The melee weapon thread (ideas, loot suggestions etc.)

[Umbra (DayZ) 0]

On the shore with only your knife to protect you, it has been days since you had your last meal or something to drink. You hear distant grunts of zombies. It is dark but the hunger and thirst are driving you to the town. You slowly hide and crawl to the supermarket, the growls are louder and louder but it is so dark you do not see anything. You reach the entrace and see a pistol with only one magazine, suddenly you trip over a can of beans. The sound of the falling cans echoes trought the town, you realize in terror that the growls turn to screams.

You quickly go trought the last of the bullets and draw your knife, more zombies are comming. Its kill or be killed. Your instincts kick in and adrenaline flows trough your veins, with the knife in your hand you make your last stand.

For epic situations like these i suggest adding melee weapons to this game: Spawning with a basic knife (ordinary or army maybe?)

For loot suggestions these are what comes to my mind right now (i would like the community to suggest more trough the posts)

Residential houses:

- baseball bat

- chair leg

- kitchen knife

Industrial warehouses/buildings:

- lead pipe

- hammer

- screwdriver

- chainsaw (needs fuel)

- crowbar

Supermarkets

- kitchen knife

- butchers knife

- hand axe

- crowbar

- hammer

- screwdriver

Deer stands

- military knife (can be used as bayonet)

- hand axe

- woodcutters axe

Barns

- woodcutters axe

- chair leg

- hand axe

Churches

- metal candle stand

Military buildings/Hangars

- military knife (can be used as bayonet)

- combat knife (better than military, can be used as bayonet)

- tactical knife (better than combat, can be used as bayonet)

Gas stations

- tire iron

Castles

- military knife (can be used as bayonet)

- sword

- maybe : mace, flail, morningstar, military pick, polearms, greatswords ( the posibility for the melee loot in castlest in endless, the question remains: what can be added that would be supported by the engine and wouldnt be too overpowered - also the general theme of the game sould be taken into consideration - this isnt realy a medieval combat simulator so the variety of these weapons should be limited or maybe keep the variety but drasticaly increase the spawn chance of such weapons)

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As for slots i can think of two options: melee weapon gets a special slot. Something like a pistol but you can carry both a piston and a melee weapon at the same time. Second option would be that melee weapons takes utility slots (the ones where the compas, watch, hatchet, matches etc. are) this would probably be easier to code and would fit the current UI

Purpose of melee weapons: Strictly last resort. Very weak and mostly short, for all those situations im sure a lot of you have been in. When you run out of all your bullets but there are still 1-3 zombies chasing you. You could dispatch them with your melee weapon. Ofcourse it would be extremely dangerous since you will also be in their atack range. Some weapons would be more powerfull but situational and they would be balanced some other way to compensate. For example the chainsaw would be very powerfull but extremely loud and would need fuel to run

Possible abuse situations: 1. Standing at a door and spamming attack. Possible solution: Limiting the attack speed/range, not beig able to attack air but only viable targets, introducing a stamina system for running and swinging.

Sneak damage bonus yay or nay? - It would probably be required to have some kind of knife for a greater bonus,

if Rocket plans to introduce more melee weapons than just crowbar and a hatchet

Pros:

- killing animals, survivours, zombies instantly or almost instantly

- no noise

- no bullets spent obviously

Cons:

- could be too easy to kill zombies ( maybe solve this by making sneak bonus damage usable only on onther players)

Durability: blackaciddevil Wrote: Durability to hatchet and other melee weapons. Let say you have 1000 points on a hatchet and 7000 (or infinite) on a crowbar. An attack takes away 0-150 points and when chopping wood it uses 0-50 points. When reaching 0 the item is broken. You can still use the handle of the hatchet to attack but will take a while to kill a zombie. Handle have 2000 points. The points/durability are not visible to the player.

This is a very good idea, it will encourage people to keep risking going to loot spots and finding/looting weapons. Also its realistic.

Weapon melee mode:

rifle-butt or pistol-whipping(torch as well' date=' mag lites hurt;))

add a new fire mode to the weapons on the 'F' key, ie: semi>burst>grenade launcher>melee

non lethal, maybe 3 hits in succession cause a full 5 min unconsiousness timeout against players, walking z's get knocked down to monkeys, monkeys go down to crawlers. possibly some 'knockback' so you could escape being cornered in houses with only 1 door etc, not much knockback though.

not sure how or if it could be done without an ammo requirement though. tie it into stamina ideally.

[/quote']

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For any loot spots i missed, or more loot types please put them in your suggestions. As you give your suggestions ill update this thread.

Also imagine the epicness of knife fights over a can of beans :D

I think this game would be awesome with melee variety, what is your opinion?

[benkei 0]

I support this idea.

[Umbra (DayZ) 0]

Added possible slot suggestion and purpose

[strange99 0]

You forgot chainsaw... needs fueling ;-)

[unluckycharms 0]

I havent had a cyance to play the new patch yet due to problems with the updater but from what i have read so far im going to love the game even more now though i still feel the bandit id system still needs work but thats another story. Pertaining to the thread topic though i feel that melee should def be added now that you start with no weapon to defend yourself but i believe you have to be careful otherwise it could turn into a just stand in a doorway and easily hack your way to safety. So here are some suggestions to counter that.

1st thing, using melee obviously takes more effort than shooti.ng a gun so it only makes sense that you would get hungry and thirsty alot faster and now that you dont start with these things it will be something to consider. 2nd thing weapons will obviously take damage from over use eventually breaking but you could facter in using your survival gear as the melee weapon such as your hatchet or knife, things that you definitly need. this would deter people from spamming melee as well as these are important items that you dont want breaking unless you run across an extra. Anyways those are few thoughts on the melee situation and no matter what i believe the game is heading in a good direction.

[Umbra (DayZ) 0]

@ Strange: Added, thanks for input ;)

@ Kamikazi: good point, added possible abuse situations and possible solutions

[robosheriff 13]

the thing with melee combat is that arma's engine doesn't helps/supports it at all, to introduce it as an "stable and balanced" feature.

I think thats the only reason why it hasn't been introduced already. Rocket has said that he won't work on things that arma engine don't support right now.

[unluckycharms 0]

Just wondering but what are they using for the zombie to melee people? Is thwre a way to turn that into melee for players as well? Even if it is just punching it would be better than nothing.

[Umbra (DayZ) 0]

Just wondering but what are they using for the zombie to melee people? Is thwre a way to turn that into melee for players as well? Even if it is just punching it would be better than nothing.

Good point.

The way i see it: We could do to zombies what they do to players in terms of melee and add some kind of a basic animation and voila you have your rudimentary melee system. Improve the animation a bit and it could work out

[leo235 2]

exactly what I would imagine the end of th world to look like:

people running around with chairlegs chainsaws and swords making epic last stands.

On the shore with only your wits to protect you, it has been days since you had your last meal or something to drink. You hear distant grunts of zombies. It is dark but the hunger and thirst are driving you to the town. You slowly hide and crawl to the supermarket, the growls are louder and louder but it is so dark you do not see anything. You reach the entrace and see a pistol with only one magazine, suddenly you trip over a can of beans. The sound of the falling cans echoes trought the town, you realize in terror that the growls turn to screams.

You quickly go trought the last of the bullets but more zombies are comming. Its run or be killed. Your instincts kick in and adrenaline flows trough your veins, and you make your daring escape to the door. Two steps further a crawling ex-police officer with a magazine on his belt grabs your ankle. You think of it only for a half-second before he trips you and you hear a loud crack of separating joints. The last thing you see is zombies eating you and a silent survivor observing you from outside...

for equally epic situations dont bring in melee.

I think it would either make people loose the last bit of fear for zombies when they are close or have to be so weak, that theyd just be another item overcrowding spawns.

At most make the hunting knife usable

I dont know

[unluckycharms 0]

Thats why i was suggesting the survival gear. It wouldnt effect the loot and you have to think about wether you really want to take a chance breaking something as important as your survival gear. Also you wouldnt have to make a nrw melee weapon slot which would be another plus.

[Umbra (DayZ) 0]

As i have stated in the OP melee weapons would be stirctly last resort weapons. Very weak and mostly short (whith the exception of maybe chainsaw which would need fuel to run and be extremely loud). Fighting more than 1-3 zombies would have not much of an impact and practicaly be suicide, tho it would be usefull for those situations when you run out of bullets and there is still 1-3 zombies left chasing you (atm you have no way of defending yourself against that situation) and thus you wont see players runing around killing waves of zombies with a kitchen knife

[unluckycharms 0]

Another plus could be being able to take out other players or animals without making a sound. Tgis may be impossible to do but possibly.have a instakill animation if your able to sneak up on someone. Of course that could have the potential to bug out when two players engage in a knife fight but if it could work i think it could lead to some epic moments. Sneaking up on a group of survivors and slowly taking them out one at a time without making a noise like a post apocayptic ninja. Just a thought lol

[ascendantwyvern 0]

A good way to get past the fact that melee isnt in the ArmA engine is to use whatever you used for the Zombies, some sort of 1 meter pathway range. Without a makarov to start out with, you can fight them off with fists, using a modified zombie melee animation and reduce the bleed chance by a lot and increasing the shock and knockout chance.

[vibe 26]

I support this idea.

[Umbra (DayZ) 0]

* [NEW] Melee Weapon introduced: Hatchet (can only drop through right click in gear menu)

* [NEW] Melee Weapon introduced: Crowbar (can only drop through right click in gear menu)

Rejoice! Melee weapons are here, lets keep this community brainstorm about melee going.

Also added Crowbar :D

@ Kamikazi: I think sneak bonus would be too powerful, especialy when dealing with zombies. They are relatively easy to sneak around. If sneak atacks were enabled just for other players and animals this could work.

Added sneak damage bonus section

[blackaciddevil 0]

Durability to hatchet and other melee weapons. Let say you have 1000 points on a hatchet and 7000 (or infinite) on a crowbar. An attack takes away 0-150 points and when chopping wood it uses 0-50 points. When reaching 0 the item is broken. You can still use the handle of the hatchet to attack but will take a while to kill a zombie. Handle have 2000 points. The points/durability are not visible to the player.

[liquidcactus 719]

exactly what I would imagine the end of th world to look like:

people running around with chairlegs chainsaws and swords making epic last stands.

On the shore with only your wits to protect you' date=' it has been days since you had your last meal or something to drink. You hear distant grunts of zombies. It is dark but the hunger and thirst are driving you to the town. You slowly hide and crawl to the supermarket, the growls are louder and louder but it is so dark you do not see anything. You reach the entrace and see a pistol with only one magazine, suddenly you trip over a can of beans. The sound of the falling cans echoes trought the town, you realize in terror that the growls turn to screams.

You quickly go trought the last of the bullets but more zombies are comming. Its run or be killed. Your instincts kick in and adrenaline flows trough your veins, and you make your daring escape to the door. Two steps further a crawling ex-police officer with a magazine on his belt grabs your ankle. You think of it only for a half-second before he trips you and you hear a loud crack of separating joints. The last thing you see is zombies eating you and a silent survivor observing you from outside...

for equally epic situations dont bring in melee.

I think it would either make people loose the last bit of fear for zombies when they are close or have to be so weak, that theyd just be another item overcrowding spawns.

At most make the hunting knife usable

I dont know

[/quote']

You cant have a zombie game without melee ! It's just not right..

Thats how those tier 1 weapons that most would consider to be shit now will make them feel like heavinly artifacts of DEATH after running around for 2 days with a crowbar..

It cant all be guns a blazing ! :D

[Umbra (DayZ) 0]

Durability to hatchet and other melee weapons. Let say you have 1000 points on a hatchet and 7000 (or infinite) on a crowbar. An attack takes away 0-150 points and when chopping wood it uses 0-50 points. When reaching 0 the item is broken. You can still use the handle of the hatchet to attack but will take a while to kill a zombie. Handle have 2000 points. The points/durability are not visible to the player.

This is a very good idea, it will encourage people to keep risking going to loot spots and finding/looting weapons. Also its realistic. Ill quote you in the OP if you dont mind

Added Durability section

Damn i should have reserved the next post im guessing ill run out of room soon :D

[Publik 404]

Umbra I already killed you. Go away. I'm Umbra now.

But yeah, I notice you're missing the entrenching tool as a melee weapon.

[blackaciddevil 0]

@umbra: Sure!

To add some variation in loot. It could be some stuff like, string, debris, duct tape and different junk. That could be crap for some and valueble to some. Like repair a hatchet (add 100 points to a damaged one, not more then a total of 50% ((hatchet with 450/1000, repair,500/1000, 50 are wasted). So it will brake eventually.) building trip wires etc.

[Umbra (DayZ) 0]

Updated

[yedrellow 0]

Did I hear an SKS with bayonet?

Oh yes, I definitely heard an SKS with bayonet.

[Umbra (DayZ) 0]

Did I hear an SKS with bayonet?

Oh yes' date=' I definitely heard an SKS with bayonet.

[/quote']

Oh yea, bayonets. Havent thought of that previously, added :D

[rlr149 0]

rifle-butt or pistol-whipping(torch as well, mag lites hurt;))

add a new fire mode to the weapons on the 'F' key, ie: semi>burst>grenade launcher>melee

non lethal, maybe 3 hits in succession cause a full 5 min unconsiousness timeout against players, walking z's get knocked down to monkeys, monkeys go down to crawlers. possibly some 'knockback' so you could escape being cornered in houses with only 1 door etc, not much knockback though.

not sure how or if it could be done without an ammo requirement though. tie it into stamina ideally.