I fail to see why assassins need to climb up objects in the middle of a firefight since the player would just easily pick them off. I thought the point of the assasins was that they don’t let themselves be exposed to gunfire, at least for long periods of time…
I had an idea for the assassins before the forum crash. It simply took modern special forces tactics and applied them to the black ops/assassins, i.e. a silenced MP5 (non-usable, of course), the ability to lie down, the coding to always stay in the shadows and an aversion to flying right in and jumping about like a ninny as the assassins did in Half-Life. Clearly this divides people’s views because half seemed to enjoy the ridiculousness of the bouncing whilst the other half favoured realism.
If it’s not too late, how about a compromise? Half the assassins (it could be two, I can’t remember how many you were faced with) could stay back and provide cover whilst the other half sneak in and attempt to ambush the player with stealth. The player will always deal with the closest ones first, but will undoubtedly be left with two other, more difficult ones. These last two would be far more difficult to kill because their AI could be such that they won’t face you head-on unless they have no other option, choosing rather to take cover in darker areas and take shots at you when you expose yourself. If that’s too hard then you could add a laser-dot (and I mean a single dot rather than a laser beam) to give you some clue as to where they’re hiding.
The lack of this concept really annoyed me with Half-Life 2’s AI. Firefights in real life can take hours because neither party is willing to risk their lives or compromise their position by looking for a clean shot. I really wanted firefights to reflect this, and have the enemy take good use of cover, and only come out to fire a few shots in your direction. The Combine in HL2 just ran towards you firing as they went. All you had to do was fire your weapon and hope that you killed them before they killed you. Retarded in the extreme.
I’d like to see some actual suppressing fire, not just from the assasins but for the soldiers too.
It’d be a tough choice: expose yourself and take out the guys moving around while you’re supposedly being suppressed, or hide to avoid damage but allow the enemy to get a better position.
I agree with this completely. also have their voices mean something, so that when commander says move then maggot actually moves instead of just stand there and get owned.
As long as they’re not the bullet sponges thay were in HL1… that has always been, and always will be, my least favorite game mechanic of all time.
Make them tactical geniuses, give them huge numbers, make them nade spammers, ANYTHING but having to unload a clip into their unprotected faces to take them down while they sit there and take it.
/offtopic
Anyways, @Floyd: I like the red dot idea, but I don’t know how well it would help you find them. It doesn’t help you find sniprs in TF2, after all 
They COULD put a solid beam, but it only flashes for a split-second before they shoot, and they run from that area immediately… but really I don’t think making it easier to find them is really necessary in the first place. Hunting them down yould be more fun 
You could see the dot from the laser and the ''light" from the laser device on the gun. This last one can help you to find the assassin when hide in shadows or dark areas.
I agree that assassins and grunts as well use tactics than raw force to take you down but isn’t that hard to code ?
That’s a common problem in most every FPS/shooters nowadays : too tactical and you get killed without notice or a bit dumb but using spamming to balance.
Not as hard as coding the adaptive AI for the grunts. They wouldn’t necessarily have to move even, they could be more like the snipers in HL2. As long as they’re lying down, in lots of cover and in darkness, they could be more scripted rather than coded. Maybe that will make them too similar to the grunt snipers though.
Perhaps they could enter the battle once the player gets close enough, when a grenade is thrown to them or when they receive a certain amount of damage. Just something to stop them being too similar to snipers and too jumpy like the original.
It wouldn’t help you to pinpoint their exact location, but it would give you a rough area to look in. Then all you’d need to do would be to look out for the flash of their muzzle. I agree that hunting them down would be more fun though.
That gives me an idea. Another thing that frustrated me about the two areas that you encounter assassins in, was that it was all so limiting. The problem was that there was only ever one way to get upstairs and you had to kill all the assassins to get there. Perhaps it was part of the design, but I think it would be far more enjoyably tense if the areas were littered with boxes, crates and other objects that the player could climb up onto in order to reach a different level. It makes sense since you only encounter them in warehouses. It would also provide interesting displays of acrobatics by the assassin’s and tactical dilemmas for the player.
Most fire fights actually don’t last very long, most of them take place over the span of a few minutes unless you’re in Faluja and you have an entire city full of enemy combatants or I guess if you and the enemy both have really crappy aim. Although I do agree that the assassins could do with an upgrade in tactics.
You should have a different assassin AI for every weapon the player has out.
I fail to see how adding another means of escape on top of existing abilities makes them easier to target.
Can. When were you the expert on all types of firefights? You may have seen action but in the right circumstances, enough ammunition, people and the right sort of cover, there’s no reason why fire fights can’t last days, let alone hours. I’m recalling a couple of fire fights in WWII that lasted more than an hour, certainly, although not necessarily between two people.
Well fair enough, I wasn’t to know old chap. Now how about that brandy?
… I just posted drunk again didn’t I? Balls.
Most of these fights took place in waves, others took place with either both sides pouring in men and ammo or one side sending their men to be slaughtered in an attempt to send more men at the enemy than the enemy had bullets. Back then it was an acceptable loss if half of the men you sent died. These battles had a high number of casualties. It wasn’t really from both groups camping out behind cover waiting for the other to expose themselves. Wars haven’t been fought like that since WWI and that appears to be what you are suggesting that the assassins should do.
Are you understanding the meaning of the word can? They can last for hours. There’s no denying that.
But you’re wrong about the WWII examples that I’m thinking of. There are a few examples that spring to mind, although I can’t remember their specific names (if, indeed, they had any). There were several on D-Day and in the Battle for Berlin that I specifically remember, but not constant fighting mind you. Usually it was a wait for reinforcements that prolonged it, but that can still be called a firefight. And what war are you thinking of that deems it acceptable to send more men at the enemy than the enemy had bullets? Only in WWI did they do that, and WWII in a few Russian battles when they were low on guns and ammo. Seems you’re being pretty vague about ‘back then’ and ‘acceptable losses’.
My point about the assassin’s tactics was that they should almost work in teams - which is a fair compromise between what people wanted: jumping crazy assassins like in the original and sneaky and stealthy assassins like modern secret forces. Two would stay back in the shadows and lying down and provide covering fire, the other two would move forward and behave like the assassins did in the first place. Simple as.
I’m surprised at you, The Javid. Although I can understand the tendency of veterans to not follow contemporary war reporting closely, since I imagine you’re quite sick of it.
Fucking ow. Cruelest videogame enemy ever.
Assassins are supposed to be fast, and climbing things is not a very fast activity.
That woman in the video would be a sitting duck if she was a video game character, and the player had to shoot her off that cliff. It only takes a couple of seconds to waste an assassin if one uses the right weaponry.
Right, a guy with a ponytail and a brightly colored shirt climbing rocks in broad dailight would be a sitting duck in a firefight, but you didn’t get the point. That was a massive (100+ft) cliff and the guy climbed it in 140sec - image how fast he could get over and around the ~10/15/20ft obstacles in your average HL level.
You don’t know what parcour is do you?