Should Base Misery have Cougar?

[Pencil]

I was wondering if there was consideration to add the cougar to the base game, maybe only in Misery for those without the DLC, since the cougar is not optional for TFTFT owners in Misery. Once the new cougar is back, the difficulty between the base Misery and the DLC Misery will be vastly different. I'd say that DLC Misery will be much harder if the timer is still 10 days (but I hope it will be, right now people chill in ML for dozens of days on Misery). 

Does it really matter? In a single player game, no, not really. But I think the difficulty of base game Misery should be harder in some way if the cougar is mandatory in DLC Misery. When players are trying to get the best survival time on Misery, base game players will be at a clear advantage due to no cougar. DLC players have some pros and cons, but it's much riskier to have to move between potentially 3 regions with a 10 day cougar timer. Again it doesn't really matter when there are no leaderboards, but I wanted to throw some thoughts out there.

What do y'all think? Do you think Misery could use some changes, should cougar be optional, or would you keep it all the same? (Btw excited to see the new cougar in Misery; been holding off playing my run until it comes back for the full challenge)

[Lexilogo]

I'm not sure if DLC owners will be at a disadvantage, we don't know how the reworked Cougar will play out. It's possible features like ptarmigans (the down bedroll and improvised insulation are both quite good) or the Trader will be strong enough to offset it, and assuming the reworked Cougar will exist in the world akin to other animals, that opens the door to more avoidance strategies like closing a door in its face or climbing ropes.

 

Also for the record, you can temporarily disable DLC in your steam properties, so if vanilla/DLC Misery end up having a big strategy gap because of the Cougar, DLC owners can always downgrade to access vanilla Misery and compete on those terms.

[ThePancakeLady]

 

2 hours ago, Pencil said:

What do y'all think? Do you think Misery could use some changes, should cougar be optional, or would you keep it all the same? (Btw excited to see the new cougar in Misery; been holding off playing my run until it comes back for the full challenge)

No, I don't think the base game should have any DLC-locked content added if the person does not own the DLC. There is free content with each TFTFT Part and there is paid content for only DLC owners, and it should remain that way, IMHO.

As far as changes to Misery Mode- tried it a few times, found it to not be my thing. I can and do play vanilla or custom settings Interloper (Gunloper) from time to time, but out of all experience modes, it is my least favorite- until Misery. That takes top place now.  I see a lot of people wanting to make Misery easier, which I get, but don't think that should happen. It's not a mode you are meant to live forever on IMHO- it's meant to be Interloper+++, to challenge yourself and see how long you can survive. As The Dead Sleep, but as a mode, not a Challenge. It's not supposed to be easy or easy to survive hundreds or thousands of days on. It's a niche mode for masochists who didn't find Interloper punishing enough, IMHO. If you want to play the most challenging mode, it should be the actual *most challenging mode*.

Let HL do their thing and leave it be (minus fixing any bugs that might exist).

58 minutes ago, Lexilogo said:

Also for the record, you can temporarily disable DLC in your steam properties, so if vanilla/DLC Misery end up having a big strategy gap because of the Cougar, DLC owners can always downgrade to access vanilla Misery and compete on those terms.

Keep in mind that players on all platforms are here on the online forums- I can disable DLCs on XBox games, but it is a bit more of a pain than it is on Steam. I have no idea how DLCs and enabling/disabling them works on Playstation or Switch, or Epic Games. I am guessing you can, but have no idea what the process might be like.