obviously some melee weapons are used a lot more commonly than others, and some have different ways on obtaining i.e shiv and lead pipes require things from rummaging around trashcans and going to different npcs in order to craft them, other than for rp reasons, going through all that effort seems a bit pointless for weapons that aren't particularly better than others that can be obtained through easier ways i.e going to hardware and just buying a baseball bat, so how about giving some melee weapons special attributes depending on what they actually are! for example:
- blunt weapons being able to cause concussions i.e. lead pipes, baseball bats, spades
- sharp weapons being able to cause bleeding faster than normal, i.e. kitchen knives and machetes
- shivs being able to cause damage overtime due to something like a temporary infection, reason im saying this is because if you take a closer look at the shivs in game, that metal is 100% rusty and not clean
depending on what the weapon is, the special effects would kick in faster or slower than other weapons of the same category, because obviously baseball bats are a common weapon used for first hiring new people as security guards, wouldn't be horribly nice being concussed 24/7
concussions could be a dazing screen overlay effect, hindering the player from being able to fight back properly, bleeding would just work the same as the current bleeding already in game and the infection would be similar to bleeding but either less or more damage.
picture of the shiv for anyone who's never seen one in game before: