by WallyTheBoogieBug » Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:46 am
The Evil Security Guard and Evil Otis from Sven Co-op would be good fits for the Zombie Man and Shotgun Guy respectively, as said. The Shotgun Guy already drops the Magnum in the current version of the mod, the Desert Eagle in OpFor fits the same ammo type and weapon class as the Magnum in the original Half-Life, so it makes even more sense. I do have a concern with that though, that being the Evil Otis's (Otisi?) might be too powerful as the Deagle has a rather high damage compared to the Shotgun and its also very accurate, which the Shotgun Guys are not. Of course the damage will probably be lower, but maybe they should be rather inaccurate compared to their OpFor/Sven Co-op counterparts? Not sure.
On the topic of Barnacles and how they could fit in the mod, I think it would be most logical, instead of replacing an existing enemy, for Barnacles to be placed on a map via script. Perhaps some items could call a script on spawning that would check if a sky is above them, if a sky is not above them, they have a rare chance of spawning a barnacle directly above them. Half-Life 1 often used items as traps for careless players to step into Barnacle tongues, this would recreate that same feature as a random element. You could even tie Barnacle spawn chances to difficulty; the higher the difficulty, the more they spawn.
My only catch with my idea is that always placing a barnacle above an item might be too consistent and players would get too jumpy around items, ruining the surprise by teaching them how to expect one. I'm not sure how else to solve this.
One more concern of mine is the Gargantuas. In the original Half-Life, these enemies were only vulnerable to explosives and energy weapons. This may seem like a no-brainer, but without the traps to kill these foes it would be wise to grant it vulnerability to gunfire as well. Perhaps a 50% resistance to gunfire would be more than enough to retain the original idea without making scenarios unwinnable, I think anything more may be too much.