Quick Knife

[Ragotag]

I would say no to a COD/Homefront style quick knife attack. I think BF3 did it right though, so would love to see a BF3 style knife (not quick knife) attack. Sneak up behind your opponent and it's an insta-kill, otherwise just gives a paper cut, and has a short countdown timer (1-2 second) on the attack.

[Gerhold]

Quick knife? no, especially not if it insta kills.
quick melee? yes, I would love to smash some people in the face with my rifle, stagger them and do some damage, not as much if I knifed them, but some.

[Eyeklops]

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

My vote was yes, but only instant kill from the back quarter and not on MAX units.

Agreed. And no insta-kill if they are moving. If I happen upon a non-moving camper from the back, I want to quickly insert my knife through the back of his skull and move on.

A short duration grapple animation would let the player (victim) break the insta-kill and return fire, or nearby friendly units could break the animation by just putting a few rounds into the attacker.

Quick knifing from the front should be weak to discourage it's use.

[Lord Cosine]

In regards to melee assassinate animations:

Case 1: you get back stabbed and there are no players around to save you.
-You already know your character is dead but you get to watch helplessly as you are gutted. Lame.

Case 2: You get back stabbed around oblivious allies
-Same as #1 but 3-4x more frustrating. Lame.

Case 3: You back stab someone and he has friends.
-You get to watch helplessly while your melee attempt is rendered useless. Lame.

Losing control of your character can be really aggravating, especially in the heat of combat, The elegant solution is generally to avoid locking players into an animation unless there is a damn good reason.

Additionally I highly doubt players are going to enjoy watching that animation after the thousandth time.

[DayOne]

BF3 did it right. It would work for planetside. They did it right and you can't deny it.

[Lord Cosine]

Originally Posted by DayOne

BF3 did it right. It would work for planetside. They did it right and you can't deny it.

I deny it.

BF3 does not have infiltrators, BF3 does not have a persistent battleground, BF3 has different weapons, BF3 has a different ttk.

Nothing in game dev is that simple. Every game is different, and what works in one game will not necessarily work in another.

[Synapses]

Here is my idea. I am sure its been discussed. Quick knife one shots kills? Ok, but here is HOW...

Remember the alt fire selection to power up knives in PS1?

Same system. Right mouse click on knife powers it up. It WOULD have a timer on that power up, so if you wait too long it will shut off. Once its powered up, if you CAN get behind someone without them knowing, the knife being powered up, you stab them = one shot kill.

HOWEVER.

On top of this, is a cool down timer on the recharge of the power up.

I dont like the idea of having quick knife if it means I can get behind 3-4 people and get all of them with the knife.

ALSO, NO stealth one shot kills with knifes. Would be way over powered, even with the cool down timer. Someone would just knife, run away and hide until cooldown is up, and do it again. The stealth suite generator would say interfere with powering up the knife preventing it from being used for one shot kills from behind.


BF3's knife system works out great, I think it would work in planetside 2. There is NO knifing someone from the front and living through it. You die trying. The good knife kills are from behind or on prone enemies.

[DayOne]

Battlefield knives that you need to get out first. And just because PS2 is a different place and on one server all the time doesn't mean it has to be 100% new and innovative especially when a knife system like BF3's, but with the addition of having to draw the knife first, would work.

[Folly]

Only game I've played with quick-knife is Starhawk, and I enjoyed the functionality there; would not object to similar in PS2.

If not quick-knife, then knife needs some other buff. Damage boost, range boost, grappling with your target so they can't simply run away the second they get poked, backstab bonuses, increased movement speed while knife is out, silent attacks, poisoned blades, charged-attacks, rush-attacks, quick-draw...maybe allow some or all of these ideas to be unlocked through certifications and customized on the blade one at a time.

Bottom line though, knife NEEDS to be more functional than it was in PS1. Need to either give it some advantage to make it more desirable than guns in some situations, or else remove it from the game because it's a waste of space.

Also, since they're apparently separating classes, I'm hopeful that infiltrators specifically will have their boomers taken away and be given knife-skills to compensate. Those sneaky bastards have infringed on Combat Engineer territory for far too long...

Edit: I realize this is extremely unlikely...but optional finishing-moves against low-health enemies would be SO much fun. The more gore, the better!

[DayOne]

Originally Posted by Folly

Bottom line though, knife NEEDS to be more functional than it was in PS1.

So much this. The anaemic knife is PS1 is why I ended up playing AV instead of infil.

The BF3 system (with added need to draw it first) would work because it rewards you being able to sneak up on an enemy and punishes them being stupid enough to be wandering about alone. It will not be OP in a game as big as Planetside.

It's quick, clean and fun for all the family! Except the dead ones.

[Graywolves]

Originally Posted by DayOne

So much this. The anaemic knife is PS1 is why I ended up playing AV instead of infil.

The BF3 system (with added need to draw it first) would work because it rewards you being able to sneak up on an enemy and punishes them being stupid enough to be wandering about alone. It will not be OP in a game as big as Planetside.

It's quick, clean and fun for all the family! Except the dead ones.

Reward the invisible people for getting behind visible people and one-shotting them?

The risk-reward seems off but if that does happen then everyone's going to carry night vision or thermal and check constantly like a paranoid penguin.

Plenty of infil's worked well in PS1 from using the Automatic machine pistol, boomers, and even knives (albeit very situational). And later the new pistols did this function anyways.

Giving infiltrators any method of instagib without any kind of warning would probably be more harmful than good to infiltrators. (paranoia/raised player awareness)

[super pretendo]

How is this garbage even considered?

[DayOne]

Originally Posted by Graywolves

Giving infiltrators any method of instagib without any kind of warning would probably be more harmful than good to infiltrators. (paranoia/raised player awareness)

What if your suit had to divert power from your cloak to your knife so you can cut through the enemy armour/shield? So you cannot have your knife drawn AND your cloak up?

I hope you have nothing against being sneaky.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by DayOne

What if your suit had to divert power from your cloak to your knife so you can cut through the enemy armour/shield? So you cannot have your knife drawn AND your cloak up?

I still don't like the idea of an one-hit knife for infiltrators or anyone. If you want to kill someone with a knife equip it and set it to the secondary stab mode and have at it. In my design I set it at 3 stabs to kill any player (except max) which would ideally be pretty quick. If you had an implant that allowed a strong stab then it could potentially go down to two. There's no reason it needs to be one hit to make it useful.

[Graywolves]

Originally Posted by DayOne

What if your suit had to divert power from your cloak to your knife so you can cut through the enemy armour/shield? So you cannot have your knife drawn AND your cloak up?

I hope you have nothing against being sneaky.

I have nothing against being sneaky at all. I hope planetside 2 provides infiltrators with a few more than things than previous to make the playstyle more dynamic.

But as I was saying, providing an instagib via quickknives would make the class feel overpowered (even if it only instagibbed lightly armored classes).

With the boomer and the secondary knife mode you had an audio queue that you were about to be killed and if you were quick enough you could avoid an easy death.

No one likes to die without the possibility of defending themselves, even if it could be well-deserved. And if you make something too powerful in a game like this, the meta-game will adjust and people will eventually make pre-emptive measures against it too large.