Black Mesa is great! But it could be perfect with some changes

  1. Well, they’re gonna release some updates once BM is on Steam
  2. I actually didn’t have an issue with them, they are just more respectable than in HL and they feel like special government forces, but their reaction time should be nerfed, although it happened to me several times that I killed a grunt, and the other one just stood behind the wall in battle pose, like ‘WTF is happening?’
  3. Agreed, jump height is too small.
  4. 50% of pistol’s clip is enough to kill an ichy, and also you can outrun them in water, which seems very strange for an aquatic enemy being so slow in water. They should definately be tougher.
  5. I just tossed a nade and made a run for it, no tactics at all, as opposed to HL where it seemed more logical. So I agree with this point.

What are you on about? … your post doesn’t matter at all. I have finished the game on hard, just because YOU think something, it doesn’t make it any relevant, and honestly, I don’t think anyone is interested in what you think about what others think.

Tripmines

In Half-Life, we could even jump on the tripmines put on the wall. That was ridiculous allright. But here they blow up immidiately if we accidently touch them (move to them*) which is quite annoying since if we are close to the wall, the mine itself blows us up before we’d interrupt the laser.

I think they have removed it to prevent speedruns/exploits or something

You mean, the ability to jump on it? No suprise, youtube shown me a some serious exploit they did with them in HL

devs encourage speed runs.
but jumping on a mine was just plain stupid.

What is clear is that many people are having similar thoughts on the balance of the game not so much the game itself which is outstanding…

Don’t shoot me down but here are my thoughts

The pistol and smg are too weak… If you shoot a dead headcrab it will no longer apply physics it is so weak… The damage on this needs increasing and this is the lynch pin of all balance the weakest weapon is too weak.

Once this gun (9mm) is made powerful enough so that it inflicts enough damage to push a headcrab along the floor with a few shots (like HL2 pistol) then every other weapon and NPC’s health need to be incremented accordingly to increase health of npc’s so that it then also does not feel too powerful.

So effectivly raising the damage and health ratio’s to keep this in line but the weakest weapon is where this process must start.

The only NPC problems I see are as follows

the overall AI reaction time needs brining down.

Bullsquids more delay between attacks and encourage to charge / melee attack more in close range

Vorts small delay increase between attacks

Apache Needs health lowering

as for the player movement only the jump height increase is needed

I have seen a few configs going up that perhaps are trying to change too much… There really is not alot that needs to change only a very small amount but as I said the weakest weapon is too weak but everything needs to be incremented according to this as a base model or start point in rebalnce

EDIT

I have just increased the 9mm Damage in the config to be at “40” and whilst this sounds really overpowered it is not… This barely pushes a headcrab along so that is the base rate I make for the 9mm with the crowbar coming in under this at “25”

NPC’s health increased by a half to one quuarter extra

It’s not that the pistol is weak, it’s just that BM uses server-side ragdolls rather than client-side, which makes them react differently. If you use server-side ragdolls in HL2 (“ai_force_serverside_ragdoll 1” in the console) the pistol has the same effect.

Ok but to do it this way and make it relative… Like the Headcrab health is at “20” vs 9mm at “40” it still takes 2 shots to kill one and now I can push it along the floof like normal… Where does this increment to damage “40” have more of an effect on the world I assume as It seems good using this a a base number in general with Grunts now pushed up to “75” health feels good too and correct in strength… damage vs health?

I had to actually increase the MP5 from 30 rounds to 50 rounds… another complaint I have is this…

I WANT 250 9MM AMMO LIMIT BACK! Is it really that hard to ask for?

Actually, no, it isn’t. You can change that yourself, if you like. It’s a simple number value in one of the .cfg files.

The devs aren’t going to do it for you, though.

A few of my ideas:

  • Crossbow is too strong. It should be nerfed, but with an increased ammo limit.
  • Vortigaunts’ electric attack is too weak.
  • The marines… you know.
  • Alien Grunts are also not as tough as they appear to be.
  • Itchynosaurs’ (or what) hp should be doubled, or tripled at least.
  • Apache helicopter needs nerfing, as well as the tanks’ machine gun (thinking about the pipe fight in surface tension)

Nah, crossbow is fine IMO. It’s meant to be overpowered. You do run into far too much crossbow ammo though… it’s very abusable because ammo pickups are almost everywhere.

I agree with the Vort attack.

Marines are fine IMO. I understand if people prefer slower reaction times though.

I agree about the Grunts.

I agree about the Icky.

I agree somewhat about the Apache, and I don’t agree as much about the Abrams. The tank IMO is actually a bit too easy to kill, if anything. But I guess that might just be me.

Vorts’ attack may be weaker but not it’s much faster so I think it makes up for it.
Grunts have homing bullets, that already makes them tough.
Apache is fine, it’s supposed to be challeging. And you have a laser-guided rockets AND you can carry 5 at once.
In HL1 you could have 55 (!) crossbow bolts. It has been balanced to 15, 4 more than in HL2 and I think it’s perfectly fine.

how is apache needs nerfing? i killed it on first try.

I love how when people find something difficult they blame the mechanics.

WHAAA THE TENTACLES WOULDN’T LET ME SNEAK PAST THEM!!!

I (like many others) didn’t have any trouble with the tentacles. I threw some grenades and then ran. They didn’t hit me once.

So you can’t sneak past them…so what? This isn’t a sneaking game. You quickly learn that you can’t sneak past them and so you try a different approach.

Well…that’s what most people would do. You, on the other hand, would rather have the devs completely change the tentacles mechanics. Just because you are unable to change tactics doesn’t mean that other people should lose out.

As for bugs, I honestly haven’t noticed any. I have crashed twice the entire time.

The icthyosaur was easy, but that didn’t bother me. Although I don’t remember them ever taking 10 crossbow shots in the original as someone previously mentioned.

But yeah, enough moaning and demanding changes just because you fail to adapt.
I bet you shit yourself when you didn’t find the crowbar in it’s original position. (and yes, there have been people who raged about that)

This is a weird one. I didn’t lose any health fighting the Apache on normal difficulty. Again, this seems to be a case of LEARN TO PLAY. I crouched behind a crate whilst it fired at me (you hear the guns warming up a few seconds before it fires)
When it had finished firing I stood up and fired a rocket. Then I crouched back down and waited for it to retaliate. REPEAT UNTIL DEAD.
How are people finding this difficult? I actually found it easier than normal soldiers.

Most likely people are running around in plain view of the thing wondering why the bullets are killing them. durrrr.

Oh and as for the pipe section with the tank, I actually found this easier than in the original. Weird.
For me the nightmare part was the end of Questionable Ethics. I died about 30 times trying to clear those bastards. I was raging at my screen.

But I will agree with OP about the crouch jumping. I actually had an extra finger surgically grafted to my hand due to having to crouch jump so much. But it certainly isn’t a game breaker.

Where did you hide from the apache (talkinga about the cliff side fight) behind the rocket ammo box on the left? I was hiding on the right behind the rocks… which didn’t protect me from the Apache’ rockets.

As for the duck-jumping, I’ve no problem with that all. It’s an integral part of Half-Life, BM should be no different in this. (gotta admit when I was a kid, and played the game without visiting the Hazard Course, it took me a long time to discover duck-jump, and long-jump, but I also didn’t understand english back than)

Further back than that. I was pretty much right inside the cave. The chopper just stayed in the same place trying to get me and didn’t move at all. So it was easy.

There’s a metal box you can hide behind.
The only problem I had was obviously getting more ammo. I had to run out from my cover and up to the ammo crate. I think I got lucky and managed to get there and into cover before it shot at me. Then I just ran right back into the cave and back to my hiding place again.

About this fight with the helicopter… I was able to shoot the RPG right from the room where it’s located. I’ve just used the laser targeting system to control my rockets into the helicopter… The pilot had no opportunity to hit me at all.

The Ctrl jump issue and the HECU’s reaction time and accuracy have to be fixed. Half-Life isn’t supposed to be that hard. Makes the game less fun. When I finally beat them, my satisfaction is more along the lines of “thank god I got past that bug” rather than “YEAH! I got him!”

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.