I tried putting their health up to four crossbow bolts and it did make a difference - it gave it some crucial extra time to get up and bite me and I died a couple of times (I was on really low health, but still). I think they could use both, really.
I don’t have a problem with the difficulty of the soldiers per se. What I have a problem with is their AI which enforces certain “best” tactics that just don’t fee right, or at least don’t feel as “pretty.” Basically, sniping them from afar is generally the smartest thing to do, because they WILL shoot at you from any range, but not hit very often, and because getting with a fight with them up close just forces you to tank their gunfire.
Altering their AI to not shoot at long range and instead seek cover and advance, then flush the player out with grenades would make for better fights, in my opinion. Also, making the soldiers easier to surprise would help. It’s not a question of making the fights easier, but rather making them less snipe-prone.
I can tell you for a fact that’s not how it worked for me. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but I can walk out on the platform, crouch in place, and have a tentacle find me and smash me.
As I said elsewhere, the tentacles from Half-Life turned VERY quickly, and they would lead target on you, so you can never really run past them. They’ll always stop you. These ones don’t seem to do that. And I agree with you - making the tentacles track better and intercept better would lend some credence to the sneaking approach.
Is there anyway to lower HECU damage and up Xenian creatures damage? The Xenians are way too weak 
There is, but it has more consequences than just that. Lowering NPC damage from 9mm and 12 gauge also lowers the damage security guards do, and it can make them useless. Upping alien damage also ups the damage they do TO YOU, which can make encounters with them very difficult since Vorts charge their shots so fast.
edit
And I just realised a lot of the “whys” in replaying Episode 2. The Vortagon attacks are taken out of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, where they fight the Antlions in the underground cave. Or if not “taken from,” then “inspired by.” There, their charge-up attack is very quick, but to a large extent this is because they’re supposed to be overpowered AND because they’re supposed to be supporting characters for Gordon. They’re on our side, so it makes sense they’d shoot faster and “follow Freeman” closer. As well, Bullsquids don’t just have the attack of the “Acid Lions” - that spray of chemicals. They also have the behaviour of those enemies, which is to look for cover, then pop-up and spit, then take cover again. Bullsquids from the original would charge the player every time they were out of line of sight and couldn’t shoot, whereas those in Black Mesa basically hold their ground.
The more I replay the various Half-Life titles, the more I’m seeing similarities to how things behave, but the borrows aren’t always as good as they could have been.
I agree with the BM’s Bullsquid, it’s AI is bad. The moment I stick out Gordon’s finger from behind a corner, it shoots acid, but other than that… it ignores everything and is doing it’s own thing like just walking around.
It should do some melee and hunt the player.
Bullsquids do melee (if YOU get close to them), they just don’t charge at the player 
thus they act like moving turrets instead of bullsquids
Fair enough. I usually take way more damage than I’d like sniping them and find popping in and out of cover at mid to close range and popping them with the Tau/Crossbow much more efficient. I would like to see them charge/flank more, but I don’t want to see MP5 HECU running face first into my crossbow bolts any more than they already do and Shotgun HECU already charge quite idiotically sometimes. If they used their grenades to flush you out and flanked more, that would be a big improvement for me.
In HL1 there was running (standard speed) and walking (when the shift key was pressed).
Neither were the flares, headcrabs bailing out from zombies, the throwing/pushing abilities of zombies, the .357 ironsight nor the infinite flashlight. So there is no reason why squad command shouldn’t be in the mod, as an option.
Suppressive fire IS a viable tactic in the military. Advancing on the enemy and not firing at them would get you killed.
im sure most of the ppl posting here and complainign never was in a military.
I’m sure that from the point of military tactics and strategy there are tons of mistakes and errors in all games. The main thing in any game is to make it look interesting, not to follow the rules of military. Even if suppressing fire is a standard tactic, it doesn’t really look good or interesting here, and it would probably be much better if soldiers were trying to actually get you instead of holding position and firing from 2 kilometers 
And, of course, not everyone was in military due to the different reasons (age, illnesses, gender), it’s normal and logical.
Ok, whats your reason for having it then? so one of the few times you can send a security guard to the location you want? what if a scientist is following you and you send him into the line of fire and he dies along with the security guards? The fact is, the squad commands just aren’t needed. they follow you well enough, and most chapters there just aren’t enough followers to warrant a few extra lines of code to implement it. Half life 2? yeah they had an entire chapter surrounding that and haven’t used that in any of their games since. maybe that will tell you how valuable it is.
Yeah, I never really used it in HL2 either, it wasn’t really very useful at all.
Well…I fired up “We’ve Got Hostiles”, I cleared it in about 10 minutes. Even in my first play-through I found the soldiers to be perfect. My girlfriend never played Half-Life in general before so I plugged in a controller, fired up Xpadder, and let her go to town. Even she cleared it.
So no, we don’t think the soldiers are “unbalanced.”
Have to chime in here about the grunts
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for the most part I found them not to bad (they are far more difficult than they where in the original), but the ending to Questionable Ethics has to be re-balanced.
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I’ve beaten the original more times than I can remember on hard, but QE on normal it took me 20 or so tries to get though, and even then I came out with < 20 health (from 100 health, 100 armor), and went through my entire ammo supply for crossbow, shotgun and grenades.
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I don’t think Collision detection works on the roof in there, as I kept getting hit from behind (while against a wall, and under cover) It was almost as if the guys on the roof could still hit me, without any line of site.
as for the tentacles, I think their might be a glitch, Crouching DID NOT WORK for me. they found me EVERY TIME. with multiple grenades, multiple levels, etc… I know it works for other people, but not for me.
I tried crouching as well, but didn’t work
They’re just not as stupid as before anymore. It’s that they find you, it’s that they do a better job of scanning the area. You’ve been outsmarted by virtual brainless tentacle, congrats!
from your forum post istart to think u suck on easy. so your opinion kida dose not matter.
Yeah, that disturbed me too. I got past them after lots of tries by distracting them with grenades, and then sprinting past them to the ladder. But it took some tries.