Knife balance discussion

[bigbadboo]

Can I just say the traitors need to get 3 kills each to win the game...

Is giving them each one silent kill, with still the drawbacks previously discussed unfair?

Although one con you missed out with the deagle is that they are rarely spawned on most maps, meaning if you hear a deagle headshot.... there will not be many people on the map with a deagle.

This forces you to either ditch it, or risk the chance of further detection.

[Bad King Urgrain]

Again, the argument is not that it is unfair or unbalanced. Just that it's unfun. You can agree or disagree with that, but it's not useful to argue about balance.

[Gamerofthegame]

Wut? How is it more unfun then other things?

You can get sniped in the head for instant death with two weapons - Sometimes three if you win the Will-the-shotgun-do-something roulette. Three out of... What, eight? And that's from some distance, too - You might never see the person.

A knife is a weapon where someone has to get close to you to kill you, making you paranoid. You know, paranoia - A good part of the game.

[Bad King Urgrain]

Don't take that post as arguing it is unfun. I'm just noting that that seems to be the core complaint.

I specifically asked several posts ago why those who would see the knife changed are unhappy about the knife but not about other instant kill weapons.

I'm trying to find out where the (perceived) problem lies, not picking sides.

[JossiRossi]

I personally find it's a skill issue. If I get sniped, that required a good shot, or I was a moron and just sitting around. So it was my fault.

If I get deagled, then chances are the killer had the gun out in the first place. I could have kept an eye on him and noticed if he kept aiming for my head.

If someone oneshots me with a shotgun, fuck if I know how that happened since my hits never land, but at least now people will look for a guy with a shotgun.

The knife though? Is a no skill kill. Someone runs up, hits 7 or last weapon and bam silent kill. I've been knifed in crowds and no one noticed fast enough to catch the killer. There is no defense against it. If someone wants to kill you and they have a knife you will die no matter how smart a player you are, and intelligence and being observant ought to be rewarded somehow. Being good at TTT will do nothing to protect you from a kill that the only warning signs might be (if you are lucky) a guy following you around, or that someone is near you which due to map designs is often unavoidable.

Long story short: Anyone regardless of skill can instantly kill someone with a knife. If I die by any other means I can at least begrudgingly admit they bested me (or hitboxes were in their favor).

[Nasu]

The point of traitor is to kill 4 innocents or more.

It does need some good weapons and "maybe" one overpowered one.
A knife can save a traitor so many times and the game would imo become unbalanced without it.

[Darkebrz]

I would be perfectly content with the knife being removed, but most servers would add it back with custom weapons.

[phoenixf129]

To be honest, if it was removed, id NERF it, in a way where it cant be an instant kill for a Healthy (100 hp) player. I'd lower the damage. Then of course, re-add it :)

[ThePaSch]

You see, especially in rounds with many, many players, traitors just need some kind of advantage. If there are 21 innocents and 5 traitors, killing all the innocents is a pretty hard job. The knife provides some kind of balance to that. If every traitor buys a knife and kills an innocent with it (which is not going to happen in 80% of the cases), there are 16 left (which is much easier). Also, knifing leaves DNA, which can (of course) be used to identify the traitor who knifed the body.
I'd be fine if facestabbing would play a distinctive sound, but please don't remove it.

A knife is additionally a perfect sign for someone to be a traitor (if that guy didn't kill a traitor before). If the knife is nerfed, it'll be harder for traitors to kill with the knife and much, much easier for innocents to identify a traitor.
Assuming the "two stabs needed" method:
Let's say you get stabbed, turn around, see the traitor's name, back off and shout out his name. You still might get killed, but now everybody knows who the traitor is.
That would cause traitors not to buy the knife. And in that case, you can remove it as well. And in THAT case, traitors are having a hard time to kill those innocents again.

Edit: I could perfectly imagine a TF2 approach. If you knife someone in the back, he is instantly killed without a sound. If you knife someone in the face, he loses... say, 60HP.

[Bad King Urgrain]

I don't see much good coming from a face/backstab distinction. Firstly, in TF2 avoiding backstabs is a secondary concern, what you're really constantly doing is trying to achieve your team's objective. In TTT, avoiding backstabs will be the primary concern to innocents, who hate getting stabbed and have nothing better to do. So everyone ends up walking with their back to a wall at all times. Secondly, people already complain constantly about hitboxes in gmod. I don't fancy the constant flood of complaints about "omg facestab brokedz" that will inevitably happen.

Currently I see some potential in testing the "two stabs" option, but as follows: a victim at full health no longer insta-dies, instead the knife deals about 70 damage to them (at full karma). A victim who is wounded (or worse) does insta-die. Depending on the impact of this, used knives could be made to no longer hold DNA.

I would combine this change with another that is on my list, in which certain equipment weapons are moved into slot 8. These would be the more situational ones, like radio, newton, poltergeist, and maybe teleporter. The reasoning is that making the knife harder to use is compensated a bit by making it easier to use other equipment.

[Darkest_97]

Currently I see some potential in testing the "two stabs" option, but as follows: a victim at full health no longer insta-dies, instead the knife deals about 70 damage to them (at full karma). A victim who is wounded (or worse) does insta-die. Depending on the impact of this, used knives could be made to no longer hold DNA.

I kinda see this as more of a buff. A traitor could go into a room of healthy people swinging wildly bringing a bunch of them down to about 30 health, while they are hitting eachother trying to hit the traitor. So now youve significantly damaged a number of people instead of killing just one. Now another traitor can go into the room and mow everyone down no problem.

Its kinda like going into a room with a sniper that shoots faster. Your doing a huge amount of damage very quickly, assuming you can aim. And the knife has pretty big hitboxes(when they work) so swinging everywhere can easily get you a hit.

[catbarf]

You can get sniped in the head for instant death with two weapons - Sometimes three if you win the Will-the-shotgun-do-something roulette. Three out of... What, eight? And that's from some distance, too - You might never see the person.

They have to find the weapon on the map, get in position, and then be pretty accurate to kill you. You can get instakilled by a knife ten seconds after traitors are chosen. It requires absolutely no skill whatsoever to use and feels like a very cheap death.

Let's say you get stabbed, turn around, see the traitor's name, back off and shout out his name.

Well for you to get out of knife range, he'd have to be standing still, so credit to you for killing an incompetent traitor.

[Charles445]

To be honest I feel that the knife is one of the weaker traitor items.
The silenced pistol will murder someone VERY quickly, and not just one person.
The flare gun, if used on one person, takes 2 or 3 waited out shots to kill them.

I feel the knife is alright as a traitor weapon, and I have never gotten too pissed at people who use it on me.

[JusticeInACan]

To be honest I feel that the knife is one of the weaker traitor items.
The silenced pistol will murder someone VERY quickly, and not just one person.
The flare gun, if used on one person, takes 2 or 3 waited out shots to kill them.

I feel the knife is alright as a traitor weapon, and I have never gotten too pissed at people who use it on me.

The main benefit of the knife is offing people quickly and swiftly.  It has no deploy delay and can easily be useful when you're fighting someone and need to knife someone else quickly before you die.  It's also good for killing detectives since they have body armor for you to deal with.

[zoobird]

Could make so that the knife is only a one hit kill when it's thrown.  When the player does a regular stab it still should take a considerable amount of health, but not an instant kill.

This would make TTT a lot more interesting, and fun for terrorist as they have to get creative in throwing knifes rather than easily facestabbing someone over the internet.

[Gamerofthegame]

They have to find the weapon on the map, get in position, and then be pretty accurate to kill you. You can get instakilled by a knife ten seconds after traitors are chosen. It requires absolutely no skill whatsoever to use and feels like a very cheap death.

This isn't Team death match, nevermind that it often does take skill to get the stab in and make it away alive, one way or another - Stealth or just mere running from the buddy.

[Bad King Urgrain]

Could make so that the knife is only a one hit kill when it's thrown.  When the player does a regular stab it still should take a considerable amount of health, but not an instant kill.

This would make TTT a lot more interesting, and fun for terrorist as they have to get creative in throwing knifes rather than easily facestabbing someone over the internet.

I have considered this, but the problem I saw is that people could just "throw" while standing right next to someone.

So there would have to be a minimum distance, which is a little clunky.

[Darkebrz]

Most people already throw it because left-clicking is reallly buggy,

[Rectal Exambot]

Most people already throw it because left-clicking is reallly buggy,

Unless you are most people, or have done surveys on this issue, please don't make bold statements.

[Meta-Stick]

Most people DO right click. The rumor started left click sucks huge balls, and fucks up ALL the time. So most people tend to right click now. Also, it's a fact, for some reason(i'm sure somebody might be able to explain it), throwing it has a higher chance of not fucking up like the left click does. Me, and numerous friends/people have stood there swinging for 20-30 seconds trying to knife somebody.