Message from the HL speedrunning comunity

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#1

As a avid HL speedrunner i was pretty disappointed to find the speed caps and movement restrictions in Black Mesa, it makes its almost impossible to speedrun because of the frustrating moving mechanics preventing you from playing the game with any speed. I’m aware that the devs may believe that these caps prevent bugs from occurring but many strafing mechanics and different movement tech are completely lost in this remake that it makes the game feel unlike the original. Black Mesa is a pretty difficult game to play to many HL speedrunners because of the annoyance that comes with the extensive slowdowns when simply trying to navigate through the levels.

I do respect that this is your project and you can move in any direction you wish but i really do hope that you reconsider the movement as it’s pretty much the main reason we speedrun older games to this day.

https://www.speedrun.com/hl1
https://www.speedrun.com/bms#Any_Scriptless

  • Pretty much everyone in HL speedrunning :stuck_out_tongue:
#2

I thought the point of speedrunning was to find ways to do it despite the limitations? If the devs change the game to make it easier to speedrun wouldn’t that defeat part of the challenge of finding out exploits and tricks?

#3

The goal isn’t really about making it easier to speedrun, just make the game more pleasant to play. The movement system is very unlike the original HL and it’s quite clunky. Easy is never a good thing, make it too easy and it becomes boring, the game is currently unsatisfying to speedrun.

It’s a big reason why we don’t run CS:CZ.

#4

Well, to be perfectly blunt, that’s your very specific problem.

I can’t answer for the devs but I doubt changing the movement mechanics to make it better for a very niche audience is very high on their priority list.

#5

Unless they patched it at some point I would have to agree about the movement being garbage. Walking didn’t feel right, running didn’t feel right, and almost every single jump had to be a crouch jump. It just didn’t feel right.

And I hate speed runners…

#6

Bad movement isn’t a specific problem that only effects a niche audience, It effects everyone. Some of the oldest games we still play today is because of how well movement feels.

I’m not sure why you believe reconsidering the movement to maybe be more like the original game they are trying to recreate is somehow a negative thing.

#7

If you haven’t already, slide the “rotating to the side” when walking slider to a minimum if you haven’t already, and it’ll make the movement much better.
And set the “always run” to off.

#8

that doesn’t help the jumping problems.

#9

I’ll be honest, I haven’t played BM in a good long while but from my time with it, I don’t recall the movement annoying me too much, probably due to my slow playstyle. I do remember the jumping feeling stiffer than the original game but that’s it.

Anyway, I’m not against improvements to the player movement at all, I just don’t see the dev team taking priority to do that if the only group getting something out of it is the speedrun community. However, if it’s changes that benefit everyone, maybe that is something that will be looked at sooner rather than later.

#10

The only reason you find the movement “unpleasant” is because you’re used to speedrunning everything you can though. Personally I feel the movement works just fine. I don’t see why the devs need to bork the movement just because 1% of the playerbase wants to bhop the whole game.

#11

What he ^ said

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.