Half Life 2: Hard Mode

[Tommy Botham]

To be honest i'm a bit disappointed with this difficulty. The only difference is that you take more damage and thats all. I was expecting better AI, more enemies and so forth.

I'm currently at the ravenholm level and it's damn scary. I'm trying my best to stick to the gravity gun because if you don't and you use the projectile weapons, you won't like it when you run out of ammo....

 

[Kevin]

Theres plenty of ammo in Ravenholm IMO...

Ammo usage depends on your speed and accuracy with the weapons.
If you spray a corridor with bullets, because you saw a headcrab there, is surely a way to chew up your ammo.

And yes, the gameplay stays the same.
You just take more damage, and you make less damage.
But that doesn't matter...Gordon is still a nightmare...

...To the combine.

 

[Shift]

Yeah the difficulty is a disapointment, but Valve are putting in a better hard mode or an extra hard mode in their next games apparantly.

 

[Asknoone]

Hard mode is more 'normal' mode really.

 

[Iron_cube]

I'd like Valve to customize the npc behavior only on that upcoming Hardcore difficulty.

Things like, the fast zombies should hit you nonstop instead of taking a break every 2 seconds, that would create a better "scary" atmosphere when you know there are some around. I once had a ton of these ideas for most of the npcs, but bleh I forgot them all :flame:

 

[Loke]

If you'd like a challenge you should try CSS SCI FI.

Imagine playing Opposing Force on hard, only 2x more difficult.

 

[Laivasse]

I like the weapon balance and damage levels in Hard Mode. I think if they work any less in the player's favour then the enemies start to feel like invulnerable sacks of flesh like on HL1 hard mode. HL2's SMG already feels ineffective enough on hard, without making it do even less damage. Maybe there's a case for saying the player always holds too many instant-kill weapons - x-bow, smg alt-fire, rifle alt-fire, rocket launcher, the revolver to an extent - in which case this could be solved by making ammo scarcer.

What I would like to see more of, in terms of difficulty, is genuinely challenging gameplay sections like the big shootout in Entanglement, etc. Note: this is not the same as having silly instant-death sections, or awkward platforming sections with fatal drops. As for adding better AI on harder difficulties and whatnot - that's fraught with problems as well. For one thing, it makes people feel like they're missing out on seeing stuff if they play on lower difficulties, despite the fact that they just might not be good enough to play on Hard. Also, it's harder to make the AI just generally 'better' without resorting to making the enemies behave in quite annoying ways, such as knowing where you are without seeing you.

Getting challenge balanced against enjoyable gameplay is pretty damn tough. I felt like HL2 sacrificed challenge a bit in order to give the player a bit of an easier time and just generally let people enjoy the way the game flows. Bigger shootouts with more enemies is the way forward, I think, and EP2 looks like it will satisfy in that regard.

 

[Iron_cube]

Good point.

I just hope there won't be infinite ammounts of antlions in the nests. I just love absolutely cleaning everything in every area.

 

[bbson john]

I'd like Valve to customize the npc behavior only on that upcoming Hardcore difficulty.

Things like, the fast zombies should hit you nonstop instead of taking a break every 2 seconds, that would create a better "scary" atmosphere when you know there are some around. I once had a ton of these ideas for most of the npcs, but bleh I forgot them all :flame:

So it is real. There is a new difficulty coming to the old Half-Life 2!?

Good point.

I just hope there won't be infinite ammounts of antlions in the nests. I just love absolutely cleaning everything in every area.

And enjoy watching the view. I hate spawning enemy which keeps pushing you forward. You can never enjoy the world made by Valve if it is that. But from the gameplay video, I am almost sure antlion spawn.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

They really should have given the combine some more HP points on Hard.

 

[Asknoone]

Nah. HL1 marines were just retarded when it came to that. It's just dumb to have them with so many health points; it gets very unrealistic.

 

[ríomhaire]

Valve have said that EP2 will come with a harder than hard difficulty that will be retrofitted to HL2 and EP1. Soldier's accuracy should definatly be better in hard (I remember playing Das Robas, or whatever that mod was called, and an Overwatch soldier missing me while I was standing still in the same doorway as him. That's just comically bad. A few more HP couldn't hurt either, as long as it doesn't get as bad as HL1.

I don't think that making the AI act stupid on the easier difficulties is a good idea though.

And Ravenholm is full to the brim of gravity gun ammo.

 

[Esquire]

i played HL2 on Hard difficulty, as when i first started the game on the normal setting, peeps were hittin the floor way too easily.

the hard difficulty meant that i wasnt breezing through the levels, and presented me with problems such as lack of ammo.. and lack of health.

however, when i got to the point where you have to fight all those fleets of combine (in Nova Prospekt i think), where you have a bunch of turrets at your disposal, things became absolutely insane!! that was the only time in the whole game that i truly struggled to progress to the next level.
ashamedly, i lowered the level rite on down to easy, as i grew tired of battling all those foes.


then Ep1 came along, played that on Hard too. Was far more challenging than HL1, but it also had one section with insane difficulty; that damn underground car park!!! that was an absolute nightmare. fighting in the dark, low on ammo, low on health. But in that scene i did have the effort to persevere, and it was highly rewarding. HL2e1 = best 6hrs of the day i played it.


edit: on a note regarding AI:
I felt that both HL2 and HL2e1 possessed extremely poor AI. The only challenge in bringing them down was in relation to how many bullets their heads could hold. They could do with moving faster/moving MORE, diving for cover, rolling to cover, spam grenading your position.. etc.
Furthermore, is it just my skinny in-game backside, or are the striders and gunships ridiculously inaccurate?

 

[Asknoone]

Esquire.......you're back. :O

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

While I am all for a smarter A.I, that being said, I wouldn't want a harder than hard mode that decreases the punch on all our weapons and increases the Soldiers HP to rediculus levels.

moving faster/moving MORE, diving for cover, rolling to cover, spam grenading your position.. etc.

I agree with this and I love for the Combine overwatch soldiers to react in certain situations, effectively.

I usually like using the easy and normal mode, because I find it rediculus that the hard mode reduces the weapon damage and increases the HP of enemies.

 

[Tuskin]

Well in Ep2 combine will throw your grenades back. I found the AI in Ep1 to be an improvement, especially in the last part when escorting the citizens.

 

[Esquire]

Esquire.......you're back. :O

hehe, i am indeed. I'm planning to play through HL2 or ep1 (or both) once i finish some exams, so I thought i'd come here and get into the spirit of things once again.
oh, that and ep2's coming out soon! hyped!

 

[Iron_cube]

Well in Ep2 combine will throw your grenades back. I found the AI in Ep1 to be an improvement, especially in the last part when escorting the citizens.

That part in the gameplay video was clearly faked since the grenade timing is incorrect, meaning the first grenade gordon threw dissapeared and the soldier threw a new one.

 

[Laivasse]

That part in the gameplay video was clearly faked since the grenade timing is incorrect, meaning the first grenade gordon threw dissapeared and the soldier threw a new one.

I've been wondering about that myself. What I'm worried about is that the timer resets when the Combine chuck a gren back. That would be a dumb and annoying thing to have happen, but that's the impression the video gave me.

 

[ríomhaire]

You could have a game of catch with the soldiers