The technical update did not seem very technical, I assume. Instead, it brings a new parcel of effects that will allow Battlestate Games to counter Real Money Trading (RMT). Starting from today, Escape From Tarkov won’t be friendly for those doing real money trading, as their items not found in-raid will be deleted upon dropping. Something that has started turbulence in the community.
To some extent, this contradicts the honesty, transparency, and work of a known Escape From Tarkov streamer, ThatFriendlyGuy. He won’t be able to do his work from today on, as he’ll have to alter to new content and seek new ways to entertain its fan base. Talking from a neutral perspective, this had to be done in order to avoid account boosters, which is one of the culprits for encountering more hackers. I might have no say in this, but if you’re the developer, you’d definitely want to save the game, no matter how many individuals are impacted by this decision.
There are expected to be a lot of hiccups regarding this RMT decision, but I am more than confident that those who play the game as intended will definitely cheer on this move by Battlestate Games.
How is Battlestate Games combating RMT?
How will Battlestate Games stop Real Money Trading? Basically, players will no longer be able to drop some items that are not found in a raid and are usually very expensive to buy. The black market has been flooded with these types of advertisements, and hackers and others who have committed to earning this way are evidently earning big bucks by selling some items that have no FIR property and can be dropped directly from the stash. There is a plethora of them, just open eBay and search for Escape From Tarkov Red Keycard. Only then, you’ll realize how much money people are making out of it.
Below you can find the full description of the new feature that prevents dropping items that are not found in the raid, as posted on Escape From Tarkov’s official Forums.
Official Patch Notes
List of fixes:
- Scavs, Raiders and Rogues are no longer aggressive to Player Scavs if they kill a PMC;
- Fixed possible breach of rain animations inside buildings on Customs, Reserve, Shoreline and Lighthouse;
- Fixed one of the possible reasons of missing of visual and sound effects of grenades explosions;
- Fixed the behavior of Raiders when one of them is killed by a Player;
- Fixed the Reshala’s logic of medicine usage;
- Fixed the reaction of bots to smoke grenades;
- Fixed the incorrect display of adjustable magnification while using Schmidt & Bender PM II 3-12×50;
- Fixed unnatural hand position during the animation of reloading of MP-443 Grach;
- Scavs, Raiders and Rogues will no longer take positions close to players when engaging them;
- Fixed animations freezes of Character in loading into the raid screen, on the Character page, in the Ragman’s
- Service tab and the statistics page after the raid when Chiappa Rhino is equipped;
- Fixed the significant damage reduction when shooting through Terragroup tarps.
Escape From Tarkov official anti-RMT rules
Some of the specific items without the “found in raid” status will receive a new property – in an attempt to discard these items in a raid, they will be destroyed. In other words, if you take the specific items (from the list below) to the raid in advance and attempt to give them to other players, then in the process of discarding they will be destroyed.
This change is intended to combat RMT and boosting. When attempting to drop a restricted item, a warning dialog box will appear with the text “WARNING! The following items will be permanently lost.”
Some items without the “found in raid” status will be destroyed if:
- Player tries to discard it from their inventory and ignores the warning
- Player places it in their backpack, pockets, or chest rig, and gets killed by another player or tries to drop any container/backpack/chest rig containing this limited item
- If a player dies, the limited items in their secure container will not be destroyed
This change will be applied to the following items:
- Money
- All barter items (with some permissions below)
- Keys and Keycards
- Containers
- Specific armbands
- Info items
- Specific melee weapons (UVSR Taiga-1 survival machete, Red Rebel ice pick, Miller Bros. Blades M-2 Tactical Sword, Kiba Arms Tactical Tomahawk)
Items that can be discarded in a limited quantity:
- Roubles – 20 000
- Golden neck chain – 3 pcs
- Gunpowder “Kite” – 3 pcs
- Toolset – 2 pcs
- Roler Submariner gold wrist watch – 1 pc
- Paracord – 1 pc
- Silicone tube – 1 pc
- Injectors – 1 pc each type
