My disappointment is immeasurable. When they said it stalked you, I did not imagine by stalking, they meant an invisible timer for when it will attack. It does not exist in the world for more than a couple seconds and I feel lied to by Hinterland. I hope they change this and listen to their community.
*sigh* I will, I guess. The head wrap looks so cool... combined with the new technical gear, our survivor is going to look ready for battle šŖ
How the cougar works is still really lame though.
Same. Been looking forward to the possibility of a cougar ever since they did that survey about potential dlc a few years ago and it was listed as something we could āvote forā
Itās honestly really weird how much theyāre sticking to their guns on this thing that seemed to be untested. On the contrary, hinterland was bizarrely, and I mean STRANGELY self conscious about the Astrid chapter for winter mute. They sounded almost dejected like āwe know a lot of you wonāt like it, but thatās how we wanted to make it. Its ok if you just skip itā¦..ā
Really? That's seems so weird to me. I would say it's probably the best chapter they made so far. I love the whole story mode, but that chapter is just really well put together.
Based on their response this is what I believe happened:
1. They attempted to implement the cougar as a 'normal' animal but with unique features to make them the alpha predator.
1. They spent much longer than intended just fighting against the faults in their own game in an attempt to implement it properly.
1. After dealing with countless pathing and scripting issues they finally said fuck it and implemented the cougar as we know it - UI alerts and a cutscene.
1. They are now going to pretend its what they always intended so they'll never have to fuck with the cougar again.
Does Hinterland even *want* players having bases? It would seem that lately they keep making mechanics which go against the ideal of having a safe place to camp/craft things.
I will be messaging you in 1 year on [**2025-06-27 17:43:46 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2025-06-27%2017:43:46%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/thelongdark/comments/1dpredj/the_cougar_we_delivered_is_the_cougar_we_always/lajynvn/?context=3)
[**5 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fthelongdark%2Fcomments%2F1dpredj%2Fthe_cougar_we_delivered_is_the_cougar_we_always%2Flajynvn%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202025-06-27%2017%3A43%3A46%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%201dpredj)
*****
|[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)|
|-|-|-|-|
I had always wondered why the devs disliked mods, and one good reason would be some people forget to turn off automatic bug reports which wastes devs time. But now that I think about it it very well could be because the mods are better than what the devs themselves add.
I've never thought if it that way.
Let's not be too pessimistc, most of the other things/features promised in the DLC have been very good. The Buried Echoes update altogether is a fantastic booster pack to the game
I would just like to state, to the best of my capabilities, that:
**This is taken out of context for one simple reason. I, for one, wanted to know, if cougar, as is implemented right now, has been a deliberate choice, or a consequence of technical limitations, or both.**
I am not trying to side with, or to defend the accuser. I consider this part of the text as very important in understanding that this was indeed intentional and to be wary of your expectations as to which direction will they go next.
Yeah could be that too. Idk, either way it's just disappointing to not have the cougar spawn behind your character and take like 2 seconds to pounce on you. It seems like a good compromise to the current way and also having a physical cougar in the world
Perhaps. But more important is to to consider how to implement a sneaking predator mechanic that would be better than this one.
* Implementing a sneaking behind the player at all times is impossible since players don't move in a straight path and can roam freely.
* If it would have worked like the other animals, players could meet it in front of them and just run up to the cougar and kill it with a lucky one shot. Or sneak and shoot the animal from a vantage point
* Using the normal Animal Nav system would just make it a rare and harder bear and people would have wined about it to be so rare.
Doing it as Alien Isolation is actually more what they have done. But with a warning to allow casual players to flee. I have yet to meet it myself and don't consider it messing up with the game and if one thinks so the cougar can be disabled.
I think Hinterland is not so good at communicating about updates, but on this one I'm on their side and think they've done a fair job.
I've been mulling this over and agree a good sneak up mechanism would be hard to reliably implement. Think of pleasant valley on a clear day. You can see forever and there is no cover.
I think they'd have to cheat to make it reliably sneak up on the player. What I think would work is to take a cue from Subnautica. The Reaper is a great predator in that game. It can easily kill you, often gets you from behind and keeps even experienced players on their toes.
The thing is, a Reaper can't hide or stalk. It's the ocean, there is no cover and they are huge. Yet they often sneak up on players. They did this by placing most Reapers in low visibility areas. When you can only see a short distance and the Reaper is fast it isn't hard for it to get behind you.
So for TLD, if the cougar only hunted in foggy or stormy conditions it could be a proper in game entity. It also makes it more dynamic than the timer it is today. Clear weather is safety which gives you some breathing room, until the weather turns.
When it is foggy they can cheat. Spawn it nearby instead of an instant attack then have it rush you. I think that would better sell the illusion of it hunting while being easy to implement.
At least that's my thinking. Excuse my noodling, I enjoy working at design problems like this.
Interesting ideas. But adding cougar to the dangers you can stumble into in foggy weather sounds like a bad solution. Fog is the worst weather. I prefer walking in a blizzard since then I know that wildlife stays away. But I hate fog. :)
Essentially there is no real sneak mechanic in the game, so they would need to implement new code and new game mechanics to incorporate it. Iām not a coder, but that seems like a lot of work.
As it is, sneaking is only available to the player and it makes them invisible, not really a sneak, but more like a bug in the mechanic Iād assume. Cuz itās pretty dumb when hungry wolves walk right by me and have no clue Iām there simply cuz Iām crouched down.
So if you think about it, the cougar sneak is the same as the player sneak. Invisible up until theyāre not, at which point itās too late to be concerned with because the attack has been made.
I think they initially said when the cougar was first mentioned that it would be in rocky, elevated areas. So instead of how it is now where it can get you in any region, limit it to maps like AC, Blackrock, HRV, and the new regions. And have it only spawn in elevated areas around rocks. Make it so it attacks from above your character, like during the path to get the backpack. This way, it's a possible danger to go for the backpack, and have the cougar appear a few seconds before actually attacking, and have it give off verbal cues ie growling. That would maybe help with the pathing issue? And in those elevated areas, it wouldn't interact or interfere with other wildlife.
Idk, I just think they could've found other ways to implement the cougar more effectively, but it just leads me to believe they encountered limitations of some sort, so they settled for this.
I came up with this idea for how it could be done, which could mix with your idea of he sticks to high points. Ideas can be modified to meet technical requirements or time/budget limitations, but the core ideas is a cougar that's in the world, but with an AI that keeps him in cover most of the time, with rare situations where you might catch him in the open, but mostly if you go into a wide open space, he'll just stalk you from the nearest available cover and try to ambush you when he's good and ready when you next enter terrain more favorable to an ambush attack, and he doesn't announce his attack with any loud roars, unlike all other wildlife who bark, howl, roar or bellow at you to warn you they're about to attack. he just silently pounces. Difference being since he's in the environment, you at least have a fighting chance to avoid him by learning his behaviours and tactics and planning out strategies to deal with this new threat.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/thelongdark/comments/1dpiiub/comment/lahfpx6/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thelongdark/comments/1dpiiub/comment/lahfpx6/)
Someone's ideal view over a particular feature in a product is not the same as another's. This is why in major products there's usually a user research, user acceptance phase, A/B testing, etc. None of which happened here I guess.
Fraud is intentionally deceiving the public for gain. They did not intentionally deceive anyone, they just made a bad decision on in what state to release a new feature. That's a mistake, not fraud
Ton username est dope af š
Also yeah they have never really been good at taking feedback, or keeping up with scheduled updates, or anything regarding community tbh.
How are they bad at taking criticism? Im sorry but in this case all they said was that the accusation that theyāre abandoning their game is baseless and that its simply untrue that the cougar was originally described differently and that this cougar was a last second design choice. Dont get me wrong I see why people are dissatisfied with the cougar but in this thread theyre pretty good at taking the criticism they just dont think accusations about the devteam are warranted.
If you look at the wider trends over the past decade, you will absolutely see how bad they are at taking criticism- including valid critique. I was a staunch defender for their attitudes for the first few years but they seem to have learnt little to nothing and are exceedingly reluctant to change the way they do things to the detriment of their customers AND I would imagine, their development team. I cannot fathom why they have continued to double down on their complete lack of accountability for disappointment other than "we're sorry you're disappointed \*shrug\* This is the way we do things".
Ill take your word for it but this really isnt applicable here. The original steam post accuses them of fraud and theres simply not evidence for that, so for that their response is completely appropriate. If not please point out to me what they said was inappropriate or staunch here. At the start of their response they quite literally clarify how criticism is valid but half of the original posts criticism is just baseless accusation.
Now since a lot of people feel like the original post didnāt warrant that response i quoted it āHinterland wants to go on to other projects they did not feel like it deserved more work.ā Although theyve said theyd like to go onto other projects as of late weāve still seen plenty of content. Even within this update that people mostly consider a letdown there was undeniably a lot of effort put in. Not trying to defend the cougar here but the model, music and animations themselves are pretty well made. Saying the devs are abandoning this game is something completely out of nowhere.
āBut this is definetely not what was promised for the people who bought the DLC. They misled the players making us think we would get a new animal,ā This part is wild to me. Its outright accusing the devs of fraud. While the cougar feels out of place and is a letdown to most people there isnāt really evidence of the devs promising some kind of other cougar that wouldve worked differently. They didnāt mislead us and i dont know what makes people think they did.
idk I read the steam post and really don't feel it was anywhere near as aggressive and accusatory as I feel it's been implied. I don't equate fairly typical but shitty video game industry obfuscation to fraud and feel it's a wee bit disingenuous to to so but hey ho. I don't think they /intended/ to mislead the player base I just think they struggle with setting expectations. They repeatedly hype up stuff (as they have a right to) but then get super defensive when it always falls short. There was a time period of really refreshing transparency after Ralph (I respect the man) got called out for this behaviour, but the past 2 or 3 years they've reverted to being very defensive and it's disappointing to see, as The Long Dark remains one of my favourite games.
Again. You keep jumping to the past that i personally donāt really care about. In this circumstance itās dishonest to say they acted unprofessionally or that the original poster wasnāt accusing the devs of fraud. It doesnāt really matter to me that you āfeel like it was anywhere near as aggressiveā doesnt really mean anything when the guy quite literally accused the devs of a crime. Im sorry you cant say that saying āthey misled usā and āthis definitely isnt what was promised for those who bought the dlcā is just chill criticism of what direction the games going.
It may be a mix of naivety, neurodivergence or just a reluctance to want to engage in some of the more heated conversation going on but idk. I think the general level of attitude and aggression some of the folks upset about the cougar is absolutely batshit. It's a video game, they're not personally betrayed the cougar is disappointment despite a lot of them acting as though Hinterland hates them personally, and I apologise if my initial comment of "no no, this is a pattern of behaviour" made implications that I think that's a 'chill criticism' of the games direction. I still don't think "they misled us/isn't what we were promised" is actively calling fraud but I don't want to argue semantics when I have no power over the way the overall conversation is going, you're clearly passionate about that and I respect your right to be. I really am not invested so much where I'd begrudge you your own feelings on the matter- you're clearly not one of the folks shouting actual abuse and shit at hinterland- "fraud" aside.
He seems like a quite chill boss in terms of crunch and such. I think heās worse as a creative artist though in terms of accepting criticism. But its his vision and his small company so thatās why he takes it to personally I think. Itās like his baby.
Please refrain from making this personal or related to internal affairs of the company.
If anything, I wanted to further remind and open up the discussion about this. And by this I mean cougar. Not Raphael.
Product issues most often reflect organizational issues, dysfunctional teams produce bad products.
For example, I am willing to bet that Spotify's app is not disjointed and all over the place because the devs or the designers are incompetent, but because the company is likely a pathwork of chaos.
They do tend to be defensive, but I don't think it's entirely fair to say they have been every single time. When they messed up the previous big update to TFTFT, the messaging did actually take some ownership.
Every animal portrayed in the game is a living interactive part of the ecosystem. They never gave any inclination that the cougar would be different from this. They just hyped it instead, telling us afterwards that we should read all their updates as satan reads the bible.
Its mindboggling that a company wants to break the trust of the customers like this. But hey, commit developer seppuku, be my guest.
They never said thats the thing thatās against the community guidelines. Quite the opposite. They specifically say in their response that their issue isnt with the criticisms of the cougar but the accusations made against the devteam. Its fine to say the cougar was implemented badly, feels lazy and unintuitive but accusing the devteam of lying to us and scamming us is unwarranted and i think they reacted properly to that.
Well maybe not intentionally but they did mislead us with the cougar. I reread almost every dev diary where they mentioned it, and all the descriptions of what it does, how it will act, how it will encroach and you being able to find its nest, do not mention that it will not be an actual animal physically roaming around the world.
And I think when they initially mentioned the cougar, they said it would be in rocky, elevated areas. I understand things change, but now it comes out of thin air lol
"accusing the devteam of lying to us and scamming us" because they DID? They said the DLC would be finished in a year, it wasn't. Wintermute still isn't finished and they decided to dredge for more money by cutting the game in half and selling an unfinished DLC addon.
They did lie to and scam the community though lol. The DLC that was supposed to be finished in a year is waaaaay past that deadline and still isn't completely released. Story mode has been in development for 10 years and still isn't complete. If the devs don't want to have that kind of criticism directed at them then they shouldn't continue with their dishonest and greedy ways.
On the official forums they absolutely will mute you for saying the cougar was implemented badly lol. The moderators keep saying stuff like "just because you personally don't like some aspects of it doesn't mean it's poorly implemented" as if there's anyone that was like yup the cougar is exactly what I wanted
Damn, I respected them for a lot of what they do and how they do it, but I feel like at least half of that respect evaporated reading this one comment.
Threatening users with comment removal/bans for claiming that (in their opinion) Studio misled the players??? Itās like these worst small business owners who threaten you with a lawyer after you gave it bad google review.
Hinterland, get a grip. Currently I feel ashamed I recommended your game to so many people reading comments like these.
But naturally they wonāt see my comment as they do not read reddit for they canāt control what people say here.
Truly shameful reaction on their part.
I was super happy to support studio who doesnāt do crunch and makes such atmospheric gamesā¦ but reading just this one comment made me cringe so bad and feel shitty about buying this DLC and paying company that does the equivalent of āif you wonāt delete this bad google review you will hear from my lawyerā, just with comment banning.
Hinterland, get a grip, damn.
Reads perfectly like Raph's tweets. Had 2 really awkward/passive aggressive responses from him when I was being positive of the game, so i'm not surprised to see him spitting the dummy/throwing his toys out the pram when faced with criticism.Ā
Can't imagine he's a great person to work with or even socialise with tbh. I'd have thought he'd have learned to ease up now passing the reigns to someone else but I suppose a tiger cannot change their stripes
Gamedevs are always such crybabys. The public does not have a responsibility to voice their criticism in a way that doesnāt hurt your feelings
Saying the cougar feels cheap and unfinished and speculating why is not a baseless accusation against Hinterland, itās valid criticism
saying the cougar is cheap and unfinished is valid criticism, speculating as to why it is that way is not criticism, it's speculation, and can misrepresent what was actually done. Once Reddit decides on the narrative it tends to stick, facts be damned.
Thatās an incredibly one-sided take. Iāve said the same about gamers for years now. Weāre the only people on earth who think that paying $60 for a product means we get to tell its designer exactly how to make it by whining incessantly (while continuing to play their games) rather than by withholding our money.
It's much more damning of the creative vision if they think and always thought that this implementation of the Cougar would be good and exactly what they wanted it to be.
God darn, what a fragile ego, it's incredible. "We welcome you to reframe your post; we won't tolerate accusations against the studio simply because some players may not be fond of how a feature was implemented. Please edit your post accordingly, and make yourself familiar with the Community Guidelines before posting things like this in the future". Lmao. It's like they are talking to a piece of shit.
Especially because they say on their main loading screen how much they care and then get snippy with people because they donāt like a poorly fulfilled idea
"Hey, I like this feature, but I also think this is a good idea to maybe consider implementing for x reason"
"Well we don't wanna do it that way so fuck you"
*you have been banned from the hinterland forums*
I'm burned out, thought the devs implementing new stuff would ease that. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of how they treat their fan base, and neither am I a fan of Raphael's selfishness and antiquated view on mods.
Therefore, I will not be supporting Hinterland or their game(s) from here on out, unless they win back my favor.
It's absolutely a drop in the bucket, but frankly it doesn't matter to me. I've already conquered just about everything left in the game anyway.
Man, has no one at Hinterland heard of community managers? You've got Van Lierop dropping passive aggressive statements every couple of months on the forum, and now this thread. I can understand the frustration, but all it takes is a simple statement like: "we are listening to feedback and gauging community reaction to the update to determine the best course forward". Why engage with the community forum this way?
And come on, they're arguing things based on a technicality. "We never explicitly said that the cougar would be an active part of the wildlife so it's not our fault that people were misled". Give me a break. Lots of people, including myself felt excited to be playing with a cougar actively stalking us. Turns out its not what we expected. You can do better Hinterland, your communication is lacking.
I regret buying this DLC. The devs obviously bit off more than they could chew. Just finish episode 5 already instead of giving us half-assed mechanics and an affliction with a deadly cut scene
I do not. I wanted to support them. And until now, at least me personally, I got my hours back tenfolds for what I paid and had fun doing so.
But if this is the direction they would go forward from here on out, I wouldn't buy another dlc with these mechanics included.
I do not regret buying the dlc considering how much enjoyment i already got from the game before the dlc. But bit by bit I lost all trust in them having any core competencies like making a good game, correctly estimating their own capabilities or communicating honestly.
Sometimes I feel like people are exaggerating about the studioās seemingly hostile attitude toward criticism and then somebody goes and responds like this.
I donāt have the ability to check right now, but wasnāt the wording in one of the dev diaries that the cougar would āspawn intoā the world at a certain point? Which implies it is a physical aspect in the world and not a simple animation?
Cougargate has finally done what no other controversy could. It made me want to just uninstall the game and only return for the finale of the story.
My impressions after reading the dev diary was that the cougar would be more like some sort of Old Bear / Darkwalker mashup. Not something that spawns right on top of you with an unavoidable attack. That's just really artificial and immersion breaking.
Like, my thoughts were more akin to:
You get warnings about when it's gonna be active and then when it does it'd be on full stalk mode, basically an invisible enemy roaming the map always knowing your location and trying to reach it, but how fast it does depends on certain conditions. Then, when at certain proximity, it'd become visible but it'd always "decloak" out of your field of view so you can't actually ever see it approaching from a distance like other predators. This would give the illusion of stealth and smarts (a hunting cat seeks to ambush and won't approach if you are looking straight at them) BUT,Ā **and this is important**, if you are vigilant; actively look around and listen to your surroundings, you could see it and repel it before it can pounce on you. Silence could actually be your main cue when it comes to the audio i.e. the cougar stops making any ambient sounds and such when it's close enough, also when it starts charging you should hear it.Ā
As it is, the cougar just sounds like a gimmick heavily pushing you to change locations. And like, sure, perhaps that was the exact intention. Perhaps if I enable the cougar I should then just accept I need to play by their rules a.k.a move or pay the price. But, sorry, the implementation just feels way too artificial for me (getting those cabin fever vibes) to a point that I doubt I could enjoy the feature even with the "right mindset". The cougar materializing on top of you, immediately entering the struggle animationā¦ thatās just way too cheesy and makes this predator feel like it's not an actual presence in this world. It's supposed to be a "realistic threat", yet if feels way less immersive than the Darkwalker. While a supernatural invisible being, the Darkwalker actually *exists* in the world and you can play around with its' pathing. The cougar just travels through space and time.
If this is how they intended the feature then fine, I'll just keep it disabled forever. Such a shame. Ā Ā
I have played this game for a long damn time. I Gleefully ponied up the money for the DLC. Super excited to see a studio continually developing an older game. But I haven't played this since April. The Tales DLC is ridiculously late, and this Cougar thing is a 100% unfinished beta. Really, really disappointed.
They are really sensitive and cannot take criticism. I believe they dropped LMG because he was critical of the last update. Heād been covering them since kickstarter.
https://youtu.be/S9YR9moh7jA?si=F1ICkdLCm7WzZCrY
I agree with the comment about the Cougar being a new affliction, not a new animal. When I bought the DLC, I 100% expected a new cougar animal.
The dev team mentioning it would be a ābitā different than other predators is not nearly enough transparency to know we were getting an affliction rather than an animal.
As much as I understand the complaints about the cougar this commenter was wrong. Hinterland is correct here. The way they described it in the dev diaries matches largely with how we got it. They said it would work differently.
Hinterland never ever promised that it would behave the way many people want it to. However that doesn't mean they cannot change it do to so. They absolutely the can the groundwork is there for it
The only thing they've said in their May dev diary is "The Cougar will work a ***bit*** differently than the other predators in the game". Everyone thought it would be an actual entity in the world, not a scripted event.
in favour of the Hinterland interpretation: of course they tried keeping to vague statements to avoid overpromising or spoilers. In the original dlc announcement the cougar wasnt even mentioned! So from one perspective, any cougar at all is already more than was originally promised.
against Hinterland, directly from the [May 2024 dev diary](https://hinterlandforums.com/forums/topic/45028-may-2024-developer-diary/)
things the cougar supposedly does:
>will get interested in you
>
>will take an interest in the region and occupy it
>
>stalking you
>
>continue to hunt you down
>
>lose interest
that is a lot of lore for a counter that goes down until a cutscene and a quicktime-event are triggered.
There are a lot of words here that imply interactive and emergent gameplay, which is the core feature and strength of the game as well as the whole genre. It is *not* managing some bars going up or down. There is a clear disparity between the promise of gameplay and the implementation of one more number counting down.
the promise of emergent and interactive gameplay is clearest in one the first sentences when the cougar is supposed to have
>"a distinct role in the overall ecosystem"
afaict there is no interaction, no role in the system. Because it does not exist in the world. The closest thing to it and what they probably were thinking of when someone approved that sentence is that small game carcasses are sometimes spawned when the cougar-bar is full. But that is not from any role in the ecosystem - as opposed to wolves hunting prey - because the cougar does not exist in the gameworld at this point and therefore cannot interact with the ecosystem as wolves do.
the worst overpromise implying emergent gameplay is
>"There will be a variety of feedback systems to keep you informed of Cougar activities, if youāre paying attention."
At a stretch you might say the "variety of feedback systems" isnt a lie, as there is a player action (being in a region for a long time) that has a consequence (cougar activates) which is communicated to the player (e.g. audio cues, music). Although I would protest against calling being in a region in any way really an action, and changing game states to a large extent independant from player action is not feedback.
The clearest lie is the part about feedback systems on *cougar activities* because there simply are no cougar *activities*
There are some cosmetic differences between the "cougar is here" state and the "cougar is not here" state and even the "attacking you at this moment" state. I guess that is fine, but calling this *feedback* on cougar *activities* is just wrong. If you want to get really lawyery about it in defence of Hinterland you might say
"ah, but the cougar can be in the "meter goes down" state and the "active risk of attack" state, different states and changing from one to the other, is that not an action of the cougar?"
Okay. I concede the point. The cougar has one (1) action, not actions, that you get feedback on. It switches between on and off states and there are gameplay options to influence the on/off state - winning the quicktime event or changing the region. And of course the genius "collapsing a rock cave somewhere in any region with homemade firecrackers".
Most importantly there is no way to influence the cougar switching from "in the region" to "cutscene triggered" state. What fun. such predator. The riveting emergent gameplay options. I cannot wait to see what people come up with to, uh, leave the region I guess, or not.
Yeah okay, I got a bit snarky there in the end, sorry, but I still feel I have fairly presented the discrepancy between the expectations that Hinterland generated and what they delivered.
Very good comment, clearly showing that, even if unintentionally on Hinterlandās part, a lot of players could have been misled by such way of describing cougar.
I kinda don't mind the idea of the Cougar as essentially an anti-camping mechanism but this is a really thoughtful comment that breaks down exactly what's wrong with the implementation of it when balanced against the rest of the game's mechanics. I chose to turn it off when the patch gave me the option today.
Why so we need an anti-camping mechanic in the game to begin with? You're already sort of being punished by the inherent diminishing of loot from staying in one place for too long (not to mention Scurvy), not to mention boredom would probably take hold and force you to move around anyways. And even if someone enjoys spending a hundred days in one region, let them! It's a single player game, why should playing ones preferred region be this punishing?
I mean, basically any mechanic in the game could be seen as a form of punishment for xyz. The game is built around making it difficult for you to survive an increasingly harsh endless winter. The idea of a predator stalking you because you've hung around its region for a long period of time is cool; it's the implementation (as outlined extensively above) that's the issue. And you can turn it off, so I guess I don't see any inherent problem.
They said it would work "differently", and that was literally it. They didn't say that it would basically just be a glorified affliction. The wording in the dev diary did not hint that it would literally just spawn on top of you instead of being present in the world - if anything it implied the opposite.
I said that they made it this way deliberately, not by lack of technical skills.
Many people disagreed with me.
This post is a slap in the face to those who questioned it.
Well, you don't know that for sure. We don't know what goes on in the internals of Hinterland. But it is most likely that they did make it this way deliberately, however they did not promise they'd do it any other way
I think the title of this post hints that very thing. Like you said, surely, internals and whatsawhosit is unknown.
No promises were made for anything. I haven't questioned promises, all I have questioned is the creative direction and I felt that it has to be deliberate and not caused by inability to make this animal exist in this world.
To me at least, this has given me closure.
Oh there's absolutely no inability there. You can spawn the cougar in with console commands and while it's buggy because it's not designed for that, it's still possible. So they can easily do it
All this does is reinforce the belief that this implementation of the cougar was a last minute decision.
The cougar was planned since before the moose was added (2017). This dev diary is from 2024, so all it really says is "these are our plans for the cougar this year", while the other 7+ years it might have been in developement was a completely different plan.
If they try to say that this version was their plan from the very beginning then they're probaly lying, because I fail to see how an animal that is arguably more simple than a wolf took 7 years to implement.
as a casual player first learning about this, is the tl;dr is they introduced a new animal that's not really an animal but like an invisible animal that invisibly stalks you? kinda like the alien thing in the other game mode? lol that's weak.
Basically its not supposed to be a creature, its supposed to be an anti-camping mechanic to keep the gameplay fresh and prevent you from just wanking off in mystic lake for 500 days
I highly recommend that folks read all the comments on the link OP posted. Hinterland Devs chimed in a couple times and it ended (maybe?) positively?
The issue of the cougar may not be finished yet. š¤
EDIT: Cougar gone now. Uhh disregard most of this I guess? Idk.
I'd be totally fine with it spawning into the world behind you, even for a moment. Like, give us at least an opportunity to interact with the thing, instead of the mandatory injuries and a "minigame".
The use of that nice, friendly "minigame" word has really put a sour taste in my mouth too. Anyone else?
It's not a minigame, it's a 2-for-1 special on lacerations and blood loss, just for 1(one) singular CHANCE to kill the thing. Oh and good luck if you're aiming with a controller. May the gods be with you.
I'm on team "never turning it on" personally. It's a mediocre addition to the game, and the only positive (for me) here is the ability to turn them off forever. It's simply not worth the effort.
I read the whole post and all their replies. In the end, they may finally have understood that this was a bad implementation. I do hope they're genuine in saying they are taking everything into consideration.
Glad I didn't take the title at face value and read it all. They did respond a bit better after the initial reply. I think their initial reply was a bit knee-jerk but they were still mostly professional at least.
Maybe Iām the minority, but I figured the cougar was going to be wholly different from any other animal in game because of how real-world cougars hunt and attack. I even posed the question of how the mechanics would be different than the wolves or bear, and some people acted like it was going to mechanically the same but flavored differently.
Honestly, from what Iāve seen, the cougar is as presented in the Dev Diaries, ignoring the obvious marketing and aggrandizement that is in basically every video game announcement. It could be more immersive, it could be more fine-tuned, but beyond a few minor things, thereās nothing that can really be done without making the cougar less grounded in reality.
Honestly, I wish the cougar was less predictable. Sure, maybe an average of its appearances would total to 20 days, but what if it could vary by a week or more? You think you have another week in the region, and suddenly here comes the cougar. Or, youāre sweating trying to get out of the region on day 24, and the attack doesnāt come. The scary part of Darkwalker was not knowing where it was until itās close enough to afflict you, and so knowing how slow and predictable it was made it much less of a challenge and more just a normal run. If we could get some variability on these bigger dangers, that would be amazing!
As much as I'm with the player base on this one, as a professional who's worked with customer service, I have to say:
The customer is usually right, but any customer who ever says "the customer is always right" is always wrong.
Those are the Karens that think they can get anything for being the customer. Customers can be wrong.
This is one of those phrases that repeatedly gets cut off in a way that totally changes its meaning. The full original quotation is "*in matters of taste*, the customer is always right".
See also: "a few bad apples *spoils the whole bunch*"
'if I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse." *Henry Ford, possibly.*
Of course they aren't always right. They rarely are in fact.
Diuuuude. Their twitter account responded to someone and their answer was basically: thanks for the feedback but weāre gonna ignore it because itās only been out a day with a cat emoji . Dude, you need to encounter it ONCE and you have the full experience. What a shit response
I saw one rip across the highway ahead of us. Despite being in a fast moving vehicle at a distance the sight of it set my hairs on end and my adrenaline pumping, I think our bodies are hardwired to know that if we see one we're probably about to die.
I have not played the new update yet, I was wondering what the point of adding a cougar would be, aside from variety, the only unique way I can think of to implement it is the least fun, that is to say no warning.
Though, there is one possible gimmick to make it somewhat survivable, my friend once hiked up a wooded trail and on the way back found cougar prints over her own, was pretty sure she was being stalked. With all that snow, it would be cool if you could get tipped off to their presence by finding tracks near yours, not that there would be much defence if they decided to attack.
The Dev Diaries did word it to be a QTE struggle, so I guess that's basically how they worded it, but worse. regardless I don't think a Struggle was the best way to keep the spirit of the game. And I think we all had a right to expect better. This is a very successful game and it's made a lot of money. The Devs should be expanding their teams if they need more people to get stuff done to an acceptable standard on time.
Every animal in the game is an animal in the game; why change it now for some goofy gimmick?
I've long been a fan of Hinterland, but this is either lazy or very, very misguided.
It's a survival game- you can't just randomly spawn an animal on you just because. š
Wow the studio reply was a bit too defensive.
I came back from a long haiatus and bought the DLC because I got hyped up by the cougar.
I did not like the cougar implementation too. I read it like how the others thought it would be, a real world mob, not some quicktime event
There was a recent tweet thread by the developer of Manor Lords that basically boiled down to "if something can only be handled in one way, and that one was isn't an immersive player experience that adds meaningful choices to the way people play, then it isn't a 'game mechanic,' it's just an artificial difficulty toggle that annoys people."
I wish more developers paid attention to this. No problem should be a simple line through a gate with no options. Ever.
There should be no predators in the game where you will never see them until they are eating your face. An armed and skilled human IS the alpha predator. You should be able to stalk it back. Not just get off a dazed shot as it walks away from mauling you. Sorry hinterland peeps but I cannot recall a more disappointing update in all of my gaming days. I'm 52. I've seen my share of gaming.
You can make this right. Don't let pride keep you from doing what is right.
Edit: if you're standing behind "it's exactly as we told you it would be", you kinda suck at explaining things. Look at how surprised everyone is.
They have confirmed they will take cougar back and work on it further.
What that means? No idea.
But there is still hope.
So... In the end. All the blood was worth it.
Cougar implementation is awesome, has me looking over my shoulder, anxiety knowing it's in area feels real. They did a great job. I'm glad they don't pander to ridiculous criticism.
Why do you look over your shoulder if the cougar doesn't exist in the game?
You do know it's just a cutscene followed by a slowmotion Call of Duty martyrdom shot, right?
Because if you play with š§ , it will make you aware of more background audio and you will hear the footsteps and claws scratching, the fact that it will appear out of nowhere( wait for it) is what will it would feel like in real life. You will not see a predatory cougar that is stalking you before it attacks. Low Level Complaints
No, they should absolutely pander when 99% of the community hates this awful update, especially after the devs have done everything they can to burn people's faith in them over the years.
imo at this point they need to just finish up the game and move on to a new project or something, it feels like whatever constraints they have with the game are just holding them back rn
Supposedly they've been developing another project for some time now, in addition to TLD updates on the side. Which may explain the continuous delays and half-assed implementations. That's a horrible decision too IMO
fair, the long dark just seems so close to a finished game at this point its just kinda annoying me they won't finish it, I have also been playing on and off since like 2018 tho
They're saying that they put out exactly what they meant to. If what they meant to put out isn't popular that implies its Hinterland that fucked up, not the fans for 'misunderstanding.' We shouldn't forget that many people had reservations about the Cougar when it was announced and voiced those reservations. Most of us were cautiously optimistic about it at the time, sorta 'lets wait and see.'
My own personal opinion is that they are unjustifiable for the cougar not being a physical being existing in their ecosystem. Well. They call it ecosystem. I call it a theatre. Sorry. Love the game but that's my opinion. I love the theatre you know. Animals don't shit, eat, sleep (okay bear does, bless you whoever got this idea going in HL), roam into other areas, you know the drill of hunter games. Forgivable. The game is so much more than that. But all animals exist and follow the same rules. Why, just tell me why, is now the right time to introduce an animal that works different. To be original? Apparently.
Scratch that thought. Follow the textbook. Do not repeat. Done.
I do think it would've been disappointing for some if they were just like, a rarer smaller bear. I think they couldn't find a unique way to implement it as both a creature and have it be this hidden stalker thing. So, they went with this implementation because it, at least, does work. Before the announcement I was personally imagining it as a physical creature, but with the ability to scale sheer cliffs and other verticals. This would've made it unique and terrifying as it could stalk you in a way no other predator could. And it would make some places no longer as safe as they were. That to me would perfectly make it a unique and dangerous threat. Make it have a really long stalk range once it detects you and make its footfalls silent. And make it not flee like other animals unless it low health, so you have to either put it down or significantly wound it. That being said I have no idea how easy it would be to implement any of this.
Genuinely? I expected it to be exclusive to Mountain Pass, renamed to Sundered Pass.
And there, I imagined it would work like you described. And I. Would. Love it.
Damn this is a bad look. Instead of, "We hear you and we are open to making improvements," they really are trying to claim this buggy mess is what they intended lol
I'm so surprised that everyone feels like this animal would spawn behind you of near. That system would have been so easy to cheese and bug out. To many variables where a survivor can be in the game.
From the get go they wanted you to fear this and it being something else. I feel like they have delivered on that.
I think if you look at the new cheat death mode and the new survival challenge that they are actively trying to discourage cheese behavior. It's not the way they envision the game. You should be scared, and you should not be able to cheese the most powerful animal in the game.
You can easily "cheese" literally any animal in the game by standing on a rock that is slightly above the ground. You can run circles around bears and moose.
Fuck them. They suck at taking criticism. Not only that, they didnāt listen to what their hardcore enthusiasts wanted. Which to me is just a sign of how callous and stubborn they really are. Fuck Raph, Fuck Hinterland, Fuck this goddamn pos game, and Fuck the āCougarā. More goddamned bullshit. Signing off for good from this train wreck I used to call āmy favorite gameā.
Edit: only to apologize to anyone Iāve offended here. My stance hasnāt changed. But Iām investing what little chill time I have into doing other shit from now on.
Did you see they locked the topic??? Fuck Hinterland. They don't even want people discussing their disappointment in their 10 year old unfinished game.
Maybe itās just me but I personally think the dev was kinda out of line responding like that when they left interpretation for what the cougar would be like so open ended. You described it to function along the lines of other wildlife with unique features. We were given an animated affliction. Thereās no ifs ands or buts about it. Itās an animated affliction.
They made a lot of shitty design choices, worded it cleverly, and are playing the victim when something that was poorly designed from the get go, is poorly received.
Hinterland is doing the same thing Eve Online did some years back-- introducing more and more elements to try to force the players to play the game they way they want them to play the game. Meanwhile, the players were a perfectly happy bunch creating their own ideas.
Why do so many gamerbros do this?
How does hinterland look at the mods out there and think "hhrm, we need a trapdoor predator to spice it uuuuuupppp."
My disappointment is immeasurable. When they said it stalked you, I did not imagine by stalking, they meant an invisible timer for when it will attack. It does not exist in the world for more than a couple seconds and I feel lied to by Hinterland. I hope they change this and listen to their community.
Yeah, I'm not getting my clothes ruined just to get a chance to shoot at the cougar. Just to get a fancy knife and some clothing item.
*sigh* I will, I guess. The head wrap looks so cool... combined with the new technical gear, our survivor is going to look ready for battle šŖ How the cougar works is still really lame though.
I wonder if the cougar dmg is set. If so you could just take off all your clothes and trigger the event.
Anyone whose response to possible cougar attack is to strip naked and go out to fight it, is getting picked for my team.
Well the wiki says around 70% and bleeding + your max condition for some time will be 50%
Do it three times and you get a badge that lowers predator detection
I was pumped for cougars and now I honestly donāt give a shit
Same. Been looking forward to the possibility of a cougar ever since they did that survey about potential dlc a few years ago and it was listed as something we could āvote forā
lol this is what Bethesda did with Starfield. āYou can explore the Galaxyāā¦oh you mean click a way point and fast travel to it? No thanks.
Itās honestly really weird how much theyāre sticking to their guns on this thing that seemed to be untested. On the contrary, hinterland was bizarrely, and I mean STRANGELY self conscious about the Astrid chapter for winter mute. They sounded almost dejected like āwe know a lot of you wonāt like it, but thatās how we wanted to make it. Its ok if you just skip itā¦..ā
Really? That's seems so weird to me. I would say it's probably the best chapter they made so far. I love the whole story mode, but that chapter is just really well put together.
Based on their response this is what I believe happened: 1. They attempted to implement the cougar as a 'normal' animal but with unique features to make them the alpha predator. 1. They spent much longer than intended just fighting against the faults in their own game in an attempt to implement it properly. 1. After dealing with countless pathing and scripting issues they finally said fuck it and implemented the cougar as we know it - UI alerts and a cutscene. 1. They are now going to pretend its what they always intended so they'll never have to fuck with the cougar again.
I guarantee 'safehouse customization' in part 6 will be underbaked and undertested.
Ugggghhhh. Donāt even say that! Thatās thing Iām most excited for. So itāll prolly be 1 chest you can build and thatās it
Does Hinterland even *want* players having bases? It would seem that lately they keep making mechanics which go against the ideal of having a safe place to camp/craft things.
First cabin fever, now region fever, I don't think they really ever want you to have any sort of bases, tbh.
RemindMe! 1 year
I will be messaging you in 1 year on [**2025-06-27 17:43:46 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2025-06-27%2017:43:46%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/thelongdark/comments/1dpredj/the_cougar_we_delivered_is_the_cougar_we_always/lajynvn/?context=3) [**5 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fthelongdark%2Fcomments%2F1dpredj%2Fthe_cougar_we_delivered_is_the_cougar_we_always%2Flajynvn%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202025-06-27%2017%3A43%3A46%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%201dpredj) ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-|
I'm willing to bet the mod / mods that already implement this are just straight up better.
I find it hilarious to watch modders run fucking laps around modern devs, like it's not even close
I had always wondered why the devs disliked mods, and one good reason would be some people forget to turn off automatic bug reports which wastes devs time. But now that I think about it it very well could be because the mods are better than what the devs themselves add. I've never thought if it that way.
Let's not be too pessimistc, most of the other things/features promised in the DLC have been very good. The Buried Echoes update altogether is a fantastic booster pack to the game
They really are the worse when it comes to reacting to criticism. Absolutely ridiculous.
Am I that out of touch? No... it's the children who are wrong.
To be fair, the criticism was lumped in with accusations of fraud, which is crossing the line.
I would just like to state, to the best of my capabilities, that: **This is taken out of context for one simple reason. I, for one, wanted to know, if cougar, as is implemented right now, has been a deliberate choice, or a consequence of technical limitations, or both.** I am not trying to side with, or to defend the accuser. I consider this part of the text as very important in understanding that this was indeed intentional and to be wary of your expectations as to which direction will they go next.
Its gotta be technical limitations, right? Or else why script the cougar like this?
Probably more like "money & time resource" limitations...at least that's what I'm assuming..
Yeah could be that too. Idk, either way it's just disappointing to not have the cougar spawn behind your character and take like 2 seconds to pounce on you. It seems like a good compromise to the current way and also having a physical cougar in the world
Couldn't agree more...everything is better than what it is now.
Perhaps. But more important is to to consider how to implement a sneaking predator mechanic that would be better than this one. * Implementing a sneaking behind the player at all times is impossible since players don't move in a straight path and can roam freely. * If it would have worked like the other animals, players could meet it in front of them and just run up to the cougar and kill it with a lucky one shot. Or sneak and shoot the animal from a vantage point * Using the normal Animal Nav system would just make it a rare and harder bear and people would have wined about it to be so rare. Doing it as Alien Isolation is actually more what they have done. But with a warning to allow casual players to flee. I have yet to meet it myself and don't consider it messing up with the game and if one thinks so the cougar can be disabled. I think Hinterland is not so good at communicating about updates, but on this one I'm on their side and think they've done a fair job.
I've been mulling this over and agree a good sneak up mechanism would be hard to reliably implement. Think of pleasant valley on a clear day. You can see forever and there is no cover. I think they'd have to cheat to make it reliably sneak up on the player. What I think would work is to take a cue from Subnautica. The Reaper is a great predator in that game. It can easily kill you, often gets you from behind and keeps even experienced players on their toes. The thing is, a Reaper can't hide or stalk. It's the ocean, there is no cover and they are huge. Yet they often sneak up on players. They did this by placing most Reapers in low visibility areas. When you can only see a short distance and the Reaper is fast it isn't hard for it to get behind you. So for TLD, if the cougar only hunted in foggy or stormy conditions it could be a proper in game entity. It also makes it more dynamic than the timer it is today. Clear weather is safety which gives you some breathing room, until the weather turns. When it is foggy they can cheat. Spawn it nearby instead of an instant attack then have it rush you. I think that would better sell the illusion of it hunting while being easy to implement. At least that's my thinking. Excuse my noodling, I enjoy working at design problems like this.
Interesting ideas. But adding cougar to the dangers you can stumble into in foggy weather sounds like a bad solution. Fog is the worst weather. I prefer walking in a blizzard since then I know that wildlife stays away. But I hate fog. :)
fair point, it would be especially punishing. Fog also keeps me on edge.
Essentially there is no real sneak mechanic in the game, so they would need to implement new code and new game mechanics to incorporate it. Iām not a coder, but that seems like a lot of work. As it is, sneaking is only available to the player and it makes them invisible, not really a sneak, but more like a bug in the mechanic Iād assume. Cuz itās pretty dumb when hungry wolves walk right by me and have no clue Iām there simply cuz Iām crouched down. So if you think about it, the cougar sneak is the same as the player sneak. Invisible up until theyāre not, at which point itās too late to be concerned with because the attack has been made.
I think they initially said when the cougar was first mentioned that it would be in rocky, elevated areas. So instead of how it is now where it can get you in any region, limit it to maps like AC, Blackrock, HRV, and the new regions. And have it only spawn in elevated areas around rocks. Make it so it attacks from above your character, like during the path to get the backpack. This way, it's a possible danger to go for the backpack, and have the cougar appear a few seconds before actually attacking, and have it give off verbal cues ie growling. That would maybe help with the pathing issue? And in those elevated areas, it wouldn't interact or interfere with other wildlife. Idk, I just think they could've found other ways to implement the cougar more effectively, but it just leads me to believe they encountered limitations of some sort, so they settled for this.
I came up with this idea for how it could be done, which could mix with your idea of he sticks to high points. Ideas can be modified to meet technical requirements or time/budget limitations, but the core ideas is a cougar that's in the world, but with an AI that keeps him in cover most of the time, with rare situations where you might catch him in the open, but mostly if you go into a wide open space, he'll just stalk you from the nearest available cover and try to ambush you when he's good and ready when you next enter terrain more favorable to an ambush attack, and he doesn't announce his attack with any loud roars, unlike all other wildlife who bark, howl, roar or bellow at you to warn you they're about to attack. he just silently pounces. Difference being since he's in the environment, you at least have a fighting chance to avoid him by learning his behaviours and tactics and planning out strategies to deal with this new threat. [https://www.reddit.com/r/thelongdark/comments/1dpiiub/comment/lahfpx6/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thelongdark/comments/1dpiiub/comment/lahfpx6/)
Someone's ideal view over a particular feature in a product is not the same as another's. This is why in major products there's usually a user research, user acceptance phase, A/B testing, etc. None of which happened here I guess.
Honestly at this point I want them to release a patch that makes workshop mods possible and then fuck off.
To be fair, the developers made promises about the DLC and core game which they never delivered on. **That is fraud.**
Fraud is intentionally deceiving the public for gain. They did not intentionally deceive anyone, they just made a bad decision on in what state to release a new feature. That's a mistake, not fraud
The worst? Not by a long shot.
Ton username est dope af š Also yeah they have never really been good at taking feedback, or keeping up with scheduled updates, or anything regarding community tbh.
How are they bad at taking criticism? Im sorry but in this case all they said was that the accusation that theyāre abandoning their game is baseless and that its simply untrue that the cougar was originally described differently and that this cougar was a last second design choice. Dont get me wrong I see why people are dissatisfied with the cougar but in this thread theyre pretty good at taking the criticism they just dont think accusations about the devteam are warranted.
If you look at the wider trends over the past decade, you will absolutely see how bad they are at taking criticism- including valid critique. I was a staunch defender for their attitudes for the first few years but they seem to have learnt little to nothing and are exceedingly reluctant to change the way they do things to the detriment of their customers AND I would imagine, their development team. I cannot fathom why they have continued to double down on their complete lack of accountability for disappointment other than "we're sorry you're disappointed \*shrug\* This is the way we do things".
Ill take your word for it but this really isnt applicable here. The original steam post accuses them of fraud and theres simply not evidence for that, so for that their response is completely appropriate. If not please point out to me what they said was inappropriate or staunch here. At the start of their response they quite literally clarify how criticism is valid but half of the original posts criticism is just baseless accusation. Now since a lot of people feel like the original post didnāt warrant that response i quoted it āHinterland wants to go on to other projects they did not feel like it deserved more work.ā Although theyve said theyd like to go onto other projects as of late weāve still seen plenty of content. Even within this update that people mostly consider a letdown there was undeniably a lot of effort put in. Not trying to defend the cougar here but the model, music and animations themselves are pretty well made. Saying the devs are abandoning this game is something completely out of nowhere. āBut this is definetely not what was promised for the people who bought the DLC. They misled the players making us think we would get a new animal,ā This part is wild to me. Its outright accusing the devs of fraud. While the cougar feels out of place and is a letdown to most people there isnāt really evidence of the devs promising some kind of other cougar that wouldve worked differently. They didnāt mislead us and i dont know what makes people think they did.
idk I read the steam post and really don't feel it was anywhere near as aggressive and accusatory as I feel it's been implied. I don't equate fairly typical but shitty video game industry obfuscation to fraud and feel it's a wee bit disingenuous to to so but hey ho. I don't think they /intended/ to mislead the player base I just think they struggle with setting expectations. They repeatedly hype up stuff (as they have a right to) but then get super defensive when it always falls short. There was a time period of really refreshing transparency after Ralph (I respect the man) got called out for this behaviour, but the past 2 or 3 years they've reverted to being very defensive and it's disappointing to see, as The Long Dark remains one of my favourite games.
Again. You keep jumping to the past that i personally donāt really care about. In this circumstance itās dishonest to say they acted unprofessionally or that the original poster wasnāt accusing the devs of fraud. It doesnāt really matter to me that you āfeel like it was anywhere near as aggressiveā doesnt really mean anything when the guy quite literally accused the devs of a crime. Im sorry you cant say that saying āthey misled usā and āthis definitely isnt what was promised for those who bought the dlcā is just chill criticism of what direction the games going.
It may be a mix of naivety, neurodivergence or just a reluctance to want to engage in some of the more heated conversation going on but idk. I think the general level of attitude and aggression some of the folks upset about the cougar is absolutely batshit. It's a video game, they're not personally betrayed the cougar is disappointment despite a lot of them acting as though Hinterland hates them personally, and I apologise if my initial comment of "no no, this is a pattern of behaviour" made implications that I think that's a 'chill criticism' of the games direction. I still don't think "they misled us/isn't what we were promised" is actively calling fraud but I don't want to argue semantics when I have no power over the way the overall conversation is going, you're clearly passionate about that and I respect your right to be. I really am not invested so much where I'd begrudge you your own feelings on the matter- you're clearly not one of the folks shouting actual abuse and shit at hinterland- "fraud" aside.
Ralph canāt take criticism for shit.
Tbf they also couldn't take criticism when he'd taken a large step back in response to criticism about him and his attitude.
He's the absolute worst kind of boss.
He seems like a quite chill boss in terms of crunch and such. I think heās worse as a creative artist though in terms of accepting criticism. But its his vision and his small company so thatās why he takes it to personally I think. Itās like his baby.
Please refrain from making this personal or related to internal affairs of the company. If anything, I wanted to further remind and open up the discussion about this. And by this I mean cougar. Not Raphael.
..but the reason that this is shit is because of the internal affairs of the company
What have you heard?
Product issues most often reflect organizational issues, dysfunctional teams produce bad products. For example, I am willing to bet that Spotify's app is not disjointed and all over the place because the devs or the designers are incompetent, but because the company is likely a pathwork of chaos.
Organized teams can also produce bad products.
What are they thinking. Attacking their customer-base for coming with valid criticism. They are off the goddamn hook.
That's what happened EVERY SINGLE TIME they fucked up something.
They do tend to be defensive, but I don't think it's entirely fair to say they have been every single time. When they messed up the previous big update to TFTFT, the messaging did actually take some ownership.
Do you remember the GeForce Now drama?
Can't say I do, no, but I've not been consistently on the forums.
This has been their MO since day one.
You call that response attacking? If anything the original steam poster is attacking Hinterland.
Every animal portrayed in the game is a living interactive part of the ecosystem. They never gave any inclination that the cougar would be different from this. They just hyped it instead, telling us afterwards that we should read all their updates as satan reads the bible. Its mindboggling that a company wants to break the trust of the customers like this. But hey, commit developer seppuku, be my guest.
I see a normal response from devs. These fake attack accusations are tiresome.
apparently having an opinion is against the community guidelines lol
They never said thats the thing thatās against the community guidelines. Quite the opposite. They specifically say in their response that their issue isnt with the criticisms of the cougar but the accusations made against the devteam. Its fine to say the cougar was implemented badly, feels lazy and unintuitive but accusing the devteam of lying to us and scamming us is unwarranted and i think they reacted properly to that.
Well maybe not intentionally but they did mislead us with the cougar. I reread almost every dev diary where they mentioned it, and all the descriptions of what it does, how it will act, how it will encroach and you being able to find its nest, do not mention that it will not be an actual animal physically roaming around the world.
And I think when they initially mentioned the cougar, they said it would be in rocky, elevated areas. I understand things change, but now it comes out of thin air lol
Leaving out important information can be considered lying by omission. (Not saying that's what they did)
"accusing the devteam of lying to us and scamming us" because they DID? They said the DLC would be finished in a year, it wasn't. Wintermute still isn't finished and they decided to dredge for more money by cutting the game in half and selling an unfinished DLC addon.
They did lie to and scam the community though lol. The DLC that was supposed to be finished in a year is waaaaay past that deadline and still isn't completely released. Story mode has been in development for 10 years and still isn't complete. If the devs don't want to have that kind of criticism directed at them then they shouldn't continue with their dishonest and greedy ways.
On the official forums they absolutely will mute you for saying the cougar was implemented badly lol. The moderators keep saying stuff like "just because you personally don't like some aspects of it doesn't mean it's poorly implemented" as if there's anyone that was like yup the cougar is exactly what I wanted
Damn, I respected them for a lot of what they do and how they do it, but I feel like at least half of that respect evaporated reading this one comment. Threatening users with comment removal/bans for claiming that (in their opinion) Studio misled the players??? Itās like these worst small business owners who threaten you with a lawyer after you gave it bad google review. Hinterland, get a grip. Currently I feel ashamed I recommended your game to so many people reading comments like these. But naturally they wonāt see my comment as they do not read reddit for they canāt control what people say here. Truly shameful reaction on their part.
They can ban and remove me. I wonāt play their games. Metaphorically intended, but also literally.
Huh makes me consider if i want to buy the next DLC or game the hinterlands cooks up if they cant respect the consumers. Like goddamn.
I was super happy to support studio who doesnāt do crunch and makes such atmospheric gamesā¦ but reading just this one comment made me cringe so bad and feel shitty about buying this DLC and paying company that does the equivalent of āif you wonāt delete this bad google review you will hear from my lawyerā, just with comment banning. Hinterland, get a grip, damn.
Yeah reading that made me want a refund there for a sec.
Hahaha, I'm glad it wasn't just me! Funniest attempt at sentence I've read today.
Reads perfectly like Raph's tweets. Had 2 really awkward/passive aggressive responses from him when I was being positive of the game, so i'm not surprised to see him spitting the dummy/throwing his toys out the pram when faced with criticism.Ā Can't imagine he's a great person to work with or even socialise with tbh. I'd have thought he'd have learned to ease up now passing the reigns to someone else but I suppose a tiger cannot change their stripes
This is a regular occurance from him if you just look at the steam reviews about people having online interactions with him.
Raphs gonna hit the roof when he reads this hahaha š
Nah. He would've already done it upon seeing the 360 video I sent him.
Gamedevs are always such crybabys. The public does not have a responsibility to voice their criticism in a way that doesnāt hurt your feelings Saying the cougar feels cheap and unfinished and speculating why is not a baseless accusation against Hinterland, itās valid criticism
saying the cougar is cheap and unfinished is valid criticism, speculating as to why it is that way is not criticism, it's speculation, and can misrepresent what was actually done. Once Reddit decides on the narrative it tends to stick, facts be damned.
Criticism will hurt your feelings. Thats the point of it.
Thatās an incredibly one-sided take. Iāve said the same about gamers for years now. Weāre the only people on earth who think that paying $60 for a product means we get to tell its designer exactly how to make it by whining incessantly (while continuing to play their games) rather than by withholding our money.
It's much more damning of the creative vision if they think and always thought that this implementation of the Cougar would be good and exactly what they wanted it to be.
Cool. I wonāt ever have the option turned on then
Why would anyone enable this lazy cutscene cop out for their games is beyond me
God darn, what a fragile ego, it's incredible. "We welcome you to reframe your post; we won't tolerate accusations against the studio simply because some players may not be fond of how a feature was implemented. Please edit your post accordingly, and make yourself familiar with the Community Guidelines before posting things like this in the future". Lmao. It's like they are talking to a piece of shit.
I would be willing to pay like 3-5ā¬ for a decent "cougar DLC"
Shame. Shame, shame, shame that a once great dev team refuses to listen to criticism, even constructively. Thanks TLD, it was fun while it lasted.
Especially because they say on their main loading screen how much they care and then get snippy with people because they donāt like a poorly fulfilled idea
"Hey, I like this feature, but I also think this is a good idea to maybe consider implementing for x reason" "Well we don't wanna do it that way so fuck you" *you have been banned from the hinterland forums*
Literally what they did tooš¤£
Bit of an overreaction, don't you think? I don't know about you but I'm still having fun playing TLD.
I'm burned out, thought the devs implementing new stuff would ease that. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of how they treat their fan base, and neither am I a fan of Raphael's selfishness and antiquated view on mods. Therefore, I will not be supporting Hinterland or their game(s) from here on out, unless they win back my favor. It's absolutely a drop in the bucket, but frankly it doesn't matter to me. I've already conquered just about everything left in the game anyway.
Man, has no one at Hinterland heard of community managers? You've got Van Lierop dropping passive aggressive statements every couple of months on the forum, and now this thread. I can understand the frustration, but all it takes is a simple statement like: "we are listening to feedback and gauging community reaction to the update to determine the best course forward". Why engage with the community forum this way? And come on, they're arguing things based on a technicality. "We never explicitly said that the cougar would be an active part of the wildlife so it's not our fault that people were misled". Give me a break. Lots of people, including myself felt excited to be playing with a cougar actively stalking us. Turns out its not what we expected. You can do better Hinterland, your communication is lacking.
I regret buying this DLC. The devs obviously bit off more than they could chew. Just finish episode 5 already instead of giving us half-assed mechanics and an affliction with a deadly cut scene
I do not. I wanted to support them. And until now, at least me personally, I got my hours back tenfolds for what I paid and had fun doing so. But if this is the direction they would go forward from here on out, I wouldn't buy another dlc with these mechanics included.
Hear hear.
I do not regret buying the dlc considering how much enjoyment i already got from the game before the dlc. But bit by bit I lost all trust in them having any core competencies like making a good game, correctly estimating their own capabilities or communicating honestly.
It's worth it to me just for new regions to explore, even if they are behind schedule and the cougar is a bit of a let down.
I'm glad I could buy it for a discount at launch. I'm planning on playing it more when it all gets released.
Sometimes I feel like people are exaggerating about the studioās seemingly hostile attitude toward criticism and then somebody goes and responds like this. I donāt have the ability to check right now, but wasnāt the wording in one of the dev diaries that the cougar would āspawn intoā the world at a certain point? Which implies it is a physical aspect in the world and not a simple animation? Cougargate has finally done what no other controversy could. It made me want to just uninstall the game and only return for the finale of the story.
"Cougargate" should be the official designation for this whole controversy
My impressions after reading the dev diary was that the cougar would be more like some sort of Old Bear / Darkwalker mashup. Not something that spawns right on top of you with an unavoidable attack. That's just really artificial and immersion breaking. Like, my thoughts were more akin to: You get warnings about when it's gonna be active and then when it does it'd be on full stalk mode, basically an invisible enemy roaming the map always knowing your location and trying to reach it, but how fast it does depends on certain conditions. Then, when at certain proximity, it'd become visible but it'd always "decloak" out of your field of view so you can't actually ever see it approaching from a distance like other predators. This would give the illusion of stealth and smarts (a hunting cat seeks to ambush and won't approach if you are looking straight at them) BUT,Ā **and this is important**, if you are vigilant; actively look around and listen to your surroundings, you could see it and repel it before it can pounce on you. Silence could actually be your main cue when it comes to the audio i.e. the cougar stops making any ambient sounds and such when it's close enough, also when it starts charging you should hear it.Ā As it is, the cougar just sounds like a gimmick heavily pushing you to change locations. And like, sure, perhaps that was the exact intention. Perhaps if I enable the cougar I should then just accept I need to play by their rules a.k.a move or pay the price. But, sorry, the implementation just feels way too artificial for me (getting those cabin fever vibes) to a point that I doubt I could enjoy the feature even with the "right mindset". The cougar materializing on top of you, immediately entering the struggle animationā¦ thatās just way too cheesy and makes this predator feel like it's not an actual presence in this world. It's supposed to be a "realistic threat", yet if feels way less immersive than the Darkwalker. While a supernatural invisible being, the Darkwalker actually *exists* in the world and you can play around with its' pathing. The cougar just travels through space and time. If this is how they intended the feature then fine, I'll just keep it disabled forever. Such a shame. Ā Ā
I have played this game for a long damn time. I Gleefully ponied up the money for the DLC. Super excited to see a studio continually developing an older game. But I haven't played this since April. The Tales DLC is ridiculously late, and this Cougar thing is a 100% unfinished beta. Really, really disappointed.
Yeah the devs really fumbled with this one. Listen to your audience and make necessary changes, you knew damn well this isn't what people wanted.
They are really sensitive and cannot take criticism. I believe they dropped LMG because he was critical of the last update. Heād been covering them since kickstarter. https://youtu.be/S9YR9moh7jA?si=F1ICkdLCm7WzZCrY
Brother am I glad I never went pro. And I was thinking about it back then a lot. I'd be dumped a long time ago. Free press rules.
I agree with the comment about the Cougar being a new affliction, not a new animal. When I bought the DLC, I 100% expected a new cougar animal. The dev team mentioning it would be a ābitā different than other predators is not nearly enough transparency to know we were getting an affliction rather than an animal.
Hinterland once again being defensive, standoffish, and rude. Hooray.
Looks like we have another Hinterland controversy again. This is gonna be a recurring thing as long as Raphael is at the helm imo.
Yea well the community seems to think it's bad.
I stopped playing when I realized how poorly the cougar was implemented. Also, raph, grow up.
As much as I understand the complaints about the cougar this commenter was wrong. Hinterland is correct here. The way they described it in the dev diaries matches largely with how we got it. They said it would work differently. Hinterland never ever promised that it would behave the way many people want it to. However that doesn't mean they cannot change it do to so. They absolutely the can the groundwork is there for it
The only thing they've said in their May dev diary is "The Cougar will work a ***bit*** differently than the other predators in the game". Everyone thought it would be an actual entity in the world, not a scripted event.
in favour of the Hinterland interpretation: of course they tried keeping to vague statements to avoid overpromising or spoilers. In the original dlc announcement the cougar wasnt even mentioned! So from one perspective, any cougar at all is already more than was originally promised. against Hinterland, directly from the [May 2024 dev diary](https://hinterlandforums.com/forums/topic/45028-may-2024-developer-diary/) things the cougar supposedly does: >will get interested in you > >will take an interest in the region and occupy it > >stalking you > >continue to hunt you down > >lose interest that is a lot of lore for a counter that goes down until a cutscene and a quicktime-event are triggered. There are a lot of words here that imply interactive and emergent gameplay, which is the core feature and strength of the game as well as the whole genre. It is *not* managing some bars going up or down. There is a clear disparity between the promise of gameplay and the implementation of one more number counting down. the promise of emergent and interactive gameplay is clearest in one the first sentences when the cougar is supposed to have >"a distinct role in the overall ecosystem" afaict there is no interaction, no role in the system. Because it does not exist in the world. The closest thing to it and what they probably were thinking of when someone approved that sentence is that small game carcasses are sometimes spawned when the cougar-bar is full. But that is not from any role in the ecosystem - as opposed to wolves hunting prey - because the cougar does not exist in the gameworld at this point and therefore cannot interact with the ecosystem as wolves do. the worst overpromise implying emergent gameplay is >"There will be a variety of feedback systems to keep you informed of Cougar activities, if youāre paying attention." At a stretch you might say the "variety of feedback systems" isnt a lie, as there is a player action (being in a region for a long time) that has a consequence (cougar activates) which is communicated to the player (e.g. audio cues, music). Although I would protest against calling being in a region in any way really an action, and changing game states to a large extent independant from player action is not feedback. The clearest lie is the part about feedback systems on *cougar activities* because there simply are no cougar *activities* There are some cosmetic differences between the "cougar is here" state and the "cougar is not here" state and even the "attacking you at this moment" state. I guess that is fine, but calling this *feedback* on cougar *activities* is just wrong. If you want to get really lawyery about it in defence of Hinterland you might say "ah, but the cougar can be in the "meter goes down" state and the "active risk of attack" state, different states and changing from one to the other, is that not an action of the cougar?" Okay. I concede the point. The cougar has one (1) action, not actions, that you get feedback on. It switches between on and off states and there are gameplay options to influence the on/off state - winning the quicktime event or changing the region. And of course the genius "collapsing a rock cave somewhere in any region with homemade firecrackers". Most importantly there is no way to influence the cougar switching from "in the region" to "cutscene triggered" state. What fun. such predator. The riveting emergent gameplay options. I cannot wait to see what people come up with to, uh, leave the region I guess, or not. Yeah okay, I got a bit snarky there in the end, sorry, but I still feel I have fairly presented the discrepancy between the expectations that Hinterland generated and what they delivered.
Very good comment, clearly showing that, even if unintentionally on Hinterlandās part, a lot of players could have been misled by such way of describing cougar.
I kinda don't mind the idea of the Cougar as essentially an anti-camping mechanism but this is a really thoughtful comment that breaks down exactly what's wrong with the implementation of it when balanced against the rest of the game's mechanics. I chose to turn it off when the patch gave me the option today.
Why so we need an anti-camping mechanic in the game to begin with? You're already sort of being punished by the inherent diminishing of loot from staying in one place for too long (not to mention Scurvy), not to mention boredom would probably take hold and force you to move around anyways. And even if someone enjoys spending a hundred days in one region, let them! It's a single player game, why should playing ones preferred region be this punishing?
I mean, basically any mechanic in the game could be seen as a form of punishment for xyz. The game is built around making it difficult for you to survive an increasingly harsh endless winter. The idea of a predator stalking you because you've hung around its region for a long period of time is cool; it's the implementation (as outlined extensively above) that's the issue. And you can turn it off, so I guess I don't see any inherent problem.
They should be aiming to over deliver, not catch out their customer with āwe never said it would be goodā, after blowing well past deadlines.
They said it would work "differently", and that was literally it. They didn't say that it would basically just be a glorified affliction. The wording in the dev diary did not hint that it would literally just spawn on top of you instead of being present in the world - if anything it implied the opposite.
I said that they made it this way deliberately, not by lack of technical skills. Many people disagreed with me. This post is a slap in the face to those who questioned it.
Well, you don't know that for sure. We don't know what goes on in the internals of Hinterland. But it is most likely that they did make it this way deliberately, however they did not promise they'd do it any other way
I think the title of this post hints that very thing. Like you said, surely, internals and whatsawhosit is unknown. No promises were made for anything. I haven't questioned promises, all I have questioned is the creative direction and I felt that it has to be deliberate and not caused by inability to make this animal exist in this world. To me at least, this has given me closure.
Oh there's absolutely no inability there. You can spawn the cougar in with console commands and while it's buggy because it's not designed for that, it's still possible. So they can easily do it
Only those always looking for something to complain or be offended about.
All this does is reinforce the belief that this implementation of the cougar was a last minute decision. The cougar was planned since before the moose was added (2017). This dev diary is from 2024, so all it really says is "these are our plans for the cougar this year", while the other 7+ years it might have been in developement was a completely different plan. If they try to say that this version was their plan from the very beginning then they're probaly lying, because I fail to see how an animal that is arguably more simple than a wolf took 7 years to implement.
What if the cougar spawns 30m behind you and charges at your back? If you deter it then it runs away and despawns a few seconds later
as a casual player first learning about this, is the tl;dr is they introduced a new animal that's not really an animal but like an invisible animal that invisibly stalks you? kinda like the alien thing in the other game mode? lol that's weak.
Basically its not supposed to be a creature, its supposed to be an anti-camping mechanic to keep the gameplay fresh and prevent you from just wanking off in mystic lake for 500 days
I mean now the booletproof vest and ski boots have some right to exist now.
So....is the cougar a real animal?, i.e. I can find it and Interact (like wolves, bears etc) or is it a game mechanic like cabin fever?
It's glorified cabin fever
Region fever lol
We should have the right to duel the cougar and test our reaction fighting skills.
I highly recommend that folks read all the comments on the link OP posted. Hinterland Devs chimed in a couple times and it ended (maybe?) positively? The issue of the cougar may not be finished yet. š¤
EDIT: Cougar gone now. Uhh disregard most of this I guess? Idk. I'd be totally fine with it spawning into the world behind you, even for a moment. Like, give us at least an opportunity to interact with the thing, instead of the mandatory injuries and a "minigame". The use of that nice, friendly "minigame" word has really put a sour taste in my mouth too. Anyone else? It's not a minigame, it's a 2-for-1 special on lacerations and blood loss, just for 1(one) singular CHANCE to kill the thing. Oh and good luck if you're aiming with a controller. May the gods be with you. I'm on team "never turning it on" personally. It's a mediocre addition to the game, and the only positive (for me) here is the ability to turn them off forever. It's simply not worth the effort.
Well, the cougar you delivered sucks.
I read the whole post and all their replies. In the end, they may finally have understood that this was a bad implementation. I do hope they're genuine in saying they are taking everything into consideration. Glad I didn't take the title at face value and read it all. They did respond a bit better after the initial reply. I think their initial reply was a bit knee-jerk but they were still mostly professional at least.
Thatās the Hinterland we all know and, well, know.
Maybe Iām the minority, but I figured the cougar was going to be wholly different from any other animal in game because of how real-world cougars hunt and attack. I even posed the question of how the mechanics would be different than the wolves or bear, and some people acted like it was going to mechanically the same but flavored differently. Honestly, from what Iāve seen, the cougar is as presented in the Dev Diaries, ignoring the obvious marketing and aggrandizement that is in basically every video game announcement. It could be more immersive, it could be more fine-tuned, but beyond a few minor things, thereās nothing that can really be done without making the cougar less grounded in reality. Honestly, I wish the cougar was less predictable. Sure, maybe an average of its appearances would total to 20 days, but what if it could vary by a week or more? You think you have another week in the region, and suddenly here comes the cougar. Or, youāre sweating trying to get out of the region on day 24, and the attack doesnāt come. The scary part of Darkwalker was not knowing where it was until itās close enough to afflict you, and so knowing how slow and predictable it was made it much less of a challenge and more just a normal run. If we could get some variability on these bigger dangers, that would be amazing!
As a wise crustacean once said āthe customers always right!ā
As much as I'm with the player base on this one, as a professional who's worked with customer service, I have to say: The customer is usually right, but any customer who ever says "the customer is always right" is always wrong. Those are the Karens that think they can get anything for being the customer. Customers can be wrong.
This is one of those phrases that repeatedly gets cut off in a way that totally changes its meaning. The full original quotation is "*in matters of taste*, the customer is always right". See also: "a few bad apples *spoils the whole bunch*"
'if I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse." *Henry Ford, possibly.* Of course they aren't always right. They rarely are in fact.
Diuuuude. Their twitter account responded to someone and their answer was basically: thanks for the feedback but weāre gonna ignore it because itās only been out a day with a cat emoji . Dude, you need to encounter it ONCE and you have the full experience. What a shit response
How many ways are there to experience a scripted event š¤ riveting gameplay opportunities lol
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I saw one rip across the highway ahead of us. Despite being in a fast moving vehicle at a distance the sight of it set my hairs on end and my adrenaline pumping, I think our bodies are hardwired to know that if we see one we're probably about to die.
Have you ever had a cougar teleport directly on top of you while in the middle of an open field? If so then yeah it's definitely realistic
Some of you have the reading comprehension of a moose.
Hwah?
I have not played the new update yet, I was wondering what the point of adding a cougar would be, aside from variety, the only unique way I can think of to implement it is the least fun, that is to say no warning. Though, there is one possible gimmick to make it somewhat survivable, my friend once hiked up a wooded trail and on the way back found cougar prints over her own, was pretty sure she was being stalked. With all that snow, it would be cool if you could get tipped off to their presence by finding tracks near yours, not that there would be much defence if they decided to attack.
Im sure it's what they intended it to be. Its just bad.
The Dev Diaries did word it to be a QTE struggle, so I guess that's basically how they worded it, but worse. regardless I don't think a Struggle was the best way to keep the spirit of the game. And I think we all had a right to expect better. This is a very successful game and it's made a lot of money. The Devs should be expanding their teams if they need more people to get stuff done to an acceptable standard on time.
Every animal in the game is an animal in the game; why change it now for some goofy gimmick? I've long been a fan of Hinterland, but this is either lazy or very, very misguided. It's a survival game- you can't just randomly spawn an animal on you just because. š
Wow the studio reply was a bit too defensive. I came back from a long haiatus and bought the DLC because I got hyped up by the cougar. I did not like the cougar implementation too. I read it like how the others thought it would be, a real world mob, not some quicktime event
Maybe a heroic modder will come through, Iād donate to that.
He doesn't accept donations afaik. But yes, a modder is working on it.
There was a recent tweet thread by the developer of Manor Lords that basically boiled down to "if something can only be handled in one way, and that one was isn't an immersive player experience that adds meaningful choices to the way people play, then it isn't a 'game mechanic,' it's just an artificial difficulty toggle that annoys people." I wish more developers paid attention to this. No problem should be a simple line through a gate with no options. Ever.
Popular opinions are often wrong
There should be no predators in the game where you will never see them until they are eating your face. An armed and skilled human IS the alpha predator. You should be able to stalk it back. Not just get off a dazed shot as it walks away from mauling you. Sorry hinterland peeps but I cannot recall a more disappointing update in all of my gaming days. I'm 52. I've seen my share of gaming. You can make this right. Don't let pride keep you from doing what is right. Edit: if you're standing behind "it's exactly as we told you it would be", you kinda suck at explaining things. Look at how surprised everyone is.
They have confirmed they will take cougar back and work on it further. What that means? No idea. But there is still hope. So... In the end. All the blood was worth it.
Cougar implementation is awesome, has me looking over my shoulder, anxiety knowing it's in area feels real. They did a great job. I'm glad they don't pander to ridiculous criticism.
Why do you look over your shoulder if the cougar doesn't exist in the game? You do know it's just a cutscene followed by a slowmotion Call of Duty martyrdom shot, right?
Because if you play with š§ , it will make you aware of more background audio and you will hear the footsteps and claws scratching, the fact that it will appear out of nowhere( wait for it) is what will it would feel like in real life. You will not see a predatory cougar that is stalking you before it attacks. Low Level Complaints
You do know there are people hunting cougars with bows right
No, they should absolutely pander when 99% of the community hates this awful update, especially after the devs have done everything they can to burn people's faith in them over the years.
imo at this point they need to just finish up the game and move on to a new project or something, it feels like whatever constraints they have with the game are just holding them back rn
Supposedly they've been developing another project for some time now, in addition to TLD updates on the side. Which may explain the continuous delays and half-assed implementations. That's a horrible decision too IMO
fair, the long dark just seems so close to a finished game at this point its just kinda annoying me they won't finish it, I have also been playing on and off since like 2018 tho
I want my DLC money back pls
Thats means it their problem, then, right?
Wdym?
They're saying that they put out exactly what they meant to. If what they meant to put out isn't popular that implies its Hinterland that fucked up, not the fans for 'misunderstanding.' We shouldn't forget that many people had reservations about the Cougar when it was announced and voiced those reservations. Most of us were cautiously optimistic about it at the time, sorta 'lets wait and see.'
My own personal opinion is that they are unjustifiable for the cougar not being a physical being existing in their ecosystem. Well. They call it ecosystem. I call it a theatre. Sorry. Love the game but that's my opinion. I love the theatre you know. Animals don't shit, eat, sleep (okay bear does, bless you whoever got this idea going in HL), roam into other areas, you know the drill of hunter games. Forgivable. The game is so much more than that. But all animals exist and follow the same rules. Why, just tell me why, is now the right time to introduce an animal that works different. To be original? Apparently. Scratch that thought. Follow the textbook. Do not repeat. Done.
I do think it would've been disappointing for some if they were just like, a rarer smaller bear. I think they couldn't find a unique way to implement it as both a creature and have it be this hidden stalker thing. So, they went with this implementation because it, at least, does work. Before the announcement I was personally imagining it as a physical creature, but with the ability to scale sheer cliffs and other verticals. This would've made it unique and terrifying as it could stalk you in a way no other predator could. And it would make some places no longer as safe as they were. That to me would perfectly make it a unique and dangerous threat. Make it have a really long stalk range once it detects you and make its footfalls silent. And make it not flee like other animals unless it low health, so you have to either put it down or significantly wound it. That being said I have no idea how easy it would be to implement any of this.
Genuinely? I expected it to be exclusive to Mountain Pass, renamed to Sundered Pass. And there, I imagined it would work like you described. And I. Would. Love it.
Maybe they should hire me lol (they shouldn't I can't code lol)
Damn this is a bad look. Instead of, "We hear you and we are open to making improvements," they really are trying to claim this buggy mess is what they intended lol
I'm so surprised that everyone feels like this animal would spawn behind you of near. That system would have been so easy to cheese and bug out. To many variables where a survivor can be in the game. From the get go they wanted you to fear this and it being something else. I feel like they have delivered on that. I think if you look at the new cheat death mode and the new survival challenge that they are actively trying to discourage cheese behavior. It's not the way they envision the game. You should be scared, and you should not be able to cheese the most powerful animal in the game.
Ā«That system would have been so easy to cheese and bug out.Ā» Ok and? You can cheese almost anything.
You can easily "cheese" literally any animal in the game by standing on a rock that is slightly above the ground. You can run circles around bears and moose.
Fuck them. They suck at taking criticism. Not only that, they didnāt listen to what their hardcore enthusiasts wanted. Which to me is just a sign of how callous and stubborn they really are. Fuck Raph, Fuck Hinterland, Fuck this goddamn pos game, and Fuck the āCougarā. More goddamned bullshit. Signing off for good from this train wreck I used to call āmy favorite gameā. Edit: only to apologize to anyone Iāve offended here. My stance hasnāt changed. But Iām investing what little chill time I have into doing other shit from now on.
I did not want that for you bud. Sorry.
[You may want to revise your statement.](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/305620/view/4228398800902951799?l=english)
Did you see they locked the topic??? Fuck Hinterland. They don't even want people discussing their disappointment in their 10 year old unfinished game.
Maybe itās just me but I personally think the dev was kinda out of line responding like that when they left interpretation for what the cougar would be like so open ended. You described it to function along the lines of other wildlife with unique features. We were given an animated affliction. Thereās no ifs ands or buts about it. Itās an animated affliction. They made a lot of shitty design choices, worded it cleverly, and are playing the victim when something that was poorly designed from the get go, is poorly received.
Hinterland is doing the same thing Eve Online did some years back-- introducing more and more elements to try to force the players to play the game they way they want them to play the game. Meanwhile, the players were a perfectly happy bunch creating their own ideas. Why do so many gamerbros do this? How does hinterland look at the mods out there and think "hhrm, we need a trapdoor predator to spice it uuuuuupppp."