Fishing Revamp

In this update we're taking a look at reconstructing the fishing experience from the ground up.

Before, the fishing mechanic was a mess of static parameters that didn't inspire much in the way of intuitive gameplay. It attempted to balance fighting the fish to burn through its stamina to put it in a rest state in order to reel through stillness. Overall it didn't really land and it didn't feel dynamic.

Now, the fishing system is built up from a set of tunable parameters take values from the the player, the rod and the fish. Okay, yes, we're missing upgrades for the rod, and we're missing variety in the parameters of the fish, but the bones are there!

Changelog

• The bobber is now a fully simulated rigid body that bounces, plunges and rolls.
• The bobber rights itself in the water so it's always sitting pretty.
• The bite phase is now a (tunable) quick time event
  • When the line is bit, a ring will expand outwards, then collapse in. If you click your primary action at the apex and again just before it fully collapses, you'll get a perfect hook and start the fight in rest mode. Clicking early, or too late, and you risk losing the bite and the bait.

• New rhythm of fight/rest has players balancing tension while reeling. Most fish will have a pattern with a little bit of randomness mixed in
  
• New fishing UI tracks the bobber in screen space
  • Indicator ring shows when a fish is fighting (red) or resting (green) to inform you when you should focus on reeling. This will be tuned to be more accessible in the future.
  • Tension meter shows how close you are to snapping your line and losing the fish.

• Fish can be reeled onto the shore where they'll begin to flop around (cutting your line will cause you to lose your fish still)
  

Tunable Parameters

The new fishing system has a bevy of tunable values:

Rod

• Reel Speed
• Tension Limit
• Tension Momentum
• Tension Recovery
• Fish Grade/Quality Multiplier
• Bite Frequency
• Apex Forgiveness (Perfect Cast)
• Inner Zone Size (Perfect Cast)

Fish

• Pull Rate
• Strength/Weight
• Time to Escape
• Fight Phase Duration
• Rest Phase Duration
• Phase Randomness Multiplier
• Bite Expansion Time
• Bite Contraction Time

Coming Up

• More fish variety
• More rod variety
• More bug variety
• More Monkey