Please make fishing actually feel like fishing.

Of all the gathering professions in a MMO I think fishing has the most potential to be a fun mini game that I've yet seen fully taken advantage of. My suggestion on what I think would make for a good fishing system goes like this (largely inspired by actual fishing games I used to play on the Nintendo)

Left mouse button to cast/reel in your line
Right mouse button to set the hook when you get a bite and to net the fish when it gets close enough to do so
Move mouse side to side to try to direct your bait away from snags and to the fish
Give the fish a stamina bar and your line a strength bar. Trying to reel in to fast while the fish has high stamina drains your lines strength and increases the chance it snaps, to slow and you'll run out of line

higher skill level and higher quality line/pole would obviously make it easier to catch the fish.

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Undead Canuck

Won't happen. Most of the devs love fishing, so it will be in the game. If you don't like it, you don't have to do it.

Kilroko

I've played a few games where they attempted to make fishing immersive. In the long run, all it did was make it tedious and something you couldn't really just chill and do. If they can do it right and not make it tedious, I'm all for it.

For example, they added fishing to Sea of Thieves and it just felt so scripted and you couldn't properly look around while fishing and had to constantly be watching your line to react. It wasn't relaxing at all, even when catching a small docile fish. Not to say that it was difficult or anything, but it simply wasn't fun.

A good fishing mini-game is not an easy task. I would rather have something dumb like WoW where you can watch netflix and listen for the audio queue of your bobber going under, in stead of something tedious without much reward.

Luckily that can all be adjusted on the back end to make it feel worth investing your time into this craft. Or perhaps video game fishing just isn't something I enjoy and I'll leave that profession to others.

Slinkyb

I would like to see fishing being an actual fight with the fish instead of just clicking a bobber or hitting keys in a certain order. Something along the lines of Legend of the river king where you would hold down a button to reel in the fish until the line was about to break then stop reeling until the line is safe then start reeling them in again until you get them in. Its a MMO so i dont expect anything too complicated, but this would be the best route since its simple and would still be a lot of fun.

OrcLuck

Currently as far as I understand it there are two purposed systems for fishing.

A more wowish passive fishing system, and a deep water sort of fly fishing like active experience. That was some years ago, I don't know what Steven or the team have discussed lately.

KnightlySleeps

Fishing is something I am very excited about for Ashes. I LOVED the way ocean fishing worked in Archeage and I'm hoping Ashes pulls inspiration from that mini-game and some how captures the joy I had in Archeage with that system. (without the labor system of course) Making a fishing boat and seeing the fish I caught swimming in the fish tank of the boat and seeing the massive fish hung up on the hooks on the back of the boat was a very satisfying experience. If fishing captures that feeling again for me I can totally see me spending most of my time in Ashes out on the water catching some big fish!

Dolyem

Agreed, also I actually enjoyed how New World did fishing. The game itself was meh, but the fishing was the most enjoyable profession in my opinion. Actually had to pay attention to catch your fish

Vaknar

There are some really neat ideas in this thread! I find this one especially interesting:

rodzor wrote: »

As long is it is more of a fun thing to show off record catches, level up cooking skills...

Keep these great ideas coming, everyone! What else do you think would be fun to incorporate into the fishing system?

BobTheMagicalFish

Vaknar wrote: »

Keep these great ideas coming, everyone! What else do you think would be fun to incorporate into the fishing system?

I would like to be able to jump into the river and catch fish with my bare hands. /j

St_Nyack

GW2 has a decent fishing system that I would consider the bare basics.

Would like some realistic catches .
Stuff like , rocks
Logs .
Crocodiles
Old boot , with the foot still in it....
My left ear .
Make it really interesting, and real include combat fishing.

Waryasei

What I want to see in a fishing profession:
- a leaderboard like system with fish sizes
- would be nice to be able to craft from fishes, trophies to hang on walls
- a UI where we can see what fish we fished/collected and "???" for uncaught fishes maybe even a reward for fishing all the fishes in the world (I am a completionism and I would like to have a way to track what I did in game in everything

)
- achievements (hope all professions have achievements and some kind of reward for becoming a master in it, for example a cosmetic related to that profession or something to allow the user to "brag", nothing game changing)
- fishing events where for example an amphibious would be caught instead of a fish and you have to fight it and get a reward(maybe a bigger quantity of fishes or something, you cut his belly and you get the fishes (for those that want logical or lore-ish reasons for getting more fishes)

)
- if it is possible with the season system, it would be nice in the winter to have frozen lakes where you can make a hole in the ice and fish
- since I am new here I don't know what was discussed about fishing but I truly hope we get actual fish and not ingredients items (like fish oil for example) from fishing

arsnn

@Vaknar

There is a couple of things that Animal Crossing did well with fishing.
In generall that game is relatively minimalistic in scope but their features are designed out very well.

There is 3 components to it:

1. Pre-fishing: You need to run around and scan the environments for the "outline" of a fish in the water. The outline is varying in size and form, which builds anticipation for the player "I may catch this or that fish".
2. Fishing: I like the way you fish in that game. It´s simplistic, requires short burst of focus, yet is relaxing. Probably not the ideal implementation for most mmo players though.
3. Post-fishing: The character presents the fish, sound pops up. It makes it more exciting when you catch something rare and see the 3d model of it, instead of some ui icon in your inventory. It also communicates to other players " Look what i caught here".

Also the plenty variables like season, weather, day time,location and rarity made it a deep system. It would work well with AoC`s weather/season system.

Waryasei

Otr wrote: »

Waryasei wrote: »

- if it is possible with the season system, it would be nice in the winter to have frozen lakes where you can make a hole in the ice and fish
-

Can I leave my boat in the lake and see it stuck in frozen water?
What if the lake freezes while I am fishing?
Or while I swim in or under water?

But freezing lake would be nice, as well as fishing in a hole in an ice.

Well being frozen under the ice would kill you by drowning (i suppose they will have this mechanic for those that want to swim under water), which isn't that big of a deal since the lakes would freeze in time slowly (like the weather changes in a period of days, part of the lake can also freeze each day until it is frozen entirely, so its kind of impossible to get trapped unless you afk there for days xD), as for the boats, I don't think we will be able to make boats on smaller lakes that can freeze ? I don't know if they addressed where we can make boats, in open seas or any water.
Honestly if it is possible I would like to see only smaller lakes frozen and the huge ones either semifrozen or not frozen at all, like in real life not all lakes freeze entirely depending on temperature

Also if it is possible it would probably make it easier to code only for smaller lakes/puddles/ponds to freeze i guess ?

T Elf

I'm hoping for a type of fishing that is more relaxing where you can chat with guildies and friends. I did like in BDO where there was an encyclopedia of the fish you caught and the idea you could complete the collection with rewards. I also liked in some games that you could fish anywhere there was water.

Ferryman

Sometimes minigames feels fun first but starts to annoy more you do it. Thus, I personally prefer simple and relaxing gathering mechanics. However, because we do not have a possibility to do every profession (unless utilizing several alts) I am most likely going to choose something else and therefore, I do not mind if there will be a fishing minigame if that is what most of the players favors.

KnightlySleeps

I think my biggest fear with fishing in Ashes is what I've stated in other places that it won't be a relatively calm activity because of a giant target being put on your boat if the caught fish are able to be stolen by others. I would be fine with people being able to destroy my fishing boat or kill me in PvP because that ability is part of the PvX experience which I and many others who are excited about this game enjoy. However, I believe being able to steal caught fish would minimize the value of choosing fishing as you master profession. I asked about this in the Q&A and curious to hear the team's thoughts on it. Same goes for stealing ore or any other gathering resource.

It would make much more sense to me if the resource stealing aspect was restricted to the caravans feature.

SongRune

To me, fishing is an activity which is mostly relaxing, with occasional sudden bursts of focus. When I go fishing in a game, I'm not looking to be 'always on', and I don't want to be micro-managing my bait once I've cast. I want to get my bait and rod, find a good spot, either on shore or on a boat, cast my line then kick back and enjoy the sunrise while I wait for a fish to show up.

I do like to have some kind of minigame when I land a catch. It makes the "burst of focus" part work properly. When a fish takes the bait, I want to have to engage and do something to reel it in. I find BDO does this well, and I came to enjoy both FFXI's new and old systems.

One thing that I don't like as much, is any system where I have to react immediately to the fish catching my hook. I'm cool with fighting to reel it in, because that does provide the 'burst of focus' that I'm looking for, but I'm less interested in systems which place the challenge in a quick reaction test. Such systems change the base experience from "relaxing with occasional bursts of focus" to "always on, and if your focus dips at any point, you might lose your fish". This eliminates the 'relaxing' aspect almost entirely, and puts fishing in a weird position where something I generally do to relax is only possible when I'm in an active, focused mood. The kind of mood where I'd be doing something else. This would basically remove fishing from the game, from my perspective.

Here's an example of a system that I think is done well. I'll also explain some of the depth to that experience as a whole, as well. (If you've got a Lu Shang's Rod, you can skip this part.)

In FFXI, you equip your rod and bait, and cast your line. You wait a bit, and something catches your hook. This can be a monster, an item like a rusty bucket, or a fish, and the game telegraphs what type of thing it is by describing the feeling of the pull on your line. (Item: "You feel something pulling on your line." Fish: "Something caught the hook!" Monster: "Something clamps onto your line ferociously!")

As soon as you landed your fish, the music changes, there's a "!!" style sound effect, and your game controller, if you use one, vibrates. Thus begins the minigame. Your catch has a stamina bar, and you have to tire it out within about maybe 40-50 seconds. The fish will repeatedly pull your rod left or right, as it tries to escape, and you have to react to this, tugging the line in the opposite direction. If you do this successfully, it will lower the fish's stamina. If you pull in the wrong direction, the fish's stamina recovers by about twice as much. If you miss the cue entirely, nothing much happens (but there's still a time limit, so you can't afford to just ignore it). When you get the fish's stamina down to zero, you just hit Enter (or X on your controller) and you've got yourself a fish (usually).

The amount of stamina you can drain with a success, as well as whether the fish's stamina slowly (or quickly) decays or regenerates on its own varies based on how strong that type of fish is, as well as your fishing level and the quality (or specialization) of your fishing rod. Sometimes the fish is too big for your rod (or you hit enter/X at the wrong time), and your line snaps, losing your fancy lure (if you're not using consumable bait) or even occasionally breaking your rod. But you had the chance to let the fish go if it seemed to be too much for your skill or your gear (or you didn't want to fish up an enemy or a bucket).

If I go after a level 90 fish, with an average rod, and my level 46 fishing skill, I'll never even get started, because the fish will regenerate faster than I can deal with, even if I act perfectly. If I bring the (technically former) best rod in the game, get all my fishing gear together, get a buff from a particular NPC, and do a good job at tiring it out, I can get that fish. Just maybe not every time.

If I go after a level 16 fish (that is one of my preferred foods in that game) with my level 46 fishing skill, I can use my mid-level rod, and no special buffs or gear, and catch that fish every time in about two, maybe three actions. Because it's so far below my skill, opportunities for crits in the 'exhausting your fish' minigame appear relatively frequently, and if I really wanted to, I could probably wait for the fish's stamina to drain on its own.

If you've got a Lu Shang's Rod, skip to here

The amount of effort and focus I have to put in to catch any given fish depends on the species. This is big. Particularly when combined with something else:

The game also has a rich ecosystem. Each area has a different set of fish (sometimes even depending on which body of water you visit). Each fish responds to a different set of baits. Some fish only show up at certain times of day. If I'm looking for a real challenge, I can go to a particular port, grab a particular bait, and aim for that level 90 fish I mentioned earlier. If I'm looking for something more typical, I can hop on a ferry. Depending which bait I pick, I can either tend to find some relatively easy (for my mid-level skill) fish, a combination of some decent and some reasonably challenging ones, or a combination of reasonably challenging ones and a few that I can sometimes catch.

Some days I'll pick the easy fish. Some days I'll pick the harder ones. Some days I'm looking for something specific, and depending how common that is, I'll have to travel to a particular place, and bring a specific bait, or just pick one of my standard baits out of my bag and head to my usual haunts. I can choose what I'm interested in, on any particular day.

This design rewards knowledge, preparation, and skill. It allows players to vary the difficulty of what they are likely to encounter. It lets you fish up an enemy if you're negligent (or bored), and gives you a reason to travel to various regions to find different types of fish. And it does all of this without compromising the "relaxing with bursts of excitement and focus" that make fishing what it is. (Unless that's what you're into that day.)

I hope Ashes can live up to that standard.

Voidwalkers

As long as the devs balance the value of / demand for fish properly.

The ideal situation would be
- fishing is made a reasonably complicated & fun minigame
- only players who enjoy fishing plays that mini game.
- other players can just buy fishes off them at reasonable price.

The worst case scenario is
- fishing is made a complicated mini game.
- various crafting receipes demand a shit ton of fish. High demand + limited supply (coz fishing's hard) = skyrocketed price.
- players who don't enjoy fishing at all are forced to choose between tedious fishing grinds or buying expensive fish.

PenguinPaladin

Make fishing, and other gathering skills, a requirment for triggering some world bosses.

Fisherman of adequate level pulls a kraken out of the lake.

Miner of adequate level breaks through a wall revealing a dungeon.

And so on.

midgetlove

I absolutely love fishing IRL, however an MMO may not be the best genre to implement realistic fishing for the time it takes to reel a fish in vs picking up a flower or skinning. Unless you have the option to Fillet the Fish and depending on size, gives more resources? Also having different lures, like a hook and bobber for bottom feeding fish and a Jig/spinner for predatory fish? idk im spitballing here :P just as a man who lovesss fishing

Veeshan

Archeage sport fishing please

was profitable and created PvP hotspots for ship naval content

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