I know there were fishing-related topics before, sorry for another one. BUT... most of them are related to rod and reel fishing - Angling.
Yesterday at work I was fixing a fishing net thinking about AoC and only then it struck me that not a single MMO uses the full potential of this profession. So here are some ideas that came to my mind :
1. You usually don't care about the quantity. Weight is what matters!
Not sure how hard to implement is it, but the main unit of fish should be weight (So a backpack slot would have to accept 0,01 weight and not 1 object). Pounds/Kilograms is what you care about when trading fish, that's where excitement mainly comes from. It also enables nice progression with skill increase : [weight= (baseweight+ - variance)*fishinglevel]. It applies to any form of fishing.
2. Day and night - It's a good start, from what I see on the wiki. Different creatures are active at different times but with that effectiveness of methods changes, e.g cages are used for nighttime, and with a rod, you usually chill during the day. Not exclusive but significant. <- Trying to not get into much detail for no reason.
3. Actual fisherman progression: Usually you start with the rod -> You get better rod/ get into methods that allow you to catch more at once, so small nets, cages -> You learn using those, so you stop breaking and tangling them up so much, you learn a bit about fish behavior which allows you to make better decisions -> You do most of the stuff right. It's still sometimes RNG but you know how to target what you want -> You are a master at what you do which allows you to target true monsters among water creatures which is very risky and expensive but you also know how to get a good haul to make a profit.
When it comes to equipment Rod->rod and reel->cages->use of boat->nets->drag nets.
4. Not sure in which professions fisheries are, but it could be a cool interaction between farming, fishing, and animal husbandry.
There are different directions you can take a fishery to. As a farmer, you'd kind of just want to stock your fishery with some fish and grow them as fast as possible for profit/use. Someone who would focus on husbandry could perhaps focus on breeding fish from the fisheries and change the weight/quantity ratio by producing stocking material for other fisheries. As a fisherman, you could maybe use a well-managed fishery to gain experience faster. There could be also a decorative aspect of this where farmers could keep some rare color varieties that fishermen caught and animal husbandry could breed them into a different color.
5. Minigames
When it comes to a rod, 3 stage timing minigame could be great (setting hook, fight, pulling out) where if you get it right, you get a different/better loot table, and if you miss it's just a regular loot, and you pull out the fish either way.
Maybe something like NoPixel GTA lockpicking
https://sharkiller.ddns.net/nopixel_minigame/lockpicks/
When it comes to nets and cages there could be a repairing minigame, which would be like making a basic sewing pattern (that's what it is IRL) you could do it to restore nets durability slightly, for some fishing exp. If you didn't want to bother with minigame, just buy a new one and sell it to someone who could use that exp.
