agreed, its very difficult spiky in focal point and the pacing feels a bit off. cutting back on the waves in the jamming core would also feel better it think. having lots of insta death planes also isnt as fun as youd imagine.

I also think, as some have pointed out, that the satchel charge puzzle with the tendril switches is rather unclear, and that perhaps obscuring/blocking the view of the switch that requires the remote detonation when looking at it from the cliffside should carry the point accross better, because otherwise players will just potshot the switch with their pistol or some other accuracy weapon.

Another puzzle that could use some rework or a better explanation is the force field leading to the Generator Room in the Focal point camp site. It took me some blind trial-and-error before I even thought about tossing one of the H.E.V. batteries into the field. I don't think it would occur to people who start out with playing Balck Mesa: Blue Shift to know that the otherwise "useless" H.E.V. batteries do nothing in this game so trying to associate them with the batteries that Barny does use requires some mental gymnastics that requires the familiarity of having played the base Black Mesa/Half-Life campaign to even draw the connection for this puzzle (i.e. it's not good to create puzzle that require "trivia" knowledge). In other words, I think there should be a segment where we are shown H.E.V. batteries being "accidentally" passed through a field to demonstrate their capability of disabling said fields for a moment.

Finally, there's a passage right above a segment that involves a fan, a switch, and some Alien Controllers to fight that, again, was slightly confusing since the vines leading up to the passage (that coil around the piston elevator that is used to get to that height) look almost entirely like it was "non-traversable set dressing" (A.K.A. background geometry you'd simply fall through). I get that these vines have some emissive lights, but I do think a few more light giving fauna (i.e. the blue glowing flowers) should give the impression to the player that these vines are indeed traverable and not just set-dressing. It doesn't help that the vines are rather narrowish.

Overall, my impressions for this chapter are rather positive, but clearly less polished than the previoous chapter, which itself does still have some issues remaining (such as scripted sequences with Dr. Rosenburg not triggering properly).

Originally posted by sfried:

I also think, as some have pointed out, that the satchel charge puzzle with the tendril switches is rather unclear

Even after the previous puzzle, this one was a little confusing.

Originally posted by sfried:

Another puzzle that could use some rework or a better explanation is the force field leading to the Generator Room in the Focal point camp site.

Oh, hell yes. I tried half a dozen things before remembering a whiteboard half an hour before that linked the two power sources and it immediately clicked.

Originally posted by sfried:

Finally, there's a passage right above a segment that involves a fan, a switch, and some Alien Controllers to fight that, again, was slightly confusing since the vines leading up to the passage

A lot of passable sections blend in very well, either due to not standing out from the background or there being far too many overlaid twinkling lights.

Originally posted by sfried:

Overall, my impressions for this chapter are rather positive, but clearly less polished than the previoous chapter, which itself does still have some issues remaining (such as scripted sequences with Dr. Rosenburg not triggering properly).

Agreed - although I did have a ton of fun with the trains, even if I wish they had behaved more like the original HL service trains (allowing you to step away with it moving).

I think the puzzles are good, but Valve have a history of demonstration, learn by doing, implement going forward. While I've seen this implemented quite well in new puzzles, sometimes it's just too subtle or not previously signposted well enough. Having just replayed HL2, Ep1 & Ep2 with commentary, the balance needed to give the player information without holding their hand is remarkably complicated.

I agree with the difficulty spike at the end of the chapter being too much. I played on hard mode, and got stuck at low health at the jamming core part. Eventually I had to use god mode. I feel like there should have either been more health given before the fight, or a health pool should have been nearby during the fight. The presence of the infinitely spawning vortigaunts was what got me. I feel like the game overall needs some more armor packs scattered around too, especially during the later parts of Captive Freight. The chapter atmosphere was amazing, and only some small changes like more cover or more health would make it a lot more fair on hard mode.

Originally posted by SkeletronPrime9:

I agree with the difficulty spike at the end of the chapter being too much. I played on hard mode, and got stuck at low health at the jamming core part. Eventually I had to use god mode. I feel like there should have either been more health given before the fight, or a health pool should have been nearby during the fight. The presence of the infinitely spawning vortigaunts was what got me. I feel like the game overall needs some more armor packs scattered around too, especially during the later parts of Captive Freight. The chapter atmosphere was amazing, and only some small changes like more cover or more health would make it a lot more fair on hard mode.

Don't forget more (types of) ammunition spawn points. While it's nice to use rockets on the Alien Controllers, it's not necessarily the quickest way to get rid of them, especially when they always dodge the rockets even when laser guided. While infinite MP5 is nice, more shotgun ammo would also be great...which is why I was wondering why wasn't there an infinite ammo pool of these just like in the Focal Point camp site. Such a bizarre decision to hold it out in the portal segment considering how chaotic things got.

But maybe this was just me, but I felt this chapter got a bit long in the tooth when it got its own "Interloper" segment...or maybe I just started to really get tired with all the Alien Controllers at this point (base Black Mesa also had a problem with the end segment of Interloper also having too many Alien Controllers to fight).

Originally posted by SkeletronPrime9:

I agree with the difficulty spike at the end of the chapter being too much. I played on hard mode, and got stuck at low health at the jamming core part. Eventually I had to use god mode. I feel like there should have either been more health given before the fight, or a health pool should have been nearby during the fight. The presence of the infinitely spawning vortigaunts was what got me. I feel like the game overall needs some more armor packs scattered around too, especially during the later parts of Captive Freight. The chapter atmosphere was amazing, and only some small changes like more cover or more health would make it a lot more fair on hard mode.

If it's the infinitely respawning vortigaunts right at the end where you've got the crystal powered cannon to fire at the core (incidentally, trying to explain *where* you are at any point is really hard), then there are three respawning health pod barnacle things on either side of the Big Button in the central room. Changed that otherwise impossible-seeming fight to do-able.

The amount of Controllers is too (damn) high, definitely. I especially didn't like it when you leap into the portal at the end, and then get thrown back into a place where you've *already* had a Controller fight, in order to have a Controller fight. Felt like going backwards instead of forwards.

Play on easy, all this similar kind of moaning towards Black Mesa about it being 'too difficult' seriously negatively effected the game which can now be beaten blind folded its so easy.

Originally posted by ianMC:

Play on easy, all this similar kind of moaning towards Black Mesa about it being 'too difficult' seriously negatively effected the game which can now be beaten blind folded its so easy.

Playing on easy doesn't solve the Alien Controller count, nor some of the more obtuse direction the game want you to go in (like some of the aforementioned puzzles).

The end is just too hard. While there were hard fights dujring the game, this fight feels unbalanced and unfair. There are way too many Alien Controllers, which shoot at me at all times while dodging my own rockets with ease. Both shotgun and Revolver reload too slow to be effective - and usually most controllers are too far away anyway for the Shotgun. Controllers respawn faster than I can kill them. Whenever I get near the exit I get teleported away and again and again. Health restoration is only at the bottom, so if I managed to get close to the exit, I either die fighting or go down to the restore health while the Controllers respawn. Not funny.
I am playing on "Black Mesa" difficulty (which I assume is "medium" difficulty, right?)

I appreciate the hard work the team has done on this expansion pack mod, but I think the Xen level is a bit long. What made the OG Blue Shift nice was that it was short and sweet. Xen wasn't overwhelming in the original, but that's just me.

What are you guys talking about? I consider myself a casual gamer, yet you make me feel like a genius. The 2 end battles are meant to be like a boss encounter so expect it to be a little bit harder. I played on Black Mesa difficulty and died just like 3 times so I don't think it is THAT challenging. The puzzles are also not that difficult, just stop for a second and think it through, do not rush like it is a Call of Duty game. I hope the devs will not dumb it down for you. I enjoyed the Focal point chapter a lot. Few desktop crashes here and there but overall absolutely awesome experiance. Looking forward to the final chapter.

@Luky I agree that all of Focal Point is amazing and in fact the puzzles didn't seem tedious to me, but the truth is that the final part of the portal with the controllers is very unfair, since every time I finished with a wave of controllers and got to the portal another wave immediately appeared and pushed you back, which doesn't make it fun but frustrating, plus I don't consider myself a bad Half-Life player since I've replayed the games quite a few times and played quite a few mods, even the part where we have to shoot the core didn't seem tedious to me, but the final part did, since it's unbalanced.

Tbh i did not quite get where the portal was. At first i failed to realise that the alien controllers are throwing me back. I have to say i was impressed by the whole mod. I played for many hours and thought many times: "this is probably the ending now.." but the chapters kept on going :D

i honestly didn't understand which part of the original BS Xen it was supposed to be. I only recognized the signal and the lakes, nothing else.