I didn’t have a problem with the mp5. It’s useful range is somewhat limited though, due to the recoil. I found it particularly good for putting down houndeyes, but also found a role against HECU is close quarters, providing that there weren’t too many of them. Longer range battles would always be magnum/crossbow/tau providing that I could spare the ammo. Otherwise, the glock was more than capable. Strafe around at range a bit, and they’ll rarely hit you. You should be able to take down a couple of soldiers with each clip from the glock (on normal, at any rate.)
I found it really easy on hard mode. It needs to be cranked up I think. HL1 was much more harder.
There’s a problem when they can hit you with s shotgun from a hundred yards away.
Also they have no recoil spread. I also found it a problem that I can see their feet only while they are repelling and they are shooting the crap out of me.
I don’t know about you guys, but my health dropped like crazy when I had more than two firing at me. And you’ can’t hide from them, they just pincir move your ass.
The marine fight at the end of QE was hell. I’d get the first two on ropes, then when I tried to go kill the others, there are two on the roof shooting me, then 3 come through the door and I’m dead.
I cheated at that point, not going to lie. I tried about 6 times with 6 different strategies and just said fuggit
With an MP5, they will hit about 1 or 2 bullets per every 2 bursts at long range, and they will be forced to reload a lot because the majority of their bullets actually miss. They hit even less often if you crouch.
You, on the other hand, are able to drop an HECU grunt in about 3 to 5 well-aimed bursts from the MP5 at that same range. Therefore you inherently have the advantage.
The problem arises when you have multiple grunts firing at you from every angle. Then all the small bullet hits begin to add up. That’s why it’s important to limit the number of grunts you face at any one time, and limit the number of ways you can get flanked. If you allow yourself to get flanked, well then you just got outplayed.
It’s tough, yes. But very rewarding when you find that one strategy that works.
And I know the mp5 works because I watched your video in the other thread and that proves that it can work. It worked for me as well but I didn’t run around like a kid who just discovered caffeine. You were zipping around like crazy haha.
Yeah, try to not get flanked in that ambush at the end of QE
I agree with all of this…if the Marines took a bit less damage to kill that’d be one thing, but I often find myself running out of ammo trying to pick them off, instead of a out-front fire fight…and the latter will get you killed. Plain and simple, the hard setting is for super-geeks who bang out head shots automatically…others need not apply.
And you can just shut up Mr. funny guy.
I don’t think the difficulty’s the problem so much as the balancing. The AI reaction time, the throw arc of grenades, the accuracy of the Marines (and even some of the other enemies)…
I find it harder than Half-Life overall, which I’m perfectly fine with. I love a good challenge, and Black Mesa definitely delivers for me. As-is, though, it can get overly frustrating quite easily.
The best way I can think of to explain it is like this:
In Half-Life, there aren’t any points in the game where you can’t get through without taking damage. There are parts that are incredibly difficult to get through unscathed, and there are parts where you have to be very careful or you’ll take damage, but it’s still possible (theoretically).
In Black Mesa, almost every firefight is guaranteed to take at least a few hitpoints from you. Personally, I didn’t have much trouble with health kits and the like for the most part, but the further into the game you get, the more frustrating it becomes. I can only really think of two areas where the difficulty was a major impediment for me - The helicopter cliff scene in Surface Tension, and the part with the helicopter shortly afterward (the one dropping off soldiers).
With the cliff scene, yes, I’m aware that the Tau Cannon does a fantastic job of taking down the helicopter. I don’t have issue with that. What bothers me is just how ineffective the RPG actually is against the helicopter. On Normal, in BM, it takes like, 11 rockets to take it down. Why? In Half-Life, it took 3 at most (I don’t remember the exact number, think it was around there).
I don’t mind it taking more abuse than in Half-Life, or even the Tau Cannon being a better alternative, but… 11 rockets? Why?
As for the troop-deploying helicopter - The problem there is that because of the soldiers’ accuracy/damage/health/etc., I’m usually hiding behind a crate or something because there’s no way in hell I can run out there and get past them without taking a lot of damage. Thing is, as soon as most of the squad is dead, the helicopter comes back and drops off more soldiers. In Half-Life, it only dropped off two at once, and took a little bit longer to return.
Once again, I don’t mind the increased difficulty here. The problem is, because of how fast the soldiers’ can react, and how they know where you are if you so much as breathe, it’s more irritating than enjoyable, in my opinion.
For the record, this is how I feel after playing BM through on both Easy and Normal. Considering how much trouble Normal gave me, I don’t think I’ll be trying Hard anytime soon.
(also, yes, I know you can rebalance things in the game’s skill.cfg file, I did that myself after the fact to make it the soldiers a bit less brutal)[/SIZE]
Whats with the bumps from old threads?
… Holy crap, I didn’t even notice that, actually. I saw it near the top of the recent threads and didn’t realize it was an old one.
OOPS
I just started playing through it and wanted to see if there was any discussion about playing on the HARD difficulty, which I was doing, and was getting thumped pretty hard. I searched the forums for any prior discussions (like you’re supposed to), and this was the one that I found…you’re welcome for the continuance.
Nothing wrong with that. 
Now for what I think.
I bumped the MP5 damage up from 6 to 8. It also buffs the Glock, it seems you can’t keep them separate since they use the same ammo and whatnot.
Unfortunately I still found myself using other guns more. I mean the MP5 got a bit more used, but if I got into short/mid ranged battles I found a shotgun blast more useful because its a near instant death instead of the hits I recieve firing the MP5.
I only really liked the grenades on it for situation where I could kill 3+ HECU at once.
Also put up the headshot bonus to 2.5 from 2, just because I wanted it to feel slightly more satisfying.
Long range I used the magnum, crossbow and the Glock, which actually does really well at long range due to almost no recoil. You just need to hammer the fire button.
Regular grenades felt kind of useless. Only good on zombies, headcrabs and killing the turrets. Otherwise they didn’t do much except make the HECU run away (which could be useful I guess). The second they see it leave your hand they’re gone. Even if you use it sneakily they see where it lands (even if its dead behind them) and sprint.
Their reactions times are a bit crazy, so I inserted some stuff into skill.cfg that delays them very lightly (it’s on the forums somewhere).
Apart from that, I generally like the game difficulty. It’s balanced in most aspects apart from, as others have said, the annoyingly frustrating cliff battle with the Apache, and then the Osprey having an infinite amount of soldiers (the scene was amazing, but it was just too difficult and frustrating to enjoy).
The dam Apache was better. It was harder than HL1, but not too difficult.
Sorry to bump this but I would like to say the Apache chopper was really easy. What I did is hide behind the green boxes and popped out when it was reloading. Fairly easy battle. Imo those rockets should made certain things destructible like the Tank does in the last parts of forget about freeman.
Do you mean the Apache at the Dam, or at the cliff sequence when you get the RPG?
The one at the Dam’s not too bad, provided you can keep your aim steady. The one at the cliff’s not really that much harder.
My complaint about the cliff section Apache is about the player’s RPG - and ultimately, part of it comes down to my opinion on game design in general.
The player’s RPG takes around a dozen shots to take down the Apache on Normal, provided there aren’t any alterations to skill.cfg. In Half-Life, it took two.
To be honest, I don’t think it’d occur to that many players who haven’t played Half-Life that the Tau Cannon can be used against armoured vehicles as well. Hell, I’ve played Half-Life dozens of times and it never occurred to me to try the Tau Cannon at the cliff scene - not because I’d forgotten entirely (I destroyed the dam helicopter with it), but because… Well, you get the RPG there.
The RPG is “introduced” in a way that suggests it’s effective against armoured vehicles like the Apache. It’s certainly effective against tanks and APC’s (and the Osprey later on, if I recall), but it’s so ineffective against the Apache.
I mean, okay, a lot of this pretty much stems from me over-analyzing things, but personally? I don’t think the Apache should take as many rockets as it does. I don’t have a problem with the Tau Cannon being more effective than the RPG, but the cliff fight is so much more painful using the RPG because of how many shots it takes.
I never understand people who defend titles with comments such as yours. It doesn’t even make sense. Play it more like Doom? Have you even played Black Mesa? It plays nothing like Doom. There’s very little in the way of run and gun gameplay. Fighting the HECU is like a game of Peek-A-Boo. The run and gun aspect of Half-Life is SORELY missing from Black Mesa, and it’s pretty much solely because of the HECU.
I love my games being difficult. I love a challenge. But it has to be the right kind of challenge. Some of the difficulty present in Black Mesa is not the right kind of challenge. When you’re fighting opponents with extreme accuracy and reaction, it often becomes a game of trial and error, which is simply not fun, and doesn’t really take much skill to overcome.
The HECU are poorly balanced, they’re nothing like as fun to fight as they were in Half-Life 1. I don’t have a problem with enemies having fast reaction times and being accurate, but in Black Mesa it’s pretty bullshit. The HECU in Black Mesa are very static and tend to turtle in defensive positions a lot, which means the only adequate way to fight them is to hide, peek, and try and score a headshot with the 357 or Crossbow. If you run around or use weaker weapons, you’re gonna get pulverized by their supreme accuracy and awareness. In HL1 fights against the HECU were very mobile and very fast, because the HECU AI tended to run (fast!) to a position, take a stance, fire off a few bursts, and then move again. This created dynamic, interesting gameplay, which forced the player to capitalize on tactical opportunities.
The HECU in BM would be so much more fun if they were much more mobile, slightly less accurate, and less fast, even if only by a small amount. To me, the mobility is the deal breaker.
Becuase the HECU in Black Mesa are SO accurate and SO fast, there are numerous instances where the only ways to win fights are to replay them over and over again, memorizing the soldiers’ spawn points so you can score kills quickly. This is not the right kind of challenge. That is bullshit, and subpar design.
Also, how can you argue that the difficulty is perfect when the clifftop Apache fight exists? On Hard difficulty that thing takes like 10 Rockets to kill, when it can take you from 100/100 health/suit to dead in a few seconds flat? That fight isn’t fun either, that fight is just peek-a-boo. The Rockets aren’t exactly easy to hit with in the first place anyway! Why give us the RPG and then immediately make us face an opponent where the RPG is almost useless? The Tau Cannon is the only way to easily win that fight on Hard difficulty.
Defend the difficulty, that’s fine. But use reasoning and sensible arguments. Not “you’re playing it like Half-Life 2”. Some of the base gameplay changes (particularly Houndeye/Bullsquid) have really added to the gameplay by making previously easy opponents into a challenge. The HECU really didn’t need a change, however, and in Black Mesa they’re balanced much worse than in HL1.
Already had my say but I’ll add more. Completely agree with Text in all that he says.
I had never played HL before learning about Black Mesa, but it was indeed a fun experience to fight the HECU. It’s like they did something. The Black Mesa equivalents feel kind of like mounted turrets. Except for when you run too far, or if you hide, they suddenly spring into action. They don’t use nearly enough grenades, or enough movement to think “wow these guys are fit and tactical”. Just makes me think they’re frustratingly lazy and annoyingly to play against.
Certain situations, like Text said, require you to reload over and over and over until you get it right. Because otherwise you lose almost all your health and ammo in 2 seconds flat. For example the Questionable Ethics fight. People are always praising it for being amazing and a great fight. To me I really disliked it. Don’t get me wrong the idea of it was amazing, new, exciting. The people rappelling down and being nearly surrounded from all angels - Perfectly done. The problem is I’ve only ever seen and experienced 2 situations where you can fight it.
- Sit by the stairs and snipe most, if not all of the people slowly and carefully, then finish off stragglers if you can’t reach them from your vantage point.
- Reload it so many times and practice where/when they come out of places and what situations trigger reactions, so you can pretty much win via having knowledge of the fight.
I didn’t enjoy being left with those 2 options. I’m not one for run-and-gun all the time, but I feel like if I ever tried it there, it just didn’t work and it wasn’t fun at all. The former option was boring and uneventful. The latter requires too much reloading and practice to make it feel ‘in the moment’. It makes you feel detached from the game, the character, the story because it doesn’t feel a good fight.
The apache on the cliff. Just, I can’t even. The RPG felt useless as hell (I swear I only used that on a group of marines, or on the tanks). The TAU cannon just did so much better since you needed that 1-2 second time frame of popping out when it stopped shooting, and hit it really hard. That wasn’t fun gameplay. People always say “oh its so easy just hide behind the crates”. That’s fine and all, if you want an easy strategy. But it’s boring. I found it cringe worthy to play against, and the only thing I could say once I had beaten it was “f-ing finally”, because there was nothing more frustrating than dying 20+ times because I made 2 minor mistakes and it screwed me over hard core.
As for the rest of the aliens. I’m so happy houndeyes are so dangerous now, especially in a pack. Before they were quite boring. You’d go “ooo a houndeye”. Then shoot it because they both attacked and moved pretty slowly, but also were quite weak. Now they’re almost always in a pack, and need to be dealt with quickly. In my eyes it takes quick reactions (mentally and mechanically). It’s good gameplay. Think and react quickly. What’s the old saying for Half Life? “Run, think, shoot, live” or something? That’s what I feel like with houndeyes. It’s exciting and a joy to play. The only time I had real difficulty with the houndeyes (or annoyance) was probably at the bit in Lambda core where the elevator breaks and houndeyes come from both ahead of you and the left of you. It was a smart idea to swarm them. I almost never escaped/killed them without taking damage, but it showed how lethal they are (especially with their attacks setting explosives off). Nothing too terrible.
Bullsquids I’m not 100% certain where I sit on the fence with them. On one hand they’re scarily powerful which is nice because their previously ‘useless’ spit attack actually does something now. On the other hand I feel like the total area of which you can be hit (and the distance) is minorly too large. Just by a fraction. I also dislike how the BULLsquid acts more like a turret with legs (similar to the HECU) rather than where in HL 1 they’re more willing to get in your face. That has the consequence of making them an obvious target to getting shot in the head, but if I remember (memory isn’t the best even for recent things), they also were beefier. I just want the BM ones to charge more or be willing to fight more than just in the distance. As of now I think they only tail whack you in melee range and they charge headcrabs. Haven’t seen anything else.
Headcrabs and zombies. Perfectly fine, no comment. Vorts are a lot better. Shorter charge up time(albeit maybe a tiny portion too fast), shorter “between cast” times Like houndeyes, they feel like a proper threat now. I mean they still feel weak compared to the HECU just because of how badly those are balanced, but they’re a lot more fun to play against now (I love dodging their lightning, the effect rushing past you is so cool). A-grunts are way better. Rewarding to kill and are scary. In HL I’d just run up to them and crowbar them since it stunlocks them. I think you can still do that but it’s scary now especially with a proper hivehand on them.
Probably going off topic and I know I’ve said similar things before in other threads, but can’t hurt to reiterate it I guess.
I don’t understand why people have trouble with the MP5, it was my primary weapon most of the time. Accuracy is decent, damage is decent, fire-rate is the fastest, ammo is the most common, and the secondary grenades are fast, strong, and somewhat common.
I use it a lot as well, personally. I love the way the grenades for it work compared to the ones in HL1/HL2.
I think it’s a little bit underpowered, compared to the HECU’s MP5’s (which is more because of their incredible accuracy and reaction time), but overall I think it’s a pretty capable weapon (especially compared to how it was in HL1, or compared to HL2’s SMG).
I love it’s model and firing sound, pretty much the only reasons to use it 
Mp5 worked fine for me. although you do have to ‘tap’-fire… which fires just as quickly as full-auto with repeated taps but much more accurately. It’s a gameplay quirk I’ll admit though and maybe you were meant to figure burst-fire out it does feel like an exploit because it becomes MUCH more effective in medium-range
I agree the HECU reaction times seemed just a tad too fast though. It felt impossible to get the jump on them or have a few seconds of advantage in which they were disorganised. Flanking didn’t seem to work for me as they always seemed to know where you were. While I enjoy the extra challenge too, it seemed to come from their incredible accuracy rather than being aggressive like flushing me out with grenades (I noticed much less of this than I did with Half-Life 1) and they didn’t seem to move around as much or use cover unless they were already in cover.