In Battlefield: Hardline, if you are prone and knife someone, it will kill them without doing an animation. Is there a similar feature in Battlefield 4? So far I’ve tested a couple different ways of doing it (a bunch of angles standing up and laying down) but it hasn’t worked.
I’m trying to figure this out to know when/if I should knife (especially when an enemy player is in a vehicle like a mounted MG)
Best Answer
Nope, unfortunately not
The knifing mechanic in Battlefield 4 is really basic. If you are close to an enemy and you hit the knife button, you always start the animation. You then loose all control over your player till the animation is finished. Knifing players in vehicles isn't possible, knifing a players occupying a stationary MG works the same as regular knifing. If you want more information, I've written out the complete knifing mechanic below.
Complete knifing mechanic in Battlefield 4
The basis process
Knifing a player always follows these steps:
Taking damage during the animation
I'm not exactly sure on this point, but sometimes it is possible to receive damage while in the knife animation. I believe the victim can't take damage once the animation started (so the kill doesn't get stolen by a teammate of the attacker), but the attacker can. This means that it is possible for teammates of the victim to kill the attacker, saving their teammate. But I'm unaware how this works with counter-knifing though and my experiences in game have given me inconsistent results.
Buggy
Since the release the knifing mechanic has been buggy. Sometimes the animation freezes, one of the players gets teleported to a different side, or the counter-knife-prompt does or does not pop-up while it shouldn't or should. Since DICE (LA) has stopped actively working on the game, these bugs are likely to always stay in the game.
Fig-1: A player knifing an enemy soldier from his right side
Fig-2: The counter-knife-prompt shows up (Source: Battlefield Fandom Wiki):