May 2024 Developer Diary

[hozz1235]

I intend to stay and "spawn" the cougar to experience the new feature!  I want to experience the whole thing!  In particular, I'm looking forward to finding it's lair and scaring it off.  I will even track how long until it comes back, as I'm sure many of our audience will.  Course, I won't do this on my thousand-plus day run!

Time to do some cougar huntin'!! (or, be hunted...)

[Amir]

Hello.

Thank you so much for these additions, they all sound great!

Cougar: I hope there's more than one cougar... if there's only one, I'm probably never going to kill it. I wanna be afraid of leaving the shelter!

Misery mode: I was hoping for less resources, less deer and cold shelters... or never being able to eat wolf and bear meat. Still, I can't wait to try it!

Mountain region: Looks amazing! If it's anything like Ash Canyon, I'm gonna love it.

Cheat-death: I like it. I play on console and on interloper, and honestly, it is quite frustrating to lose all my progress because of one mistake! I really like the idea of having a second chance, especially one with consequences.

 

Thank you Hinterland, for making such an amazing game even better.

 

[CREEPERFAN27]

Ok what if you could make cougars spawn more frequently (takes less days for them to spawn) in custom worlds I think it could create a fun but stressful challenge 

[SuperStriker16]

I’m glad that you can choose to add the cougar to existing saves, I wish they did that with the Scurvy mechanic.

[SuperStriker16]

Misery mode looks fun and miserable at the same time, I wonder how long the YouTubers will survive for.

[turtle777]

On 5/20/2024 at 4:03 PM, hozz1235 said:

Lots of unknowns which we will find out in about a month!  Another one:  once the cougar is "triggered", what will it really take for it to "un-trigger"?  Simply, leaving the zone and re-entering?  Leave and wait X amount of hours/days?

Most likely, it will follow the same time curve as the trigger. Anything else wouldn't make sense and could be gamed.

Example: if it takes 15 days for cougar to trigger in a newly entered region, it would take 15 days outside to "decay" (untrigger).

I would think the mechanics are similar to other afflictions / risks, like frostbite. You accumulate "risk" until the event (cougar) happens. If you "fix" the underlying issue, risk will be reduced over time.

-t

[Laika Ivanova]

On 5/23/2024 at 8:25 PM, turtle777 said:

Most likely, it will follow the same time curve as the trigger. Anything else wouldn't make sense and could be gamed.

Example: if it takes 15 days for cougar to trigger in a newly entered region, it would take 15 days outside to "decay" (untrigger).

I would think the mechanics are similar to other afflictions / risks, like frostbite. You accumulate "risk" until the event (cougar) happens. If you "fix" the underlying issue, risk will be reduced over time.

-t

My guess is that it will track time over a certain period, just like cabin fever. Aka if you spent X% of the last Y days in one map, cougar spawns.

[iLYA2033]

Could it be that a cougar will break into your house through the door, like with the timber wolves in Chorny Kamen?

[Leeanda]

6 minutes ago, iLYA2033 said:

Could it be that a cougar will break into your house through the door, like with the timber wolves in Chorny Kamen?

I hope not lol..  that's not a good way to get woken up

[itsLydt]

Just to confirm, is everything from this update going to be applied to existing saves? Sounds like the cougar will be at least?

[DavidinNorwayHD]

I am very excited to experience this update, it looks like it's going to be fantastic! I love the concept of the new map, and I love that Cougars is going to fundamentally change the way people play this game, and keep them a bit more on the move. However, I am not really sure how I feel of the cheat death system. I think this should be exclusive to custom game modes where you can decide to turn it on or off in the custom settings, as I don't think this really fits the standard game modes. I personally don't really want be given the opportunity to cheat death, as it somewhat goes ''against'' the philosophy of death in this game that I love so much. I just simply ''want'' to die when I die, and not be given the chance to have any second chances, (or three chances in this case) but that's just me though.

I think it is cool that if you do choose to cheat death you won't be able to do it without trade-offs, I find that to be very interesting. So I do think it is a neat idea for people that want this kind of system. If this ends up being a custom game only feature, then I am all for it. I think it could be a wonderful edition to custom games, seeing as you can already twist and turn the game to your liking, so it perfectly fits to give an option like cheat death to custom games. But I am overall interested to see how it will work, even though I think the permadeath system is one of the many aspects that makes this game so wonderful, and seeing that being fundamentally changed now is a bit hard to swallow for many people.

Edited May 29 by DavidinNorwayHD

[Yimnam]

You guys never stop to amaze, clearly listening to all your fans requests. Wish there was more game studios like you. Don't change, we love you.

[Jeffthro]

Be nice to get a switch update as it’s almost June 

[Leeanda]

1 hour ago, Jeffthro said:

Be nice to get a switch update as it’s almost June 

As stated there will be an update for switch when the details have been sorted and processed..

Repeated comments are unhelpful ,and please remember they are a small team with a heavy workload,please be patient.

[Bearimpaler101]

7 hours ago, Yimnam said:

You guys never stop to amaze, clearly listening to all your fans requests. Wish there was more game studios like you. Don't change, we love you.

AAA game companies: here at Microsoft we value customers so we're going to be adding 1 new block to minecraft that does nothing and looks the same as wood. Now introducing call of duty black ops 6 which is the same as black ops 5 which was the same as black ops 4 which was the same as black ops 3.etc. 

 

Hinterland: were adding a bunch of new things including some changing the entire game as well as bug fixes and tweaks. All that while we have produced a massive DLC in around only a year of production. While working on the story and the main survival. And somehow we still keep our game and DLC extremely cheap by today's standards. You know all in a days work.

Edited May 30 by Bearimpaler101
Edit

[Ludwig_II]

I have been hoping for new elements to provide more depth to the survival part of the game for a long time. And this upcoming update seems like it will be bringing even more than I have hoped for. And it sounds like it will make long term survival much more enjoyable. Thank you Hinterland and everyone involved in this update.

[Cattleman]

[fbr]

Really excited about this update. Cheat Death perhaps will make me stop backupping saves. I don't like my single player games 'telling' me how to play them, but nowadays it's very rare to even use such backups, and being able to keep going (and making interesting choices about it) sounds great.

But sure the best part of the news is simply the new map, to have again one of the best gaming experiences ever: starting a new run in an unknown map. If you keep just releasing new paid maps every few months, you'll have at least one loyal customer.

[Bimbobjoejr.]

Oh boy can't wait to see the cougar and charge at it like an idjit

[DaGnome91]

Looking closely at this image, I'm wondering if the Cougar is hindered or not by the small climbing walls... those form a natural barrier I use a lot to keep predators away as wolves and bears don't climb them (up or down). Will that still be the case ? I shiver, anticipating a surprising face-to-face when you've just climbed up ! The fact that it's hunting you if you stay too long in a (its) territory is just a superb addition

 

The heights of the new map will make for a wonderful mix between HRV and Ash Canyon, or so I hope, and I have to say i love those high-pitched places, even more with man-made facilities ^^

About the "Cheat Death" system, I'm willing to try it : if the trade-off is heavy, say heavier than a good moose-stomping, then that's great

All in all, a great update, as usual, keep on the good work !

[upnorth]

Some initial Cougar thoughts. The described behavior feels suitable for levels like Pilgrim, but for Stalker and Interloper it shouldn't be that predictable. You should be allowed to learn yourself how to avoid or defeat predators. And the behavior should be more unpredictable in general. You shouldn't be able to relax simply by setting up 2 different bases and always moving between them, kind of takes the dread out of the spottings/encounters...

[Leeanda]

35 minutes ago, upnorth said:

Some initial Cougar thoughts. The described behavior feels suitable for levels like Pilgrim, but for Stalker and Interloper it shouldn't be that predictable. You should be allowed to learn yourself how to avoid or defeat predators. And the behavior should be more unpredictable in general. You shouldn't be able to relax simply by setting up 2 different bases and always moving between them, kind of takes the dread out of the spottings/encounters...

I'm not sure pilgrim is safe from it...  It does say we have the option not to have it but nothing about it being passive...   

Honestly I think it's a matter of your play style not the difficulty ...  

It also sounds like the actual encounter itself will be an ambush so maybe no warning when it strikes..

[Pencil]

1 hour ago, upnorth said:

Some initial Cougar thoughts. The described behavior feels suitable for levels like Pilgrim, but for Stalker and Interloper it shouldn't be that predictable. You should be allowed to learn yourself how to avoid or defeat predators. And the behavior should be more unpredictable in general. You shouldn't be able to relax simply by setting up 2 different bases and always moving between them, kind of takes the dread out of the spottings/encounters...

I see what you mean and agree. I appreciate the reason not to bunker down in just one region, but switching between two close regions can be just as easy. 

Hopefully there is a chance of random encounters regardless of the amount of time you've spent in a region. Just like any other wildlife. 

[upnorth]

On 6/10/2024 at 8:52 PM, Pencil said:

I see what you mean and agree. I appreciate the reason not to bunker down in just one region, but switching between two close regions can be just as easy. 

Hopefully there is a chance of random encounters regardless of the amount of time you've spent in a region. Just like any other wildlife. 

Yeah, and having 2 home bases to switch between would have been a cool thing for players to figure out on their own and perhaps get an achievement for. Same with figuring out how to destroy the nest. I guess we will have to see when we actually get to play it, it just felt too predictable and explained from the get go now.

[Bearimpaler101]

I knew this update would be a diamond dozen with all the Belgian whistles  from the gecko.