Bullet Sponges Unite! How you CAN have fun and help your team, even if you suck!

Bullet Sponges Unite! How you CAN have fun and help your team, even if you suck!

Ah the Bullet Sponge. The newb. The chronically dead. The team member who celebrates every single kill, cause they may only get one a night, if they are lucky. The person with a kill death ratio of...0.00000, oh forget it. A Bullet Sponge is different from "not that good"; a Bullet Sponge is terrible. And if you are a Bullet Sponge, or a team member of a Bullet Sponge, this article is for you.

As a self professed Bullet Sponge, I understand. I not only have been there, I AM there. My first T-hunt in R6V resulted in killing myself and my entire team, I mean really, who put the grenade button "there". I honestly do a happy dance when I get a kill, cause things like "kills" just don’t happen with me. So how can my fellow 2o2Flankers help the Bullet Sponge? Or more importantly, how can the Bullet Sponge help themselves?

Attitude

Yes, attitude is everything, and it has to start with you! So, if you are a Bullet Sponge, you must learn to forgive yourself. You will make big mistakes, and you will get killed often. Generally speaking, if you are new to console gaming, everyone around you has years more experience with these games than you do. And I don’t just mean with the controller. They have seen more maps, more weapons, more game types that you can imagine. So to say that you are behind the curve is an understatement. So, enjoy the deaths, learn to love the animations, the respawn screens, everything there is to do with the game when you are dead, cause you will see this screen often.

Seriously though, this one is easy to say, hard to do. Relax, relax and relax some more. Oh an have fun, because it IS a game. A fun attitude will make you a better clan mate than someone who is sour with a super high K/D ratio. People will still want to play with you even if you are bad, if you come with a will to learn how to be better, and a positive attitude.

Team members of Bullet Sponges: recognize that you were once a Bullet Sponge too. Yes, you are better than the other guy, but there was once a time when you couldn’t tell a sniper rifle from an assault rifle. Ask yourself this question. Do you want FPS newbs on your team? If you say "yes" then you signed up for a rewarding but harrowing experience. To see someone develop their skills and to become a good player when they could not even walk a straight line is richly rewarding, but it takes a lot of work and your newb is going to "cost" you games. Tactics can cover some of weaknesses by a new player, but not all. But that’s okay if it’s what you signed up for. Here at 2o2flank, we already have this fantastic attitude. We are prepared to teach people how to get better, there is already a sense of comradery.

Tactics! Tactics! Tactics!

I honestly think that a tactics based clan should be the first stop for any Bullet Sponge and here is why. Tactics tells you what to do, and this is a good thing.. I *hate* team deathmatches or FFAs. It’s funny because I find that vets consider these games to be newb friendly, but they are not. Why is that? Because in these games, as a Bullet Sponge, I don’t know where to go. I find myself wandering aimlessly, or just following someone else, but with no purpose. That makes me vulnerable Objective based games at least give me something to do. I even get more kills in these types of games.

With tactics based clans, is even a "non-objective" based game is played like a series of objective based games. You have something that you have to do, a place on the map to "take". Having something to do is much easier to handle than "shoot em in the face".

Team members: please... tell us what to do. Make it simple, as simple as you can, but as directed as you can. Again, in T-Hunts, I feel like I do my best work when I am told... "JayCat.. Stand here and kill anyone who comes out this door". It’s simple, and it’s within my skill set. My clan members also explain that if I guard this door, they are free to move around in front. I am a valuable member, and I have a job that I can handle.

Understanding the Bullet Sponge Mind During Play

Here is why it is important to tell the Bullet Sponge exactly what to do. We don’t see things that the experienced players do. We don’t see the cool weapons lying around, we don’t see the hiding places, sniper points. We don’t even see the map. Why?

A Bullet Sponge is so worried about how to get around, how to shoot, how to switch grenades, basically how to work the controller, that they can’t pay attention to the map with the same level of "intelligence" as a seasoned veteran. We haven’t seen as many maps, or weapons; they are ALL new to us. So, take a veteran and a Bullet Sponge through the same map, I guarantee that he vet will understand, will get the map much better than the Bullet Sponge.

I would say a good rule of thumb is this: for every one walkthrough that a vet needs of a map to learn it, the Bullet Sponge will need 3 or 5. When we see a map, we won’t intuitively understand what weapon is best for that map. And if we figure it out once, we may not remember. We are learning so much stuff each time we play, but not everything can sink in. We’re not stupid, in fact it’s the opposite; we are learning so much, that details fall away.

So how can team members help? Before each game: remind your Bullet Sponge exactly what to do. For instance:

This is this map, the one with the big barn and the houses, and the two bridges. Shotguns are no good on this map, you need something with longer range, probably your M16. The game is Domination, we want to take whatever flag is nearest and B, but don’t ever take all three! If we only take two, we push them to one part of the map and we know where they are. Snipers hang out in the barn so watch out! You are in squad B, you take the wood bridge and hang out there... don’t let anyone past!

Bullet Sponges, please listen to the advice of your clan members, they know better and are there to help you get better.

Development.

Not all Bullet Sponges can stay in the same place and watch the door forever, you have to be prepared to develop. Development may be a topic for another day, but I want to remind everyone that a learning curve goes like this:

Everything is REALLY hard at first... then it gets easier... but here’s the sad part. There comes a point when you master the easy stuff. You are happy, you think you have it all down. Then suddenly, you look around and realize that you know nothing. You have only scratched the surface of FPS games. This is the part where people have the hardest time, they think they are failures and forget even the basics. At this point the leader has to help their juniors again.

Again: I will blog later on about development, but the above is something to just think about. If you find that things get hard again, then that is a good sign. It means you are moving forward.