Wipe day is upon us, which means Escape From Tarkov is completely reset to square one and in this guide we’ll show you exactly how to get a good head start on all the other players. Make sure to check out all our other in-depth beginners guides on EFT as well.
Escape From Tarkov Wipe Day Guide
1. Getting things sorted
When you first boot up the game again, you choose a faction (BEAR or USEC). You’ll get a different starting loadout, depending on the faction. Your choice does not affect gameplay greatly, though as a BEAR you can blyat your way through Tarkov, while the USEC speaks American.
Examine as many items as you can to save time during actual raids. Set up your stash to where you can easily access and store everything. I like to keep a huge area at the top clear so I can control+click items straight into my stash.
During the early days, doing scav runs is a good idea. While you won’t earn any experience, it does give you a good amount of gear to play with. It also helps you get rid of the wipe day gear fear.
2. Experience grind to Flea Market
After an Escape From Tarkov wipe, your character level is completely reset, so this part of the guide is dedicated to leveling as fast as possible. And getting a head start is directly tied to your PMC level.
The most important milestone is the Flea Market. Starting with patch 0.12.12, you now need to be level 15 to unlock the Flea Market. That offers you the ability to sell and buy stuff via the player driven economy. It enables you to get items easier, but also opens up a huge opportunity for making money. Especially early in a wipe, players will throw wads of cash at you for seemingly simple items.
There are three main ways to earn experience in Escape From Tarkov. Note that you don’t get XP from scav runs, only for playing with a PMC. Additionally, try to survive as you get a 50% XP bonus upon extraction.
- Kill enemies – Killing PMC’s, scavs and raiders gets you a bunch of XP. It’s risky as you’re bound to die as well. But hunting enemies can be a great way to get XP fast. The best maps early on are Factory (CQC) and early quest maps like Customs or Woods. Reserve has raiders which award more XP per kill.
- Do quests – The starting quests seem to give you terrible rewards, which is true. But after just a few quests the XP and money start to rack up significantly. As an added bonus, quests give you trader reputation, which unlocks new gear, better prices, and more.
- Loot ‘n scoot – Looting gives you a decent chunk of XP. So instead of doing quests or fighting, you can always hit caches or high value areas on Customs, Interchange, Reserve or Shoreline. As an obvious added bonus, looting gets you quick cash as well.
3. Items to look out for
While raiding in EFT, there’s literally hundreds of items you could encounter. Some seem useless but are really important, others look fancy but are worth less than a roll of toilet paper. As a general rule of thumb, here are some important items to look out for:
- Keys – Keys should go straight into your secured container. If you manage to extract with them, they generally sell for a lot on the Flea Market. Alternatively, they literally open new doors for you. Those doors often hide high-value loot spots.
- Hideout parts – Upgrading the Hideout has a bunch of benefits. Some of the early game upgrades require ungodly amounts of nuts, bolts, screws, spark plugs, light bulbs, motors and hoses. Here’s an amazing chart of everything you’ll need throughout your playthrough.
- Quest items – Future quest items are very important to take home with you after a raid. For example, you know you’ll have to gather a bunch gas analyzers, cigarettes, and flash drives eventually. Even though you haven’t gotten the quests yet, you can already start collecting items for them. Check the Tarkov Quest wiki for all the quests the game throws at you.
4. Money maketh man
Lastly on our Escape From Tarkov wipe day guide, a quick dive into how to make a lot of money, fast. We’ve got an entire money guide on this subject, but as a TL;DR, there are a few things to keep in mind.
While it’s very tempting to cram as many guns as possible in your backpack, note that attachments sell for way more than guns (based on single-slot value). Additionally, ammo is what matters in EFT. So taking an end-game gun like the ASh-12 is only useful if you plan to sell it, because you can’t buy any ammo for it.
If you’ve unlocked the Flea Market, try to get into the heads of other players to make money hand over fist. What do they need right now? That’s fairly easy, as everyone needs the same stuff at the start of a wipe (which drives prices up). Players need:
- Early-game quest items that don’t need to be found in raid.
- All the items required to upgrade their Hideout.
- Better than average ammo for cheaper guns.
Hopefully this guide has given you some insight into how Escape From Tarkov plays out around a wipe. If you’ve got any questions or suggestions for other players, make sure to leave them in the comment section below! See you in Tarkov!