After patch 0.13, Escape from Tarkov is in a rough spot right now. The updated audio system is broken, AI scavs are basically aimbots, weapon handling is in the pits, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. With patch 0.13.02 coming tomorrow, there's hope.
BSG has already addressed weapon handling in a set of hotfixes today, but they announced that the larger patch would go live at 1:00 AM EST tomorrow morning.
The Tarkov community is no stranger to early wipe issues, but this time it was particularly troubling. The long-awaited Streets of Tarkov map received a major update, but disconnects, large performance and latency issues, and long queue times delayed its release all contributed to the game's development.
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The most difficult to spot were the audio issues. Tarkov switched from Steam audio to Oculus Audio, and it didn't take long to realize that simply hearing footsteps, gunshots, or other loud sounds would no longer allow you to tell where someone was. All you could tell was that one or many people were nearby, but not in which direction or how far away.
Scavs, the game's NPC faction that fills out many maps, are meant to be occasional threats in large numbers or as a way to reveal player locations. However, they've been mistakenly turned into aimbots for months, so much that many players refuse to engage with them altogether.
There are also frequent performance issues, such as crashes, disconnects, and an apparent memory leak that causes framerates to plummet after just a few raids, and the recently added DLSS capability does absolutely nothing.
In an earlier Twitter thread on January 19, BSG acknowledged almost all of these issues.
There was no timetable for these updates at the time, nor was there any information on how big patch 0.13.02 would be or how much it would address, but players in the Tarkov subreddit are already excited by the hotfixes, so BSG has a chance to build even more trust with this update.