Power Knife Nerf - Ok then Bye for good

I don't think power knives were good gameplay. But I don't think the nerf was deserved, mostly because there were only an handful of people even playing it.

If you aim for the head, its still one hit kill. I have over 10k kills with the lumine edge, and I probably hit 7 out of 10 hits as headshots even pre nerf. So this nerf didn't really effect the handful of people myself that were maining the power knife. I'm still pretty effective with it tbh

See now this is an opinion that makes sense, I've Auraxed the Ripper (TR Powerknife) since ages and I like using it, because it's loud and fair. The issue with the current nerf is that it makes the powerknifes inferior to 2-hit knives as it's straight up slower, and for people that say "Just hit the head" It doesn't work like that, unless your target is AFK, standing still tunnel-visioned, you're not going to be able to do that.

That's also the issue, that people claim that Power-knifers are so wide-spread when they're not. They're are only a handful of people that do it, including myself.

Yes, you can still OHK in the head. But you know as much as anybody else, that it's incredibly unreliable unless that person is completely stationary, and whilst your 2 videos there are pretty dope. You can even see there that you have issues hitting enemies in general, let alone their head, most of the kills you had there were stationary targets.

First video most were standing and strafing except for the ones crouching down, which is not as much of a snap reaction required as a moving target. But I am pretty adept at hitting moving targets with my knife, and can get headshots on moving targets, and before the nerf kills on running targets were almost too easy lol. Now I agree it is slightly nerfed but if you are good enough with it you are still effective as an infiltrator, which involves more than being good at just slicing down enemies.

Oh too bad.....
see you next week!

Don't get me wrong, you can still be an effective infiltrator. But let's be honest, you're not playing with a powerknife to be effective as infiltrator, it's a fun thing, and also very niche. A knife main with 40k kills on the carver, has a KD of 1.4. We do it because it's a fun challenge.

Though, it's a lot easier to deal with non-moving targets simply due to client-side, hit-detection, overall overhead swing of the knife. Whilst I can hit moving target, doing so reliably and consistently when you're fighting the the above 3 factors, it becomes a real pain.

People claim it is 'OP' yet the average Heavy with a shield and an LMG can rake in an easy 3KD without effort, or bolter, or shotgun LA. There's so many more ways to be 'OP' but it gets ignored, despite being more widespread, such as OHK shotguns.

The issue lies with the people getting knifed, feeling personally attacked or hunted and their egos hurt. It's why you see a lot of toxicity involved against knifers. People feel 'Too good' to be knifed in a shooter, because they know how hard it is, but don't want to give credit to it because it would mean admitting defeat and being outplayed.

That is my whole issue with this nerf, it stems from that hypocritical/toxic/salty mindset. There was nothing OP about a power-knife, people just want to find reasons to hate on it because they don't want to counter it when they're getting stabbed, so they whine. And whilst normally I don't care that much about the T-bagging on a failed attempt on my body, or ragetells when you stab them. It becomes a real issue when that mindset starts dictating the state of the game.

I agree this 100%, as a long player turned power knife nerf, I have had all sorts of grief from players when I just outplay them with superior muscle memory and refllexes, I am a long time FPS player I have played counterstrike since 2002 and I use guns just as effectively, the one shot kill has never drawn me to the playstyle its the aggressive tactic and the challenge of taking out enemies that have guns, with a melee weapon and being proficient with a underpowered playstyle , in theory. i don't enjoy cheese, but I really enjoy the stealth melee class against ranged(guns).

Pretty much, it was never about the OHK. The OHK on a power-knife is there to make the overall playstyle somewhat viable in getting kills versus 3KD+ HA/LMG, Bolters, LA/Shotty, ESF with ATG weapons, Libs, HESH MBTs/Lightnings. Which all are more widespread farming methods compared to a Powerknife which is just about the challenge, and there's no challenge in having an inconsistent experience with needing to 'headshot' players with a knife to kill them.

I too hail from a long history of FPS gaming, I don't play Planetside 2 because I want to 'flex' my KPM or IVI, or whatever metric people use nowadays to make themselves feel better than they actually are. The challenge lies with bringing a knife to a gunfight, outplaying people, finding gaps in a squads defensive position and using that to get right up in there and causing chaos. The enjoyment of playing stealth melee class vs a ranged class.

I have always said, and will continue to say that. If you let a knifer get into your backline, then you let that happen. Don't be salty if you get stabbed, learn from it, work on your awareness, change your loadout to counter. Overall it was already an incredibly underpowered playstyle, due to Clientside/lag/hit detection and hit animations causing you to slow down and lose all momentum, which affects the playstyle 5x harder than anything else.

I don't want this game turning into a "Play the meta or you're using cheese/you're a noob", but that exactly what this nerf serves to do and frankly people are fed up with it. Especially since I talked to said friend/rival knifer with 40k kills on his carver, and he said his playstyle got ruined so hard he's an update away from dropping the game altogether.

True HA get more kills just as ez or easier. Mostly HA are the ones to get salty when power knifed.

I saw a vid lately of a guy 1 hitting with the archer gun. Saying the Archer is more op than the Sar-s rifle now. Even 1 hitting max's with headshots. So yes theirs still 1 hit gun after Aresenal update. Some people are whining about shotguns, tho I haven't seen shotguns are a problem yet. Tho ye HA probably do have better KDR than a power knifer. We step on enemy mines the most / get tked the most by friendly nades or bullet or ran over / & often get shot while invisible a ton of times. Even if your the best sneaky person on the server, you still get shot a ton while invisible. As your a melee invisible person, not range, so they see you many times.

Lately I use Victory NS knife & like it more than the power knife. For Oshur the other day. They had a ton of NC on a patio fighting the TR at some underground Oshur mountain base. So I jumped on the patio with 20 NC around & knifed my face off. I scored 13 knife kills with a 2 hitter knife, the most ever with a 2 hitter since starting 2 hitter knife 1 or 2 weeks ago. So that's 26 swings with a 2 hitter knife. Was awesome.

So I don't see why I would need a 1 hit power knife anymore. Even if it wasn't nerfed. So they should give the power knife some utility effect maybe. Some symptom is effects enemies with maybe. Unless people really be trying to headshot with knife swings just so the knife is worth it. Perhaps that works. On the other hand the power knife being nerfed, makes players subliminally give respect more to the 2 hit knife or knives in general. So I don't mind. Maybe training to headshot kill for some niche person is worth it. I already overplayed lumineree.

1 hit knives pre nerf: Make you want to use pistol more than knife, as people don't respect the knife. It seem more honorable to 2 hit.
& No more extra button or sound, why bother. 2 hit is barely even a second slower anyways. Is a extra button & noise really worth half a second or 1 second faster kill time. Prior to the nerf? Not really.

Nerfing the 1 hit knife is fine, tho is it a worthless knife now? I've overplayed it, so wasn't gonna play it either way. Yet for other vets? I like respect from my enemies when I kill them. 1 hitter less honor. Maybe now it does since it requires a headshot tho doubt enemies will view it like that. Till they try the knife headshot aim themselves.

Nerfing the knife is fair I guess. Now are they gonna nerf all the 1 hitter weapons? Archer & other 1 hit snipers.



P.s. 1 of the long time jokes is when a TR hears my knife & is surprised that the VS knife sounds so quiet. I find that funny. When you hear the TR knife is so loud. Maybe the TR knife should be less loud.

non of those ohk on bodyshots, the powered knife did ...

stronger RLs with heavy's movement slowed would make more sense than sprinting deci primaries

True. Tho the knife has no range. I still agree that 1 hit anything is bad.

I just think the delay between when you can uncloak/power it on and when you can OHK someone with it was too short. There should've been like a 1s increase so the potential victim can have some time to actually react to the sound it makes.

This nerf the devs choose to do instead is just stupid.

you know what one hit kills and is much harder to pretty much impossible to defend against as infantry? AP maincannons, Dalton and Halbert ... first one can´t be even mitigated by flak ... why? screw you that´s why! ... ... dalton ... well it´s a liberator for how long did we ask for direct and/or indirect nerfs to the lib?

people may complain about pumpshotguns one hit killing but those also require to get close and hit all their pellets ... so i think it´s fair game there ..

A key component is how it makes people feel. Everything that makes you feel like you lost the ability to prevent it (regardless of this being true) is seen as a bad thing. And frankly it stops mattering how balanced something is if the only people who enjoy it are the users.

An AP round has been complained about for years, but you can at least try to avoid sightlines of vehicles and even dodge the shots a bit. But a Stalker with a OHK knife? Its virtually impossible to avoid unless you knew a cloaker was around beforehand.

To see all these people complain so loudly about a "niche, just for fun" item should tell you how niche and just for fun it is. Just like the Betel isnt OP at all, its just fun!

I've advocated before to have OHK mechanics largely removed. From full health and shield any instant killingblow should leave you with 1 health and a concussion effect for example, or a weapon sway that affects you even during hipfire. Weapons relying on OHK's can get buffs in other fields to remain useful and capable weapons (assuming they get it removed at all, some OHK weapons are OK). It gives players a bit more breathing space to deal with their would-be killer, but at a disadvantage as they should.

avoiding sightlines and dodging aren´t realy options for defending when you are a medic or infill .. you are caught outside a base there is nothing you can do (ok you can cloak ... but only for so long unless stalker), as medic the chance to even escape to a building is non existend if it´s an armored vehicle you can forget even scratching it .. if it´s an harrasser chances of escaping are even slimer .. either you get oneshot by the Halbert or you get roadkilled ... at least against shotgunusers they are squishy enough you have a real chance to take them out first .. infiltrators are simply the issue of latency and lack of recon and that whole shabang .. now personaly i don´t care about powerknifes enough to be bothered by the change but i think this still could have been balanced differently ...

i don´t mind OHKs thaaat much if they aren´t just super easily done and there is a chance to defend yourself.. sniping requires headshots and you can countersnipe or use longrange automatics ... pumpshotguns require butttouching with almost all pellets hitting ... c4 requires getting close, dropping the package and detonate it or guessing the possition of the enemy ... if it weren´t for cloaks how difficult was powerknifing prepatch with non-infils?

so really my personal petpeeve is moslty with vehicles and aircraft were there is a clear lack of counter/protection for the affected infantryclass ... other than get your own vehicle or die ..

we COULD add a downed state for infantry when brought down with bodyshots or explosions on the edge of the splashradius, with chance of recovery by teammates before one dies off with only the medic able to resurec you then .... could make healingnades a bit more viable .. could of course add some annoyance to people getting kills but .. eh ...

I was more going for the option to not go into vehicle spaces in the first place. But yes people complain (rightly so) about vehicles curbstomping infantry whenever infantry isnt actively segregated from vehicles. Its why I keep suggesting non-lethal AV and AA options that help protect infantry, like the distortion field generator that makes a region less visible the farther you are from it. Also lethal resource costing options that nerf vehicles so the infantry stands a chance to both avoid fire and keep a vehicle from easily escaping for repairs.

I dont mind many of them either, but the problem is that many others do. We need to find a compromise that makes it as fun as possible while rewarding people with different playstyles (another reason why the headshot meta needs to go, since it favors accurate weapons and playstyles more and discourages other playstyles. Headshots should be but one facet of the overall meta).

Cloaks is indeed the biggest factor in OHK knives (or any infil weapon for that matter) and a simple solution would have been pushing cloak into that flanking surprise role rather than the in-your-face decloaks which abuse the latency system for a solid advantage. 2 second decloak time, 500 shield and 500 health.

Nanites killing nanites. Why isnt this in the game yet? We just have C4 and AV grenades, we need a large variety of grenade launchers, rocket/missile launchers, virus/chemical weapons and special tools could easily be added to balance this out.

A downed state could work...
Say 10 seconds of downed (press U to instakill yourself if you dont expect to be revived).
You immediately switch to your secondary (a bit weird if you've got a Jackhammer in there but sure why not). Gives the player a chance to retaliate even when downed rather than sit there and wait for death (which would be the opposite of giving them a chance).
Rhey can crawl/crouch
If they die waiting you get the kill.
If you hit them again you get the kill.

Potentially you could temporarily buff the player if he finishes a downed opponent as a reward for needing more shots.
If an ally finishes them off (or an enemy) you get the kill, the ally gets an assist.
If they get revived, you get an assist (they were technically down and waiting for revives).