Some new attacks for the Nihilanth?

Black Mesa Archive Suggestion Box
#61

To me adding all of that extra time to the game seems like it would just get boring. I’d rather play 7 minute’s of good game play instead of 7 hours of repeating the same strategy over and over again.

Perhaps a physics based puzzle would spice things up. Like after you get teleported to a different area of the map (because stacking boxes while the Nihilanth would suck). And to add to the complexity of the fight, instead of an open arena, perhaps the level should consist of small changes in elevation so you can’t just sprint to one side of the map to the other without jumping over something (another words you have to take your eyes off the Nihilanth to see where your going). Adding props instead of spikes would also add to the visual impact of the level as well (but that’s probably asking too much if the devs are sticking to the original level design).

#62

I looked through the files, and it’s Prospero03.mp3
I don’t know if I’d even really call it a song, but there is a little something and it really doesn’t seem out of place when it fades out completely.

#63

I would whole heatedly agree with you. It would be quite inappropriate to put an obvious song there, however the lack of sound besides the Nihilanth’s attacks and the minions it spawned was terrible. It ruined the tone of the game for me, after the nice eeriness of Zen, and that epic red portal, thinking I had gone def, or that the game had glitched sucked. It didn’t help that the first time I played it, the game did glitch and the Nihilanth never finished dying, he just sat spinning in that room with green lighting shooting out of his head. I had to replay through all of Xen because of that. Simply put, in my humble opinion final fight needs some sound other than what was in the first, if just to break the monotony.

#64

XEN!

You replayed through the entire Xen chapter because there was no music during the Nihalinth battle?

#65

He says because the game glitched while fighting Nihilanth:

#66

Sure he should have just replayed the final battle. ¬_¬

#67

erm… maybe… he deleted his autosave or didn’t notice that there was an autosave. Fail either way :stuck_out_tongue: .

#68

Topic:
I think it should be Space-Invader style: when Nihilanth fires electrical pulses etc at the rocks, they smash slightly, this means your cover slowly decreases and makes it more tense!

#69

Yeah… It might not have been Quake but I guessed Quake because of it using Queen music, and I had recently installed it. I’m sure Valve didn’t do it.

#70

Did you have a Queen CD in the CD drive?
Does that work in Steam HL? I know it has the music in the GCFs, so did they code that out?
Quake probably works in a similar manner, as Goldsource is based of Quake’s engine. Reads the music off the CD…

#71

Don’t you think I tried that autosave? It did not work. I had to replay through all of Xen to get past it.

#72

I liked the Nihilanth battle the way it was…

#73

half-Life plays whatever music you have on cd in your cd drive. I dont know why but I have on many occasions started Half-Life up to my metal music playing.

#74

half life was developed in a time when playing mp3s would tax a computer too much, so playing tracks straight from the half life cd was the most efficient way of doing things.
I remember on many computers at the time the game would freeze while the cd drive spun up.

#75

Haha, man that takes me back.

One of the WON patches killed my music completely. The scare moments were pretty flat without the stinger tracks playing. :frowning:

Had to wait for Steam HL before I could hear them again.

#76

I think a problem would be to not make the boss battle have too many cliches. (Insert line above e) Such as jumping a shock wave ETC.

#77

I just hated the fact that he plays the same animations over and over again, his movement and attack is so predictable. If they could just shake things up that would be enough.

#78

Literally. Have a sort of psychic blast that shakes the chamber and throws loads of heavy physics crap all around. Would also stop the player hiding behind the same object the entire battle.

By Joe! I’ve done it! :3

#79

Nihilant 7/10 until you figured out the crystals. After knowing that, no player perceives him as a threat anymore.

“Why is that Goat boy?”

Well because psychologically threatening behaviour would involve him advancing towards you (like the chopper and the Gargantua or even a headcrab do), or at least be near-coverless against his attacks (e.g. without those stalagmites).

The only way to really, really scare the player/playerette, is send something big after him/her, something that screams lingo in frequencies his/her ear is not accustomed to (huh reminds me of me mother). That addresses our instinct we developed hiding from big predators over the past few years.

So unless Nihilanth comes down and starts grabbing those spikes with his arms and starts hurling those energy-balls at you, you will keep thinking “No problem I can hide from him”. (Illusionary vorts aiding real vorts might work as well).

#80

I think that Nihilant must be even more hard to kill than in Half-Life, I mean…He is the final battle…

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