Reworking Trapper
There's a decent chance BHVR are already working on this, IIRC it was mentioned Year 10 will see a rework to an old Killer, and I doubt it's Skull Merchant they're referring to as they've been very public that's happening, so the game's classic mascot kinda makes sense for his refresh. But regardless, I wanna throw my hat in the ring for a Trapper overhaul.
I'm going to list my changes to the base power in bulletpoint form, then go through all of Trapper's addons and what I would change about those.
- Trapper can now carry an unlimited number of traps basekit. This is not starting with all traps basekit, just infinite capacity. (Trapper still needs to gather his power, but this makes that easier, and means Trapper is never incapable of picking a trap up)
- Trapper's Haste is now a more universal property, now triggering when placing a trap, picking one up, or a Survivor getting trapped. Like normal, this is still 7.5% for 5 seconds. (increases his chance of reaching a far away trapped survivor, and provides compensation for gathering his power. can also be tactically used for Haste procs in loops)
- Trap pickup is now a seamless process, triggering a first person animation with trapper's hand while he can keep moving, instead of the full 1 second bending over and pickup. Trapper can't attack or do other actions while the animation is in progress, so it's still possible for this to backfire.. (this in combination with the Haste makes picking up traps very potent as a traversal tool and can allow you to break some loops. It also allows Trapper to easily move through passageways he's already trapped, and while that removes the trap it will still provide him Haste.)
- Survivor escape attempt time is now standardised. It takes 7 seconds for a Survivor to self-escape from a trap, twice the time if they were Injured when they stepped in it. Rescues still take 1.5 seconds regardless of circumstance. (this is just more fair for both sides. Trapper's RNG could result in a lot of unfair situations and an extra penalty for stepping in a trap while injured was necessary)
- Picking up a trapped Survivor is now a unique grab, which provides flashlight immunity and collects the trap they were trapped in. (since so many have suggested it for Springtrap, it feels like unique Killer grabs getting flashlight immunity is becoming more popular and I think giving it to Trapper as well makes sense)
When Survivors disarm or escape traps, the trap is destroyed and respawnsafter 5 seconds in a random location in the trial. This location will be at least 16m away, with some distance from other Beartraps, and areas close to incomplete generators are prioritised.(a BIG nerf to Trapper's lockdown potential. The traps are just as strong as normal, but if survivors are disarming them he needs to leave at some point to recollect his traps, he cannot sit in front of basement entrance continuously rearming the same traps. the random distribution should be tuned to stop trapper from needing to tour dead zones, but if trapper has a good 3-gen, he can't expect every trap to reliably spawn within the 3-gen. also note that this means Trapper m1ing a trapped Survivor will respawn the trap elsewhere)[CANNED, this was a bad idea and sunk the whole rework concept. Read the rest if you'd like to see some of the other ideas, addon reworks or etc but this one wouldn't work out]- If a pallet lands on a trap, the trap clamps onto the pallet and destroys it after a moment, with barely enough time for a survivor to fast vault over the pallet. This destroys the trap in the process. (lowers the skill floor for new trappers with trap placement near pallets, and provides a bit more gameplay depth in general)
The main goal of this is to convert Trapper's oft-maligned downside of needing to go collect his Power into being an upside instead. Traps are still obviously better armed than disarmed, but traps in the environment, even disarmed, are now more useful. Trapper now wants to plant as many traps as possible as aggressively as possible, because even if a Survivor avoids one, he could choose to pick it up mid-loop for a Haste buff.
Addons now, because for obvious reasons this rework needs some Addons to get changed:
Common
Bear Oil: Setting and picking up Bear Traps is silent. (This should also affect Trapper's leathery sounds, by the way.)
Makeshift Wrap: You are no longer caught in your own Bear Traps. Bear Traps you step in are disarmed, but rearm themselves after 5 seconds. (a buff was necessary here, picking up bear traps is fast enough in this rework that the utility of stepping into them is much lower)
Padded Jaws (Unchanged): Bear traps do not damage Survivors. +100% BP for trapping Survivors.
Trapper Gloves: Increases trap setting and pickup speed by 30%. (just making it a bit more generalised and makes transitioning from trap pickup into a hit faster)
Uncommon
4-Coil Spring Kit: Rescue times from Bear Traps are increased by 3 seconds. (splitting rescue/escape time addons makes them a bit more interesting, a flat number of seconds is easier to understand than a %, and this addon increases the rescue time up to 4.5 seconds, making altruistic beartrap rescues much worse than normal)
Coffee Grounds: Whenever you gain Haste from your Power, it lasts 1 second longer. (Now that the Haste is a far stronger part of the power, Coffee Grounds needs an adjusted effect)
Lengthened Jaws: Escape times from Bear Traps are increased by 3 seconds. (the doubling effect from injuries still applies here, resulting in a potential 20 second self-escape time. honing stone is still obviously better, but these escape times are long enough now that the difference is lessened)
Serrated Jaws: Survivors who escape a Bear Trap suffer Deep Wound, and Haemorrhage until they are healed. (putting these two together seems odd at first, but they honestly serve similar purposes as status effects, hunting down a survivor who has escaped a trap)
Wax Brick: Destroyed Bear Traps linger for 5 seconds before they respawn. During this time, they can be collected. (this means if Survivors disarm a trap mid-loop or drop a pallet onto it, you can still pick up the trap and get your Haste!)
Rare
Fastening Tools: Increases trap setting speed by 50%, and rescue/escape times by 1 second. (still a good generalist addon, but it's not quite outclassing the others as much as it used to)
Rusted Jaws: Survivors injured by a Bear Trap suffer Mangled for 70 seconds after they leave the Bear Trap. (adjusted slightly to make the mangled more likely to come into play. personally I'd be in favor of making this classic Mangled and lasting until you heal)
Secondary Coil: Bear traps take 2 seconds longer to disarm. (a mild buff, but mostly exists to make this stat clearer, it doesn't really need to be a percentage, and because stacking disarm addons is no longer possible the buff seemed warranted)
Tar Bottle: Traps are invisible to Survivors beyond 12m, and steadily gain opacity until eventually becoming 100% visible at 6m away. (darkening traps has aged terribly as the game's artstyle has changed. trap opacity works regardless of the map's lighting tones and full trap invisibility could make creative placements out in the open actually work)
Trapper Bag: Start with 2 extra Bear Traps. (the only real utility of this addon now is increasing the total traps in play, so buffing it to +2 felt warranted)
V. Rare
Honing Stone (Unchanged): Survivors that free themselves from Bear Traps are put into the Dying State.
Oily Coil: Picking up a Bear Trap that has respawned reveals the Aura of the Survivor who destroyed it. (mostly the same effect as before, just adjusted to fit into the reworked power)
Tension Spring: After a Bear Trap is placed, the first time it is disarmed it will not be destroyed. 25 seconds after being disarmed, the trap will begin trembling, and it will rearm itself 5 seconds later. (allows something resembling classic Trapper, if you rearm these traps or pick them up & redeploy them you reset Tension Spring's protection. Smart Survivors will immediately realize Tension Spring is in play after their first disarm and can start playing around it, such as by deliberately stepping in traps to break them. This addon is quite powerful, but has the downside of bear traps rarely respawning means you can't get haste while roaming and collecting them.)
Trapper Sack: You start with all of your Beartraps. (with the new nature of the power, this addon doesn't need a downside)
Visceral
Bloody Coil (Unchanged): When a healthy Survivor disarms a Bear Trap, they are Injured. (this has been indirectly nerfed quite a lot, thanks to Bear Traps being destroyed and respawning. If you want classic bloody coil shenanigans, equip tension spring)
Iridescent Stone: After 5 Traps have been destroyed in a Trial, Iridescent Stone activates. Traps will now respawn in the 5th previous position a trap was destroyed at, and will rearm themselves 10 seconds after respawning. (an updated iteration of Iri Stone, reimagined to work with the new power. Still excels at defense and completely locking down areas, but it working on a limit of 5 means it's not great for pure basement defense which is usually done with ~3 traps.)
What do people think about this? I think something like this manages to preserve Trapper's identity and simplicity, while giving him more options with his traps and redistributing his strength away from area lockdown, and I'm fairly confident this would bump him up in overall strength despite basement Trapper getting worse.
My biggest concern is the idea of Trapper getting benefits from trap pickups could be seen as unintuitive, or even not very thematic, (he's the trapper, not the trap collector) but IDK to what extent others would consider that a problem.
Comments
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Simple buffs would be enough:
- Being trapped counts as hook stage and survivor can only escape by being rescued. (Removes option to pick up survivors from trap or down then while being trapped)
2. Iridescent stone and bloody coil basekit
3. Increase set up speed and trap camuflage colour.
4. When any trap is set or picked up, trapper gets 10 % haste for 10s
5. All traps are carried basekit
6. Injured survivors suffer deepwound when disarming trap while injured
7. Stepping into trap when being one hook stage from death will instantly sacrifice survivor.
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100% no to destroying the trap.
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I've heard a lot of these ideas before but don't really like many of them, (except for better trap camo which feels long overdue, and carrying all traps basekit as I think that's a reasonable buff, though it's not my preference) because it feels like just piling buffs onto Trapper until he's good. Maybe it'd be more exciting if we spun a wheel to decide what Trapper addon should be basekit next?
IMO a Trapper buff needs to start by acknowledging the Killer's fundamentally flawed. I love the guy, but his killrates are already in a good place because Basement Trapper, a boring and uninteractive playstyle, is genuinely usable in the majority of lobbies. That's why BHVR have kept him in this current state for so long, trying to buff Trapper to also be good at loops could result in Basement Trapper becoming too strong. Many of his addons have already been made basekit over the years and nothing has changed, Trapper is still fundamentally weak and barely hangs onto the game via very oppressive area lockdown. You can't buff Trapper's numbers or make Bloody Coil basekit to make him good. You could make him strong, but that's not the same thing as being a good Killer.
With how weak Trapper is, I get this kneejerk reaction, it sucks for him to get any nerfs- But I stand by this one. The other parts of the power are meant to ensure traps getting destroyed isn't a big problem. You can carry all your other traps to easily replace them (so you can absolutely lock down basement, you're just expending a resource to do it), they should respawn in convenient areas, and collecting them speeds you up instead of slowing you. And I included Tension Spring so players can opt out of trap destruction.
I will say that I was worried thinking about the "follow Trapper to disarm his traps" strategy against this playstyle. I think it could be reasonable to increase the base disarm time to counteract it? But I'm not sure if it would be too strong against this version of Trapper or not. Regardless, I believe traps being destroyed and respawning is the way to open the path for more Trapper buffs without Basement Trapper being as much of a worry. If trap destruction turns out to be too much of a nerf, more buffs could be piled on without as much concern for the Killer's effect on game health.
-1 -
As a Trapper main, I hate this with the burning fury of a thousand suns. I'm surprised that you put so much work into nerfing arguably the weakest character in the game (besides SM, obviously.)
You seem to recognize that Trapper is fundamentally flawed, but you don't see HOW he's flawed. Here's how Trapper is actually flawed:
- Trapper is the only killer that has to tour the entire map in order to have full access to his power. No other killer, even other trap killers, has this problem. This means that Trapper is much slower at setting up his power than even the other "slow start" killers like Hag or SM. He has arguably the slowest start of any killer, almost necessitating Corrupt as one of his perks. Even then, he is still too slow at the beginning of the game. It also often results in him never getting all of his traps. In any given game, I'll usually only ever get to 5-6 of his traps. The other 2-3 are near gens that are too far away.
This results in a killer that only has access to his already mediocre power very sparingly. - Survivors have full control over his power. Having just one survivor keep eyes on Trapper and either disarming traps or relaying trap info to their team makes him a powerless M1 killer and there's really nothing he can do about it. Without bloody coil, an Iridescent Addon, survivors can make him an M1 killer for free.
Your proposed rework does nothing to alleviate either of these core problems, and instead makes them even worse. In your rework, I'd still have to walk around the entire map as a 4.6 to gather my traps. Not only that, survivors can just… destroy my traps, making me do it over and over again lol.
Trapper HAS to have a trap at shack. It's not optional. If he doesn't trap shack window, he will be juiced around that tile for minutes at a time. I always have one on the outside of shack window (and/or the pallet, if it's still up.) Yes, it gets disarmed 4-5 times, but it's not there to catch unwitting survivors, it's there to make them leave and run a tile I can actually play at. Any time that a survivor runs to shack, I'll rearm the inevitably disarmed trap at shack window, and the survivor is forced to leave. Everyone knows there's a trap there, it just becomes a question of: Who's touched it last, their buddy or the Trapper?Shack isn't the only trap that really isn't optional. GoJ, you trap the main building window. Otherwise, you just have to drop any chase that goes to main. Farm maps, you trap the vault on the tree loop. Autohaven, you trap the bus. You just do. Otherwise, you'll get juiced at these tiles by any survivor who knows how to play at all.
So I'd have to keep a few traps on me in case a chase goes somewhere I just can't play at as an M1, instead of setting them at the beginning of the match and rearming them as needed.
So let's look at your rework and see how you exacerbate Trapper's core problems:
- I'd still have to traipse all over the map to collect traps. Not only that, but I'd have to do it regularly throughout the match as survivors destroy my traps. I'd have even fewer traps to play with, because I'd have to keep traps on me to replace the non-optional ones survivors destroy.
- Survivors would have even more control over my power. Not only can they make a trap I placed useless, they can make it disappear entirely and spawn halfway across the map, with only a ten second interaction with literally no downsides. A survivor that follows me around the map could still force me to be an M1 with no power the entire match, except now they can do it even worse.
And really, all I'd get in return is one second off of picking up traps and a small, 5 second haste when I do it. That's it. My already weak power is getting WAAAAY weaker in return for a 5 second stack of PWYF if a survivor happens to run towards a loop I've trapped that the survivors haven't found and disarmed yet. Are you serious? That's your idea of a Trapper "buff?"
0 - Trapper is the only killer that has to tour the entire map in order to have full access to his power. No other killer, even other trap killers, has this problem. This means that Trapper is much slower at setting up his power than even the other "slow start" killers like Hag or SM. He has arguably the slowest start of any killer, almost necessitating Corrupt as one of his perks. Even then, he is still too slow at the beginning of the game. It also often results in him never getting all of his traps. In any given game, I'll usually only ever get to 5-6 of his traps. The other 2-3 are near gens that are too far away.
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Ok, that's fair. Trapper needs traps at good tiles, and if they're relocated too often (which is more likely if they're spread out at said good tiles) that's going to make the problem of needing to collect traps worse, even with Haste/trap pickup while moving. (And that can't really be solved by making the Haste stronger because the focus goes all the way to the Haste) Needing to replace traps actually hurts more if used at wide range across multiple loops than basement trapper, so yeah it's not gonna work out and ends up being self-defeating.
Alright, let's can the thread in that case. There's a few things I still think could be neat here like the seamless pickup so I'll leave that stuff, but consider this rework a dead end.
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Essentially, traps, even if survs know where they are, serve to limit the surv's movement. We had destroyable traps once— you could remove them permanently with Sabotage. It didn't go well.
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So since Springtrap has this "recall axe" option to get his axe back from the ground or on a survivor, I think trapper should have a "recall trap" mechanic. Similar to a teleporting killer, he has an option that pops up over his traps and with a click of a button he can "recall" the trap back to his inventory. I think carrying 3 traps should be basekit. So if he has the space, he can recall any trap and place it elsewhere. This could help him against SWFs that are calling out his traps and disabling them. This may or may not need to be on a cool down, but considering you cant carry so many traps I don't think it would be abused if it wasn't on a cool down. I think this alone could make Trapper more viable than needing to move all around the map to collect the traps.
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