Call of the Wild: The Angler Hotfix 1.05 Comments

 Call of the Wild: The Angler has hotfix patch 1.05 released and here are some thoughts on the notes before I give it a whirl later today.  I'll share my thoughts tomorrow as well after I get a chance to give it a go.  Anyways; here are my before-trying-it thoughts.

First off there are four banger of release notes right off the bat:

• Frog and popper lures have an updated buoyancy setup to prevent them from sinking too fast.
• The animations for reeling speeds are now faster!
• Fish are now more proactive when chasing the lure.
• Players’ lines no longer snap so easily.

Floating lures not sinking is a good fix; hopefully we no longer have the rock-that-sinks-immeidately-to-the-bottom experience.

Reeling speeds being faster is huge.  It ... was ... so ... slow.  Now my guess since it says animations it won't speed up the actual retrieval which will still be a problem -- it should not take over a minute to reel in 90 feet of line.

Fish being more proactive hopefully means they are faster and strike faster.  Fish in this game are another ... so ... slow.  Looking forward to seeing this in action, but suspect there is still a long ways to go to replicate that real life fishing feeling of a fast moving pike slamming your lure out of nowhere.

Lines no longer snapping so easily is a welcome change; assuming it fixes some of the areas where if you fish from an obstacle near the shore it was 100% line breaking everytime you tried to bring a fish in regardless of line strength or fish size.  I tested a specific spot near a waterfall where with the highest strength line/reel/rod and catching anything (bass, pike, perch) was 100% line break; assuming because of some issue with object collision that was not visually obvious to me as a player.

Moving further into the notes the are more fixes to water; water being key to a good fishing game (duh!).

• We’ve calmed the waters so that it ripples and flows more naturally.
• We’ve touched up some water seams and shoreline transitions, and corrected some water-type blending issues.
  

And 3rd times a charm for this fix (hopefully!).

• Players can now move their Buckwheat Rod and Cria Reel from their inventory to storage.

That is it as far as patch notes of import, but the developers also left a message at the end talking about whats next for the game.

Now that Patch 1.05 is out, we’ll batten down the hatches for a bit and focus on our first major update since launch. It’ll bring more of the player-requested improvements you’ve come to expect from us, but also add new features that should satisfy those who like a challenge.

We’ll share more about this upcoming update as we get closer to release, currently scheduled for the end of October/early November.

This was interesting to read; especially with the date noted for end of this month.  My current feeling on the game is that its a paid alpha.  It is very feature incomplete and the fishing experience is basic.  The open world is fun but much of that open world has no relation to fishing and thus makes no sense.  My wish list at this point for the first major update:

1. Significant speed increase for fish.
2. Significant speed increase for how long it takes to reel in a cast; goes with #1
3. A progression system of some sort with skills/perks; anything to give me a reason to play
   
4. More fish species; ideally in specific locations and conditions only
   
5. Speaking of conditions; let players see altitude, water temp, etc.

The fishing experience needs to see significant improvement with this update and there needs to be more reasons to come back and fish (i.e. progression system).  More fish species would be a good show of confidence for the community. If there is add-on content released that players have to buy this game will be run into the grave by the community.

What are your thoughts?