Back again to ask when fatshark is going to tweak the trapper to not shoot through infinite hit mass.
Recently been playing ALOT of havocs compared to the normal Auric HISTGs and Maelstroms, and I’ve been noticing how much of a horrible interaction the trapper net is with high level havocs.
The sheer amount of enemies and groups of enemies bunched up around the group is just common place in havoc and just reinforces the point of trapper nets being a complete disaster of a “mechanic”. I am not okay with fighting a giant blob of enemies just for a random trapper net to fly out of some elite enemies chest and basically insta kill me. I get you “Need to dodge on audio” but when im dueling with crushers/bulwarks monsters and captain bubble shields it’s not always possible to dodge the net every time when it flies through them, especially when the trapper is at varying distances.
We need a rework that makes trappers prioritize flanking and running around monstrosities/ogryn enemies to get line of sight to the players, instead of a magic net that can just fly through 15meters of carapace. It’s not engaging or “fun” it’s a garbage mechanic that should interact with the horde and have actual hit mass.
I’d say about 20% of the havocs I’ve played the past months have had a player just get deleted because trappers decide to attack us from the front through all the meat/carapace/armor and its impossible to get to said player before they get one shot. 1 trapper in havoc can domino effect the rest of the group into a loss because fatshark decided the only way to make them a “threat” is it have them have infinite cleave, which is a horrible game design choice.
I’d like to see the trapper interact with the horde like how flamers burn away trash pox walkers, and mutants knock over enemies and how crushers also knock over smaller enemies. Why is the trapper the only exception to this interaction rule? because they wanted her to be the most deadly just because of her short range? Giving her the ability to shoot a net through about 2-4 pox walkers before the net disappears and having all large elite and monster units block her net entirely seems balanced and more engaging.
Sure she’s not going to be as feared as she is now, but having the extra interaction and knowledge that you can basically delay the trapper by putting a large enemy between you and the trapper would give the player more options to counter instead of just “dodge on audio” which doesn’t work so well when you are dodging overheads and swipes from multiple enemies and your dodge isn’t lined up with the trapper net discharging.
I want to see more emphasis on trappers flanking or shooting from different types of terrain unobstructed to still give her the danger of the incapacitating the player, I’d rather be pressured from both front and back or other side rooms than having all the big blob cover the trapper and the trapper still gets to use its instsa down mechanic, it should require line of sight to give counterplay.
Agreed, Trappers shooting players through boxes, corners, or several bulwark shields has always felt bad. If it’s possible it would definitely be better if the net interacted with enemy hit mass, and the trapper at least attempted to find line of sight instead of only using enemy hit mass as hard cover would definitely increase the counterplay of the enemy. which I would argue makes the game better.
The real problem isn’t the Trapper, but rather the extreme tuning of the Havoc and the overall overspawning of enemies.
Before the Havoc was introduced, there were some minor issues like missing sound, but the Trapper’s net mechanic itself wasn’t a problem. The audio issues are also one of the negative side effects caused by overspawning enemies.
One of the issues with the trapper’s design is that the net’s visual doesn’t match up with its hitbox, which gives a feeling of jank when the net clips a corner or seemingly through everything when going through a small gap in the geometry.
The older CIVI missions had this problem, you’d be dodging overheads and shield bashes from crushers and bulwarks and a trapper just runs between them all and shoots a net through it all (also the Weak monstrosity maelstrom) and unless you knew exactly where the trapper was and held off your dodges for the trapper you’d just get netted through the wall of metal, Especially when the trappers launch their nets from varying distances.
It was a problem and it always has been a problem, Infinite cleave is bad design and so is the implementation of the trapper.
I think that’s just because player power is too strong right now, making it feel like any enemy can be instantly deleted.
In the end, it comes down to two choices: either spawn a ton of enemies and accelerate power creep, or keep spawns modest and tone down player power as well. Personally, I prefer having more enemies rather than fewer, but the current Havoc is overdoing it by throwing in way too many Caparace enemies. And if that also causes audio bugs, then it really needs to be toned down a bit.
I’m not sure if it’s just because I’ve gotten too used to it, but personally I don’t find it unfair that the nets pass through enemies. For me, the Trapper is the top priority target over any other enemy, even bosses. I always keep track of where the Trapper is coming from, so I generally avoid fighting in tight corridors or spots with no escape routes, and if I do get surrounded, I make sure I can still dodge.
What feels the most unfair to me is when a Trapper shoots from behind completely silently, especially from spots like ledges above a corridor where they can drop down.
It’s hard to give yourself space when there are so many enemies and trappers spawn in 2 or 3 majority of the time, and even if you communicate with your team to focus them it doesn’t happen alot of the time because the trapper can hide in enemy density (every enemy can) but for the trapper its a ranged attack that completely immobilizes you, like I said I don’t think its fun or fair when a net has infinite cleave, especially when it flies through 2 monsters a group of bulwarks and a captain shield. She isn’t a consistent special, She is just bad design and in need of a rework.
I want trappers to have counterplay, to do that you kind of need to implement hit mass for the net and make the trapper AI prioritize flanking. I’d rather get shot from ledges and corridors because they aren’t completely inside a meatball with no counterplay other than “dodge on audio”.
Also if its targeted at another player you aren’t going to know because you can see them. Therefore you might dodge into a net, meanwhile if they flank you and you clearly see them target another player you are not likely to dodge into a net.
Yep have to hard agree. It feels like you’ve been cheated. It’s the worst mechanic in the game.
People who complain that it would invalidate trappers, seems to have zero understanding that game designers can think of other ways to fairly threaten the player.
A sucker punch through a solid meatwall (that the net pulls YOU back through) is absolute swill. Once you’re netted in havoc then your team mate has the time it takes for a crusher to make one swing to free you otherwise it’s instadeath. Basically 1 second, because let’s face it, when we get netted it’s almost always through 10 crushers.
I definitely would rather have higher stat density in the classes and have the wade through more enemies and have a ton of more dangerous albeit highly telegraphed tanks as we do now, because the other option is us just standing there trying to kill less than a hand full of guys with what feels like a pool noodle. granted I dont really get a lot of audio cue errors, I just dont like having to deal with trappers being effectively invuln while shooting at me, it’s like the way the pox bombers used to always throw the pox bombs from outside there map where they were invuln, it just doesn’t have enough counterplay to be as compelling as the rest of the game.
I think we all just got used to how they work, but I dont think that isn’t a reason to increase the amount of counterplay we have with that enemy type. Not to go slightly off topic but a good example is in Hell divers 2, with the new enemy type they added where they burst out of the ground and instantly give the player a heal cost, the enemy type is a great concept but it is objectively bad because of the lack of counterplay. Similarly, granted to a much lesser degree trappers really are just a tax the players give when they spawn, but thankfully instead of being as terrible as in hell divers where it is a heal tax, trappers are a tax of map progression speed, where you end up just brainlessly falling back and twittling your thumbs until someone drops the trapper and then you get to continue with your pacing.
Completely agree, getting netted because you didn’t see the trapper line up on you and successfully trap you is fine and honestly would feel good because you would have died because you didn’t do the counterplay to the mob, where as currently the counterplay isn’t dodging or trying to dance around the threat, because you are fighting a mechanic with a literal infinite stat, thus the way to address them is to fall back and essentially stop playing until someone drops the trapper when they come around the corner, and then go back to playing the game.
I think bulwarks clipping inside each other definitely is another issue which could be likely be fixed by making the shields of the bulwarks have independent health pools from the bulwarks, so that you could beat through bulwarks shields when you are facing a 10 shielded bulwark due to them all clipping inside each other.
100% agreed, I’m really glad to see the trapper discussion making the rounds again as it has been my biggest grievance with this game since launch.
More so than any other single enemy in the game, trappers are capable of creating situations in which the player has zero counterplay. And over the course of many many trapper threads, I think there have been some really good rework ideas proposed.
My personal favorite suggestion for a rework born from the many trapper threads has been this:
Trapper nets should knock aside enemies as they travel towards the player, similar to a charging mutant or a pouncing hound.
This would at least allow you to see the net coming in dense situations by way of the horde being displaced. I’m honestly still not sure why people argue against this one.
Trapper nets should knock aside enemies when the grabbed player is being pulled back towards the trapper.
This would create a tiny window of opportunity for one of your teammates to possibly get to you in super dense situations before the horde closes in if they’re fast. I can see why people say this nerfs the trapper but I hardly think it makes her useless. In super dense situations this adds one possible way for your teammates to reach you in addition to the many ways that already exist in the game such as ogryn’s charge, zealot’s relic, the trauma staff, most grenades, etc. And in non-dense situations this changes effectively nothing.
Trapper nets should be susceptible to enemy hitmass, only being able to knock aside a limited number of enemies before being blocked. (only when travelling towards the player)
This would create an easily changeable value that could be adjusted to further balance the trapper. Personally I am in favor of the net being blocked completely by monstrosities (including the scab captain’s shield), only being able to push aside like 2-4 ogryn enemies, and not being able to push infinitely through a horde. But I can see room for argument on where to set this value.
In the cases where the trapper does not have sufficient penetration, the trapper will navigate around or through the other enemies blocking her until she’s close enough to penetrate or has line of sight around the enemies blocking her.
This will have a different effect on the trapper depending on where you set the hitmass penetration, but essentially they’ll have to walk around big groups of ogryns/monstrosities, or wade through a dense horde until they’re close enough to penetrate. Lots of people seem to think the trapper would never be able to find a clear enough shot under these conditions but I honestly believe she would have no trouble. The trapper is one of the fastest enemies in the game, faster than all of the enemies that I’m proposing to block the net with the exception of the chaos spawn. I really don’t think she’d have a hard time walking around some bulwarks so that she can shoot through the poxwalkers instead.
