Pulverizer / Melee weapon Alt Fire keys are confusing

[Ratha Wynter]

Earlier i spent a couple rounds trying to figure out why I couldnt alt-fire with the pulverizer. Primary attack worked as expected, melee bash worked as expected, but pressing "alt fire" resulted in a block. The weapon shop page for the pulverizer would tell me to use alt fire for the explosive attack, but alt fire was clearly block when the button was actually pressed. In the key bindings it states that alt fire and block are mapped to the same key. How confusing.

It turns out that in order to use the secondary fire mode with a melee weapon, you need to "Aim" the weapon. That interaction simply hadn't occurred to me.

At this point, i suppose my question is: Why is alt fire for melee weapons bound to the aim key, rather than the alt fire key like it is for guns? As far as i know Melee weapons cant be 'aimed' like a gun, and guns cant block, so it would seem to me to make more sense if Aim + Block shared the same key, rather than Alt fire + Block. The current method seems fairly unintuitive unless i am perhaps missing some interaction?

On a side note, is anyone familiar enough with the Unreal Engine to know if this behavior can be changed through config editing? I would prefer 'alt fire' to always perform secondary fire whether it was with a gun or a melee weapon. Swapping back and forth between two different buttons for alt fire feels very awkward when you switch between melee and ranged weapons often.

[Demicheev]

Option --> Control --> Key Binding

You can change your key bindings that is much more suitable for you
Hope this helps

[Ratha Wynter]

Im aware of the key rebinding menu, thanks, but my question was about changing the behavior of the alt fire + block function itself.

Currently how KF2 handles Alt Fire:
(Alt Fire and Block share the same button.)
Ranged Secondary Fire = Alt Fire + Block Button
Melee Secondary Fire = Aim Button

Desired change:
(Aim and Block share the same button / Alt Fire button is Secondary Fire for both Ranged and Melee.)
Ranged Secondary Fire = Alt Fire Button
Melee Secondary Fire = Alt Fire Button

[Ham]

Alt fire on mellee weapons is parry/block, alt fire on med guns is heal darts, all fire on regular guns is ussually only burst fire or single fire choice .

Mouse 2 on mellee is a strong attack, mouse 1 is a normal attack, the pulverizer just happens to have some ammo that is consumed on its strong attack. It's not an alternate fire.

I'm sure there is some way to change it if you really want to but if you use other mellee weapons you would see it makes sense.

[Sharp Income]

Originally posted by Ratha Wynter:

Desired change:
(Aim and Block share the same button / Alt Fire button is Secondary Fire for both Ranged and Melee.)
Ranged Secondary Fire = Alt Fire Button
Melee Secondary Fire = Alt Fire Button

I agree. This just makes sense.
How many other games don't use right click for block with melee weapons (where blocking is an in-game action)? An alt fire should represent an alt-fire, like a different method of attack.

Playing during the free week now and I wish this could be changed. Blocking would be so much more viable for me if the controls were set up this way.

I checked the .ini files. If you're using RightMouseButton for either hold or toggle ironsights, those commands trace back to executing an "ironsights" command which then isn't defined anywhere in .ini files (that I found) so it's likely defined in the executable. So only in the compiled code we can't alter is it setup so "ironsights" will do your secondary attack when a melee weapon is equiped. I can't see anyway to change it in the cfg files. :( (unless unreal can do aliases like in CS. then if you use keys to change weapons, not scroll and select, you can execute it to rebind your controls when using melee weapon, and swap back when not, but that would be messy)

I hope the devs change this or add it as an option. Weird enough for me to decide if I want my usual melee attack/weapon button I use for games to be either "melee attack" or "melee weapon" since this game has both (KF1 was just switch to melee weapon, similarly with CS series, vs COD games its an attack, not a weapon you have to equip) If the melee button could do both, draw melee weapon by holding it down, that'd be lovely.--One less key I need to worry about fitting into to the already congested configuration of keys my left hand is tasked with.

[Morton Koopa Jr.]

Regarding the main topic, I understand it may be a bit unintuitive, but I feel most would recognize within seconds what the right click button does. After reviewing keys, I generally still press everything when I start a new game.

Lol wait. Based on your last post, you don't even want to have to switch to a melee weapon either? There's not really that many left hand keys dude. 1-5 is quite fair.

[screeno42]

The way I thought of it was that melee weapons work fundamentally differently from ranged weapons: one you point and shoot, the other you swing around in varying ways.
I guess being able to set heavy attack to the same button as gun alt fire would be nice if it bothered you that much, but I always felt the controls were pretty straight forward in that respect. Of course, most games I've played with light/heavy melee systems also bind heavy attack to mouse2, so I guess I was just already used to the system.

[Sikobae]

If you have a mouse with two thumb buttons, I suggest setting the front button for Block, and back for weapon bash. Save RMB for Hold Aim.

[Sharp Income]

Originally posted by screeno42:

Of course, most games I've played with light/heavy melee systems also bind heavy attack to mouse2, so I guess I was just already used to the system.

Then I was wrong. Or at least the games that I play would just have attack & block on the two main mouse buttons. Or on controller, with LT = block & aim. used in LOTR game and Hunted Demon Forge, though those aren't FPS... so...

Originally posted by Morton Koopa Jr.:

Lol wait. Based on your last post, you don't even want to have to switch to a melee weapon either? There's not really that many left hand keys dude. 1-5 is quite fair.

No, just used to games where it's either one or the other, not both. I mean, if the game can let you hold <use key> to automatically equip your welder, wouldn't it make sense to hold your <melee attack key> to equip your melee weapon?

I try to keep all my weapon select & attack functions on my mouse to avoid taking my left hand fingers away from movement keys (3 fingers for 4 directional movement, pinky for sprint/crouch(& use), thumb for jump). I use the extra keys surrounding movement for actions I dont use as often: radio, use key, show scores, talk, heal, drop weapon, last used weapon, flashlight, reload (alternate/secondary), equipment

Originally posted by Sikobae:

If you have a mouse with two thumb buttons, I suggest setting the front button for Block, and back for weapon bash. Save RMB for Hold Aim.

I have front/forward = melee bash (or melee weapon in other games), back button = grenade, left = fire, right = aim, middle = reload (I would use it for alt fire but my mouse also has additional smaller left and right buttons to the sides of main left/right which I use for alt fire and equipment/special weapon in other games (like class weapon in KF1)) scroll down = primary, scroll up = secondary (I dont use "next/prev weapon" on scroll wheel so I don't have to worry about panic scrolling past the weapon I want in games like CS (but i do ahve to be careful when i get multiple primaries & secondaries in KF...))

but w/e. I'll deal. just wanted to throw it out there that I think it should be the other way around