EFT Tutorial and Guide
THE TARKOV CENTRAL
How to Improve Further
You have completed the tutorial I prepared, now what?
As stated in the previous chapter’s title, now it’s your turn to improve by practicing and learning more and more about Escape from Tarkov. Here are some tips.
Combat Practice
The only way to truly get better at combat and survive raids is to do as many as possible.
However, to earn money, financially support your character, and improve your hideout, you need to extract successfully with your loot. This will lead you to play conservatively, avoiding fights and dangers. There is nothing wrong in playing safe and avoid or even flee from fights. It's part of the game.
Playing this way, though, will reduce your combat opportunities, especially against other players in PvP. You might even go through entire raids without encountering a single enemy player.
I realized that this slowed down my learning and improvement, so I recommend keeping your combat skills sharp in three ways:
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Running raids in Practice Mode against AI while playing more aggressively.
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Using budget kits or gear looted from Scavs and playing aggressively, actively seeking fights with other players. This is the only real way to improve your skills and tactics.
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Playing on Factory, a small, condensed map where encounters with other players are frequent.
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If you have it, playing the PvE mode, where the presence of AI PMCs means facing more challenging AI enemies than regular Scavs.
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If you have it, playing Escape from Tarkov: Arena—while its gameplay differs from EFT’s core experience by focusing on pure, fast-paced combat in small maps, it is an excellent way to train your fighting skills. Additionally, playing EFT: Arena allows you to earn money, level up your character in EFT, and improve their skills.
Reviewing Your Actions
One common and useful tip—one that I also found valuable—is recording your raids and watching them later. Alternatively, you can enable the feature that saves the last few minutes of gameplay for review.
Watching your raids is extremely instructive because it helps you understand where you made mistakes and how your opponent outplayed you. You’ll notice things you missed in the heat of the moment and mentally map out strategies to improve in future fights and avoid repeating the same errors (which you’ll probably still make for a while, but over time, you’ll learn to minimize them).
Information and Learning
I have been playing EFT for almost four years, and I still learn something new every day. That’s why I enjoy gathering information and writing articles and guides—hoping to help others learn and stay updated. But this also means that, much like in real life, you never truly stop learning in EFT.
While playing, I often come across someone using a trick that surprises me. Reading threads and posts on Reddit, I constantly discover new things. Watching videos and streams on YouTube helps me uncover aspects of the game I hadn’t noticed before.
So I encourage you to do the same:
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First and foremost, keep visiting The Tarkov Central, where I aim to publish something interesting every day, along with updates on everything related to EFT, its community, and the developers. In particular, check the Tips & Tricks & Bugs, the Game Features and the Deep-Dives sections. Plus the News page to stay updated about the game.
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Follow YouTube creators and streamers who provide valuable content, such as Pestily (great to learn general info about EFT), Gigabeef (deep-dives about guns modding and game mechanics), NoGenerals, JesseKazam, DeadlySlob, Axel_tv, Glorious_E, SheefGG and DesmondPilak. Additionally, some lesser-known but still informative and engaging creators include SoloReserveOnly (who plays almost exclusively on Reserve, making him an excellent resource for learning that map), Sleek, and MaskedFPS (both of whom play solo and have a calm playstyle, making their content great for learning).
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Check out Reddit subreddit r/EscapefromTarkov, where you can always find interesting posts but don’t let toxic posts discourage you—many people only focus on complaints, criticizing the developers, and pointing out the game’s flaws rather than appreciating its merits. No doubts EFT has flaws, but IMO it's still one of the best games ever. Keep in mind angry/disappointed/snoflakes always complain, while happy people don't post much on Reddit and just play the game! Once I almost stopped playing because of the negativity absordbed on Reddit, so be careful. There is another subreddit, r/Tarkov, but that's even worse and it's less moderated.
Improve Your Aim
f you struggle to hit your targets, or even if you do but want to improve, I suggest two things:
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Learn about mouse sensitivity, DPI, and Polling Rate settings.
You may be using a sensitivity or DPI setting that’s too high, which can negatively affect accuracy. Also, a high Polling Rate is crucial for reducing input latency and increasing precision. When I started playing EFT I had a cheap mouse and when I changed it with a better one, with a higher Polling Rate, the improvement in my aiming was huge.
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Try aim training programs like Aimlabs, which you can get for free on Steam.
I used it when I first started playing Escape from Tarkov, and within a few days, I saw a significant improvement. It also helps you identify where your skills are lacking. My biggest weakness was tracking—I could land the first shot, but keeping my aim on a moving target was my biggest challenge. Now, I’m much better at it.
Be Patient and Resilient
As we’ve already discussed, playing and improving in EFT requires persistence and determination. This applies to many things in life, and I assure you that if you stay committed, your progress will come. Soon, you’ll surprise yourself by executing strategies and winning fights in ways you never expected—all because of the experience, learning and practice you’ve built over time.