

Love these videos

Veritas, I don’t even play Tarkov anymore but I love this series. The editing and the amount of info is great!

I just joined Tarkov about a week ago with me watching a lot beforehand on RU-vid and learning simply by watching people. But man I suck so muxhnqt this game especially with crap ammo, loadouts and being a hatchling late-wipe against chads. Seeing the then vs now comparison really hit me hard. The fights seemed to be way better back then, especially since it’s so discouraging not being able to learn anything since I die by 1-taps most of the time and don’t get to learn how to approach, handle and end a fight properly. The only big disadvantage I see is getting 3rd partied like in apex legends due to long engagements, but it would be well worth it to me being able to learn anything in my first 50-100 hours in therms of pvp. I know scav‘s are a possible alternative, but this won’t level me up to get up to standard with any of the other players. But I still freaking love this game, any new game with being disoriented and having this kind of nervousness and fear of what‘s even going on.

Was super stoked to see this uploaded today right before I had to leave for work. Just getting home, fixing to relax and throw this up on the TV. Good shit my dude. Part 4 when?

YES. This has been my top anticipated piece of entertainment for the past few months! Keep up the great work V!

Rip the tactical tula 10000 attachment for the AK's. Miss that piece of gear a lot actually.

those old kotton clips really took me back

been waiting for this lets gooo

I love that you included Kotton's scraw clan infiltration. I still go back and watch that video occasionally.

gotta do this again with all the changes in 12.12 love these videos I wasn't fortunate to be apart of the game until 2019-2020 so a lot of these clips blow me away. wish I had a time machine!!!

I started playing tarkow Jan 2021, looks absolut fire back in the days and i wish i was one of the old-schoolers! Great vid and everything, keep doing this!

Can't wait for the new episode, I love this series

The gfaust clip of him dumping what seemed like 100 rounds into that guys dome was hilarious

These videos should have a lot more views, they are really well made!

love the series! now give us part 4 and 5 please!

Tarkov has been taking a back seat lately and i don’t think it’s gonna come up to the front for a while with battlefield, halo, and other great indie releases coming this season. 1800 hours later and i can finally say I’m not addicted anymore lol

doing gods work

Im excited for the next episode, covering 2019! The release of labs and first time ever that people saw and fought raiders. To see them petrified and frozen still in a corner as nades go off across the map. The comparison of flea market being added into the game in 2020. How players would yell when they saw a pmc they killed had a juice cannon and lvl 5+. As now its almost emotionless and only calulating roubles to then buy their meta kits instantly, which then get head eyes and 2-3 tapped in the chest anyways lol.

Holyshit, the old movement is unironically so much better. I forgot about how grounded and proper it felt. The slow ass footsteps fro sprinting were kinda weird tho, but everything else looks so much better than what it is now. Its popularity really did fuck so much up.

23:00 oh kotton. what a classic clip. that brings me back. i started playing around .6ish. this brings back the solo days. i play a five man this wipe after playing solo for years. the game is way different. i miss the wall behind dickehead rock too. games def different. im torn to say ifs its better or not. but really a different game.

As a new player (7 days as of this). It's very interesting to see the then vs now and how you mentioned how things felt slower then. That's how I play this game now, super slow and stealth. Great series Veritas 👊 Thank you

the gear fear tip at 19:15 got me soooo good

inertia brought back longer firefights and i'm really happy about it! 12.12 tarkov feels like a different game I can't wait for part 4, this series is awesome

I wish BSG would consider bringing back the "old gunplay." Guns raising slower after spring, slower to ADS, and more bobbing and swaying. It looked more realistic and was smoother, which really contributed to the craziness of a firefight. I hope inertia can end the strafing, sprinting bullshit that plagues this game now

Holly shit you have just unlocked a memory... i have seen that Kotton jump from the resort roof live on twitch :O 23:05

Lets go part 3

I remember watching Kotton jump off that roof live..... TWAS WILD. Also, amazing video, been playing since 2017, and this brings back all the memories, and reminds me where we started compared to where we are today.

yeah man this is great

Next episode when

I think it was patch 12 when they added reserve that was my favorite wipe. It was super easy to make money and because of that pvp was just fun. You could go into labs and easily sell all the player loot and make a quick 500k-1mil every raid. But 12.12 is in my opinion my second favorite wipe just because of inertia. The PVP with inertia has been so fun. I did love no inertia with the unique pvp but because tarkov is already so unique inertia has just added more to pvp which in my opinion is a needed change. PVP got stale after 4 wipes of the same movement system. I did love it but I was still excited for inertia.

21:49 - "On another Episode of... I shouldn't be ALIVE!!!"

The clip from Eroktic about gearfear always gets me xD

Those classic clips were awesome.

Super bummed I missed that era of Tarkov. Thanks for this documentary series!

i love this series

nice video

7:42 I actually miss this immersive way opening doors, makes the players slow down more instead of speed opening and sprinting past doors

Didn't get a pc until late 2020 so unfortunately I missed the Golden Age, but I did buy Tarkov as soon as I finally got one and I haven't regretted it since!

man this being my second wipe for this game a fairly new player, that before and now comparison made me realize how good this games gunplay was back then even for the newbies no one taps actual enjoyable gunfights with out skill potential rather than a lucky headshot 90% of the time dont get me wrong i still enjoy the game and im pretty good even for being relatively new but man do i wish i played during that time it looked so fun

Legendary

this is were i started my Tarkov journey

The memories of playing in 2018 is the reason I'm still playing today. The Golden age it was

This is the Tarkov I yearn for, slower pace, everyone was pretty much on the same playing field with weapons and armor, movement felt slower, engaging someone felt terrifying, nobody was running from one corner to the other with strafing, people took their time. I'm happy I experienced this golden age and hope for it to slowly turn back to this once inertia gets added.

This is going to sound dumb, but old Tarkov "scared me". Not my consciousness, not me myself, but it amped my body up something crazy. In game, if I were alone and being shot at from somewhere I couldn't see where I was being attacked from, I'd be adrenaline dumped. Fingers cold, trying to think while underfire, zigzaging, hopping, ducking, etc. If I made it away, I noticed I may have sweat a bit, bit of a heart rate elevation. Probably because it was first person, my brain maybe thought it was real danger, I dunno. Or when someone who's been kicking my ass from one side of the map to the other. I'm barely alive, but I just ambushed my tormentor and killed them. Those kinds of good feelings aren't something easy to find in games now a days, at least for me. If I got snuffed out, I'd be angry for a minute then just think something along the lines of "that's tarkov!", similar to the older "that's X-com!". Towards my end of playing I just disliked most of what they were adding. I despise the goddamned flea-market. How a lot of people started playing the game with spreadsheets and multiple alarms set to they knew when vendors restocked so they could hop in and get the rare stuff then log back off. Maybe you could craft it, but the higher level crafting stuff was locked behind so much grind and material that was already better than you could make yourself! After the flea-market and the opening of the Chinese servers where all of a sudden I was being looted while still alive by invisible people, I just said "f it" and was done. By then most people were just extract camping anyways. BSG banged on and on about how other PMCs being disappointed if people did hatchling runs, implemented the run through system to counter stat boosting, constant emphasis on long ranged combat with 1 shot, 1 kills becoming the norm as more ammo types were introduced, it felt like they really only cared about how the big streamers, the people who got them exposure felt about the game than the people who'd already bought the dang thing. Then when people started complaining that exfil camping was similar to the hated stat boosting/hatchling runs because the maps were empty and silent with any previous option, the only response was "git gud scrub". That attitude combined with the childish DMCA strikes they've done multiple times in the past when people simply pointed out a bug, exploit, or vulnerable netcode, I didn't want to be part of the community they were building anymore. Actually playing the game, looting, fighting scavs, and moving across the map carefully to avoid drawing unwanted attention to be killed by a shot you never heard by someone with the game open on one monitor, graphics and sound set in ways to easily pick out approaching people, and switching between the game they were actually playing to then exfil camp someone, and now using that body as bait while they continued to play other games, that makes the world feel empty, cold, and lifeless as well, just like if someone had done a run-through, or a hatchling run, both they put up counters for. And just ceding labs to hackers and exploiters is just unacceptable. Being killed by people running through the sky in Reserves or Woods or Shoreline, it all became an unhappy mess. The only hope I hold out for was the mention of being able to host private servers in the future and able to pvp and raid with friends. It did swing back around to being funny at one point when you lived longer with crappier armor because everyone was running the absolute best ammo possible with maximum pen. I still feel that the flea-market and the huge incentivizing of real money trading beyond character boosting that was already going on was when the game really started to turn for the worst. I was genuinely sad when I uninstalled after not having fun for a long time. All it takes though, is to remember how childish Nikita behaved and how he abused DMCA, swearing at players, etc., to remember that he is not the type of person I want to continue to support. Edit: Btw, what ever happened to the PMC karma system where if you indiscriminately murder PMCs from your own faction, traders would get pissed off at you? Meaning actually having to not shoot on sight but possibly work together?

2018. The year i started playing, & oh boy. It was BRUTAL

"More chaotic weapon handling" **Proceeds to show montage of full auto spraying people at 50 meters including one with 4x scope**

A major problem with Tarkov combat is that full-auto is simply way too controllable. There's a reason why soldiers don't use guns on full-auto for things other than suppression, 99% of the time.

So nostalgic seeing kotton mannnn I remember watching that stream back then

I love this Series... But I would want to see more about the growing of the Maps. You run over it in this Video!

I love the slower clunkier playstyle, something about the audio seemed cooler to me as well. Wish I could go back to 2018 for a little while!

This makes me miss Kotton and his EfT content. Great vid Veripapi

"The Golden Age of Tarkov Combat" Meanwhile the combat: 13:38 19:42 21:30 23:02

Current gunplay in Tarkov: camping in bushes

16:12 a second before I too didn't notice the guy but that blatant running oh...

15:42 is the best example of current tarkov. Extremely high rates of fire with no recoil. Insurgence Sandstorm feels like it’s got some of the best gunplay, while Squad feels the best to me as a whole. People just don’t want to think. They want to let their adrenaline and stress guide the fight and win based on it. In Sandstorm, you have the time to think, along with good guns and highly mobile players. In Squad, if you aren’t thinking then you’re probably meat grinding between objectives hoping for something to change. In Tarkov, as soon as you start thinking and trying to play smart in your engagement, maybe switch to single fire so your recoil doesn’t knock you away, someone who hasn’t taken their finger off of their W key since the start of the raid flips the corner and sprays you down full auto while also not stopping their movement once. Tarkov has been tailored to the landmarks, and now they are the ones who dominate it, and nobody wants to play anymore.

Nowadays when I die I have mostly no idea where the guy was. The game is now all about seeing (hearing) the enemy first, doesn't matter the gear either one of you have... 2018 I miss you.

holy shit I was there when Kotton made that god jump, still haven't pick my jaw up from the ground on that one

People remembering the "Golden Age" makes me feel like it's the same case as with WoW Classic: you say you want it until you've experienced it once again and then realise that it's ultimately something you don't want.

Im here and feeling good My body is ready

Eroktic really hasn't changed a single bit 🤣🤣

Loving the look of the weapon animations, handling, recoil etc of v0.7. The guns kick pretty hard but PREDICTABLY and I remember it feeling incredibly rewarding. Now you gotta grind weapon mastery and recoil handling skill in order to use any full auto weapon decently reliably unless it's a submachinegun.

Not sure if you read all of these comments or not @Veritas, but I've watched almost every video you've posted recently and I'm a huge fan. I know it takes a ton of work to put up these video's and your love and commitment for this amazing game definitely shows. Wish you the best and looking forward to more of the history videos in the future!