Suggestion:20070713 Melee weapons-related major change

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	This suggestion has finished voting and has been moved to Peer Rejected.

20070713 Melee weapons-related major change

Panurge 22:06, 13 July 2007 (BST)

Suggestion type
Improvement

Suggestion scope
Everyone

Suggestion description
Melee weapons are too weak, and become almost completely useless when the player has a firearm and bullets. This suggestion aims to change the nature of the advantages firearms have over melee weapons. The main idea is, melee weapons perhaps should not simply be weaker than firearms, but instead be a more dangerous but otherwise equal choice. To achieve this, I propose the following changes: 1. melee weapons become much stronger than they currently are. An axe and a knife could even do as much damage as a pistol, or even more. 2. zombies (not survivors) , when attacked by a melee weapon, retaliate automatically as a AP-free attack. If the melee attacker's strike lands, the zombies' accuracy is halved (this way, a survivor has less chances of receiving retaliation if he is more skilled with the weapon used)

thinking about the idea, here is the main pros and cons I could think of. I think the pros outweigh the cons, but there are surely things I didn't think about, so feel free to throw in your own thoughts about them.

Pros: .Give a new life to melee weapons, and make them a viable choice in certain situations: even if the survivor has a loaded pistol ready: if he/she has enough life, he/she can risk using his axe or knife instead, which would spare bullets and deliver more damage. Inversely, using a melee weapon becomes a dangerous action for a dying survivor, who will have to tend his wounds or run away.

.Make standing outside unprotected a less dangerous situation for a zombie, as they can still defend themselves (though not as efficiently). Zombies are not in a survival situation, and only survivors should really be defenseless when left outside

.I know that realism is not really the point of Urban Dead, but still, it WOULD make the difference between firearm and melee weapons more realistic: an axe does quite a bit of damage on someone or something, but requires you to go close and personnal. Not a very important point, but still there.

Cons: .This could make things risky for survivors who start playing and do not have access to firearms yet. (But at the same time, as melee weapons become more powerful, it would make them more capable of defending themselves...) .I think there is some sort of taboo around automatic attacks? So I understand the idea might be frowned upon at first, but please give it some thought anyways! (unless the EXACT SAME SUGGESTION was made before?) .Possible balance problem? It would perhaps overpower zombies, giving them the ability to gain experience without using AP. But its not a serious issue in my opinion, as they cannot choose when they are attacked. Also, going overboard with raising damage melee weapons deal would overpower humans. .Possible way to exploit the system by creating human characters and repeatedly attacking your own zombie character? This is the worst problem with the idea, in my opinion. But on the other side, when multiple zombies are present, humans cannot choose which they attack.

Tell me what you think.

Voting Section

Voting Rules

Votes must be numbered, justified, signed, and timestamped. # justification ~~~~ Votes that do not conform to the above may be struck by any user.

The only valid votes are Keep, Kill, Spam or Dupe. If you wish to abstain from voting, do not vote.

Keep Votes

1. Keep - Author's vote. I think the fact melee weapons weapons become more powerful can outweigh the security firearms offer in certain situations, such as when the user has lots of health remaining. It would also push people towards a new ammo conservation aspect: the pistol becomes precious when you have low health. Also, I don't think free actions cause a real problem when the user does not have direct control upon it. --Panurge 22:40, 13 July 2007 (BST)

Kill Votes

1. Kill - As you obviously seen, yes there is a problem with free actions. No the main reason why I vote kill but it does influence it. Now, the biggest thing with this is people would use melee weapons less than they originally would. Why? Because if they use firearms, they won't get attacked back.-- dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 22:24, 13 July 2007 (BST)

   Re - I don't know, I don't think people would use melee weapons less if they become stronger. I know that firearms become the only secure way of attacking, but shouldn't it be exactly the case? Its really just about changing one bonus for another that is about equal, but makes more sense and adds a strategic value... Also, I do not understand the problem of free actions if you cannot have any direct control on them, can someone maybe explain in the discussion page? --Panurge 23:15, 13 July 2007 (BST)

2. Kill - Melee weapons already have a 'one-up' on Firearms in that it doesn't cost several-thousand (exaggeration) AP to find a single shotgun shell. As well, Suicidalangel makes a good point too. --Ryiis 22:47, 13 July 2007 (BST)
3. Kill - Free actions are a big no-no, and melee weapons (axes) are already more effective than firearms if you factor in the ap spent searching for ammo. And as Suicidalangel said, this would result in the opposite of what you intend.--Nikitis 23:02, 13 July 2007 (BST)
4. Kill- Melee weapons are already used, especially by people who get sick of searching for pistol clips and shotgun shells. Hell, I axed a zombie to death today. Granted, the other one was stronger and I had to go to a nearby PD to get some ammo and pack him full of lead, but melee weapons still have a use, especially in retaking suburbs when the ammo sites are all ransacked. As the Zombie Survival Guide states: Blades don't need reloading. --Fenian 02:38, 14 July 2007 (BST)
5. Kill- If the zombies get a free attack when we attack them with a melee weapon, wouldn't it only make sense that a survivor with a melee weapon would try to defend themself if they were attacked by a zombie at melee range? -- Nicholas Bashere 02:53, 14 July 2007 (BST)

   Yes, that would make sense, too. But it probably belongs in a different suggestion, don't you think? Grant 14:58, 18 July 2007 (BST)

6. Kill - Take a look at these two pages, and then make your way to the Developing Suggestions page if you think you have any other bright ideas. 'arm. 04:05, 14 July 2007 (BST)
7. Your missing a fundamental part of the gun/melee comparison. Guns require ammo. Melee weapons don't. So if an axe is as powerful (or more powerful) than a gun, people won't ever use guns AND save all that inventory space they would normally have for carrying guns and ammo. Also, you don't have any specifics. An axe or knife could do as much damage as a pistol (or more)? For a suggestion like this you HAVE to have specfic numbers.--Pesatyel 06:20, 14 July 2007 (BST)
8. Kill - It would give humans too much power, they wouldn't have to spend lots of AP finding ammo anymore. Part of zombie strategy is to out-AP the other side and this suggestion would kill that. --VinnyMendoza 2:14 14 July 2007 (EST)

   Re - Are you certain it would? Keep in mind that each time someone would try to spare AP through sparing ammunition, this would mean using melee weapons, which gives the zombie opponent dangerous free counterattacks (one of the main reasons for the free counterattack was exactly to make the ammunition-AP spare a dangerous, but present choice for survivors.) --Panurge 08:59, 14 July 2007 (BST)

9. Kill The relatively low damage done by a fireaxe is compensated, as you have to search for ammo and guns. A survivor with free running and maxed axe skills is just as usefull in killing capacity as a survivor with guns. Mainly because for every day of combat, they don't have to spend a day searching for ammo. --Seventythree 14:02, 14 July 2007 (BST)
10. Kill - a novel way to look at it. But combat is balanced right now and automatic attacks are bad.-- Vista  +1  01:11, 15 July 2007 (BST)

    Are those really good reasons? Are you really saying that we shouldn't modify combat (or any part of the game) because it's balanced now? And what, exactly, about *these* automatic attacks would be bad? Just saying 'automatic attacks == bad' seems like a narrow-minded way of looking at it. Grant 14:58, 18 July 2007 (BST)

    Automatic attacks = Free attacks, and I have put an explanation as to why they are bad on the talk page. 'arm. 02:41, 19 July 2007 (BST)

11. Kill I don't like the automatic attacks, but there is probably a better way to balnce it. It's a good try, ut it's just not polished enough for peer reviewed. Viceroy Chili Cheese Dog 13:16, 19 July 2007 (BST)

Spam/Dupe Votes

1. Those weren't skittles - and unfortionately they werent cyanide pills either. --karek 03:46, 14 July 2007 (BST)
2. Spam - so i herd u liek spam votes? --Sonny Corleone ^{RRF CoL DORIS Hunt!} 04:14, 14 July 2007 (BST)
3. Spam - Seriously bad idea. Sorry. --The Hierophant 05:49, 14 July 2007 (BST)
4. Spam - Autoattacks = Bad. --Saluton 17:21, 14 July 2007 (BST)
5. Spam - Autoattacks are bad. --Wooty 02:15, 15 July 2007 (BST)
6. Spam - Can someone move this to the stupid suggestions page? Sanpedro 03:19, 16 July 2007 (BST)
7. Above. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 18:20, 16 July 2007 (BST)
8. Spam -Much as I hate to associate myself with all the idiots who voted kill, ("Combat is balanced"? "Axes already do more damage per AP than firearms"? "Mele weapons already have a major advantage over firearms because you don't have to spend extra AP searching/reloading"? Are we playing the same game here?) the cons will probably outweigh the pros. Zombies will get hoards of totally free XP by doing absolutely nothing but repeatedly standing up, which for the extra damage (which will probably be prevented from even making axes do as much damage/AP as pistols, because of mobs of people shouting "realism!") is a big fat nerf to something which is already virtually useless when compared with something that's virtually useless.--AlexanderRM 00:57, 17 July 2007 (BST)