The original final battle

Saruke said:
Ok let me try to explain something to you all. Valve is doing what all companies do. They are trying to make money, and the only way to do that is to attract customers to their games. They know that your all going to buy it no matter what because you liked the first one so much. So their job is to get new people to play. And they won't get new people into their games if they make them so hard that only fanatical (like you) half life fans can beat it. They need to make it easy enough for some schmuck to come off the street, buy it, take it home and play it without dying every three seconds.
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So you're saying that without Gargs, tentacles and apaches Half-life 1 would have been more popular to the casual gamers since they can actually do some damage?
 
...yes I thought that was obvious. But even back in the 90's pc gaming was a niche market so they could afford to make games hard because they knew that their was only a certain type of person who played their games.
 
I thought the final battle was the hardest moment in any Half Life game. But I'm a noob.

Also, Saruke has no idea what he's talking about. You're basically suggesting Valve force god mode, so everyone can get through the game easy as pie? That doesn't = fun.
 
But the tentacle part was the toughest part in any game I've actually played. I loved it.
 
Saruke said:
Ok let me try to explain something to you all. Valve is doing what all companies do. They are trying to make money, and the only way to do that is to attract customers to their games. They know that your all going to buy it no matter what because you liked the first one so much. So their job is to get new people to play. And they won't get new people into their games if they make them so hard that only fanatical (like you) half life fans can beat it. They need to make it easy enough for some schmuck to come off the street, buy it, take it home and play it without dying every three seconds.
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You're not the first person to recognize this or anything. People just don't see why this should mean that the game has to be dumbed down for everyone when there are selectable difficulty settings.
 
Saruke said:
Ok let me try to explain something to you all. Valve is doing what all companies do. They are trying to make money, and the only way to do that is to attract customers to their games. They know that your all going to buy it no matter what because you liked the first one so much. So their job is to get new people to play. And they won't get new people into their games if they make them so hard that only fanatical (like you) half life fans can beat it. They need to make it easy enough for some schmuck to come off the street, buy it, take it home and play it without dying every three seconds.
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Yeah just because you got some loyal fans doesn't mean you should take them for granted. I'am sure that some fans might be put off if this trend of dumbing down continues.Believe me i am not a fanatical gamer i could barely beat fear on normal yet episode 2 on hard was a breeze.
And it's seems your forgetting this is a FPS so you would expect a challenge this is not a genre designed for casual gamers.

What they need if some tough battles just like the elevator battle in Episode 1 before that got forcefully dumbed down. I liked the fact i died it got my heart racing and made me start to think of new strategies, and when i won i felt relived and proud not a feeling i got once in episode 2.
 
kupoartist said:
You're not the first person to recognize this or anything. People just don't see why this should mean that the game has to be dumbed down for everyone when there are selectable difficulty settings.
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I seem to be the first one in this thread who has pointed this out.

I think you have to realize that the video game industry just like everything else is a buisness. Buisness is about maximizing quality and minimizing cost and it's extremely arrogant to think that they should spend herculean amounts of time and money just to cater to a small sub-section of their larger consumer base. Valve owes us nothing, it has made very enjoyable games that appeal to a wide array of people and that most people play without complaint.

PimpinPenguin said:
And it's seems your forgetting this is a FPS so you would expect a challenge this is not a genre designed for casual gamers.
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This made me laugh so hard. Have you ever heard of Halo?
 
Saruke said:
I seem to be the first one in this thread who has pointed this out.

I think you have to realize that the video game industry just like everything else is a buisness. Buisness is about maximizing quality and minimizing cost and it's extremely arrogant to think that they should spend herculean amounts of time and money just to cater to a small sub-section of their larger consumer base. Valve owes us nothing, it has made very enjoyable games that appeal to a wide array of people and that most people play without complaint.
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So Valve should do like EA and cater to all the idiots out there should they.I understand they want more customers but they should not have to compromise the game to get them.All i am saying is they don't need to go over the top with the simplifications if they keep this up they are going to end up losing customers aswell.

Saruke said:
This made me laugh so hard. Have you ever heard of Halo?
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Better than the old and extremely easy antlions and i hate Halo by the way.
 
You do have to be a little concerned though when you can take the final battle on hard, without your car, and still save all the buildings on your first attempt at doing so.

Hard should be hard, i.e. somewhat challenging requiring a little bit of tactical thinking. The only thing I found exceedingly difficult is finishing off a shotgun trooper quickly before your face is splattered on the pavement. This happened about twice.

What they did do right however was the acid-lions. Those things can do some serious damage if you don't pay attention, requiring a bit of logical thinking and quick reflexes.
 
Avoidist said:
You do have to be a little concerned though when you can take the final battle on hard, without your car, and still save all the buildings on your first attempt at doing so.

Hard should be hard, i.e. somewhat challenging requiring a little bit of tactical thinking. The only thing I found exceedingly difficult is finishing off a shotgun trooper quickly before your face is splattered on the pavement. This happened about twice.

What they did do right however was the acid-lions. Those things can do some serious damage if you don't pay attention, requiring a bit of logical thinking and quick reflexes.
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I just don't understand why they're tougher than the soldiers.
 
Avoidist said:
You do have to be a little concerned though when you can take the final battle on hard, without your car, and still save all the buildings on your first attempt at doing so.
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How the heck did you manage that? D:
 
A fair bit of knowledge of the strider order, sprinting really quickly at 7 -> 8 (the one that blows up the barn after the other tries to blow up the house), and retreating to the buildings near the silo a bit into the last wave. I found logs work the best against the hunters, as well as using alt-fire on the pulse rifle and rockets when they were in a large pack to thin out the numbers. I did it to prove it could be done. I just didn't expect it to manage it on my first try.
 
The "whole colony" isn't as important as the "core".

Colonies can be replaced, but queens and babies are hard to replace.
 
Avoidist said:
You do have to be a little concerned though when you can take the final battle on hard, without your car, and still save all the buildings on your first attempt at doing so.
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Possible for you, yes, but what about all those hundreds of players who found it too difficult even on medium? Who moaned about how annoying the Hunters were, and how they couldn't stop the Striders?

Jintor said:
How the heck did you manage that? D:
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It is actually quite easy to beat the Strider defence on hard, and to save all the buildings as well as not die. I've done it, but it took a fair few plays to master it.
 
The finale in the trailer is 10 times better in terms of atmosphere, the feeling of being a small part in an epic battle is great. However the fact that you were a small part in a large battle is precisely why it was bad in terms of gameplay. For the final battle you are given the specific objective of stopping Striders from reaching the silo by using Strider Busters, with so much going on it would have been much harder to complete that objective because other things would keep getting in the way.

Now if the objectives for the climax were made more fuzzy, like killing all the finite combine forces in the area then you could put all the enemies you want into it and just let the player and respective AI's fight it out, but that deviates from the very controlling Valve philosophy that has served them so well.

As for its difficulty, well I am disappointed that the "harder than hard" mode didn't make an appearance.
 
Samon said:
Possible for you, yes, but what about all those hundreds of players who found it too difficult even on medium? Who moaned about how annoying the Hunters were, and how they couldn't stop the Striders?



It is actually quite easy to beat the Strider defence on hard, and to save all the buildings as well as not die. I've done it, but it took a fair few plays to master it.
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I found it near impossible to get Neighbourhood Watch even on Medium - but that was mainly because I killed the first strider so fast, it took me too long to get to the Magnusson Device and save the Sawmill. Also, the two fast Striders that head in different directions i found difficult.
 
Just wait until the first Strider is close - don't go running after him. He won't shoot at you anyway.
 
Samon said:
Possible for you, yes, but what about all those hundreds of players who found it too difficult even on medium? Who moaned about how annoying the Hunters were, and how they couldn't stop the Striders?
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WHO? The only person I've heard complaining about the difficulty was a guy with arthritis. While I feel for his plight, I don't exactly think Valve is responsible for designing the game for the unfortunately-not-so-abled in mind. If they found it too difficult on medium then they should set the difficulty to easy. If they found that too easy, then they should complain to Valve about not having a "brunch" option to cater for them. Or better yet, they could figure out why they weren't succeeding, and turn the game into a learning experience!

And I'm not that great a gamer, you will find that I will die quite readily in games like CS:S or TF2 because I don't possess great twitch aiming skills and the like. It's why I like the medic class so much.

Samon said:
It is actually quite easy to beat the Strider defense on hard, and to save all the buildings as well as not die. I've done it, but it took a fair few plays to master it.
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But could you do it without your car? It's not that tricky really, given that if you know which striders beeline for the buildings and take them out quickly, all the others are a matter of hanging around the supply buildings for magnussons and taking down the hunters using the traditional on-foot methods. Not to mention the buildings are basically unlimited health depots. It's a challenge, but it is quite doable. And in my opinion, it shouldn't be. A person playing on hard should be using the car whenever necessary (and having to pay attention to their health) seeing as the car is the most useful thing in the battle.

Not that I really mind the battle, it was great fun, but a little bit more tension couldn't hurt. Then the feeling when the last strider goes down is one of accomplishment rather than "Oh. That was pretty fun I guess."

Samon said:
Just wait until the first Strider is close - don't go running after him. He won't shoot at you anyway.
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I usually drive up to the first strider (if I'm using the car), kill the hunter(s), plant a magnusson on the strider, drive back, grab a new magnusson from the sawmill, detonate the first magnusson killing the first strider, drive up to the rocks, and then kill the second strider. Depends on how impatient you are I guess :D
 
Saruke said:
I seem to be the first one in this thread who has pointed this out.
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Being the first to say something doesn't make you the first to realize it. You may as well have said 'hey guys, the sky... it's blue!!!'.
Saruke said:
This made me laugh so hard. Have you ever heard of Halo?
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Interesting that you single out Halo as a game 'designed for casual gamers' immediately after having told me that:
Saruke said:
it's extremely arrogant to think that they should spend herculean amounts of time and money just to cater to a small sub-section of their larger consumer base."
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I'm wondering, since you've apparently heard of Halo, have you ever actually played it? It's a far, far harder game with its own dedicated difficulty modes for 'a small sub-section of their larger consumer base'. Odd that a series dedicated to mining a base of 'casual gamers', dedicates more time to offering a harder experience than one that has a similar release cycle for two thirds of the content. And wait a minute...
Saruke said:
to think that they should spend herculean amounts of time and money
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This makes absolutely zero sense. It's playtesting and making their games easier that is delaying Valve's games, NOT leaving them in their original, difficult state.
Saruke said:
Valve owes us nothing, it has made very enjoyable games that appeal to a wide array of people and that most people play without complaint.
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The definition of what any company owes its customers is entirely in the hands of its consumers. You make it sound like Valve are war veterans or invasive procedure surgeons. If the 'hardcore' become disillusioned with a title, the effect will be bigger than you give credit for: non-casual gamers are the ones who drive the hype behind new titles, who give games review averages. 'Casual consumers' aren't just blind mice who walk around and stumble over random titles. They rely on the gaming press and what their friends are playing to judge which few games they're going to play, and the hardcore are at the root of that.

edit: besides, I think it's idiotic to suggest that Valve wouldn't miss the 10% of customers who played their game on the Hard difficulty setting. That's still a lot of people, even if it doesn't look impressive in a pie-chart.
 
Saruke said:
Ok kupoartist you kinda pissed me off so the following has some swear words also this is the last time I will ever communicate with you in any way since it seems that we have abrasive personalities.

Well all I have to say is this, if you want a personalized game that gives you a nice ol' reach-a-round go make it your ****ing self otherwise learn a valuable lesson that except for your mom and your dad no one will ever care aobut making you happy so get ****ing used to it!

Sorry, you can ban me now.
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kupoartist is Aweshens. You will not do well here :|
 
Wow, I have NEVER been able to keep all buildings alive (always the Sawmill that gets me).

I will try the way you suggested soon.
 
I found the final battle to be very difficult and frustrating, and I say that as somebody who considers himself an otherwise adept FPS player.

I won't even bother for the achievement associated with it.
 
kupoartist said:
This makes absolutely zero sense. It's playtesting and making their games easier that is delaying Valve's games, NOT leaving them in their original, difficult state.
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What if their original difficult state is broken? What if it's easily broken? What if sometimes the original difficulty state has a random chance of killing that is unfair, or seems unfair?

Why the hell don't they have the harder than hard mode yet? D:
 
Jintor said:
I found it near impossible to get Neighbourhood Watch even on Medium - but that was mainly because I killed the first strider so fast, it took me too long to get to the Magnusson Device and save the Sawmill. Also, the two fast Striders that head in different directions i found difficult.
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Only 3 Striders are scripted to attack the buildings. You can tell which ones by their speed: if they're going fast, they're going for a building. The Strider that attacks the Sawmill is the hardest one to kill before it destroys it.

Yet if you're quick enough and play through it a few times and figure out what Strider will go for what building, you can destroy them before they do anything. I finally managed to get the Neighborhood Watch achievement only a few days ago.
 
I think the sad fact is that the popularity of console gaming is ruining the experience for the die-hard PC users.

Your typical xbox controller isn't suited for the sort of gameplay that made HLDM and Counterstrike so popular - fast movement and 'twitch-killing' with a mouse set to high sensitivity.

I'm willing to bet that many of the playtesters were using the console version of the game and couldn't make it through what would be the most basic of challenges to a player with a decent keyboard/mouse setup.

If HL2 followed the same design and combat philosophy as HL1, you would've died seventeen times before winning the final battle.

How many times did you die trying to take down the chopper that dispenses infinite troops in HL1 before you realized you're not *supposed* to win but instead run for your life?

How many times did you fall off the cliff or get hit by a grunt's launched grenade during the second encounter with a chopper on the cliffside?

How many times did you have to reload before you could sneak past the tentacle creature or Gonarch before you sent them to Xen hell?

And how GOOD did it feel when you finally emerged victorious (usually with 3 health afterward)?

Now, I ask, how many times did you die in Episode 2?

I think the only time I died in Episode 2 was when I first tried to ramp the car across the see-saw bridge - I hit one of the 'counterweight cars' and fell into the toxic sludge.

The only other 'failure' I had was when I ran up to the White Forest Inn on foot, leaving the car behind with Alyx in it, and getting trapped in the forcefield on foot - at that point, Alyx is scripted to get out of the car and run up the hill to join the battle - but being trapped in the forcefield, I couldn't save her from being killed by Hunters. I had to load a save point from way earlier to get past.

So, my only two 'deaths' in Episode 2 were not actual deaths, per se, but black screen 'you failed your mission' messages. Weak.
 
Then you are far better than I...I died several times in the antlion caves, primarily because I didnt know how easily breakable that wood was blocking your exit...I expected it to be as hard as the normal HL2 wooden planks...

I died several times when you encounter the Hunters inside White Forest, but only once during the final battle...
 
SpectreBlofeld said:
I think the sad fact is that the popularity of console gaming is ruining the experience for the die-hard PC users.
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The PC versions of Half-Life 2 and Episode One suffer exactly the same problems, and they weren't being concurrently developed for consoles...
 
kupoartist said:
The PC versions of Half-Life 2 and Episode One suffer exactly the same problems, and they weren't being concurrently developed for consoles...
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I still think they were developed knowing that a console port would be introduced.

Regardless, I died more than a few times in HL2 - usually during 'Follow Freeman'.
 
Operational said:
However the fact that you were a small part in a large battle is precisely why it was bad in terms of gameplay.
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I actually like that more. The one thing I hate about video game battles is that the majority of the time your teammates just stand behind stuff and shoot vaguely in some direction forcing you to do ALL the work. And normally even if they do attack the enemy it'll take like 15 teammates to take on 1 enemy, meanwhile you can take on like 5 bad guys at once.

It's just ridiculous, I mean yea you should be better than your teammates, but if they're using the same weapons they should be able to almost hold off the enemy without you. Rather than just being there for sound affects.

Like in the EP:2 final battle, it would have been sweet to have your teammates attacking all the hunters (and killing them) and you could concentrate more on throwing the bombs. Maybe that would be too easy, but they could always spice it up somehow.
 
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