HL1 Houndeye Behavior

[deadlife101]

I didn’t know most of this stuff, and it makes Houndeyes in HL1 seem a little less useless now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jO-P3kXlCI

Edit: There’s actually a whole playlist on this stuff. Although the Vortigaunt and Houndeye information are the most valuable of the videos IMO. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDmcwfn8y0lMtlqcpUhggk0FB1EC2i3iB

Wouldn’t it be cool to see some of these features in Black Mesa?

[Xeoxer]

The amount of unseen content in HL never ceases to amaze me.

[deadlife101]

Bump, sorry but I think more people here should know about this.

[Xeoxer]

But I can see why BM devs used simple AI. Most of these behaviors would be largely unnoticed.

[Kenley]

The changes they made to the Houndeyes is actually one of my favorite things about Black Mesa. They’ll rarely inflict huge damage on you and are relatively easy to kill on their own. But unlike many of the other enemies (especially the other Xenizens), you can’t just easily pick them off one-by-one from a distance. Their pack coordination, staggered attacks, and visual disorienation ensure that you rarely make it out of a Houndeye confrontation unscathed.

Rather than adding in AI details that increase the realism a bit–but, as Xeoxer said, are unlikely to get noticed and appreciated by most players–the Devs went back to the Houndeye core mechanics and asked the question, “What is it that makes Houndeyes an interesting enemy? How can we make them memorable?” And I believe they delivered on those things.

[BuzzKillington]

@Kenley

The changes they made to the Houndeyes is actually one of my favorite things about Black Mesa. They’ll rarely inflict huge damage on you and are relatively easy to kill on their own. But unlike many of the other enemies (especially the other Xenizens), you can’t just easily pick them off one-by-one from a distance. Their pack coordination, staggered attacks, and visual disorienation ensure that you rarely make it out of a Houndeye confrontation unscathed.

Rather than adding in AI details that increase the realism a bit–but, as Xeoxer said, are unlikely to get noticed and appreciated by most players–the Devs went back to the Houndeye core mechanics and asked the question, “What is it that makes Houndeyes an interesting enemy? How can we make them memorable?” And I believe they delivered on those things.

I most definitely agree. I never made it out of houndeye ambush (meaning I ran into a pack) without losing at least 50% of my health. Many times, a sudden houndeye appearance meant certain death. Especially if near an explosive.

That really impressed me about BM. The fact that I really had to strategies to eliminate the houndeyes without being massacred.

I hope in the final version of BM, they’ll also redo the vortigaunt behavior.

Anyways, I’m sure that many of these things weren’t seen due to the fact that Valve scrapped the majority of their content in 1997.

[SNOUPS4]

Just being curious:
As of 2017, now that Xen is almost ready to be shipped, is there any long-term plan from the developers to update the Vortigaunt (and Houndeye) AI behaviour, so that it would include the amazing level of details of the AI in HL1 that was exemplified in the videos cited above?

youtube.com/watch?v=Lqxag2TDqtQ
youtube.com/watch?v=Z8_R2OMgNUY
youtube.com/watch?v=RV9ooD5rx1o
youtube.com/watch?v=7lHPyN-lpDw
youtube.com/watch?v=IEFnr7wTjUM