Give Bayonets A Melee Deflection Chance

[Surrealistik]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):

Per the Subject.


Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):

Makes bayonets a more competitive/enticing modification.


Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):

Currently bayonets give you more melee damage with your gun at the cost of accuracy.

Given that point blank shots do significantly more damage than bayonet melee (to quash a rumour, no, bayonets do not stack with or otherwise increase the damage of point blank shots), that boot knives exist, and that, with the solitary exception of a hive assault, you're usually clearing obstacles in safe conditions where you don't need your rifle two-handed and ready to fire immediately (and if you've got a macro to put the knife away & draw your gun, this already situational benefit is further diminished), bayonets generally aren't worth their penalty to accuracy. The only other situation in which they're useful, escaping from a Hive with a magnetic attachment so you effectively have a knife you can't lose, is exceedingly rare in light of honeycombs + resin cuffing.

To ameliorate concerns about this buff being overpowered, a bayonet obviously wouldn't have a deflection rate on par with say a riot shield. Further, marines have to be facing the Xeno attacking them for the bayonet to be effective at all; attacks from the rear will not be deflected, making ambush, swarm and flanking tactics especially effective against bayonet equipped marines.

Finally, giving the bayonet a melee deflection chance makes sense as all Marines are defensively trained with the things.

Some concerns have been raised about a melee deflection chance adding more RNG; this could be addressed in several ways:

A: Having the melee deflection chance reduce melee damage proportionate to its deflection chance instead of have a chance of negating a melee attack outright. For example a 20% deflection chance would reduce melee damage by 20% instead of having a 20% chance of negating an attack.
B: Have the deflection autofail once every X deflectable attacks that would hit, where X is equal to 1 / (1-(Block Chance / 100))
C: Have a guaranteed deflection on a cooldown: 10% chance of blocking equals 100% chance of blocking with a 10 second cooldown (100 seconds / block chance); 20% chance of blocking equals 100% chance with a 5 second cooldown, etc...


Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it):

Add code from riot shield/machete/other weapons with melee deflection chances to the bayonet and adjust the probability of the deflection accordingly.

[Sarah_U.]

If you make it small or have a small cooldown after a block you get my +1 on that suggestion.

Because lets be honnest your gun is most likely gonna be the thing you're gonna block the stuff with either way.

[Surrealistik]

Honestly I'd like to see the deflection system reworked such that blocks are _guaranteed_, but are on cooldowns; the length of the cooldown is inversely proportionate to what its block chance would be.

For example, 10% chance of blocking equals 100% chance of blocking with a 10 second cooldown (100 seconds / block chance); 20% chance of blocking equals 100% chance with a 5 second cooldown, etc...

Much less RNG, much more consistency that way.

[MauroVega]

Runner pouncing you and then they stab themselfs on the bayonets when

+1

[Toroic]

-1

Marines don't need a melee buff, especially since most xeno castes are melee range attackers.

Knives are not used to block in any serious way.

The advantage of a band that is that you can safely remove weeds without wasting ammo or making yourself vulnerable because your weapon is not available

[Nyvrem]

Honestly I'd like to see the deflection system reworked such that blocks are _guaranteed_, but are on cooldowns; the length of the cooldown is inversely proportionate to what its block chance would be.

For example, 10% chance of blocking equals 100% chance of blocking with a 10 second cooldown (100 seconds / block chance); 20% chance of blocking equals 100% chance with a 5 second cooldown, etc...

Much less RNG, much more consistency that way.

This is a much better suggestion, why don't you make a thread for it?

[Sarah_U.]

-1

Marines don't need a melee buff, especially since most xeno castes are melee range attackers.

Knives are not used to block in any serious way.

The advantage of a band that is that you can safely remove weeds without wasting ammo or making yourself vulnerable because your weapon is not available

Saddly the bayo don't change anything since your gun one-handed auto-destroy weeds in a single click.

[Nyvrem]

Saddly the bayo don't change anything since your gun one-handed auto-destroy weeds in a single click.

It does matter for purple sacks and matters a lot for resin constructions.

[Toroic]

This is a much better suggestion, why don't you make a thread for it?

That is not the best way to achieve consistency, drops the deflection rate to zero if you are under sustained fire.

A much cleaner way is to instead of have deflection have % damage reduction. So every shot will hit but only do a fraction of the normal damage.

Coding wise it may be more difficult, and the feedback of knowing any non-deflected shots did full damage is beneficial to Marines

[Surrealistik]

That is not the best way to achieve consistency, drops the deflection rate to zero if you are under sustained fire.

A much cleaner way is to instead of have deflection have % damage reduction. So every shot will hit but only do a fraction of the normal damage.

Coding wise it may be more difficult, and the feedback of knowing any non-deflected shots did full damage is beneficial to Marines

I'd be down for a % reduction as well, which also occurred to me; the only problem is it doesn't feature an 'all or nothing' element which the devs may want; having the deflection on a cooldown is a compromise between consistency and this all-or-nothing quality.

Another possibility is to have the deflection autofail once every X deflectable attacks that would hit, where X is equal to 1 / (1-(Block Chance / 100))

Also I didn't suggest this because I don't feel that strongly about it. Bayonets sucking burns my ass more.

-1

Marines don't need a melee buff, especially since most xeno castes are melee range attackers.

Knives are not used to block in any serious way.

The advantage of a band that is that you can safely remove weeds without wasting ammo or making yourself vulnerable because your weapon is not available

#1: A knife by itself is not effective at blocking. A properly mounted bayonet is quite capable of this when used with the body of the attached gun. Marines are specifically trained in deflecting and parrying blows with a mounted bayonet.

#2: This is a minor buff in melee for those marines that specifically take what is currently an obviously underpowered attachment.

#3: The benefit as mentioned in the OP is so situational that it's easily not worth the loss of accuracy (which is consistently effective/powerful), and that situational utility further diminishes with macro use.

[monkeysfist101]

I could see this if it took the same slot as the underslung. With the underbarrel in the way, there'd be no reasonable place to fix a bayonet and the firepower for protection seems like a good trade off.

[Boltersam]

+1, at there very least it's a sensible idea, and, here's a very bad and salt-inducing idea,

How about the bayonet doing minor damage upon deflection, too? If you're trying to hit a marine with your bare hands, and they deflect you with a blade, it's gonna injure you. Xeno hide is tough, but marines can already pierce it with a handheld knife, if they parry a xenomorphs claw with a knife, it will do some damage, even if minor. How much damage does a knife do when you slash a Xeno? Half or use a third of it. It's not a blow made to injure the Xeno, but to hit and hurt the marine, the Xeno put momentum behind its blow, and that momentum works against it if its arm is knocked slightly to the side and its arm is driven along the edge of a blade.

[Toroic]

+1, at there very least it's a sensible idea, and how about the bayonet doing minor damage upon deflection, too? If you're trying to hit a marine with your bare hands, and they deflect you with a blade, it's gonna injure you. Xeno hide is tough, but marines can already pierce it with a handheld knife, if they parry a xenomorphs claw with a knife, it will do some damage, even if minor. How much damage does a knife do when you slash a Xeno? Half or use a third of it. It's not a blow made to injure the Xeno, but to hit and hurt the marine, the Xeno put momentum behind its blow, and that momentum works against it if its arm is knocked slightly to the side and its arm is driven along the edge of a blade.

The end result is still a straight buff to marines, in melee which is already potentially dangerous for xenos and this change will encourage more use of huggerspam. Xenos don't get damage resist vs melee, marines do, and a marine with a fireaxe can already outdamage tier 1s hit for hit.

[Steelpoint]

If this change was added. Big if. Then the weapon sprite needs to visable show the bayonet on the front so the Aliens know who's packing the bayonet.

[enkas]

Would be nice if stocks would also show, for aesthetic reasons.

[Surrealistik]

The end result is still a straight buff to marines, in melee which is already potentially dangerous for xenos and this change will encourage more use of huggerspam. Xenos don't get damage resist vs melee, marines do, and a marine with a fireaxe can already outdamage tier 1s hit for hit.

The bayonet is finally offering a worthwhile _tradeoff_ for the accuracy loss, as opposed to being a gimp piece of shit not worth its very situational benefits.

I could see this if it took the same slot as the underslung. With the underbarrel in the way, there'd be no reasonable place to fix a bayonet and the firepower for protection seems like a good trade off.

Bayonets can be fixed on the side and top: https://youtu.be/_Op1zjd7KKE?t=41

[DMAN]

This will make bayonets marginally useful again. I dunno why the bayonet got shredded, but this is a step in the right direction for bayonets not being useless in comparison to other attachments. +1

[Warnipple]

+1 only when facing the enemy of course and melee only

[forwardslashN]

I'd like this. Sadly, this isn't possible unless I or someone else reworks CQC. If you read my dev app, I plan to do that, but it won't be anytime soon.

[BalancedGeneral]

Bayonets are literally just knives on the end of a gun, they couldn't deflect much of anything

How riot sheilds/machetes can deflect fucking t2+ xeno hits is beyond me as well

-1

[MrJJJ]

Bayonets are literally just knives on the end of a gun, they couldn't deflect much of anything

How riot sheilds/machetes can deflect fucking t3 xeno's hits like Charger, Ravager, Queen is beyond me

-1

fixed

[Surrealistik]

Bump because bayonets are still useless trash.

[Jroinc1]

-1
Bayonets are VERY situational, and in most situations, SHOULD be useless trash. You are issued a machinegun. For shooting things at range. If something's RIGHT next to you? Empty the clip into it. If you have no ammo, THEN the bayonet turns your lumpy, heavy stick into a lumpy, awkward spear.
It's an improvement, and you CAN brace with it to resist a charge, but xenos are supposed to be much faster/stronger than humans... I can see them consistently dodging something as awkward as a rifle-mounted bayonet that's held in a fixed position (going for the feet or lower body instead of the pointy bit).

Additionally, you can make them out of a knife for free, and thus every marine CAN get one, at roundstart. While the "FORM THE SQUARE" commands could be fun, I feel like this would both make lone 'rines too likely to be a match for lone t1-t2 xenos, AND turn a mass of people with bayonets into hell to harass.
Maybe if it required the gun to be held one-handed, to stop 'rines from pouring accurate fire into the xeno as it approaches, THEN have a chance to nullify it's attack?

[Surrealistik]

-1
Bayonets are VERY situational, and in most situations, SHOULD be useless trash. You are issued a machinegun. For shooting things at range. If something's RIGHT next to you? Empty the clip into it. If you have no ammo, THEN the bayonet turns your lumpy, heavy stick into a lumpy, awkward spear.
It's an improvement, and you CAN brace with it to resist a charge, but xenos are supposed to be much faster/stronger than humans... I can see them consistently dodging something as awkward as a rifle-mounted bayonet that's held in a fixed position (going for the feet or lower body instead of the pointy bit).

Additionally, you can make them out of a knife for free, and thus every marine CAN get one, at roundstart. While the "FORM THE SQUARE" commands could be fun, I feel like this would both make lone 'rines too likely to be a match for lone t1-t2 xenos, AND turn a mass of people with bayonets into hell to harass.
Maybe if it required the gun to be held one-handed, to stop 'rines from pouring accurate fire into the xeno as it approaches, THEN have a chance to nullify it's attack?

The problem is the opportunity cost. There is pretty much no reason to take these things; why do they even exist, as they're typically worse than useless? Bayonets are essentially pointless right now. Even with this buff other attachments are generally preferable, but bayonets at least have the advantage of being free.

How problematic this is balancewise for T1-2s is in the deflection %. Also note that Marines should have to face the Xeno for the bayonet deflection to work at all, so flanking and swarm tactics would sharply diminish its utility. Lone Xenos still have combathuggers to instawin vs lone marines.

As realism goes, sacrificing some for the sake of balance is worthwhile, though bayonets would remain useful vis a vis a naked gun up until T3s.

[Tristan63]

I don't think you can block a hand with three sharp claws with this kind of weapon.
Especially on higher tier xenos. Machetes however would make more sense.