Pestily reveals the best ways to level-up quickly in Escape from Tarkov

Escape from Tarkov guru Pestily has revealed the quickest ways to rank up in Battlestate’s hardcore shooter so that you can unlock the player-trading flea market, which is currently gated behind a Level 10 requirement.

Leveling up has been a hot topic in EFT in recent times. Battlestate raised the required rank for the flea market from 5 to 15 in Patch 0.12.4, before being forced to dial it back to 10 after community uproar took hold post-update.

This change still meant that new players have to grind a lot more. Before 0.12.4, the flea market took just 9,508 experience to unlock. Now it takes 42,048 experience. Luckily, Pestily has revealed some of the best ways to level-up “super fast.”

Farming PMCs & Scavengers on Factory

According to Pestily, who detailed a number of methods to collect EFT’s “much-needed” EXP in a YouTube video, Factory is the key to fast level-ups. This map is the smallest in the game and offers a great chance for stacks of experience.

There’s a simple method for bagging EXP here: load-in, kill every PMC (player character) and every AI scavenger. With five other opponents on the map, and “around 10-20 scavs that will respawn,” that’s a bucketload of kills.

“If you are an experienced player, this is absolutely the best way you can level up to rank 10,” Pestily explained. “If you do a Factory raid, kill every player and scav, you’re probably walking out with between 10,000-15,000 experience.”

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Considering 42k is the target, being able to run just four Factory raids to hit level 10 is “fairly quick,” Pestily added. That doesn’t mean it’s the easiest method, however. You have to be fairly good already to blow through two dozen kills in 20 minutes.

“When you’re just starting out, particularly after a wipe, you won’t have the best gear and meds for this, so you can’t do it consistently,” Pestily warned. “Not everyone is going to be able to do this one… but it does work really well.”

The “easier” level-up method for new players

Of course, not every player has it in them to clean out an entire raid in Factory, as Pestily did admit. The Australian streamer does have another way for “fresh” players to get into the EXP grind as well, and funnily enough, it starts on Factory too.

“The very first thing you should be doing is running Factory. Not to kill players or scavs, but to find 3Ms [Module-3M chest armor],” Pestily said.

Within the small map, there are three key locations you want to hit every time you load into the raid: the main office with the safe, the scaffolding above Factory’s overpass, and the big shipping container beneath the overpass.

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“Your main objectives are these 3M armors. If you find one, get the heck out of there. This is a pure run-through. If you don’t, kill some scavs, loot a little, and then leave. You’ll get two or three thousand experience every time like this,” he said.

This armor goes towards Skier’s ‘Supplier’ quest, which dolls out 3,300 experience. From here, it’s quests “until you hit that magic number,” Pestily explained. There’s an order you can do it in as well, he added.

Best Level 1-10 quests, in order

• Supplier ⁠— Level 5 Skier quest (3,300 EXP)
• Debut ⁠— Level 1 Prapor quest (600 EXP)
• The Extortionist ⁠— Level 7 Skier quest (3,200 EXP)
• Checking ⁠— Level 2 Prapor quest (800 EXP)
• Shootout Picnic ⁠— Level 3 Prapor quest (2,000 EXP)
• Stirrup ⁠— Level 8 Skier quest (4,700 EXP)

For mobile readers, the related segment begins at 3:44 in the video below.

So there you have it ⁠— Pestily’s two quick routes to getting to Level 10 as fast as possible to make sure you can start shopping at the flea market. Whether you’re new to EFT, or leveling up again, there’s a method for everyone.

Still trying to figure out the weapon & ammo system in Escape from Tarkov too? Pestily has also explained which ammo types “actually matter” in the hardcore shooter, and which ones you can leave in your stash for another day.