Sim or Arcade?

[Neurotic Panda]

Hello. I was looking into buying this game so I watched a video on YouTube to check it out basically. I was a little surprised by what I saw. It was a player running around the woods near a lake zooming in on moose I believe with his rifle and shooting them. The animals were outlined with a neon green line.

There was no hunting or stalking at all from what I saw. Just a guy running around zooming in on animals and shooting anything that moved outlined in neon green..

This dosent seem very sim like to me at all and is nothing like real hunting. Is this game a Sim or is it more arcade like? I was hoping for a hunting sim experience. But from what I saw it seems like it's not a Sim.

I also know the footage was new because of the upload date and the player was talking about the new turkeys coming out. So it wasnt like beta or old gameplay.

Ty

[NuCkEnFuTs]

You'll get alot of feed back on this, the tubers are not how the game plays. IMO it's a great hunting SIM. Well worth the money and time you'll need to invest in the game.

[Fornix]

It's not a full sim, hence as to what you described is possible. However, there are multiple ways in which you can choose to play Call of the Wild. You can choose to spawn from tent to tent, run to a lake, spot an animal to get a neon glow around it and blast stuff down, yes.

But you can also choose not to use quick travelling, you can choose to disable any form of interface help such as the glow around animals, the glow around tracks, etc. Which in turn will shift the experience away from pure arcade to more of a sim like experience.

However, there are certain issues which will make it apparent that the sim experience is not perfect. For example:

- If you stand under a tree, and the visibility indicator indicates you are hidden, that is what counts. An animal will not see you, despite you being clearly in line of sight because you are standing on the same side of the stem as the animal. On the other hand, you can be behind a thick layer of bushes, trees, etc. but in an open spot of grass, and the animal on the other side of all that forest can 'see' you.

- If you should an animal near a need zone, part of a pack, the pack will run away. If you sit and wait in the bush, within a minute or two you will often notice the rest of the pack returns as if nothing ever happened.

- Animal path finding can experience obvious errors in mountainous areas.

Myself I much more like to take a more slow-paced, more realistic approach to my hunts in this game. And for that too I definitely believe the game offers a very enjoyable experience.

[NuCkEnFuTs]

^^^What he said +1

[N1ck0]

It's Sim-Cad. A little bit like GRID is for racing games. The older GRID games at least, not sure about the 2019 one. In short, it's hybrid. You can make it more arcade, or more sim depending on the settings (assists) you choose.

[Neurotic Panda]

Thanks for the replies, It makes the picture more clear. Its not a sim, but more of a chill/relaxed shooter or if you want to turn on the 'neon green' animals its more of an arcade shooter.

I appreciate the feedback and will have to think on my decision as i was wanting more of a Sim hunting experience.

ty


Are their scents you can put on yourself to mask your 'odor' at all or like any type of calls?

thanks again !

[Dick Dastardly Richard]

Originally posted by Neurotic Panda:

Thanks for the replies, It makes the picture more clear. Its not a sim, but more of a chill/relaxed shooter or if you want to turn on the 'neon green' animals its more of an arcade shooter.

I appreciate the feedback and will have to think on my decision as i was wanting more of a Sim hunting experience.

ty


Are their scents you can put on yourself to mask your 'odor' at all or like any type of calls?

thanks again !

the game has both

[Esker]

Originally posted by Neurotic Panda:

Thanks for the replies, It makes the picture more clear. Its not a sim, but more of a chill/relaxed shooter or if you want to turn on the 'neon green' animals its more of an arcade shooter.

I appreciate the feedback and will have to think on my decision as i was wanting more of a Sim hunting experience.

ty


Are their scents you can put on yourself to mask your 'odor' at all or like any type of calls?

thanks again !

If you turn off all aids etc.. you aren't likely to find a better hunting SIM. There are going to be inherent flaws in any hunting SIM game, being that hunting is almost entirely based on sensory perception and games can only 'accurately' represent visuals. They have made a good attempt at creating directional sounds but it isn't true to life (obviously). However, with some practice it can certainly be used effectively in the stalking process.

The line of sight issue fornix mentioned hasn't been an issue to me (not that it doesn't exist) - I think this is going to be more or less noticeable depending on your play style i.e. if you are stalking hugging tree lines and crawling through grass you will almost always be semi visible which has quite a long effective range from my experience.

I tried the game initially without any aids etc.. as I wanted the same experience as you. It didn't last long as in the early game downing animals instantly was tough and following them without blood trails is really tough and finding them without downed animal highlights was near impossible. In short if you want it to be as close to a hunting sim as possible - you better be a good stalker and a better shot. Also, there is a core mechanic in the game which requires you to find certain types of tracks and as I said its really hard to find them without the aids.

All that said, this is by far my favourite game and you have at least some options when it comes to customising the experience and while I think you're likely to need some of the aids turned on it seriously doesn't take away from the rest of the game.


I hope this helps

[Machin Shin]

you want a Hunting game, buy it you dont find a better one, YT Videos are not a reference most ppl play like morons there..(not all!)

just wait for a sale and you will see that it can be exactly what you want it to be for you in singleplayer

i find it stupid to make a judgement of the game from videos and what other ppl say.

[Neurotic Panda]

Thanks for the replies and information. I totally understand there are going to be some AI hiccups/glitches and such. That can be any game honestly.

I was looking for a Game where I can chill with a cup of coffee IRL, and in game sit in a blind/climb/saddle and proceed to hunt. or use a call etc. I also like to take my time and explore all of the map. I'm in no rush to blow though the game to get to 'end game'.

From some of the things i saw like neon green outlines and people running all over like its a fast paced FPS shooter turned me off and surprised me.

This game does seem like what i am looking for though if i have the option to turn all of that off and proceed to play it at a slow pace and just 'take it in' if you will.

perhaps some of the aids will be useful, I cant comment on that yet. But i would use as few as i could possibly use and still enjoy the game or have a good challenging hunting experience.

Thanks again !

[Stardog765]

Lots of good information here. I was always more of a TheHunter Classic player but am trying to start transitioning myself to CotW because the maps and the immersion is just so good its hard to turn away from now.

I too want that more sim experience and have found a pretty good balance I think.
I have my settings set in a way that I will see tracks on the ground the glow just like in Classic, even set to the same color as Classic :)

I have all the glowy sparkly bits turned off so there is nothing that floats in the air. I also change the color of tracks that I am not focused on to a dark color that is hard to see but not impossible.

I also have all animal outlines turned off so there is no neon outline on anything when I spot it or have it targeted.

Its not perfect but it certainly moves it more towards the sim side of things.

One the main issues I still have with this sim is the animals coming back to you at need zones even after you have murdered 2 or 3 of their buddies. If they could just work that out it would go a long way to moving this even further to the sim experience.

Good luck with the game. I think you will enjoy it, it just takes some time getting your settings right for the experience you want.

[yogisgoat]

@ Neurotic Panda

You have to understand, a good many of the people you see on YT are NOT hunters. A lot of them are kiddies whose only concern is to be at the top of the leaderboard, whatever it takes. As a group they really don't want to hunt, they just want to shoot, shoot, shoot. They whine because the level cap keeps them from becoming the death-dealing God Of The Forest. Most of them are particularly hard-hit when they realize there is no "end game".

By the way, just so you know, most of the bugs in the game seem to be in multiplayer. I've been playing single player exclusively since the game was new and have never had a crash and never lost a save file or trophy.

I'll finish by saying that if you are interested in actual hunting I don't think you're going to find a better game out there. If you really hunt you will not be disappointed. And if you want to play multiplayer do it with people you know, then you won'y have to deal with the script kiddies.

[Hanuman]

As you get better it becomes more and more obvious where the flaws are, and you can use those flaws to get many kills, quickly, especially when using rifles. I observed a pathing hang-up the other day in Balmont by the bridge tunnel, it was 20+ animals (I observed moose, blacktail and black bear) trying to go through this tiny area. I thought it was interesting but just left it be. I am sure the developers will fix it at some point and if not, I don't "seek" these areas out.

As Fornix suggested above, I love LL, Medved, Yukon, and Hirsh, but when the Rocky Mountain reserve comes out I am going to impose rules on myself, to make it less "point and click like":

1) No ATV usage. I've never gone camping in the deep woods and magically have a huge ATV dropped by my tent.

2) No forms of digital animal tracking or body outlines. This probably means 100% quick kill almost every time or you might not find it.

3) Personal goal; No more range-finding bow sight; 5pin or less only, to make it even less
"arcady".

4) Also personal thing is to not use tripods but buildable structures and treestands only.

[Newdogg]

Originally posted by Neurotic Panda:

Hello. I was looking into buying this game so I watched a video on YouTube to check it out basically. I was a little surprised by what I saw. It was a player running around the woods near a lake zooming in on moose I believe with his rifle and shooting them. The animals were outlined with a neon green line.

There was no hunting or stalking at all from what I saw. Just a guy running around zooming in on animals and shooting anything that moved outlined in neon green..

This dosent seem very sim like to me at all and is nothing like real hunting. Is this game a Sim or is it more arcade like? I was hoping for a hunting sim experience. But from what I saw it seems like it's not a Sim.

I also know the footage was new because of the upload date and the player was talking about the new turkeys coming out. So it wasnt like beta or old gameplay.

Ty

No, it's not a simulation game, it is more of an arcade game with realistic aspects thrown in. Reality, it's a hybrid. But it's also subjective. Some people find the experience to be rather realistic, where as others don't. You can also change the settings and do certain things to make it more realistic on your end. As far as games go though, I will say this is hands down the best hunting game out there. It's by far the most beautiful, the maps are huge, the models look better than any other game I've seen, and the dev team is top notch when it comes to communication and support. They are the only dev team I have seen that hosts weekly live streams to talk with their customers. So lots to consider. Hope this helps in some way.

[N1ck0]

Originally posted by yogisgoat:

@ Neurotic Panda

You have to understand, a good many of the people you see on YT are NOT hunters. A lot of them are kiddies whose only concern is to be at the top of the leaderboard, whatever it takes. As a group they really don't want to hunt, they just want to shoot, shoot, shoot. They whine because the level cap keeps them from becoming the death-dealing God Of The Forest. Most of them are particularly hard-hit when they realize there is no "end game".

By the way, just so you know, most of the bugs in the game seem to be in multiplayer. I've been playing single player exclusively since the game was new and have never had a crash and never lost a save file or trophy.

I'll finish by saying that if you are interested in actual hunting I don't think you're going to find a better game out there. If you really hunt you will not be disappointed. And if you want to play multiplayer do it with people you know, then you won'y have to deal with the script kiddies.

So essentially, if I "whined" about the level cap at some point, and was hard hit by no "end game", whatever that means (to me it's the fact XP from a ton of remaining quests kind of goes to waste), I'm a script kiddie who wants to be the death-dealing God of the Forest, and want to be top of the leaderboard, even though I don't even play multiplayer.

Okay dude. Whatever you say. Are those experiencing the bugs you don't experience also fitting in this all-encompassing category of yours? Their complains are, I assume, illegitimate from your perspective.

I never watch gamer-streamers, whatever the game. Find it lame and boring. So not sure if you're just pointing at them, or again, generalising in your mind anyone who fits one of those standards you enumerated.

I'm not a real hunter (got my license though), but I want a red flashlight for realism. Something I'll probably never get. Does that also make me a whining script kiddie?

The Grizzlies being mute in Yukon isn't an issue on your side? You somehow magically hear them, while us peasants can't? And are just imagining bugs that don't exist...Okay...

[N1ck0]

Originally posted by TheMarcosianOne:

Everyone is different and the human equation is too complex to categorize someone into a group or another over level caps and end games. If this game gave everyone all the guns, and a bunch of powerful skills right off the bat and told you to go and have fun and not worry about going up levels and stuff, you would only get the hard core hunting crowd and the game wouldn't have had the same attraction that it currently has.

Exactly. Personally, the level cap and "lack of end game" is about a sense of progression and virtual purpose. Not about being a lethal hunter, or whatever. I just see this bunch of quests remaining, and find it to be a waste.

If only the XP was still accounted for, so if there ever was to be a level cap increase or something, it would go there. Not going to happen as things are structured. I can still enjoy the game for what it is, and do quests for fun, but it just doesn't feel the same anymore.

And yeah, generalising like that is not very constructive.