I think it's universally agreed that first two chapter - Xen and Gonarch Lair are mostly great. They of course would benefit from increased enoucnter difficulty. The huge problem is that infavous second half of interloper and its never ending plug puzzles which are all the same. The chapter should be half in length imo.

While I think BM's rendition of Xen is gorgeous, I prefer HL1's sickly look.

Originally posted by Shrek 2 for Nintendo Gamecube:

While I think BM's rendition of Xen is gorgeous, I prefer HL1's sickly look.

We've been experimenting with restoring this look for certain maps.

Originally posted by Vassago Rain:

Originally posted by Shrek 2 for Nintendo Gamecube:

While I think BM's rendition of Xen is gorgeous, I prefer HL1's sickly look.

We've been experimenting with restoring this look for certain maps.

Would love to see a reimagining of Half-Life's original Xen art direction in the new levels. Black Mesa's Xen is certainly quite good, specially for being in the antiquated sorse engine, but it goes against everything that made the original xen unique, making it look like a weird mixture of Avatar and Doom 2016 with Combine technology. For me personally the worst offender was the Nihilanth's portal. In Half-Life it was a complete pitch-black place in the middle of nowhere with a singular creepy portal to go through. While in Black Mesa it's seen through almost every single level losing the feel that desolate feel and in the end there's that stupid inspiring music that's plaging the entire game and is technically good but doesn't fit Half-Life at all, with the manta rays flying around Gordon with purple and red bleeding everywere, it's quite unbelievable how much they managed to screw the aesthetics, specially since Xen was in development for like 5 years.

That feels a bit too far out of the scope of the mod, but some of it does fall inside the scope. We'll see when we get there.
What they were doing for 5 years is up for debate.

Originally posted by hebert:

Originally posted by Vassago Rain:

We've been experimenting with restoring this look for certain maps.

Would love to see a reimagining of Half-Life's original Xen art direction in the new levels. Black Mesa's Xen is certainly quite good, specially for being in the antiquated sorse engine, but it goes against everything that made the original xen unique, making it look like a weird mixture of Avatar and Doom 2016 with Combine technology. For me personally the worst offender was the Nihilanth's portal. In Half-Life it was a complete pitch-black place in the middle of nowhere with a singular creepy portal to go through. While in Black Mesa it's seen through almost every single level losing the feel that desolate feel and in the end there's that stupid inspiring music that's plaging the entire game and is technically good but doesn't fit Half-Life at all, with the manta rays flying around Gordon with purple and red bleeding everywere, it's quite unbelievable how much they managed to screw the aesthetics, specially since Xen was in development for like 5 years.

They weren't trying to preserv og Xen aesthetics, BM Xen is a complete reimagination, that's why it's so different. Personally, having just played HL1 Xen and BM Xen I think they are both good in their own right. Each has it's strong and weak parts.

I see a lot of people hating on Black Mesa's rendition of Xen purely because it doesn't fit the artstyle of the original Xen. I don't think that's a bad thing. The original Xen levels of Half-Life are objectively bad because the team was put on a massive time crunch at the end of development. The original levels shouldn't be looked at as a frame of reference. With that in mind, I'm going to give my feedback on the Black Mesa Xen levels.

1. Xen - Very whimsical at first, then turns to horror, then turns to subpar puzzle solving and platforming. I don't have many complaints on this chapter, the atmosphere is perfect and the puzzles are bearable since it's the first set you see of them. It does a good job of introducing puzzle elements and building on them, but after a while solving the same puzzles can be tedious on repeat playthroughs; it isn't as pronounced on a first time experience and definitely not as bad as later chapters. I think the puzzles could benefit from alternative solutions for repeat playthroughs, though.

2. Gonarch's Lair - Very intense set of chase scenes broken up by some puzzles. It introduces a few set of puzzle elements that are cool to figure out. The final boss fight is the worst part of the chapter though, despite being quite cool. The Gonarch comes across as a bullet sponge, and pumping it full of rockets and Gauss Gun blasts has no responsiveness and it just feels like chiseling away at a boulder. The first fight at the beginning of the chapter should be toned down, as it takes a ridiculous amount of hits to kill on hard mode. I want to feel like every rocket does something. The fight should be reworked to where you're targeting weak points, like breaking off her legs to weaken its attacks. Then when you deliver the final blow, it shouldn't just explode in a fit of rage (that's what it feels like), it should keel over on the ground and leave evidence of your victory, maybe it could burst open and have its internals spill out.

3. Interloper - This is definitely the worst chapter of the 3. The puzzles come across as repetitive as it's just the same concept repeated without end. They're all the same concept: activate or destroy 3 things so that you can activate or destroy the central thing to unlock the exit. The puzzles should be cut back (although I don't necessarily agree with cutting the whole chapter in half), and some variety in the types of puzzles should be introduced. The worst map of them all is the conveyor belt with the Alien Grunts shooting at you, and the Vortigaunts zapping you, and the Controllers flying around causing mishap. You have to shoot all of the enemies, which is hard to get a good angle on when you're on a narrow conveyor belt moving you around over a bottomless pit. This map should receive a heavy rework to fix all of the problems it has, such as the low amount of maneuverability it has and the extreme enemy spam it throws at you. Finally, the final elevator ride with the Controllers is quite the adrenaline rush, but I think it should prioritize raw skill as opposed to problem solving as your final test. It shouldn't feel like another hurtle being thrown at you, it should feel like everything being thrown your way in a last ditch effort to stop you. Alien Grunts should be pouring in that threaten to overwhelm you if you don't take them out faster than they can spawn, and killing the Controllers should feel like a rush to wipe them all out rather than a strategic leap to each shield generator to expose them. I feel like this chapter relies heavily on the Gluon Gun, and it doesn't really make much sense that for the final bottleneck they would leave infinite healing and ammo pools around for your suit and weapons. After the first few floors of using the Gluon Gun, the aliens should blow up the crystals providing all the healing, then a bunch of supplies get teleported in, almost as if the science team is tracking your progress through Xen and are trying to help you to the best of their abilities. This would force you to ration your ammo and vary your strategies instead of just point and shoot endless beams of energy like a Ghostbuster. Once you reach the top and hit the heavy machinery, it would feel nice if the science team sent one last care package--a box full of snacks, food, water, and other essentials and an encouraging note taped on it confirming that they're watching your progress and wish you the best of luck, saying that you're very close to the source of the portal. Would be a nice send-off and would build off of the earlier supply crate teleports (I think they do have messages on them, but you don't see them most of the time and when they do have messages it's just something like "press on, freeman!")

4. Nihilanth - This is probably my favorite chapter and level. The original had you teleporting around to random rooms every few minutes, which I definitely don't miss and equally hope that you don't bring back. But on a related note, I would like to see enemies being teleported in experimented on as a mechanic. It could start with low level enemies like houndeyes and vortigaunts, then escalate to stuff like the alien grunts as you take out more blue crystal generators. Upon taking out all 3 it could trigger a Gargantuar mini-boss that forces you to either take it out with smart play or run around to avoid it for the rest of the fight. After a while, the Nihilanth should stop spawning enemies and start spawning cars to fling at you, almost as if he's saying "fine, I'll do it myself"

5. Endgame - The only piece of feedback I have for this section is that, after refusing the Gman's offer, you're actually spawned into an area to be killed by enemies instead of shown a brief cutscene. It would add a fun challenge of surviving as long as possible and would feel more complete.

Edit: Not really related, but for On a Rail I would really like to see a "mount" mechanic for the hat so it doesn't go flinging off all the time, like what's done with Wilson in Entropy Zero 2. And make the hat and pizza props immune to knockback from the Controllers' zaps for the elevator section; it doesn't feel good having to constantly reload every 20 seconds because a stray projectile knocked your hat into the void.

In the Interloper factory, how about changing the find-the-plug tasks to simple button presses save for maybe one or two. And that damned water-raising, controller-shield boulder area...maybe just a large storage area of static grunt pods akin to HL1?

Xen was phenomenal, however I agree the puzzles did get a bit excessive later on. I just wanted to say though, one thing I don't want changed is the factory. I love how your messing around with the plugs causes the factory to malfunction and until it's total chaos, and then the Controllers teleport in to see what the heck is going on!

(1/4)

Warning: This series of posts is lengthy and I apologize for it. But this isn't as ambitious as it looks at a glance.

I love all of it on paper, but I do have some thoughts on how you guys could improve the entire Xen experience, and despite how long this series of posts is, most of these ideas are actually pretty simple, I just like over-explaining. Obviously Interloper needs the most work, but I think the entire Xen experience could be made dramatically more impactful with some really simple changes.

I'll start with the basic ideas, but I promise, it gets more interesting after these. For one, obviously, make Xen (the chapter) a little more hostile overall. Not too much. I honestly like the more laid-back vibe of Black Mesa's current Xen, but it could stand to be just a little more threatening. I think making the Charger Houndeyes more dangerous would be a good start, but just having a few Xen patrols every now and then might help. Some occasional Vort packs (the soldier variety, leave the XVorts for Interloper), some AGrunt hunting parties, and maybe a few Controller patrols. Also, I'd say Hazard Suit Zombies are wasted potential, and they'd be a lot more interesting with jogging animations, which could be modified from the Zombine.

For Gonarch's Lair, I think the entire chapter could be a bit higher stakes, and I think the way you do that is encourage players to use their entire arsenal on the Gonarch, not just rockets. Honestly though, I think outside of making the Gonarch fights themselves more interesting and strategic and encouraging using more weapons, I think GL is in a pretty solid place. Maybe throw in a few H.E.V. Zombies here and there, maybe a surprise Vort patrol.

Obviously Interloper is the big one. For one, reduce the number of puzzles later in the chapter. The factory and onward should start out slower paced, and ramp up in intensity the further in you go. Secondly, give players more ground to stand on during the later factory areas, and increase the number of combat encounters. Maybe even play with it by giving the factory maps a tentacle room or two, think of it as organic waste disposal. Adding rooms to the Xen chapters is tricky since they're way harder to model than anything else in the game, so I'm keeping this post light on environment change recommendations. Obviously the infinite gluon should be addressed but I'll get to that later.

The only other smaller gameplay changes I can think of would be fully recreating the Xen Cannon from LC in og HL, but you've already said you don't intend to do that.

(2/4)

Now, here's where things get interesting. This next solution will change the pacing, flow, and design of the entire trek through Xen. It's a bit of a radical idea, but I'm gonna throw it out there. Give the player a backpack of bullets... no seriously. The one thing the original Xen does indisputably better than the current Xen is long term consequences and resource management. Refills are more limited for obvious reasons so you need to make your resources count. The only problem is that the player's ammo reserves are more than halved in Black Mesa, so the only ways to give GL and Interloper more weapon variety would be to reduce the number of enemies or increase the number of refills. The first solution: Interloper already tried it, doesn't work. The second solution? Well, the problem there is that realistically, the Lambda Team only has so much to send, so having them send multiple refills each map breaks immersion hella quickly once you get to Interloper.

What I'm proposing is a third solution. Somewhere in Lambda Core, expand the player's pockets and let them go into Xen carrying as much ammo as you could have in HL1, maybe even a little more. Give them a backpack. This way, Xen, even in its slowest moments, is more deliberate and focused than the rest of the game. Think about it. The player has to use their resources efficiently the moment they enter the borderworld. If you're careless, you can basically screw over future you. This immediately addresses the Interloper conundrum. The chapter gets to be just as long as it is now, but now better paced, more action packed, more stressful, and without an infinite "lazer enemies to win" weapon. The player starts with full reserves, and has to avoid bleeding themselves dry, or else they can basically softlock themselves in the middle of their Xen journey.

The Lambda Team can still send you refills, probably about as often as they do in vanilla, but they won't be enough to make up for your long term expenses. They supplement your reserves, but that's it. This also adds replay value to Xen as a whole. In its current form, the player knows that once they fend off that big wave of XGrunts after the first 3rd of Interloper, they basically don't have to care about ammo usage anymore, so just go wild. Xen is kinda the same deal. Once you get into Gonarch's Lair, the only thing that matters is the rocket launcher, which you get constant refills for, so you can really be as carefree with ammo as you want in Xen because in the end it won't matter. Adding long term consequences completely changes that.

(3/4)

This would make Xen so much more memorable and cohesive as one long final run, and again, so much more replayable. Xen (the chapter) right now is kinda just there for the vibes after you play it once. There's really not much there incentivizing you to come back to it. But when it's the start of one long journey where what 70% of the resources you'll have available are just what you've already brought with you, Xen's place as a build-up chapter has a lot more meaning and focus. This also means that Xen as a whole is a full final challenge that you can legitimately fail by just running out of stuff.

Now, obviously you probably shouldn't let the player softlock themselves during the final boss since that'd be too annoying and anticlimactic, so instead of the Lambda Team sending you packages during the fight, have them send everything they have left at the very end of Interloper as a sort of reward for making it this far. This basically serves as a full refill, and also gives the Nihilanth fight more individual weight too. You get a breath of fresh air before the fight in the form of a fresh refill, but that doesn't mean the resource management element of the game is done. At this point, aside from what you find in the rooms Nihilanth teleports in, what you have is what you have. Better use it well. This also allows you to add enemies in the earlier, less ♥♥♥♥-your-pants crazy parts of the fight to spice things up.

You could theoretically add back in the teleport mechanic for Nihilanth, but if you do, I'd personally take it farther than how it worked in HL. Maybe have Nihilanth send the player to one of a few locations back in Black Mesa. Parking garage, the rundown abandoned test chamber, maybe one of the outdoor locations, though that'd be hard to optimize. If you wanted to get really crazy with it, you could teleport the player to the entrance of the supply depot in Lambda Core, maybe as its being finally overrun. The player teleports in and sees AGrunts slaughtering the rest of the Lambda Team inside while the Nihilanth laughs at you for your mediocrity. Just a thought, but it'd be a solid gut punch.

(4/4)

Aside from that, if we're talking new areas and changes to art, I'll leave that mostly alone. The biggest idea I can think of is just more biome diversity, particularly in Interloper. A recent small workshop mod came out that gives the forest sections of Xen the unused green skybox and I think that'd be a neat change. Interloper I think could use some colour variation, and maybe some of the creepier horror elements from classic Xen, especially later in the chapter. That said, Xen environments are extremely time consuming to make and this is a two-person project, so I think everyone will understand if environmental changes are kept to a minimum for this mod.

That's a lot of stuff. Unfortunately, we're severally limited due to not having access to the source code, If you play the Xen that's already part of the full download, you'll find that ammo is much scarcer, but due to extreme difficulty to work with the xen maps, (at the time, almost 2 years ago), changes were very minimal, but critical.

The keywords for BMSC Xen are 'survival,' and 'exploring a living world.'
We may not have grunts beating up survey team members, but may feature grunts stuck in Xen hazards, for instance.

As for the gonarch, you can use all your weapons on it, but only the handful marked as armor piercing will do any real damage. This is another thing can't change, but experiments have been made with frags, satchels, snarks, both energy weapons , and tripmines.

Altho I found the new Xen in Black Mesa really interesting and unique, I do have a quite a lot of gripes with it.
XEN: The first things that comes into my mind of removing is the giant tree section where you also had to navigate through trip mines in Xen, which makes no sence! And the chapter overall is just too long. The part where you have to launch a portal to Gonarch's Lair was also tedious. In general cutting it to 2/3 would be very good as it shouldn't be too short either for an introduction to an alien world. But it shouldn't be overdone like it is in retail.
GONARCH'S LAIR: The lenght of that chapter is actually fairly decent, except the parts where you have to fill everything with water to swim to the top, which is really time consuming and I would get too drained already to finally beat the Gonarch. But aside from that it's actually pretty good.
INTERLOPER: The beginning section of Interloper is the best part of the chapter by far! The Vortigaunt communication and Gargantua chase really is great stuff, beside the one left bottomless pit short after the beginning of the chase. Otherwise, great chase! But after that it's only downhill...
I'd really cut the plug puzzles in half, maybe even more. There are WAY too many Controllers and too little room to dodge all these, especially in the conveyer belts. And the fact that the Controllers also frequently dodge and throw heavy stuff at you doesn't help either. It's just cheap and annoying. There are unfortunetly a lot of Interloper's parts that need to get cut or overhauled. For example, where you are forced to go into 3 ways one after another before you go jump high up, The part where you get scanned to death and have to avoid all of these lasers. And much much more that was really unnessesary. I was so exhausted at that point, I just wanted it to end...

I mainly hope the Xen chapters just get cut in half or something while keeping the most memorable and enjoyable moments. Because that way, I would replay Xen even more and grow to truly love it.
I would highly appreciate your response and if there is anything that can be done in those reguards.