Poll: Why is melee over powered?

[Treblaine]

I always liked the way Call of Duty (1 & 2) did it. Actual damage that is different for every weapon. Snipers and rifles used to have the most meelee damage. One hit on the chest / head was enough and their meelee range was fantastic. It fit in amazingly with the rest of the gameplay, movement speeds and weapon fire ranges.

But no, instantkilling (which is today's standard pretty much, thanks to console games) IS overpowered.

What if it was like the taunt-kill of TF2's sniper.

So it stabs very quickly where it instantly paralyses the enemy who doesn't actually die till the knife is twisted and then pulled out. Because a straight "stab in and out" knife wound can't possibly be deadlier than being shot twice in the chest with an assault rifle, but if the blade was twisted to literally disembowel the enemy that could surely kill with one "hit".

So, the balancing here is that in a pinch you can deliver a quick and effective attack but you cannot be too aggressive with it as you are left vulnerable for a couple seconds so no more of running into a room and knifing to death three people who are armed with fully automatic weapons:

I haven't played CoD in a long time, and that reminds me of how unrealistic that game is. I don't look for realism in a game (love TF2) but I don't like games trying to sell realism when it's that ridiculous.

Well it's not so much "realism" but more avoiding arbitrary "bullshit" like a knife being so much more effective than a gun.

I propose this mainly for reasons of balance.

The melee HAS to be in some way better than hip-firing your gun (when you suddenly find yourself in very close quarters with the enemy) otherwise there is no point in even including melee. The trick is to not make it so powerful that it outperforms many guns.

I can understand why they included lunge, so that players don't have to worry so much about judging distance, but the problem is this effectively "teleports" the player around which is so exploitable with knife runners charging into a room they are almost impossible to hit. So get rid of lunge, just lose it. I'd rather have the unrealism of an overly long melee reach.

I think a melee that does low damage yet a high stun effect. That's not arbitrary, it "makes sense" though is not realistic. It works for those emergency close encounters.

 

[6037084]

I don't play CoD or haven't since CoD 2 anyways but in say TF2 I think that it's quite balanced, well expect for 2 medics with ubersaws now that is super OP when done correctly

 

[Awexsome]

CoD it would be better without that lunge with how quickly a knife gets you a kill but complaining about OP melee in Halo makes me question your abilities or if this is just a bit of rage from a bad game.

Halo's got one of the best balanced melee systems out there with the 2-hit kill, 1-hit kill with shields down (save for sword and hammer). There are lots of different ways to approach melee to having it be accessible anytime or to have your melee weapon be an entirely separate weapon from your guns/other weapons. But usually melee isn't too big of a problem in games.

 

[BakedAlaskan]

Why so much COD discussion? Oh for the days when the internet didnt exist and people played more interesting games rather than 3 years running round the same warehouses and derelict buildings!

Red Dead Redemption has the melee nailed. You can knock people down with a few well placed punches but they'll get back up again. Your hunting knife works pretty well for cougar/mountain lion fights where you would take damage getting in close but you do some real damage when you succeed. Similarly, the bears etc take many more stabs than a human to take down which seems realistic to me, though I haven't been bear hunting for some time! (Ireland doesnt do many bears)

 

[monkey_man]

Cod has the knife which can apparently kill you as you are unloading a machine gun into the target that is meleeing. Halo has this exact problem. (Ive just rented halo reach for the first time) Im unloading a gun into somebody and get insta killed with a pummel.

These games melee just make no sense especially the ballistic knife.

melee makes more sense in

Bioshock 2: it takes 3 hits except with certain tonics

TF2: depending on whether their is a critical but dont get me started on face stabs though.

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

Ah the knife. I ran out of ammo once, and there was a big shootout with those minigun troopers, and I ran through that level with about 25 knife kills, and I took down the minigun fellow with a grapple which was conveniently placed so you could kick his face in. Mission no-ammo was a succes!
But I digress, the insta kills for halo are weapons on its own, you lose a lot of firepower carrying them. (and you can dodge the massive hammer thingy) And Everyone knows CoD is shit balanced and unfair as a brick wall.
Also, facestabs are non-existing. It's lag

 

[cefm]

General problem is that with ranged you have a chance to miss if the opponent is moving erratically and skillfully as he approaches, which is "realistic". But most melee attacks have a hit-box the size of Yahtzee's bollocks, so the very "realistic" aspect of melee which is that you can also MISS is taken out. Also in an FPS you have very little sense of where your body is and isn't so it's impossible to dodge and move like a person being stabbed with a knife normally would.

So yeah, melee is overpowered, but it's just one form of un-reality that is an alternative to the equally un-real prospect of two people running up to each other and unloading their machine-guns into each others' faces waiting for someone to die.

 

[Estocavio]

considering the physical implications, it doesn't seem overpowered at all. 'unloading a machine gun into a target' and then getting killed by the target's knife indicates ranged weapons are underpowered though.

Yes. This.

The OP is looking at this the wrong way, and likely underestimates Melee as a whole

 

[Orinon]

it is a little weird that you can punch/stab/whack with butt of rifle/ then say Shooting them. Me my favorite shooting game is Tribes Ariel Atssault, which didn't have melee but did have jet packs.
Why because it was a tactical shooter, and stopping to sprint into melee distance is a little ridiculous.
but lets not forget that halo was popular so people kinda tried to copy it.

 

[madmsk]

Game Balance.

If somebody can get up close to you and not get shot to death, he needs to be able to kill you quickly to make the move worth doing. Game Balance, it rules all.

+1000 It's not as realistic, but it balances gameplay a lot more.

 

[MarcusD357]

Having a melee attack which kills after a couple of hits is a lot better than having a simple little punch that does jack all.. Otherwise every time you got into a close range stand-off with someone, you'd just be frantically trying to aim the tiny cross-hair at a quickly moving target and you'd waste ammo and time

 

[LITE992]

It's balanced, because of what others have said it's a risk vs reward. I try to go in for the melee kill loads of times but fail more times than succeed.

 

[daydreamerdeluxe]

Bladed weapons are not overpowered. Guns are underpowered. If you can stand there, shooting someone with a machine gun, and then they can still walk up to you and stab you, THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THOSE BULLETS.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Its overpowered when you throw in other factors that turn it from a backup weapon into a main weapon. In most other games its a last resort but in COD its turned into a main weapon.

basically this, when you can teleport kill basically anyone without "reloading" and can get more killstreaks doing that then with an automatic weapon? there is something wrong.


sure, if you knife someone from behind i would warrant that should be roughly a one hit kill, i think from the front though it should only be a slight stun or take at least two hits, if you really want one hit kill from the front then you better be knifing them in the head directly, thats the only way i can see it being "balanced" from the front (for games like COD)


halo does it pretty good imo for balancing, so does deus ex and tf2

 

[Hungry Donner]

I haven't played any modern military shooters so I can't comment on them. However given how many of these make a big deal about realism it does seem silly that guns aren't more lethal.

The only multiplayer game I've played of late is TF2 and I'd say its melee system is well done. Demoknights are unbalanced in my opinion, but that's a problem with the class and equipment rather than the melee system itself.

 

[Snowblindblitz]

Well it's not so much "realism" but more avoiding arbitrary "bullshit" like a knife being so much more effective than a gun.

I propose this mainly for reasons of balance.

The melee HAS to be in some way better than hip-firing your gun (when you suddenly find yourself in very close quarters with the enemy) otherwise there is no point in even including melee. The trick is to not make it so powerful that it outperforms many guns.

I can understand why they included lunge, so that players don't have to worry so much about judging distance, but the problem is this effectively "teleports" the player around which is so exploitable with knife runners charging into a room they are almost impossible to hit. So get rid of lunge, just lose it. I'd rather have the unrealism of an overly long melee reach.

I think a melee that does low damage yet a high stun effect. That's not arbitrary, it "makes sense" though is not realistic. It works for those emergency close encounters.

I was referring to everything in general in the CoD franchise. One hit melee kills, especially from behind an opponent, doesn't bother me so much as running at the speed of an Olympic runner, jumping up and heading shooting someone with a sniper rifle, and hoping around will-nilly scoring kills. Halo and Killzone are more realistic then CoD is anymore, and they are about SPACE MARINES.

 

[Kekkles]

Game balance is a factor but it definitely kills realism for me... Thus I cannot stand the multiplayer on these games. But to his their own.

Wait its the one hit knife kill that kills realism for you? Not the regenerating health, duel wielding shotguns, and being able to take 20 bullets before you die part?[/quote]

Sorry for the total lack of sentence structure there on my part, I should've written it's one of MANY things that kill the realism. Thanks for pointing that out

Edit:

Game balance is a factor but it definitely kills realism for me... Thus I cannot stand the multiplayer on these games. But to his their own.

It kills realism? Yeah, from what I hear it's probably messed up. But do you know how difficult it is to hit someone with a gun at close range while they're trying to stab you?

If two people are right next to eachother, the guy with the gun is at a disadvantage if he tries to shoot with it (using a rifle as a melee weapon is a slightly different issue) unless the one with the knife is a complete idiot.

It's only when you get far enough away from the person with a knife that they can't grab or slash at you that you have an inherent, decisive advantage with a gun.

Fortunately, in the real world that's 99% of all cases, because any gun user with any sense won't let a person with a melee weapon get that close to begin with.

Yeh but I expect someone who's fully trained with a gun to not have a disadvantage with their weapon at any range. Again, I'm not a massive fan of FPS, it feels like too much of a generic and overpopulated cashcow. But to his their own, I always say.

 

[gigastrike]

If melee was weaker than shooting at the only range you can use it at, why would you use it?

 

[krazykidd]

I think that if someone kills you with a melee attack after you've unloaded your machinegun into them, then you suck with your weapon and deserve to die. It's pretty damn obvious you couldn't aim or control your weapon enough to take down your target, and a knife to the throat is a nice punctuation mark. I have no problem with melee weapons being one hit kill, because if you get close enough to your target to use them, then yes you deserve the kill. It may not be entirely realistic, maybe an animation where you grab the targets head and deliver several slashes across the neck would make more sense. But again, you couldn't kill your target with a machinegun with a 100 round belt fed magazine firing at 700 rounds per minute that can take out targets over 700 yards away. I'd say a knife in your face is a pretty good indicator you need to switch weapons.

Wait not realistic? Try stabing somebody in the throat and tell me if they survive. Maybe developers should have the character bacon sizzle ( bacon!) on the ground getting stabed after to make it more realistic? Especially on a battlefield where there no medics it can realisticly mean instant death.

You also mention animation . In bfbc2 the player actually takes a large swing and jabs the enemy player in the skull, insta killing them. No i don't think melee ( knife melees anyways ) are overpowered.

 

[Aean]

See I wouldn't think it would be overpowered if most FPS games required you to be within 4 feet of someone to even see them.

 

[BristolBerserker]

I love melee. I just wish i could find a game where you have no guns, just melee attacks. Possibly using larger knives and blunt objects but what are the chances of that happening. One can dream though, one can dream.