Posted January 31, 2022
Judicat0r: No, it's not.
It's you that were opinionating based on your likings and tastes.
I don't, I'm referring to facts and technology.
A bullet sponge is just an an HPs container which poses no threat to the player but its own HPs as opposed to enemies capable of more complex behavior than just coming at you and shoot like: take cover and make pot shots, cooperate with other AI entities, act collectively as one entity, adapt to changing conditions and so on.
And that's not debatable, it is just a fact, especially in DooM.
Sooner or later every AI becomes unrefined compared to newer iterations and, as a matter of fact, due to their lack of behavioral branches compared to newer ones, could easily and lazily only be improved by raising their HPs.
And that was my point to begin with: the enemies from that time, the 90s, the early 90s specifically, are just bullet sponges in most cases, because they lack the skills required to look like they are acting credibily, which happened later on, and something you may not like but that is a fact and objectively true.
The enemy AI did get more complex in the later games. I'm not disputing that. But does that necessarily mean better? Who is to say. It's you that were opinionating based on your likings and tastes.
I don't, I'm referring to facts and technology.
A bullet sponge is just an an HPs container which poses no threat to the player but its own HPs as opposed to enemies capable of more complex behavior than just coming at you and shoot like: take cover and make pot shots, cooperate with other AI entities, act collectively as one entity, adapt to changing conditions and so on.
And that's not debatable, it is just a fact, especially in DooM.
Sooner or later every AI becomes unrefined compared to newer iterations and, as a matter of fact, due to their lack of behavioral branches compared to newer ones, could easily and lazily only be improved by raising their HPs.
And that was my point to begin with: the enemies from that time, the 90s, the early 90s specifically, are just bullet sponges in most cases, because they lack the skills required to look like they are acting credibily, which happened later on, and something you may not like but that is a fact and objectively true.
But the core of the issue here is obviously our definition of a bullet sponge. A bullet sponge to me is only an enemy, that takes a tediously large amount of time to dispatch with the arsenal the game provides to you, compared to the rest of the enemies. Their time to kill is disproportionately higher than most other enemies.
But that doesn't mean you can't use them effectively in a combat scenario.
And even if we go by your definition, the enemies in Unreal are definitely still not sponges. As you said in your initial post that started this entire discussion, they actively dodge, attack/retreat depending on their HP or sometimes even pre-fire a corner etc. Meaning they don't just walk in your general direction and attack. And all of them besides the mentioned Titan die in a very reasonable time, supposing you hit your shots.
Post edited January 31, 2022 by idbeholdME