So you wish to play with Bobi and the gang? But you’re new to playing in a team? Bobi made a few rules that he wants beginners to follow while they develop their team play skills, while they learn how our team plays.

Our only condition is that you need to be able to communicate with us while gameplay. Join our Discord, read and accept the rules by clicking Killa emote.

Points:

  • Before you go to raid make sure you have enough provision, meds, ammo, and other supplies to survive.
  • Pick a teammate and stick with them at all times, at most 5m away.
  • Follow comms procedures
  • Information for the team when you died
  • Call out every action in a firefight
  • Loot only your kills, unless given permission.
  • Don’t aim at teammates
  • Follow team orders to the letter
  • Hiding your teammate’s gear at the first free opportunity you get

Explanation:

Before you go to raid make sure you have enough provision, ammo, and other supplies to survive. 
New players may have problems with survival by simply dying to hunger or lack of hydration. It’s very important to warn your teammates in advance when you need something! At the same time, the route that a team takes on a map should not be caused by the needs of basic supplies. If you cant afford it or you don’t have the market yet, just make sure that your teammates are ready to help you before you start the raid.

Pick a teammate and stick with them at all times, at most 5m away.
Being a beginner, you are still new to the flow of combat on each map. You might not even know where you’re going. Shadowing an experienced teammate will let you practice and replicate their style of play, and what works for them. If you distance yourself too far, you open yourself up for the opportunity of getting teamkilled or killing a friend. Do not lose track of your partner!

Follow comms procedures
During the battle, chaos can ruin your chances of winning. Therefore, the most important thing is to give accurate and concise comms. It is better to take more time to think of what you’re going to say than it is to give bad information or to be too vocal and long-winded while you think out loud. Practice good comms now, you will only be faster and faster in saying them as you use them. Do your best to remember what your teammates call landmarks on a map. Stay silent after you’ve died and have passed on whatever info you have to give. Do your best to be short and fast with information.

Information for the team when you died.
Your death may bring only a few useful pieces of information for your team. Try to keep track of it and pass it as soon as you can.

  • Type of enemy (PMC or Scav / Scav player) EOD in case of such. When you can check his level, so your teammates can get some understanding of the enemy they are facing.
  • The types and quantity of different calibers which wounded you and round which was deadly.
  • Location of your body so they understand where is the hook.
  • Last known location of the enemy if you where able to spot it or any useful information of his status or eventual quantity of enemies. 
  • After passing this information it’s usually best to mute yourself and answer only when asked. You can watch the development of the fight but remember they know what they do. 

Call out every action in a firefight
While a part of comms procedures, this is so important that I’ve included it as a separate section. In a firefight, everyone is keenly listening to every sound que, and if the team is spread out in covering different positions, then it is incredibly easy to lose track of each other. Saying “My bush” when passing through a bush, lets your team know exactly where you are, and not to get alerted unnecessarily or wrongly concentrating their attention when they hear you.

Loot only your kills, unless given permission.
Looting someone else’s kill is a straight-up dickhead move, and shouldn’t even need to be stated. However, it is so common that it needs to be mentioned. Don’t mistake stash value as an indicator of skill, because the two are not equivalent.

Don’t aim at teammates
It is better to kill a teammate in a critical situation, than to be unsure, and be killed by the enemy. Following that rule, a teammate would kill you if they suddenly hear you aiming, and they’re not fully sure about you.

Follow team orders to the letter
Good soldiers follow orders. In the heat of the moment, it is better to follow a poor plan than none at all, as Situations in Tarkov can change so rapidly, it usually is better not to argue at all. When playing as a team, you’re meant to cover for each other, so that each person can focus on their one task better: fewer angles to check, safer movement, and support when they need it. If you’re not there when you need to be, you can totally jeopardize your teammate’s plan of attack or defense.

Hiding your teammate’s gear at the first free opportunity you get
Even though loot has to be shared out with a big group, so individual profits may be less. The mere fact that you only need to spend money on: meds, ammo, and repairs; because of almost guaranteed insurance returns. Makes team play really viable and safe, especially when running expensive high-end gear, whereas, on solo, a meta M4 is guaranteed to never come back. So to help the economy of your teammates, prioritize hiding their gear over looting the enemy whenever possible. More details you will find in our article Tossing Insurance.

Further explanation of more complex points:

Pick a teammate and stick with them at all times, at most 5m away.
A solo player is used to fighting on his own, where everyone is hostile. This shoot on sight habit that solo play instills into you, is so obvious and hindering when solo players start playing as a team. Tracking teammates is not something solo play teaches, and playing in a trio can get confusing. Especially how there is not enough time for everyone in a group to state their location, status (i.e they feel exposed or are low hp), and their held angle while a fight is going on, and even more so with how holding an angle for too long is dangerous (so information becomes quickly obsolete).

Sticking to one teammate helps with that regard, by clearly seeing their movements and actions right in front of you, you’ll get to use their tracking ability. While making it effectively easier as you only need to properly track three persons instead of four (in the case of a five-man).

You being new to a team can make it harder for everyone involved: you still needing to understand team mechanics and how your team and its individual members react in each situation, and the same for them with you can lead to a lot of confusion at the start.

If you are a new and inexperienced player, you may still be trying to learn the basic concepts of the game or have yet to find a play style that fits you. Your teammate will make decisions for you, on how to take fights, loot, and cover the map. This is an invaluable experience, as they will make up for the fragging power that you may currently lack. Hopefully, by doing so, it will help you avoid the trap of acquiring the Rat playstyle, which a non-confrontational nature that will not develop the skills you need when you are forced into a hard situation.

This rule is a temporary measure to start off with. Naturally, there will be many situations where you will have to make independent choices in aid of your team. Your followed teammate may die, and the dynamics of battle afterward shall prove your worth, because of the experience you’ve gained by shadowing them.

Follow comms procedures
A duo is the easiest team to play as comms are direct and simple. And a natural dynamic between the players forms very quickly, some sort of standardization and mutual habits between the two of you naturally do happen, regardless of whether your comms are what one would consider ‘optimal’. However, playing as a 5 man squad gets a lot more complicated. In order to get the natural cohesion that develops is very difficult and takes an extremely long time to form, as each individual’s habits and quirks show up and compete with possible incompatibility to other’s styles. As such the need for one unified, transferable, and optimized form of communication is needed.

The first thing you need to do when invited to a team is to learn their set of comms. It is crucial. After a while, the brain develops and trains itself to react in certain ways whenever it gets a certain kind of distinct stimulus, such as a word. For examaple whenever I hear the word: “Comms”, in my mind any thinking I was doing just stops, and the brain is just poised to listen and work off of anything it does hear. A form of mental conditioning essentially.

This mental conditioning is critical in everything. An instant reflex and reaction coming from the subconscious is far more preferable than the slow processed reaction from the conscious. Tarkov raids can last nearly an hour, but firefights can last only a second. You rarely will have the opportunity to preplan your fight, so instead having the ability to transform your mind from being calm and passive, into an active and sharp state is crucial. This can all be done with conditioning overtime, and communication is one of the key triggers to transform yourself and your teammates into that state.

While being a new member to a team you will naturally fail at it. However after trial and error and being corrected on your mistakes, you will find it instinctive and begin to enjoy it.