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Escape From Tarkov players want clearer rules about item sharingLegitimate players say they’re caught in the cross hairs
Legitimate players say they’re caught in the cross hairs

Escaping Tarkov is difficult enough, I gather, when you’re fighting against NPCs and other players who’re better geared than you without also competing at a meta level against being mistaken for cheating. That’s just what someEscape From Tarkovplayers believe is happening to them, getting banned for breaking rules that haven’t been clearly communicated. Players are asking Battlestate Games to lay out the real rules for sharing items with friends.
As online games so often do, Tarkov appears to be waging a war against cheaters. A few months ago, Battlestateposted on Tarkov’s Reddit communityattempting to outline their solutions for banning cheaters and those trading in-game items for real-world money—referred to as RMT for real money trading. They followed up in July witha Twitter postwarning players against “constant distribution of items in raids to other players.” They say that this behavior would be regarded as boosting—inflating the capabilities of a lower level player with advanced gear—which they say Tarkov prohibits.
Tarkov’sLicense Agreementdoes prohibit both “collection of game money, items, materials, resources, etc. for sale outside the Game” and “provision of game services, such as raising the level, in exchange for payment outside the Game.” Both mention the exchange of real world money but don’t specifically prohibit players gifting items to one another as friends.
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The line between the bannable offense of boosting and lending a hand to a friend seems unclear toa lot of Tarkov players. “VSS Vintorez” is one of them,posting abouthow they wanted to gift items to a teammate but were afraid of getting banned for legitimate behavior. “There is no clear line on what amount of items tips the scale from ‘sharing’ to ‘boosting’,” they say.
Other players areasking one anotherfor clarityon how much"sharing the wealth" is too much and the responses are mostly justguessesat best. They’re just a few of themany players askingsimilar questions about what constitutes boosting in Battlestate’s eyes. The concerns over being banned aren’t just abstract, either. Multiple playerssay they’ve been bannedfortrading items between friends. The one thing that’s clear is thatnobody is clearon the rules.