My thoughts on the Cougar and What Needs Tweaked.

[MarrowStone]

Okay, first things first. Please Hinterland. Do NOT make the Cougar just a reskinned wolf!

In fact. I kinda LIKE how you can't shoot it until it's already too late. I want to preserve a bit of that! I don't want the Cougar to be something you can sneak up on and shoot, nor something that just sprints at you and lets you get a shot off at it while it's charging.

My solution:
Make the Cougar MORE like the Darkwalker. In 3 stages.

Stage 1: Cougar Signs (Inactive but in Region)
This is just the grace period timer that is present currently. So, the Player has stayed the required days to catch the cat's attention, now it's stalking them. First, it watches from a distance. The Player can see signs of critter death, find scratches and tracks. For 2 days they get these signs.

Stage 2: Cougar Threat in Region (Stalking has started, it approaches) ~300m

The Player can now hear the Cougar, but the Cougar is invisible at this distance. The Player receives an affliction whenever they're outside within 300 meters of it:
Paranoia: (Same effect as the DarkWalker's Anxiety, but only active when the player is outside and also makes your weapon sway as if they have shivering permanently.)
Going inside will occasionally play scratching sounds, maybe even scratches on the door.

Stage 3: Cougar Nearby (Closing in) <150m?

It closes in. The Cougar is now visible, its model appearing behind a gust of snow. Birds stop chirping, crows too, the woods feel silent. It sneaks silently towards the player, moving faster. The player can look around to try and spot their attacker. Spotting the cougar will make it run away. Skilled and lucky shooters can kill it at this stage, but the cougar is fast and the shivering hands from Paranoia will make shots hard to hit. If the cougar escapes, it will resume its hunt after a moment in invisible distance.

Stage 4: Ready to Pounce (Final Distance and Struggle) <50m?

You've missed your window to spot it from a distance and scare it away. Now it is invisible again! You will be pounced and enter a struggle if it reaches you, you should run away to get it back into its visible zone or further. Better yet, leave the region!!!


Anyways, this is how I think it'd be best tweaked without changing TOO much about it. It seems like the Cougar is doing Darkwalker stuff anyways.

[MarrowStone]

Oh, and also, if you destroy a Cougar Den. The next one should spawn in a different area. Like have them rotate around.

[piddy3825]

I like the basics of what you've laid out here, and it's a must have that the cougar leaves footprints in the snow.  In my opinion when the player comes across these footprints, he should be able to "track" them.  Seeing that the beast has a den, I'm thinking we should be able to hunt it much like hunting any other creature on the island.  

[MarrowStone]

Thanks, @piddy3825, but I disagree that we should be able to stalk it. We should always be its prey. Either we kill it in self defense or drive it away by destroying its den.

Otherwise it'd just be another quarry people kill en masse. Like the moose and bear. Or how people just clear regions of wolves instead of avoiding them.  If it's always moving towards you, tracking it doesn't really seem possible as the closest footprints are probably the freshest. I do agree it should leave prints though.

[Mroz4k]

Hello! 

This is an interesting way to go about it. I like the idea of giving people a chance to shoot it beforehand, but I am afraid this would still be a bit easy to learn for the more seasoned players, especially for those who do not mind things like scum-saving. For example, if one knew they were about to be attacked, they could reload the game, save it by entering and leaving an indoor location when it is close to the 150 m mark, then practice shooting at it till they learn how to do it. And, this would in essence make their cougar experience be just another thing they need to figure out mechanicaly. 

I do agree that the idea of the cougar, being an unavoidable struggle attack, is a good one - and I quite agree that it is a great deterrent for those who love to hibernate in one region. 

But I also agree with @piddy3825 that it ought to be an animal. Though I cannot say I think it should be "trackable" - I agree with you that the player should always be the one that is "hunted". 

I think it could easily be both. A) an unavoidable struggle, kinda as it is right now, to be honest. And B) an animal that could be "actively hunted" but is, in essence, also counter-hunting you, too. And you kind of hit on how that would work, too - with the cougar den. If attacking / destroying the den made created a physical animal that would spawn and started stalking the player physically, it would work the best. Because failing in hunting it and being lacerated by the cat in one of the remote regions where the den spawned would work. I also agree it should spawn elsewhere once it was destroyed in that game, too. I wrote down my thoughts in spoiler in this comment.

But your ideas are very interesting! The idea of giving player a condition when the cat nears is a very interesting one! Completely forgot that is how the Darkwalker works, too. 

Edited June 29 by Mroz4k

[piddy3825]

@MarrowStone and @Mroz4k,

just because I say "trackable" does not mean that "catchable," if you know what I mean.  The cougar is a cunning, stealthy animal that knows how to stay outta sight.  
As a hunter irl, I can honestly say, I've tracked a number of game animals whose prints just suddenly stop with no indication to which direction they went. 

I kinda envisioned a situation where the player is actively following the footsteps in the snow, the cougar being the cautious animal that it is, is obviously aware of my presence and intentionally leads me away from their den.  Perhaps jumping up on a rocky ledge where no footprints can be left.  Same goes for maybe walking over a frozen expanse of lake where no prints could be left behind.  I dunno if that would be feasible or even possible from a programming perspective, but since it isn't a supernatural entity, there should be signs of its presence and a player should be reasonably able to follow it.  

[MarrowStone]

I mean, it's possible, but I don't think any animal in TLD has used the environment in any way. For the AI to even be able to, say, purposely jump on a rock to cover its tracks, or hide behind a rock in ambush, every single rock would probably need a rework to have some sort of tag and pathfinding mesh for the Cougar to use. I don't really know what needs to be done for that, nor the extent of work, but it seems like a lot. But I do know the animals don't see the game world the same way we do unfortunately.

This would be amazing if doing this is possible though! Just my biggest fear is they'll put the cougar in the game world and it will be another creature that blindly patrols until it catches wind of player and then pursues. I really don't want that!

I either see the cougar as a persistent stalker, that you can't just shoot any time. (Like the current model, or my model.) It encourages nomadic play and switching up regions now and again.

Or.. I have another idea for what the cougar could be:
Maybe it plays role as an ambush predator at choke points to paths players often take, encouraging them to maybe take another route this time around? It might be easier to only set up a handful of choke points and spots it can spawn, and then have some way the game tracks how often you pass through? Could be detrimental to some base locations though, so not sure I like the idea. A player passes through a certain path too many times, the last couple times they feel uneasy and there's the silent woods. After that it's a dice roll to spawn a cougar?

I like @Mroz4k's idea on how players could actively hunt it if they want! If you want to actively hunt the cougar, then finding its den is the key! The den won't show up on the map anymore, but tracks would lead to it, and nearing the den WILL spawn the cougar just like any other animal. Then it'd just be a matter of spotting it first and shooting it like any other hunt? Still feels too easy though. Every predator (or moose) has that same old charge before you shoot it in the head, just doesn't feel right with the cougar.

[Veskaida]

These are all alright ideas in OP. Personally I don't see an issue with the current implementation of the Cougar, though it would be nice for some way to intercept it when it was e.g. charging in. I like the Darkwalker-esque ambiance of the cougar sounds and music increasing as the Cougar draws near, and it's very thematic walking around a region and suddenly you hear the Cougar's theme fainly in the background, getting louder as you draw near. I think if Hinterlands changed one little thing: made the Cougar an entity that charged at the player, even if they kept all the other mechanics as-is, I think that'd be a great step. Perhaps there'd be a number of 'fake outs', like the footstep sounds, but or e.g. the cougar would only advance towards the player if it was outside of their FOV, and flee if the survivor looked at it (since it's an ambush predator).

IDK if I like the "not showing up on the map" element. A significant portion of TLD players do not use the map at all, and it costs the player resources (charcoal, clear weather time, exposure/risk to navigate and map), so I think it is a bad idea to punish players who do use the map/mapping. There were previously a number of environmental details cougars would leave, along with their sounds and music, so I don't think this is far from what was implemented.

[Muk_Pile]

In a way, I agree with the OP. The cougar shouldn't be a reskinned wolf; it's an assassin, not a brawler. However, I disagree that it should be an unseen threat like the Darkwalker. In my opinion, it should be an elusive hunter we can encounter wandering throughout the world, not an intangible boogeyman that we can only interact with during a cutscene.

The cougar needs three things to be a top-tier threat: evasion, stealth, & intimidation.

For evasion, the cougar needs to keep on the move, denying the survivor the opportunity to set-up an ambush. And even if survivor gets lucky and spots the beast, it should be able to easily fade away into the wilderness to reposition itself at a more advantageous position.

One solution I've come up with is that it can "teleport", which is to say that it can despawn and respawn whenever it needs to relocate. This ability would make the cougar exceptionally difficult to track down and hinder the survivor in predicting the cougar's location. But to make sure it is fair for the survivor and immersive for the player, there are some limitations to this ability:

• First, the cougar can only teleport when the survivor can't see it, so it needs to be out-of-sight or out-of-rendering-distance to do so.
• Second, the cougar can only teleport either after it has spent several hours patrolling an area of a region or if it is fleeing (which it might do if the survivor stares at it for long enough, and it will always do so if the survivor aims or shoots a firearm or throws a projectile at it, unless it is already charging in for an attack).
• Third, the cougar can't teleport closer than 30 meters near the survivor (same distance a wolf will begin to stalk its prey). However, the longer the cougar has been around, the more likely it is to appear near the survivor.
• And fourth, if the survivor enters a building with a loading screen while the cougar is stalking it, the cougar will give up and flee (this prevents players from save scumming in order to take multiple shots at it).

As for stealth, the cougar's hunting strategy heavily relies on remaining undetected by its quarry; unlike wolves and bears, it remains silent as it stalks its prey, only snarling a roar as it charges in for the kill. If the survivor looks in its direction and can see it, the cougar will freeze and won't move until either the survivor to looks away, it gives up (or, very rarely, commits to a charge), or the survivor threatens it with a firearm or projectile.

And finally, for intimidation, the cougar will leave signs of its presence wherever it goes (ravaged carcasses hanging from tree branches, claw marks on tree trunks and cottage doors, screeching yowls in middle of the night), all of which can make even the bravest of men shiver with fear. The survivor knows that while the cougar is around, nowhere is safe, and that they must remain on high alert wherever they go. Such a strain on their senses will also take a toil on their mind, leading to them developing Paranoia (see below). Observing the cougar or its signs will only renew this debilitating ailment, encouraging the survivor to either leave the cougar's territory or kill the beast.

PARANOIA (Disease Affliction)
Mending and crafting items takes 50% longer to complete, and you can't read training books.
Cabin Fever Risk increased by 20%.
Insomnia Risk increased by 20%.
Treatment: Wait 8 hours (12 on Stalker, 16 on Interloper, 24 on Misery), or slay the cougar.

P.S.--Since the cougar would be another creature in the world, it would exhibit different responses for each type of animal it would encounter. Here's how I think the cougar would respond in each interaction:

• Rabbits = Hunt
• Ptarmigans = Hunt
• Deer = Hunt
• Wolf (Single) = Intimidate/Fight
• Wolves (Multiple) = Ignore/Flee
• Bear = Ignore/Flee
• Moose = Hunt/Flee
• Timberwolf (Single) = Intimidate/Fight
• Timberwolves (Multiple) = Flee

Edited June 30 by Muk_Pile
Changed Moose Interactions from (Ignore/Flee to Hunt/Flee)