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).