Concept sheet for Black Mesa Multiplayer.

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#1

I’ll get right into it.

Game modes
Overall features.

  • Enable player weapon dropping this encourages teamplay and tactics. (I just hate it when I gathered weapons to only find a teamate coming in looking for a few I can’t drop)
  • Reward team assist frags. (this rewards a team effort & brings different skill levels together)
  • Remember someones score incase a player has dropped from the server and returns in time.
  • At the top right of the hud called the death message area, enable a team color code of a player(s) name.
    i.e. [color=green]Hgrunt Jackson killed [color=orange]HEV Freeman with mp5 nade. (display the mp5 grenade)
    This is handy to keep an easier track of what is happening to your team mates in the match.
    especially when randomly teaming up, I can’t remember all of their names ^^

Classic
Could call this Free For all / Death Match

  • 15min per map
  • 50 frags limit

Casual

  • Could call this Team DeathMatch
  • Basically the way it is now works 15mins per map, a quick map cycle perhaps increase the frag limit to 75.
    Because It happens often that the frag limit is reached with plenty of time remaining, resulting in maps ending rather quickly.
    I wanted to suggest 100 as frag limit however when the server isn’t as crowded I think that could take too long for a map to complete.

Competitive (basically is what I think the competitive scene needs)
This mode can be used for 1v1s and 5v5 team matches.

  • Team DeathMatch
  • 20mins per map.
  • No frag limit
  • Enable Bunnyhop
  • Introduce a voting system for players to self manage a match. (vote for a map/start & pause a match/kick player)
  • When a match has started newly entered players should be redirected to a HLTV.
    if there isn’t a spectate proxy inside the server they can’t enter for ghosting reasons.
    A match can only be started if there are equal amount of players.
    Study Material
    youtube.com/watch?v=G8JWezF … RBnqVUmylE

That is it really, the rest below is for extra flavours.
Perhaps at a later update when the movement is set to what the community loves.
When that happens people previously would start building trickjump maps setting challenges in them to express their movement skill.
hence the following suggestion for a gamemode.
Training
Cycle between Trickjump maps and Target practise maps with bots.
Could set achievements for that.

Trickjump map

  • Time limit 15mins
  • Can’t damage other players
  • Enable bunnyhop and other movement aspects which would otherwise be disabled.

Target practise map

  • Time limit 15mins
  • Players can deal damage
  • Add bots (Bots are also good for when the player activity is low)

In general I don’t expect anything from the following.
it is theoretically base idea giving my impression & insight from years of playing, organizing and developing on the side.
Correct me if I am wrong but from what I’ve experienced CTF never really worked for hldm.
Mainly because it was quite easy to tau jump away with the flag. that was the sole issue.
In the past I have been thinking about a class character based CTF like Team fortress for half-life.
Seeing that popular appeal is there for it and it could be a lot of fun.
I think it would have the same “tau capture the flag issue”.
Unless something can be thought about that, I wouldn’t waste any time on it.
i.e. "as soon as you got the flag you can\t tau jump :smiley: "

From the other gamemode suggestions I’ve read I think instagib is one of those old gamemodes that lost its popularity.
One that did stick around through the test of time has been some form of “quick action packed mode”
Call it like servians mod, Call it Ujjl, call it bow & shotgun or the AG Arcade where players spawned with LJ module, full armor and weapons It doesn’t matter.
In conclusion this means good news as it leaves room for something new to develop with the crowds feedback.
Seeing there have been plenty of variants.
The reason it was popular was for its fast paced appeal, easy gamemode to step in while being free to leave at any time.
This could be used as warm up before a match or to roam hours on end inside a server.
It was recongized as a class of its own, a game within a game.
There is more good news, something like that with feedback is fairly easy to make. Id recommend working on a gamemode like that.
The variants from this gamemode did all involve bunnyhop if I am not mistaken.

Co-op Mode
I’ve read somewhere that the dev team is not interested in creating a co-op mode.
It probably is a lot of work.
some form of single player co-op missions or sven coop was very popular as well.
maybe that is worth looking into at a later stadium.
I’ve listed it for completion sake to keep in the back of ours heads incase BM gets there.

In general I think it is worth while to have a few good game modes and thats it.
Not too many just a few essential ones.
gamemodes which are worthwhile to create and help the game increase in popularity.
I do believe it is good to have something new along side of it.
Just to give that little mixture, that sponk in one gamble investment.
Upon reading Edsantos suggestions I felt good about it.
There might be something there.
See the quote below:

Bug report

  • Teleporting and spawning while someone is standing on spawn point sometimes causes the one standing to suicide.
    Suggestion respawn the player a few units to the side.
  • Name character lenght can be made too long. It will mess up the death message.
  • Sometimes the bounce jump pads don’t show but they still work.
  • When you have committed suicide it doesn’t subtract the point from your team.
  • Occasionally in the middle of a map my weapon isn’t visually drawn anymore, this happens on a fresh spawn and stays that way for I think the rest of the map.

Final word.
The game is already great in my opinion.
It gave me that feeling when I first started playing half-life online with fricken modems :smiley:
Not sure if that is a good thing haha.
Eitherway this post is meant as a summery sheet & to be practical in feedback.
Anything I left unsaid means that I think it is done good.
Nor do I expect much from this.

Best regards,
Vamp
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/EHLL

#2

Weapons
Remove auto aim!!! why is it there??

9mm handgun
I love that you’ve increased the damage output from this weapon.
Because it is a weapon a player spawns with. making it more challenging on the controlling player.
However its original damage was 12hp now it is 16hp.
I’ve noticed with head-shots you can die quickly.
This can result in lucky moments, it could of used a buff but it still should remain a spawn weapon.
Try 14hp for damage.

357
Again another weapon that defiantly could of used a buff.
and woow 2 shots and a player is dead.
Great job but right now it seems a little overpowered.
I would suggest to make it 45hp at least so that it would require 2 shots and something small to kill a player. (handgun or other players)
5hp difference isn’t much I think it will fall into balance as the overall weapons get addressed.
With that amount of output it is a very powerful one shot onto the head gun.
None the less well done on buffing this one.

Shotgun
Single shot works great, perhaps make its range a little better.
Double shot is great as well, perhaps increase its damage on close range by a little.
Therese just one thing wrong with the shotgun which is very annoying.
When you are reloading, pumping the weapon after a shot, or breaking the reload action.
Barely works, it is sticky or slow.
This causes to never feel comfortable to reload this weapon.

9mmAR
The weapon has got a lot more recoil to it now and is harder to kill someone with from a further distance with practise it can be done.
I actually like the way its bullet firing is, or at the very least think that not much is wrong with it.
Sometimes I catch myself reloading after picking up the weapon
Because it used to start with 25ammo, wonderful improvement same as for 45ammunition instead of 50.
When picking up grenades counting as ONE instead of two is another major improvement.
The max capacity could be buffed to 5 instead of 3. Its grenade damage and blast radius is perfect.
One major issue upon launching a grenade, it is fired too fast making it very hard to dodge.
That should be slower, increase the launch sound for other players to hear and the grenades visibility.
Currently explosions role in the game and these improvements would make combats last longer have more skill depth & chances to them = more fun.

Crossbow
Ohohohohoo you are going to get it now
My favourite weapon has been degraded to near useless.
Instead of having that sniping aspect in the game on long distance and kenny-S style quick shots.
It has now become another bombing tool.
The primary fire could of used a buff compared to the original and you’ve done just that.
accurate small blast radius and fitting damage to the weapon.
good job. (perhaps make its primary fire go a little slower but that is alright)
The secondary fire oh boy.
Something is going wrong here.
I have to aim infront of the players in order to land a shot.
Sometimes it was point blank and it doesn’t register.
The tiny dot of my xhair which does register a shot compared to the other weapons is one pixel?
Does the arrow speed go too fast? well I’ve no idea what is going on here yet.
For sure the zoom needs to be near instant (it was instant before but I can live with near instant if that is what the dev wants)
Just currently it is unworkable.

Laser Guided Rocket Launcher
All in all well done.
As you pick up the weapon the default setting should be laser sight enabled.
So you can use it right away for fast controlled action.
With the laser enabled the rockets should reload slower / or reload faster when the laser is disabled. (However you look at it)
current reload speeds are in a good enough margin to toy around with this.
The real issue is that if I laucnh a rocket with the laser enabled and then quickly switch to another weapon (lets say the shotgun) my rocket goes berserk and usually upwards.
This makes it unusable in weapon combinations.
Previously when the rocket would have no laser to guide anymore from switching to another weapon.
It would keep on going straight into the direction you had last pointed it towards.
For a fast paced game it is essential that you can have weapon combinations.
It would be a shame to have this one excluded.

Hornet gun
A buff it well deserved to get.
Maybe a little on the powerful side right now.
I don’t think it needs any changes.
think it will land in its respectable place once the weapon balance is initialized.

Gauss gun
It reminds me of a railgun which you can jump with as it is right now.
Primary fire, I think you nailed it.
Secondary Fire, a fully charged shot should always kill the enemy nomatter what body part you’d hit, nomatter how much armor.
Quick small charged shots are missing for a faster paced gameplay to get you in movement.
Personally I never liked wallgaussing that much, as it was overkill.
It holds a different skill to think of walls and spots too shoot at sure but all in all I think it was rather noobish.
Make it possible to wallgauss hitting players directly behind the wall, pinpoint with the same amount of damage.
Then if you could implant a small splash behind the wall with less damage.
That is all it ever should of been in my opinion.
With the new maps and players I think it won’t be that much fun if it would be the OP wallgausses from the past.
I’m sure plenty fellow pro players would hate me for this but you can kiss it.
In conclusion give it back what is used to be by a little but don’t make it OP.
Keep in-mind wallgaussing used to be prone for making teamkills so it did require skill in a match.

Gluon gun
Well it is powerful once again, as it should be.
At a distance it can be too accurate but alright.
I’m not certain but if it does make the enemy player shake/recoil when being fired upon I would suggest to remove that.
Players need to be able to fire back otherwise this gun is too OP & not very fun/fair to go up against.
Its damage makes it challenging alone to fight.
removing chances by getting a screen shake is just plain annoying.
Overall I think it looks good.
Perhaps reintroduce the self splash damage at close distance or decrease its damage by a small value.
As long as it remains that powerful gun it should be but not become OP.

Handgrenades
Increase visibility of a thrown grenade.
When cooking a grenade dont switch to weapons when you run over them.
If you hit a thrown grenade does it explode?
If you throw a grenade first and your opponent later would his grenade explode sooner because of mine?
If yes that would make grenade fights quite annoying.
As much as I like to give a spawned player a comeback chance this weapon is not the right weapon for that purpose.
Small maps when crowded become a grenade spam lottery fest which holds short lived fun and 0.1 skill.
So please remove it from the spawned arsenal.
Besides this I think the weapon got buffed and it is alright.

Tripmines
Great job on giving team laser colours!! and by not letting them explode by teamates.
This gives them purpose again.
Perhaps make it possible to place them a little quicker.

Satchel
Primary fire, should throw one, when pressed again detonate.
Secondary fire, should never detonate and always throw extra satchels.
Honestly I don’t care much how this is done as long as you can rely on one of the fire buttons to never detonate.
Even if you are out of satchels.
Increase blast radius, make it possible to throw them further/higher.
We did this by giving a little boost from the long jump or just a jump before throwing them.
This required great skill and was a lot of fun when succeeding.
Right now they seem to kind of lost their best purpose.
Silent, difficult but deadly!!

Snarks
The sound when they jump is annoying
Make them more aggressive, animal like.
Jump higher go faster.
Right now they are too easy to dodge, I’m not saying it should become difficult
but they deserve more then this.

Crowbar
Saved the best for last!
Previously someone could kill another with 4 strikes.
Is it me or does it require more now?
This legendary melee weapon was difficult to kill someone with.
From its original damage it could already get a buff.
30 or 35 damage.
Perhaps introduce a secondary fire.
The famous flying crowbar!!
Lots of fun, great comeback weapon from spawn.
Throw your crowbar away to deal 50 damage.
Difficult to hit. good for weapon combination.

youtube.com/watch?v=auXx-756tc0

Right this is all I had to say.
Movement has been addressed broadly already so not going to include that.
greetings

#3

Epic suggestions there, mate.

I agree with many of them.

Devs, please look into his feedback :slight_smile:

#4

I agree on most things except the weapon adjustments. All I want is HL1 weapon balance with balanced egon, 40 damage Magnum and maybe very slightly increased damage for primary crossbow fire… The rest was good in HL1 and doesn’t need any changes. Not even the pistol…
Also I don’t agree on your Tau-Cannon suggestions at all. Nerfing wallgauss would remove so much strategy from the game. Same for your other suggestion to make all full charged shots insta-kill. That’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. Why even have armor in the game then?

#5

fair enough but you do realize in ag & hl1currently a fully charged gauss shot is insta kill?
Infact it be slightly below fully charged and be the same.

Even worse a fully charged wallgauss shot :wink:

#6

Sorry vamp you are plain wrong. If you shoot a 100 100 player with gauss, he will stay alive with 60 20. I just tested it. Get your facts right.

#7

wtf really? I always thought it was instant.
mybad, makes me want to install hl1 and try myself again :smiley:

#8

I will second that I would like bots for Black Mesa multiplayer for practice purposes also maybe more of an emphasis on performance over Pretty graphics. Some of the props in Black Mesa’s multiplayer could be removed to speed up the gameplay for people with slower computers. Currently I play on a Pentium G3258 with a Geforce 960 GTX and 12gb RAM and I do notice slowdown when I play multiplayer alot.

#9

yeah about the gauss shot Its fine by the way not being instant.
Like fury mentioned it would be stupid to have it instant as armor would not matter.
I was under the wrong impression. thought it was original.

Eitherway looking forward to see this mods development!

Remember this is only a concept sheet, I wouldn’t want every detail to be exact.
Just a matter of helping point this into a direction from years of experience playing hldm/AG and hosting tournaments.
See what you want to take from it :slight_smile:
Forget the “I want the same game till every tiny detail” type of feedback you’ve been getting from fellow pro players.
These guys just want that feeling back and will adapt to anything when the movement is great.
That is part of being a pro, taking upon new challenges. and part of a remake.
Get the global jest from their feedback because yeah it is good. (same for mine)
I think we can start a wonderful spark.

Somethings in my post you might want to reread.
because I am slightly dyslexic my wording and sentence build can be off.
But also because I want to keep it short.

I guess what I want to say to you from this laothing is that this is really good feedback.
Take a look.

Incase you wonder about credibility in terms of gameplay expertise.
I don’t like to promote myself & rather show you.
If it is necessary you can ask around.
but what I can say is; below the Elite ranks I was one of the best Pro tdm players around.
and thats being humble.

#10

A Marketing suggestion.

Try to build a big update and test it yourselves for a good portion then release it and get feedback.
Create a BM: DM trailer soon after, with video snaps from some good players playing.
The game at a certain point needs a wauw factor, an blast off.

I suggest this because beta releases tend to dwell on being unable to blast off at a certain point because people in activity hasn’t been getting a chance to get stable.
For this reason alone “activity” people could lose interest.
I think there has been enough feedback on these forums to get you to such an update.
The question is; are you willing? open? is it doable?

$$$$$

#11

Yea I agree… You should make a big update, test it internally and invite some top players from HLDM and AG… (For example the last AG Nations Cup finalists and some other really good players… for example dev, HR|Alex, Worldspawn, Syn, kuviCk, Verba, v3ga, garpy… But please don’t invite cheaters like Julien, Biggy, rayvex)… After you tested internally with all these players involved, make a new trailer, show off all the improvements and promote this game in an effective way…

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.