I don't know how to feel about this mod. On one hand, there are times when I feel like shit, and get super annoyed since this mod punishes people really harshly for being too cocky, when that's how I usually handle combat in source games. On the other hand, I feel really good when I do well during combat sections. The episode 2 antlion defense part is really fun though. 9/10

Its a good mod, nice for a touch of realism with the head shots being effective. But in my opinion it takes away a lot of the run and gun aspect to half life. Having played the game before I know what to expect but there are certain parts that are just a gruel and not balanced. Even on easy, water hazard is virtually impossible to get through. I think maybe if you reduced the damage done to the player by a fraction it'll be perfect. I will try a proper dedicated playthrough soon on normal and see how it goes.

This game is now so brutal, I love it.

Rebels seem to do very little damage to soldiers even with this mod. Other than that, this is a great mod!

this is exactly what i was looking for in the hard difficulty. thanks so much for adding this! much love :3

No worries, glad I could help out, because this really is the best HL2 mod going. That Hard difficulty scaling was just miserable to play against without enemy hit reactions.
Hey I wanted to ask, say I wanted to use your mod, but I also wanted 18 reserve .357 ammo instead of 12. Is there somewhere I could put/edit a file that would keep your settings for the most part, but just override a couple of them?
Also my autoexec.cfg file doesn't seem to work any more, and I'm not sure if it's because this mod is overriding it.

I tested it. That really is odd. If you walk backwards a bit, you won't take damage and the scene will play out. Must be a weird damage multiplier during that script.

The hunter in episode 2 kills you (even on full health) when it stabs Alyx and soft locks the game

Best Half-Life 2 mod. Like some have mentioned, you have to play some parts in a very linear fashion with a different strategy. Some parts of Water Hazard are best done on foot, and parts with exclusively a Gravity gun require using a lot of cover.

Strongly recommend you combine this with the "Running Zombies" mod.

nvm I did it, I had to take more cover

I love this mod and it's great, really inmersive and all that, the only problem that I see is on the citadel, you only have the gravity gun and there's just too many combine soldiers spawning, I don't know if there could be a way to make that chapter better or more doable because atleast on hard difficulty is almost impossible doesn't matter if you take cover or not, idk maybe there's a way to increase your suit charge on this chapter?
This it's just an advice for the people that decide to play this mod on hard, **Change the difficulty in "Our benefactors" to medium, or easy**
Honestly this is a goated mod, it's incredibly fun, our benefactors is the only thing keeping it from perfect 4.9/5

My main problem with this mod is the Water Hazard part. The mod improves the combat throughout the game. But for parts like Water Hazard where you're basically taking enemy fire while speeding with an airboat makes the level unbearably unbalanced.

water hazard was always a sort of eh level imo already, so turning on godmode to pass the fire barrier wasn't that bad, and besides that one issue, this mod is great

reminds me a lot of the lethal difficulty in Ghost of Tsushima, which i absolutely ADORE

keep up the good work

naryan, thank you for commenting this. I tested these fights previously without issue but I just tested it again, and you're right. I changed Strider health back to 5 increments for all difficulties and it works. (Old cfg was 1,2,3 for easy, normal, hard. Default hl2 is 5,7,7)

Yeah, for some reason that fire barricade in d1_canals_07 hurts the player a lot while driving through it in the airboat. It's this mod and the only chapter that does it. Have as much armor as possible or switch to easy before that jump.

Also, I think when you changed the Striders' health, you inadvertently made it much easier to sequence break and thus soft lock.
I accidentally did exactly that in the “get to the horse” sequence near the end of the base game,
and then out of curiousity I tried to do the same with the sequence at the end of Episode 1, and easily soft-locked myself there too.
I think because certain geometry-altering Striders are supposed to be extra hard or impossible to kill before a certain trigger, but now can be killed just like any Striders, any time, which under this mod only takes two hits.
Certain Striders need to be singled out as exceptions.
Probably the Strider near the end of the base game that chases you down the long, abandoned street with a single Combine at the end, needs this treatment too.

idk if its this mod, but the fire is so unfair in d1_canals_07

can you upload this to gmod? thanks

There's not many combine shotgunners throughout the game. They're pretty dangerous but just prioritize them in a gunfight, approach them differently, and try to keep distance!

Shotgun need urgent nerf, easy death or kill combine, reajust urgent nerf distance shot

I think i fell in love with you Impulse, for making thisssssszzsszsh appreciate your work

I agreed, AI should be more aggressive in harder mode, not just bullet sponge.

Added in another nice ragdoll setting to this mod. Sleep time increased from 5 seconds to 20. Sleep time is when a ragdoll freezes in place to reduce stress on cpu. 5 is a little short and causes ragdolls to freeze in place while rolling down stairs and while hanging from a guard rail.

Probably depends on the AI and what gun they're using. But I would guess it's more 50/50 now since both of their health is the same. A combine elite will solo 2 rebels easily though.

Question, does this addon resolve the 'problem' of a single rebel managing to kill 2 combine soldiers while being flanked by them?

This happens a lot in the base game xD

this is pretty good, actually

I've been doing the game story and my god its AWFULL IN THE CIDATEL PART, YOU TAKE SO MUCH DAMAGE

Great mod, really makes you feel benefit of fully charged HEV

Great mod!

Damage Received: easy=2x, normal=5x, hard=7x. Normal will be the best and most balanced as it makes putting gunships and striders down faster. Hard is for that extra challenge if you like using cover and slower play to survive. Easy is pretty much just there if you're getting stuck in a hard spot like the end of Ep2.

How great is the difference based on difficulties, especially the damage you take?

If this is a file I can find in the game folders, with your permission, I'd like to add it to the other Half Life 2 mods out there for a customized experience. I was thinking on picking different difficulties based on what the player character uses.

If you're playing as a Rebel, you'll take more damage than someone wearing an HEV Suit for example, so I'd go for Hard Mode. I don't know how tougher a Combine Soldier's gear would be compared to an HEV Suit, so if I'm playing Entropy Zero or Combine Destiny I'd pick Easy or Normal.

Sorry for the exposition dump, I wanted to explain why I'm asking these questions

Combine soldiers are still tough. Using the AR2 and aiming for the head just puts them down much faster.

I love this, but before I download, I'd like to ask a couple of questions:

Does this mod take into consideration that you're wearing an HEV Suit and Combine soldiers wear Advanced Amor? I have the feeling that this type of wear would make the user more resistant to gunfire

me likey

The only chapter that may struggle with unlimited antlions is This Vortal Coil. Other than that, HL2 and EP1 run perfectly.

Luis, I'll set this mod to a reasonable but generous limit on the ragdoll corpse limit. Since I do notice the game only struggles in the Ep2 Vortal Coil chapter it you're loading back into the area that has 200+ corpses. And Zen, you do not.

do you have to enter these cheats every time you load the game up?

The game might crash for many due to the excessive number of antlion ragdolls. These commands are crucial to prevent crashes.

sv_cheats 1 // Enables cheats to use these commands
g_ragdoll_lvfadespeed 1 // Normal fade-out speed for ragdolls
g_ragdoll_fadespeed 10 // Controls the ragdoll fade-out speed

Alright, it should be compatible now. Thank you, Vitamin.

Hi! This mod conflicts with Script MultiLoader, and it doesn't really need to. If you add this into skill_manifest.cfg,

// Skill config. DO NOT TOUCH!!!
exec "skill.cfg"
exec SCRO-hl2.cfg

// ScriptLoader
exec "script_loader_1.cfg"
exec "script_loader_2.cfg"
exec "script_loader_3.cfg"
exec "script_loader_4.cfg"
exec "script_loader_Clear.cfg" // You'll want to keep this below all the numbered script loaders.

It will prevent issues from this mod overwriting the same config in Script MultiLoader. You might consider porting this to Script MultiLoader, or adding a stub config there that execs yours, since this could still break if Script MultiLoader's skill_manifest takes precedence instead.

Check it out here:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3367265657

probably conflicting with a config/script mod.

I am having difficulty getting this to work. No matter where I place it in the load order, the changes as described above do not seem to take effect.

1.0 I'll test it.

what's the hunter's damage set to now?

Made changes to Strider and Combine window snipers. Strider damage has been reduced and will now kill player in about 6 shots on hard difficulty, 10 medium, and 20+ on easy.

Snipers will dust you in 2 shots (1 if no armor) on any difficulty at max health.

is a Strider supposed to one-shot me on 100% hp in hard diff?

Wait, the AR2 is supposed to be a Battle Rifle? So why was it so weak in the vanilla game then?

set sk_hunter_buckshot_damage_scale too 0.875

I think 90 is balanced since I also increased its damage so it hits a lot harder now. it also holds 4 energy balls now too. Try it out.

can you add a bit more ammo to the ar2?
something like it going from 60 bullets to 120 or 150