BMDM: Item-balancing on multiplayer maps

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#1

Hello guys.
I want to give you some feedback on the new item-placement on Black Mesa Multiplayer maps:

General feedback:

  • There are a lot more weapons in the maps as there used to be in HL1DM
  • more than 2 Tau-Cannons, Egons or LJ-packs are a no-go on HLDM maps… (and imho in BMDM, too). These weapons/items are very powerful, game-deciding gameplay elements and should not be available in too many areas on a map.
  • Weapons seem to respawn faster. Respawn time on weapons and ammo should be 20 seconds, Healthkits, Batteries and the Longjumps should respawn each 30 seconds
  • In HL1 you get 30 charge from health and armor chargers in 3 seconds. In BMDM it’s way faster… In my opinion it’s too fast, because charging should be risky compared to picking up healthkits or batteries. As a mapper I want be able to build areas where you can charge up much armor and health in quite a long time. So if you can manage to hold that area for long enaugh, your team will be rewarded with great amounts of health and armor (sorry I posted this in the other thread already).

Now about the maps:

Gasworks:
Gasworks’s design is aimed to be played Topside vs. Cellar. In HL1 most of the time one team grouped in the cellar, the second team grouped topside.
I think you should keep this kind of design.
suggestions:

  • when you jump down through the gate in the crossbow house-garage, you reach 2 healthpacks, 2 batteries, 3 gaussammo, the gauss and 2 satchels. That’s way too much on that spot there. In my opinion you should remove gauss, gaussammo, batteries and health from that spot and put a hivehand where the healthpacks were before. that area is an escape route from topside to cellar and players shouldn’t be able get too powerful items on a route like that.
  • replace the surface forklift MP5 with shotgun (without any ammopacks)
  • when you take the ladder down in the hut next to the surface forklift there is an mp5 with 2 grenades. Remove 1 grenade from there. Also replace one of the healthpacks with there with a battery
  • add a second grenade to the surface red container MP5
  • remove 1 uraniumpack from the egon-tower
  • replace center surface gauss and ammo with magnum, 1 magnum-ammo and 1 battery
  • replace magnum and ammo at surface electric box (ex-gauss container) with gauss, one gaussclip and one healthpack
  • replace the batteries on the lower tower-bridge by uranium
  • place 2 batteries on upper middle tower platform (near the ladder end, the tower next to current gauss-hole)
  • replace satchels on upper tower-bridge with 1 crossbow-ammo and 1 RPG-clip
  • remove clipbrush above red containers crane
  • place 1 RPG on red containers crane (without additional ammo) and add a ladder on the opposite side of the red container MP5 to enter the crane
  • remove magnum and ammobox in the building behind crossbowhouse (below teleport platform) and place a shotgun (without additional ammo) there
  • put 1 Magnum ammopacks in lower crossbowhouse
  • remove clipping from upper tower lambs
  • move the healthpack from cellar crossbow platform to the upper cellar catwalk-end (opposite side of where shotgun is)
  • shorten the pipes infront of cellar crossbowtower (entrance to toproom) to make it easier to shoot rockets from lower RPG / HEV-charger platform
  • add second ARgrenade to MP5 cellar tower
  • add a magnum (without ammopacks) near the single battery on cellar RPG-platform (because there are quite many 357 on surface already)

Stalkyard:
I really like the new look of stalkyard, but really there are way too many weapons in that map. Also the overall balance on that map is very different compared to HL1. To make it HL1 like, you might need to rebuild this map completely. Still I think your version of stalkyard could become very interessting by makig a few changes. In HL1 TDM stalkyard was played like an attack/defense map. The goal of the map was to control the storagehall. I think this principle should be kept in BMDM, because it was hell of a lot of fun. --> Don’t make mainyard and backyard too strong. The main place to crontrol should be the storagehall.
suggestions:
on mainyard:

  • remove tau-cannon from mainyard and close that area
  • replace the new RPG on mainyard with Egon (RPG-crates on the opposite side of crossbow-balcony)
  • There is no crossbow-ammo below the crossbow-balcony on mainyard. please add atleast 1 crossbow ammoclip there
  • replace ARgrenade on crossbow-balcony with handgrenade
  • replace hivehand with snarks
    on backyard:
  • remove tau-cannon from backyard and close that area
  • replace the RPG (opposite side of healthpacks) with shotgun
  • move one of the two healthpacks on electric box to the lower crate next to it
  • remove ARgrenades from MP5-crates
  • add 1 battery near ladder below backyard-balcony
    storagehall:
  • on health-crates replace crossbow with magnum
  • replace magnum next to health-crates with crossbow
  • add one uranium-pack at the tau-cannon (right next to it) or make the tau cannon more accessible from shotgun-crates or add 1 uranium to tripmine-crates
  • remove top egon
  • remove the new RPG and add a second battery to the right box next to it. make the crate-placement in that area more HL1-like pls
  • remove ARgrenade from RPG box
    toproom:
  • when entering toproom there is a stack of small crates infront of the floor-vent. Move that stack between the crates on the right to have a small wall of crates there (which you could climb over by using the small crate next to the stairs at the entrance). remove the crossbowclips there and place one shotgun-ammo on these crates.
  • remove satchels from toproom and place 2 crossbowclips there
  • when entering toproom in the very right corner next to the shotgun-crate there is a stack of boxes with shotgun-ammo on it. remove these crates and place 1 suitcharger in that corner.
  • replace healthpack with hivehand
  • put 1 healthpack on the crate that is left to the wall-vent
    other:
  • make the ceiling vents in the center corridor more simple (maybe keep two instead of three exits on the ceiling)
  • There are very many satchels and tripmines on the map. maybe replace some of them by 9mm clips, shotgun-ammo or remove some of them completely

Very much feedback :// Sorry guys… I hope it might be helpful… or atleast interessting to read :smiley:
I might add feedback for other maps later. Also… Please tell me your opinions on the current maps in BMDM and my suggestions.

Have a nice day :slight_smile:

#2

Just updated my suggestions. I think my vision of rebalanced BM :smiley: M stalkyard and gasworks is pretty refined now. Please give some feedback. I tried to make suggestions so the developers can keep most of BM :smiley: Ms map-layouts how they currently are. I also tried to suggest changes to some additions they’ve done to make the maps more balanced while getting closer towards the old HL1-style of map balance. I really think it’s important to keep maps slightly unbalanced (some areas need to be more powerful to allow more teamwork and communication on maps). If every area of a map is perfectly the same powerful, the game will be less strategicly, less teamplay oriented and more aim-oriented.

#3

I completely agree with you, maps like stalkyard MUST be unbalance for teamplay and even duel purposes. Some areas of the map should be more important than others. That will add tactics and strategies in this game. Teams will tend to control certain areas that are are more valuable than others.

Half life is not just reckless run and shot game in hl there always were important and unimportant areas of the map, mostly teams fight for controlling certain areas, if one team looses fight for area its not the end - team can start gathering resources from other areas and when they are ready attack important area again. You would need good teamplay and skill level to know when to hold, when to attack or maybe wait and get more stack for a few minutes.

But by adding a lot of weapons to every area(like 4 gauss, 4 LJ and alot of other weapons for single map) makes fighting for them useless and gameplay very arcade and almost completely deletes any teamplay from the game and leads it to run and shoot type of play.

#4

Hey. Yesterday I played together with frozenr, chon and grudge on the BM testchamber stream. First map was stalkyard.
I won rather lucky on stalkyard… Well, doesn’t matter. Anyways… I thought about the item placement again and also about the suggestions I already made.
I want to hear some feedback from you guys. Especially on the Egon on Stalkyard. Do you think Stalkyard really needs an Egon? I’m not sure but I think it would be cool to try few different spots for it.
Atm they have it above the storage hall entrance that leads to main yard. It’s an interessting spot, but I think it’s maybe too hard to reach (you can get it with a longjump from top the grenades-box or with gaussjump).
I think it would be cool to have an Egon somewhere outside the storage hall. I thought about the following spots:

  1. possible design:
  • replace ARgrenades in center corridor with egon (without additional ammo; it would be easy to reach from all rooms and would be rather risky for a guy who comes from storage hall)
  • put 2 ARgrenades on backyard (I think you have some ARgrenades there atm… below the new RPG on the opposite side to the healthkits)
  1. possible design:
  • put 1 egon in toproom and another one in storage hall (maybe put it on the lamb above healthkit-box… It could be reached with a crossbow-jump from healthkit box or if you come from ARgrenades box and jump from lamb to lamb)
  1. possible design:
  • In my first post I suggested to remove tau-cannons from main- and backyard and close these areas. I could imagine to keep the tau-cannon spot on mainyard and put one egon there instead of tau-cannon (it would be closer to the out of control team, since the main goal of stalkyard is to capture and hold the storage hall… but it would be hard to steal for the controlling team)
  • In my first post I also suggested to replace the current new mainyard RPG (opposite side of crossbow-balcony) with egon. If you want to use my third possible design idea from this post, I would suggest to put 1 battery or 1 uranium-clip on that box, because nobody needs 2 RPGs on mainyard. You could also lower that stack of boxes to make the new battery or ammo easier to reach.

The rest of my suggestions are still valid as I wrote in my first post. Maybe I will give feedback and ideas about a possible improved undertow weapon-layout.

#5

why would we need egon in stalkyard?

#6

Ok ert… I quite agree with you that it isn’t really needed. Egon is more balanced than in HL but I guess as soon as one player has gauss, LJ and Egon it would be too OP. Because the Egon kills fresh spawners in no time and then fresh spawners might not even be able to reach the anything quick enaugh (if egon was meant to be a counter-weapon… it might not work so well)… So I think there should either be 2 reachable egons (so they aren’t that easy to deny) or maybe have no egon at all, but add a second longjump module (in top room). If I think about it then the 2. LJ-idea might even be the better one, since LJs can’t be denied and it would make dodging nades and climbing in storage hall (when they change jump hight) easier.

However… I came here to give make suggestions how to improve Lambda Bunker:

LJ/TauCannon area:
-replace LJ+TauCannon+Ammo (in the hut) with Egon+1Uranium
-remove the single uranium near white security car
-remove uranium from debris in front of the gate
-replace one satchel in satchel hut with 1 uranium
-place 1 ARgrenade Uranium near forklift

Center T-crossing / Shotgun stairs:

  • replace one healthkit in t-crossing with 357 ammo
    -remove ARgrenade from upper shotgun stairs
    -above healthkits there is a not reachable way with null texture on it. place a metal grid texture there instead (because you can see the null texture when using gaussjump)

Crossbow Balcony / Health and Armor room:
-remove ARgrenades at the MP5 on the street near crossbow balcony
-replace 1 crossbow ammo with 1 RPG ammo
-close the vent below crossbow balcony
-remove 1 healthkit and 1 battery from healthkit/armor room
-add 1 ARgrenade in healthkit/armor room
-move railing on crossbow balcony to the other side

Taucannon-bridge area:
-change gauss-bridge carriers to func_illusionaries to not block player movement
-add 1 ARgrenade on top of the crate which has the ladder-bridge towards hivehand balcony
-add 1 crossbowammo below hivehand balcony
-move the healthcharger to the other side of the wall

RPG area:
-remove ARgrenade at the MP5 on the street in RPG area
-replace healthcharger and 357 at Humvee ramp with 1 battery, 1 Longjump Module and remove 357 from there
-replace MP5+ARgrenade near ladder with 357 and move it further into the corridor
-replace 1 uranium with 1 ARgrenade in water
-replace 2 RPG ammo on balcony with 1 shotgun ammo and 1 crossbow ammo

#7

Feedback on Bounce:

RPG Area and Shotgun house:
-The bouncer near RPG is ok
-remove the big bouncer near shotgun house which leads to crossbow
-remove the teleporter (or make it lead towards center bridge)
-replace magnum and ammo at teleporter with 2 batteries and make the teleporter lead to RPG top LJ-house
-add 357 (without additional ammo) on the path towards teleporter-bouncer
-remove MP5 at RPG
-remove MP5+grenades infront of shotgun house
-replace MP5+grenades infront of shotgun house with 357

-replace LJ near RPG with MP5
-replace battery in lower shotgun house with shotgun ammo
-replace shotgun ammo near lower shotgun house with 1 battery
-move the shotgun-house stairs more to the right (the stairs will also provide cover for players down in the pit)
-replace 357 on shotgun house balcony (where you have the stairs now) with 2 MP5grenades and remove them from the window, since the window should become a door (new entrance)

Crossbow Area:
-replace the shotgun below crossbow with 1 healthkit and handgrenades MP5
-move the ladder at crossbow more to the right (to make it easier to rush the crossbow)
-replace 1 crossbowclip in crossbow house with 1 shotgun ammo and add one battery healthkit there
-add a bit more room at crossbow cliff and add 1 uranium there (it should be easier to dodge rockets there, but still it should be possible to kill a crossbow with RPG… I think atm you can also shoot an RPG towards the ceiling above crossbow)

LJ Beehornet, new Gauss Area and pit below crossbow:
-replace upper magnum (near LJ gauss) with MP5+9mm ammo
-the lower MP5+grenades near bouncer should get removed
-move the 2 healthpacks (from near gluon tunnel entrance) more into the middle of the pit
-replace the new gauss (near ladder) with 357 + ammo and replace the LJ (on wooden planks) with 2 MP5 grenades
-replace the 2 armors on the big pipe with gauss + 1 uranium (alsochange the pipe details to not solid, so that you can’t stand on them… you should only be able to walk over the structural steel work and planks)
-add 1 healthpack at upper LJ hornetgun area (near pipes)
-the lower gauss should get replaced with MP5 and no grenades 1 Uranium
-replace the MP5 in LJ Beehornet area with Hornetgun Shotgun
-replace Hornetgun with shotgun+ammo
-remove the old shotgun+ammo
-near the metering bar in LJ beehornet area you have a wooden ladder which leads up to a single battery… make that rock a bit bigger and add 1 MP5 grenade there replace the battery with gauss and no additional uranium
-replace the old LJ with hornetgun
-place LJ on the stairs

about the armors, healths and LJs i would try to balance it more closely to HL1…
-remove the healthpacks in egon tunnel
-remove the healthpacks behind crossbow (area should get closed)
-place 1 armor next to lower LJ bridge house
-replace 1 uranium on bridge with 1 battery
-replace the battery below the pizza area (behind the big pipes) with 1 healthkit
-move the LJ at bridge house to the inside of the house

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