Knife balance discussion

[Nasu]

The knife nerf is good, I rarely used it anyway, thought it more as a waste of credit :)

The poltergeist. There's not really a problem with it, but people NEVER use it in actual means to kill someone. The gun model is easily seen by other players, it's loud, damage is relatively high, but could be higher and so on.

But I only post this because I never use the poltergeist myself or have I never seen it in serious use. IMO it needs a change or a buff

[phoenixf129]

How about it's made motion sensored? Like it explodes it's parented prop when someone comes close?
But the ar2 ammo model is visible, and can be shot to detonate safely?

[Meta-Stick]

"Knife Balance Discussion"

But anyways, the poltergeist is fine as is. You have to be smart to use it. If you're not getting kills, then stop shooting in onto melons, and soda cans.

[Rectal Exambot]

The poltergeist is so BS.

On my server I am the only one to ever use it, so as soon as I use it, they know it is me. Everyone on my server is terrible and only stick to the basic traitor items, so I get caught out.

[Mr. Gash]

The poltergeist is so BS.

On my server I am the only one to ever use it, so as soon as I use it, they know it is me. Everyone on my server is terrible and only stick to the basic traitor items, so I get caught out.

Drop a random poltergeist on the ground for an innocent to pick up. If anyone sees them have it, they shoot that person. If the innocent uses it, they think it's yo-- nevermind.

[yumi_cheeseman]

If you are trying to reward skill, then try to make the throw an instakill after a certain range, and make the arc a bit less (I mean it's pretty unrealistic as it is).

But I always thought this was a game of smarts anyway, and the knife was just a way to be able to cause confusion, or kill 2 people in the room at once.

[Soothsayer]

The 'suggestion' (I'm permitted to use single quotation marks, dammit!) portion of the topic might have already ended, but I'm going to attempt to contribute my thoughts on the matter irregardless.

In my opinion, a better way to balance the knife would be to make its only function an instant-kill on players with <100 health.

I'm not too sure of the exact health value required for the status function to deteriorate from Healthy to Hurt, but I think the gap is large enough to render all unpredictable damage sources not originating from another player negligible. This would, first and foremost, impose a condition upon the weapon itself that forces all players to be conscious about even the tiniest amount of damage inflicted upon them, which is a breeding ground for the very same paranoia that the game-mode thrives on. It would also require a lot more risk and tactical acuity, or at least a healthy amount of luck, to use, effectively stopping it from being a crutch, as Bad King so aptly put it.

This may have already been suggested and shot down, or I might have missed something critical as this was a mere off-the-record thought, but the idea seemed considerable enough for me to post it.

[FF|NedStar]

After playing with the knife change for some time now I've concluded that the change isn't all that bad. I think the whole point behind the current traitor gear is that each item has some use and are equally balanced towards each other.
While this contradicts my earlier post, I think nobody can deny that the knife was by far the most useful traitor item and the nerf made it a circumstantial weapon which would fit along the idea of the current load out.

I would however like to see some new things happen to the radio and newton launcher, the c4 seems to have lost some charm as well and seems to be avoided rather easily.

Radio has extremely limited uses, while it could still be a very effective weapon to draw some attention I hardly see it used well besides the usual sound spam. This however could be blamed on not using the item as intended.

Newton launcher is only useful on a handful of maps and too unpredictable at long ranges to justify its purchase. While I have killed a few with this pesky little tool, the noise it makes and the chance he might not fall or survive the fall would easily ruin my cover.

The c4 used to be the main weapon of any traitor, the latest addition where placing it for a longer period of time versus a shorter time period seems to have made the c4 less useful. I'm unsure whether or not the c4 on 45 seconds is now louder then used to be, but the c4 never goes unnoticed and the area tends to be evacuated before it explodes.
While putting it on 3-5 minutes greatly muffles the sound of the beeping, it becomes too risky and ensures rounds stall longer then they have to.
Ultimately the c4 still has plenty of uses and it killed way too much players before.

[Bad King Urgrain]

I think the Radio is difficult to power up, it's just a niche weapon. It's more useful to power up weapons that are meant for a certain niche/usage, but are ineffective for specific balance-able reasons.

There's some more balancing in the SVN now. Quoting part of the changes:
- C4 beeping is now a little bit quieter.
- Newton Launcher is now quieter and more accurate.

The Newton bump is quite big, it was really loud and is now more like the old silenced pistol with regards to sound range. It's also very accurate now. The idea behind this is that it's already a situational weapon that may not always be effective, so it should be easier to use in the situations where it can be used.

[Nasu]

The newton launcher would be more effective if it was like the pyro compression blast in tf2. At close range it would has an wider area of attack so it pushes even if the projectiles do not hit the player, but at long range, only the projectiles push the player.

Just a suggestion :]

[EpicBox]

As I said on my Topic, Throwing Knives should be insta kills, not the melee knife.
To add some cool stuff to the Knives, it should bounce on walls, so you get some cool funny kills.

And If you dont like the Insta Kill Throwing Knife, lets make it harder:

The Knife must hit the target's head to do an insta kill.

[Fuffe]

As I said on my Topic, Throwing Knives should be insta kills, not the melee knife.
To add some cool stuff to the Knives, it should bounce on walls, so you get some cool funny kills.

And If you dont like the Insta Kill Throwing Knife, lets make it harder:

The Knife must hit the target's head to do an insta kill.

What's stopping you from throwing the knife at zero distance? And it's generally really random if you hit the head or not.

[EpicBox]

Many people think the knife is a noob weapon (Click & Kill).

As many people said its OP, melee knife should deal 50 dmg, because you use the Melee Knife way more than throwing knife.

So if throwing knife is insta kill everyone is going to use it?

No. It would be an insta kill if it hits the head (or the neck), people will think it two times before buying a knife.

Knife wouldnt be an OP weapon, and it would need hell-a-lot of skill to headstab someone.

So: buy a knife if you know how to use it.

[Darkest_97]

The knife really wasnt over powered before. Its intended use was to be an instant kill silent weapon, and some people bitch so it changed..

Before the knife was nerfed, DNA stayed on the knife forever. Since you could drop the DNA scanner, and dependable person could always have it. If people werent so dumb they could most always catch the killer. And I rarely see people hide bodies so if people arent being dumb they will get DNA.

Now its just risky to ever use. And its kinda overpowered in the way that its like a rifle. Except its a rifle that 'shoots' really fast and your player model is practically crouching now and the range is huge. So you can essentially bring down an entire room of people to half health in a few seconds, which is stupid.

[catbarf]

and some people bitch so it changed..

No, seriously. It wouldn't matter if it put a HUD icon on everyone's screen that said HEY TRAITOR HERE, it would still be no fun to get instakilled ten seconds into the round. Your concerns were raised well before the change ever was implemented.

Now, you have about a second to shout the traitor's name before you die, instead of being instantly killed. Now, as a traitor, you have to actually backstab and be sneaky rather than simply pull out a knife and instakill a guy right in front of you before he can react. It now actually requires some skill to use, like all the other traitor equipment. This is exactly as it should be.

[Copper :D]

Ever since the knife nerf I've never actually used it because there's more effective ways to kill a wounded player.

What I propose is that the knife becomes even more useless for frontal attacks, but becomes instant kill for attacks made from behind. This makes it ineffective against people who are keeping an eye on you, emphasizing its usage in sneak attacks and at the same time giving the attacked player a chance to fight back if he becomes aware.

The way I figured it out the knife was used to simply kill players when you got close to them. It's basically the same now, except its only effective against wounded players. With my option it instead punishes players who are not paying attention rather than those who are wounded. If you are able to get close enough behind a wounded player then you might as well either shoot them, or beat them to death with a crowbar, that way you don't leave a knife behind.

You could also make it so throwing the knife uses a different mechanic, where it deals 50 damage regardless, in case you feel like taking on a player head on

[Rectal Exambot]

I don't know how well Gmod and LUA can handle the detection of back stabs and headstabs (worst.... hitboxes... ever)

[Copper :D]

I don't know how well Gmod and LUA can handle the detection of back stabs and headstabs (worst.... hitboxes... ever)

I've seen something similar work on Ultimate Chimera Hunt servers, where a player has to get behind a chimera for his attacks to be effective. It looks pretty stable.

[Datastream]

I understand people hate getting killed 10 seconds into the round. So why not just limit the purchase time on it? You know, being able to buy it 1 minute into the round or so while it has its usual powers of 1 hit KO. That would seem fine imo.

[StormX]

Backstabs can be done by checking position/angles on knife, not too sure if theres any Lua functions that deal with hitboxes/bones.
EDIT: Well you can do a trace to see if the player is looking at one the head/neck hitboxes for melee, the only way for throwing would be comparing the knifes position when thrown to the players head.