Quick Knife

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Pick one from each grouping.

-Melee should be instakill
-Melee should not be instakill
-Only backstabs should be instakill

-There should not be a quick melee button[Possible exception being MAX units]
-There should be both a quick melee button and selectable knife
-There should not be a selectable knife

-If there is a quick melee, I would prefer a weapon bash
-If there is a quick melee, I would prefer a knife(MAX units excepted)

Let's say that knives have two modes (slash and stab) still and you can still equip it. Is it the delay being too short that makes quick knifing annoying or the concept of not having to holster your gun first? I've been imagining a quick holster for the weapon. So normal holstering is 1 second as an example then quick knife would use the default knife attack (slash, not stab) by holstering in 200 ms then slashing with a delay afterwards of 800 ms. (Different animation for quick knifing and just regular knifing with an equipped knife to simulate that final strike feeling.

I guess that's how I saw it being balanced. If you wanted to do quicker simultaneous swipes you'd want to equip the knife rather than quick knifing.

So one option if there is a new poll should be:
- Quick knife with post swipe delay (representing holstering delay different for each weapon) with normal equip knife (swipe, 3 hit, and stab, 2 hit modes).

Just to be clear equipping allows one to do faster simultaneous swings. If you were to try to quick knife then knife again there would be a delay because the normal holstering delay is shifted after the knife attack basically. Say you were shooting your pistol and ran out of ammo then did a quick knife it would make sense. Sneaking up behind a player and quick knifing would not make sense unless they were below 33% life.

Then again the choices could be much much more complicated if you wanted backstabbing or say throwing knives. Really a poll to encompass everyone's choices would need to be rather longs. I'd recommend people listing out what they want a knife to have and to do and the kind of damage (basic overview of balance).

My favorite knife system would be:
- Quick knife with post swipe delay (representing holstering delay) with normal equip knife (swipe, 33% damage, and stab, 50% damage, and throw, 1 use 33% damage, modes). So to stab it must be equipped. Quick throw with pre and post throw delay (longer animation). Slow spinning projectile. Holding quick throw changes power from close to medium range.

This is probably the most balanced option since it allows one to use a pistol lets say and shoot at someone and then throw their knife for the final kill. The pre throw delay would be controlled by holding the quick throw key. Tapping it would go into a an animation of pulling the knife and throwing it at the reticule with a small COF and quick projectile fall off at 10 meters. Holding it for a second would throw it at the far distance of 25 meters with a small COF and deadly accuracy (same damage).

The reason for this is to increase players choices in combat which in an MMO should be huge. The more choices the better. As mentioned before I like that feeling of "I could have done something else there and lived" which is really where you see the skill. Having multiple knife options along with weapons I think is where that's can be implemented to make the knife usable by all classes and not just the infiltrator in specific situations. (Though infiltrator could say unlock multiple knives so throwing their only one to get someone healing wouldn't be disastrous).

(Imagine playing and you see someone about to get healed get struck by a knife that's decloaking in mid-air and fall down. I like that kind of stuff since you know an infiltrator is around and is being like a ninja).

[Zulthus]

How about we DON'T have throwing knives and insta kill knives or quick knives because this game is not COD or Battlefield. There's this one game called Planetside where you have to draw your knife and swing it manually, I hear that system worked very well.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Zulthus

How about we DON'T have throwing knives and insta kill knives or quick knives because this game is not COD or Battlefield. There's this one game called Planetside where you have to draw your knife and swing it manually, I hear that system worked very well.

You sound a bit defensive. So what you're saying is you don't like instant kill knives. That concept is already clear from the community. (Though backstabbing hasn't been well defined by many). The way it's implemented in say COD or with the BF3 static animations isn't the only way to do it.

Also what do you mean swing it manually? So you push 5 then rotate your camera really fast to make cutting actions? That sounds like it would look really awkward. It also seems like an odd implementation. Care to go into depth about that? In PS1 you just clicked to swipe or stab. A quick knife implementation would be the same swipe action presumably.

[CidHighwind]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

My favorite knife system would be:
- Quick knife with post swipe delay (representing holstering delay) with normal equip knife (swipe, 33% damage, and stab, 50% damage, and throw, 1 use 33% damage, modes). So to stab it must be equipped. Quick throw with pre and post throw delay (longer animation). Slow spinning projectile. Holding quick throw changes power from close to medium range.

This is probably the most balanced option since it allows one to use a pistol lets say and shoot at someone and then throw their knife for the final kill. The pre throw delay would be controlled by holding the quick throw key. Tapping it would go into a an animation of pulling the knife and throwing it at the reticule with a small COF and quick projectile fall off at 10 meters. Holding it for a second would throw it at the far distance of 25 meters with a small COF and deadly accuracy (same damage).

The reason for this is to increase players choices in combat which in an MMO should be huge. The more choices the better. As mentioned before I like that feeling of "I could have done something else there and lived" which is really where you see the skill. Having multiple knife options along with weapons I think is where that's can be implemented to make the knife usable by all classes and not just the infiltrator in specific situations. (Though infiltrator could say unlock multiple knives so throwing their only one to get someone healing wouldn't be disastrous).

(Imagine playing and you see someone about to get healed get struck by a knife that's decloaking in mid-air and fall down. I like that kind of stuff since you know an infiltrator is around and is being like a ninja).

I could get behind this...

[Straws]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

@Hamma

I suggest redoing the poll with more nuanced options. I think the 'instakill' thing is distracting from the 'one button melee' thing.

I'd suggest removing the poll and leaving discussions about game design as a, you know, discussion.

There are too many possibilities to make this a poll. Currently it is too vague. "Quick Knife" means fuck all to me, but as you can see, most people assume it's the MW/CoD design and automatically give a straight 'no' to it. If I knew for certain that's what they were referring to, I would give it a 'no' as well. As it stands, I do not have enough information to make a judgement on it, so I haven't, instead I listed the features I feel it should or shouldn't have.

To turn that into a poll would result in so many multiple choice options that the net result would be completely useless to the developers. The content of several of the posts in this thread are far more beneificial than a poll that does nothing but detract from the topic.

[Mastachief]

Quick knife.............. FFS game breaking crap. Yet more COD CRAP we don't need.

I would write a long more thought filled post but of late with all these "ideas" that keep appearing i feel that more and more of this game will be geared at the COD kiddies, it is breaking my will to be excited about the game.

Edit:
If you must have some "feature" then a melee 'weapon that you are holding' butt smash ala HALO or similar but only for a small amount of damaged taking current rexo for instance 25 armour and 15 health incorporating a push on the hit.

A knife should behave like a knife, there should be no one shot one kill weapon in planetside not even from behind we are after all wearing armour all over. Cloakers i feel your need to have an effective knife to cater here make this a cloaking tree and make it so the knife in the back say does 60% damage from a cloaker.

[Rabb]

Quick Knife - No just no this is Planetside not CoD or BF

[Justaman]

Originally Posted by basti

Already said this on twitter: NO to quick knives.

Why? Because they can be so much more than just a single button.
There could be several different knives, each with a whole lot of customization options to them. There could be a whole skill tree for Infiltrators dedicated for the knives.

There is a whole world of knives out there, a whole world that would simply fade away with quick knives.

Besides, quick knives are only useful for a fast paced FPS with a lot of close combat. A insta kill weapon used when the enemy gets to close to you.
Planetside 2's kill speed is said to be between BF BC2 and PS1. Thats way to slow to have insta kill quick knives not be completly overpowered. Means no insta kill for them, means they become quite useless.
Now, with actual knives, and a dedicated tree of customization, a whole new level of potential cool stuff appears. Cloakers could get a special customization that gives their knive high damage, almost an insta kill.
There could be customizations for faster stabbing, higher damage, heck even throwing it. There is loads of potential.

This^
Stick with PS1 tactical knives. Have each class have their own cert paths for uses/features. Outfit purchasable custom knife models? (purchase a specific knife model for the outfit, from the store, and everyone in the outfit gets it as its default)

My dream, is to play an infiltrator and run around with no guns, because I wish to optimize my ability to be hidden. Using the tactical knife as my only weapon. I would have very long Time To Kill, for each kill compared to the run and gunner. But it would be very, very satisfying setting up each of those kills.

Sure, if someone so much as breathed in my general direction there's a good chance I'll be found or just out right killed. But that's part of the excitement.

It's one of the things I always tried to do in PS1 (even though it was more effective to just be an invisible engineer, bleh), but the stealth system there wasn't always, well, stealth (Mmmmm, Gama settings).

[Hezzy]

I want my instant win button.

[Aurmanite]

I'm down with an instant melee button of some sort. Instant kill from behind.

[beekergunship]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

Agreed.

You know what that feels like? It feels like when SciFi channel became Syfy.

[TacosWLove]

Originally Posted by Firefly

I don't want quickscope. I don't want quick-knife. I don't want killcam. I don't want a goddamned Call of Dookie MMO-FPS.

LOL, this!

[acosmo]

quick knife sounds pretty neat. i personally think it would be better to have quick kick or quick stock (if the weapon held supports it) instead though.

[jangio]

I feel like infils would just start running around trying to knife people instead of being stealthy

[Neksar]

Halo introduced the dedicated melee button in Combat Evolved, and it has been pretty much a staple of modern FPSes since then. Now, Call of Duty took that one step further with a quick knife, which was an instantaneous kill, which, and this is the important part, made sense in context. TTK is so short in Call of Duty that an instant kill knife makes sense as both a weapon and a means to keep players from camping corners with shotguns. In Planetside 2 it doesn't. They stated that they want TTK's between Battlefield and Planetside 1. A knife probably wouldn't do more than 50% health, then, quick or otherwise.

Logically, it makes no sense to always be able to pull your knife out of hyperspace at a moment's notice. Nobody's that quick on the draw with a knife that's reasonably secured. I can agree with the camp that wants a quick "rifle butt" attack. That's the direction I tend to move toward on this. Maybe deal 20-30% of health with some sort of knockback.

I do think there needs to be some sort of knife option, though, whether it's some sort of tactical knife for the pistol (which actually makes sense. The reverse grip for a knife gives more leverage and acts as a modified shooting stance) or a dedicated knife, which could either hurt more or swing faster/be thrown. I liked the knife in PS1 as a silent killing tool with Melee Enhance, so I'm adamant about it being there in some form.