That´s interesting, Maledictus. I hope the devs have painkillers, because this is going to suck.
Hey! Developers! What do you think? Are you reading?
all AI’s with weapons are aimbots… they are bots and they can aim 
yes they are too OP in some parts of the game.
The game is already too easy on Hard and people want it to be even easier? Seriously, if you’re having problems with the difficulty, lower it. There’s nothing wrong with the HECU right now. Maybe in contrast to the Xenians, but the solution there is to buff them.
This isn’t about HECU difficulty ie. (damage, HP) but their AI and Aimbot.
The game shouldn’t be hard by giving them a serious advantage over the player, hell I say, even buff their values as long as I can play stealthy and use tactics.
And yet they’re still easy to beat, so the complaints about their “AI and aimbot” are moot.
Debate as you like, but keep it civil. No flaming, no insults.
Edit config file and make them stronger yourself, 95% of people agree about them being too hard [COLOR=‘Red’] unless you can give a reason why you find them as such.
[COLOR=‘Red’]Moderator: He’s not trolling, he just has a differing opinion. Stop name-calling or drop out of the discussion.
Edit config file and make them weaker yourself. Do you see what a silly argument that is now? I don’t really see what everybody else thinks has to do with my thoughts on the matter and I certainly don’t care if you think I’m trolling by giving my opinion. I find them too easy because there’s enough health, suit energy and ammo laying around to fight them twice over (minus the Questionable Ethics fight) they still die in 1 hit to the crossbow (even on Hard,) and often times you can get the drop on groups of them with satchels/grenades/side stepped headshots.
If you’re struggling, lower the difficulty. That’s what it is there for. If the game is quite easily beatable on the Hardest difficulty by plenty of people, it’s obviously not too difficult. The soldiers quick reaction and good accuracy (they still miss 50%~ of their shots at range, btw) clearly isn’t enough to stonewall most people, so taking that away and making the game easier for people who complain about it, but refuse to lower the difficulty themselves, is just detrimental to the game in my opinion.
[COLOR=‘Red’]
[COLOR=‘Red’]Moderator: You too. Both of you need to drop out of the thread for a little while.
The issue, Richey, is that the HECU can do things actual humans cannot. They are aware of your presence before they should. That’s really the crux of it, they’re simply too aware of you. It has nothing to do with difficulty. It simply breaks immersion and makes for a frustrating experience. I’d have no problem with them being much stronger and deadlier, but they shouldn’t all know where I am the instant an inch of my head pops out of somewhere.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed fighting them, and it didn’t make the game too hard for me (I played on hard), but their omniscience takes away a lot of options and flexibility during battles with them, which takes away opportunities for an enjoyable experience.
Doesn’t mean they aren’t enjoyable at all, it simply means there are less avenues for enjoyment, as evidenced by all the people not enjoying the HECU 
enjoy enjoy enjoy
Well it’s not just the HECU that know you’re there. I was playing in forget about freeman in the section with the snark traps, I set down a satchel charge at the base of the pods and hid around 2 different corners to set it off. Every single one of them came directly to me and nearly killed me. I reloaded and tried again, going all the way back to the security office and did it again, and again they made a bee line for me. If the door wasn’t shut they would have gotten to me before blowing up. So it might be an unintentional bug that the team never figured out before releasing.
Just thinking the HECU really only need a couple of minor changes. The problem as I see it boils down to two things, reaction time and range. I actually enjoy most of the combat with them as they are, but in a few places its just frustrating as hell, so I wouldnt change thier damage taken or dealt stats… I liked the way the HL ones worked, shoot move, shoot move.
Just lower thier reaction time a bit and make it so they will not shoot at you until they are within a certain range. One of the most frustrating maps for me (aside from the poorly implemented Osprey map) was the dam where they are all shooting at you from extreme distances. In close range combat with them, aside from a few instances of super human reaction time, is quite enjoyable as is… and as I’ve said before, as much as the HECU are tough as nails the Zen creatures are total wimps. I think the damage they take is good as is, they are not equiped to deal with lead and have no protection for it, but their attacks should have WAY more punch to them. Weak and easy to take down but dont get hit is the key IMO. I’d like to see the Vort attack do way more damage and a bullsquid acid hit to keep on burning over time after getting hit, doing more damage. Also getting swiped by a zombie should do mega damage, they are after all so easy to avoid.
Not just reaction time and range, but they shouldn’t have eyes at the back of their head, and shouldn’t know about the player when quiet.
I guess I’ll add in that I also think the marines are too unbalanced in some areas. I was doing alright against them on hard until I hit the dam and then died maybe twenty times in a row. The only way I could finally win was by abusing some of the angles in the environment and sniping them all. It wasn’t exactly fun.
Right now I’m stuck on a part where an alien grunt spawns in next to some HECU. I’ve died maybe 12 times now before taking a break with the mod. What usually happens is the grunt spawns and ignores the HECU, attacks me, and then gets killed right away by the HECU anyways. I can’t really peak, flank, or return any kind of fire without getting instantly murdered so I have wait until they come to me where I immediately get overrun by the sheer amount of them. I’ve also been playing fps games for a long time like counter-strike, quake, and TRIBES and I’d say the balance in BMS still needs some work.
I dont really think its a case of eyes in the back of thier heads as much as the insane reaction time makes it seem so. I can remember a few times where Ive gotten the drop on an HECU and until I opened up on him he had no idea I was there… of course I was not on top of them and they did have thier backs to me. I think anytime you get really close they know youre there. I have seen quite a few times where thier reaction time is so fast they are shooting at you before theve even had time to turn around… the friken bullets are coming out of thier guns sideways.
I have noticed that myself. This can be investigated further if Source has a “slow-motion” convar.
That’s a big one, yes. No matter what their accuracy is, if you allow them to shoot non-stop from extreme distance, and you let, say, three or four people do that, they’re gonna’ land some hits. But they shouldn’t be doing that. The Marines, in-story, shouldn’t have infinite ammo and they shouldn’t act like they do. They really need to be disallowed from firing past a certain distance where they can’t be expected to hit jack shit, because it’s just bad practice to spray all your ammunition across the dam and hope one or two stray rounds hit something.
If you’re facing off against Marines armed with SMGs and Shotguns across 100 yards of open field, you should BOTH be at a disadvantage, and they should simply take cover and wait for you to advance.
u can also shoot from a far distance and hit. then u should bel limited 2.
You missed the entire point, though to be fair, I wasn’t very clear in what I meant. I want to break this down into several points.
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The AI has infinite ammo. The player does not. It’s true that Gordon can spray with an SMG or a shotgun from the other side of the dam and defeat the enemy with bug bites whenever stray shots land. However, the results of this mean Gordon will simply run out of ammo before accomplishing anything. A Marine has, I believe, 50 hit points, and both a single shotgun pellet and a single SMG round hit for, what? 6? You’d need to land a lot of lucky shots to take out even just one soldier at long range, and you’re typically fighting three or four, and in the case of the dam encounter, around seven.
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Marines are armed with shotguns and SMGs. Neither of those are long-range weapons. Yes, Gordon has access to the magnum, the crossbow, the gauss gun, the rocket launcher. That gives Gordon the ability to snipe enemies from a distance, which is why I suggest they either close distance or hide from line of sight to avoid being sniped. But it makes no sense for Marines to shoot long-distance because their SMGs are simply not reliable at that distance. It’s a huge immersion-breaker to see soldiers act so irrationally. Granted, I’ve never been in the US army or navy, but I doubt they teach their soldiers to spray small arms fire with no hope of actually aiming it. How much ammo can a soldier bring to battle on his person, anyway?
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This is mindless Quake monster tactics. By this, I mean enemies who act irrationally and illogically for actual creatures with reason and self-preservation, aimed only at taking a bit of the player’s health away no matter the cost to ammo or their own well-being. It would make sense for this to be the case for the more feral Xen aliens, such as Houndeyes and Bullsquids. It makes no sense for supposedly highly-trained soldiers to do this, who really should know better.
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This is already the case for shotgun-wielding Marines. They will not shoot at long distance no matter the circumstances, because shots at long distance don’t do shit. They will charge your position, get in close and THEN start blasting. This can sometimes get them killed if they rush ahead of their allies or charge over open ground, admittedly, but the logic behind it is sound - you have a short-ranged weapon, use it at short range. All I’m saying is this should also be the case for SMG-wielding Marines. Obviously, their firing range should be considerably longer, but it should not be infinite. Limit their willingness to shoot to their guns’ maximal effective range, and if they’re farther away than that, force their AI to approach, or otherwise hide. Have those people fight like soldiers who have actual combat skills, not like critters out of Serious Sam.
Half-Life’s Marines have always been dangerous not because of their health or their damage or their accuracy, but rather because they were the only enemy in the whole game that fought intelligently. They took cover, they flanked, they threw grenades, they waited. Sure, the old Half-Life made them a bit of an easy target one-on-one just because Gordon’s HEV is ridiculously tough, but at least you got the sense that these were people who fought distinctly DIFFERENTLY from the more feral and aggressive aliens. This needs to come through. The soldiers need to be dangerous not because of their stats, but because of their tactics, and they need to be believable as actual soldiers, rather than “critters.”
tl;dr the cone of fire for soldiers is too damn small, their reaction time is fine, but they will always shoot you first line of sight, whereas in HL2 when a combine sees you, they don’t always shoot you, they either call out to their buddies or throw a grenade or something.