Dragonflight: Fishing revamp?

Gameplay Professions
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As they announced they are reworking a lot to do with professions. Can we PLEASE get a revamp with fishing? It has never even changed. Throwing a bobber out and clicking it when it shakes or makes a sound is just… so dated.

Say what you will about the games as a whole but… New World/Black Desert/Archeage has the best fishing available in any MMO’s that I have ever played. It isnt so much just sitting there doing nothing feeling like you are wasting time. Fishing can be lucrative, fun, and a gameplay style in its own. Also when you hook a fish, their minigames to catch the fish are nice to do. Even if you have done it a thousand times, it is still better than what we have currently.

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Animal Crossing New Horizons has a more engaging fishing system than WoW. Heck, Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for the original Game Boy has a more engaging fishing system than WoW. Think about that!

Blizzard is actually pretty good about making minigames like Make Loh Go, memory matching games, Bejeweled clones, Plants vs. Zombies clones, turtle-protecting shooters, racing games, etc. They genuinely have the expertise that they’d need to rethink fishing into a fun minigame rather than the wait-then-click system it is now; I hope they do it! (And let my character wear a sou’wester and slicker while I’m fishing with the new profession equipment system, too!)

Heck, they could have different minigames for different kinds of water: ponds, streams, deep lakes, rivers, shallow ocean, and deep ocean could each be different minigames!

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Yessss that would be so nice. I just like the idea that the game can open up and have communities more than just Mythic+/Raiding/PVP. I want some old school crafting/fishing communities.

The game has just been frozen in time for so long, changes like this, that don’t seem to different from stuff they already have in the game that they add for world quests, are things they need to start thinking about.

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Fishing literally put me to sleep the last time i did it.
So i got to thinking about a few things they could do to (maybe?) make it better.

  1. Introduce Quality levels on fish.
    Just like gear, fish could come in common, uncommon, rare, epic and legendary quality.
    Quality would affect things like how many crafting ingredients or food portions you can get from a single fish.
    Influence the quality of potions and elixirs.
    Influence the quality of food and the well fed buffs they provide. (extra duration, extra stats, special effects etc)

2.Bring back Lunkers
Catch Lunkers anywhere and trade them for currency to buy items and equipment form Nat Pagle or a host of other fishing Vendors. Items can include special bait and Lures, Poles and upgrades, Fishing gear (hats boots gloves etc), rafts, boats, Heirloom fishing manuals, vanity items.
Higher quality Lunkers will give more currency.

3.Bloated fish
Yes bring those back too, just as whats written above quality affects what you can find inside them. (ore, half torn treasure maps, quests, potions, booze, lock boxes, trash, fish, fishing gear and upgrades)

4.Trophy Fish
Special fish that are determined by weight rarity and quality. (can still be used for mats as usual) Get all your lures bait buffs and upgrades and try catch the best fish. The best catches will go on to the local leader board viewable at the Inn or near a FP in that particular Zone. See who caught the best fish and try to beat them. Maybe have a prize at the end of the week?

5.Specialty gear
Socketable Fishing Poles, add a variety of socketable upgrades to your poles (faster casting, +20 to fishing skill, increased rarity, etc)
More interesting Lures (multi pronged lure to catch more than one fish at a time, barbed lure so you never lose a catch again, homing lure that always lands in the fishing pool, Dynamite on a string guarantees you’ll always catch something without the need for waiting but at the cost of quality)

6.Each day Nat will mark on the map (anywhere in Azeroth) where the fishing is particularly good. Fishing in that area would increase the likelihood of better catches, also you will find Nat Pagle or another fishing vendor there offering daily quests. Be careful though, all the activity might attract other things lurking in the waters.

There are probably plenty of better ideas but that’s what i can think of at the moment.

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There are so many awesome rpg or mmo games to take inspiration from to spice up fishing, Providing a meter to how far you throw your cast, make a green area to get a better chance at a better fish. Make some ingredients needed for cooking, or LW or smithing only fishable, like kelp for cooking or fish scales so those with fishing can help other classes. I second a Nat best fishing area or fishing daily. You could even lump in Archeology and make a whole set of gear only archeology can find of Nats’ special gear or trophy something to help with leveling your fishing or improving what you catch. One of my fondest memories of Fishing was the Garrison fishing where everyone came and helped each other made a sense of community that is rare to see with fishing now. Or a fishing instance where people have to get together to fish up something rare or fish up a required amount of fish you can even make it crazy and have it cooking and fishing require some of the team to fish up the fish and then the ones that queue as cooking cook the fish .

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I’m for a revamp or update of fishing. But I don’t want to make it challenging! Reading about your ideas about actively reeling it in or anything to make me pay attention: well, there are lots of more active things in the games to do. Fishing is for getting mind numbed and rich.
Bringing back lunkers or best areas are really good ideas. Rewards from fishing could be much more interesting. I loved the secret goggles and the giant fishing ball. I love my fishing reel that lets me walk on water and be stealthed.

Y’all do have the secret fish goggles, right?

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Secret fish goggles, world fishing ball, won the tournament, have done close to all the fishing related quests in the game, I just wish there was something that you could do once maxed for the expansion to make it engaging some people want it to be mindnumbing some want more of a mini game like approach, just fishing for thousands of the same fish for cooking can get old especially if everyone else is doing the same thing takes down the profitability.

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I would love to see fishing get some fresh love. I am still super Salty about them dropping the Underlight Angler story after swearing they were going to continue it in BfA.

They missed out BIG TIME in not doing anything with it in SL. Mglrrp should be somewhere, maybe hanging out with Lurker Below in Maldraxxus and ready to put us through our paces as retribution for gutting him and mounting him on a fishing pole.

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fishing is easy to catch. i had no problem with it. when you see the tapper pop up, click it. then you done. sometimes they give skill points for it. it depends how many times.

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I think all would agree having the option for mind numbing AND engaging is something everyone wants and would love to be able to decide on day by day.

Today I want mind numbing…but not this day because it was a bad day and I just want to unwind.

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This argument is like fishing IRL.

Some fishers, or most fishers at some times, want fishing to be engaging and exciting.

Some fishers, or most fishers at some times, want fishing to be an excuse to zone out next to a lake.

It needs to be able to be either.

1 Like
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Whittakers - the quality level was done in WoD, with small, standard and large fish giving different qualities of mats. It’s not a bad idea but it needs to be something you can influence. If it’s just a random chance of small, medium, large that’s just frustrating. If however, my skill level increases the amount of large fish I catch or I can attach a lure that helps, or if there is some other gameplay mechanism that influences that then sure I’d be all for it.

I like the idea of socketable poles without going as far an the Underlight angler. Say three sockets (lure, line and reel) would be nice. It’d also provide some more possibilities when it comes to profession recipes. You could have say engineers making a variety of lures or reels. Tailors crafting different lines. Maybe enchanters or scribes making some other bonus items. And LW or BS could make the rods themselves.

I’d also like the profession window to be updated. So that you see a list of fish related to the fishing skill. Then if you click on shadowlands fishing it’d list Silvergill Pike, Elysian Thade etc. If you clicked on the fish in the profession window it’d then give a little more information, like “Iridescent Amberjack is typically caught in the streams and lakes of Ardenweald.” And for more specialist fish “Nightfin Snapper caught only at night in the oceans off the coast of Tanaris”.

As for mini-gaming fishing itself. I wouldn’t go crazy. If I want a fishing game I’d buy Bass pro or something. But it’d be nice to have some basic control over casting and hooking. Like direction you’re facing affects the direction you cast and how long you hold down the mouse button affects how hard (far) you cast.

Of course that really only helps if you’ve got more “pools” to fish from. So I’d change the current “random pool in the middle of a pond” to multiple ones in the same pond that tend to mimic real fishing. Like near a fallen tree or a shady area or in a deeper channel and so on. Since those things affect your chances of catching different fish in the real world.

As for the “hooking” part. Rather than just bobber moves and you click straight away. Maybe have a slightly more gamey feel. Like the shrinking/growing indicator circle to show activity (the fish nibbling) and you want to click as it’s at the most intense to guarantee the best catch. If you click way too early or too late then you catch nothing, if you click a bit too early or late you get a worse quality catch.

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My hope is that find fish becomes default like find herb and find minerals I hate spending 10 min to 1 hour trying to get the journal on any new character it should be default now back in the day it was great and fun when it was in BC but now it is more of a chore.

I don’t want them to make fishing too complex and I don’t want it to be a minigame for example I fish 10 min in different types of water in each zone while I level/do the story.

This is showing my level 10 DK instead of my main because I forgot how to change the default character on the website as I don’t post much.

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Keeping the barrier for entry low for gathering professions but allowing individuals to specialize & “min/max” their experience to gather higher quality fish more efficiently is, what I believe to be, the best course for a “revamp”. Allow players who like to just throw on Netflix & afk fish on their 2nd monitor to continue to do that. But also allow for individuals to interact with the profession more than “cast/reel”. Introduce a system to reduce time taken for a bite, target a certain species or quality, perhaps even introduce fish size allowing those cooking the fish to produce more with a single material. Let people opt into the mini-game or to just AFK click & fish.

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There seems to be some new fishing set ups with the Tuskarr coming in DF. You will be able to set up nets (leave them and come back later) as well as use harpoons with a fishing party event. All that comes with renown with them. So there will be more coming it seems from some looks at the alpha part of the game.

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Ooh if they’re adding nets then maybe they’ll consider crab-pots too :slight_smile:

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I think WoD fishing was the best we ever got, imo. Lunkers, qualities of fish, fishing skill actually mattered, a vendor with interesting stuff. Blizzard has gotten into this rut where they think that something that’s useful gets criticized because it becomes mandatory. Like, “I can’t make a feast without fishing, so that means that I have to fish”. It was a complaint all over the forums and reddit for years.

But then blizzard fixed that by adding multiple kinds of feasts that can be acquired in a variety of different ways, but then didn’t continue all the good parts of fishing from WoD … it’s like they get someting right and don’t realize they get it right.

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got like fishing nets you set for 10 hours but problem is cant really test it cause its like FFA net once u set it and if you dont log in exactly on 10 hour mark someones taken items from the net.
kind of feel like fishing net system need s to be like tillers garden system in mist of panda

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Wait seriously the nets are not unique to you?

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I just hope they don’t make progress in various skills impossible without fishing. I don’t like fishing in most video games (I do like fishing in irl). Wow fishing is too boring, and I feel like I could be advancing my character instead.

In particular, cooking in some expansions required fish. I found this frustrating, and I did try. I just gave up because I couldn’t put up with the fishing. I don’t mind buying fish, but I don’t want to ‘have to’. It’s one thing Shadowlands did well. Having access to fish made getting cooking ranks faster, but I didn’t need to level fishing to get it if I wanted to take longer leveling it with other meats.