The Long Dark -- TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY -- Part Five Update Video

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ABOUT THE LONG DARK
Imagine the lights go out, never to return. Bright aurora flare across the sky, and all humanity’s technological might is laid to waste, neutralized in a kind of quiet apocalypse. Everything that has shielded humanity from the disinterested power of Mother Nature is suddenly wrenched from us, dropping us a few links down the food chain. Food and water are scarce. The roads are no longer safe. And winter approaches…

Welcome to The Long Dark —an immersive survival simulation set in the aftermath of a geomagnetic disaster. Experience a unique first-person survival simulation that will force you to think and push you to your limits with its thought-provoking gameplay.

[firstnamelastname-culr]

Tremendously disappointed that you have to get mauled by the cougar to get the opportunity to kill it.

[j.s.c.]

I wish there were a brief chance to shoot the cougar prior to being attacked. Animal attacks that can’t be avoided counted as one of those pointless, unavoidable deaths that you mentioned.

[simonnachreiner]

I absolutely detest that the attack is spawned as a dice roll scripted event. It means there's no real meaningful way to hunt the cougar or even be ready for its attack beyond just waiting to get jumped, preferably outside a safe house.

My preference would've been it spawning three to five seconds behind you before silently charging. Rewarding players with good reflexes while also instilling large amounts of paranoia to anything remotely sounding like pitter patter.
Also I dislike the cougar signs being on the HUD. Instead have the early signs being ravaged corpses of dear and rabbits with ruined hides. Then when the cougar is nearly active move on to mauled wolves and have scratching sounds play when ever the player is inside a building. The current noises for a stalking cougar are fine.

As is I'm not going to be enabling. Ultimately it's a system I'd probably avoid. I already take vacations to multiple zones for fun by default so being forced out won't effect me. Also the rewards for hunting the cougar just aren't worth unavoidably having my clothing shredded and being put on deaths door for days.

A 5.5f hat is really good. However it's not "this is worth nearly ending my run for a chance" good.

[elit]

I think there's some truth in the myriad complaints about the cougar's implementation, and some truth in those defending it. I'm gonna leave my own thoughts as someone who has been playing TLD for about 4-5 years and purchased the DLC expansion the second it was available.

In real life, cougars are TERRIFYING. Friends of mine who've lived in mountainous areas of the west coast have told me their horror stories about cougars. It is an entirely silent and invisible predator- if you see a cougar, it is because the cougar has ALLOWED you to see it. Unless you're a seasoned park ranger, there's no such thing as proactively hunting a cougar. In that regard, I really enjoy the cougar. You shouldn't have the option to proactively take down an alpha predator that has long since mastered stealth and stalking. You're a human, moving at human speeds, making human amounts of noise. In a showdown between Will Mackenzie and a cougar, the cougar wins. Easy.

That being said, the immersion is really, really lacking. And that is ruining some of the suspense! Having a HUD indicator flat-out informing you of the cougar's whereabouts is terrible. I would much rather prefer something more vague, like, "You feel like you are being watched" or "Something is following you". Hell, even a unique status affliction could communicate that information! I also wish there were more environmental cues. Shredded tree bark, paw prints, carcasses up in trees, the cougar yowling in the night, et cetera. These signs would require the survivor to pay close attention and would really instill a sense of impending doom. The cougar is something to be afraid of, not something to only care about once some invisible timer has run out. The lack of immersion turns the cougar into a mere mechanic, and that cheapens the experience.


I hope Hinterland hears some of this feedback and makes some meaningful adjustments to the cougar without entirely gutting it- because, as others have pointed out, a cougar that can be stalked and hunted by the player is just a wolf.

[helikopterbojowyka-]

Honestly the whole cougar mechanic feels like recycled darkwalker.

It should be an animal, not mechanic! I know in real life it’s hard to spot cougar but in real life wolf’s also don’t attack people! Remember? I liked one of comment idea that arrive of cougar should be manifested by many not obvious warning signs. Something immersive, that you could miss and never be 100% sure if it’s real making you paranoid. The whole screen interface waring completely brakes that immersion. Also it should be possible to see and kill it without getting damaged. Not make it easy, just possible by making him get on ground and stalk around. Then make him run fast in inaccessible places like cliffs if both of player and cougar spotted each other or player attacked with firearm. That would also avoid corpse getting stuck in cliffs since he/she would be just to fast to get hit and killed. In reality he would be immortal on cliffs, just to avoid corpses getting stuck. But at least the whole to fast thing would give an immersion. The whole thing could be really good story material. The hunter and pray dynamic. You’re both trying to kill each other and one time he/she has a chance and one time you have a chance. You’re both hunter and pray, same place on the food chain. Cougar has cliffs and stealth abilities, you have shelters and tools.

I hope the cougar will be heavily reworked because for now it’s just wasted potential. I’m sure there’s many people like me who would love to get another enemy animal in the game but as a actual animal you can find and fight rather than mechanic

[pokka]

Feedback: You definitely should have a chance to see the Cougar stalking and slowly closing in on you (even if it was almost impossible to kill) before the attack instead of just getting attacked out of the blue.

[olympicjbrag]

So the cougar is a mechanic and not really an animal in the world. THAT'S DISAPPOINTING.

[Rubyfireruby]

I want the cougar to be more immersive as a threat, instead of just a countdown and random noises. Here's how it could work, in stages:
1) If you're in the territory too long, your survivor starts to feel uneasy. There could be comments made like "I'm getting strange feelings about this place." or "Something's telling me to move on from here." This could come with maybe an insomnia affliction, where you're feeling restless in an area.
2) After about a few days of this, the cougar actually enters the area, but doesn't start to hunt you yet. This could include comments like "It feels like the trees have eyes..." or "I feel like I'm being watched." You could also start to have 'dreams', which could have a chance to play when you sleep (This could be some sort of mini five second cutscene of cougar eyes in the darkness, or the shadow of a cougar on a ledge). Also, when you're outside at night, you can hear the yowling sounds, but only echoing in the distance.
3) After the countdown ends, the cougar begins to actually hunt you. It spawns in a random area of the map you're in, and is invisible (like the darkwalker). However, as it gets closer, you're begin to hear closer cougar screams and the sound of it moving around you. The cougar music will also play, getting louder and more tense as the cougar nears you. The cougar will appear in the world when it's about 20 meters from you, and pause, about to launch an attack. This could give you the chance to ready yourself or try to fend it off. The cougar will also only appear and attack after sunset, for now. This means if you want to avoid it, you can take shelter inside until morning. However, on higher difficulties and or the cougar has been stalking you for two days, it can attack during the day.
4) If you survive an attack but the cougar lives, it goes back to stage 2 and you have the chance to either leave or risk fighting the cougar again.
I think this would be a really cool new threat, but it doesn't give much room for error and I think it should be more immersive to the world. I think an icon would be fine while it's in stage 3, but I think an actual countdown in the game kind of breaks the immersion. I feel like the uneasiness of being stalked and ambiance of a nearby threat would be more interesting.

[TurisasFTW]

I like the idea of cougar, but I don't like the fact, you can't see it before it attacks.
Now it's like a pure penalty and you can't avoid it.

There is absolutely no reason to keep it on just to get a huge unavoidable penalty and possibly a death.

Just make it silent. That alone would make it much more lethal than any other animal.
Often you can hear all the other animals before you can see them and that's the reason they can't jump on you.
But a silent predator would have a much better chance. Also if it can smell you from far away, like wolves can if you carry some raw meat, would make them much more dangerous.

[MorkandGork]

Easy fix for the cougar make it like red dead redemption 2 did it. The cougar controls its hunting ground and actively hunts and prowls in the area and you can tell via carcasses and scratches. Either you can choose to enter its territory where the hunter becomes the hunted or steer clear of that area until you wish to play hunt or be hunted.

[AnxiousGary]

They threw the idea of immersion out the window a while ago didn't they? HUD popups to warn you that you're about to get attacked by an invisible cougar, gosh it's like I'm there!

[PrimusSwallows]

I'm hoping the cougar is updated in the future to have more immersive indicators of its arrival than simple HUD messages, and for it to become an actual creature that can be seen in the game world outside of the scripted attack, even if it's extremely rare and stealthy. The fact that the only way to hunt this thing is to let yourself get mauled is somewhat ridiculous.

[Josh-yxgy]

Please consider adding some way to outsmart and get the drop on the cougar, having it spawn on top of you feels unfair and anti-fun if theres no way to avoid.

[MyMajorJohnson]

The cougar should exist in the world and be very difficult to spot stalking you. This just seems like a cheap shot at the player with no way to adjust on lower difficulties.

[cfredtmbg]

The whole update looks so awesome, but the fact that the cougar just materializes out of thin air to attack you is really lame. If you’re in a mountain pass, that might make sense, but on the open ice of coastal highway??? Just feels like bad game design imo.

[bidge]

Not making the Cougar an actual entity you can find, and not giving you the chance to kill it before it attacks, the same way with Moose and Bears, yet _somehow_ still choosing to make the struggle unwinnable, is just a poor choice. You’re telling me I need to ruin my clothes and knock on death’s door for a headpiece and knife? I already do both fighting against blizzards and the wind.

Either make it hard to track, changing its location in a region like every day after it spawns, or after a certain time, play an auditory beat drop, like wolves, maybe unique, and give like 10 or 15 seconds to look around before it claws at you, like the Bear in “The Hunted”. You could also do both.

I think the latter would be interesting, not just because no other animal acts like that, but because the risk I take is no longer an active sacrifice of clothing and condition, but a _potential_ one that I need to have my wits up for to prevent.

New gear is nice, but come on, don’t force me to ruin my clothes and health to get it: just threaten me with it instead.

The key word is threaten, over force. Can you imagine having to screw yourself royally with Bears and Moose just to get their skins? Retain how they are designed with the Cougars, and spice things up by twisting their behaviors a bit.

[johnnysilverhand--]

cougar just jumping you out of nowhere without even 3 sec of him running towards you just sucks, like imagine your in a big open field like FA and you have the cougar alert and then even if you can see everything it just jump on you and kill you.
not that fair, i like the implementation but not the mechanical side of it. Otherwise great update.

[GuyFromCanada]

I do hope you guys tweak the cougar to make it more immersive. Bare minimum a small run-up before it attacks you. I’m not a big fan of the teleporting death kitty.

[heyitsbread]

My thoughts? Pretty much everything OTHER than the cougar was executed very well. As do many other players, I find the cougar to be a poorly-executed mechanic that could be improved upon so much. Make the cougar visible, let it ACTUALLY stalk you, give you a chance to attack. ( no matter how brief, but still. you get the point ) Small things like these could really help improve it. So please Hinterland, listen to the community! We all love this game! So please, make the right changes. But please Hinterland, change this over-glorified cabin fever in some way or another.

[jackr]

Still uncertain about the cougar. I would think an alert enough player would still be able to catch and kill it before an attack. If it's simply "oh you can't do anything until it's on you"... if that's the complaint... well, not a good system.