Really bad balancing

Black Mesa Archive In-game Issues (Mod)
#281

I think the grenades point is a fair issue. While I’m kinda glad squad leaders no longer spam 40mm grenades at me (pretty sure they don’t use them at all in Black Mesa), the increased speed of the shot would make dodging HARD. But the standard “ambassador pineapple” grenade? I’ve had playthroughs where they’ve tossed a few grenades, but an alarming number where I’ve never faced a grenade (I don’t count grenades that are thrown at the wrong place by the AI)… The soldier AI is generally really good, and I love the balance of the MP5 (not so keen on the enforced minimum-burst, but eh, it’s not that bad), but switching them to use grenades a little more, and use their guns slightly less (and be a little slower on the uptake to make surprise attacks work better) might work wonders. That said, I quite like the fast reaction times, so slowing them down too much could be an issue.

Currently I feel that Easy mode is too easy, Normal is a little too hard, and I haven’t tried Hard yet.

One big problem I do find is with Snarks. They’re frankly adorable little critters…but they’re not that useful. I can generally use them at some point, since I got pretty good with them in Half Life and can see “Hey, if I throw ten of them in, I don’t have to waste my much more valuable ammo for [insertgunthatisn’tthehivehandhere]”… but they’re always just a “well, they’re useless anywhere else” weapon. They feel like they’re there because they’re in the original, rather than being there because they’re needed. This is probably due to the cut areas in Surface Tension…a few more nests of them, and some places where using them is the best way to get through to the next area would have made them feel more worthwhile. They’re really well done (as a biology student, I love cute little things that will gladly kill you), but there’s only a few places to use them.

#282

You can also pick up gibs. I particularly enjoy throwing around human grunt torsos.

Yes, I’m a freak.

#283

Then we’re all freaks, because picking up and tossing around mangled corpses for giggles is one of the most fun side activities in the game.

I’m trying to imagine Gordon tossing corpses over ledges and into walls, giggling like a schoolgirl as he does so. It’s not a pretty sight.

#284

It’s hard to keep track of how many houndeye remains I’ve tossed to the abyss.

#285

Wow, some people never fail to amaze.

I have seen lot’s of stupid things on gaming forums. This one is close to the winner.

It is NOT the users job to balance out gameplay. It is the developers job (PS: I am one, professional, btw).

Just give every enemy 1 healthpoint. I mean, the player can shoot five times into the air before aiming at the enemy and let himself hit 3 times before shooting at that enemy. That way the user isn’t forced into a playstyle and can make the game challeging. BTW: what drugs made thinking challeging to you ?

#286

In short: it is one of the most awesome, inspired, detailed and ambitious mods/games that i have witnessed so far. The levels are just wonderfully modeled and textured, the music is devine and where the dev-team/designers have left the paths of the original game, they did with expertise and ton of great ideas and wit.

But where there is a lot of light, there also is shadow … which brings us to …

The looong sermon:
I/we am/are running a little game-studio here, all of us HUGE HL1/2-fans and so a test group of 5 persons was immediately assembled (skill above avg to really good).

My main personal problem with the mod is: What’s the target group?

If it is made for hardcore CounterStrikers, well, excellent! That’s what these guys & girls need and want.

If it is made for broad public: the designers and developers may have missed their target.

All of my testers, including me, love the mod - love it NOW! After having played it 4 times minimum on all difficulty settings. But the first time around it was like a brawl in Gomorrha, ppl cursing the developers to infinity and back :slight_smile: )

In a nutshell: the 1st time around we all were really frustrated at times (dying 20+ times and not even at Blast Pit). Speaking only for myself, one of the eeriest things I can encounter is something I TOTALLY LUUURVE, but which doesn’t let me get “in sync” with it. But let me say: I synced into the mod the 2nd time around, coz I didn’t expect it to be a total likeness of HL1 anymore. Once I had accepted that the BMS-team was partly doing their own thing, I played it like it was a new game to me and it all got a lot easier.

But even without that, the fact that nobody even considered abandoning the test is a rock-solid testimony to the superlative level of immersion the developers/designers have achieved.

On the other hand, I cannot fully subscribe to some points that developers have made in this thread: “the guy who wrote the music” (GREAT! work, btw) suggests to lay low and use items to achieve your goal. That shifts BMS too much into the genre of a “semi-tactical” shooter for me, coz it’s not what I have “learned” in HL1. Then again, playing it the sneaksy way (which I enjoy a lot) is not really possible as the enemies are super-observant and each encounter with foes results in a furious fight.

What I am saying is: I haven’t found much opportunity to outwit opponents and stealth-kill them or take them by surprise (Crossbow/357 aside, which i do not use in BMS, which I find quite ok as I do not like sniper-action much, not in a HL1 mod that is).

I actually WANT to run into a room full of soldiers, blazing guns and all, and I expect to live … to live, coz I took them by surprise. But this is simply not possible (partly due to the Source Engine).

But enough of that banter. What we all need to understand is that the BMS team fulfilled THEIR dream. They sure have thought about every single aspect that has been mentioned in this thread long and thoroughly and they made their decision for their “baby”, knowing that accolades and critiques alike will be theirs too.

Upon us gamers falls the honor of reporting back to the developers and doing so I’d like to finish by saying: Let’s tread lightly and treat them with the respect they deserve. Having read the 15 pages of this thread, I can assure you - as a developer - that after years of hard work, “critique” like ‘your shotgun sucks!’, ‘your mp5 sucks’, ‘your sucks’ does not necessarily make the sun rise in any developers mood.

I am also positively convinced that the BMS-team will blow us away with an update including many fixes for many players and with a full Xen-chapter that will be certainly up to par with everything up to LamdaCore.

Thanks for the mod, BMS-team, thanks for the patience, readers :slight_smile:
(being not a native speaker, pls, excuse punctuation and erros)

#287

All he is saying is that if a weapon is too easy to use, try something a bit more challenging.

Take Dead Space for example. This game was done very well with one exception, all you EVER need is the first gun in the game, the plasma cutter. Anything else might have been better suited for one situation or another, but all you needed was that ONE weapon. With all the game development, testing, and design from a huge company like EA, they still had this issue when the game released.

At least in Black Mesa you have to use other weapons depending on your situation.

Weapon balance is a much bigger issue when playing in multiplayer games. How is the weapon balance in multiplayer? do you see the same issues there? Is there a weapon that everyone seems to use because it always wins?

To devs:
Your G17 is boss, haven’t seen a better model for that gun in a game to date.
Your .357 is perfect, love the sights, shoots true like a chap.
Your MP5 sprays like crazy, but I still love it.
Your SPAS-12 is a beast, find I have to constantly fall back to it to win the day. (my favorite gun in BF3 BTW).
Your Crossbow is… well… a crossbow. Kills them dead good.
Your Tau Cannon was an honor to wield and explode organics with.
Your Gluon Gun was breathtaking and a hoot to fire every time. I only wish it has infinity energy as I run down the halls screaming like a celtic warrior into battle.
Your RPG helped me get revenge against that Apache that made me rage again and again at the damn dam scene.
Your Grenades were useful in rooting those sniper posts.
Your Satchel Charges were great for crowd control. Popping out of the sewer tunnels and throwing a charge at 3 unsuspecting soldiers was a great moment.
Your Snarks were fun to watch eat at those two soldiers. Although I never picked them up for some reason… Never found them in game… Will look next time
Your Trip mines… well I never used a single one so… next time. would have been useful though!
Your TOW was very creative.
Your Mortar was like playing a C130 game on the iPad. Lots of fun. I look forward to using this in Half Life every time.
Your .50 Cal hurt me very badly. Also hurt a lot of soldiers and aliens! The sound was great!
Your Hive Hand was actually useable. I never used this weapon in the original HL. Was a lot of fun in BM
Your Crowbar… saved me a lot of ammo…
Your Exploding Barrels were very useful in trolling the enemy!
IMHO

I guess my playstyle is more “I wonder if I can do this with this gun” or “Lets try to roll exploding barrels to key places and kill everything”

That was a very nice and enlightening response (didn’t want to quote the whole thing), but honestly BRAVO

#288

Do you know if there´s any way to change the difficulty after you start the game or you have to start from the beginning again?

I started on normal, which is usually ok, but on this games it´s actually not ok. It takes me a lot of time to go through some areas. Reload, reload, reload and so on.

Thanks.

#289

^Don’t worry, it’s not like in Half-Life. Just change it in the options menu.

#290

Great thanks!

Much better like this…

#291

Have you ever played Half-life 2? The .357 magnum could be horrible! I like the Black Mesa one because of the increase of acuracy (don’t like the sight, though).

The mp5 cannot do anything with multiple solders. I like the half-life SMG since it has more ammo and the grenade launcher feels better to fire in general.

#292

I edited the mp5 to have a 50 round magazine, and it feels way more balanced

#293

You can take on a large group of HECU with nothing but an MP5. You just need some cover and an idea of the correct way to use it.

Most people just spray it. That’s not how you’re supposed to use it. You need to burst-fire at the neck and pull down with your wrist. If you do that, you can drop a grunt in 3 to 5 bursts at mid-range on Hard, while taking relatively little damage from him in return (because you actually have an accuracy advantage versus HECU, no matter what difficulty).

This gets much harder if you’re getting flanked. So the trick is to try and lure them out from a single direction so that you never have to watch your back for random flankers. In some areas this is easy, in others, not so much. That’s what makes it fun. :stuck_out_tongue:

#294

In part, I agree. With the proper use MP5 is quite a handy weapon. On the other hand, the weapon is cleary less effective against the marines than it was in Half-Life. Especially in the early chapters it’s safer to take out the marines with either the Magnum, or camping behind the door - with the superfast and attack interrupting crowbar. Marines and mp5 are the most inbalanced in the game.

Regarding our beloved vortigaunts, I think one can get used to them the way they are. As for the Bullsquids, now those are way better this time. They give us sufficent challange, while in Half-Life they are effectively harmless.

#295

I 100% agree with the Bull squids they are much more challenging to fight than the one’s in Hal-Life. I wish they’d make them spit acid in a small ball, like they did in the original instead of the huge ball of acid in Black Mesa. I also thought is was kind of weird giving them the same kind eyes as the Vortigaunts. But it still looks good none the less. Other than that I thought the Bull squid was well done .

#296

I feel that a way to balance the glock, MP5, and marines would be to seperate the damage like in the original (I think so, at least). Like, have a 9mm for the Glock and a 9mm_AR for the MP5.

EDIT: Crap, just realised that nobody had posted in this thread since june. Sorry!

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.