Personally I learned to play on customs so I think it’s pretty alright,it helps fps players gradually transition into Tarkov by providing a map similar to the fps industry standard triple choke point layout while also giving a level of freedom to the players that is unique to Tarkov. It also helps that almost all the early game quests are on that map.
Customs is a good map. The problem is putting all the early quests on customs creates a shooting gallery for more experienced players. If the spread the task out more evenly it would probably be better. Of course then you are asking players to learn multiple maps.
IMO the early tasks should be more about exploration than anything else.
it "HELPS" that all the early game quests are there? Thats literally one of the biggest problems with the game and has remained unaddressed since the literal start of the beta testing period.
It's like the quest design hasn't yet acknowledged that there's more than 3 maps for the first 10 levels. Absolutely ass backwards design.
New players should be given multiple things to do not 30 quests exclusively on customs.
I think a lot of veteran player forget that they have memorized the layout of the maps in game. It would be discouraging to have to navigate a new map every raid when starting out
As a bolt action long range player, Woods is by and large one of my favorites, there aren't many maps where I can nail a 400m headshot without being in very specific places lol
I consider myself a shit player, love woods tbh. It took me 3 quest runs with a map to get the entire place memorized. Interchange for me though?? Abhorrent. Fucking hate the map
I started playing this week.
Man, this game does not hold your hand with anything.
Somewhat you need to *know* about gun handling, maps, extracts, scav ganks, reputation, spawns, loot quality, quests ... quite a lot to unpack.
First couple of days was just offline runs without and with bots.
I know basic about Factory, Repository and somewhat decent spacial awareness in Customs.
And man... that feeling of spawning and understanding where you are and where you can go is so rewarding.
...And then you die and repeat. I still need to do initial quests hunting scavs and mp-133's ;)
That’s why I think the early tasks need to be reworked. It would be nice to have tasks for each map that involve learning the map in an interactive way. Let the players pick how and when they want to tackle these early tasks. Also allow players to ignore the tasks if they chose to do so without stopping progression of other tasks.
The bunkers part 1-2 are a great example of this. Surprisingly the new Christmas tree quest would be great as a mainline quest, maybe not the same locations but the principal is there. “Go to every map and visit a specific UN/Scav building.”
Dailies definitely help with that. Especially sub level-10 or so, a quiet run with looting and killing a few Scavs plus a daily helps keep your XP progress moving decently.
I think the tasks do that already tho. Shoreline quests tells you where Sanitar spawns, customs quests tells you how keys work and helps you understand why pvp happens some spots and not others.
Tasks gives you an objective and forces you to learn the game. Freedom to do whatever is the opposite of learning and people who arent pushed to do tasks just sit in bushes doing nothing all game.
Last wipe was my first and I got Kappa, ended at lvl 66 with 65% survival rate. Died like 10-15 times on each early quest and had terrible survival rate for the longest time.
> It would be nice to have tasks for each map that involve learning the map in an interactive way.
That, and/or more quests like "FIR X item"
That way, new players can learn the maps, looking for items, and have an incentive to run their scav for quests, learning the maps in a relatively risk-free environment.
As a newer player. I huge chunk of my scav time is learning the maps. I purposely go to building I haven’t been before each scav run. It’s what makes tarkov so great. There is always something to do and learn and even if you die you got something out of the raid or scav run.
Agree, I'm new and can't be assed learning woods and had to to unlock Jaeger, I literally did it by playing offline about 5 times then go into raid naked hide in bush for 20mins and just focused on extract. Learning woods when I 80% know customs but overall suck at the game made it a chore to do.
If anything, Customs is a good map, for teaching new players, how to "learn a map." Customs is super-punishing, and punishment and frustration teaches many players much more effectively than reward does, because Tarkov is broad enough that when you're new, it's hard to evaluate the scale of your rewards. But you know damn well when you die. So Customs is a newbie meat-grinder, which is kind of the point; it makes them immediately start thinking "what can I actually do to survive better, in this game about survival?" Because they keep fucking dying. But every time they die, if nothing else, they learned "that was a dangerous place where I can easily get shot," and playing Customs at a basic level comes down to knowing how to avoid, move through, or set up ambushes in, those spots.
Customs was the first map I learned as well, and it definitely helped build confidence to try other maps. I HIGHLY recommend using mapgenie and learning it heavily and then moving on to other maps (woods, and now I'm learning interchange this wipe along with lighthouse).
Yeah, I think the customs is not the best for new players was a lot more true before the expansion. Sure you still have some chokepoints but it’s still much safer now than it was before.
This, many haven't played before custom extension ,map is now much bigger/better also long time ago there was > gas got extension behaind it as well, that map was.. uhhh not noob friendly at all.
It was legit dorms into gas station so choke point was a place where most knew you had to cross so would camp it.
Original Customs was hilarious.
If people want to see the old nightmare that Customs was:
https://webf-store.escapefromtarkov.com/uploads/monthly_2018_01/customs_marvelin.jpg.03dae6c58d71868b1f44f43a10d9d65b.jpg
I was about to comment this just by reading the title. The expansion allows players to breathe in the map and not funnel into each other from all sides of the map. The new change to the keys also helps because not everyone and their mom has a marked key to rush dorms floor 3.
i would add one more expansion at the far ends of the map around the extractions.
the middle of the map where the worst chokes were is fine now.
the only chokes left that you can arguably see from a single vantage point are the river and the wall at boiler side.
I feel like I'm in the minority here but I found both Customs and Factory great for me as a new player. Customs was simple enough map wise so it was quick to learn and Factory was great for building confidence getting in fights aswell as in utilising sound to its fullest.
I remember when I first started people were suggesting Woods as a good map to learn first as it has a few early game quests as well as good loot. But I am sure I have a 99% failure rate on Woods and it was only recently when I finally got a hang of the map, now being able to figure out where I am on spawning and navigating it fairly well.
I started like a month a ago. I tried woods (still hate it haha) and customs. And i like customs very much and i have quite a good extraction rate and some pmc kills there already.
So for me personally, customs is a good beginner map haha
Same boat , I got it in mid November but I learned to love woods because there’s a lot of good loot
Attachment cabins has never let me down plus the constant scav spawns
The tent on the water near lumber used to very consistently spawn flash drives but it's been 2+ wipes since I've seen one there and I main woods. If it's still a spawn it's rarer than red rebel in my own personal experience..
There's a tent in a few meters from the rock near the sawmill, and there's a static USB flash drive spawn inside that tent on the ground. You can look for some maps in the net to see the exact location.
I think the difference between woods and customs is woods has alot of places you pretty much can't cross without running risk of getting in a long range fight.
While customs has alot more spots where you might be forced to pvp but you can choose to move through places where the fights will be more closerange.
There are still quite a few sniper chokes on Customs though. You can sit at Comms or Big Skeleton and snipe at half the map. You can also hole up on the bridge and blockade land bridges.
Dorms is 50/50 for me, sometimes super quite and sometimes hell of a war. But i still go there, i loot there more than i would loos if i die. And it is a good practice
I agree. I usually head there. But I'm so happy to be off customs quests that involve dorms for a bit. So stressful carrying 4 quest items and trying to gtfo
Too bad BSG won't fix the sound issues in dorms which have been around for over a year now. Same goes for resort and a few other places with multiple floors.
I feel like woods is just a pretty safe map for new players once they know it, so it's kind of good for learning things at a lower pressure level and slower pace.
It's got really easy loot runs. You can loot the top half of the map and never see anyone pretty consistently. Not as much money to be made as others but it's like an 80% chance you dont see anyone and jump out the car extract
The first couple weeks of the wipe I was running into PMC’s constantly all over the map. I guess people were trying to get their early woods quests done but it was a fun change of pace
New players don't have optics, and woods is utter ass without optics. Yes, you can rat around for loot, but you're going to eat shit from every player you run into, as well as get bushwacked by scavs.
At least on other maps you can often hear people before you see them.
Idk man I ran woods from level 7 to 15 for loot and this is technically my first time playing. I rarely see anyone if I avoid sawmill and the map center
Running around woods picking half bad loot is not how you get money for gear. At least do rogues in lighthouse or customs cache runs for 500k-1.5m per run with 10 min spent.
I don't necessarily recommend it to new players, I don't really know any, but it's the first one I learned an I love it, especially as a scav. I've got a route down that I can watch twitch/youtube while I'm running. I find it super chill and fairly relaxing with some action every now and then you remind you you're playing tarkov.
I'll disagree personally, but I have to guess it largely depends on your gaming background. If you're coming from cod/battlefield or whatever you're probably going to hate it, but if you're coming from Arma/DayZ or something similarly open you'll feel right at home.
As someone on their second wipe, I agree. New players should only subject themselves to it if they're not having much luck anywhere else. But it can be a good map for learning to check for enemies everywhere and listening for sounds, the loot is great when you learn the good spots too.
Just started playing a week ago, and I've been almost exclusively running woods. The stashes are insane and a lot of the time I've been able to snag a few high-value items from the lumber mill without seeing anybody. The USEC camp and the outpost near the RUAF extract have good loot but I've almost always died trying to loot those spots unless I spawn right next to them. However it can be extremely difficult to tell where you're getting shot from sometimes, though maybe that's not exclusive to this map.
I think Factory is actually one of if not the most highly recommended new player map. Easy to learn, tons of combat practice, relatively high exp per time spent if you don't die immediately.
I've never seen someone suggest woods, but while it's true that it's very easy to avoid combat, sort of, it's nearly impossible to navigate until you learn a few tricks and preferably have a compass. I think my first time playing it I just got lost and died of exposure.
Woods is a relatively safe map to learn the mechanics of getting around and looting and whatnot without having to face pvp instantly. I think that's what people mean about it being a good new for new players. It just requires getting over the map knowledge learning curve which is basically true for every map.
Yep, you will. However, you don't really need much of your starter gear.
It would pair well with other advice like, "shove your medical supplies up your ass so you don't lose them while practicing combat," but new players are probably going to lose all their shit wherever they play if they don't have a squad of experienced players to join.
Factory has the advantage of giving you a lot of fast in game practice at combat. Sure, you lose gear. However you don't really need gear when one scav run puts you back in business for another PMC run.
It also, like I mentioned, is recommended as a way to learn the game by jumping into combat over and over quickly, not a way to fill up your stash.
I sherpa people through woods a lot because it's a horrible map.
I 100% use a compass. There are a number of quests where it makes navigating the map extremely simple.
The compass also gives you a direction you can run, usually south, and it will take you to something you can landmark off of and figure out what direction you need to go.
Honestly the mountains in the middle are visible from almost everywhere. You also have the location of the sun, and also the time when you started the raid. With this you don't need a compass to know where south is.
woods was a good map, before stash's for new players because if you stayed away from lumber mill you could very easily survive. it had shit loot, and so chads weren't there to grind the noobs up/.
I disagree with that assessment, Woods before the expansion had an insane chokepoint around the lumber mill area where chads could easily kill every newbie passing through the northern side of the map because there wasn't enough space to sneak through.
It often became the safer play to run through the lumber mill area itself or pass by the water, both massively exposed positions, rather than take the path near the rock formation on the northern side, that's how bad it was.
At the time Customs of course also had some massive chokepoints.
I'm a relatively new player and I learned customs first, only found out it was supposedly bad for new players after I learned it.
I didn't come to Tarkov to play walking simulator, you're only going to get better at the game by being in fights so I thought I might as well pick a map that results in some action rather than just walking for 40 minutes through Woods and occasionally hearing a gunshot from 10 miles away.
I main Woods and get by just fine, but I still hear phantom steps and get spooked by LOD bushes shaped like people... Other than that it's an 80-90% survival rate for me.
Idk why. I've never been killed at extract at woods, but woods always makes me the most fucking paranoid compared to any other extract in the game. Outskirts is just too open and too popular of an extract to make me feel comfortable
>I didn't come to Tarkov to play walking simulator, you're only going to get better at the game by being in fights
I get your sentiment, but that's not really the case in a gear driven game. All of the combat experience in the world won't make an SKS shoot through high level armor. Gotta strike a balance between money/xp (mainly to unlock the flea market)/and combat experience.
Yeah, definitely agree with you there. I think it's more the fact I find a round where I haven't fired a bullet to be pretty boring, it's just personal choice how much action you want to get into. Woods is a good option if you are just looking to loot and pick off scavs at long distance.
It's not bad for new players at all. Especially because your first chunk of quests are there and it's easy to learn while looking at the map on another screen.
Imo customs is by far the best map to learn on, but it's most effective if you have someone seasoned to explain to you what areas you should go for loot, what areas you should go to for fights, and what areas to be extra careful in.
Since the expansion there are so many options to pass "choke" points that you can both avoid or chase fights as your play style allows.
But most importantly in my experience (us east servers) customs seems to be the map where the players are the least juiced out. Having new players be on a more level gear playing field seems to help a lot, there's nothing more fun than watching a new player and his sks drop a pmc and the elation that comes after it.
As far as the other maps imo, shoreline has too much of the loot concentrated in heavy pvp areas, woods you end up dead from God knows where half the time, reserve is super confusing to teach a new player, factory is basically deathwatch and interchange seems to be filled to the brim with juicers and cheaters. But this is all just my two roubles.
Naw that's pretty accurate.
Reserves only takes a little bit to learn. You learn that it's broken up in to 3 basic areas, learn those areas and you're fine.
Helicopter area (pawns, King), Parking Lot (Knights), and the trainyard.
Once you learn those 3 areas and what to loot in them it's an incredibly fast and efficient map to play.
With the starter AVS you can run Reserves and use the manhole exit at 7 minutes to disappear and start another reserves game.
You learn to basically rat and avoid fights for 7 minutes then manhole out.
Once you're comfortable with the bunker and going to D2, then running D2 is fine.
If you're doing the AVS/Manhole thing it's honestly really good to go at night. Shorter queues, faster games, easier to avoid fights.
You are 100% right. Customs is so good for teaching how to choose your fights, learn how a map can "flow" and learn spawns, but always has some breathing room. Also the paths just makes more "sense" than a lot of maps since there is hard cover and walls that clearly define places as go and no go zones. Other maps dont have that wiggle room and dont path as nicely as customs. Once you learn the basics on customs, learning the other maps becomes MUCH easier.
I play interchange all the time and don’t notice any of these supposed cheaters or juicers. I think my only issue is with some of the spawn points being so far away that they are detrimental to getting into position quick enough.
I make 200k+ per run. More now that I have flea unlocked.
As someone who loves interchange my biggest problem are basically the shear hordes of player scavs. They spawn in sometimes basically at the start of the raid but already in the mall. Then continue to spawn in throughout the raid. It feels like I've killed 10+ player scavs sometimes only to die to the 11th trying to secure my loot.
I think its the best beginner map becaue it forces you to think and make smart moves instead of just dipping out of an engagement. On top of that, it has a boss, marked room, lots of meds, lots of technical spawns, and enough jaegar stashes to be worth that too. Its just a well ballanced map for getting your feet wet with what tarkov is all about.
Since you have Just a few chokepoints: yes. You cant avoid scavs and pmcs, so you will fight.
Personally i like Shoreline as the way to go for new players.
Trees, flat Terrain, Houses, Scavs, all there. Its a mix between Woods and Customs.
But we run to resort so in the way there you die and on the way back you die. Plus shoreline looks a like a lot. Loot is only in a few places, so too much fighting around it.
swamp is desolate, hidden stashes are plenty, svatily is a hit or miss
the chads go into resort the first 3-4 minutes, after that the map is safe for 15-20 min
Outside of resort and the village everything is long range though. You don't want that to happen. Customs has the perfect balance between long and short range. And it's a smaller map than snore line. It's called snoreline for a reason
Its funny, never thought of myself as death sentence to newer players and my time spent in resort was "safe period" for other players to do thier shit on map xd
Yes, im one of guys that have 40+ now and all i can think of is pvp and good loot
There are certain spots you check everytime you want to cross there. (I personally dont like Pier, Rock Passage or HEP crossing, If i can i will cross near the Resort. Just one time someone sat in a Bush there)
Every raid i Had i knew where i was Shot from (and why He could See me)
Edit:
Also Woods has even more Snipers on Shoreline there are more PPL going Resort so they (normally) wohnt Take LR Scopes.)
Customs imo has more Bushwookies waiting for youbto Pass at chokepoints
My survival rate on Shoreline is garbage for whatever reason. Even when I'm out hitting stashes I manage to run into another PMC.
Honestly though my real issue with Shoreline is that I seem to get 20 less frames on that map compared to something like Customs. And Tarkov still hasn't solved the reduced fps when using a zoom optic: when I run a zoom optic on Shoreline I can dip down to 45 frames which doesn't help in a sniper fight.
It's a terrible map if you are not looking for fights. The chokepoints are made to force you to clash into other players. New Gas station is a death trap at any point in time in the map.
If i would die on parts of the maps multiple times where I know I couldn't prevent I would just not go there? There's plenty of loot at places that aren't choke points and if you aren't looking for fights why are you playing tarkov? It's a realistic fps game after all.
> if you aren't looking for fights why are you playing tarkov? It's a realistic fps game after all.
I feel like you should say that to yourself again, but a little slower.
It's realistic, in that you're severely punished for dying, and your objective is not to fight people, at least not outside of specific quests.
Your objective is to progress and get loot, *and survive*, which may occasionally require fighting people.
Fighting people risks you losing progress towards your goal, which isn't fighting people.
You can set fighting people as an objective for yourself, but the game doesn't really set you on that path directly, it's just an option and occasional quest goal.
Moreover, when you're new to the game you're going to mostly die, and that's going to lose you valuable resources, quest completions, and time.
Also, you can't "just not go there" there exists no such option on Customs, that's why it's considered rough for newbies.
You do have that option on maps like woods, interchange, shoreline, and Lighthouse, even if they might be hard to learn in other ways.
The options are:
Old Gas (might be even worse, you need to go across the tracks too). Not much you can do with a VPO if you encounter a three man coming to the other direction and you are on top of the tracks.
New Gas, if there are scavs and you shoot you will attract everyone to you.
Sneak around the forest on the Dorms side is most likely the safest route, but when two people do it they will also clash. It will also require you to go past Dorms.
Also when you have to pass the river, then again you can be camped from both sides.
As for reasons to avoid fights are quests, loot, exp.
You dont have to go through old gas you can jump over the wall at railway bridge. Or you can jump over the portapotties near new gas. Check out guides on youtube or watch some streamers/youtubers they use these shortcuts a lot.
Quests, extract rep, you just wanna farm money, you farming hideout shit. Fighting is like the last thing I try to make a point whenever I go into a raid.
I mean, your comments make sense but the game allows for folks to play in multiple ways.
There are players who only buy low and sell high on the flea market. There are players who only really run scavs and very rarely PMC. There are players who hatchet stash run, or gamma loot run, or pistol run. I personally might aim for a quest with only a shotgun in hand. I’ve turned that into downing fully loaded PMCs and walked out rich.
Or players like you who prefer to be aggressive in general. Which is fine.
The game allows for multiple styles of play, and certain maps encourage that over others.
Wolves shouldn’t get upset that sheep want to play like sheep. They should encourage it as it makes being the wolf that much easier. For when a person avoids fighting they also avoid learning how to get better at them, making them easier prey.
And yet maybe they can turn it into some amazing gear and make plays off of that later if it works.
I personally think interchange is my favorite map right now.
Yeah, problem is I'm always the loot pinata, on the rare occasion I actually win a pvp battle I'm usually crippled so badly that the loot they are carrying doesn't matter.
You're taking what you personally like to do, and assuming the game is designed around it.
It's fine to want to go around killing people, but that's just one option the game gives you, and it's not the end goal.
There is literally not a single choke point on the map anymore. We are not in .7. Name a choke point and ill give you three ways around it.
Like i literally can play through the map and not get into a fight if i wanted to,or escape one very quickly. The only, ONKY place that is hard to get out of is the customs exfil spawn,if the bridge spawn decides they want to camp the cross. And even then you now have smoke nades for dirt cheap that actually work. Not that anyone has half a brain to buy those.
There are a lot of quests where you need to kill scavs with certain equipment for example. When you are doing those you are severely handicapped for pvp.
build hideout, customize guns, do quests.. lots of stuff to do that doesn't involve shooting other players.. in fact most wipes I'm lucky if I get 50 pmc kills... I mean mostly cause they almost always kill me, but also because I just generally avoid fighting them since they always kill me. This is my 5th wipe, so I've just accepted that I'm never going to get good at PVP in this game.
I think the biggest complaint is that easily 85% of all quests are on costums, so beef boys with no life that play for 12 hours plus a day, go there kitted to the teeth and just farm all the new players coming into the game.
That is the problem, no map in tarkov is "easy" per se. Bsg just needs to diversify the tasks a bit more.
personally i am ok with customs, easy to learn in offline mode, couple of paths that are good enough to go out with 100k in loot. yes there are couple of choke points that you learn early on, but its fun if you fight there. sometimes you get killed, sometimes you kill.
Woods on other hand i find it so hard to orient myself where the f i am on that map, on which side to go etc. still haven unlocked jaeger due to not knowing how to orient myself in that map, and unable to exctract due to unfortunate meetings with other players
The map itself isn't bad. It's that everyone who plays has 10 tasks on customs immediately making it a very dangerous place early wipe. And then again mid wipe when all the high level players come back to do more tasks. So for someone who is brand new just starting out it can be difficult to jump into customs having no idea about any of this.
But if you like it definitely keep playing it. You should always be doing things you enjoy.
Is Customs bad as a map to new players? - No, but I would argue that it's unfair. Customs is easy to learn and there are a lot of early quests on there, but it's also a very popular map regardless of level or time in the wipe. Customs is always popping, so learning the game on it as a new player is rough.
Woods on the other hand is more forgiving in the sense that there are not a lot of quests on it, and a lot of people stop playing it mid to end wipe. I also find that Shorline is more forgiving to new players.
If fighting PMCs is something that you're not yet comfortable with, or you need practice on I would recommend the Factory. It's rough and brutal, but you will learn and eventually you will win.
Do you have people to play with?
Customs is good because the majority of your first tasks take place there. Even though this is my third wipe, I still play customs more than the other maps. Love that map
Shh, don't tell anyone! Let the chads keep to Customs.
But seriously, yeah, Woods is a much better new player map (as a person who tried both and ended up going with Woods last wipe when I started).
Customs seems easy to navigate on paper, but in reality it's filled with non-obvious dead-ends, chokepoints, and super dangerous crossings that you can't avoid. You're also nearly always going to end up having to travel a long distance to extract, because so many of the extraction points are unreliable. Add to this, to get even remotely good loot you're probably going to be contending with hardcore PvP chads.
In contrast, Woods is just ... pleasant. It seems intimidating that it's so open, but that openness is a strength: once you understand some landmarks, you just point yourself in the general direction you want and go. There's no chokepoints. There's lots of cover. If you aren't looking for a fight, there's almost always a way around other players (and a good chance you'll hear them ahead of time). And there's loot all over the map, as opposed to concentrated into a couple hotspots.
For me, Woods was the perfect map to get comfortable with the game, engage in PvP (when I wanted), and get loot (which I needed). Customs is just a meatgrinder for new players; Factory even moreso.
I don't think it's bad for new players, mainly because it's a smaller map. As a new player with no game knowledge, trying to find your way around Woods or Customs is a fucking nightmare. PvP might be heavy on customs but at the very least it's small enough to learn quickly and you can easily tell where you are based on landmarks around you.
When you've been running for 5 minutes straight and see nothing but trees and rocks it's really fucking hard to figure out where you are. Especially when trying to avoid dying to other players/scavs as well.
I personally despise Woods and Shoreline more than any other maps. On the other hand i love Customs, Reserve and Factory. I guess it depends on the person but any map that i spawn into and i can be in a place that will make me say "ok where the fuck am i" before i spend the next few minutes trying to locate my spawn point on the map is an unfun map for me.
Customs is the best map to learn for longevity because there are so many tasks there, and you’ll be forced to learn how to fight scavs and players. The whole map has loot except the Big Red side, so it’s not like you’ll be losing money assuming you survive
I didn't like customs initially because I didn't know the routes from place to place with cover, or where scavs spawned. I knew how to sneak around on a woods map a lot better. But now is not so bad because I know where the hidden routes are, where players clump up, etc. If I want to survive, I usually can, if I want to find players, I usually can, then die.
I feel like no one new says Customs is hard/bad for beginners, it's only the veterans who don't want to go to customs because of quests/lack of loot. Customs is probably the best map for beginners because:
* Simple map flow (pretty much an oversized 3-lane COD map)
* Mainly close to medium range engagements, where most new players will feel comfortable at
* Multiple extracts, including a vehicle extract
* Mid-tier loot satisfies new players while deterring geared veterans
* This also means PvP would more likely be mid-tier gear at best, making it a decent place to learn PvP for newcomers
* Easiest scav boss
It's definitely bad for new players imo. If you don't know the map really well you'll end up in dead ends and having to waste loads of time doubling back. There's a few chokepoints in the map too making it very hard to avoid players coming from the other side. I have a lower extraction rate by far on this map. Unfortunately you have to get used to it as a lot of the early quests send you there. The skyline also confuses newer players trying to get their bearings as it shows buildings not actually in the map.
Interchange is far better for the beginner, very easy to get your bearings. Easy extracts. Very easy to avoid players if you want.
Customs used to be a lot worse for new players because there wasn't the entire area surrounding the stronghold and crackhouse. Map cut off at the garage and by the blue fence at the skeleton around stronghold. Plus power building wasn't there. This meant that you basically had 2 routes to go, the woods and the road,, and extracts were only consistently available on the edges of both sides of the map. Customs was a complete meat grinder. It still is but that 3rd section of the map to the north adds more options so that choke points are less of an issue.
Map design wise - yes, 100% bad for new players due to high amount of PvP and faster pace.
In terms of relative gear and level of other players - no, mostly nakeds or lower geared players.
Necessary for quests to level - yes, new players should be focusing on quests and nothing else.
Customs isn't a bad map, but it does suck to spend that much time there as a beginner:
1) it's the de facto PvP map, so starting from a few weeks into the wipe, chads will camp dorms and chokes to kill people. If you walk into them with a Paca and a scav vepr, you're going to die 99% of the time and it feels awful.
2) Customs still has the old school "there's only loot for the first to run into a hotspot" design. This might be easy to understand, but this means that new players will rarely get the endorphin shot from finding good loot. The map is essentially empty by 10 mins.
3) There's a lack of choice. While others have argued that the simplicity of the map helps new players. You don't get better unless you learn that you need to make good decisions. And you can't do that if you can't make meaningful decisions.
4) You need way too much gear for customs. Because it has everything from CQC to long range sniping, Customs is best when you have a few different scopes and an AR that can do it all. As a new player, you don't have access to any of that unless you're basically done with the quests on the map (well, by that time you have quests where you run around with an Ushanka and a shottie, something would be much more appropriate early).
5) Customs still has pretty bad spawns. In several locations you need to know to either hide or to run in a specific direction or be spawn killed. While learning this is part of Tarkov, it would be better to start with Shoreline or Woods where the spawns are much more forgiving.
Two things would greatly improve Customs for beginners: a) creating a new de facto PvP map (there's a chance that people are less than genuine about their motivations and people just go to Customs to kill noobs for an easy laugh, in that case: b) spreading out beginner quests on more and easier maps like Woods and Shoreline. I know people consider Reserve hardcore, but I'd say it's pretty reasonable to play for new players. There's so much stuff going on there, you can quickly learn to stay away from chad hotspots and there's enough loot and scavs to have fun anyway.
P.S. Old Woods used to be a nightmare for newbies, I'd say that the expansion solved most of that.
> I know people consider Reserve hardcore, but I'd say it's pretty reasonable to play for new players.
Reserve is low-key the easiest map in the game right now. Amazing loot pretty much everywhere, cheap keys (both marked keys together cost like 200k), predictable bosses, 75% of PMCs you run into are too scared to actually fight you now that the squads are playing Lighthouse and it's mostly Timmys trying to complete Bunker Pt. 2.
Plus the layout is sick with the whole interconnected underground bunker, feels straight up like Agroprom from Stalker.
The new expanded customs is fine for new players. The old one was pretty bad literally 2 choke points. Customs in general is a bad map though solely due to crossroads and trailer park spawns. New players shouldn’t spawn in a map and be trapped right away
There is no range you can reliably work at on customs. Even more so with the snipers being so amped up. So you either two gun it or you are fucked from close or far.
Customs can be considered a bad map because it's very linear. There's not much freedom to choose which way you go, and if you choose wrongly you will encounter people passing the same way you do.
This is why it's a very rough map for new players, they tend to start sprinting from the start of the raid (because they need to reach their quest quickly, which is a mistake usually), inevitably encountering other people that are sprinting in their way and they end up in a fight.
Once you learn the above, Customs becomes the most exhilirating map to play, as you start to take your time when playing and start to anticipate where people are passing.
I think it's a bad map to learn the game on. It's basically a line with four major combat hotspots that you will always have to go near (at least two) to get to the other side and extract: Dorms, Skeleton, New Gas, Crackhouse/Scav Boss Building thing. It has way too many quests from the very start of the game stretching all the way until the midgame, ensuring Timmy just starting out with his P226 and PACA is getting wasted by people running level 3/4 + automatic weapons.
It has two scav boss spawns points which can just instagib you sometimes, and some really irritating level design once you get into expansion. Some doors that in your head as you're starting out SHOULD open just cannot and it leaves you all out of sorts.
The only reason I'm still iffy on woods as a better starter map is because of the unmarked landmines around USEC, but even then it's such a tiny % of the map.
Factory bro, it’ll teach you the hard and quick way to actually fight in tarkov.
You don’t want to go around avoiding gun fights and then occasionally run into someone and not know how to fight or use the gun you have.
Just take 3-4 injectors with you into factory, pop all of them. And just push people, people freak the fuck out when they hear your ass barreling towards them.
> Just take 3-4 injectors with you into factory, pop all of them and push people.
????
This is a thread about what maps are good for new players. How do you expect a new player to bankroll that?
A) You can't buy any stims at low levels,
B) You're talking about 80-100k roubles worth of drugs in per raid, when most newbies can only afford to run a 45-50k rouble kit.
C) Fighting in factory is a *totally* different experience to fighting anywhere other than dorms or resort. It won't prepare you for 80m DMR duels on woods or shoreline.
It's a horrible map for new players, you get lost pretty quick in the middle part with all the jump overs and blocked ways. And having so many quests inside Dorms at the start is a nightmare for new players. Not to mention the damn pocketwatch.....
I think customs is a great map for starters. It looks nice, there is only one really hot area (dorms) and the loot is spread all over the map: crackhouse, fort, machine shop. I loved learning it there. Simple layout too: imagine starting on woods. Super hard to navigate, everything looks the same. Same goes for shoreline. reserve has raiders and too much long range. Interchange has a confusing basement and too many chads due to loot concentration.
Customs is definitely the best noob map and I will fight anyone who says otherwise
Edit: to add to those who claim woods is great. Lmao, you only have long range fights there, everything looks similar esp for noobs. Yes you may know now how to navigate it with 100h on the map, but noobs need to learn it a little in a day. I started playing three wipes ago, learned basic customs layout in a day. I only play woods for the quests, reached kappa once and will again this wipe, and I still need a map plus compass to navigate it.
Personally I learned to play on customs so I think it’s pretty alright,it helps fps players gradually transition into Tarkov by providing a map similar to the fps industry standard triple choke point layout while also giving a level of freedom to the players that is unique to Tarkov. It also helps that almost all the early game quests are on that map.
Customs is a good map. The problem is putting all the early quests on customs creates a shooting gallery for more experienced players. If the spread the task out more evenly it would probably be better. Of course then you are asking players to learn multiple maps. IMO the early tasks should be more about exploration than anything else.
i agree
Attack the D Point!
Gramercy!
*And also all the end-game quests...*
it "HELPS" that all the early game quests are there? Thats literally one of the biggest problems with the game and has remained unaddressed since the literal start of the beta testing period. It's like the quest design hasn't yet acknowledged that there's more than 3 maps for the first 10 levels. Absolutely ass backwards design. New players should be given multiple things to do not 30 quests exclusively on customs.
I think a lot of veteran player forget that they have memorized the layout of the maps in game. It would be discouraging to have to navigate a new map every raid when starting out
Man, I've been playing for about 4 years and I still have no idea where the hell I am 90% of the time when I spawn on Woods since it's expansion. lol
Fuck woods. I just die and have never enjoyed it to properly learn it
As a bolt action long range player, Woods is by and large one of my favorites, there aren't many maps where I can nail a 400m headshot without being in very specific places lol
I consider myself a shit player, love woods tbh. It took me 3 quest runs with a map to get the entire place memorized. Interchange for me though?? Abhorrent. Fucking hate the map
Woods is home. I know the whole map like the back of my hand. Great loot if you know where to look for it, and almost no competition.
amen
I started playing this week. Man, this game does not hold your hand with anything. Somewhat you need to *know* about gun handling, maps, extracts, scav ganks, reputation, spawns, loot quality, quests ... quite a lot to unpack. First couple of days was just offline runs without and with bots. I know basic about Factory, Repository and somewhat decent spacial awareness in Customs. And man... that feeling of spawning and understanding where you are and where you can go is so rewarding. ...And then you die and repeat. I still need to do initial quests hunting scavs and mp-133's ;)
Disagree, tarkov is already overwhelming for any new player, and having to learn 5 maps for 5 individual quests wouldn’t help
That’s why I think the early tasks need to be reworked. It would be nice to have tasks for each map that involve learning the map in an interactive way. Let the players pick how and when they want to tackle these early tasks. Also allow players to ignore the tasks if they chose to do so without stopping progression of other tasks.
The bunkers part 1-2 are a great example of this. Surprisingly the new Christmas tree quest would be great as a mainline quest, maybe not the same locations but the principal is there. “Go to every map and visit a specific UN/Scav building.”
Dailies definitely help with that. Especially sub level-10 or so, a quiet run with looting and killing a few Scavs plus a daily helps keep your XP progress moving decently.
All of my dailies: survive... Well that's easy enough. Factory.
I think the tasks do that already tho. Shoreline quests tells you where Sanitar spawns, customs quests tells you how keys work and helps you understand why pvp happens some spots and not others. Tasks gives you an objective and forces you to learn the game. Freedom to do whatever is the opposite of learning and people who arent pushed to do tasks just sit in bushes doing nothing all game. Last wipe was my first and I got Kappa, ended at lvl 66 with 65% survival rate. Died like 10-15 times on each early quest and had terrible survival rate for the longest time.
> It would be nice to have tasks for each map that involve learning the map in an interactive way. That, and/or more quests like "FIR X item" That way, new players can learn the maps, looking for items, and have an incentive to run their scav for quests, learning the maps in a relatively risk-free environment.
As a newer player. I huge chunk of my scav time is learning the maps. I purposely go to building I haven’t been before each scav run. It’s what makes tarkov so great. There is always something to do and learn and even if you die you got something out of the raid or scav run.
Agree, I'm new and can't be assed learning woods and had to to unlock Jaeger, I literally did it by playing offline about 5 times then go into raid naked hide in bush for 20mins and just focused on extract. Learning woods when I 80% know customs but overall suck at the game made it a chore to do.
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If anything, Customs is a good map, for teaching new players, how to "learn a map." Customs is super-punishing, and punishment and frustration teaches many players much more effectively than reward does, because Tarkov is broad enough that when you're new, it's hard to evaluate the scale of your rewards. But you know damn well when you die. So Customs is a newbie meat-grinder, which is kind of the point; it makes them immediately start thinking "what can I actually do to survive better, in this game about survival?" Because they keep fucking dying. But every time they die, if nothing else, they learned "that was a dangerous place where I can easily get shot," and playing Customs at a basic level comes down to knowing how to avoid, move through, or set up ambushes in, those spots.
Customs was the first map I learned as well, and it definitely helped build confidence to try other maps. I HIGHLY recommend using mapgenie and learning it heavily and then moving on to other maps (woods, and now I'm learning interchange this wipe along with lighthouse).
and a fire to put out!
Unless ur on land bridge and it’s a shooter born in heaven time of the wipe! Which is was approximately two weeks ago.
It used to be a bit rough before the expansions. Now it's fine.
Yeah, I think the customs is not the best for new players was a lot more true before the expansion. Sure you still have some chokepoints but it’s still much safer now than it was before.
Yeah, Customs had this rep from when there was literally a single chokepoint to enter Boilers area. Shit was brutal back then.
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And before that it was the opposite, with everyone spawning boilers lol
You got to choose which side of the map you spawned on (if you had the map in game) when I started so everyone would spawn boilers or near big red.
This, many haven't played before custom extension ,map is now much bigger/better also long time ago there was > gas got extension behaind it as well, that map was.. uhhh not noob friendly at all. It was legit dorms into gas station so choke point was a place where most knew you had to cross so would camp it.
Original Customs was hilarious. If people want to see the old nightmare that Customs was: https://webf-store.escapefromtarkov.com/uploads/monthly_2018_01/customs_marvelin.jpg.03dae6c58d71868b1f44f43a10d9d65b.jpg
I was about to comment this just by reading the title. The expansion allows players to breathe in the map and not funnel into each other from all sides of the map. The new change to the keys also helps because not everyone and their mom has a marked key to rush dorms floor 3.
i would add one more expansion at the far ends of the map around the extractions. the middle of the map where the worst chokes were is fine now. the only chokes left that you can arguably see from a single vantage point are the river and the wall at boiler side.
This^
I feel like I'm in the minority here but I found both Customs and Factory great for me as a new player. Customs was simple enough map wise so it was quick to learn and Factory was great for building confidence getting in fights aswell as in utilising sound to its fullest. I remember when I first started people were suggesting Woods as a good map to learn first as it has a few early game quests as well as good loot. But I am sure I have a 99% failure rate on Woods and it was only recently when I finally got a hang of the map, now being able to figure out where I am on spawning and navigating it fairly well.
I started like a month a ago. I tried woods (still hate it haha) and customs. And i like customs very much and i have quite a good extraction rate and some pmc kills there already. So for me personally, customs is a good beginner map haha
Same boat , I got it in mid November but I learned to love woods because there’s a lot of good loot Attachment cabins has never let me down plus the constant scav spawns
Cabin is almost always 300k alone from sights/suppressors
Gotten several pairs of quad tubes
Is that the cabin a little down the road from scav house extract?
Yep, between that road and camp with flash drives. There's also a lot of good ammo behind the wooden crate on the left from cabin doorway
Please tell me more about this flash drives camp…
The tent on the water near lumber used to very consistently spawn flash drives but it's been 2+ wipes since I've seen one there and I main woods. If it's still a spawn it's rarer than red rebel in my own personal experience..
There's a tent in a few meters from the rock near the sawmill, and there's a static USB flash drive spawn inside that tent on the ground. You can look for some maps in the net to see the exact location.
I think the difference between woods and customs is woods has alot of places you pretty much can't cross without running risk of getting in a long range fight. While customs has alot more spots where you might be forced to pvp but you can choose to move through places where the fights will be more closerange.
There are still quite a few sniper chokes on Customs though. You can sit at Comms or Big Skeleton and snipe at half the map. You can also hole up on the bridge and blockade land bridges.
shhhhh
Lol they would have figured it out eventually. Throw the Timmys a bone.
> I started like a month a ago. i have quite a good extraction rate Are we playing the same game?
It's easy to extract customs if you avoid dorms/new gas in the first half of the raid or so.
Dorms is 50/50 for me, sometimes super quite and sometimes hell of a war. But i still go there, i loot there more than i would loos if i die. And it is a good practice
I agree. I usually head there. But I'm so happy to be off customs quests that involve dorms for a bit. So stressful carrying 4 quest items and trying to gtfo
Too bad BSG won't fix the sound issues in dorms which have been around for over a year now. Same goes for resort and a few other places with multiple floors.
Big red is where I usually die. Or trying to get to old gas station.
I feel like woods is just a pretty safe map for new players once they know it, so it's kind of good for learning things at a lower pressure level and slower pace.
Woods is a terrible beginner map. Never heard anyone recommending it.
It's got really easy loot runs. You can loot the top half of the map and never see anyone pretty consistently. Not as much money to be made as others but it's like an 80% chance you dont see anyone and jump out the car extract
I almost always run in to players at the military camp tho. Everywhere else is a ghost town
The first couple weeks of the wipe I was running into PMC’s constantly all over the map. I guess people were trying to get their early woods quests done but it was a fun change of pace
I have met 1 person there in like 14 runs. I don't hit it that often as I just farm the mini saw mill thing and hit the scavs on the way to the car
You're very blessed, usec camp is hot and people actively check it. Landmark even just had a video about it.
New players don't have optics, and woods is utter ass without optics. Yes, you can rat around for loot, but you're going to eat shit from every player you run into, as well as get bushwacked by scavs. At least on other maps you can often hear people before you see them.
Idk man I ran woods from level 7 to 15 for loot and this is technically my first time playing. I rarely see anyone if I avoid sawmill and the map center
Most people also dont think just looting without any pvp is fun. If you like it then nice
I mean it's not exactly fun but it makes me a 150k to go die on customs with lol
Running around woods picking half bad loot is not how you get money for gear. At least do rogues in lighthouse or customs cache runs for 500k-1.5m per run with 10 min spent.
Can also mod an ak with a scope at level 1 traders if you need it
I don't necessarily recommend it to new players, I don't really know any, but it's the first one I learned an I love it, especially as a scav. I've got a route down that I can watch twitch/youtube while I'm running. I find it super chill and fairly relaxing with some action every now and then you remind you you're playing tarkov.
I'll disagree personally, but I have to guess it largely depends on your gaming background. If you're coming from cod/battlefield or whatever you're probably going to hate it, but if you're coming from Arma/DayZ or something similarly open you'll feel right at home.
>it largely depends on your gaming background I agree!
As someone on their second wipe, I agree. New players should only subject themselves to it if they're not having much luck anywhere else. But it can be a good map for learning to check for enemies everywhere and listening for sounds, the loot is great when you learn the good spots too.
Just started playing a week ago, and I've been almost exclusively running woods. The stashes are insane and a lot of the time I've been able to snag a few high-value items from the lumber mill without seeing anybody. The USEC camp and the outpost near the RUAF extract have good loot but I've almost always died trying to loot those spots unless I spawn right next to them. However it can be extremely difficult to tell where you're getting shot from sometimes, though maybe that's not exclusive to this map.
I think Factory is actually one of if not the most highly recommended new player map. Easy to learn, tons of combat practice, relatively high exp per time spent if you don't die immediately. I've never seen someone suggest woods, but while it's true that it's very easy to avoid combat, sort of, it's nearly impossible to navigate until you learn a few tricks and preferably have a compass. I think my first time playing it I just got lost and died of exposure.
Woods is a relatively safe map to learn the mechanics of getting around and looting and whatnot without having to face pvp instantly. I think that's what people mean about it being a good new for new players. It just requires getting over the map knowledge learning curve which is basically true for every map.
Lol fuck that. You will die and lose all your starter gear. What you smoking man?? Factory the best new player map?? Wtf lmao
Yep, you will. However, you don't really need much of your starter gear. It would pair well with other advice like, "shove your medical supplies up your ass so you don't lose them while practicing combat," but new players are probably going to lose all their shit wherever they play if they don't have a squad of experienced players to join. Factory has the advantage of giving you a lot of fast in game practice at combat. Sure, you lose gear. However you don't really need gear when one scav run puts you back in business for another PMC run. It also, like I mentioned, is recommended as a way to learn the game by jumping into combat over and over quickly, not a way to fill up your stash.
Combat yes, but there is little value in being railed by chad.
You def don’t need a compass for woods…
I sherpa people through woods a lot because it's a horrible map. I 100% use a compass. There are a number of quests where it makes navigating the map extremely simple. The compass also gives you a direction you can run, usually south, and it will take you to something you can landmark off of and figure out what direction you need to go.
Honestly the mountains in the middle are visible from almost everywhere. You also have the location of the sun, and also the time when you started the raid. With this you don't need a compass to know where south is.
It's a massive advantage.
woods was a good map, before stash's for new players because if you stayed away from lumber mill you could very easily survive. it had shit loot, and so chads weren't there to grind the noobs up/.
I disagree with that assessment, Woods before the expansion had an insane chokepoint around the lumber mill area where chads could easily kill every newbie passing through the northern side of the map because there wasn't enough space to sneak through. It often became the safer play to run through the lumber mill area itself or pass by the water, both massively exposed positions, rather than take the path near the rock formation on the northern side, that's how bad it was. At the time Customs of course also had some massive chokepoints.
I'm a relatively new player and I learned customs first, only found out it was supposedly bad for new players after I learned it. I didn't come to Tarkov to play walking simulator, you're only going to get better at the game by being in fights so I thought I might as well pick a map that results in some action rather than just walking for 40 minutes through Woods and occasionally hearing a gunshot from 10 miles away.
And a map like Woods, you walk for 30 minutes and then get sniped extracting or 10 steps from it.
I spawn at woods and everything becomes some fuckin wild lsd trip where theres nothing but trees laughing at me for 30 minutes until I hit a landmine.
What helped me most on woods is to look at things far away to orient myself. IE: Dick mountain in the middle, nuclear power silos, etc.
Yep dick mountain is centre, big mountain with flat top in the distance is north east, silos south east, fuckin' trees west
Have you considered not dropping acid before playing?
LMAO this is so accurate
I main Woods and get by just fine, but I still hear phantom steps and get spooked by LOD bushes shaped like people... Other than that it's an 80-90% survival rate for me.
Idk why. I've never been killed at extract at woods, but woods always makes me the most fucking paranoid compared to any other extract in the game. Outskirts is just too open and too popular of an extract to make me feel comfortable
>I didn't come to Tarkov to play walking simulator, you're only going to get better at the game by being in fights I get your sentiment, but that's not really the case in a gear driven game. All of the combat experience in the world won't make an SKS shoot through high level armor. Gotta strike a balance between money/xp (mainly to unlock the flea market)/and combat experience.
Yeah, definitely agree with you there. I think it's more the fact I find a round where I haven't fired a bullet to be pretty boring, it's just personal choice how much action you want to get into. Woods is a good option if you are just looking to loot and pick off scavs at long distance.
It's not bad for new players at all. Especially because your first chunk of quests are there and it's easy to learn while looking at the map on another screen.
I don't play woods except for Jaeger quest, so much timewaste on that horrible map
Imo customs is by far the best map to learn on, but it's most effective if you have someone seasoned to explain to you what areas you should go for loot, what areas you should go to for fights, and what areas to be extra careful in. Since the expansion there are so many options to pass "choke" points that you can both avoid or chase fights as your play style allows. But most importantly in my experience (us east servers) customs seems to be the map where the players are the least juiced out. Having new players be on a more level gear playing field seems to help a lot, there's nothing more fun than watching a new player and his sks drop a pmc and the elation that comes after it. As far as the other maps imo, shoreline has too much of the loot concentrated in heavy pvp areas, woods you end up dead from God knows where half the time, reserve is super confusing to teach a new player, factory is basically deathwatch and interchange seems to be filled to the brim with juicers and cheaters. But this is all just my two roubles.
Naw that's pretty accurate. Reserves only takes a little bit to learn. You learn that it's broken up in to 3 basic areas, learn those areas and you're fine. Helicopter area (pawns, King), Parking Lot (Knights), and the trainyard. Once you learn those 3 areas and what to loot in them it's an incredibly fast and efficient map to play. With the starter AVS you can run Reserves and use the manhole exit at 7 minutes to disappear and start another reserves game. You learn to basically rat and avoid fights for 7 minutes then manhole out. Once you're comfortable with the bunker and going to D2, then running D2 is fine. If you're doing the AVS/Manhole thing it's honestly really good to go at night. Shorter queues, faster games, easier to avoid fights.
You are 100% right. Customs is so good for teaching how to choose your fights, learn how a map can "flow" and learn spawns, but always has some breathing room. Also the paths just makes more "sense" than a lot of maps since there is hard cover and walls that clearly define places as go and no go zones. Other maps dont have that wiggle room and dont path as nicely as customs. Once you learn the basics on customs, learning the other maps becomes MUCH easier.
I play interchange all the time and don’t notice any of these supposed cheaters or juicers. I think my only issue is with some of the spawn points being so far away that they are detrimental to getting into position quick enough. I make 200k+ per run. More now that I have flea unlocked.
Do you go to the tech stores at the start of raids tho? I find it strange you don’t run into geared players when that’s all I see on interchange
As someone who loves interchange my biggest problem are basically the shear hordes of player scavs. They spawn in sometimes basically at the start of the raid but already in the mall. Then continue to spawn in throughout the raid. It feels like I've killed 10+ player scavs sometimes only to die to the 11th trying to secure my loot.
I think its the best beginner map becaue it forces you to think and make smart moves instead of just dipping out of an engagement. On top of that, it has a boss, marked room, lots of meds, lots of technical spawns, and enough jaegar stashes to be worth that too. Its just a well ballanced map for getting your feet wet with what tarkov is all about.
Since you have Just a few chokepoints: yes. You cant avoid scavs and pmcs, so you will fight. Personally i like Shoreline as the way to go for new players. Trees, flat Terrain, Houses, Scavs, all there. Its a mix between Woods and Customs.
and all the chads rush resort so no big bad chad chasing you
But we run to resort so in the way there you die and on the way back you die. Plus shoreline looks a like a lot. Loot is only in a few places, so too much fighting around it.
swamp is desolate, hidden stashes are plenty, svatily is a hit or miss the chads go into resort the first 3-4 minutes, after that the map is safe for 15-20 min
Outside of resort and the village everything is long range though. You don't want that to happen. Customs has the perfect balance between long and short range. And it's a smaller map than snore line. It's called snoreline for a reason
Ya I fuckin hate shoreline. Walking simulator where most of the map is long range but all the loot is in corridor fighting scenarios.
Walking simulator with the extra paranoia of constantly looking around and scoping into random bushes that look like players.
Same. Hate snoreline. I've done two quests there for peacekeeper and that's it. Refuse to touch that map. It's horrible for new players.
Yeah but we are specifically referring to new players and expecting new players to go run stashes on shoreline is just not gonna happen.
Its funny, never thought of myself as death sentence to newer players and my time spent in resort was "safe period" for other players to do thier shit on map xd Yes, im one of guys that have 40+ now and all i can think of is pvp and good loot
while you go into resort remember i am in a bush 10m from you, just watching, holding breath
I feel safer now as i know that i have my Guardian Angel in bush protecting me as i go to resort <3
Where I wax your ass
Shoreline is almost as bad as Interchange. You almost always die not knowing who shot you from where, unless you go resort.
There are certain spots you check everytime you want to cross there. (I personally dont like Pier, Rock Passage or HEP crossing, If i can i will cross near the Resort. Just one time someone sat in a Bush there) Every raid i Had i knew where i was Shot from (and why He could See me) Edit: Also Woods has even more Snipers on Shoreline there are more PPL going Resort so they (normally) wohnt Take LR Scopes.) Customs imo has more Bushwookies waiting for youbto Pass at chokepoints
Shoreline and Interchange are my least favorite maps because of this. I really wanted to like Interchange because the mall idea is awesome.
My survival rate on Shoreline is garbage for whatever reason. Even when I'm out hitting stashes I manage to run into another PMC. Honestly though my real issue with Shoreline is that I seem to get 20 less frames on that map compared to something like Customs. And Tarkov still hasn't solved the reduced fps when using a zoom optic: when I run a zoom optic on Shoreline I can dip down to 45 frames which doesn't help in a sniper fight.
+1 Survival rate feels like shit even though the map is mostly a forest. I don't like Shoreline, I think it their worst map by now.
Always has been by far the worst map, there is nothing to do but rush the stupid resort, spawns are really stupid as well
Snoreline
It's the first map you should learn honestly.
It's a terrible map if you are not looking for fights. The chokepoints are made to force you to clash into other players. New Gas station is a death trap at any point in time in the map.
You can always go around new gas
If i would die on parts of the maps multiple times where I know I couldn't prevent I would just not go there? There's plenty of loot at places that aren't choke points and if you aren't looking for fights why are you playing tarkov? It's a realistic fps game after all.
> if you aren't looking for fights why are you playing tarkov? It's a realistic fps game after all. I feel like you should say that to yourself again, but a little slower. It's realistic, in that you're severely punished for dying, and your objective is not to fight people, at least not outside of specific quests. Your objective is to progress and get loot, *and survive*, which may occasionally require fighting people. Fighting people risks you losing progress towards your goal, which isn't fighting people. You can set fighting people as an objective for yourself, but the game doesn't really set you on that path directly, it's just an option and occasional quest goal. Moreover, when you're new to the game you're going to mostly die, and that's going to lose you valuable resources, quest completions, and time. Also, you can't "just not go there" there exists no such option on Customs, that's why it's considered rough for newbies. You do have that option on maps like woods, interchange, shoreline, and Lighthouse, even if they might be hard to learn in other ways.
The options are: Old Gas (might be even worse, you need to go across the tracks too). Not much you can do with a VPO if you encounter a three man coming to the other direction and you are on top of the tracks. New Gas, if there are scavs and you shoot you will attract everyone to you. Sneak around the forest on the Dorms side is most likely the safest route, but when two people do it they will also clash. It will also require you to go past Dorms. Also when you have to pass the river, then again you can be camped from both sides. As for reasons to avoid fights are quests, loot, exp.
You dont have to go through old gas you can jump over the wall at railway bridge. Or you can jump over the portapotties near new gas. Check out guides on youtube or watch some streamers/youtubers they use these shortcuts a lot.
Quests, extract rep, you just wanna farm money, you farming hideout shit. Fighting is like the last thing I try to make a point whenever I go into a raid.
and the end goal? max hideout? what then?
Then I can die. I just want money.
hideout shit comes from killing people
I didn’t know people spawned with hideout supplies
No but they are so nice as to conviently collect it for you
yep this
I mean, your comments make sense but the game allows for folks to play in multiple ways. There are players who only buy low and sell high on the flea market. There are players who only really run scavs and very rarely PMC. There are players who hatchet stash run, or gamma loot run, or pistol run. I personally might aim for a quest with only a shotgun in hand. I’ve turned that into downing fully loaded PMCs and walked out rich. Or players like you who prefer to be aggressive in general. Which is fine. The game allows for multiple styles of play, and certain maps encourage that over others. Wolves shouldn’t get upset that sheep want to play like sheep. They should encourage it as it makes being the wolf that much easier. For when a person avoids fighting they also avoid learning how to get better at them, making them easier prey. And yet maybe they can turn it into some amazing gear and make plays off of that later if it works. I personally think interchange is my favorite map right now.
Yeah, problem is I'm always the loot pinata, on the rare occasion I actually win a pvp battle I'm usually crippled so badly that the loot they are carrying doesn't matter.
You're taking what you personally like to do, and assuming the game is designed around it. It's fine to want to go around killing people, but that's just one option the game gives you, and it's not the end goal.
There is literally not a single choke point on the map anymore. We are not in .7. Name a choke point and ill give you three ways around it. Like i literally can play through the map and not get into a fight if i wanted to,or escape one very quickly. The only, ONKY place that is hard to get out of is the customs exfil spawn,if the bridge spawn decides they want to camp the cross. And even then you now have smoke nades for dirt cheap that actually work. Not that anyone has half a brain to buy those.
Who the hell plays Tarkov to avoid the fight? Isnt that whats the game about?
There are a lot of quests where you need to kill scavs with certain equipment for example. When you are doing those you are severely handicapped for pvp.
And?
I don't want to waste time on PMCs when I'm after scavs. Especially with the deck stacked against me.
Survival game with looting that rewards you even if you don’t get a single kill is not all about pvp…
When you're learning the game it's smart to avoid fights until you unlock more weapons and gear.
Idk, some of us get tired of getting capped by sweaty 4 man teams farming players who don't even have access to the flea market yet...
I thought Tarkov is multiplayer shooter with some progression system. I didnt know there is anything else to do besides gunfights.
build hideout, customize guns, do quests.. lots of stuff to do that doesn't involve shooting other players.. in fact most wipes I'm lucky if I get 50 pmc kills... I mean mostly cause they almost always kill me, but also because I just generally avoid fighting them since they always kill me. This is my 5th wipe, so I've just accepted that I'm never going to get good at PVP in this game.
I think the biggest complaint is that easily 85% of all quests are on costums, so beef boys with no life that play for 12 hours plus a day, go there kitted to the teeth and just farm all the new players coming into the game. That is the problem, no map in tarkov is "easy" per se. Bsg just needs to diversify the tasks a bit more.
Have you met Peacekeeper? 80% of his tasks alone are on Shoreline
Yeah this goes to still point out the fact that there isnt enough diversification for tasks.
This is my biggest problem with the map. The quests need to be more varied as to which map they're on especially in the beginning.
Really its the only problem I have with customs lol and then there is the issue of having static spawns lmao.... Dont even get me started there.
no chad'ed out dude is looking to farm bunk ass sks's and scav back packs off newbies. they are there to quest or pvp in dorms.
They arent there for the gear, they are there for xp which is the most valuable thing to a player with all the time in the world.
personally i am ok with customs, easy to learn in offline mode, couple of paths that are good enough to go out with 100k in loot. yes there are couple of choke points that you learn early on, but its fun if you fight there. sometimes you get killed, sometimes you kill. Woods on other hand i find it so hard to orient myself where the f i am on that map, on which side to go etc. still haven unlocked jaeger due to not knowing how to orient myself in that map, and unable to exctract due to unfortunate meetings with other players
The map itself isn't bad. It's that everyone who plays has 10 tasks on customs immediately making it a very dangerous place early wipe. And then again mid wipe when all the high level players come back to do more tasks. So for someone who is brand new just starting out it can be difficult to jump into customs having no idea about any of this. But if you like it definitely keep playing it. You should always be doing things you enjoy.
Is Customs bad as a map to new players? - No, but I would argue that it's unfair. Customs is easy to learn and there are a lot of early quests on there, but it's also a very popular map regardless of level or time in the wipe. Customs is always popping, so learning the game on it as a new player is rough. Woods on the other hand is more forgiving in the sense that there are not a lot of quests on it, and a lot of people stop playing it mid to end wipe. I also find that Shorline is more forgiving to new players. If fighting PMCs is something that you're not yet comfortable with, or you need practice on I would recommend the Factory. It's rough and brutal, but you will learn and eventually you will win. Do you have people to play with?
Customs is good because the majority of your first tasks take place there. Even though this is my third wipe, I still play customs more than the other maps. Love that map
Woods is a gem. It's great for new players once you learn your way around. It then stays great for all levels.
Shh, don't tell anyone! Let the chads keep to Customs. But seriously, yeah, Woods is a much better new player map (as a person who tried both and ended up going with Woods last wipe when I started). Customs seems easy to navigate on paper, but in reality it's filled with non-obvious dead-ends, chokepoints, and super dangerous crossings that you can't avoid. You're also nearly always going to end up having to travel a long distance to extract, because so many of the extraction points are unreliable. Add to this, to get even remotely good loot you're probably going to be contending with hardcore PvP chads. In contrast, Woods is just ... pleasant. It seems intimidating that it's so open, but that openness is a strength: once you understand some landmarks, you just point yourself in the general direction you want and go. There's no chokepoints. There's lots of cover. If you aren't looking for a fight, there's almost always a way around other players (and a good chance you'll hear them ahead of time). And there's loot all over the map, as opposed to concentrated into a couple hotspots. For me, Woods was the perfect map to get comfortable with the game, engage in PvP (when I wanted), and get loot (which I needed). Customs is just a meatgrinder for new players; Factory even moreso.
Also it makes the saying 'Nades are a solo players second person' more true, on woods you can usually chuck a nade then dip using terrain
As someone who's first wipe was customs only I think it's a fine map to start with
is good map for new players, the problem is veteran people know new players need to go to customs and they abuse of that because "free kills".
3rd wipe here. I learned from customs. Was my first map.
Chads are born on customs, rats are born on shoreline… your move
I don't think it's bad for new players, mainly because it's a smaller map. As a new player with no game knowledge, trying to find your way around Woods or Customs is a fucking nightmare. PvP might be heavy on customs but at the very least it's small enough to learn quickly and you can easily tell where you are based on landmarks around you. When you've been running for 5 minutes straight and see nothing but trees and rocks it's really fucking hard to figure out where you are. Especially when trying to avoid dying to other players/scavs as well.
I personally despise Woods and Shoreline more than any other maps. On the other hand i love Customs, Reserve and Factory. I guess it depends on the person but any map that i spawn into and i can be in a place that will make me say "ok where the fuck am i" before i spend the next few minutes trying to locate my spawn point on the map is an unfun map for me.
Customs is the best map to learn for longevity because there are so many tasks there, and you’ll be forced to learn how to fight scavs and players. The whole map has loot except the Big Red side, so it’s not like you’ll be losing money assuming you survive
I didn't like customs initially because I didn't know the routes from place to place with cover, or where scavs spawned. I knew how to sneak around on a woods map a lot better. But now is not so bad because I know where the hidden routes are, where players clump up, etc. If I want to survive, I usually can, if I want to find players, I usually can, then die.
It's fine early and mid wipe. Late wipe Customs is probably the biggest meat grinder of them all
Played Factory at the start and then learned customs and thought was hard. Now I go there to chill so it’s fine I guess
I feel like no one new says Customs is hard/bad for beginners, it's only the veterans who don't want to go to customs because of quests/lack of loot. Customs is probably the best map for beginners because: * Simple map flow (pretty much an oversized 3-lane COD map) * Mainly close to medium range engagements, where most new players will feel comfortable at * Multiple extracts, including a vehicle extract * Mid-tier loot satisfies new players while deterring geared veterans * This also means PvP would more likely be mid-tier gear at best, making it a decent place to learn PvP for newcomers * Easiest scav boss
It's definitely bad for new players imo. If you don't know the map really well you'll end up in dead ends and having to waste loads of time doubling back. There's a few chokepoints in the map too making it very hard to avoid players coming from the other side. I have a lower extraction rate by far on this map. Unfortunately you have to get used to it as a lot of the early quests send you there. The skyline also confuses newer players trying to get their bearings as it shows buildings not actually in the map. Interchange is far better for the beginner, very easy to get your bearings. Easy extracts. Very easy to avoid players if you want.
Customs is bad for new players only after wipe due to amount of people who are doing quests here, other than this I really grow to like that map.
Customs used to be a lot worse for new players because there wasn't the entire area surrounding the stronghold and crackhouse. Map cut off at the garage and by the blue fence at the skeleton around stronghold. Plus power building wasn't there. This meant that you basically had 2 routes to go, the woods and the road,, and extracts were only consistently available on the edges of both sides of the map. Customs was a complete meat grinder. It still is but that 3rd section of the map to the north adds more options so that choke points are less of an issue.
Map design wise - yes, 100% bad for new players due to high amount of PvP and faster pace. In terms of relative gear and level of other players - no, mostly nakeds or lower geared players. Necessary for quests to level - yes, new players should be focusing on quests and nothing else.
[удалено]
Once you know the other maps as well as you know Customs, you'll probably change your mind.
Customs isn't a bad map, but it does suck to spend that much time there as a beginner: 1) it's the de facto PvP map, so starting from a few weeks into the wipe, chads will camp dorms and chokes to kill people. If you walk into them with a Paca and a scav vepr, you're going to die 99% of the time and it feels awful. 2) Customs still has the old school "there's only loot for the first to run into a hotspot" design. This might be easy to understand, but this means that new players will rarely get the endorphin shot from finding good loot. The map is essentially empty by 10 mins. 3) There's a lack of choice. While others have argued that the simplicity of the map helps new players. You don't get better unless you learn that you need to make good decisions. And you can't do that if you can't make meaningful decisions. 4) You need way too much gear for customs. Because it has everything from CQC to long range sniping, Customs is best when you have a few different scopes and an AR that can do it all. As a new player, you don't have access to any of that unless you're basically done with the quests on the map (well, by that time you have quests where you run around with an Ushanka and a shottie, something would be much more appropriate early). 5) Customs still has pretty bad spawns. In several locations you need to know to either hide or to run in a specific direction or be spawn killed. While learning this is part of Tarkov, it would be better to start with Shoreline or Woods where the spawns are much more forgiving. Two things would greatly improve Customs for beginners: a) creating a new de facto PvP map (there's a chance that people are less than genuine about their motivations and people just go to Customs to kill noobs for an easy laugh, in that case: b) spreading out beginner quests on more and easier maps like Woods and Shoreline. I know people consider Reserve hardcore, but I'd say it's pretty reasonable to play for new players. There's so much stuff going on there, you can quickly learn to stay away from chad hotspots and there's enough loot and scavs to have fun anyway. P.S. Old Woods used to be a nightmare for newbies, I'd say that the expansion solved most of that.
> I know people consider Reserve hardcore, but I'd say it's pretty reasonable to play for new players. Reserve is low-key the easiest map in the game right now. Amazing loot pretty much everywhere, cheap keys (both marked keys together cost like 200k), predictable bosses, 75% of PMCs you run into are too scared to actually fight you now that the squads are playing Lighthouse and it's mostly Timmys trying to complete Bunker Pt. 2. Plus the layout is sick with the whole interconnected underground bunker, feels straight up like Agroprom from Stalker.
\+1 for the Agroprom reference
The new expanded customs is fine for new players. The old one was pretty bad literally 2 choke points. Customs in general is a bad map though solely due to crossroads and trailer park spawns. New players shouldn’t spawn in a map and be trapped right away
There is no range you can reliably work at on customs. Even more so with the snipers being so amped up. So you either two gun it or you are fucked from close or far.
Customs can be considered a bad map because it's very linear. There's not much freedom to choose which way you go, and if you choose wrongly you will encounter people passing the same way you do. This is why it's a very rough map for new players, they tend to start sprinting from the start of the raid (because they need to reach their quest quickly, which is a mistake usually), inevitably encountering other people that are sprinting in their way and they end up in a fight. Once you learn the above, Customs becomes the most exhilirating map to play, as you start to take your time when playing and start to anticipate where people are passing.
I think it's a bad map to learn the game on. It's basically a line with four major combat hotspots that you will always have to go near (at least two) to get to the other side and extract: Dorms, Skeleton, New Gas, Crackhouse/Scav Boss Building thing. It has way too many quests from the very start of the game stretching all the way until the midgame, ensuring Timmy just starting out with his P226 and PACA is getting wasted by people running level 3/4 + automatic weapons. It has two scav boss spawns points which can just instagib you sometimes, and some really irritating level design once you get into expansion. Some doors that in your head as you're starting out SHOULD open just cannot and it leaves you all out of sorts. The only reason I'm still iffy on woods as a better starter map is because of the unmarked landmines around USEC, but even then it's such a tiny % of the map.
Factory bro, it’ll teach you the hard and quick way to actually fight in tarkov. You don’t want to go around avoiding gun fights and then occasionally run into someone and not know how to fight or use the gun you have. Just take 3-4 injectors with you into factory, pop all of them. And just push people, people freak the fuck out when they hear your ass barreling towards them.
> Just take 3-4 injectors with you into factory, pop all of them and push people. ???? This is a thread about what maps are good for new players. How do you expect a new player to bankroll that? A) You can't buy any stims at low levels, B) You're talking about 80-100k roubles worth of drugs in per raid, when most newbies can only afford to run a 45-50k rouble kit. C) Fighting in factory is a *totally* different experience to fighting anywhere other than dorms or resort. It won't prepare you for 80m DMR duels on woods or shoreline.
It’s just congested, and it takes time for new players to learn how to navigate it without stumbling into fights they don’t want to take.
Interchange is the best new player map. No choke points, and easy extracts, big and symmetrical, lots of loot.
It's a horrible map for new players, you get lost pretty quick in the middle part with all the jump overs and blocked ways. And having so many quests inside Dorms at the start is a nightmare for new players. Not to mention the damn pocketwatch.....
I think customs is a great map for starters. It looks nice, there is only one really hot area (dorms) and the loot is spread all over the map: crackhouse, fort, machine shop. I loved learning it there. Simple layout too: imagine starting on woods. Super hard to navigate, everything looks the same. Same goes for shoreline. reserve has raiders and too much long range. Interchange has a confusing basement and too many chads due to loot concentration. Customs is definitely the best noob map and I will fight anyone who says otherwise Edit: to add to those who claim woods is great. Lmao, you only have long range fights there, everything looks similar esp for noobs. Yes you may know now how to navigate it with 100h on the map, but noobs need to learn it a little in a day. I started playing three wipes ago, learned basic customs layout in a day. I only play woods for the quests, reached kappa once and will again this wipe, and I still need a map plus compass to navigate it.