Possible ideas and improvements for the next Half-Life

[Ninjat_126]

I liked Half-Life and Half-Life 2, but they just don't quite seem to live up to the hype. So I was thinking, what improvements would you suggest for HL2:EP3 or HL3's mechanics?

Please don't suggest story ideas, or anything like "make it suck less" or "hardcore TDM".

Weapons:

- The Crowbar could be buffed quite a bit. Despite being iconic to the series, it actually quite sucks as a weapon. Increase the damage and give it a bit more of a punch.

- Increase the ammo pool of the Revolver. I just didn't use it because I was worried about wasting ammo.

- Improve automatics. I want a reason to use that Pulse Rifle. It's basically useless now.

- Possibly cut out a few of the weapons. The weapons collection is actually quite cluttered and you don't use all of them that much.

- Give out less ammo for most weapons.

Enemies:

- Bring back Houndeyes and Bullsquids, and possibly introduce some more new creature types.

- As scared as I am to write this, put in a few more water enemies like Ichthyosaurs. Water in HL1 was scary, Hl2 it was comforting.

 

[repeating integers]

... Hardcore time-division multiplexing?

You'll have to explain this acronym to me, because I doubt that's what you meant.

Anyway, the only ideas I have are actually story ideas, heh. Oh wait, except one thing:

- more Combine variety. We have like 2 kinds of soldier and one mini-monstrous thing, it gets a bit boring.

 

[Corpse XxX]

I agree on the pistol thing.. It is quite annoying when you find a cool gun you wanna play with, but it seriously lacks ammo to do so..

Its like giving someone candy, but they are only allowed to have one little lick at it every hour.

 

[MarxII]

Yeah, alright.

With you on the crowbar. If it takes four whacks to the brain stem or eye socket of a CP to have a noticeable effect, the thing is nerfed to high heaven and must be brought back down to earth like the elegant, practical admixture of physics and destruction it is. So yes, increase the damage and make melee attacks a viable or at least a less suicidal option, where circumstance call for it. But as you point out, the thing is an icon. And with as much exploration, optional and otherwise, as goes on in the games, there is conceivably a whole lot more use for a crowbar than rapidly banging on things. MOUSE2 to pry open door?

Disagree on cutting weapons, but less ammo in nearly any case would be an improvement. Particularly those infinite crates. While it was nice of Valve to err on the forgiving side, what with the fighting vehicles and all, they often looked awkward, ham-fisted into various urban combat zones and convenient closets, and they removed all incentive to shepherd(ha) ammo for larger threats. Frankly, I never got why so many of those buggers were bleedin' immune to small arms fire.

And you are correct on the enemies bit, the xenofauna of the first games was sorely missed. Particularly with how long the portal storms were supposed to have gone on. I want to see some Xen critters forming weird niches in the crumbling post-Soviet apocalypse. Airboat sections with Ichthyosaurs!

Now for some of my own:

Any chance on finding some old terrestrial arms from the war effort or previous anti-Xen ops going on before the Combine dropped? Surely a good many must have been confiscated, but a resistance that's been going on for an undisclosed length of time could quite possibly have recovered some.

And on the subject of guns, how is it the USP and SMG, standard armament for the CP at least, have roughly the killing power of a disinterested mosquito? At least make mention of their being intended to wound without necessarily killing.

 

[Elamdri]

- The Crowbar could be buffed quite a bit. Despite being iconic to the series, it actually quite sucks as a weapon. Increase the damage and give it a bit more of a punch.

- Increase the ammo pool of the Revolver. I just didn't use it because I was worried about wasting ammo.

- Improve automatics. I want a reason to use that Pulse Rifle. It's basically useless now.

- Possibly cut out a few of the weapons. The weapons collection is actually quite cluttered and you don't use all of them that much.

- Give out less ammo for most weapons.

The crowbar isn't really designed to be a go-to weapon in HL2, it's designed to break boxs and kill headcrabs to conserve ammo. If you're going to get up in somethings face, it pretty much 100% of the time makes sense to use the shotgun.

Increase the ammo pool of the revolver would pretty much make it overpowered. It's a 1 shot kill on most enemies and ridiculously accurate. It's one of those things where you save the shots for times that matter, like Combine Elites and Shotgun Soldiers that you don't want to get close to.

The Pulse Rifle is basically useless? It's super accurate if you burst fire, can kill most Combine soldiers in a few shots from pretty far away, and has a secondary insta-kill. Hell, if it could cook I might marry it.

I don't really notice a whole lot of clutter. While the Pistol and SMG get more or less Upgraded by the Pulse Rifle and the Colt, neither of those guns has much ammo, meaning you need to use the pistol and SMG as well, especially on trash mobs. All of the other weapons serve useful purposes and have no real upgrade.

Less ammo for weapons? The only guns which have a reasonable amount of ammo are the SMG and Pistol, and both take a considerable amount of shots to kill enemies, due to their relatively weak firepower and poor accuracy. The Crossbow, RPG, Pulse Rifle, and Magnum all have crappy ammo reserves. The only gun that MAY have too much ammo is the Shotgun, but that's my go-to weapon, so you leave it's ammo the hell alone.

 

[distortedreality]

Possible idea - a release date?

 

[Zhukov]

- Melee button. Let me smack enemies with the butt of my shotgun.

- Agree with OP regarding crowbar. Make it more useful.

- Also agree regarding less ammo.

- Make enemies react to being hit or shot. It's a bit silly when you shoot someone with a hand cannon and they just flinch slightly then keep going.

- Tone down the ragdoll physics a bit. Having enemies go sailing through the air just makes them seem weightless.

- A release date. (EDIT: Ninja'd.)

 

[Ninjat_126]

The Pulse Rifle is basically useless? It's super accurate if you burst fire, can kill most Combine soldiers in a few shots from pretty far away, and has a secondary insta-kill. Hell, if it could cook I might marry it.

I don't like it due to the small ammo pool (when compared to the SMG) and the weak damage when compared to the shotgun.

With you on the crowbar. If it takes four whacks to the brain stem or eye socket of a CP to have a noticeable effect, the thing is nerfed to high heaven and must be brought back down to earth like the elegant, practical admixture of physics and destruction it is. So yes, increase the damage and make melee attacks a viable or at least a less suicidal option, where circumstance call for it. But as you point out, the thing is an icon. And with as much exploration, optional and otherwise, as goes on in the games, there is conceivably a whole lot more use for a crowbar than rapidly banging on things. MOUSE2 to pry open door?

Realistically a crowbar wouldn't be as powerful as a shotgun or even a pistol. But in-game, you want your melee weapon to be able to bring down an enemy quick if you need it to.

 

[Elamdri]

The Pulse Rifle is basically useless? It's super accurate if you burst fire, can kill most Combine soldiers in a few shots from pretty far away, and has a secondary insta-kill. Hell, if it could cook I might marry it.

I don't like it due to the small ammo pool (when compared to the SMG) and the weak damage when compared to the shotgun.

I find it's somewhat more important depending on what difficulty you play on. It's got weak damage compared to the shotgun, but on harder difficulties, it can be hard to sometimes get close to the enemies with the shotgun without taking huge damage. The Pulse rifle dominates medium-long range combat. It's more accurate than the SMG, which is crap at long range. It's most effective when you're fighting combine soldiers and don't have the option of closing the distance to shotgun range.

 

[Zantos]

Aiming down sights. I know there's a big "ner ner ner" about everything having ironsight aiming nowadays, but come on, when the gun has clearly been designed with a sight I want to use it. They budged a little with the crossbow zoom in the episodes, how about a little bit more, SMG maybe?

Also, since there's no talking from Freeman there should be a slap button for every time someone stands there, tells you absolutely nothing then expects you to run off and kill everything on your own for the 15th time that day.

 

[manythings]

Valve doesn't care.

 

[Ninjat_126]

Aiming down sights. I know there's a big "ner ner ner" about everything having ironsight aiming nowadays, but come on, when the gun has clearly been designed with a sight I want to use it. They budged a little with the crossbow zoom in the episodes, how about a little bit more, SMG maybe?

I know what you mean. Possibly just a scope on some guns like the crossbow and SMG?

As for the weaponry, fuck that goddamn gravity gun (yes we get it, you have a physics system) and generic assault rifle with slightly off colored shots#2 and give me something more fun to play with.
Like the hornetgun or those beam guns. What happened to that?

The Tau Cannon was mounted on a buggy in HL2, and the Hivehand species presumably went extinct when you destroyed/shut down the Alien Grunt factory on Xen.

But yeah. More alien things. And reintegrate some more cut content, like the guy that sprays acid.

 

[Hyper-space]

I think the first thing to do would be to make more unique guns (in the vein of the Gravity-Gun), maybe throw in some rail-guns or grappling guns (get over here! *crowbar in face*). Also, add more environmental factors into the game, i found it kind of boring that the only options there were was to shoot the obvious red-barrels that the enemy for some reason sometimes took cover behind.

Now, the next thing might be a wee bit controversial (but just hear me out), take notes from the newer Call of Duties. Half-life 2 didn't have cut-scenes, but it didn't help that everytime something cinematic was happening, you were either rendered immobile or just listening to people talk. Adding more nail-biting moments like in MW2 (for an example) and giving the cinematic part more interactivity would help a lot, i found that having no cut-scenes didn't exactly do anything when you are reduced to a passive role each time something cool happens.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

Add an Browning M2. I'd so buy that game...

 

[Extragorey]

Halflife and Portal crossover! Gordon Freeman with a portal gun... Imagine the possibilities!

 

[Lazy Kitty]

- The Crowbar could be buffed quite a bit. Despite being iconic to the series, it actually quite sucks as a weapon. Increase the damage and give it a bit more of a punch.

It's a crowbar...
A crowbar normally isn't meant to be used as a weapon, but as a tool for breaking stuff open.
What do you expect?
A crowbar that functions as a lighsaber?

OT: More going into other dimension like in HL1. Possibly to where-ever the combine come from.

 

[Vault101]

speaking of half life I put the HL2 symbol on my shoes...just for the hell of it (they were only a cheap back up pair anyway)

anyway isnt portal 2 set like waaaaaay after the "suposed" events of HL2? the earth looks nice assuming that is the earth

 

[Metal Brother]

Possible idea - a release date?

WIN!

I personally think that the weapon selections are nice and balanced. The crowbar isn't supposed to be a weapon of mass destruction; it's supposed to be a crowbar.

After all these years, I think that Valve probably knows more about game design than I do...

 

[Robert Ewing]

*Tears*

Let's face it. It's not going to be released for years. I can see another Duke Nukem scenario coming. It's exactly how it was back then. Gabe is going to take every chance to put off making episode three. You just watch.