Low stakes tournament seems to be over-aggressive?

Playing low stakes tournaments I have the feeling that applying a tight-aggressive strategy does not work as most players seem to be over-aggressive or too loose. Why would it not work to try to hit the flop without raising pre-flop and then start collecting chips from the aggressive / loose players?

TBH thats not really a bad strategy, especially when the MTT is in its early stages. During the beginning phase you want to play a tighter preflop range and wait for the bad players to make the mistakes. Once the antees come into play, you might be able to open a little wider depending on chip stack and position among other things.

Raising pre is pretty necessary if you use this strategy because you will be playing the hands toward the top of your range and you will want to invest money in them before the flop because you assume you either have the best starting hand or, your position and skill post flop gives you an advantage.

You will bleed a lot of chips away if you are limping and then calling raises hoping to connect with the board. Limping doesn't make sense if your loose opponent will not even have anything to pay you off with a lot of the time when you do connect.

So you should use your opponent's aggression against them, limp in with good hands occasionally and then re-raise, or isolate them with a good hand with a three-bet.

Then check a street you would normally bet and let the over-aggressive players bluff off their chips when you have a good hand. Since you are much more short-stacked in a tournament you're usually not risking 100BB's by checking and letting your opponent bluff.

Sure you'll lose when they occasionally hit something, but if you aren't using their mistakes against them, you aren't doing your job.

Good luck to you!