Knife balance discussion

[Rectal Exambot]

BKU EDIT: I've turned this into the knife balance discussion thread.

[hr]

Knife, the weapon of choice of the stealthy, and the subtle, it is currently neither.

I suggest that if stabbed from the front, the victim will play a death sound, (unique to the knife or perhaps not), to add a more subtle approach to killing someone rather than BOOM FACE STAB! The reasoning behind this is if stabbed from the most vulnerable part of your front, the throat, would make rather for a rather noisey kill (OH GOD, IS THAT MY BLOOD? YES IT IS!).

If a knife is thrown there should be no changes.

The amount of times I have pulled a knife and stabbed someone before they can shoot, let alone say anything, is ridiculous, I would like some sort of detrimental effect to me when I do this, and others when they do it to me.

Although due to the limitations of Gmod and LUA this may be impossible, but there are other ways to make the knife more balanced. The biggest step to balancing the knife was the DNA scanner was more useful, but a knife is an instant kill to a detective and often you can pick up the scanner easily. Although that only works part of the time. And if those traitors use teamwork they can use a flaregun to get rid of all DNA, (damn team work is OP).

Perhaps taking longer to unsheathe, or take longer to stab, or make a unsheathing noise would be appropriate. Perhaps the kevlar of a detective could give him a chance to survive a knife. (Maybe an invisible razorback the detective could buy /derp).

I guess the main reason of this post was that the knife has become a '1 kill for 1 credit' no skill weapon, and since you spend so long waiting for the next round to start, it is very irritating that a knife can kill you instantly, with no warning. If someone is right behind you, they can pull the knife and stab you, and unless you are FPS Doug, you are doomed. The only counter to the knife is "GO AWAY OR I WILL SHOOT!", which has lead to accidental kills because people panic, not to mention I can't count the amount of times I head people go, "(kills a guy) Soz, I thought I saw a knife!".

Just my 0.02$

[FBC]

The point of the knife is a short-range, silent one-hit kill. That is it's purpose.
-As such, the razorback idea is terrible, as it not only makes the detective more powerful, but also gives the traitor away for no reason besides dumb luck.
-The unsheathing sound is horrible as well, considering that the sound could be spammed to make people nervous and RDM each other, causing
'I thought I heard a knife' instead of 'I thought I saw a knife'. So, that point is moot.
-The knife takes an eternity to pull out.

[Meta-Stick]

It leaves DNA that links you to the kill. That's pretty balanced. Although I think BKU should put some thought into making a longer take out time, I can see that being completely practical. You'd have to be more professional about a knife kill, instead of pressing 7, and bam a kill. You would have to be sneaky, and time it correctly or be caught. It also, just makes plain sense in a sliiiiight way, just slight.

[bigbadboo]

As cool as it is, simply disable throwing it and its all good...

[C.Mong]

I rarely EVER see anyone throw it.
I think the knife is just fine.

[JossiRossi]

I almost wonder if there should only be one knife per round among ALL the traitors. It'd cut the "I died and there was fuck all I could have done" deaths that get really frustrating. It is simply not fun that no matter how good you are, no matter how observant or smart, you can just die instantly to a threat you could barely anticipate. When I'm detective, the last thing I do is get around others. Which is opposite the detectives use, but it is either be useless for being alone or be useless for being dead.

[Bad King Urgrain]

Perhaps something to help drill down to what could be changed: even if the knife no longer caused unavoidable deaths, deagle/rifle headshots still would. Walk up to someone and blam, versus walk up to someone and stab. What makes the first kind less bad than the stabs?

The noise? Then perhaps there should be a death scream for the knife. Any other factors?

It leaves DNA that links you to the kill. That's pretty balanced. Although I think BKU should put some thought into making a longer take out time, I can see that being completely practical. You'd have to be more professional about a knife kill, instead of pressing 7, and bam a kill. You would have to be sneaky, and time it correctly or be caught. It also, just makes plain sense in a sliiiiight way, just slight.

I can't change the "take out time" (deploy speed it's typically called), because the stuff that would let me do so is broken in gmod.

[Rectal Exambot]

The point of the knife is a short-range, silent one-hit kill. That is it's purpose.
-As such, the razorback idea is terrible, as it not only makes the detective more powerful, but also gives the traitor away for no reason besides dumb luck.
-The unsheathing sound is horrible as well, considering that the sound could be spammed to make people nervous and RDM each other, causing
'I thought I heard a knife' instead of 'I thought I saw a knife'. So, that point is moot.
-The knife takes an eternity to pull out.

Razorback idea was a joke, I am sorry I didn't make it clear enough.
The unsheating noise would only be audible maybe within 1-1.5 body widths.

Perhaps Urgrain could explain how long an 'eternity' it takes from pulling the knife out, and then a stab.

Many maps have places in which you can dump bodies and can't even get DNA on it (almost any map with water, lost temple). The main drawback with the knife is the DNA, but maps that make it very easy to get bodies into traps, water and nigh bottomless pits (Lost Temple) make it inconsistant with the whole idea of bodies leaving DNA after a knife, indefinantly.

I just don't think that with 20 players, there are 5 traitors, each could buy a knife each, and silently kill a third of their enemies. Then leading to extra credits.

[Meta-Stick]

Damn gmod... With it's many broken things.

[Officer_BUlbock]

How about the knife isn't an instant kill, but is instead "poisoned" and has a charge mechanic?

-You can pull out a knife and just click on someone (either throwing or stabbing), and the person will take damage over time and die after around 5 seconds or so
-This means that if you just pull out a knife and stab someone, they're doomed but have a good chance of killing you or shouting your name
-However, if you hold down the button and "charge" the knife before you strike the damage over time is increased depending on how long you charged it
-If you charge the knife to maximum (taking about 10 seconds or so) and stab/throw the knife at someone they'll die in less than half a second, giving them little time to react
-There isn't any death scream no matter how little/much the knife is charged, which can make it useful even if uncharged as people might hear shooting nearby but not know someone died

This means that the knife can be used to silently kill people, but you have to hide and plan your attack on someone who's unaware. You can still whip it out and get a definite kill, but you're very likely to be killed or have your name called out.

Although an uncharged knife thrown into a crowd could have its uses...

[FF|NedStar]

Seeing as the DNA on the knife stays forever, you're going to either need to kill the detective and get his scanner or start hiding bodies.
While I can understand the frustration factor of dying without being able to do something about it. The traitor will leave his DNA permanently on you, unless he manages to burn your body or dispose of your corpse in such a way that it won't be retrievable.

I think the knife is quite balanced as it is, you're not always going to find someone to help you burn the bodies and if you do it yourself you'll have used up two credits.
Currently the knife is only useful against the detective and then snatching his scanner before someone else takes it. Letting anyone else have the scanner while you knifed someone will cause a serious liability.

[Sly]

The knife is very well balanced because it's only real advantage is that it's silent and easy. You could achieve the same result, as BKU said, with a deagle shot to the head.

Knife Pros:
One hit kill
Silent
Easy

Knife Cons:
Leaves DNA indefinitely
Close range
Easily seen

Deagle Headshot Pros:
One hit kill

Deagle Cons:
Loud
Obvious
Difficult at times
Leaves DNA depending on the range

Seems pretty damn balanced to me.

[Darkebrz]

The knife is very finely  balanced, mostly because it's a waste of a credit to anyone that isn't a shitty traitor, so I don't buy it.
It already only gets a single kill, so why make it worse?

[Rectal Exambot]

The knife is very well balanced because it's only real advantage is that it's silent and easy. You could achieve the same result, as BKU said, with a deagle shot to the head

Assuming Gmod has decent hit boxes...

[Gamerofthegame]

In this topic bitches be QQing about elements of the game in which a traitor gets one (usually) free kill for his valuable credits.

[catbarf]

Because you have so much fun when you instadie thirty seconds into a round and sit out for five minutes, right Gamer?

Balance does not equal fun.

[Bad King Urgrain]

The problem is not whether the knife is balanced with regards to its cost for the traitor or anything like that, it's about how we can reduce the frustration of the victims. So what catbarf said.

The primary discouraging element, DNA, is not effective when the most common target is a detective. However, you can't make the scanner impossible to pickup for traitors, because then it is a traitor testing mechanic.

A possible, harsh measure would be to make the knife deal around 50-70 damage, requiring two slashes and giving the victim at least some chance to respond (throwing would only be effective against wounded victims).

This could be limited to a body armor effect, so that only detectives are less vulnerable.

[Meta-Stick]

Is it possible to make the knife have a delay in attack? Like they would have to hold the button down for 2 seconds before I do a full cut with the knife. Also would it be possible to make it so they can't moving while performing the 2 second kill with it?

[Bad King Urgrain]

That just sounds really annoying to use. How is it better than making it require 2 hits to kill, which in total take 2 seconds (for example) to execute?

[Rectal Exambot]

Because you have so much fun when you instadie thirty seconds into a round and sit out for five minutes, right Gamer?

Balance does not equal fun.

Thanks for getting the point, I kind of wanted to explain why I didn't like it, rather than just flat out break into tears.