Melee Weapons Are Very Lackluster

[Sjustus548]

I started up A18 this time wanting to use mostly just melee weapons. I've always liked the idea of just using melee weapons but I found them to be substantially worse than guns. Now I am playing on Insane so maybe melee weapons are only meant to be used on easier difficulties, I'm not sure. Melee weapons just feel like too much of a punishment to use currently. I won't go in to the screwy hit boxes and how you can miss 9/10 direct hits. Even with putting points in to the main stat, as well as, the actual weapon it can still take so many hits to actually kill one zombie, not to mention if you are going against multiple zombies. With my shotgun I can shoot at most 3 shells to kill a zombie. Of course guns should be better than melee weapons but having to hit a zombie 10+ times in the head vs shooting 2 shells is too much of a penalty for my liking. I could understand if ammo was a lot more scarce but that stuff is freaking everywhere even on a lower loot percentage. Also the fact that using melee weapons will drain your food and water faster than using a gun will makes it far worse. Then added on with the new zombie rage mechanic and how it is obviously far worse for melee uses. I just don't see the benefit of choosing to go with melee weapons over ranged weapons in this build. I'm going to keep trying every now and then to see if maybe more points is required to get it to work properly but have any of you had better luck on harder difficulties?

[Raist]

My crew is still playing on a lower difficulty, but ultimately it comes down to: Brass is not as common as my shooter-happy crew might like. Also, melee paired with ranged is a pretty awesome team when you're working in a crew.

 

I have had different levels of success with different weapons. I still can't seem to reliably nail headshots with a spear. What melee weapon are you using? The sledge still works good for me, and I've been doing fine with a higher tier machete (with appropriate perks). One of my crew is loving the stun baton.

 

The Stamina usage can be alleviated with other perks, and there is Stamina usage when aiming with a firearm. To me, it all feels like a preference, and some folks gravitate towards different methods.

[Khulkhuum]

I solely focus the one melee weapon type i chose, which is the knives. Even the bone shiv was to some extent useful, but considering i spent a couple points into knives and using a T3 hunting knife, i'm pretty good so far. Even went into a few POIs and had some group fights, as well as 1 on 1 with ferals, night runners. I fare good so far, stopped dying from stupid mistakes and taken on the first rad at the end of a POI.

 

I surely wouldn't mind some kind of mechanic for mitigating the attacks of enemies (like dodging, but could be using a shield or anything really), but that would also need to be balanced against current gameplay.

[Brian9824]

I started up A18 this time wanting to use mostly just melee weapons. I've always liked the idea of just using melee weapons but I found them to be substantially worse than guns. Now I am playing on Insane so maybe melee weapons are only meant to be used on easier difficulties, I'm not sure. Melee weapons just feel like too much of a punishment to use currently. I won't go in to the screwy hit boxes and how you can miss 9/10 direct hits. Even with putting points in to the main stat, as well as, the actual weapon it can still take so many hits to actually kill one zombie, not to mention if you are going against multiple zombies. With my shotgun I can shoot at most 3 shells to kill a zombie. Of course guns should be better than melee weapons but having to hit a zombie 10+ times in the head vs shooting 2 shells is too much of a penalty for my liking. I could understand if ammo was a lot more scarce but that stuff is freaking everywhere even on a lower loot percentage. Also the fact that using melee weapons will drain your food and water faster than using a gun will makes it far worse. Then added on with the new zombie rage mechanic and how it is obviously far worse for melee uses. I just don't see the benefit of choosing to go with melee weapons over ranged weapons in this build. I'm going to keep trying every now and then to see if maybe more points is required to get it to work properly but have any of you had better luck on harder difficulties?

 

Have you actually played far enough to get decent weapons and armor? Once you start modding your weapons they get lethal very fast. Plus armor is a huge difference for melee. Put on some steel armor and your a tank

[Limdood]

you can't balance the game for all difficulty levels, when difficulty is tied to zombie health.

 

If they boost melee power to be sufficient on insane difficulty, then on the default difficulty, you'll have every weapon 1 shotting every zombie.

 

Melee is more than viable on default difficulty...a level 3 steel sledge with 2 mods and NO perks kills female zombies in 1 head shot, and kills normal health (males or females) in 1 power attack to ANY body part...1-hit kills on normal ferals with a power attack headshot too. If it was a Q5 or 6 sledge with full mods and skilled up, you wouldn't need any other weapon. The other melee weapons don't feel quite as OP as the sledge, but still more than adequate.

 

On a higher difficulty, 1 sledge hit vs 4 sledge hits will feel like a MASSIVELY harder difficulty increase than 1 AK-47 headshot vs. 4 AK-47 headshots...because with the gun, you stay at range the whole fight with little to no risk, while with the sledge, a 1-hit kill (or even 2-hit with a knockdown, then a kill) is similarly low risk, while a 4-hit kill means that often, you aren't even staggering the zombie...you WILL be taking hits, and it will feel like a bad option.

 

TL;DR - your problem is your difficulty setting. weapon damage isn't balanced for insane difficulty.

[Kalarro]

It was balanced by scarity of fireweapons earlygame. Now that you find them everywhere, mele seems lackluster indeed

[HungryZombie]

Melee weapons are balanced for the default play, as they should be. If you can't use melee weapons effectively on the highest setting then that's on you, not the game. I can't so I don't play on Insane.

[SickPuppy]

I'm mostly melee focused too, I've found head shots to be hit n miss, have to aim right at the head. It's alright for game balance making things challenging but for heavy weapons like sledge it doesn't make sense to miss so easily.

 

I solely focus the one melee weapon type i chose, which is the knives. Even the bone shiv was to some extent useful, but considering i spent a couple points into knives and using a T3 hunting knife, i'm pretty good so far. Even went into a few POIs and had some group fights, as well as 1 on 1 with ferals, night runners. I fare good so far, stopped dying from stupid mistakes and taken on the first rad at the end of a POI.

 

I surely wouldn't mind some kind of mechanic for mitigating the attacks of enemies (like dodging, but could be using a shield or anything really), but that would also need to be balanced against current gameplay.

 

The knife feels good again, was it was nerfed in a17? can't remember. The heavy attack animation were character spins the knife is so cool and satisfying.

[CoolBreeze]

I wouldn't say they are lackluster, it makes perfect sense that they are weaker on higher difficulty levels and you will need to aim better to survive a melee encounter, my only issue with the melee is the impossible misses. I don't know how many times in a fight I will swing a perfect headshot just to have it magically whiff them, or even worse whiff the point-blank chest shots. I have been mostly using the Machete, I have used the Fireaxe a little bit just because early game it was easier to fight zombies with, and didn't notice it really with that but using the Machete is just downright horrible. I prefer the machete for stamina usage and don't mind the multiple hits to kill thing but when you are magic whiffing the zombies that turns a 3 second fight into a 10 second fight, which can turn lethal REALLY fast if fighting the higher tier zombies.

 

All told I think the biggest thing to fix the melee issues would be to have an arc, like they have now, with full damage along the arc.