Hopefully this is the case cuz it’s really kind of unacceptable the way it looks now. I didn’t hear anything from them but I did bring this up in another thread which at least one dev has seen.
For Text, when you get a chance, can you post up a screen or two of the marine side of the satchel pipe scene? I’m curious to see how that’s going.
Lol. Alien fists banging on a tank causes the tank to explode. It’s so stupid but better than what’s currently there. I think the best alternative would be to program the vorts to do massive damage to vehicles (e.g. 2-shotting a tank) and script them to attack the tank right when the player sees them. Their energy-based attacks would wreck the electronics on mech units, which is much more realistic.
Vortigaunts do seem like the best solution in dealing with vehicles. Have their attacks do more damage to vehicles and problems like these are easily solved.
You know I just played through the original OAR tonight for my Half-Mesa playthrough and I have to say the Xen aliens v.s the HECU battles…consistently went to the HECU except for the 2nd one I believe it was.
In fact the power of the aliens in BM is very similar to their power in HL as far as I can tell.
That said I don’t see an real point in adding more alien HECU battles to BM’s OAR…maybe one more. Or at least more of a presence for the aliens. Perhaps add more travel for an extra load zone or two if you must have added length.
However I don’t see how track switching could even work in BM since all the switches seem to be digital.
My feedback on the two surface tension maps from the youtube videos:
Did Mantas use lasers in half life? I cant remember. Its cool but If it wasnt in the original game I wouldnt really want to see something that extreme added to them. (Who knows if mantas will show up again in episode 3?) I feel like you overuse them a little bit. The part where two of them fly off “in formation” feels goofy for an organic species. Its a little too bombastic and feels like its trying too hard to create a moment that “was never there” in the first place. The cactuses along the road in the interior road bit (where you replaced the warehouse)…They stand out to me and i’m not a big fan of how they look there. The road itself feels like its explicitly there to “allow for the rest of the level to fit together nicely” Its an inorganic element and I feel changing it from a warehouse has created more problems than it solved.
I feel like certain tactics you use, like hitting a switch fast and then hiding, or ducking repeatedly behind sandbags, are not tactics most people use. they feel unnatural and a little too “pro” for most players. Shooting snipers from a distance with a pistol feels unnatural. This area doesnt need a combat puzzle, especially because the solution feels exploitative of the AI (as well as using weapons for situations that dont feel honest to the general purpose of the weapon itself).
I can barely tell the HECU marine is in the vent when he throws the grenade. The effects are TOO strong there, they obscure the point of the scene which is “oh fuck this guy got the jump on me”. Speaking of too many effects, the air vents platforming bit seems like particle overload, and the crashed harrier has WAY too many particles going on. Why is it there? Theres “Adding to the feeling” and then theres “hamming it up”. Overdoing what you’re trying to achieve can end up deflating the intended feeling wholesale. The point of the last part of the area is to find barney and get him to the computer, adding too much to that feels cluttery and messy. (If your warp in sound effects are overlaying then you might have too many enemies. you want to avoid feeling cartoonish and silly. Creating atmosphere for a battlefield requires a deft touch. Too much and it feels like gears of war stupidity, you need to know when to pull back and not smother the cool moment you’ve created with too much distracting fluff, regardless of how impressive and cool it is)
I feel like the furnace puzzle is too complicated. The logic doesnt really work and I dont understand why the fire comes from two places like it does (two part puzzels can be very messy. Theres too much room for misdirection and confusion when you’re solving two different things to open up a gate)
The last few jumps before getting to the room barney is in feel unnatural. Jumping at a tight angle like that is no fun, the large room full of air vents doesnt really make sense and I dont know why theres a puzzle involving shot up vents comically aranged with bullet holes in impossible to shoot locations. It doesnt feel condusive to the half life style of jumping puzzle design. Large rooms arent always better than small rooms. It feels like you have large rooms that lead into continuously larger rooms which feels overwhelming by the time you reach barney.
Its important to keep first time players in mind, as BMS is bringing in alot of people who never played the original half life, so its important to consider that most of your audience arent pro’s to the original game, or know how to exploit certain behaviors to get through a situation. Half life isnt a hard game, its more about memorable situations than testing your might against super tricky tricks and super tough shootouts. reigning it in is important.
It looks really cool overall though and I cant wait to play the finished product. (along with the final version of BMS. Hell if its good enough in the end I’d love to see this brought into the mod itself) Hope this feedback helps.
While I appreciate the time you spent writing these criticisms for my maps, as well as the intents, you have clearly come at this from an uninformed angle - had you kept up with the some 36 pages of thread, which you haven’t (understandably so, there’s a lot!), lots of your criticisms would have disappeared or been addressed.
Mantas did use lasers in HL1, so that’s immediately addressed. They also dropped off troops on occasions but I decided not to use that. In fact, this was the first criticism I’ve heard from the large amount of feedback I’ve received that took issue with my use of the manta lasers, rather than the implementation. So I don’t see it as a problem. Again, I’ve received boatloads of praise over my idea for that scene, and the only criticisms I’ve had so far for it were how it looked rather than its existence in the first place.
I also fail to see how using Mantas twice over the course of three levels, where the war is supposed to be hitting its absolute high point, is “overusing them”. If anything Black Mesa seriously underused them where they were heavily used in the original Half Life.
You have also raised the first criticism I have seen over that road which I am very proud of, and I don’t really understand it. A road is an “inorganic” element. If you’re referring to the flow of the level, again, I don’t see how it’s inorganic. It’s a wall along a secure road. It’s not far fetched.
As for your criticism over the HECU in the pipe scene it’s already been addressed several times over. The scene has been heavily revised since then.
And crashed Harrier? There’s no crashed Harrier on any of my maps. And if your criticism is of the Apache crash, which I’m fairly sure it is, then this has all been addressed too. The Apache crash was an idea I had at the last minute and very sloppily threw together for the purposes of demonstration. And if the particle effects is your complaint, well, my method for having the Apache crash was to spawn an NPC Apache in the air outside and immediately kill it. All the effects and destruction there are entirely a product of how the BMS devs designed Apache deaths, including the really thick smoke.
Your criticism of warp-in sound effects is again, a little bit uninformed - as I’ve just used the standard env_xen_portal entity with no additions whatsoever.
The furnace puzzle has also been heavily revised, which has been said before many times too.
As for vents and bullet holes I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you’re referring to my gasworks then again, it’s the first criticism I’ve heard, which is funny considering I was expecting a lot. I think you’ve missed the point of that section - they’re ruptured gas lines, not bullet holes. If a pipe is ruptured along a join, gas will leak out, it’s as simple as that. No bullet holes needed.
As for the large room thing you’re on about? Yeah, no idea again. The gasworks is literally the only room in the entire level which is bigger than the original HL, and that’s because the part it replaces was utterly terrible in the original. Seriously, go back and play C2A5F. That part was awful and ugly. As for the jumps, I’ve already addressed this too - it’s been revised.
As for your criticisms of the way I play as a proxy indicator of my encounter design, again that’s another untenable criticism.
This is irrelevant. Just because I play in that way does not mean, by any measure, that other players will need to know how to play that way in order to beat my maps. This is a criticism of the way I play, not my maps. It’s totally irrelevant. I’m not doing anything the game doesn’t permit or isn’t designed to do. The Pistol is very accurate. I didn’t have to use it to kill those Marines on the roof, I could have spammed all my MP5 at them like most players would have too. It feels like you are taking issue here with something which doesn’t mean anything. My level design by no means forces the player to do any of these things. My solutions to the combat are definitely not the only ones, and I think it’s narrow minded to suggest so. As I did say on both my videos - the combat in my game is super tough because I use a custom skill.cfg which makes the enemies a lot tougher. Having tested it on a normal skill.cfg too, I can safely say there’s nothing horrendously taxing on any of my maps.
Overall you can see I’m a little irked, because I’m defending my work from criticisms which have been addressed ad infinitum. It sounds to me like you have a very fundamental objection to what I’m doing which I am unwilling to (and I think its a little unreasonable to ask me) to address. If that is the case I suggest you steer away, if it’s clearly not for you.
I hope this has addressed things sufficiently. I must get back to work now - I am releasing this to alpha tomorrow and it’s not close yet.
I don’t know if it was adressed, but there is a crashed Osprey:
in FaF, during Tank battle ourdoors, there’s a carshed osprey, behind the fence.
Don’t know if it helps, but you could use it at one point.
I’m glad to hear about the progress it’s made! (the immediacy of the reply is cool too!) Sorry I just discovered this thread this evening and hadnt looked through it, I did go through all your youtube videos and enjoyed the runthroughs.
I think these maps look really impressive, as a level designer myself I tend to look at game feel on a map pretty heavily, but I do think it looks interesting and would love to see it integrated into the actual campaign as part of BMS proper (hearing about what happened to the original surface tension maps they were planning on using is a bummer) I’m glad most of my criticisms have been addressed. Again I apologize for not reviewing the full thread before replying and I’m sorry for any currently irrelevant feedback.
I guess I’ll respond with things I wasnt clear on:
The comments on your “pro” tactics were more from the perspective of being concerned that getting in through the rooftop would be far more difficult without using the maneuvers you did. Part of what made half life great was how many options you have for tackling a scenario and I was just concerned “snipe the HECU, juke out and back from the sniper” would be required due to the sniper’s veracity and being flanked by the marines on the roof. It’s more a concern than a complaint.
I’m glad I was wrong about the mantis laser, (Honestly wasnt sure if that happened or not in the original game) because I really liked seeing that thing in action! It does give a feeling of “They’re glassing over us”, I was mostly just concerned that double usage lessens the second use of it, but thats more a nitpick than anything, really. The part where two fly out from overhead as you exit the tunnel (into the big battle where the second laser occurs) I feel the path they take could be improved. Maybe raise one of them much higher above the other, and vary the angle and how much you lead into it on one of them a little.
The second mantis encounter room just feels like it overuses aerial storytelling just a smidge, clutter and overuse can make it feel like a george lucas scene. Valve does it alot, but they pick effective use of a scenario or encounter and cut those that feel like they dont build on or impact the scene in a way that is unique from the highlight encounters. Between the two rooms, about 5 mantas are used in the scene, when we really only need about 3. The player encounters 5 of these and 2 harrier chases in the span of a few minutes. For all of this to be going on over the exact map that the player is in feels a little contrived, considering how wide air battles are. Were they in the distance or the corner of the eye, where noticing them becomes a treat, it would still maintain that impact without risking leaving any single use of a flying object as trite.
About the road, the one that kind of S shapes between the area you blow up the door with and the area the manta fires its laser, something about the shape of it makes it look like an odd spot. It doesnt quite…feel right. I feel like the cacti wouldn’t be in that roadway, so close between the paved road and the cement walls in a narrow space, they’re too big of “shrubbery” for the enclosed spot. How that area would have been constructed realistically, they’d have been uprooted. The aliens pop out after you blow up that wall, so maybe use marine supplies, toppled barricades, and dead marines to fill in the area so it doesnt look empty without cacti? (obviously not adding a ton of them there, but just a few moments ago tons of aliens were on the other side of that wall, and then you cross over and see no evidence of thier presence, but you find an abandoned truck. A little more could be done to tune the atmosphere impact in that bit.)
The thing about the warp in sound effect wasnt a commentary on the sound used, but on that the vorts warping in there after you’ve cleared out the area seems like too much, like they’re just there to have a “turret sequence” (the worst parts of Mass Effect 3) The impact of that area being overtaken is already instilled due to the impact of the battle that occurs while that second manta blasts the pavement. It feels so “and there it is”, finale to the encounter that having more aliens spawn in feels like a videogame contrivance in the interest of difficulty, rather than aiding narrative.
You go through a hallway battle with a rocket turret, a large setpiece with 2 flybys and a manta laser, followed by a creepy bit where a man gets thrown through a wall, and then you get 3 more flybys and another manta laser, with a second, regular turret sequence to cap that off.
It feels like its amping higher than what the narrative requires, and toning down certain elements, removing the turret sequence (where you shoot at vorts and brutes that spawn in behind you) and distancing half of the flybys (the ones that end up being for “atmosphere”, to be specific) over “other” areas of the compound by just moving them farther away from where they are (still being visible from those open areas, but just in the distance) rather than having 7 things fly directly over gordon freeman’s head in 17 minutes, would improve the flow of the scene. The density of those planes and mantas during that moment, but not in any other gives it a wierd, jerky feel that trimming or scattering could easily address. (obviously keep the two that shoot lasers as is, its the others that could have more done with them as scene dressing)
For the air vents platforming bit right before barney, sorry I misunderstood it. It does make sense as just ruptures. I’m still not sure why they’re in that room or what the room is supposed to be. It feels like its larger than it needs to be and the punishment for missing a jump towards the end would be too severe due to the length of the segment and the amount of legwork it would take to work your way back to it. Having it all progress along a single “line” means if you fall you have to run the entire length of the segment to retry it. Having the platforms feed back around themselves, while being more work, would mitigate the frustration missing a jump would cause, with fail-state backtracking time being cut down as a result.
I think the angle you’re expected to jump to reach the pipes right before the big cylindrical platform (Its the one that you slip off in the demo video, for reference) looks like it could be a little too obscure/unnatural of a jump to expect all players to have confidence in making. It looks a little bit tougher than it should.
I feel like the leadup to the barney is, in the version I saw, less exciting than it could be, and involves like 30% more “running along” than it needs. The area, in the youtube video, feels too large and that makes it empty as a gameplay environment.
Overall I really enjoy the look of the environment and I love seeing those moments back in the game. Some of the additional moments feel like overuse, and that they just need to be reeled in a little, but that is just my feedback on scenario flow. Sorry again if I seem too critical but thats just part of my job and its just impossible to turn off.
I cant wait to see how development on this mod of a mod continues. I’ll be keeping an eye on your youtube channel.
I’m very glad you took the time to write this reply - it’s cleared up a lot of things I was unsure about. So thank you for that. You have many valid criticisms and worries, though, I’m afraid (as is par for the course) that I cannot identify with all of them. I’ll try and address all of what you say.
The rooftop scene played out the way it did on my demo because of bad luck, really. On most testruns I did there was only ever 1 survivor of the mini-rooftop fight (normally a very injured Marine), but it just so happened that on that playthrough the Alien Grunt decided to try and melee them rather than shooting them, resulting in him dying without injuring either of the 2. So that fight was harder than it should have been. I have since added a Vort to that scene and there’s nearly always only 1 survivor. That should have addressed it. As for the Sniper I’ve already added more interesting cover in places.
Bear in mind your analysis of me “overusing” the aerial elements, is probably the most subjective element of all your criticisms. I understand where you’re coming from, but I personally feel my maps teeter precariously just on the edge of overdoing it, without overdoing it. With Surface Tension being the climax of combat I personally feel it suits the overblown atmosphere that’s supposed to be present in the chapter. That’s not to discount your opinion. I understand some might find it to be too much. But I personally don’t, and I haven’t seen many that do. So, if the majority of people I’ve seen don’t think it’s overdone, and I don’t, I see no reason to change it just yet. I’ll wait till I garner further and wider feedback before doing anything. If I hear it enough times, I may change it. But I put a lot of work into those scenes, I’d like them to continue to exist! I have changed the scenes a fair bit now, I think you’ll find the current iteration to be much better. There will be a C2A5H video tomorrow, along with the media and alpha release. I think I’m on track for a release tomorrow though it is going to be close!
I did only put the cacti on the S road to make it look prettier. I’ll swap them out for marines and see if it looks better. I think most people won’t think about it as in depth as you did though, so I’m not sure it’s a problem. Like the aerial battles, we’ll see. I’ll be getting a lot of detailed feedback from my some-20 alpha testers come Tuesday, there’ll be a lot changed.
I agree with you about the wave of aliens that appears for the second 50Cal, they’ve already been cut.
As for the jumping platforming section, I hadn’t considered the last jump as being overtly difficult (even though I failed it, we can all muck up basic things sometimes!), but that’s because the platforming aspect of Source games has always been very easy for me (playing lots of BHop and KZ on CS). I now see that the last few jumps are a tad tricky, I’ll see what I can do about it. As for the unforgiving nature of that segment, I can appreciate your concerns here. There’s no easy way around it, unfortunately. Making the last few jumps easier should alleviate this problem, however. I’m also tempted to add a walkway extending around the security office to make the path clearer, and/or adding another wave of aliens during that section.
Hopefully during the release you’ll see many of your criticisms answered in kind, and I hope you guys all like it. Thank you for taking your time to write such detailed and critical feedback, I do appreciate it. And I apologize if I came across a tad aggressive in my previous post, with university ramping up the difficulty and the imminent release tomorrow, coupled with the fact I did no work at all yesterday, I’m a little wound up!
About the aerial elements, Forget about Freeman (or FaF) towards the end of it with the tank before Lambada Core you see a huge aerial battle going on, plugging in the mantas the way he has really makes it make more sense, although I think you should hear the occasional manta/harrier fly-by in the distance throughout the maps, things can’t always be perfect.
That being said I think they’re fine the way they are, in some cases they can go for some improvement, but what can’t now’adays.
On a side note, if you get one of the NPC’s (not the aliens) to use the .50 cal initially before getting whacked by the aliens, it’d prolly be a good idea.
I would prefer if he keep foget about freeman untouched. I think this chapter was developers best piece of work and changing it may break atmosphere, especially dusk, air fight, music, etc. were just awesome and I won’t be glad if he changes it.
For me, the problem with FAF is the same that affected ST and BM in general: needs moar xenians. FAF gave me the impression that the HECU were winning the battle (or at least being at superior in some way), specially in the topside area, where you see the Abrams and soldiers calmly patrolling the area. I missed a big FUBAR battle against the aliens there.
Got an idea for the platforming section. Have some houndeyes spawn down there, so if the player falls, he/she has to fight them. Before someone says that it’s too “depressing” then for first, it’s called surface tension for a reason, and what’s the point in platforming when it’s as easy as just moving forward?
Also before a comment that it’s too random for hounds to spawn JUST as Gordon jumps pipes, there are many moments like this in HL series, it’s just a videogame.
But if I would not install your faf map but I would install your surface tension maps wouldn’t it miss transition between your surface tension map and original forget about freeman map ?
In HL, there were no houndeyes in ST and adding them detracts from the feel of this level. The point of this chapter is to showcase what happens when the HECU encounters the alien military proper (an ass whooping), hence the predominance of Agrunts and vorts. Houndeyes, bullsquids, etc. are for earlier chapters, when the purpose of the game was to create a sense of xenofauna gone wild.
I gotta say that that Ocular guy has some bizarre criticisms. I think you should keep the cacti…they are part of the rest of ST and add to the desert feel of the map. The cacti look unusual, but they kind of do in general in BMS.
Regarding the over-the-topness of C2A5G-H, one thing Text didn’t mention is that the point of these scenes is not just for storytelling (e.g. showing why the HECU need to pull out). From a gameplay perspective, the scenes are meant to demonstrate that Xenians are worthy enemies/successors to the HECU. You must establish this effect to give credibility to the rest of the game, as the HECU disappear entirely once you get to Lambda Core and it’s just aliens till the endgame. It’s always been Valve’s policy to gradually transition you from the familiar to the unfamiliar (e.g. City 17 -> citadel) and Text’s chapters really reinforce that.
Final pre-alpha suggestions for Text
Add a cracked pavement effect on the helipad that extends radially from the manta beam impact site, similar to what you did for the wall in the car shop. This will help get rid of the “too clean” appearance of the pad once the Osprey is destroyed.
Similary add the same effect to follow the manta’s stream before he kills the Abrahms.
If you are running behind on your modding, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to delay the alpha by a few days. Now that you’ve changed the furnace puzzle, the only area that could potentially be problematic is the garg chase. The rest of the areas shouldn’t be too buggy, considering that you’ve been testing while designing. Gameplay wise, everything should be fine and you’ll only have to make minor adjustments. I’d personally like to see as much polish before release as possible. That way you won’t get the same gripes from the testers on effects, etc. that you already know to change.
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.
