Are melee weapons required in shooters to make it good?

[Kinghoza]

Ofc. Loved it when I got my hands on the energy sword in Halo 2 for the first time <3

 

[Unit420]

I really love the Arisaka Bayonet in Call of Duty World at War. No matter what weapon I carry at the time, I drop it for the Arisaka Bayonet.

 

[NickCaligo42]

Why is this a topic of discussion? They have to be there, in one form or another. Even in the worst-case scenario it's a failsafe. If you run out of ammo, you can still play the game.

 

[Teh_Lemon]

Team Fortress anyone?

 

[Lazzi]

You dont need a melee weapon but I belive a melee option is a must.

 

[goatzilla8463]

They're not neccesary but are damn useful when someone is close up to you. I hate it when people in halo shoot and run up to you, killing you with a melee punch though.

 

[Acier]

It's called a shooter


so no, melee is not required for a genre whose name goes against everything they stand for

 

[Slycne]

Ive always been surprised at how effective running up and hitting people with things is more effective than 30 bullets to the face...

like in halo you run up to someone and hit them with the but of your rifle= shield gone
shoot them in the chest with said rifle 30 times = sheild gone

now i think stopping a rifle butt travailing at o lets see, 1000 feet per second (give or take) should be easier than stoping a small bullet travailing at 10x that (EZ math 10000).
i can understand it stunning the person getting hit giving the hitter more time to kill you but a bullet should kill you faster.

tis a balance issue. Ranged attacks allow you to hide behind cover. Melee forces you into the open and into point blank range. The general feeling is you should be rewarded for that risk, thus melee attacks are more effective.

It goes slightly beyond that too. Most shooters, especially those that are trying to be less run and gun, will have instant kill melee and use this to reinforce their desired range of engagement. If anyone remembers playing games like Goldeneye, Quake, etc - you were often running up to point blank range, circling strafing around and firing. So this is often used as an attempt to counter that and force players to keep their distance from each other.

 

[Iron Mal]

I think it depends on how they are implimented.

Backup melee attacks such as the knife in CoD or the gun-whack in Halo are easy to abuse since they allow an easy one-hit kill on demand without much in the way of a sacrifice or tradeoff (you can hold you gun steady one moment, slash someone's nipples off the next and then be back in a perfect firing stance before anyone can react).

Dedicated melee weapons (such as the knife in Turok or the crowbar) feel more fair in my opinion since you trade the capacity to fire back for a guaranteed close range one hit kill (and in some cases a speed boost) that would encourage bith the 'weapon of last resort' behavior that games like Call of Duty attempt to emulate and the 'berserker' type of approach that is fitting in games like Turok or Unreal Tournament.