Gonarch experience is truly awful

[Magonus]

Mostly due to the way they have built the levels, and controls/clipping on the long jump jets. You can hardly dodge anywhere with those things because you'll trip on a pebble, or else the jets refuse to activate because you're on an "incline". I seem to be also having an issue where, even if I'm trying to move left, if my last vector was right, I'll keep skipping like a rock on the water in that direction.

Fighting the Gonarch is by far the worst experience on Black Mesa, and it has almost nothing to do with the Gonarch herself, but with the cramped (though pretty) pinball level design and horrible collisions. I'm in the final chamber but I'm tempted to drop the difficulty from Hard to Easy, just to finish her, because the controls and levels make her so tedious. I hope I'm not the only one who was this annoyed.

[Vassago Rain]

It's down to the source rocks, yes. Polish is upcoming, according to their latest update. The fight on hard is legit hard, almost brutal, even if you ignore the snagging rocks, because the damage is doom 2 levels, without doom levels of supplies.

I really appreciate the challenge and multi-stage part, where you have to trick her around the map, poke her to get her attention, and so on, until you're in the lair proper and can finish her, but the source rocks (tm), and physics damage, especially on hard, need to be toned down.

Once in the final chamber, the fight is a lot like shooting something like the Makron from quake 2, or the original gonarch fight. Unload all your missiles, while dodging behind the pillars, and trying as best as you can to avoid the bullet hell mine field of acid that'll end up being everywhere.

[Hartias]

I have to somewhat agree, i am only after the first stage of the fight

The fighting itself is fine, and i loved jumping+sliding around the arena, but it was very annoying, there is a lot of clutter you get stuck on

Hopefully they will polish the terrain for 1.0

[fuegerstef]

Simplified collisions are something that Black Mesa struggeled with since the original mod, although they are around and necessary since the days when shooters left the 2.5D plane.

[The Suspect]

Here to chime in as well.

The fight is not hard, it's downright stupid and most importantly unpolished.

To begin with, I usually get stuck just before the collapsing gate at start with Gonarch right behind me. Unless I manage to get unstuck and jump in before the boss, I die like half the times.
Some times I also die if unlucky to the falling debris at start. Very fun (not).

On to the fight now. The boss being a huge bullet sponge is also not fun. Until now, I have thrown at him a 100/100 gluon, a full inventory of sachels, 3 rifle grenades and 10-12+ rockets. I still have no idea how much hp is left on him.

The jet pack acting weird and throwing me to the opposite direction into the thorns is not fun.
The headcrab babies munching away at your hp is also not fun, considering there is also like 3-4 medkits and shield packs at the arena and thats it.

The boss now, while most of its attacks do have tells, a lot of his close range ones are pretty much instant. On top of that, on hard, realistically, you are dead in 1-2 hits. Not fun considering how long the fight drags on. Also, sometimes after the charge, he keeps following me at full speed, and I have no idea how to dodge that. Finally, if any of his attacks connect when I m mid air (like most of the time) it sends you flying through the map. Oh there is also a lot of clipping messing stuff up.

Overall, it seems they tried to design a Dark Souls-like boss, just without the experience to back it up. Bad idea. Please focus on what you do great and leave such stuff to the experts.

And generally, Xen could use some more work imo. it is visually impressive, no doubt there, change nothing. However, it has little substance behind it. Silly puzzles, super weak enemies, generally no challenge...

[Just Chill]

Yet it surely can be a piece of cake too.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1835571534

[Magonus]

I did beat her on Hard after posting this, but it involved about a dozen quicksaves after every breather that I wasn't punted into thorns or blindsided.

The devs weren't fools, they did put the bleeding effect on the Gonarch, which was also in Valve's Antlion Guards. So, you can see when she's roughly half or lower. And there is a bit of user error, I may say, in that there was a smarter way to fight her (doing figure eights around the pillars) than what I previously did; running about like a rocket-packed matador.

That said, I still think the whole run needs a massive cleanup, and some kind of collision removal on small objects and terrain geometry when the player activates the long jump jets. Adding an invisible flat plane much of the arena, so that your long jump isn't disabled by minor inclines, would also be a great improvement. That, or have the long jump launch you up slightly higher before checking the forward launch, so that you can clear those lovely little terrain curbs that they have added all over the place.

[Пятнистая Рысявка]

I'm not sure if I'm finished with Gonarch yet, but I'm in the 3rd chapter (interloper), and I fought it twice.
Played the entire game on hard and the first was hard indeed. It takes like 40 rockets to take him down, and he has too many attacks, or sometimes non-stop follows you, kicking and pushing. Weird guy, but still ok.

[Magonus]

Not to mention that Controller ambush in the Vortigaunt slum was 100% ♥♥♥♥ level design.

[Vassago Rain]

Originally posted by Magonus:

Not to mention that Controller ambush in the Vortigaunt slum was 100% ♥♥♥♥ level design.

That was by far the easiest fight in the game for me. I magnum'd and tau'd all the controllers to death before I even took any real damage.

Originally posted by Ocelot Shalashaska:

I'm not sure if I'm finished with Gonarch yet, but I'm in the 3rd chapter (interloper), and I fought it twice.
Played the entire game on hard and the first was hard indeed. It takes like 40 rockets to take him down, and he has too many attacks, or sometimes non-stop follows you, kicking and pushing. Weird guy, but still ok.

The rockets do splash, and hitting the carapace does almost no damage, even with explosives. You have to hit it square in its dangly bits for maximum damage, and if you do, the first fight should be over in about 10-15 rockets.