‘Escape From Tarkov’ removes barter trades in latest balancing pass

Another new patch has hit Escape From Tarkov, with this latest batch of changes aimed at the game’s player-driven Flea Market. In today (March 7)’s new patch, players will no longer be able to place barter offers on the Flea Market.

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This is a huge change. Currently, rare items needed for the Gunsmith questline or keys that are needed for quests were regularly being put up for bizarre quests, requiring those that wanted to purchase the items to loot an excessive amount of rare items to purchase the items. This meant that several quests were next to impossible for players that hadn’t been able to find the items themselves, as to purchase the item they might need to find several folders of Intel, rare and uncraftable ammo and even just stacks of Bitcoins just to get a key to complete an early-game quest.

Now, every item will be able to be bought with in-game currency, meaning it’s possible for players to just grind money in the method of their choice before using these stacks of cash to buy whatever items they need for quest completion. This also closes an exploit used by several players where they would sell something rare – take for example, a Violet keycard – and trading it for items instead of cash, meaning they don’t have to pay a cut to the Flea Market, like they would if they were paying with cash.

To counter this, today’s patch also lowers the cost of listing items for sale on the Flea Market. This should save most players a substantial amount of money, but as the patch also promises “adjusted base prices of some items” it seems likely that those savings will be eaten up.

This is the second update in just a few days for Escape From Tarkov. A patch released on March 3 makes Escape From Tarkov‘s boss characters easier to fight and reduced camera recoil, but countered this by making cultists make much common at night.

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