I’m a huge fan of this thread. I love so many of the ideas on how to rework the musket, particularly improvements to the trapper tree. I know there are more fundamental issues that affect more players that are vying for Amazon’s attention, but I really hope the musket gets fixed eventually because it’s clearly broken.
One of the core problems with using the trapper tree is the lack of fluidity and timing with switching weapons. It won’t really matter what changes you make to traps until that is fixed.
As it stands right now it’s impractical to switch weapons during a fight. That’s not as big of a deal for the sniper tree because you’re supposed to be farther away from the enemy so you have time to switch weapons and reload. However, with the trapper tree, you’re supposed to be up close to the enemy.
When you’re in melee combat with a musket it’s hard to reload the musket because you’re constantly having to avoid the enemy so you’re constantly canceling the reload animation which forces you to almost stop entirely. Therefore, you need to switch to a melee weapon to attack enemies that are right on top of you. So, if you’re using traps you have to constantly switch between laying traps, throwing bombs, and switching to a melee weapon because your musket is useless.
If you do manage to get your musket reloaded in melee combat, it’s almost pointless because you can’t hit enemies with a musket shot when they’re close to you in this game, which is counter-intuitive because the closer something is the easier it is to hit in the real world.
I have to assume Amazon doesn’t want the musket to work in medium to close combat or else it would. So, they want players using the trapper tree to use melee weapons in combat, which means they want trappers to constantly switch weapons during a fight, which is fine, but then switching weapons mid-fight needs to be viable.
There have been many great ideas for new abilities to the trapper tree. However, if Amazon doesn’t want to create new abilities for the trapper tree then the following changes must be made to make the tree viable with the abilities it currently has:
- Traps:
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The visibility of traps needs to change so that they are more visible to the player and less visible to the enemy.
- Sometimes I throw a trap and can’t see where it landed, especially if I’m trying to throw it a good distance away. Most often traps sink into the ground and I can’t see them at all. I assume this was done to make them more difficult for enemy players to see, which is fine, but I need to know where my own trap is at all times. The point of a trapper tree is to play around traps and I can’t do that if my traps disappear. In the heat of a fight, traps can be particularly difficult to find with everything else that’s going on. Why not put a bright glow around traps that are only visible to the person that laid them?
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The length of time enemies are trapped needs increased. Currently, when I’ve trapped an enemy, I can do one thing at a time:
- I can hit them with a sticky-grenade because it’s almost impossible to hit enemies when they’re moving (it takes so long to switch into and out of the grenade throwing stance, the throwing mechanic is clunky, and the hit detection is terrible), which means I won’t get to take advantage of the healing aspect of the trap as the time it takes for a sticky-grenade to detonate is longer than someone is trapped.
- I can choose to reload stopping power, the animation for which is longer than the trap is active, which means I won’t get to take advantage of the healing aspect of the trap.
- I can do neither and shoot the enemy and try to get some health back, but because it’s so hard to throw traps a good distance, the trapped enemy is either right on top of me or close enough that it makes hitting them with a musket shot impossible, and even if I can get a shot off it’s usually just one or two at most because it takes so long to reload.
- I can trap an enemy switch to a melee weapon and light attack. It’s almost impossible to trap an enemy switch to a melee weapon and use an ability, which to me seems to be the entire point of the trapper tree in the first place.
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Fix or change the trap-laying mechanic
- Laying traps takes too long and is not fluid. I should effortlessly be able to lay traps in the middle of combat. Instead, it’s clunky and breaks up the timing and flow of fighting. You’re essentially left to only laying traps before you engage with an enemy or fleeing and laying a trap and hoping your enemy will be stupid enough to walk on top of it as they watch you lay the trap.
- Sticky-Grenade:
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Fix or change the throwing stance mechanic:
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The quickness with which players switch into and out of the sticky-grenade throwing stance needs to be increased. It’s not practical, in the middle of a close-range fight, to stop and press “F” however many times necessary to switch into the throwing stance, then try to find the very faint colored arc, aim it until the faint colored ball is on the moving and dodging enemy, click to throw the grenade, and watch it slowly soar past the enemy that has already moved or watch it hit the enemy’s extremity and not attach at all. The whole process of throwing a sticky grenade should be smooth and fluid. Instead, like the trap, you’re forced to throw it before you engage in combat because once you’re in melee range it’s impractical to use.
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Or make sticky-grenade throws work like hatchet throw abilities. I think the easiest solution would be to get rid of the sticky-grenade throwing stance mechanic altogether and make it more similar to how the hatchet throw abilities work, as others have suggested.
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Decrease the time until detonation:
- Maybe Amazon doesn’t want to do this because then trappers would be able to trap someone, stick them with a grenade, and have them explode while the enemy is still trapped. Idk why they would be against this idea, maybe they think it would be too much damage or too hard to balance, or would give the trapper too much health or something? Still, the detonation time is way too long.
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Fix hit detection:
- Right now you have to hit center mass on enemies to get the sticky grenade to attach. It’s not very sticky. Nine times out of ten when I hit an enemy with a sticky grenade in their extremities (arms, legs, head) it goes right through them.
- Stopping Power:
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Add knockdown to enemies in addition to slowing them when they are within a certain range.
- I’ve never been shot or shot any living creature, but I imagine the stopping power of a musket has to increase the closer it is to the musket. So if the enemy is within a certain distance from the player they should also get knocked down.
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Reload time needs to be shortened and you should be able to move and load the shot.
- The reload takes longer than loading the gun regularly when it’s supposed to be an ability. Abilities should give you an advantage, not a disadvantage. In that same vein, I think having a trapper in mid-to close combat stop completely to load the gun doesn’t make any sense. So as it stands right now, like the trap and sticky-grenade, it’s impractical to use in melee combat.
Abilities in the trapper tree shouldn’t be impractical to use in mid to close-range combat. They also shouldn’t be impractical to use while engaging in combat.
