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OBO: Overall Balance Overhaul - Black Mesa Edition

Welcome to the Black Mesa Edition of OBO! The Overall Balance Overhaul (pronounced "oboe") is a mod that aims to modify, rework, and improve Black Mesa to the fullest capacity of the game's weapon scripts and console variable configs. What does that mean? Simply, this mod alters the data behind your weapons, enemies, and anything else I could improve. Constructive feedback, both positive and negative, are welcome.

Before we get into the specifics of the mod, some info: This mod is compatible with the base game and all custom maps, and will only conflict with other mods that modify weapon scripts (stats) and config settings. Simply click the subscribe button, and restart your game. The easiest way to check if this mod is working is to check if your Glock has an 18-round magazine (17 rounds is vanilla), or smack something with the crowbar (this mod makes the 'hit' speed and 'miss' swing speed identical). If all else fails, make a custom folder and manually install this mod there, though that shouldn't be needed.

SO WHAT IN TARNATION DOES THIS MOD DO?

The number of changes in this mod are substantial (and for the better, I think you'll find), and this page can't show every tweak. The real meat of the mod is a total overhaul of the difficulty balance. Every enemy will take a specific number of shots from every weapon to kill, with focus on what's most fun. Broadly-speaking, alien enemies (particularly the weakest ones) are beefier, and battles with HECU human marines feel like firefights where they die easier, but shoot harder. No enemy deals trivial damage. Every enemy matters.

The three in-game difficulty options were also overhauled. The jump from Normal to Hard is no longer a gigantic leap from taking 1x damage to 1.75x. Instead, Easy sets damage taken to 0.75x and damage dealt to 1.1x, while Hard sets damage taken to 1.25x and damage dealt to 0.9x. I made a very specific, well-catered balance aimed at Normal difficulty, and you can change to Easy or Hard at any time if a section feels trivial (like the first few chapters) or too rough (like that dang HECU ambush at the end of Questionable Ethics).

For those who are curious, the full changelogs are included in the download, but here are some highlights!

WEAPONS:
Not only has each weapon received reworks (damage values, mag size, reserve ammo, etc), but other tweaks as well. Such as recoil! Sweet, delicious recoil! Included in this mod is an improvement of each gun's recoil (excluding energy weapons and the RPG) to both make guns feel more like like real firearms and make the shooting experience more involved. The highlight of this is the MP5, which now has tighter base accuracy, but bounces around a bit more unpredictably (lower minimum kick, slightly higher maximum), making actively fighting the recoil more of a moment-to-moment minigame where your manual mouse movements play a (reasonably) larger part in your weapon's effectiveness. This was how recoil more-or-less worked before, but the minimum was precisely half the maximum in vanilla and felt like a cosmetic replacement for Half-Life 1's flat spread than actually affecting gameplay.
I've even improved weapons where recoil remains cosmetic only, such as the Shotgun and Glock. The Shotgun for instance, had exactly the same vertical kick when firing one or both barrels, which, for my OCD brain, was impossible to ignore once I noticed it. Double-firing the Shotgun will now kick a bit higher (not double, though), and weapons simply feel more punchy when firing.

The Hivehand has received a complete overhaul (with inspiration from Sven Co-op), able to hold many (MANY) more hornets, but regenerating ammo much more slowly. This allowed me some freedom to make it more powerful, too. You can use it for a time and it's not so weak anymore, but you'll need to stow it in your back pocket for a while so it can regen.

The crowbar was reworked to have the same attack rate when hitting or missing, to make each hit more impactful, with increased damage to boot. Mostly just for breaking boxes and boards, but makes for an ammo-saving weapon against Zombies and Headcrabs.

Certain weapons with too little reserve ammo such as the Crossbow and Revolver (and MP5, but only gave it one extra mag) have been adjusted accordingly and individually, and the Shotgun which had too much has been reduced a tad. I haven't gone overboard, each weapon now simply has its place.

Also included in this mod are adjustments to most weapons' viewmodel FoV (field of view), which determines how far forward/back the weapon is held in first-person. I've endeavored to make weapons look nicer when held, and this will not conflict with custom weapon models.

As for specifics on the damage balance, this is difficult to put into words, since it ties into enemy HP in a way that must be experienced and felt, but I'll mention the most important parts in the next section.

ENEMIES:
As I touched on earlier, the design philosophy behind this mod is that no enemy should be trivial, with each having its place and everything should be reasonably challenging and fun to fight. With this in mind, I've reworked the stats so that each weapon has more well-defined strengths and weaknesses depending on the specific enemy.

Human Marines and Vortigaunts are POTENTIALLY more fragile than before, but only when shot in the head or upper torso. The same applies to most enemies. It is possible, for instance, to kill a Bullsquid in one double-shotgun blast, but only if the majority of pellets hit it in the "head," which is in the mouth in vanilla, or the area between the eyes with the Corrected and Improved Hitboxes mod. The Revolver can oneshot Vorts and Marines with a headshot, but require two or even three if shot in the chest or arm respectively. In practice, this means that as combat gets chaotic and your ammo reserve allows, you may spend more ammo to put a target down fast, or you can take the time to place your shots to conserve ammo. You can adjust your playstyle from aggressive to cautious depending on your resources. Fights with Vorts and Marines specifically can get really hectic in a great way. Overall, this rework makes combat more unpredictable and a bit more skill-based, and overall more fun.

It is highly recommended to use the Corrected and Improved Hitboxes mod for the intended experience. Please read his mod's description as the author went the extra mile and did his due diligence there.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2033100114

To repeat, alien enemies in general are tougher, particularly the more-or-less "trivial" enemies such as Headcrabs and Houndeyes. Headcrabs are tough little buggers now and can deal more damage, but remain relatively easy to avoid. Bullsquids can be pretty tanky now too, and I've found that explosives can be effective. The different types of Marines and Zombies each have their own slightly different HP values to add subtle differences to the shots required to kill them with certain weapons.

OTHER STUFF:
This mod also makes a number of changes to miscellaneous variables, such as modifying the difficulty multipliers on damage taken and damage dealt. Player item throw velocity has also been turned up to the point where throwing objects at enemies can cause physics damage, and even kill enemies with repeated hits.
Considering they're so rare, you can collect and carry up to nine MP5 grenades with you now, to encourage their use a bit more. The Tau Cannon primary is much more viable. Vorts take very slightly longer to charge their primary attack. Crouch move speed is slightly increased, the flashlight is shrunk slightly to make dark areas a tad more claustrophobic, and many more little edits.