Why did you make Knives useless?

[trunks_budo]

Topic. Sneak attacks no longer work, jaw stabs no longer work, therefore, knives are 100% useless to use because they break after five zombie kills. I feel like those animations were the only viable aspect to short-blade use, and now, there's no point in using any weapon besides Long Blunt. Crowbars are epic in terms of durability, knockdown and damage, spiked bats suck in durability but kill zombies in 2-3 swings by only level 3 Long Blunt, which, if you take Baseball Player, comes pretty quickly. You can also repair them with nails, which are abundant. Just wondering why you, the devs, felt it necessary to basically take short blades, a viable weapon type, and make them unviable and unusable? I'm just not seeing the logic here from a game-design perspective, and I feel like you made a massive mistake and passed it off as polish. Why can't you guys make more viable weapon types besides just Long Blunt? Why are you pidgeon holing every player into Long Blunt use? Why can't you give every weapon unique aspects and capabilities, why aren't you working on melee weapon balance? Rather, why are you destroying whatever balance already existed for short blades?  Indie Stone, this is a direct question and I am indeed expecting a direct answer. Better be a good one.

Edited December 25, 2021 by trunks_budo

[trunks_budo]

I mean  honestly if you need proof of my claim, look at spears. They break in like 5 kills, and if you attach a machete to a spear, it basically becomes a butter knife. I'm just failing to see the logic behind your creative decisions in this regard, and I feel like you're embarrassingly failing at doing your job

[Fuzzy Wolfy]

The instant kill animation you're referring to is still in the game and still possible with knives. It's always been finnicky, even back before Build 41, but it was never removed.

 

As far as spears go, yeah, I do agree that the disparity in durability seems strange.

[NoelleLavenza]

I've been running a short blades focused character in multiplayer, while I can reliably get the instant kill animation it's honestly worthless, since with stout/strong and a couple levels of short blades I can instakill zombies most of the time with just normal knife hits. Maybe you'd be happier with weaker zombie settings, or maybe you're just timing your attacks badly? I'd recommend playing around with it more.

[Irken Empire]

wtf I don't know what crappy character builds you make but burger flipper + hunter and handy trait give you 2+ short blade and 2+ maintance by the end of the first month you can demolish 3 hordes with 30 zombies per horde with a hunting knife or even a screwdriver without getting tired, and taking the brawler trait will give you a boost in long blung and axes, this way you can have fun killing Z with a crowbar, with an axe, with a knife and even with guns since hunter trait gives a point and xp boost to shooting. I'd never dare to call knives usless, you can become a literall kiling machine if you only level up knives, they're a free and common drop from zombies after the first 15 days survived and they're 1000x better then a katana, machete or a meat cleaver which actually break quickly even with 5+ maintance for some reason. I think you're just too much used to the knives from b40 and you can't adapt. That's it 100%

[Fuzzy Wolfy]

3 hours ago, The Nine Tailed Fox said:

wtf I don't know what crappy character builds you make but burger flipper + hunter and handy trait give you 2+ short blade and 2+ maintance by the end of the first month you can demolish 3 hordes with 30 zombies per horde with a hunting knife or even a screwdriver without getting tired, and taking the brawler trait will give you a boost in long blung and axes, this way you can have fun killing Z with a crowbar, with an axe, with a knife and even with guns since hunter trait gives a point and xp boost to shooting. I'd never dare to call knives usless, you can become a literall kiling machine if you only level up knives, they're a free and common drop from zombies after the first 15 days survived and they're 1000x better then a katana, machete or a meat cleaver which actually break quickly even with 5+ maintance for some reason. I think you're just too much used to the knives from b40 and you can't adapt. That's it 100%

No need for the hostility, my guy.

[Irken Empire]

1 hour ago, Fuzzy Wolfy said:

No need for the hostility, my guy.

I'm not hostile, I'm suprised well more like shocked, he came with so many bs calims that I can prove wrong, knives are best weaons in the game with a character that has proper skills, traits, and their default low endurance cost per hit can make them literally overpowered, in early game a feeble, unfit and obese character can kill over 50 zombies without having to rest once and when you get to level 5 fitness and strenght you'll be most likely over level 6 in short blade and 4-5 levels in maintace, you'll never have to stop, you can go from one horde to another.

[Chugawuga]

On 12/25/2021 at 4:41 AM, trunks_budo said:

Topic. Sneak attacks no longer work, jaw stabs no longer work, therefore, knives are 100% useless to use because they break after five zombie kills. I feel like those animations were the only viable aspect to short-blade use, and now, there's no point in using any weapon besides Long Blunt. Crowbars are epic in terms of durability, knockdown and damage, spiked bats suck in durability but kill zombies in 2-3 swings by only level 3 Long Blunt, which, if you take Baseball Player, comes pretty quickly. You can also repair them with nails, which are abundant. Just wondering why you, the devs, felt it necessary to basically take short blades, a viable weapon type, and make them unviable and unusable? I'm just not seeing the logic here from a game-design perspective, and I feel like you made a massive mistake and passed it off as polish. Why can't you guys make more viable weapon types besides just Long Blunt? Why are you pidgeon holing every player into Long Blunt use? Why can't you give every weapon unique aspects and capabilities, why aren't you working on melee weapon balance? Rather, why are you destroying whatever balance already existed for short blades?  Indie Stone, this is a direct question and I am indeed expecting a direct answer. Better be a good one.

 

From your post it would seem you're addressing your question specifically to the development team, but i thought I'd share my experiences with you anyway.

 

I'm usually a short/long blunt kinda guy but on my latest survivor on our MP server I decided to go short blade.

Life was hard when I had no points in the skill or sneak and had to rely on butter and kitchen knives.

I had to adapt my playing style to take into consideration these things, relying on pushing the zombies to the ground and finishing them off with a few stabs to the head to preserve my delicate blades.

I now have level 4 in Short Blades and level 5 in Sneak and love the fighting style.

I successfully carry out sneak attacks on single or duo zombies 90% of the time and can take out larger groups a lot quicker than my team mates, most of whom favour the Long Blunt combat style.

Weapons are no longer an issue either, after a month into the apocalypse (normal loot settings) I have around 10 combat knives (really easy to repair with duct tape) and so many screwdriver and knives that I've started to leave them on corpses.

I'm still getting jaw stab kills although thankfully nowhere near the same frequency as build 40 (pre animation) because lets face it, a guy with a couple of butter knives was god in that build.

I also love the fact that  a jaw stab will sometimes cause the blade to be dragged from my hand as the zombie crumbles to the floor, the added tension of my equipping a new blade or retrieving my original one in the heat of combat really adds to the game (in my opinion)

 

So, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with your statement. Knives are by far from being useless, sneak attacks work, jaw stabs work and I think the Short Blade play style is both viable and fun combat style to use.