a few thoughts

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#1

So I want to post a few thoughts about my experience with BM .

First of all, great job devs!
It’s a really stunning game, all the waiting really was worth it.

Well, while the overall game is awesome there are a few minor annoyances:

  1. Ladders: they are somewhat terrible. Either you’re glued to them or you don’t get on them(sometimes while falling etc).
    Also the movement on there is not optimal at all.
    Sometimes I climbed up and then wanted to get down again and pressed “s” instead of “w” but I still climbed up for some reason(and died a few times because of that).

  2. The Heli and Tank in Surface Tension at the cliff: This damn heli eats up 8 rockets and a armored tank just needs 3? something with the balancing seems to be a bit off there.

  3. Jumping: the normal jumping height is not in anyway useful, maybe for jumping over cans but nothing else. I don’t remember that HL had this awkward jumping.

  4. random crashes/crashes while map loads with activated flashlight.

  5. The Crowbar swing animation: it looks very stiff, you would expect a full swing in the air instead it’s stopping rather abruptly.

  6. Crawling animation: the pelvis looks rather flat and it looks kinda awkward… well but this is really a very minor issue.

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  7. Assassin model: The assassins lower and upper body don’t seem to be connected correctly:

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    1920×1080 234 KB

That’s it so far, if I find anything else I’ll post again in this thread.

Thanks for this awesome mod!

#2

  • Ladders require the use of the USE key to disembark them. You can’t simply just jump off them like in the original.

  • I figured out I had to do a lot more crouch jumps in this version. Even to jump over those tripmine lasers you have to use crouch-jump even if it isn’t that high.

  • And to jump really long you have to press shift to run then jump. That is: You need to gain some momentum before you jump. Trying to do this more quickly like press shift and then just jump without having ran half a meter will get you nothing.

  • I also had a few crashes during map load. I just restarted the game and could continue though.

#3

yeah, but even when pressing the “USE” key it sometimes just doesn’t want to let me on the ladder.

Anyways I forgot one thing:
The Crowbar swing animation: it looks very stiff, you would expect a full swing in the air instead it’s stopping rather abruptly.
Crawling animation: the pelvis looks rather flat and it looks kinda awkward… well but this is really a very minor issue.

#4

Maybe I’m just a filthy casual, but the HECU seem really overpowered. They still can see you from fucking Pluto and hit you 100% of the time with pinpoint accuracy, just like in HL, but there’s still something about them that makes them so much more difficult and tedious to deal with than in HL. Maybe they deal more damage or something? I don’t know.

#5

I boosted the player 9mm damage from 6 to 8, and using the assault rifle against them is now a fair fight, even on hard

You should try it

#6

Well, if Pfannkuchen_gesicht has already made a thread for “a few thoughts”, I’m going to share mine too :stuck_out_tongue: . First of all: A tremendous Mod, jaw-dropping on the run. I am not done yet, playing on hard (The HECU is friggin tough, unlike the dumb Combine) but I am enjoying it. Only thing that bugs me are the annotations, or hints like “Press CTRL + Space to duck-jump” etc. These should really bigger, maybe even another font, color and orientation on the screen. I missed them easily and while I have no Problems since I know HL, it could be difficult for Newbies. For instance, I knew you can zoom with your HEV, but there was no Hint that would have shown the player he can zoom. Well, maybe I missed it. I hope you get my point. Second thing is the balancing of the weapons.The .357 is a powerful ally in the original HL, it is really powerful in Black Mesa, too, but the balancing isn’t my type. In HL it was a one shot - one kill weapon, whereas in BM it’s more of a hit-and-miss weapon. The Shotgun… I already said that I’M playing on hard, so less damage and tougher enemies are common, but 4(!) shotgun bursts and a zombie still isn’t dead (unless you shoot in the headcrab) ? Really ? I know you can control the damage via convars, but it shouldn’t be meant to balance the game by yourself.
So, my 2 Cents… beware, Edits may follow :slight_smile: Back to duty:freeman:

#7

Everything was fine, I was enjoying the mod and praising it, and then I got to Residue Processing. And I don’t know if someone else designed these maps, or what but they are god damn frustrating. Even more so than they are in Half-Life.

There’s the room where the pipe explodes, that was also confusing because it really doesn’t look like you’d be able to jump over that fence, because let’s be honest, the jumping isn’t that great in this mod. Like the op said, regular jumping is useless. You have to push ctrl to jump over EVERYTHING. It’s made me realise how much I fucking hate jumping in first person shooters.
And then there’s the worst offence. What happens after it. That rotating-radiation jumpy thingy. When I first looked at, I didn’t even realise that it was that. Plus, there’s no indication that you’re supposed to jump on it, it literally looks like you’ll fall in as soon as you do.
I don’t even want to talk about what happened next. I got to the part with the poopy sewage water, and I spent 20 minutes in that shit, with no idea where I was going, what I was doing, when those frustrating minutes were over and I found myself near the dead security guard. I had no idea what I had done to get there. No fucking clue. In Half-Life, sure some parts got frustrating, you still understood what you had to do, where you had to go. In Black Mesa, at least in Residue Processing, I’m able fucking finish the map and still have no idea what I did. The next parts were okay, but I still had a bad taste in my mouth after all of that shit.

That was a really disappointing chapter, and I don’t dislike the mod. Hell, I’ve even liked a chapter here and there even more than the original. Unforeseen Consequences was amazing.

#8

I’ve only completed the first two chapters but it is great so far. First death by ladder!

#9

found something strange:
The assassins lower and upper body don’t seem to be connected correctly:

1920×1080 167 KB

1920×1080 234 KB

#10

oh yes, those ladders… they will appear in my nightmares :fffuuu:

#11

Never had any trouble with any ladders myself. E key + up and down, felt perfect to me.

#12

Music was good, but it was SO loud.

I couldn’t hear what the black guy told me after i had the H.E.V suit on, i didn’t change it though, but i wish i did. After finishing the game i will try again and lower the music volume, because 100% music volume gives me ear bleeding.

I also felt like it was misplaced, some music plays either too early or too late (and it doesn’t fade away, which ruins the scene), like for instance the moment before you have to burn the tentacles, it plays all of a sudden with no special context in it, feels anti-climatic.

The music is good and good quality but the music setup (placement and volume) IS HORRIBLE. Please do fix.

Also, it seems some sounds are missing as they don’t seem to load in console (it says failed to load sound, probably missing from disk/repisitory), some other files gives errors as well.

Now for the serious bugs: Random crashes both middle-loading and after, the VERTEX (entity) OVERLOAD crash if you go to some specific area, i had this in Lambda Core where you fight the F_assasin’s for the last time. Some textures looked horrible and glitched out. If you look at the water from The Dam in Surface Tension from above it looks scattered and horrible, i had this somewhere else too. Do note that i save this BEFORE i pressed the overflood button, is water supposed to be there before you press it? Might be a graphical effect/bug.

Sorry for the weired spell, grammar, and formating as i am just typing this down fast before i go to bed.

#13

I agree with the guy above, I’m stuck at Residue Processing as well, more precisely at the start… went downstairs and both doors are locked, dunno where to go… the glass upstairs can’t be broken

#14

Dotard, go to the beginning room before you meet the dead cop, look for a open shaft in the vent :wink:

#15

Thanks, it’s even more confusing than in the original (no offense to the developers) ironic, because according to the wiki, the initial version was redesigned for being confusing “_”

#16

Yeah, that’s what i thought too but i didn’t find Residue Processing to last so long compared to the other chapters. Apprehension was really annoying though, but it was like that in the original too, dammit underwater exploring with the cargo truck (whatever that green vehicle was) in the way making me think that you aren’t supposed to go that way.

#17

Source Engine’s underwater “visibility” made it kinda worse ^_ not to mention the annoying “drowning shader”

#18

I only had difficulty Surface Tension and figuring out how to activate the pump/coolant system for the second tank, and that was more me overlooking small details.

The jumping was very low, though, seemingly like they had crouch jumping over everything in mind. But that level design, oh my god was that amazing.

#19

The jump height and the height at which you can automatically walk up something (like a step) appear to be roughly the same. I haven’t found one object in the game that you can jump on that you can’t just walk up. I don’t mind that the crouch jump is still a core mechanic, but it’s pretty silly to make the jump literally useless on its own.

I just went in the skill.cfg and upped the jumping height, and it doesn’t seem to break any puzzles, so all is right with the world. I hope they tweak this in future official releases, it seems like a common complaint.

#20

oh btw, the first “weapon” of gordon was a bit disappointing and also not very true to the HL series.
Why not the crowbar?

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.