Poll: Why is melee over powered?

[MercurySteam]

Bioshock 2: I actually haven't played this game so I can't really comment but is there even online multiplayer?

Sure is, and it's actually quite good. It's precisely what you'd expect from a Bioshock themed MP mode. Digital Extremes really did quite a good job a making a unique MP experience and implementing thing's like plasmids and hacking into it.

 

[platinawolf]

Melee weapons are supposed to be very powerful. If they wernt, where would be the risk of letting someone get close to ya? There was an article on the escapist about it aswell.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_270/8061-A-Knife-to-a-Gun-Fight

Without the melee-weapons to keep people away, everyone would gravitate closer together and not work as hard to keep away from everyone else. Ofcourse, as I myself totally suck at any sort of FPS, I'm not really concerned

 

[SammiYin]

Answer me this, people who think knifing is a reward for getting close, if we take out knifing and replace it with gun bashing, will people need to get close? Wouldn't this make a shooting game more about the actual shooting? Or am I being stupid...

I hate knifing, something instant kill that cannot miss doesn't deserve to be in a game, and it makes people think that relying on their accuracy and shooting abilities is something for chumps, why shoot someone when you can dodge his bullets and kill him instantly?

Halo doesn't have overpowered melee though, on multiplayer it takes two hits to kill someone, 1 if their shield is down, slower movement speed makes them easier to avoid compared to cod also.

 

[somonels]

Melee isn't overpowered, ranged is just too weak. A bullet does 12hp while melee varies from 30hp to a 1HKO, neither of which impose other penalties.
The problem is that the HP system is overly simplified. Now, if you would do a complex limbic hitbox system, wherein bullets may graze, stagger, destroy bones and kill you without needing to be headshots, melee will become a much less favorable approach.

 

[Sovvolf]

Because you have to get pretty close to melee someone to death while you can easily hit someone with a gun in shooting games. Is it realistic? kinda, I imagine getting stabbed would put you down, I think the realism drops in the amount of bullets you can take. However outside of specialist games like Arma and Flashpoint, games should take liberties with realism as long as it creates fun.

 

[Gitty101]

Well, the effort to actually run up to somebody or sneak up behind them needs to be rewarded somehow. If someone manages to get that close to you then you deserve to be insta-killed.

 

[Michael Logan]

I liked melee better in older games, like CS and Bf42 where you had to sneak up behind someone and knife them and if you got knifed it was embarrasing, now all you have to do is press the knife button and you fly 10ft to the enemy and he is dead.

 

[Truly-A-Lie]

In Halo's defense, you are in a powered suit of armour/are a feared alien race. Those punches are gonna hurt.

 

[Terminate421]

Actually, Reach is pretty balanced with multiplayers melee.

So long as you have a pixel worth's of shield left, melee will not kill you.

 

[AssassinFisH]

The only game I recall where Melee was verging on being OP, was MW2 with the commando perk equipped. Apart from that, melee is pretty much balanced in most games.

 

[adderseal]

I love playing as a spy on TF2, so GO KNIFING!

 

[Nexus4]

I liked the way Killzone 3 did it. The melee is an instant kill, but you are defenseless whilst the animation plays out. If you run from the front, chances are you will get the target but one of his mates are likely to gun you down mid animation. Keeps melee for sneak attacks and ambushes, also based off the trailers it looks like Battlefield 3 is doing a similar thing too.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

I wish they would make their minds up in games. If slashing someone across the back of their body armour is insta-kill then why isn't shooting someone in the unprotected thigh with a sniper rifle also insta-kill?

What we need is another Rainbow 6 game for the masters and leave the children to CoD

 

[Jonsbax]

I guess its better than resident evil, in which the base knife is essentially useless.

Not really. RE4's knife was one of the most useful weapons especially on professional mode. Code veronica had a pretty good knife as well.

I think he's talking about the good Resident Evil's.

Har har, implying that RE4 is a bad game. Good one.

I geuss I was spoiled by the original 3, and thought RE4 was average. That game was NOT Survival Horror.

I wouldn't really use the word survival nor horror when describing the PS1 originals, so I don't see what you're getting at. At least RE4 worked as an action game which it was trying to be, and it even had some scary parts, which is more than what I personally can say about its predecessors, with the exception of RE Remake on GC.

OT: Since I tend to suck at online shooters, the overpowered melee is usually the only thing that keeps me playing them for like 2 weeks if it's there, so I'm kinda grateful for it. I can see how it can be very annoying and gamebreaking, though.

 

[aba1]

I guess its better than resident evil, in which the base knife is essentially useless.

Not really. RE4's knife was one of the most useful weapons especially on professional mode. Code veronica had a pretty good knife as well.

but he wasn't talking about four or CV he was talking about the origenal game

 

[teisjm]

I'd prefer a game to have melee as a viable option, for the sake of veried gameplay, instead of making it a useless tool that'll never be halfway as powerfull as any gun in the game.

As for COD (MW2 beeing my last COD) i don't find the knife imba. While it can be fun to run aroudn knifing people, i found that some of the shotguns also 1-hit, and at a better range, even if the knife has commando.
with stopping power, the UMP can kill in 2-3 bullets to the body, which it fires nearly as fast, and can do so over far greater distances.

If I missed my first strike with the knife, most slightly skilled players would take me down before i could strike again. And knife sucks face-to-face, against guns, cause hey shoot you down before you get in range.

Nerfing melee in FPS games would limit it to beeing used to hummiliate people, by killing them with a very inferior weapon, instead of having i as a viable option.

Having the knife be insta-kill, opening up the chance to spec melee, adds more variation to gmaeplay, which IMO is good.

 

[Freyrproxy]

I don't play a lot of FPS's these days, cause I can't be arsed to play the multiplayer. But I understand the problem. Balancing issues always plague these kind of games, and I am certainly to judge if they are under- or overpowered...
I just get annoyed by the comments that say "if they get to close, you deserve to be insta-killed"...can't you say that about all weapons? If I run op close and shoot sb point-blank in the face with a pistol, they're are not insta-killed cause pistols don't work like that, is that fair? No. So, that is no argument for a knife being balanced.

 

[Eric Staples]

I'm just tired of out-smarting my opponent, sneaking up on them, shooting them SIX times in the chest and they just charge me and insta kill me with their knife. The physics are totally off. The least my bullets could do is slow them down. And why is it if I get shot enough, I fall to the ground and slowly start bleeding to death and am still able to shoot, but if I get knifed in the foot, then I die immediately and there is no bleeding period? You practically have to spec melee if you're a casual player who doesn't have a clan to hide behind.

 

[karoliso]

I'm just tired of out-smarting my opponent, sneaking up on them, shooting them SIX times in the chest and they just charge me and insta kill me with their knife. The physics are totally off. The least my bullets could do is slow them down. And why is it if I get shot enough, I fall to the ground and slowly start bleeding to death and am still able to shoot, but if I get knifed in the foot, then I die immediately and there is no bleeding period? You practically have to spec melee if you're a casual player who doesn't have a clan to hide behind.

It's already been said in this thread. It's a reward for successfully getting close to another player. Otherwise there would be no reason to use melee at all. Though I do agree that in games like CoD it is overpowered because it's an instant kill. The melee weapon should do a lot of damage but not THAT much.

 

[tunderball]

Its all about game balance, the reward for being brave enough to charge into an oponent is an instant kill and also serves as a quick way to kill an enemy that isn't paying attention. In some games players can use this to an advantage but generally speaking if your not good enough to shoot someone its your own fault.

Well that clears CoD up and now for Halo.

Melee isn't a one hit kill whilst the player still has sheilds, if you can't kill a player in halo before he is able to get to you and take off your sheild then you probably deserve to die (4 or 5 shots to the head with a DMR I think?), if you get assasinated you deserve to die. As always with Halo you can insult its story and 1 dimensioned characters but the gameplay and balance is spot on, on that note aswell its probably worth saying that the 'overpowered' melee in Halo is explained in the narrative.

So in short no and you need to learn to aim better before complaining.