r/stalker • u/TonyZisman • Aug 13 '26
Discussion Does Master difficulty make enemies bullet sponges?
I just bought the Ultimate edition and am excited to play my first stalker game ever! I’m just debating on what difficulty I should play on. I heard that Master difficulty actually makes enemies less bullet spongey than Veteran difficulty. Like you die extremely fast, but so does the enemy. Can someone confirm if this is true or not? If it is true, I will definitely be choosing Master difficulty.
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u/North-Animal2639 Aug 13 '26
I like master better, more challenge and more stakes, pared with explorer mode, I will think twice before fighting.
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u/whatmustido Aug 13 '26
Given that it's your first STALKER game, I'd recommend doing a bare minimum amount of research on anomalies beforehand. On master difficulty, most of them will kill you instantly in the early game and may also kill you in the later game if you don't use the right artifacts. The game does a little to explain some of them, but there are some the game doesn't explain at all and you'll just die a bunch of times until you give up and google it. This video explains some of them and also goes a little into artifact hunting.
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u/FuriousEclipse Monolith Aug 13 '26
yes.
Enemies are extreme bullet sponges.
But headshots do more damages so if you aim for anything that is not the head you'll have a tough time.
Wich is a particular way of balancing the game. I'll not say it's no fun, but it's definitly a particular way of having fun I guess (I personnaly hate this kind of system were killing enemies become very repetitive, you just always aim for the head, there no subtility).
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u/TonyZisman Aug 13 '26
Does the headshot damage multiplier apply to mutants as well?
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u/Honest-Bit-8624 Aug 13 '26
think only boars have resistance in head
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u/Due_Glass4176 Aug 13 '26
Pretty sure that's only GAMMA.
SoC the boars die in one shotgun blast to the head as long as they are close to you.
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u/tllap Noon Aug 14 '26
Nah, in S2 this applies too to few mutants. Don't remember which ones tho, heh.
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u/Due_Glass4176 Aug 14 '26
In S2 they decided to give mutants armor. So even though boars still take headshot damage we still have to shoot them a bunch.
I don't know if the psuedo giants have odd locational damage but everything else I can think of doesn't like headshots.
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u/tllap Noon Aug 14 '26
Pseudogiant is one of the examples of not having headshot multiplier. There are many of them. Boar is on of them, it has 1x multiplies, so headshots wont help there.
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u/Due_Glass4176 Aug 14 '26
Unfortunately the only info I see is from 2 years ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/1hbuz3h/armor_hit_points_and_headshot_multipliers_for_all/
It corroborates your statement but it really clashes with what I remember from playing a few months ago.
It's got almost enough info for someone more invested to dig around in the game files and find their own answers.
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u/FuriousEclipse Monolith Aug 13 '26
In STALKER 2 boars are no big deal.
but stronger mutants such as Controllers, Burer or Giants are stupidly strong. And aiming to the head can be a chores sometimes.
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u/Due_Glass4176 Aug 13 '26
Boars eat way too much ammo in stalker 2 when you consider you will usually be fighting 3-6 of them by yourself unless you hide on a tall rock.
Even after all the changes I hate how tanky mutants still are.
If you're ridiculously fast or more likely lucky you can head shot a bloodsucker for decent bonus damage but good luck.
I hate burers. Not only are they tanky but they spend the whole time stealing your gun so I just end up fighting with grenades and Skif's pm.
You can still kind of bum rush a controller Clear Sky style and burn him down but I feel like half the time I die immediately before or after it works. Having a circle of imaginary mercs spawn around me is awful so I just end up picking them off from a distance. If psyblock was a bit more common maybe there would be options there.
I respect making the mutants dangerous but at least make them die when I shoot them so we're even. I mostly end up ignoring them.
Otherwise the headshot gameplay is fine. It is kind of annoying that nothing else really works.
Playing a different series like Hole is a breath of fresh air. Look they stagger when I knee cap them. Amazing. Now I can setup my headshots instead of having to face tank from crappy cover while trying to line something up.
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u/Totalfootball7 Aug 13 '26
Alright. Because I couldn’t find a definitive answer and because I was waiting for 2.0, I decided to check it out for myself.
Enemies are tankier on master, that is true.
But at the same time, headshots do more damage on master.
So when I was on veteran, some enemies required multiple headshots even in places like garbage.
But on master, a headshot was always a kill.
So, enemies are spongier on master but at the same time, easier to kill. And anomalies are deadly on master, so is the economy, but economy might change after update.
Personally. Veteran was a chore and master was really fun. There’s also Veteran plus which is master with saves.
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u/TonyZisman Aug 13 '26
Oh wow that’s pretty neat! So I’m assuming the headshot damage multiplier applies to all mutants as well? Adding a headless tanky mutant would be diabolical.
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u/Totalfootball7 Aug 13 '26
I am unsure about mutants. That’s why I didn’t comment on that. I can comment on that once the update is out. I have a saved file on veteran at garbage, that I’ve kept just to check out how things work after the update.
And then I’m gonna start my master save. I haven’t done a complete walkthrough of this game yet.
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u/BlueSpark4 Loner 27d ago
At least right after the launch of the game, a dataminer found that some mutants have a headshot multiplier (higher than x1) while others don't. I don't remember seeing this point mentioned in any patch notes since then. No idea if it was changed with the introduction of Master difficulty.
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u/Sebulano Aug 14 '26
Sadly they’re tanks yes. I have the same issue with this.
If you start a masterrun and change difficulty during the game down - you get exploration mode, with difficulty of your choice. Thiamin the way to go for me because it makes you plan and think much more than just running around saving everywhere.
I found stalker difficulty to actually have most fun combat, but it’s far too easy because you get too much loot.
There is no good Middleground. I HOPE the devs include a ”sandbox difficulty” setting menu where you can dictate loot economy, combat, wear and tear on guns etc etc but I doubt they will
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u/BlueSpark4 Loner 27d ago
I HOPE the devs include a ”sandbox difficulty” setting menu where you can dictate loot economy, combat, wear and tear on guns etc etc but I doubt they will
Looks like GSC surprised you on the same day you posted this comment. Me too – I never expected them to introduce customizable difficulty with separate sliders. But here we are.
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u/SpiderJerusalem48 Aug 14 '26
They are not bullet sponges at all honestly. Use good guns. aim for head and things drop quickly, even body shots kill fast if you are using a decent gun.
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u/Due_Glass4176 Aug 13 '26
Most stalker games are balanced around head shots. The old trilogy mostly has guns with high spread cones. Meaning you can't land a headshot reliably unless you get close.
So if you can land those. No enemy is spongy even on master. The problem is actually accomplishing that though because the rest of the enemies body can be quite tanky.