Why do people hate bullet sponges?

Flybye

Limp Gawd
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Jun 29, 2006
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I'd like to wrap my head around the why since so many people mention it, and people that really hate it have no problem at all strongly voicing their opinion about it.

I absolutely love bullet sponges. None of my old school friends hate bullet sponges. The longer a battle is the better. I actually get pretty annoyed at fast ending battles. I sometimes feel it is the people with the instant gratification mentality that hate bullet sponges. They need the everything now and need things to die now.
 
Bullet sponges pull me right out of the game, breaking immersion. I immediately feel like a dipshit allowing a game to waste my time. Often leading me to stop playing. I've killed buffalo with a single .308 round that never took another step.. but this guy here in this game just took a full mag to the throat and keeps coming. My brain can't take it. If it happens, the cheat codes/trainers come out and now the game is my bitch. I'll steamroll the entire game for the story and never look back.
 
Bullet sponges pull me right out of the game, breaking immersion. I immediately feel like a dipshit allowing a game to waste my time. Often leading me to stop playing. I've killed buffalo with a single .308 round that never took another step.. but this guy here in this game just took a full mag to the throat and keeps coming. My brain can't take it. If it happens, the cheat codes/trainers come out and now the game is my bitch. I'll steamroll the entire game for the story and never look back.
Depends on the game... Fps yeah I hate having random enemies take forever to kill. Bosses I'm ok with making them harder ect.

Now if it's something like elder scrolls/fantasy RPG I'm fine with mobs taking a while to kill(provide they don't level scale stupidly) nothing kills the feeling like unmoded tes/fo where that same rat is hard end games where you go back over leveled and can absolutely destroy things
 
To me, it entirely depends on the enemy I'm fighting, the weaponry I'm hitting it with, the position I'm hitting it in, the armor it might have in various places, etc. If I have to hit an enemy in the face 10 times and it doesn't have some kind of insane face-shield, then something is very wrong with the game design. If the enemy has a helmet and chest-plate armor, and I shoot it in the neck, it better die pretty quickly. If it's some reptilian mega-monster, sure, maybe I have to hit it in it's multi-valved heart several times before it goes down.

If I'm hitting armor a few times, that's fine too.

However, sponges for the sake of dragging out a fight are pointless and stupid, and just ruin the feel of the game. I'd rather fight more enemies at a time for a challenge than fight one that just won't die.

To quote Top Dollar (The Crow) "For fuck's sake, die will you?" :p
 
It seems to be done as a way to increase difficulty but in my mind doesn't actually make it more challenging just more of a slog.

That doesn't mean that some enemies can't be a bit more durable for change of pace but too much of that quickly gets boring and repetitive.
 
It's an immersion breaker. Sure, a Baron of Hell or a Cyberdemon should take a lot of punishment before being killed - but your normal human foe shouldn't be absorbing bullets like they're superhuman.

I can't say I've experienced this very often anymore - probably last time was one of the TimeSplitters or maybe it was a FarCry title. Even DooM's demons can't take the same amount of punishment that they used to take.

With that all said, I'm more forgiving of 'bullet sponges' in RPGs. In Witcher 3, if I could take down a significantly higher leveled enemy, I'd feel pride in the accomplishment and not annoyance. Even though it was super unrealistic (hitting the same enemy hundreds of times to finally slay it and consuming a ton of repair items), I was never too bothered by it. Especially if there was a reward involved.
 
I'm more forgiving of Bullet Sponges in games that allow you auto-fire; fuck pressing the same button thousands of times to kill a boss :rolleyes:

Give me a Sniper Rifle/Rocket Launcher/Shotgun (for skilled/overpowerring kills), or give me burst / rapid fire, or I'm out.
 
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I'd like to wrap my head around the why since so many people mention it, and people that really hate it have no problem at all strongly voicing their opinion about it.

I absolutely love bullet sponges. None of my old school friends hate bullet sponges. The longer a battle is the better. I actually get pretty annoyed at fast ending battles. I sometimes feel it is the people with the instant gratification mentality that hate bullet sponges. They need the everything now and need things to die now.

Because it doesn't reward maneuvering and many times skill at all. Short TTKs in modern games are there for a good reason. Now if you're talking about an SP game, then I couldn't care less if they're a bullet sponge.
 
I enjoy bullet sponge games like Destiny 2 and The Division 2.
I am not a big fan of games like Battlefield and Counterstrike where the enemies die fast.
Bullet sponge games are usually RPGs and it's my favorite genre. I don't like shooters.
 
Entirely depends on the game.

People seem to forget that The Division, for example, is an RPG and have been complaining about bullet sponges in that since the start. It's not ARMA. It's not CoD. It's an RPG and you trade monsters and swords for guns and enemies named bullet king. Just because there are guns doesn't mean it needs to abide by anything realistic.

People project their expectations on games in very weird ways.
 
I'd like to wrap my head around the why since so many people mention it, and people that really hate it have no problem at all strongly voicing their opinion about it.

I absolutely love bullet sponges. None of my old school friends hate bullet sponges. The longer a battle is the better. I actually get pretty annoyed at fast ending battles. I sometimes feel it is the people with the instant gratification mentality that hate bullet sponges. They need the everything now and need things to die now.
It depends a lot on the type of game. But it definitely makes you as a player character feel weaker if my weapons have no impact. That can be particularly frustrating. As an example - if the only game difficulty available in Dark Souls/Demon Souls is the hardest difficulty and EVERY enemy takes you 10 minutes to beat and kills you in 2 or less hits, how is that more fun? That just makes you feel weak, it's frustratingly hard (which it already is without its mega hard difficulty setting), and you basically have zero progress after hours. That difficulty level is feasible to seasoned players of the game that know how to do all of the dances/movement with zero abilities, but if that's your first run through of the game ever I doubt you'd play the game for more than an hour before giving up.

A second major issue with this is resource management. If I have to use say 100 rounds of ammo and I'm only able to hold 120 rounds of ammo, that's a really annoying situation to be in. That's a literal bullet sponge situation, whereas the Dark Souls example you could argue you have "infinite ammo" or at least a game type that doesn't for the most part require ammo.

Third there are other ways to make games difficult other than bullet sponges. Doom as an example uses quantity of enemies as well as making them hit harder. So it allows you as the player character feel like a bad ass, kill enemies quickly, and still have a very high difficulty if you want it. And I think more people prefer that form of balancing versus just having bullet sponges. Alternatively another style is having enemies that have infinite guard, and you have to know their movement and dance/attack them when they're vulnerable and have them die instantly when you do. That style works well for a lot of sword combat type games of assassin type games.
 
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Bullet sponges pull me right out of the game, breaking immersion. I immediately feel like a dipshit allowing a game to waste my time. Often leading me to stop playing. I've killed buffalo with a single .308 round that never took another step.. but this guy here in this game just took a full mag to the throat and keeps coming. My brain can't take it. If it happens, the cheat codes/trainers come out and now the game is my bitch. I'll steamroll the entire game for the story and never look back.

Yeah I tend to feel the same way. Big boss battles that are nothing more than giant bullet sponges just bring the game to a screeching halt while you try to figure out the pattern to get by them. I don't mind a good boss battle but I'd like it to be a little more imaginative. There have been several games over the years that I just stopped playing out of frustration of trying to figure out a boss.
 
boss with a giant health bar is considered a bullet sponge?...Division 1 had the very definition of bullet sponge enemies...I love a challenge so bullet sponge or not I am determined to beat every boss
 
Really depends on the game for me. I enjoy both as long as they are done right.
 
I want semi-realistic damage, and I want it to apply both ways. My main gripe with bullet sponges is when I take 50 shots to kill it, and it kills me in 2. Now if it takes me 50 to kill it, and it takes 50 to kill me, it doesnt bother me as much.

But I tend to play more "realistic" games, and as such, I dont want an enemy human to eat ten .45 rounds to the chest at 5m and be fine. I want to drop someone with 2-3 placed shots, and I expect the same to be done to me. Hell Let Loose, Stalker Call of Pripyat with Misery mod on the hard setting, Deus Ex on the "Give me Deus Ex" settings, etc etc.

But Im also willing at times to just set difficulty and damage below bedrock and just wander through a game taking thousands of hits and spewing bullets like a Phalanx CIWS to enjoy the story.

Also, games like Doom, Serious Sam, etc, I have NO issue with bullet sponging, its to be expected in that type of game.
 
A single shotgun shell loaded with buckshot contains well more than enough Oh Hell No to end any unarmored two-legged target, out to as far as 90 yards, though about 60-70 is more reasonable for common setups. Video game depictions of shotguns are still comically unrealistic, even in games that aren't bullet sponges.
 
I actually hate BEING the bullet sponge, more than enemies being a sponge.

If I can headshot an enemy, or take them out with 2 or 3 shots, same should be done to me.

Though, it entirely depends on the game, as others have said.
 
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Entirely depends on the game.

People seem to forget that The Division, for example, is an RPG and have been complaining about bullet sponges in that since the start. It's not ARMA. It's not CoD. It's an RPG and you trade monsters and swords for guns and enemies named bullet king. Just because there are guns doesn't mean it needs to abide by anything realistic.

People project their expectations on games in very weird ways.

I can see your point here. I actually don't mind it in Borderlands myself, as it does denote a stronger level character. For some reason though it feels ok in something overtly shooter/RPG than it does in other genres. Pure shooters it's pretty much inexcusable. Borderlands also does a decent job of making some of the spongier fights fun. Plus, you can always leave and come back when you're a few levels stronger and clean the place out. There are ways around taking ten minutes to kill one enemy.
 
After thinking upon it, I recently played Monster Hunter, and, I hated it.

Here I am, with a big ass knife/sword/whatever, and these dinosaurs take a ton of damage.

They also hit me, with their tail, claws, or teeth, and I just lose a little health.

I would rather have an enemy take a handful of bullets compared to a dinosaur, or, human, taking dozens of hits.

So, bullet sponge > sword sponge
 
A single shotgun shell loaded with buckshot contains well more than enough Oh Hell No to end any unarmored two-legged target, out to as far as 90 yards, though about 60-70 is more reasonable for common setups. Video game depictions of shotguns are still comically unrealistic, even in games that aren't bullet sponges.

This is something that Ghost Recon Breakpoint does very well. In fact, in terms of damage its pretty good overall. Even with gear score turned on it never feels bullet spongy. For one thing, a headshot kills every time regardless of the weapon.

I don't like bullet sponges. In Destiny 2, I don't mind it with the bosses and elite enemies but I hate the higher difficulty content where all the red and orange bar enemies make your weapons feel ineffective.
 
if my avatar has a gun, any gun in his hands, and I have to kite mobs, its a broken game...
 
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I think its simple. If you think about an RPG where you have to have differing damage abilities depending on your skills/equipment, an enemy can either take a ton of damage or very little depending on how you've built your character. This is very common and accepted.

Now that shooters have RPG elements, something similar has to happen or there would be no reason for one weapon to be better than another. Once these mechanics are used in a game where you have guns, people seem to have a mental block and they can't accept that their gun does such little damage. Effort needs to be put in to make a "build" that combines specific weapons and abilities to get that high damage back.

People just don't like this when its with guns. Simple.

As a heavy looter shooter fan, I'm all about it.
 
I like bullet sponges,

quake 2, quake 3, countter-strike, sof2,
games i grew up playing.


i dont like too realistic, america army etc..
like i dont get the point of those games where you spent hours just crawling and kill 1 person .

sure it might be more realistic to be like that but games are meant to be fun and not to bore people.
 
sure it might be more realistic to be like that but games are meant to be fun and not to bore people.
It's not boring, it's delayed gratification. Nothing like setting up a kill well in advance.

It's like playing the Spy in TF and getting the whole enemy team to flip to Pyro because you just murdered the lot of them and walked off with their precious flag.
 
It seems to be done as a way to increase difficulty but in my mind doesn't actually make it more challenging just more of a slog.

That doesn't mean that some enemies can't be a bit more durable for change of pace but too much of that quickly gets boring and repetitive.

This. I'm not opposed to games that are challenging if it's done intelligently. If a game is hard because the AI is smart and acts appropriately to my actions, that's a fun and worthwhile challenge. If a game is hard because a dumb meatsack can meander around and absorb half a magazine, that's boring as hell.
 
Go ahead, make my day.....
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I hate 'em. In every genre and every style of game. Not only is it unrealistic in 99% of cases, it drags things out. Either that or (with online games), it forces you to have a massive posse standing around unloading forever. I don't even like Dark Souls fights that drag and force you to hit something more than 20 times.
I want to get in and take care of something as swiftly and in as few hits as possible.
 
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Bullet sponges are the epitomy of poor and lazy game design, they are utterly terrible no matter what genre and ruin what usually is a good game otherwise (The Division for example).

The RPG excuse is just a cover for that bad design and there are ways to make both difficult and engaging fights without just making enemies into bullet sponges.
 
I hate them because they don't make sense. Something made of flesh should not survive bullets. It's immersion breaking.

Besides of being boring. I don't want to spend 10 minutes fighting every henchman. It is more acceptable for boss enemies, but even there it should be explained by the narrative, why this guy is so hard to kill.
 
Depends on the game, setting, or story. Take Destiny for example, aliens, robots, shields, and undeath. Feels okay as a bullet sponge type game, due to the various futuristic weapons and items of the sort.

Now let’s look at the Division, dude with a purple ski mask requires a 3 man team to put more than 1K rounds into his head to kill him. Nope, not fucking interested, hate the game even more because Tom Clancy’s brand is tied into it.
 
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