What place does melee really have in shooters?

[kickyourass]

Well yes, Melee attacks do more or less dominate in close quarters, and that's the way it SHOULD be. I mean, if you're right next to an enemy why waste bullets when you can kill them quicker and easier with you're melee attack (besides in some games it's much easier to miss at those close ranges then you'd think)?

In addition *Enters Grammar Nazi mode* I don't know what this "lounge" problem you're talking about is, since most people tend to lunge with melee weapons not lounge. *Exits Grammar Nazi mode* Seriously though I've never encountered this problem in any shooter I've played, when ever I've seen any sort of lunging happening it's always been at a reasonable distance.

Most melee systems in shooters are just fine the way they are, just because YOU don't like them doesn't mean no one else can.

 

[Hiphophippo]

Team Fortress 2 did this right.

Team Fortress 2 did everything right.

That's giving it a bit too much credit. Its developers are only human, and there's a lot of items now, making it inevitably more unbalanced than ever. Again, I don't blame Valve; No human designers could successfully balance out all of those classes and items.

As for melee, I think it was fine until they introduced the Targe, which is pretty much like the frustrating one-hit kills op describes, with a few changes, some of which are more annoying (long distance fast charge), and some less (doesn't automatically lock on).

That's all personal opinion anyway. I personally feel like everything is pretty squared away, and more or less, always have.

Neither here nor there in this thread though.

 

[crazypsyko666]

I'd like to see a combination of the original Call of Duty butt-stock smack, and a knife that must be equipped for more damage.

 

[Snotnarok]

I'm not sure what you mean by no skill required, sneaking takes more skill than spraying bullets at a given area. Though this strange BS in MW2 where you can reach 10 feet in front of you does make it stupid.

What place does melee have in shooters? Well for one bullets are stopped by Kevlar, knives are not.

Melee works great in games like TF2 though, or Timesplitters where you're clubbing a fishbowl robot with a bat.

 

[trust Milo]

Situation: you run out of ammo, the enemy runs out of ammo. Your teammates and his teammates are on the other side of the map. What are you going to do?

Answer: Mexican standoff with knives, thus performing pure win

 

[ohgodalex]

I want melee to work like it does in ODST on Legendary. It should be a standard and easily accessible attack that kills fairly slowly and puts you at great risk.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

Sometimes it can be used for challenge.
C'mon! Who HASN'T played Doom and tried using the Chainsaw/Fists on the Cyberdemon just for the sake of it.

 

[AWDMANOUT]

Imagine a shotgun. It is always a one shot kill, with unlimited ammo and almost NEVER misses because it has lock on. It is also going to be in every shooter. Well, it's real. It's called melee, and me and a lot of others are begining to question its role in Modern Warfare 2.

Fixed that for ya. That's the only FPS I've seen that really over-powers the melee button. But it really is just a quick, desperate last card up a player's sleeve (or at least that's what it was meant to be), not a main weapon.

Team Fortress 2 did this right.

Team Fortress 2 did everything right.

Agreed.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

I'm gonna parrot the Halo love. Instant kill only from behind, and no lunge. You still get the stealth kills, and you still have a viable backup when caught between reloads, but you have to actually close distance and aim.

 

[IamSofaKingRaw]

Halo does melee the best in my opinion. There is melee, it doesn't have to be equipped(except for the sword), and it's not a one shot kill face-to-face. I don't know how many times melee has saved my life in that game, like when I've run down someone's shields then find myself in close with no ammo. So IMO Halo does it best, and solves most of the problem's outlined in the OP.

Almost every other FPS has balanced melee (Killzone, Resistance). You have to run down the opponent health before you can melle to finish them off. Halo still has a lunge but like other FPS's (other than MW2) a melee takes off about 50% of health.

 

[mega48man]

------here's why in the form of a bud light commerical----

because when you're out gunned and you know it, you've brought your handy knife
"your handy kniiiiieiiiife!"

you can stab them in the back even in the toughest odds
"stabtheminthebackevenin the toughest ooooOOOdds!"

because you're no riot shield or turret n00b, you are a man
"YOU'RE A MAAAaaAAAAN!!"

so here's to you tac-knife guy,
"tac-knife guuuuuuy!!!"

this bud's for you...

 

[peduncle]

Team Fortress 2 did this right.

Team Fortress 2 did everything right.

amen, buddy.
tf2 has nice, balanced melee... except the axtinguisher

 

[spartan231490]

I disagree point by point, a knife wound is equally as serious, if not more so, compared to a gunshot wound. It doesn't really change the game any, with a shotguns, or even similar medium to long range weapons in these games, the winner is the first one to shoot/hit. same thing with the knife.

 

[TheLefty]

I'd take you more seriously if there were fewer grammatical errors, but otherwise I mostly agree with you. Granted I only ever played the Transformers demo, I rarely melee(d), so I can't contribute to that.

 

[VegetaPrinceofSaiyans]

I actually kind of disagree, melee is never 100%, I've missed, and been missed by people PLENTY of times. Ever been in a window capping a few guys further down the map, and hear a whisper of sound behind you, whip around to find some idiot trying to knife you?

That's called a failed Melee.

I think melee is extremely important, honestly. Sometimes, reloading is the difference between life and death, sometimes you simply don't have the time for the clip. So, you smash them with the butt of your rifle. Stab them with a bayonet, or knife them. It's kind of strange to think that any combat soldier, rebel, or veteran of any kind would go into battle without some kind of backup weapon (and I don't mean a side arm). Knives are not only vital if you run out of ammo, but for utility purposes also.

A knife to the spine, or heart, is no different than a bullet to the head or chest. If it doesn't kill you, it's going to seriously take you out of your gameplan.

I think your issue, is really more of a problem with FPS' in general. A lack of serious bullet/impact physics. Ever notice how there's really very little difference in a 5.56 round versus a 7.62 in games? I would personally LOVE to see them implement actual physics to bullets. But, then you run into the 'realism' problem, where everyone bitches so much because...oh my god, I can't shoot 4 miles across the screen, and so on. Realistically, they should have to arc shots beyond what, a third of a mile? Even less?

Fix those issues, and you'd probably get more of what you're looking for. As for one-shot kills with knives? Well, if it's a 5+" blade, it's got plenty of length to pierce your heart.

There is nothing wrong with your theory of bringing a combat knife into battle, but the issue is with games like MW2 where you can instantly knife someone just by pressing a button, when in reality, you would have either drop your weapon entirely or switch your gun to your non-dominant hand and remove the knife from it's sheath before you are able to strike with it. This is why I believe that the melee strike in MW2 would be much more practical if it involved hitting the enemy with the butt/stock of your gun rather than knifing because a melee attack with your rifle could be done in one fluid motion, while it would take between 1-2 seconds to ready yourself for melee with a blade. And one further point about melee in MW2...knifing with Akimbo weapons doesn't cause you to drop those weapons. I am quite curious how one could manage to successfully land a fatal blow with a knife when you are holding two guns.

 

[MP3zilla]

I would just like to say the knife/melee option, is awesome. You need it for close combat situations, cuz you don't always get the shotgun. I would personally like to see the end of the melee rush and auto lock on. These two said features undo the whole awesomeness of melee. Also, I'd like to implement a one hit kill when knifing the face, neck, or chest, arms and legs should do little to no dmg.

 

[SelectivelyEvil13]

Part of Call of Duty's problem with the instant-death melee is that it has not basis on whether or not you stabbed your target in the face or in the shin. Yeah, the later is going to hurt like hell, but it sure shouldn't be the exact same as slitting their throat or a knife to the back.

Melee's power and overall involvement depends largely upon the game type and the weapon in question. Another factor is whether or not a "lunge" is incorporated.

I think that if the gameplay can suit having you equip the knife/melee weapon so that it actually requires some strategic input and use, then you can have more flexibility in damage. For example, you could stand around swinging your weapon without much distance, but by hitting sprint/jump, or forward exactly while doing a close combat attack, you move forward in different ways and at different speeds. If you stab someone in the throat or heart then, they'd be dead, whereas a strike to the arm would not be lethal alone.

I found the melee in Resistance and Killzone 2 pretty well suited, and the wrench in Bioshock was an absolute messy/crunch-causing joy! Halo also did a pretty decent job, although it good do without so much lunging, the lame sword strike/super lunging, and that asinine hammer.

 

[ArcaneFyre]

When using a melee weapon, you always run the risk of getting gunned down before you can get close to your target, so it's not that overpowered when you consider the factors that it takes to get a kill with one... Plus there are games like Counterstrike that have melee weapons that don't insta-kill... It's a mixed bag, really.

 

[godofallu]

What you don't understand is that in COD MW the average player can stand about .5 seconds of bullet fire. So having a 1 hit kill melee isn't a big deal in that game at all. If you get within range and see the guy you could have just shot him dead too.

In Halo 2 the energy sword was very good at close ranged, because it 1 shot through the armor and health and everything. The problem was in that game nothing else could do that, which made it a power weapon.

The OP clearly has a problem with melee, I find that problem to be laughable.

 

[irishstormtrooper]

The best kind of melee would be one with very little lunge, an insta-kill from behind, but gives the person being melee'd a brief opportunity to counter the attack if from the front. Thus, it still is a viable weapon, but melee kills matter just as much in your skill as in theirs.