Soldiers AI using aimbots? Or in any case, being way too difficult.

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#81

Okay I think I had it just about enough of this game.

I’m still playing on Hard, and I’m still trying to get through the Surface Tension chapter. But now it has just became a painful and non-enjoyable experience. NO, I don’t feel like cheating. NO, I don’t feel like lowering the difficulty. I just want to express the fact that my patience has reached its limit. Here is a summary of the last 45 minutes of my game experience:

  • dropped from a collapsed building to some garage exit, with only 1 tiny cover available.
    [COLOR=‘Green’]- quicksave
  • 4 marines coming straight ahead blind shooting. I kill them with my crossbow.
    [COLOR=‘Green’]- quicksave
  • 4 more marines. No more crossbow ammo. [COLOR=‘Red’]I die.
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- quick load
  • 4 more marines. I switch to magnum. I survive, but take a few bullets.
    [COLOR=‘Green’]- quicksave
  • rush towards the 2 medkits, and hide behind 2nd container. Being shot everywhere, I make it, but have only about 50 hp (after the 2 medkits).
    [COLOR=‘Green’]- quicksave
  • 2 marines coming from the front, but [COLOR=‘Red’]I die before shooting, because a 3rd one also came from behind with a shotgun.
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- quick load
  • I switch to shotgun and kill marine behind me, but the front 2 marines kill me. [COLOR=‘Red’]I die
  • game crashes - memory error.
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- steam loading
  • black mesa main menu loading
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- quick load
  • [COLOR=‘Red’]I die before I realize loading was finished
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- quick load
  • 2nd attempt: same result I switch to shotgun and kill marine behind me, but the front 2 marines kill me. [COLOR=‘Red’]I die
  • game stops responding. I guess there is so much death, my PC can’t handle it.
  • Ctrl-Alt-Delete menu doesn’t work. I have to force reboot my PC.
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- Windows loading
  • Steam loading
  • Black Mesa loading
  • Black Mesa menu loading
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- quick load
  • I try to rush to first container, [COLOR=‘Red’]I die
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- quick load
  • I try to go directly to the 1st container instead of the 2nd one.
  • It works. I kill two marines with Tau gun.
    [COLOR=‘Green’]- quicksave
  • 1 alien grunt shows. He targets me instead of targeting the damn marines. I kill him with Tau gun.
    [COLOR=‘Green’]- quicksave
  • 3 more marines come. I have no cover. [COLOR=‘Red’]I die
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- quick load
  • I rush to put a tripwire by the container’s corner.
  • Success: 1 of the marines explodes.
    [COLOR=‘Green’]- quicksave
  • The 2 other marines arrive side by side and shoot. [COLOR=‘Red’]I die
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- quick load
  • I shoot the 2 marines with Tau asap. One die after the other, I take one hit.
  • 3 more marines, [COLOR=‘Red’]I die
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- quick load
  • 3 more marines, [COLOR=‘Red’]I die Game crashes with memory error again.
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- Black Mesa loading
  • Black Mesa menu loading
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- quick load
  • 3 more marines, [COLOR=‘Red’]I die Game crashes again.
    [COLOR=‘DarkSlateBlue’]- Steam loading.
  • About to re-open Black Mesa again… but… no. Screw this, man. It’s not even fun anymore. I’m spending more time freakin loading the game or savegames than actually playing the game.

There is a pool of 20+ bodies of marines in front of me, plus those I killed on my way to that stupid container cover in the corner. It is RIDICULOUS.

I used to love this mod. But now, all the abuse from all those marines who have inhumane accuracy and reaction times is ruining it. I really hate the part that I am now.

Yes, I could switch to Easy … but that’s beyond the point. I have ALWAYS played the whole thing on Hard, it shouldn’t give me this much trouble. And it should especially not crashing all the time like this. I am sure BMS could have scored much better reviews if it wasn’t for the HECU nonsense.

#82

Those soldiers can shoot you with their machine guns from miles away through the tiniest crack.

I play this game on medium and I am constantly dying from the soldiers.

The helicopter part by the dam is the worst.

this is my first post since release by the way.

The game is WONDERFUL, beautiful and a pleasure to be able to play. It sparks EVERY little bit of nostalgia from the half life series and feels like a legit valve title. I must applaud all your hard work and how it has paid off.

but those soldiers, man…

#83

I said this in another thread, I’ll say it here- the helicopter on the dam is really easy once you know what to do. Make a beeline for the large generator housing shed, wait for a break in the firing, then make carefully aimed Tau cannon shots. There’s more ammo for it in there, as well.

What’s actually HARD is that fight with the HECU and the tank after the cliffs portion. That’s where my patience was really tested.

#84

Registered to say that I actually like the current difficulty of the “Hard” setting. Some balancing is needed, but I hope that the general difficulty isn’t appreciably reduced.

#85

Someone get him a cardio thoracic surgeon for his bleeding heart.

#86

Ya wanna know why you can’t ambush them?

Marines got this s*it

:smiley:

…remember that one scientist say that the suit is full of trackers, well…that explains that, good night :smiley:

#87

In the cliffside area they could snipe me from way below when I tried to jump over a gap where there was a large pipe you have to crawl down after getting across. Even if I try to quickly run and jump across it as fast as I can. The only way for me to get across there is to look down there and try to shoot him as best as I can although it seems the collision model for the cliffside extends out some from the side blocking my shot if I don’t aim just right.

#88

I appreciate your appreciation.
I don’t think the devs will do anything else than bug/crash-fixing and xen.
So I am waiting for modders and programmers who are willing to modifiy the game on their own.
Modelers already do models for this or did already.
Of course AI scripting is not the same, but I just hope they start doing it.
Otherwise I will have to do it myself and due to the fact that I have no clue of AI scripting, I am afraid that this is actually too much work.

#89

I’m more worried about their adamance to remain closed-source.

#90

PROTIP: don’t quicksave during a firefight

if you do, you’ll always be making up for bad choices instead of making new ones

PROTIP2: there is an osprey delivering all these enemies; maybe take it down?

#91

I agree, the “aim bot AI” is really what ruins the whole game… it’s more saving/loading than enjoying the gameplay and no tactics are involved in this version as it’s more about luck now

#92

If hard is too hard, try playing on medium :wink:

I’m fine with it, just gotta be quick and treasure the med bays . . .

#93

They’re using Aperture Science’s patented Aim Aiding Device ™, unfortunately it also affects speech patterns, making them act completely over the top while they kill things.

#94

I am in We’ve Got Hostiles at the moment and while I find the HECU “manageable” at this time I do feel they are too sharp of a difficulty spike in the game. My suggestions would be to slightly lower their damage output, make their behaviour seem more human (The art of AI design is to design the AI to make mistakes, after all.) by making their senses more, err, sensible and maybe cutting down the reaction times a tiny bit, less accuracy wouldn’t hurt either.

Also, I’ve noticed that the AI is awfully deterministic. If I save with a soldier about to come around a corner he always does exactly the same thing on every quickload; he comes around the corner, does the same movement pattern and shoots exactly the same number of bullets at me (I can tell by my health/HEV stats when he is done firing.).

#95

The wiki says the devs used no code from the Combine, just their animations.

https://wiki.blackmesasource.com/HECU_Marines#Artificial_Intelligence

#96

done on hard, soldiers are like low class cs/hf players nothing good.

#97

They’re lethal. I like that. Makes it fun for me.

I just did a run of the Dam using nothing but the MP5 (well I used the Magnum once to blow up a barrel and the Tau to take down the Helicopter). It’s challenging because you need to learn to control your bursts in order to take down each Grunt, and you need to make sure that you’re not facing too many grunts at a time.

You’ll take hits. That’s unavoidable. But the fact is, their aim is always significantly worse than yours. They’ll hit about 1 bullet per every few bursts at distance, which isn’t much but can stack up when there are lots of guys shooting. That’s one reason why it’s important to limit the number of HECU that you face at any time.

#98

After replaying HL:Source on hard for a comparison to BMS, I have to say that the “aimbotting” HECU marines from the original are way, way harder, it makes the BMS ones on hard merely challenging, not impossible like some people are saying.

Plus, the MP5 has some crazy recoil in the original.
Of course, you did have some advantages, like being able to hold 10 grenades for the MP5, more magnum ammo, etc.

Overall the MP5 in BMS might need a slight damage increase and less spread but the marines are fine for hard.
On medium they are easy as cake now.

#99

this is not how the scene unfolds at all. you drop down the hole and imediately face 2 vorts. a hgrunt spawns soon. then you can start blasting away at the osprey and destroy it and you only need to deal with 4 marines.

you describe the scene after you failed to exit the garage and destroy the opsrey so there were 4 new marines constantly coming. thats your mistake, not the game being hard.

#100

Okay, theres something here that I just dont understand. I am about 5 feet away from 2 marines. They do not see me. I want to change weapons. I do so, and without moving an inch “SQUAD! WE’VE GOT FREEMAN!”

dafuq?

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.