Cougar Explainer + MEGATHREAD (All Cougar Discussions Go Here)

[Raphael van Lierop]

Hey!

Here's a "master" location for all Cougar discussions to happen, and also a short 'explainer' of how the Cougar timers currently work, to try to help clarify what is meant to happen (and also to help identify any bugged behaviour in your game).

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COUGAR COOLDOWN/TIMER EXPLAINER

To summarize Cougar respawn timers/cooldowns:

 

* Each region that has Cougars starts with 1 Cougar territory.

* Escalation (fighting, killing) will trigger the appearance of new Cougar territories, up to three (maximum).

* Killing a Cougar in a territory triggers a cooldown of 10-20 days before the Cougar in that territory respawns. (The Cooldown timer is dependent on which Experience Mode you are playing. Note that Cougars do not spawn in Pilgrim.)

* Each territory has its own respawn timer. They are independent. I.e. you do not need to kill three Cougars to trigger the cooldowns in one territory.

* If you kill one Cougar and already have more than one Cougar territory in the region, the other territories will remain, until...

* ...Territories beyond the first will begin to disappear 5 days after your last Cougar interaction, or leaving the region. The third and second territories will disappear, in that order. The first (original) territory will remain. 

 

For the purposes of this explanation:

 

* Region = a map area (ex. Mystery Lake, Broken Railroad, etc.)

* Territory = a zone that Cougars occupy as territory

 

Keep in mind that Cougars have a Detecting radius that extends from THEM and not from the Territory. This means that you can be detected even when moving near a Territory. You should hear vocalizations from the Cougar to warn you that you have been detected, which gives you a chance to withdraw before the Cougar decides to Stalk you. Once the Cougar decides to Stalk you, it will close distance until it can Attack you. The way to prevent this is to (a) escape and break line of sight for a period of time, or (b) kill the Cougar.

 

Our intention is for the Cougar to be a difficult predator and something to be avoided, but we understand some players will choose to hunt it, and our hope is that the escalation system makes this hunting process more challenging so that you "pay a price" for it. This is a design decision about the values inherent in the game. You can, of course, play as you wish, within the confines of the system.

 

Hopefully that helps clarify some points.

 

Keep in mind some bugs at launch were addressed in HF1, and more Cougar bugs will be fixed in HF2. There's more info about that in this thread.

 

 

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For a more general explanation of how the "new" Cougar works, please watch this section of the "Broken Silence" update video.

 

 

 

***

 

Please bring all your Cougar questions to this megathread. The moderators @Leeanda and @ManicManiac will help move topics and posts from other discussion threads into here so they can be seen and discussed in one place. This will help focus the discussion and prevent the creation of 100s of individual Cougar posts.

 

Thanks!

[piddy3825]

After having seen Zak's video of lighting up the cougar with 6 or more shots from the flare gun, why the cougar cannot be killed using the flare gun?  
I get the alpha predator bit, but it just seems a bit immersion breaking that you can shot the beast directly in the face and yet it just keeps going.  
What's up with that?

[ThePancakeLady]

1 minute ago, piddy3825 said:

After having seen Zak's video of lighting up the cougar with 6 or more shots from the flare gun, why the cougar cannot be killed using the flare gun?  
I get the alpha predator bit, but it just seems a bit immersion breaking that you can shot the beast directly in the face and yet it just keeps going.  
What's up with that?

I'm thinking the Cougar is similar to the Moose. No bleed out, one-shot *crits* are possible but uncommon and have limited fatal crit zones, and you have to knock away at its HP like you do with the Moose. So if no flare shot caused a fatal crit- the are just dealing flat damage or DoT that takes chunks from its total HP pool, which may be much bigger than expected. (Just guessing)

[piddy3825]

1 minute ago, ThePancakeLady said:

I'm thinking the Cougar is similar to the Moose. No bleed out, one-shot *crits* are possible but uncommon and have limited fatal crit zones, and you have to knock away at its HP like you do with the Moose. So if no flare shot caused a fatal crit- the are just dealing flat damage or DoT that takes chunks from its total HP pool, which may be much bigger than expected. (Just guessing)

I'm sure there are some similarities, like no bleed and limited fatal critical hit zones, but a shot directly to the face ought to put it down.  Just saying.
I've one shotted a moose to the face with the flare gun on more than one occasion and dropped it.  In this case the cougar took one right in the face and remained unscathed.  It's a fierce beast for sure.

[SafeAgain]

Welcome back cougar megathread

I only have 1-2 suggestions really

1. Maybe cougars should respect flares / flashlights (unless shot at) so that you're not forced to shoot them / kill them in order to leave their territory without getting torn apart
If the intention is to live peacefully with cougars, perhaps we should have more peaceful options (other than never going near one) when it comes to avoiding a struggle with them

2. I really dislike that you can kill multiple cougars in rapid succession, potentially tens of them if you travel across the world picking fights with them.
The animal should be rarer than that, only allowing a single kill per region.
I think that if you kill 1 cougar, the rest should disappear from their territories, to simulate that the single cougar patrolling the region is now no longer present.

This doesn't mean no more territory expansion or no more multiple active cougars - having the  cougar expand it's territory after being challenged is a great mechanic, which feels really natural, and i like it a lot.

If you try to kill a cougar but leave before finishing the job, now it's pissed off at you, and it's gonna take over more of the region looking for you. This is great.
However the fact that other cougars remain after you kill it feels very game-y, similar to how the first cougar spawning ontop of you felt game-y.
It feels like the game just spawning more animals to punish you, instead of some sort of natural process happening

 

Edited December 12, 2024 by SafeAgain

[druffzilla]

Thanks for the explanations of the mechanics and the intentions on this, this transparency is appreciated!

 

first of all i think the true incentive to hunt the cougar is already created by the gear, the badge and the achievement. and people hunting it for sport right now, to get the killcount up, is a result of it being a novelty and just curiosity.

 

I think the best way to disincentivize the player is to increase the risk and cost of the encounter, make it more difficult or at least make it impossible to get a cheap and safe kill.

the user "Sleight" mentioned in the hotfix thread:

Quote

... What if after taking a certain amount of damage, the cougar ran away from the initial encounter with the player instead of dying? This would maintain the intention of disincentivizing encounters since it would mean two "successful" encounters vs the cougar are necessary to kill it, while also preserving the illusion of the solitary cougar per region. ...

 

i think this is a very interesting idea!  

these "lives" could even increase with each killed cougar, but that could also create the opposite effect and make players take it as a challenge

another way to disincentivize the hunting for sport would be to just make it harder and simply not worth it, make it not be afraid of fire and make sure it cannot be cheesed from a cliff or similar. for example build a mechanic where, if the player is in a unreachable location, the cougar is going to run away into hiding - similar to what it does after delivering the glancing blow when being injured - and is going to return as cougar 1.0 with a struggle out of nowhere. this increased risk of a struggle and severe lacerations will make it too ressource expensive to just hunt it for sport in a normal survival run. 

[Nogitron]

29 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

COUGAR COOLDOWN/TIMER EXPLAINER

To summarize Cougar respawn timers/cooldowns:

 

* Each region that has Cougars starts with 1 Cougar territory.

* Escalation (fighting, killing) will trigger the appearance of new Cougar territories, up to three (maximum).

* Killing a Cougar in a territory triggers a cooldown of 10-20 days before the Cougar in that territory respawns. (The Cooldown timer is dependent on which Experience Mode you are playing. Note that Cougars do not spawn in Pilgrim.)

* Each territory has its own respawn timer. They are independent. I.e. you do not need to kill three Cougars to trigger the cooldowns in one territory.

* If you kill one Cougar and already have more than one Cougar territory in the region, the other territories will remain, until...

* ...Territories beyond the first will begin to disappear 5 days after your last Cougar interaction, or leaving the region. The third and second territories will disappear, in that order. The first (original) territory will remain. 

I've seen a lot of posts in the HF2 thread about multiple cougar spawns/respawns. I think a lot of the confusion that folks are having is in reference to point 2 here: Escalation. The way it's currently working, if you fight/kill the cougar in Territory 1 of a region, Territory 2 is immediately created and immediately spawns a cougar. If you then fight/kill the second cougar, Territory 3 is immediately created and immediately spawns a cougar. This is what I think is confusing people and making them feel like the cougars are respawning immediately, especially in regions where cougar territories are near each other. 

In CH, for example, the first cougar is near the Ravine exit and Rabbit Grove. I had my base at Quonset and went out to hunt the cougar so I could get the knife and wrap. When I killed the cougar, I immediately had another one near the first trailer that you come to after you start to head down the main road from the Ravine entrance. If I'd been tackled by the first cougar, I'd be in terrible shape to fight another one, but there he was all the same. This is on my way back to my base, so I'd have to go a long way out of my way to get home. In the interest of efficiency I killed that one, too--even though I didn't want or need to--and headed home to Quonset, only to find another one right there in the yard. Ended up having to kill that one, too, just so I could go home. 

I had a similar situation in TWM on a different save. I hunted the cougar by Forest Cave, then as I was trying to leave the region I had to kill another one by the wing/landing gear near the PV exit on the same day. 

So I kinda agree with the poster who mentioned that this is kinda going against the design of having the players leave the cougar alone, at least in those specific situations. I don't really feel like I was given the option to leave the second and third cougars alone.

That said, I absolutely love this update--cougar included--and anyway, having to deal with both of those experiences has disincentivized me from hunting them any more, cause hot dang it was annoying.

[RaukGorth]

My cougar feedback

I have some concerns:

1. Cougar can be seen too easily.

• Render range feels much greater than other animals. I can see him from very far away. While I like seeing stuff from far away (arrows, sticks, meat on the ground please add LODs for them), this makes avoiding the cougar too easy for me.  
• His territory is marked on the map, so avoiding the cougar doesn't provide a challenge.
• If by chance I got near him, several systems kick in: he roars, then meows, stalking music kicks in, if I go closer it changes to cougar music, if by chance the cougar is not near me when I'm in his territory there are signs on trees and special deer on the ground.
• If he spots me I just need to break LOS or walk on geometry that will break pathing.
• I never have to look up to find the cougar, he's always on the ground.

2. I never seen cougar hunt other animals. Wolves entering his territory don't trigger his reaction.

3. I will preface this by stating that I'm a seasoned player. Fight with the cougar is rather easy. Seems to have around 300 hp, 3-4 good arrow hits bring him down. One attack pattern. Luring him to a flat ground with little trees around works best. Shoot the head while he runs straight at you.

How my dream implementation would look like

Territoriality:

Cougar will move into a region and start hunting prey animals. He can be seen all around the place by finding blood marks on trees and ravaged deer, bunnies and feathers in the snow. Sometimes a luckily player will see early morning hunt where cougar takes down a flock of ptarmigans.

If player continues to stay in a region where the cougar resides, like Cougar 1.0 he will vocalize at the player telling them to move out.

As a result there will much less animals left alive in the region.

Removing the cougar:

Player needs to find cougar nest and destroy it. This changes the cougar behavior where he will start hunting actively the player and become very angry. All animals instantly leave the region, even crows don't feel safe.

Fight with he cougar:

The cougar uses terrain to his advantage. He will not engage on flat terrain. He will pounce from bushes, leap down from a ledge and run away to live another day.

His attacks aren't as predicable, he can faint to the left and jump to the right when player starts aiming there. He's nimble and cannot be danced around. While running at the player he can jump of a tree or a rock.

 

How would I realize this vision using current game mechanics:

Expand territory to much bigger size, where 3 territories will cover most of the map and overlap.

Add patrol routes.

Add second attack pattern. Copy one from the wolf, we he runs to the side when near the player before jumping the player.

Increase turning speed.

Copy deer hunting AI form the wolf.

 

[OzoneOOO]

Copied from the other thread:

So, I don't think your implementation is achieving the design choice you want. Others have mentioned it but since you've laid out your intention here I'd like to attempt to convince you that you've achieved something against your intention.

You already put the cougar on remote areas of the map and made them quite dangerous. That design choice is good if you want to have an "apex predator you should avoid if you can, but look at from a distance if you like..." and also good if "the goal is to -- leave them alone".

So, if someone has a desire to do those things, you've already achieved it through that game design choice.

Where I think you're making a design mistake is in thinking that "the player who tries to hunt the Cougar for sport" is disincentivized in the slightest by having multiple cougars. In fact, for the player who tries to hunt them for sport, that's a 3 for 1 deal! Not only you do you give them more cougars, but you give them closer to the main areas. You've created a situation where hunting cougars is very profitable, if someone has the resources to do so. High risk, very high reward. Late game boss. A challenge!

It's not clear to me at all why someone who didn't want to hassle with a cougar would go out of their way to kill a cougar in the first place like you assume they will. Like I said, you've already achieved your goal with the placement. If they're willing to take on 1 away from shelter, why not 3 close to home?

Edit to add: I really like @SafeAgain's idea regarding making it a bit easier to avoid the cougar. If fighting the cougar isn't actually intended AND it has a very long sight range AND it's based on location not territory, then the initial, primary design choice that you have to ensure cougars are avoidable but watchable isn't sufficient.

You try to solve this by making escalation costly, but many players don't seem to be trying to escalate, so increasing the cost has no effect. Then we circle back to where you're increasing the reward for fighting cougars.

I think that to fulfill your design intention a better option would be this: If someone does kill a cougar, launch the 3 cougar tirade in all adjoining regions (don't even need to pretend it's a single cougar, they've been there). That way, you're not DoorDashing a cougar onto the sport hunter's doorstep, you're greatly increasing the risk for the sport hunter, and you're being lenient to the player who really did need to kill it for whatever reason. You're also fulfilling the illusion of the single cougar, who would drop off the region for X number of days.

Edited December 13, 2024 by OzoneOOO
Add based on new information

[Pencil]

Thank you for the explanation. 

I really appreciate the new cougar implementation; it still feels like an animal that is watching you and will hunt you down if threatened. That aspect is great; the damage and strength is well balanced with it's placement in the world and it's rewards for killing. 

• I also want to note that I don't enjoy the new cougars that appear in the new territories after killing a cougar. It would make sense to despawn all of the cougars once any one in the region is killed to simulate only one cougar being present in the region as a solitary animal. Killing the cougar is already difficult and costly if you miss a shot or two. 
• As a result of adding the cougar into the world, there are ways to cheese it by standing on ground it cannot reach. Since I assume it's not easy to just let the cougar climb up trees and rock faces, it should at least run away if it is shot while it cannot reach the player. Or in general, if the cougar cannot reach the player and is close to them, it should run away to make it hard to hunt unfairly. (of course, players can choose not to do this, but I think it'd be a good tweak to make)
• It would be cool to see the cougar territory extend even if you don't threaten the cougar, but instead spend 20+ days in the region. This would be the same concept as the initial cougar release where it will take more interest in you the longer you stick around. But I'm perfectly fine with the current role the cougar plays, so this is just an idea for if the cougar ever gets more future updates. 

[Tthorumsu]

Does the cougar instantly spawn in existing saves if that save already has enough days for it to spawn? Or do you need to wait the required day amount on top of the days already spent?

For example, if I have a stalker save with 174 days, will the cougar instantly spawn when I enter a region that can have cougars, or will I have to wait 20 days on top of the already existing 174 days?

Actually, that wasn't an example. I DO have a stalker save with 174 days, and the cougar doesn't spawn. So I assume I have to wait the needed 20 days on top of the 174 for it, correct? Just trying to make sure if that's it works.

[Nogitron]

Correct. You need to wait the required days. I had an existing save and went looking all over for it, only to have the cutscene occur 15 days later. 

[Lastonearound]

Hi

Xbox , Stalker, old save before "the silence was broken"

I am about 300days in and doing the Faithful Cartographer. All of the sudden pops up a cutscene with the cougar.

I did not ask for it...I enabled the trader a couple of days ago but not the cougar. 

I have about 15 locations to survey to complete the mission and I wanted to exclude the cat for now.... 

Is it not possible to opt-out on an existing save? 

Thanks 

[Nogitron]

19 minutes ago, Lastonearound said:

Is it not possible to opt-out on an existing save?

This is currently bugged. There will be a hotfix occurring on Monday which should allow you to opt out of the cougar. 

[Yimnam]

I had no chance to meet cougar at it's first version and now when I read and watch content about it I'm glad, because it would probably make me leave this game for a while.
But actually some of mechanics were pretty interesting and it did make me more curious at it's first version than now. I don't complain it's still great addition and from those two I prefer new version, but it feels just like a bear but with it's cave already marked on the map. 
I really liked idea that it spawns only when you are in area for too long and this would still work cool with new mechanics. Also it's den and ability to destroy it and get rid of cougar completely for some time was great idea. Now it only resets it's territory when you kill it as I understood. I would actually wish to have some periods of rest when I can go anywhere as reward for killing it or destroying den. Also automatic mark on the map is breaking immersion because your character can't know that it's there if they didn't saw it, and my coward ass just won't go there, instead of looking for tracks to mark it on the map by myself like it works with moose. Tracking it and marking territory would be pretty fun and exciting.
I liked first version (in theory) because it was pretty original and brought complicated mechanics not only another animal.

[Nogitron]

After a lengthy discussion with my son who also plays, this is what we feel about cougar 1.0, cougar 2.0, and our ideas for a potential cougar 3.0 in the future.

Cougar 1.0--We both preferred the general idea behind this implementation over cougar 2.0. The fact that you couldn't see the cougar until it was already eating your face seems far more realistic to what it would be like in real life, and it also fit better with the general idea that Raph has mentioned about it being something to enjoy from a distance; not something designed to be hunted. However, we both understand that a lot of players would have a desire to hunt an apex predator and the challenge that would provide, so we "get" the reason for the initial backlash.

Cougar 2.0--We feel this has gone pretty strongly against Raph's original intentions, and I think he's also been pretty clear that he feels that way, too. It also seems, however, that very few people are happy with this implementation as well, and perhaps another re-work may be needed. The strongest points to that--in my opinion--are the complaints about multiple spawns, the complaints about how wonky the pathing is, the fact that the cougar only attacks on the ground, the fact that line of sight breaks a charge, and so on. Given all of this information, our thoughts on a potential Cougar 3.0 are below.

** NOTE: Neither of us have any background in game design or computer programming of any sort. What is imaginable and what is possible are frequently at odds, and any amount (or even all) of this may not even be possible. These are just the ideas we came up with **

Cougar 3.0--We discussed at length the things that we felt would be ideal for all players--both casual and hardcore--and came up with several things that would fit with a desire to hunt, a desire to avoid, and a natural approach to what a cougar would be like in real life.

Territory--

• One cougar per save, always technically in whichever region the player is in (if a cougar-enabled region).
• Cougar exists in the game from Day 1, but will be extremely elusive. Avoiding the player entirely for a long time.
• Cougar territory is not fixed, but is more likely to process into fringes of a region, especially where elevations (trees/mountains) exist.
• Cougar territory *can* be anywhere in cougar-enabled regions, and the cougar can traverse the regions.

Hunting the Cougar--

• Hunting the Cougar requires tracking the cougar. Successful tracking will eventually lead you face to face with the animal.
• Tracking the cougar may begin in one region and end in an entirely different region.
• As Will/Astrid do not have previous cougar tracking knowledge, Cougar Tracking is a skill that must be built up on each save--thus preventing hardcore players from hunting a cougar as soon as they get their bow on day 10 or whatever, relying on personal knowledge and understanding of game mechanics. This makes the Cougar Claw Knife and Cougar Hide Wrap more of late game items.
• The Cougar Tracking skill increases naturally from: Hearing the cougar (which would be very uncommon, rather than every 10s or so like in Cougar 2.0), noticing scratches on trees, finding footprints, small animal carcasses and feathers, the mutilated deer carcasses, etc. 
• When noticing a cougar "track", you will get an idea of which direction the cougar is traveling, and how long ago the track was made.
• At lower skill levels (level 3 and below) the cougar "tracks" you notice have an increased chance to point you in the wrong direction or give an incorrect "freshness".
• When tracking a cougar, the cougar will actively avoid the player, moving all around the region--including in high-value areas--or even into a neighboring region, trying to shake the player.
• During tracking, the player will very rarely see the cougar, relying on the freshness of the "tracks" to give an idea of how close it is.
• When the player does see the cougar during tracking, it will not be possible to engage it in combat. Aiming at it (with anything other than the camera) will result in it immediately running behind some kind of cover.
• The longer the player continues to successfully track the cougar, the more aggravated the cougar gets until finally it stops avoiding the player and The Encounter occurs.
• At levels 1 and 2 of cougar tracking it will be impossible to Encounter the cougar. Your poor skill will eventually lead you astray and you will be unable to aggravate the cougar enough to cause The Encounter.
• At level 3, tracking the cougar will take effectively all day (8-12 hours), and when The Encounter occurs, there will be a 75% chance that the encounter begins with a struggle. The player doesn't even know they've found him until he's on top of them. The other 25% chance would be a very short cutscene of the player seeing the animal, and when the cutscene ends, the player will be pointed at the animal.
• At level 4, tracking will take 6-10 hours, and there is a 50% chance that The Encounter begins with a struggle.
• At level 5, tracking will take 4-8 hours, and there is a 25% chance that The Encounter begins with a struggle.
• The struggle should be like a wolf struggle, allowing the player to fight back, but without the bleed out to the animal that occurs from a wolf struggle.
• The struggle should give afflictions twice as frequently as a wolf struggle.
• Keep Severe Lacerations as one possible result of a struggle, but not a guaranteed result. Just like we don't always have blood loss from a wolf, we won't always have Severe Lacerations from the cougar.

The Encounter--Once the encounter begins (and after the struggle if it begins that way), the player may begin attempting to kill the animal

• The cougar will prefer to move from cover to cover, especially among elevation. Up trees, behind/up rocks, etc. Avoiding the ground whenever possible.
• The cougar will flee when fired upon (hit or miss) and--depending on Cougar Tracking skill--will need to be tracked again (for a much shorter time, like 15m to 1hr), or will circle back to attack the player from a different direction.
• The cougar will only attack the player from above or from behind, using the hit-and-run tactic of Cougar 2.0 or entering another struggle.
• The cougar should be significantly less tanky than it is at current. Make the fact that it's so quick, elusive, and adaptive be what makes the fight difficult. One or two shots to the head should take it down. If a player has gained the tracking skill needed to spot the cougar before the cougar initiates a struggle, after the amount of skill up and tracking time they've put in, they should have the opportunity to take it down without a serious fight. But if that fight occurs ... God help them.

The Aftermath--After the cougar is killed ...

• The player won't be able to find another cougar--or cougar tracks--in the world for the set cooldown period
• Every cougar that is killed will 1) increase the time it takes to track them, 2) increase the chance that The Encounter begins with a struggle, and 3) increase the chance that a struggle results in Severe Lacerations. Until eventually even a level 5 tracker will take 12 hours to find the cougar, The Encounter will always start with a struggle, and the struggle will always result in Severe Lacerations.

Last, the Cougar Hide Wrap should give a "Damaged Cougar Hide" when harvested, so that you can't infinitely re-create it, but only once, and resulting in a weaker version of the wrap (like 2.5c warmth and windblocking, and 3% protection).

Again, this is all just ideas, and we don't know what's possible, probable, or whatever. We also know that it's a hassle and a half to have to keep re-doing something over and over, so if Cougar 2.0 is here to stay, then that's the way it is and you won't find us complaining about it. We appreciate the hell out of Raph and the Hinterland team for all the work that they've done on this game over the years and look forward to the future in TLD and TLD II.

You guys rock!

Edited December 13, 2024 by Nogitron

[Epichron]

First, I want to say that compared to the previous iteration I think this version is much, much better, and if nothing changed from the way it is now, I would be good with it.  I appreciate that Hinterland made the effort to rework this.  The cougar is a real animal in the world, and that makes all the difference.  I think the difficulty of hunting the animal, the combat mechanics for it, and the consequences of failing are all good as is.

I agree with the statements that have been made about the territory expansion mechanic in response to hunting, and agree that, especially when the cougar is killed, it breaks the illusion and provides the wrong incentives as far as hunting.  I'm definitely on the side of hunting one cougar for the gear, and in general, waiting until that becomes pretty necessary.

The way that I would implement a mechanic to increase the danger without inverted incentives would be to have the cougar (or the next cougar, if killed) expand its starting territory instead of spawning new cougars on new territories.  That would work like this:

If a player injures a cougar, but doesn't kill it, the radius of its patrol expands.  Take the CH cougar for instance.  I have been traveling the roads up to Ravine, and even the river and by Rabbit Grove, safely (if fearfully because of the vocalizations), as far as I can tell so far.  If I injured the cougar, but then escaped from it without killing it, now its patrol would expand so that it could show up directly on those roads, or the rail bridge, or the river, or by the cabin.  If I injured it again and escaped, the territory would expand again, and now it could show up as far as the fishing village and the bridge at the end of the river.  This would be the same injured cougar with whatever hp loss I had inflicted (or maybe it could heal slowly over days).  The territory would remain expanded until that cougar was killed.  The price of engaging it is losing safety in that area.

If the cougar was killed after the injure-and-escape sequence above, the territory would remain expanded to the same size it had grown to after the next cougar respawned, starting to contract again only after respawn if the next cougar is left alone in steps of maybe 10-20 days each size jump until it was again the original size.  This would add some continuous danger to those areas as a consequence for having messed with a cougar. If the cougar was killed outright in the first encounter with it, the territory for the next cougar would be one step larger -- threatening roads, river, and the Ravine exit in my example.

If a cougar is killed, I think it should have respawn period similar to a bear or moose.  Cougars should be rare and Great Bear shouldn't look like it has an infinite supply of them, which I think it does with the current expansion mechanic and the fact that they respawn so quickly.  Taking the risk to kill a cougar and being successful should grant some safety on that map for a period of time.  But the respawn period should have some randomness, so a player would never quite know when the roads around a messed-with cougar would become safe again (couldn't just journal and count 50 days, for instance), just that it would be a fairly long time.

I think putting back the den mechanic could be good, too.  It could be a way to get safety in an area without having to engage and kill a cougar (as long as it were actually possible to accomplish).  I think having a nonviolent way to deter the cougar for a time to get access to an area would be good.

Final point: I had to kill my first cougar because I was doing the trader tale and needed to get to the prepper cache in Blackrock.  The cougar there is right on the road and that area is so narrow I don't think there's any safe way past it without killing it given its senses (it was indeed standing right in the middle of the road when I first saw it).  Placement such that initial territories don't threaten exploration to key map points (but patrol expansion after injuring or killing them does) helps invert the incentives back in the correct direction.

Thank you for coming to my TLD talk.

 

[Epichron]

7 minutes ago, Nogitron said:

After a lengthy discussion with my son who also plays, this is what we feel about cougar 1.0, cougar 2.0, and our ideas for a potential cougar 3.0 in the future.

Cougar 1.0--We both preferred the general idea behind this implementation over cougar 2.0. The fact that you couldn't see the cougar until it was already eating your face seems far more realistic to what it would be like in real life, and it also fit better with the general idea that Raph has mentioned about it being something to enjoy from a distance; not something designed to be hunted. However, we both understand that a lot of players would have a desire to hunt an apex predator and the challenge that would provide, so we "get" the reason for the initial backlash.

Cougar 2.0--We feel this has gone pretty strongly against Raph's original intentions, and I think he's also been pretty clear that he feels that way, too. It also seems, however, that very few people are happy with this implementation as well, and perhaps another re-work may be needed. The strongest points to that--in my opinion--are the complaints about multiple spawns, the complaints about how wonky the pathing is, the fact that the cougar only attacks on flat ground, the fact that line of sight breaks a charge, and so on. Given all of this information, our thoughts on a potential Cougar 3.0 are below.

** NOTE: Neither of us have any background in game design or computer programming of any sort. What is imaginable and what is possible are frequently at odds, and any amount (or even all) of this may not even be possible. These are just the ideas we came up with **

Cougar 3.0--We discussed at length the things that we felt would be ideal for all players--both casual and hardcore--and came up with several things that would fit with a desire to hunt, a desire to avoid, and a natural approach to what a cougar would be like in real life.

• One cougar per save, always technically in whichever region the player is in.
• Cougar exists in the game from Day 1, but will be extremely elusive. Avoiding the player entirely for a long time.
• Cougar territory is not fixed, but is more likely to process into fringes of a region, especially where elevations (trees/mountains) exist.
• Cougar territory *can* be anywhere in cougar-enabled regions, and the cougar can traverse the regions.
• Hunting the Cougar requires tracking the cougar. Successful tracking will eventually lead you face to face with the animal.
• Tracking the cougar may begin in one region and end in an entirely different region.
• As Will/Astrid do not have previous cougar tracking knowledge, Cougar Tracking is a skill that must be built up on each save--thus preventing hardcore players from hunting a cougar as soon as they get their bow on day 10 or whatever, relying on personal knowledge and understanding of game mechanics. This makes the Cougar Claw Knife and Cougar Hide Wrap more of late game items.
• The Cougar Tracking skill increases naturally from: Hearing the cougar (which would be very uncommon, rather than every 10s or so like in Cougar 2.0), noticing scratches on trees, finding footprints, small animal carcasses and feathers, the mutilated deer carcasses, etc. 
• When noticing a cougar "track", you will get an idea of which direction the cougar is traveling, and how long ago the track was made.
• At lower skill levels (level 3 and below) the cougar "tracks" you notice have an increased chance to point you in the wrong direction or give an incorrect "freshness".
• When tracking a cougar, the cougar will actively avoid the player, moving all around the region--including in high-value areas--or even into a neighboring region, trying to shake the player.
• During tracking, the player will never actually see the cougar, but the freshness of the "tracks" will give an idea of how close it is.
• The longer the player continues to successfully track the cougar, the more aggravated the cougar gets until finally it stops avoiding the player and The Encounter occurs.
• At levels 1 and 2 of cougar tracking it will be impossible to Encounter the cougar. Your poor skill will eventually lead you astray and you will be unable to aggravate the cougar enough to cause The Encounter.
• At level 3, tracking the cougar will take effectively all day (8-12 hours), and when The Encounter occurs, there will be a 75% chance that the encounter begins with a struggle. The player doesn't even know they've found him until he's on top of them. The other 25% chance would be a very short cutscene of the player seeing the animal, and when the cutscene ends, the player will be pointed at the animal.
• At level 4, tracking will take 6-10 hours, and there is a 50% chance that The Encounter begins with a struggle.
• At level 5, tracking will take 4-8 hours, and there is a 25% chance that The Encounter begins with a struggle.
• The struggle should be like a wolf struggle, allowing the player to fight back, but without the bleed out to the animal that occurs from a wolf struggle.
• The struggle should give afflictions twice as frequently as a wolf struggle.
• Keep Severe Lacerations as one possible result of a struggle, but not a guaranteed result. Just like we don't always have blood loss from a wolf, we won't always have Severe Lacerations from the cougar.

The Encounter--Once the encounter begins (and after the struggle if it begins that way), the player may begin attempting to kill the animal

• The cougar will prefer to move from cover to cover, especially among elevation. Up trees, behind/up rocks, etc. Avoiding the ground whenever possible.
• The cougar will flee when fired upon (hit or miss) and--depending on Cougar Tracking skill--will need to be tracked again (for a much shorter time, like 15m to 1hr), or will circle back to attack the player from a different direction.
• The cougar will only attack the player from above or from behind, using the hit-and-run tactic of Cougar 2.0 or entering another struggle.
• The cougar should be significantly less tanky than it is at current. Make the fact that it's so quick, elusive, and adaptive be what makes the fight difficult. One or two shots to the head should take it down. If a player has gained the tracking skill needed to spot the cougar before the cougar initiates a struggle, after the amount of skill up and tracking time they've put in, they should have the opportunity to take it down without a serious fight. But if that fight occurs ... God help them.

The Aftermath--After the cougar is killed ...

• The player won't be able to find another cougar in the world for the set cooldown period
• Every cougar that is killed will 1) increase the time it takes to track them, 2) increase the chance that The Encounter begins with a struggle, and 3) increase the chance that a struggle results in Severe Lacerations. Until eventually even a level 5 tracker will take 12 hours to find the cougar, The Encounter will always start with a struggle, and the struggle will always result in Severe Lacerations.

Last, the Cougar Hide Wrap should give a "Damaged Cougar Hide" when harvested, so that you can't infinitely re-create it, but only once, and resulting in a weaker version of the wrap (like 2.5c warmth and windblocking, and 3% protection).

Again, this is all just ideas, and we don't know what's possible, probable, or whatever. We also know that it's a hassle and a half to have to keep re-doing something over and over, so if Cougar 2.0 is here to stay, then that's the way it is and you won't find us complaining about it. We appreciate the hell out of Raph and the Hinterland team for all the work that they've done on this game over the years and look forward to the future in TLD and TLD II.

You guys rock!

 

I don't agree with all of this, but this approach has a lot of merit also.  In particular, I don't think it makes sense that the encounters get worse and worse with each one, but I do get the motivation to limit just repeat hunting them on a save.  I would also include during the tracking being able to actually catch sight of the cougar in an unreachable way: it would be great as an alternative to hunting them to track them to get a picture from a distance, for example.  It think part of the intention in 2.0 was the ability to see them from a distance and be able to leave them alone.

[Nogitron]

Just now, Epichron said:

I would also include during the tracking being able to actually catch sight of the cougar in an unreachable way: it would be great as an alternative to hunting them to track them to get a picture from a distance, for example.  It think part of the intention in 2.0 was the ability to see them from a distance and be able to leave them alone.

That's a great point. Consider this a bullet point in my post.

[Cheeki]

The thing that i keep asking and i cant seem to find an aswer to is this:

When you kill the cougar and the new territories pop up. Do those territories instanly spawn a cougar or there is a timer? De facto, kill a cougar, have 2 more spawn in that region instantly.

Or those territories mean that if you dwell enough and keep messing with the cougar, then there will be 3 as time goes 

There is a huge difference between the two.

Anyhow, i think there are a bit too many cougars. I think there should also be a kind of spawn/despawn mechanic independent of the player action. Like the cougar territory could actually not have one active for a while without the player killing it. Same as with moose.

Im not saying that its "too hard", im saying that too much of a good thing can become stale. Having spawn/despawn mechanics can make people that hunt the cougar travel more. Not just farm them.

 

[OzoneOOO]

3 hours ago, Cheeki said:

The thing that i keep asking and i cant seem to find an aswer to is this:

When you kill the cougar and the new territories pop up. Do those territories instanly spawn a cougar or there is a timer? De facto, kill a cougar, have 2 more spawn in that region instantly.

Or those territories mean that if you dwell enough and keep messing with the cougar, then there will be 3 as time goes 

There is a huge difference between the two.

Anyhow, i think there are a bit too many cougars. I think there should also be a kind of spawn/despawn mechanic independent of the player action. Like the cougar territory could actually not have one active for a while without the player killing it. Same as with moose.

Im not saying that its "too hard", im saying that too much of a good thing can become stale. Having spawn/despawn mechanics can make people that hunt the cougar travel more. Not just farm them.

 

The new territories instantly spawn a cougar. It's meant to be "the same cougar" but due to various limitations and design choices it's 3 separate spawns. I'm not sure about the 2 spawn upon killing a cougar. I suspect so, though it's probably more "shoot it once, get one territory, shoot it twice, get two territories, shoot it more to kill it".

There is some interaction with the player, in that the extra territories despawn after 5 days sequentially. But yeah, I don't think it just disappears on it's own.

As far as I can tell, if you want all cougars off the map, you need to kill "it" 3 times and then there's a respawn timer for each cougar. If I understand correctly, to maximize the time you don't have a cougar, the optimal strategy would be to attack the first one twice, go kill the 2nd and 3rd one, then go kill the first one, who won't respawn for several days....but I'm not sure that I understand the respawn mechanics completely correctly.

And I don't think it's too hard at all. If you want to kill it, it's pretty easy, apparently. It's only hard if you want to avoid it, which is unfortunate and completely backwards from what the stated intent is.

[CrazyLazyCat]

I don't like Cougar 2.0, especially with the 'Proliferation' feat.

I feel Cougar 1.0 was a more interesting mechanic because it forced you to keep moving rather than just surviving in one spot. Don’t get me wrong—on maps with abundant fishing, it’s already possible to survive indefinitely on difficulties below Interloper, and that gets boring quickly. Cougar 1.0 had a good concept, but it could have been better implemented as an actual predator roaming the map to keep players on their toes.

Cougar 2.0, however, feels disconnected from that idea. It’s just another predator that the game didn’t really need. What’s worse is that you’re incentivized to leave it alone, which undermines the tension it’s supposed to bring. If anything, it should work the opposite way—if left alone for too long, it could start to proliferate and grow in number. On the other hand, if you kill it or leave the region for a few days, it could respawn in a single location.

 

The proliferation uppon killing is totally unintuitive and Will puzzle unadiviced players, many like me, would think its a bug.

That being said, even after 2.35 my dead cougars are respawning in less than 24h, dont tell me this is also intended.

Edited December 14, 2024 by CrazyLazyCat

[Veskaida]

Cougar 1.0 was okay, but it was pretty clearly inferior/underdeveloped compared to 2.0, which is better in all aspects. The best parts of 1.0 (the Cougar's model, animations, struggle animation, SFX, music) are still present in the new version, so you aren't missing anything by not experiencing that early version, but if you're so inclined you can still play it on Time Capsule (I wouldn't recommend it honestly). I haven't explored too many Cougar Territories for 2.0 yet, so I don't know if Cougar Dens (and their Noisemaker interactions) is a deprecated mechanic, but I've searched for Cougar Dens (following the music as it gets louder) and have been unable to find one in Coastal Highway.

Haven't tested it extensively as well, but I think there 'is' an in-game explanation for the "Cougar Territory" icons on your map. I think these areas show up after picking up these "Cougar Warning Flyers" in:

• Camp Office, ML
• Park Office, MT

Additionally there are two new notes about Cougars in:

• Naturalist Note 1: Notes about Cougar inside the hopper in Transfer Pass (thingy over the train tracks)
• Naturalist Note 2: Notes about the Cougar in (Ambler's Lake, SP)

 

Edited December 14, 2024 by Veskaida

[Leeanda]

2 minutes ago, Veskaida said:

Cougar 1.0 was okay, but it was pretty clearly inferior/underdeveloped compared to 2.0, which is better in all aspects. The best parts of 1.0 (the Cougar's model, animations, struggle animation, SFX, music) are still present in the new version, so you aren't missing anything by not experiencing that early version, but if you're so inclined you can still play it on Time Capsule (I wouldn't recommend it honestly). I haven't explored too many Cougar Territories for 2.0 yet, so I don't know if Cougar Dens (and their Noisemaker interactions) is a deprecated mechanic, but I've searched for Cougar Dens (following the music as it gets louder) and have been unable to find one in Coastal Highway.

Haven't tested it extensively as well, but I think there 'is' an in-game explanation for the "Cougar Territory" icons on your map. I think these areas show up after picking up these "Cougar Warning Flyers" in:

• Camp Office, ML
• Park Office, MT

Additionally there are two new notes about Cougars in:

• Naturalist Note 1: Notes about Cougar inside the hopper in Transfer Pass (thingy over the train tracks)
• Naturalist Note 2: Notes about the Cougar in (Ambler's Lake, SP)

 

What do you mean inferior? I think that's rather insulting to htl..   just because you prefer the second version doesn't make the first inferior.

 

[Veskaida]

1 hour ago, Leeanda said:

What do you mean inferior?...

I meant that I think Cougar 2.0 is superior to Cougar 1.0 in all aspects, and like I said I think 2.0 carries over the best aspects of 1.0: music, model, struggle animation, etc..

1 hour ago, Leeanda said:

...just because you prefer the second version doesn't make the first inferior.

That is true, but that also isn't what I said. I said that I think the second version is better (superior vs inferior), not which version I "preferred". There are aspects about Cougar 1.0 I enjoy more (e.g. the feeling you are being constantly hunted); but "like vs dislike" is preference, objective criticism is saying I think the mechanics/systems for one version are better (irregardless of like or dislike).

1 hour ago, Leeanda said:

What do you mean inferior? I think that's rather insulting to htl..

You think it is insulting that Hinterlands remade The Cougar, and that I think Cougar 2.0 is better? Not sure I follow your logic, and definitely disagree. What about Wintermute Redux Episodes 1 and 2: if a player says they think the Redux versions are "superior" to Predux, is that an insult to Hinterlands? Not even sure what you're trying to suggest.

Are you advocating Hinterlands should not have "redux" Wintermute or made Cougar 2.0, even after player feedback? I think that even if you like aspects of Predux or Cougar 1.0, that is is a difficult argument to justify that the 2.0 versions are not objectively better executed. Which makes sense, since they are building off the foundations of an already attempted system. Are you arguing that e.g. Cougar 1.0 is released and players do not like it's implementation: that they should not say/do nothing: no feedback to Hinterlands, no bug reports, no constructive criticism, no Hinterlands forum/Steam/Discord/Wiki comments?

Edited December 14, 2024 by Veskaida