Please revisit hard difficulty balance

I am currently replaying BM and chose to play it on hard this time, as in HL2 I find this difficulty to be the most fun. However, in BM, I have found it to be more aggravating as the devs seem to have balanced it right between HL & HL2’s difficulty scheme, where HL made it an absolute pain to get through, and HL2 ramped up the difficulty without making you feel like you are a defenseless five-year-old. Now, I really do not mean to criticize the devs here, I know how hard it is to make a game and to properly balance it, but I do feel some changes need to be made. Here are some ideas I have come up with:

  • One of my biggest complaints is with the HECU soldiers, as they feel like they have some sort of force field protecting them from harm. I think lowering their health slightly could go a long way in making hard feel better. (Another option would be to make there be less of them, as the Vorts seem to have similar health but aren’t as annoying because you are usually facing a max. of two of them at the most, however I like how many HECU there are, so that’s why I suggested what I did).
  • My other biggest complaint is that the SMG feels like I’m shooting a Nerf gun, in that it feels like it does no damage. In both HL and HL2 the SMG is one of my favorite weapons, but due to the damage output I just can’t primarily use it in BM. As with the last one, I think heightening the damage output of the SMG’s bullets would make the game feel SO much better in hard mode.
  • Explosions seem to have an almost nonexistent damage radius. This may just be because of the HECU soldier’s annoyingly high health, though.
  • The crossbow, although I like that it is actually effective unlike HL in hard difficulty, may need to be nerfed just slightly, or at least have a reduced number of ammo pickups. Please only do this if you lower the HECU sodier’s health, though, as right now this is the only good way to take them out.
  • On the part where you are on the dam the helli blows up a bridge on, please make there be more of a grace period between it shooting (and maybe make it shoot less at a time), as right now you are extremely lucky if you can make it back to an enclosure without dieing, let alone being able to destroy it. And I used all the crossbow ammo on the soldiers prior, so I wasn’t able to just dive into the water.

I’m sure there is more I’m not thinking of right now, but I would highly appreciate it if you would go through and find what is broken in your Hard difficulty. I really like this mod and would like to see it become as good as it can be. Thank you.

The game has been largely rebalanced for the Steam release. I went through and did a very thorough balance pass based on my own thoughts and everything I’d seen from the community. The response has been positive, so far. We are still testing and refining though, so any comments are welcome.

Pretty much all of the complaints listed here have been addressed. One particular one to note - our MP5 is really powerful and fun to use now!

Ok, thank you. That is really good to hear. I kinda imagined you would have done re-balancing but I just wanted to make sure the problems I saw were addressed. I love the mod and am really looking forward to enjoying the Steam release (and the rebalanced MP5 8) ).

We want to thank you for taking the time to report your feedback and your kind words. I will mark this ticket as resolved for now <3

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.