Escape From Tarkov is a very skill and knowledge-intensive game, with the vast majority of most fights being decided before you even take into consideration each player’s ability to aim.
That being said, levels are also extremely important in EFT as you need them to advance your traders and to gain access to the Flea Market. Leveling your traders opens up easy access to a wide variety of gear, and the Flea Market allows you to upgrade your safehouse, buy gear, and sell your equipment much more efficiently. But with all the other stuff to learn like ammo types, armor, gun mods, etc. you might find yourself a little confused about how to level up in EFT.
Luckily, it’s not that complicated, but for new players, the trick might be a little deceiving at first.
How to Level Up Fast
When it comes down to it, you really have two major options for gaining EXP.
⦁ In-raid actions
⦁ Quests
Raids
The core of the game does in-fact give you a good amount of XP. I won’t say it’s great compared to quests, but it’s definitely more consistent and it can add up really fast. The most important thing to learn as a new player is that EVERYTHING gives you exp.
⦁ Player kills
⦁ Scav kills
⦁ Searching containers
⦁ Searching bodies
⦁ Taking items
⦁ Healing
⦁ Eating/Drinking
⦁ Being to new locations
Anything you do, it’s hard not to gain experience doing it. This experience applies to both your character skills and your overall account level. The main hangup here is that you don’t get the full exp from a raid unless you escaped alive and without a “run through” tag. There are a few things to keep in mind with raids :
⦁ Dying will dramatically cut your EXP gains
⦁ Killing a scav or player is worth EXP, but you only gain partial EXP if you don’t also search the body
⦁ Search EXP is given regardless of if you take anything or actually search their pockets, all you need is to open their inventory
⦁ Scav raids DO NOT earn you EXP, use them for items and not kills
Quests
Quests, or “tasks” as the game refers to them, are an amazing way to earn EXP. It may not seem like it at first, with Prapor’s first quest “Debut” only giving you 600 EXP. But that amount quickly takes up with his second quest granting 800, and his third granting you 2000. “Delivery from the past”, Prapor’s fourth quest, gives you a total of 4100 EXP when completed.
On top of EXP, quests give you small cash bonuses, items, and even permanently unlock some purchase options with your vendors. Finally, completing tasks is integral to leveling up your traders since it both gains you EXP, encourages you to make specific types of runs and have the stuff to sell them, and gains you reputation with those traders.
In all, Quests are great sources of EXP and minor sources of cash and gear. A couple of early quests to keep an eye out for are:
⦁ The gunsmith line of quests all give great EXP
⦁ The Sanitary Standards quests for Therapist give good EXP but require 3 found-in-raid gas analyzers
⦁ All of Skier’s quests give decent early-game exp, but don’t give mid/late EXP till “Friend from the west”
⦁ “Only Business” is a free 6700 EXP for getting Ragman to loyalty 2.
⦁ Jaeger’s quests are all fairly easy if not a little time consuming
And one last general tip for new players trying to do quests, run night raids. Visibility is terrible on most maps and you’ll probably be surrounded by other quest runners and hatchlings. Give all the geared players a few minutes to test each other out, and then run for your objectives.
Found In Raid
Some quests need you to retrieve items, worse is that some quests require you to have the item “found in raid” which means you need to have found the item in a raid and extracted with it alive.
Buying or selling these items on the Flea Market will lose their found-in-raid status. The following image shows all the quest items you’ll need, as well as which need to be found in a raid.
READ NEXT : How to play Escape From Tarkov (12 tips inside)
