Firearms or melee weapons?

[youbar]

Firearms - Pistols, shotguns and rifles
Or:
Melee - Makeshift spears and clubs, bats, golf clubs, etc, etc
Vote now!

[nope]

Completely Pointless

It is extremely obvious that you need both Firearms and melee to survive, in fact, too much specialization kills many players before they even hit the 20 day mark

[heatdeath]

Bows/Firearms + Martial Arts for me.

Depending on my mission, my loadout will range from nothing but my clothes and a bottle of scent spray... to CHAR body armor, a hunting rifle, 2 boxes of ammunition, a sidearm (kolt is my preference) and box of pistol rounds, and a stack of grenades.

[thebobster]

I think my favorite weapon is the hunting rifle/crossbow. Everyone loves shotguns but I'd rather not get that close.

[garthelious]

I voted other, and specify crossbows.

But like nope, I realize the necessity of having both. You run out of ammo, you die. You smash everything by hand, you die.

Of course, you die no matter what you do, unless I'm mistaken. But you die slower if you're flexible.

[youbar]

"Completely Pointless
It is extremely obvious that you need both Firearms and melee to survive, in fact, too much specialization kills many players before they even hit the 20 day mark"

nope, as experienced as you are, how about shutting your mouth and taking it as a rookie mistake for thinking you can only specialize in one weapon? No need to be keyboard warrior, asshole.

[nope]

Here's a better idea, stop being a fucking internet vigilante, and learn how to think over things

Since when did i mention that what i mentioned is a Rookie mistake? and have you noted how i said "Too much"? i am talking on the topics of when somebody uses a class of weapons too much and leaves the other class to rare occasions

And do you even know what a Keyboard Warrior is? infact, do you even know what specialization is? stop trying to be the local asshole, i've already taken the spot

[youbar]

I'm not trying to be the local asshole. I just want YOU to stop treating newcomers like shit, because YOU are the one killing the local fan base.
Take for example:
"How do I change my options"
I would think you would reply:
"Fucking dipshit, how about you look before asking."
Sometimes, you just need to say things kindly, not like a sailor who's been at sea too long.

[tons0phun]

I want to first state that I think the martial arts bonuses need to apply to melee weapons as well. Any general practice of martial arts greatly increases one's spatial awareness of their body, as well as coordination, increasing the general aptitude for wielding weaponry. Even then, a majority of martial arts include some kind of weapons training. I think of the martial arts skill more with the intent of "Combat Discipline" In that the biker, "Those guys", and survivors are all attuned to their own "kung fu", with brawling, training, and instinct.

I discussed this with RoguedJack once and I believe he mentioned that martial arts didn't give the weapons a bonus because it would make the "Strong" skill redundant, in that would be stacking attack and damage bonuses, but I think it should be reconsidered.
Perhaps just give Strong some other bonuses like, "-2 Stamina for Pushing, +2 DMG for Bashing Objects". Remove the strength bonus from martial arts, make it more about the disarm% and attack bonus (your 'technique'), but maybe also give it the feature, "fragile weapons have 10% less chance to break" I feel that would balance'em out, and make martial arts a more worthwhile skill to invest in.
While I absolutely loved the martial arts skill with the disarm feature, I honestly feel that it is much easier to disarm somebody by using a weapon. A good smack on the hand, wrist, or elbow can do it much more easily than using your mits. The benefit of martial arts is that, if your mits are all you've got (because you've lost or destroyed your weapon in combat), you're still capable of self-defense and disarmament.

And I'll confess, I would love nothing more than to have a nomadic tribe of wasteland monks, trained in the art of hand-to-hand ass kickery. I'm talking about a group skilled in martial arts, bows, hardy, high stamina, tough, and strong.

So, reasons I really enjoy melee weapons...
-No reloading
-No noise
-Easy to find, easy to trade
-More satisfying to use
-Easy to arm a group
-Can generate improvised weaponry by breaking wooden items [no possible ways to generate bullets]
-Look all intimidating holding huge weapons
-Look really intimidating with a group of 5 all carrying large hammers
-Feel crazy chasing down civilians with a knife
-That feeling when being chased by a civilian with a knife

[zaimoni]

The trick is how to make realism not conflict with game play. (Agility, which is the all-around melee attack and all-around defense booster, may be the "easy start" for a newbie. Since any reasonable tactical system is based on denying zombies all effective attacks whenever feasible, Agility really is more of a mid-game skill than a starter skill. I'm finding that Firearms is a better starting skill as that gives a tolerable hit rate for pistols.) In this case, saying a martial artist trains both Martial Arts and Agility can be made to work.

Regarding proposed changes to strong: -2 STA for pushing sounds reasonable. I'm not so confident about damage bonus for objects, but as that doesn't come up much for me I have no trained intuition. (I'm not bashing much after day 0.)

[speakyourmind]

I do believe to be more satisfying to take out the *rap of them going melee,but it also involves more planning.So,nothing better than a firearm to deal whit that skeleton when cutting corners.Or when your sanity is low,deal with firearms all the skeletons in sight,just like the blackops seems to leave all the zombies if not a treath,but if "your hear screams of terror just beyond the sunset",they just go and take them out of they mysery!