Moff boi man
New member
Hi, I am a big fan of this game I have over 1200 hours and am ascendent 2 and I miss trapper so much. I also wanted to note that I am aware this technically isn't where we should be talking about this but I can't find a good spot to post my concerns. I hope that maybe an exception can be made as I am very passionate about this topic and have put in a lot of hard work, so I hope you at least read what I have to say before removing it.
Both his character and his kit were some of the best parts of this game I've had the pleasure of playing in a very long time. I haven't made such a connection with a character since I was a kid playing overwatch. I will happily explain what made him so great to me and suggest some changes to the overall kit to make it more interesting and viable. I will classify these changes and suggestions from:
Extreme -
Major -
Minor -
I also will suggest some lore interactions between characters such as the patrons and other heroes as that is definitely my favorite part about this game and I hope that the developers do take these suggestions in mind going forward and I hope that my favorite character may see the light of day again. Thank you
Why I love trapper:
Trappers' general playstyle of using traps to provide area denial and information is a very fun change of pace to the rest of the cast. Having to think about encounters that could happen 2-4 minutes in the future opposed to having to use instinct and spur of the moment strategies is very fun for me. I like to see what we're going against and what we have to make an effective trap an example being “Oh there’s a haze on my team and a drifter on their team; I should place traps near enemy camps so then haze can run away if drifter tries to jump her” No other character quite is like that.
_Kit_
BOTTLED PHANTASMICIDE:
Throw a jar that leaves a spreading toxic pool. Enemies caught in the pool are Slowed and Silenced.
Problems: The problem with this ability is that its way to easily countered just by having a single bar of stamina even with expansion items so generally it's not useful at all
Solutions:
extreme - Completely remove the ability and give him a new one that more fits the defensive/forward planning playstyle
Major - Make it so that the 3-point or 5-point upgrade removes the ability to use stamina like capacitor or make it the same size always without the slow expansion
Minor - Make it bigger
SILKTRAP
Create a thread of web between two surfaces. Enemies who touch the web take Damage over time, become Slowed and are Revealed.
Problems: Not much of a threat and there's no counterplay besides just not triggering it and minions can trigger the traps
Solutions:
extreme - bring back the original design of it doing burst damage instead of DOT, make it so you can shoot it to destroy it, and minions don't trigger it
Major - Make it so that any trap triggered after getting the webbed effect will do burst damage after a buffer period of 0.5-1.5 seconds, make it so that a heavy melee will remove the trap, but you will still be revealed and minions don't trigger it
Minor - Increase the damage and minions don't trigger it
PEST BARRIER
Apply a Combat Barrier to a target ally and periodically deal Spirit Damage and Slows.
Problems: honestly there's very little issues with this ability; it's a great ability for both support and offensive roles as well as being a good side grade to Paige's ability
CRAWLING PLAGUE
Release a wave of spectral spiders that chase enemies and explode, dealing Spirit Damage.
Hit enemies are poisoned, temporarily losing Spirit and Spirit Resist. This effect can stack multiple times.
Problems: the spiders have no tracking and just bounce of any surface they hit making the ability only good at point blank range
Solutions:
Extreme - rework the entire ability to act differently
Major - add tracking so it always will go toward the nearest player similar to SQ in MR
Minor - N/A
_Lore_
Now I think the reason why trapper is in the ritual is very much open to interpretation based off the voice lines recorded but I've boiled it down to 3 potential reasons why trapper is in the ritual:
Wrong place wrong time: The most likely reason trapper is in the ritual is because he was answering a call for some spirit spiders whenever he happened across the early beginnings of the ritual and decided to join either on accident or purposefully because mama ain't raised no bitch and he needs those knicks tickets.
The super fan: Trapper could've been contacted early by the patrons because his life is a little sad, no one respects his work, cinnamon isn't impressed by him, and he couldn't even buy the knicks tickets in time. So, he decided to join the ritual to prove to everyone that he is to be respected and all he wants is the knicks tickets in return, similar to drifter its less about the actual wish but more about the ritual itself.
The undercover agent: now this is an absolute stretch but what if trapper was a secret agent for the municipal coven and the knicks tickets is a ploy to make the patrons underestimate him. The reason for this theory is the fact that the patrons could be considered an "invasive species" which the coven deals with. So, he could have a very similar wish to venator and warden because like trappers says "he's on the job"
Character interactions:
Abrams: Now I don't see any huge character interactions happening here, maybe Abrams could've encountered trapper previously in a different case or maybe they get drinks at jezebels. I could absolutely see trapper and Abrams respecting each other since they're both hard-working New Yorkers. You could also have a line showing the aforementioned negative bias the general population has to xians for them looking like devils, an example being "You may look like a devil but you're one hell of a new yorker"
Apollo: I feel like generally trapper would be annoyed by apollo since he would look at him almost like a freeloader just mooching off of daddy's money, similar to silver or holiday. I feel like apollo would absolutely bring up the fact that trapper isn't really well trained for combat encounters or the fact that he returns invasive species back to ixia which could lead to trapper antagonizing them from bringing them to New York in the first place
Bebop: I could see trapper and bebop having a nice conversation about Ms. Shelly seeing as she's a local and I bet there's some kind of mystical beings that could be an issue for the junkyard so trapper could potentially even be a regular call for bebop and Ms. Shelly. You could also have a line like "Alright bebop, you hook em into my traps and we'll do some real damage"
Billy: Now Billy actively insults the Knickerbockers, and I do not think trapper would take that lightly, I could 100% see them getting into an argument in basically all of their interactions together. Billy could insult his subpar wish, and trapper could insult his goat head etc. etc.
Calico: Now calico already has written lines about how she sees trapper as human garbage because he's seemingly in the middle class and not rich as hell or in any way trained to fight someone as experienced as calico. This could absolutely come up in the conversations, "I can't believe I'm forced to work with the likes of you..." type of encounters from calico
Celeste: Now granted I don't know much about celeste, but I can say for sure that trapper would question her sense of style. Maybe even trapper hates the circus and has coulrophobia which is another very common fear like arachnophobia
Doorman: I can see trapper trying to make a connection or a friendship with doorman since they're both working unresected service worker jobs, but those attempts could quickly get shut down but doorman's love of his work making trapper a little uncomfortable or unfond of doorman and his eagerness to serve
Drifter: Now I have a personal belief that drifter has quite a lot of bodies on the municipal coven specifically since it would be very easy to lure them out alone with just a phone call reporting some kind of being like ghost spiders so trapper could have a very negative look on drifter, or he could just hate him normally like holiday. Either way trapper won't be fond of drifter
Dynamo: I don't see any sort of huge interactions coming from these two, but I can definitely see trapper being like "you may be from here dynamo, but you're not built tough like the rest of us" you could add lore where trapper has a relative who takes his class or something similar to ivy, maybe even trapper was a student there at one point but went down a different career path or maybe he was just a bad student
Graves: I feel like trapper and graves could have a sort of uncle and niece dynamic going on where trapper doesn't really get why graves does what she does, but he doesn't judge "eh, kids will be kids" kind of opinion. He could also say something about the fact she's going to a private school and isn't nearly as preppy as the rest of them
Grey Talon: there's really two ways to take this kind of interaction. based Soley on the relationship between the coven and the Baxter society. The coven and the Baxter society could either be close or "feuding" trying to outcompete each other, Kind of like a privatized hospital vs a publicly funded one since they kind of do similar work. Grey talon could respect him or see him as a fool who couldn't make it into the Baxter society so joined the coven to feel big
Haze: I think these two could have a sort of "relationship" since they're both government workers and I also think they could have a connection because of rem which I will elaborate on further in rems section. I will also say that I can see them talking about government funding something along the lines of "we both do important work how come your department gets more funding than ours?!"
Holliday: Now there's already written dialogue which seems to suggest that holiday is glad to be with trapper since he's just a normal guy but also still confused by his love for basketball
Infernus: I could see trapper complaining about how expensive jezebels' drinks are or having similar lines to Abrams where he respects him but has a little bit of undertones of not liking ixians
Ivy: with Ivy trapper could make attempts of recruiting her to the coven since it does allow her to help people, but Ivy would likely politely refuse as it doesn't really save lives. Trapper could take offense to this also trapper would absolutely respect Ivy for keeping New York's streets clean
Kelvin: Again, I can't really say I know a ton about kelvin, but I also don't think trapper and kelvin would have insane dialogue maybe just some lines like "so what's it like being dead?"
Lady Geist: Trapper and Geist would probably have a very similar set of interactions to calico and trapper as trapper is poor and hardworking and Geist is rich and privileged
Lash: Trapper and lash obviously wouldn't get along; lash would more than likely make fun of trapper occupation and trapper would insult him back with no avail
McGinnis: Trapper and McGinnis could absolutely get along as the most hardworking of the characters McGinnis could've even invented some of the tools trapper uses on his job and he could respect that
Mina: Trapper wouldn't like mina at all, she's a monster, she's rich and spoiled, and he's older. They would definitely have some kind of arguments or mina would be curious about the municipal coven
Mirage: now there is already dialogue for mirage where mirage shows genuine respect for trapper calling him a "man of the people" I feel like trapper would definitely share this respect as mirage is also just doing his job
Mo & Krill: Now I feel like trapper would point out how M&K are criminals and how New York would probably be better without them However I could also see him trying to get them to smuggle in some exclusive Knicks merchandise or maybe even M&K complaining about some traps placed in their tunnels for some other invasive species
Paige: Now this would be 100% the funniest interaction with trapper as trapper is actively trying to get with cinnamon and apparently Paige looks very similar to her so I'm sure you can do the math on that
Paradox: Now I don't want to fully double check, but I do recall paradox saying that she had something from a knickerbocker, and I can see trapper begging her for it. Besides that, I doubt they'd have anything important to say to one another
Pocket: Pocket also has a very similar set of voice lines to mirage so I can see them both having mutual respect for one another like mirage and that trapper might feel bad for pockets situation he could also potentially relate with a shitty dad
Rem: Now obviously rem is an "invasive species" from the realm of dreams, and I think that trapper has a high likely chance of being the first to encounter rem whenever he showed up in our reality. I could also see trapper gushing over how cute rem is or feeling sad about him going home. He could have a relationship with haze as he could've taken him to her to help since he wouldn't know himself. If haze is rem's mom, then trapper is his dad
Seven: Seven would insult trapper, he would absolutely call him a moron for wishing for basketball tickets and for working with the coven and trapper would obviously insult him back
Shiv: Same rules for grey talon apply to shiv but shiv would just sound cooler saying it
Silver: Trapper might have some words to say for silvers vices, or he could relate to it himself besides that these two dont seem to have much they could say to each other
Sinclair: Henry could have some funny dialogue with trapper warning him to make sure he's sure about who he marries before you do, or you'll end up like him
Venator: I feel like you could have some funny dialogue between Venator and trapper by making a trapper a protestant Christian instead of a catholic one as they both have some long seated bad blood
Victor: Not much to say between these to, Trapper could make comments on victors' situation maybe even invite him to the knicks game but nothing crazy
Vindicta: Vindicta could easily be nervous around trapper or have some indirect hatred of him, since according to him its part of his job to "deal with spirits" and depending on what that means could be how vindicta see's trapper. I could also see the friend of humanity carrying around bottles of phantasmacide as it seems to be poison for ghosts which could be why she opts to use a sniper rifle instead.
Viscous: Trapper could have a fun friendship with viscous offering to show him the real New York and none of that tourist trap BS
Vyper: You could have some dialogue between them arguing over cinnamon or the fact that vypers from jersey but nothing substantial lore wise besides jokes
Warden: Warden could have interactions with trapper talking about how he isn't taking this seriously wishing for basketball tickets, however as he doesn't have any conversations still I'm not sure he would
Wraith: Now according to abrams wraith helps fund the Knicks so you could have some interactions about that, you could also have some interactions about her trying to get him to participate in sports bets
Yamato: Trapper might have some choice words for Yamato about her criminal enterprise but will probably back down when threatened
The hidden King: The hidden king would absolutely appeal to trappers' ego and his desire for respect as well as appealing to the idea of the knickerbockers going undefeated
The Archmother: The Archmother would most likely appeal to his job upholding society and keeping people safe and uninjured and how humble his wish is
Conclusion: Trapper is a very cool character with a very unique playstyle that I feel like was made just for me, I would love to see him make a return in this patch or the next one and I will keep fighting for him in any way I can I just hope this finds the right people before it's too late and he's gone forever
Both his character and his kit were some of the best parts of this game I've had the pleasure of playing in a very long time. I haven't made such a connection with a character since I was a kid playing overwatch. I will happily explain what made him so great to me and suggest some changes to the overall kit to make it more interesting and viable. I will classify these changes and suggestions from:
Extreme -
Major -
Minor -
I also will suggest some lore interactions between characters such as the patrons and other heroes as that is definitely my favorite part about this game and I hope that the developers do take these suggestions in mind going forward and I hope that my favorite character may see the light of day again. Thank you
Why I love trapper:
Trappers' general playstyle of using traps to provide area denial and information is a very fun change of pace to the rest of the cast. Having to think about encounters that could happen 2-4 minutes in the future opposed to having to use instinct and spur of the moment strategies is very fun for me. I like to see what we're going against and what we have to make an effective trap an example being “Oh there’s a haze on my team and a drifter on their team; I should place traps near enemy camps so then haze can run away if drifter tries to jump her” No other character quite is like that.
_Kit_
BOTTLED PHANTASMICIDE:
Throw a jar that leaves a spreading toxic pool. Enemies caught in the pool are Slowed and Silenced.
Problems: The problem with this ability is that its way to easily countered just by having a single bar of stamina even with expansion items so generally it's not useful at all
Solutions:
extreme - Completely remove the ability and give him a new one that more fits the defensive/forward planning playstyle
Major - Make it so that the 3-point or 5-point upgrade removes the ability to use stamina like capacitor or make it the same size always without the slow expansion
Minor - Make it bigger
SILKTRAP
Create a thread of web between two surfaces. Enemies who touch the web take Damage over time, become Slowed and are Revealed.
Problems: Not much of a threat and there's no counterplay besides just not triggering it and minions can trigger the traps
Solutions:
extreme - bring back the original design of it doing burst damage instead of DOT, make it so you can shoot it to destroy it, and minions don't trigger it
Major - Make it so that any trap triggered after getting the webbed effect will do burst damage after a buffer period of 0.5-1.5 seconds, make it so that a heavy melee will remove the trap, but you will still be revealed and minions don't trigger it
Minor - Increase the damage and minions don't trigger it
PEST BARRIER
Apply a Combat Barrier to a target ally and periodically deal Spirit Damage and Slows.
Problems: honestly there's very little issues with this ability; it's a great ability for both support and offensive roles as well as being a good side grade to Paige's ability
CRAWLING PLAGUE
Release a wave of spectral spiders that chase enemies and explode, dealing Spirit Damage.
Hit enemies are poisoned, temporarily losing Spirit and Spirit Resist. This effect can stack multiple times.
Problems: the spiders have no tracking and just bounce of any surface they hit making the ability only good at point blank range
Solutions:
Extreme - rework the entire ability to act differently
Major - add tracking so it always will go toward the nearest player similar to SQ in MR
Minor - N/A
_Lore_
Now I think the reason why trapper is in the ritual is very much open to interpretation based off the voice lines recorded but I've boiled it down to 3 potential reasons why trapper is in the ritual:
Wrong place wrong time: The most likely reason trapper is in the ritual is because he was answering a call for some spirit spiders whenever he happened across the early beginnings of the ritual and decided to join either on accident or purposefully because mama ain't raised no bitch and he needs those knicks tickets.
The super fan: Trapper could've been contacted early by the patrons because his life is a little sad, no one respects his work, cinnamon isn't impressed by him, and he couldn't even buy the knicks tickets in time. So, he decided to join the ritual to prove to everyone that he is to be respected and all he wants is the knicks tickets in return, similar to drifter its less about the actual wish but more about the ritual itself.
The undercover agent: now this is an absolute stretch but what if trapper was a secret agent for the municipal coven and the knicks tickets is a ploy to make the patrons underestimate him. The reason for this theory is the fact that the patrons could be considered an "invasive species" which the coven deals with. So, he could have a very similar wish to venator and warden because like trappers says "he's on the job"
Character interactions:
Abrams: Now I don't see any huge character interactions happening here, maybe Abrams could've encountered trapper previously in a different case or maybe they get drinks at jezebels. I could absolutely see trapper and Abrams respecting each other since they're both hard-working New Yorkers. You could also have a line showing the aforementioned negative bias the general population has to xians for them looking like devils, an example being "You may look like a devil but you're one hell of a new yorker"
Apollo: I feel like generally trapper would be annoyed by apollo since he would look at him almost like a freeloader just mooching off of daddy's money, similar to silver or holiday. I feel like apollo would absolutely bring up the fact that trapper isn't really well trained for combat encounters or the fact that he returns invasive species back to ixia which could lead to trapper antagonizing them from bringing them to New York in the first place
Bebop: I could see trapper and bebop having a nice conversation about Ms. Shelly seeing as she's a local and I bet there's some kind of mystical beings that could be an issue for the junkyard so trapper could potentially even be a regular call for bebop and Ms. Shelly. You could also have a line like "Alright bebop, you hook em into my traps and we'll do some real damage"
Billy: Now Billy actively insults the Knickerbockers, and I do not think trapper would take that lightly, I could 100% see them getting into an argument in basically all of their interactions together. Billy could insult his subpar wish, and trapper could insult his goat head etc. etc.
Calico: Now calico already has written lines about how she sees trapper as human garbage because he's seemingly in the middle class and not rich as hell or in any way trained to fight someone as experienced as calico. This could absolutely come up in the conversations, "I can't believe I'm forced to work with the likes of you..." type of encounters from calico
Celeste: Now granted I don't know much about celeste, but I can say for sure that trapper would question her sense of style. Maybe even trapper hates the circus and has coulrophobia which is another very common fear like arachnophobia
Doorman: I can see trapper trying to make a connection or a friendship with doorman since they're both working unresected service worker jobs, but those attempts could quickly get shut down but doorman's love of his work making trapper a little uncomfortable or unfond of doorman and his eagerness to serve
Drifter: Now I have a personal belief that drifter has quite a lot of bodies on the municipal coven specifically since it would be very easy to lure them out alone with just a phone call reporting some kind of being like ghost spiders so trapper could have a very negative look on drifter, or he could just hate him normally like holiday. Either way trapper won't be fond of drifter
Dynamo: I don't see any sort of huge interactions coming from these two, but I can definitely see trapper being like "you may be from here dynamo, but you're not built tough like the rest of us" you could add lore where trapper has a relative who takes his class or something similar to ivy, maybe even trapper was a student there at one point but went down a different career path or maybe he was just a bad student
Graves: I feel like trapper and graves could have a sort of uncle and niece dynamic going on where trapper doesn't really get why graves does what she does, but he doesn't judge "eh, kids will be kids" kind of opinion. He could also say something about the fact she's going to a private school and isn't nearly as preppy as the rest of them
Grey Talon: there's really two ways to take this kind of interaction. based Soley on the relationship between the coven and the Baxter society. The coven and the Baxter society could either be close or "feuding" trying to outcompete each other, Kind of like a privatized hospital vs a publicly funded one since they kind of do similar work. Grey talon could respect him or see him as a fool who couldn't make it into the Baxter society so joined the coven to feel big
Haze: I think these two could have a sort of "relationship" since they're both government workers and I also think they could have a connection because of rem which I will elaborate on further in rems section. I will also say that I can see them talking about government funding something along the lines of "we both do important work how come your department gets more funding than ours?!"
Holliday: Now there's already written dialogue which seems to suggest that holiday is glad to be with trapper since he's just a normal guy but also still confused by his love for basketball
Infernus: I could see trapper complaining about how expensive jezebels' drinks are or having similar lines to Abrams where he respects him but has a little bit of undertones of not liking ixians
Ivy: with Ivy trapper could make attempts of recruiting her to the coven since it does allow her to help people, but Ivy would likely politely refuse as it doesn't really save lives. Trapper could take offense to this also trapper would absolutely respect Ivy for keeping New York's streets clean
Kelvin: Again, I can't really say I know a ton about kelvin, but I also don't think trapper and kelvin would have insane dialogue maybe just some lines like "so what's it like being dead?"
Lady Geist: Trapper and Geist would probably have a very similar set of interactions to calico and trapper as trapper is poor and hardworking and Geist is rich and privileged
Lash: Trapper and lash obviously wouldn't get along; lash would more than likely make fun of trapper occupation and trapper would insult him back with no avail
McGinnis: Trapper and McGinnis could absolutely get along as the most hardworking of the characters McGinnis could've even invented some of the tools trapper uses on his job and he could respect that
Mina: Trapper wouldn't like mina at all, she's a monster, she's rich and spoiled, and he's older. They would definitely have some kind of arguments or mina would be curious about the municipal coven
Mirage: now there is already dialogue for mirage where mirage shows genuine respect for trapper calling him a "man of the people" I feel like trapper would definitely share this respect as mirage is also just doing his job
Mo & Krill: Now I feel like trapper would point out how M&K are criminals and how New York would probably be better without them However I could also see him trying to get them to smuggle in some exclusive Knicks merchandise or maybe even M&K complaining about some traps placed in their tunnels for some other invasive species
Paige: Now this would be 100% the funniest interaction with trapper as trapper is actively trying to get with cinnamon and apparently Paige looks very similar to her so I'm sure you can do the math on that
Paradox: Now I don't want to fully double check, but I do recall paradox saying that she had something from a knickerbocker, and I can see trapper begging her for it. Besides that, I doubt they'd have anything important to say to one another
Pocket: Pocket also has a very similar set of voice lines to mirage so I can see them both having mutual respect for one another like mirage and that trapper might feel bad for pockets situation he could also potentially relate with a shitty dad
Rem: Now obviously rem is an "invasive species" from the realm of dreams, and I think that trapper has a high likely chance of being the first to encounter rem whenever he showed up in our reality. I could also see trapper gushing over how cute rem is or feeling sad about him going home. He could have a relationship with haze as he could've taken him to her to help since he wouldn't know himself. If haze is rem's mom, then trapper is his dad
Seven: Seven would insult trapper, he would absolutely call him a moron for wishing for basketball tickets and for working with the coven and trapper would obviously insult him back
Shiv: Same rules for grey talon apply to shiv but shiv would just sound cooler saying it
Silver: Trapper might have some words to say for silvers vices, or he could relate to it himself besides that these two dont seem to have much they could say to each other
Sinclair: Henry could have some funny dialogue with trapper warning him to make sure he's sure about who he marries before you do, or you'll end up like him
Venator: I feel like you could have some funny dialogue between Venator and trapper by making a trapper a protestant Christian instead of a catholic one as they both have some long seated bad blood
Victor: Not much to say between these to, Trapper could make comments on victors' situation maybe even invite him to the knicks game but nothing crazy
Vindicta: Vindicta could easily be nervous around trapper or have some indirect hatred of him, since according to him its part of his job to "deal with spirits" and depending on what that means could be how vindicta see's trapper. I could also see the friend of humanity carrying around bottles of phantasmacide as it seems to be poison for ghosts which could be why she opts to use a sniper rifle instead.
Viscous: Trapper could have a fun friendship with viscous offering to show him the real New York and none of that tourist trap BS
Vyper: You could have some dialogue between them arguing over cinnamon or the fact that vypers from jersey but nothing substantial lore wise besides jokes
Warden: Warden could have interactions with trapper talking about how he isn't taking this seriously wishing for basketball tickets, however as he doesn't have any conversations still I'm not sure he would
Wraith: Now according to abrams wraith helps fund the Knicks so you could have some interactions about that, you could also have some interactions about her trying to get him to participate in sports bets
Yamato: Trapper might have some choice words for Yamato about her criminal enterprise but will probably back down when threatened
The hidden King: The hidden king would absolutely appeal to trappers' ego and his desire for respect as well as appealing to the idea of the knickerbockers going undefeated
The Archmother: The Archmother would most likely appeal to his job upholding society and keeping people safe and uninjured and how humble his wish is
Conclusion: Trapper is a very cool character with a very unique playstyle that I feel like was made just for me, I would love to see him make a return in this patch or the next one and I will keep fighting for him in any way I can I just hope this finds the right people before it's too late and he's gone forever
