New difficulty level possibly in ep2

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Ooog

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First post, long time lurker. Frustrated with the not-so-very-hard hard difficulty in half life 2 and episode 1, I sent an email to gabe. It read:

I have completed 40-45 playthroughs of Half Life 2 (I lost count recently). Now anything associated with that game, whether it be mod or episode, is simply too easy. Because of this, the reduction of difficulty on the Episode 1 elevator battle made me quite disgruntled. In a last effort to make the game harder, I did a playthrough without losing a point of health (using lots of quicksaves). But even that was surprisingly easy. Is there a chance of ever getting a difficulty higher than hard, or will I have to rely on mods?


Robin Walker responded with this:

Actually, we're pretty unhappy with our Hard setting. On Ep1 we started working on a harder-than-hard difficulty setting, but ran out of time to get it finished. I'm hoping the Ep2 folks can finish it up. Once it goes in, it'll be backwards compatible, so you'll be able to go back and play HL2 / Ep1 with it as well. Hopefully that'll provide you with more of a challenge.

Robin.

So it looks like theres a good chance of getting a harder than hard difficulty in ep2. Didn't think this was really known, did a search and i apologize if I missed it. Just thought it'd be a nice thing to know if you are bored with the hard difficulty.
 
Oops totally forgot about the info from valve only thread. I'll go post this in there. Hope it was ok putting this in this forum.
 
I personally don't think that a harder than hard level is the way to go
If the hostile AI was beefed up significantly and weapons made more lethal across the baord I'd be delighted
 
I second the beefed up AI. If they only changed one thing to make it harder I hope it would be that.
 
The AI in HL2 is some of the best around, asking for an upgrade is pushing it :p
That said, more accurate enemies that do more damage would be welcome.
 
Just put yourself behind a Combine soldier,Metrocop and he does...nothing..or block his view with a box and he will stop shooting...i miss the grunts who can actualy kill you...the Combine soldiers on easy...i played on easy and i was surprised how stupid they're are.
 
I don't know, overall I wasn't impressed with the AI. 90% of the time, if you even knew what a strafe button was, you could outsmart most of the enemies.

-Give me a squad of combines that will blast cover fire my way so they can setup positions around me. Or use some kind of tactics, as it is now they will shoot and take cover. But if you move out and flank them they just stand there in their hiding spot (the fight with Alyx in City 17 destroying the generator?). Or they charge you from the other side of the map.
-Give me a combine that if you sneak halfway around a corner or doorway will react instead of standing there waiting for you to reach point "X" inside the doorway (most noticeable in Nova Prospekt/Entanglement).
-Give me characters that will react more logical or spontaneous. eg. I know it's cheating but if say you do "impulse 101" before or in Kleiner's lab, you cannot get past it through the regular storyline. Impluse 101 gives you the suit as well, but the characters can't detect that you already have the suit, thus they wait eternally for you to get the suit (which you can't).

While the HL series has been my favorite for a while, I was personally a little disappointed with the AI in HL2. Like in D3, the enemy/zombie marines you encountered moved and fired intelligently. They used their surroundings surprisingly pretty well to evade and attack. But these are just my opinions. :)
 
Costyn_Elite said:
Just put yourself behind a Combine soldier,Metrocop and he does...nothing..or block his view with a box and he will stop shooting...i miss the grunts who can actualy kill you...the Combine soldiers on easy...i played on easy and i was surprised how stupid they're are.
Click to expand...

YOU FIGHT THE GRUNTS IN CONSTRICTED SPACES, YOU FIGHT THE COMBINE IN LARGE OPEN SPACES. THE COMBINE HAVE BETTER AI; I MEAN HOW MANY TIMES DID THE GRUNTS BLOW THEMSELVES UP? MORE THAN (AT LEAST) FIVE EACH PLAYTHROUGH. JEEZ.
 
The greatest problem is, combine's weapon is not strong enough.

function9 said:
-Give me characters that will react more logical or spontaneous. eg. I know it's cheating but if say you do "impulse 101" before or in Kleiner's lab, you cannot get past it through the regular storyline. Impluse 101 gives you the suit as well, but the characters can't detect that you already have the suit, thus they wait eternally for you to get the suit (which you can't).
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That out of the game construction. Do you expect if you enable noclip, Alyx will scream "Gordon, you can move into a wall!"?
 
my Idea is they should do something similar to what the FEAR guys di regardin weapons: The FEAR team coded the WEAPONS in a way that enemies had the same amount of ammo as the player, and reloading took them roughtly the same amount of time.
 
bigburpco said:
YOU FIGHT THE GRUNTS IN CONSTRICTED SPACES, YOU FIGHT THE COMBINE IN LARGE OPEN SPACES. THE COMBINE HAVE BETTER AI; I MEAN HOW MANY TIMES DID THE GRUNTS BLOW THEMSELVES UP? MORE THAN (AT LEAST) FIVE EACH PLAYTHROUGH. JEEZ.
Click to expand...

Fighting in large or constricted are doesn't make any diferrence when it comes about AI, is about how can adapt in various situation...And grunts blowing themself up never witnessed.
 
I don't know why people complain. I play on hard, and frankly the AI is amazing. The soldiers do flank me, they take cover when they reload, they flush me out with grenades, they hide behind stuff and ambush me. For heavens sake, what difficulty are you guys playing on?
 
I think there should be more than three difficulty levels. Leave "hard" and make a "very hard" or something.
 
bbson john said:
And "Easy" should be named as " super-stupid-beginners'-hyper-easy".
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No i have a better name:"Hyper-Mega-Kilo-Giga-easy" (stupid beginners)-don't work since is hyper-mega-kilo-giga easy...
 
Well i did play on hard mode and the AI was rather good i must say. Their use of grenades was very impressive, when behind cover they'd run to both sides of the cover and start peppering me. They always move about making it harder to hit them, the shotgunners always get in close to deal more damage while the machine gunners stay back to take use of thier accuracy. I think the AI is everything i could of hoped for, although i only died a few times on hard, i think thats just from my experiance =D
 
Costyn_Elite said:
Fighting in large or constricted are doesn't make any diferrence when it comes about AI, is about how can adapt in various situation...And grunts blowing themself up never witnessed.
Click to expand...

YOU PUT THE GRUNTS IN A LARGER AREA, THEY'LL GET OWNED LIKE NUTS. IT'S THEIR HEALTH AND DAMAGE THAT'S GOOD, NOT THE DAMN AI.
 
bigburpco said:
YOU PUT THE GRUNTS IN A LARGER AREA, THEY'LL GET OWNED LIKE NUTS. IT'S THEIR HEALTH AND DAMAGE THAT'S GOOD, NOT THE DAMN AI.
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I have to play again Half-Life to analyze they're AI.But if you play HL2 just block the vision of a soldier with a box and he will stop shooting...and play it one time on "Easy" and you'll laugh at they pathetic atempts to kill you.
 
Costyn_Elite said:
I have to play again Half-Life to analyze they're AI.But if you play HL2 just block the vision of a soldier with a box and he will stop shooting...and play it one time on "Easy" and you'll laugh at they pathetic atempts to kill you.
Click to expand...
Basically, soldiers can't see your leg.
 
I'm playing through Half-Life 2 again on the Hard difficulty. Things were going quite well (challenging without being overly frustrating). Here's what I've noticed:

- Manhacks are very, very tricky to kill in Route Canal. The fact that they're in numbers of about 3 or more in tight spaces makes using the crowbar rather pointless. It takes nearly a full clip of pistol ammo to take one down, and the fact that they're flying around in circles most of the time means you need to be a great shot. Using the machine gun is your best option, but the fact that the gun sprays ammo instead firing right down the middle means that great care must be taken when firing. I must have used about 400 bullets to take down the Manhacks in that level alone. When I can run from them, I do. I've never realised how tough a swarm of Manhacks was until I played against them on hard. I've died many times against them (mainly in the section just before you flood the area with water).

- Another section that took me a while was the building on Water Hazard that you must go through to open the dam doors. The building/warehouse with two large crates you can walk in and out of underneath a catwalk gave me problems. Once again, the Manhacks were giving me hell as the 8 Combine I had to face in that section were quick in mowing me down. That took me 12+ tries before I came up with a strategy. I used on of my grenades to blow up the Manhack swarm and then hid in the crates picking off Combine soldiers one by one. A few grenades came my way as they tried to flush me out into the open, but I was in such a tight spot, they had trouble getting me.

- The toughest sections so far were in Ravenholm. The first occurs when Gregori gives you the shotgun. I jumped into the well, climbed to the catwalk and by the time I made it to the door (to the little room with the elevator) one Fast Zombie had already jumped down behind me. I dashed into the room as two more climbed up the pipes (a 4th one was going after Gregori). After closing the door and activating the switch for the incredibly slow elevator, no more than 5 seconds later a Fast Zombie broke through the skylight and attacked me. By the time I dealt with him a second Fast Zombie jumped down, and as I was dealing with him, two more came down and the three of them killed me quickly. I tried keeping the door open and shooting them in the doorway, but their leap means that I won't be able to kill them in time. Using grenades, explosives from the machine gun, the magnum, the shotgun, I tried everything but they were too tough and too fast. Eventually I just decided to ignore the elevator and jump off the building. I ran like hell, the coward's answer, but it worked. :p

- The second Ravenholm section was with the second lift that Gregori sends to you. I had darted to the roof, and when I looked over the side for the first time, I literally saw 10-12 Fast Zombies running through the streets of Ravenholm to my direction. Holy ****! I don't remember there being so many when I played on the easy and medium settings. It's like Valve took the Zombies that you would have killed at the elevator (always an elevator involved at the tough sections) in Episode 1, and threw them into Ravenholm. It took many tries to get past that section because there's so many of them. You could kill one as he climbs up the pipe, but another is right on his tail and gets just a little further than the last guy. Eventually one would make it up, and then another, and another, and another, before a swarm was what you were dealing with and you were killed. On my 6th try I lucked out. The the 12 of them were all fighting each other at the bottom of the building trying to be first to get up the pipe. A few grenades their way and most of them were taken care of. I made it to the lift before another swarm of reinforcements arrived. :O

Right now I'm on Highway 17, coming close to death but never having any real difficulty. But based on how tricky some of the sections were, I'm so not looking forward to the Nova Prospekt infiltration or the Entanglement onslaught. I can't really imagine what it will be like when Valve implements an even harder difficulty. I still support adding a harder difficulty, and when it eventually comes out I'll probably play it, but I'm just surprised at how hard the hard difficulty really is. You guys must be amazing players if you can get through Half-Life 2 on hard without breaking a sweat.

I'm also not sure where this notion of Half-Life 2 having poor AI comes from. Civil Protection fights in numbers and use grenades and Manhacks aplenty. Fast Zombies will literally run around a building to the back entrance and sneak up behind you if you're not careful. Combine Soldiers take cover and reorganize at a safe place (in a building, behind some rocks) before they then come charging out as a group. Half-Life 2 AI is just as good, if not better, than Half-Life's AI.
 
lol yeah i did half life 2 on hard a week ago

The manhacks are an absulute pain in the arse but i found the crowbar worked wonders if you time your swings properly. I usually backed into the corner of the room so i couldn't get a slash up the arse, and hit them as they dived into me.

Ravenholm has soo many more elements to it, whereas other times i had more time to look at the scenery, on hard i was tense all the way through, the fast zombie that breaks through the skylight? Never happened to me before, scared the hell out of me. Other than that i loved the fire fights with the zombies, and i actually found the second lift part really easy for some reason, just used the magnum and blasted the fast zombies in the head as they srrambled up the pipe.

Ill let you experiance the rest, you find the game gets even better on hard mode for some reason, just more of the challenge and more satisfying, oh and nova prospect's firefights on hard are great, but hard so watch yourself. Oh, DO NOT, go in the sand during sandtraps!
 
as someone who only played HL2 on hard I found it very lacking as a challenge in so many areas
- the accuracy of enemy soldiers is horrific
- their AI is very limited and relies very heavily on clever placement of infonodes and not situational awareness
- the game as a whole is not very tough, dying only really occured when I let it happen (used up too much ammo on a hostile or let my health go to low)

Beefing up the frankly lacklustre AI would go a long way to improving the game - lest anyone forget the AI in Fear was something people raved about for months and is to date unmatched
 
Stop talking about FEAR people!

Yes the AI was good, but this is Half-Life 2, not sodding FEAR. Besides I would down FEARs rating generally because it has little or no reply value. It was a great experiance first time, but when i tried to go though it again, you already know when something is going to happen to make you jump or whatever, so i just think without that it just lost its effect because to me now a game needs something more than just the action, FEAR did first time with its spookiness, after that it was pretty shallow i must say. Thats just my opinion.

Anyway, sorry for the moan, just hate seeing the FEAR AI coming up all of the time, ok its better, end of, Half-Life 2 still completely outmatches it in almost every other aspect anyway.
 
i wonder wut itll be like if combine uses flashbang on u
 
That out of the game construction. Do you expect if you enable noclip, Alyx will scream "Gordon, you can move into a wall!"?
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Well actually I don't see why they wouldn't have her react, if you fly around above an enemy it will acknowledge you and try to get at you. The vortigaunt in the kitchen at BME can be interacted with in noclip.

Like I said I know it's cheating, but I was pointing out that the game/characters cannot improvise/adjust even in a limited capacity, that was a bad example I guess. I think a better example of this would be after taking out the gunship at the lighthouse. The NPC that comes to get you. I don't know but everytime I've played I've run right down to the "secret passage" on my own. But the NPC still has to go up to the top, say his lines and start back down. I would've hoped characters would be able to detect where you/Gordon are and be able to cut to a different spot on their timeline.

I guess what I'm saying is even when you're not cheating, but deviate from the game at all (like the lighthouse, but there are many other instances like that) the game can't adjust. I don't know about you but I think it being able to adjust would go a long way to making the characters and story a bit more realistic. Especially when it seems thats where Valve wants to go with it (extended character developement of Alyx for example).

I'm by no means a "hardcore" gamer, but I can't say I had a problem with most things in HL2/ep1 on the hard level. The only part I've had a problem with is the 2nd time Alyx leaves you in Entanglement and you have to use torrents.

But I will say Valve does seem to update the game very often, I don't know if this would be considered AI or... When if you first get into Nova Prospekt in the sewer, you used to be able to take out the combine in the towers through the sewer grates in the ground. And they would just stand there and not know where you were. The last few times I played though, they could detect you and would fire back, made that section a bit more challenging and enjoyable too. So hopefully between the episodes and steam, we will see different components of the game evolve.
 
I would've hoped characters would be able to detect where you/Gordon are and be able to cut to a different spot on their timeline.
Click to expand...
When your being teleported in the start of the game they do this. For example play a game where you put the cord back in right away and one where you don't.
 
The entanglement bit is do'able without having to reload even on hard. If you jut position yourself and the turrets properly, plus ALWAYS bring another turret with you from a previous fight, so you have 4 instead of three, if you positioned the turrets correctly you can get through it sometimes without having to re load the game at all. I did, but i end the fight with 7 health lmao! That was because i grenade landed right next me hehe
 
The should call the four hardness levels what they really are:

Easy -> Wimpy
Normal -> Very easy
Hard -> Getting there...
Very Hard -> Normal

But nooo, the whiney minority who apparently haven't grasped the idea of actually thinking about stuff wants to have so easy games that in the end they won't remember them at all because those games were too easy to play and if they didn't succeed at first try, the game obviously sucked and was quickly forgotten because of that.

I have spoken. Ugh.
 
I don't want more damaging enemies, I want better AI. I mean if Im in a room, and the combine are not in said room but in another room, than I better see grenades flying through the window or atleast them waiting to ambush me, not them just standing there waiting for me to come through the door shooting a storm up. The only enemies that have an excuse for having Poor AI are zombies, And Hell they have better AI than the combine do. Throwing stuff at you and coming from different sides D:
 
As is my answer to almost any issues regarding difficulty and half life 2.

Play the Smod Remastered Redux mod

If you run te hard exec file, random combine will recieve shields or extra hp, sometimes both, their accuracy and reaction time will improve, and some other tweaks.

There's even a cvar that you can set from 0 to 1, that replaces enemy grenades with incendary ones. The incendary ones don't have a beep noise, nor do they have a red light. It makes things rather hectic because you really have to pay attention for incoming nades.

Also there are text files you can tweak to increase the number of randomly spawned enemies in a level. I get a kick out of adding 40 something extra combine to the first canal level with the hard exec running and all weapons personally tweaked for increased lethality.. Just getting across one side of the train, to the other requires lots of luck and finesse
 
Bloody hell, why dont we ask Valve to make an ultra-hard mode then, so its takes you 1 hour to progress through one section. I think you will find it becomes pointless, and then you get complaints about it being too hard.

Ok the AI can be lacking, but big sodding deal, the action is still awsome and the game itself is genius, everything else just makes me forget about all of the cons completely.
 
Costyn_Elite said:
I have to play again Half-Life to analyze they're AI.But if you play HL2 just block the vision of a soldier with a box and he will stop shooting...and play it one time on "Easy" and you'll laugh at they pathetic atempts to kill you.
Click to expand...
I heard somewhere that the AI won't shoot anything it sees as cover. But when I hid behind a box they just flank me :p
 
ríomhaire said:
I heard somewhere that the AI won't shoot anything it sees as cover. But when I hid behind a box they just flank me :p
Click to expand...

That makes sense. If the Combine just stood there shooting at you behind cover, you could just pop out and kill them when they've stopped to reload.
 
Shift said:
Ok the AI can be lacking, but big sodding deal.
Click to expand...

Good AI can make battles 10 times better so they are a big deal :| I mean I know everyones tired of hearing it but just look at FEAR. Im not a big fan of the story, but the AI is what makes that entire game (And the ending sequence...best. explosion. ever.)
 
The F.E.A.R AI was good, but its not what made the game, its was the games attempt at creating a spooky and scary atmosphere to increase the tension even when not fighting battles to make a mentally draining experiance.

F.E.A.R is a modern game that was successful because it had something else to offer other than its AI and its combat, if its AI that drove the game then it would not have been as successful as it had been. But quite frankly, Half-Life 2 makes F.E.A.R look like a dead shit if im comparing it. Sorry for the comment but i am just ****ing sick to death of people complaining about Half-Life's AI and then bringing up F.E.A.R, drop it already!

Oh and also, the Citadel explosion at the end of Ep1 was 100x better than the explosion at the end of F.E.A.R
 
Shift said:
The F.E.A.R AI was good, but its not what made the game, its was the games attempt at creating a spooky and scary atmosphere to increase the tension even when not fighting battles to make a mentally draining experiance.

F.E.A.R is a modern game that was successful because it had something else to offer other than its AI and its combat, if its AI that drove the game then it would not have been as successful as it had been. But quite frankly, Half-Life 2 makes F.E.A.R look like a dead shit if im comparing it. Sorry for the comment but i am just ****ing sick to death of people complaining about Half-Life's AI and then bringing up F.E.A.R, drop it already!

Oh and also, the Citadel explosion at the end of Ep1 was 100x better than the explosion at the end of F.E.A.R
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I forgot the citadel explosion. That one was really good too. Im tied between the two :x.

Well for me the AI drove the game . Except for a few momemnts where something popped out, I was more focused on what the enemy was going to do rather than some spooky ghost girl. I think the AI had a bigger impact on the game than you think :| If it didnt have the AI it did it would've been rather dull just having the scares there.

But what im trying to say is that AI can make a battle with just 1 enemy ten times better . I don't want combine that are just going to sit there when I throw a grenade at them. I mean sure they make an attempt to get away but by the time they react its usually too late.
 
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