Lets fix fishing!

Gameplay Professions
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This is a blog I wrote on minds_com, but since I can’t link to it directly, I decided to post it here for the community to dissect. Hope you like :see_no_evil:

Hey @Blizzard, Lets Fix Fishing in WOW!

This blog is my amalgamation of thoughts on the features from past and present and How I personally would like to see the Fishing system work in World of Warcraft.

Currently, in Battle for Azeroth, fishing is separated into the various expansions, with each of them having their skill level bars.

This was part of an overhaul on all Professions and Secondary skills to allow new players to jump into the Profession system without having to invest time or effort in previous expansions. This is a welcomed change and much better than the previous iteration which involved clunky catch-up mechanics.

This current form is how it should remain for now AND into the future. Though Blizzard seems to blow with the wind when it comes to professions in each expansion. However, this division of labor on a per expansion basis is a great take on professions in general. However, there are no skills or flair added to the fishing system. It simply went from a single giant skill-up bar to several small ones and nothing further. C’mon Blizzard, we can do better than this? It just takes a little creative elbow grease to come up with better ideas on how fishing can be fun and engaging and draw more people into using the often neglected fishing secondary skill. I mean you removed First Aid, which actually had usable recipes but kept this watered down bland fishing component in the game.

How would Sol fix fishing?

I’m so glad you asked! My first change would be to add star level based skills for every type of fishing pool in the game under their appropriate expansion headers of course. Star Level 1 would be trained at the fishing trainer based on fishing skill for the appropriate expansion and it would provide an increasing chance per star level to catch an entire school in one cast. This is exactly like the [Underlight Angler] pool related skills from Legion.

Additional star level would be obtained by skilling up to specific fishing skill levels for the expansion and/or rare recipe drops from their associated fishing pools. There would obviously be some special pools that don’t adhere to this structure. Things like ship wreckage and debris type pools or quest and contest-related pools, etc.

This change alone would be an amazing quality of life change to the fishing system and quite frankly, I’m surprised Blizzard hasn’t thought of it yet. It should have been implemented back in the day when Mining and Herbalism nodes were changed to be gathered in one attempt rather than many. I know there is a Blizzard policy of focusing on future content and not changing past content, but something along these lines should be easy to implement and would encourage many more users to fish up those pools they wander by in the wild. I say easy, because the code to perform this is already in place in other aspects of the game so it just needs to be put together in the proper order.

What else would Sol change about fishing?

I am always full of wild ideas and some of them hit the mark while others fall a little flat. You be the judge, but these are things that I would like to see in the fishing system that I’ve come up with by just brainstorming for a bit.

Fishing Techniques & Tools

There are several fishing techniques throughout the real world which can be adapted to the in-game fishing system. These techniques use different tools of the trade which opens up the game for more fishing based items. Some of them are already in the game code so they could be adapted relatively easily.

Angling: The most obvious of the fishing techniques. This employs fishing poles, bait and tackle to catch fish. Angling would be the default method of skill-up in the game. It requires having a fishing pole.

Hand-Fishing: This method would be the default fishing technique used when no pole is equipped. The character must be wading in water and would kneel down for the duration of the fishing cast timer. This method is viable but not efficient and would always have a chance for the fish to get away.

Blast-Fishing: Every expansion sees a new type of bomb created by engineers. Why not let these bombs be a resource for blast fishing. Tossing a bomb in the open water or into a fishing pool for the water to erupt and dead fish to come floating to the surface which needs to be interacted with in order to be looted. This would offer an entirely new method of dealing with pools, at the cost of destroying some of the fish within any targeted pool.

Net-Fishing: Items craftable by tailors, nets can be deployed to catch multiple fish at once in open water or an entire school but require a much longer cast time. These items could be of limited durability or charge based. They could tie into the fishing skill star levels mentioned above as well, requiring a net be consumed in order to obtain an entire school in one cast.

Spearfishing: An alternative to a Fishing Pole. Spears and Tridents can be used as tools for fishing instead of poles. This would function exactly the same as using a fishing pole, with the player poised with a spear overhead ready to strike when the bobber bobs.

All these techniques can require a different amount of fishing skill before they are usable by the player and would bring some fun an imaginative new ways to go fishing in Azeroth.

Bait & Tackle Crafting

Bonus Fishing Skill: One particular part of the existing fishing system that bugs me is the time it takes to deal with a single cast. It is entirely divorced from the player’s fishing skill level. However, in life, the more experienced angler can catch fish quicker and more reliably than the novice. Because of this, I would make bobber bobs occur most frequently scaling with fishing skill of the player for the zone they are in and related to the correct fishing expansion skill.

Bait: Legion had a pretty epic bait system. I’d like to see that revitalized and expanded upon as well. Specific bait for specific types of fish is how bait works in the real world. Why not appropriate that into the game fishing mechanics as well? Each type of fish in each expansion would have its own bait that can be rummaged up by the angler or caught while fishing (depending on the bait). These baits would apply a short buff that guarantee a faster bobber bob and a guaranteed fish type in open water or an instant single fish catch off a pool for the appropriate fish.

Rummage Up Bait: A skill that all master fisherman should have. The ability to dig up some quick bait along the shoreline is something most fisherman can do. Turning over logs or ripping up roots to pull out worms and grubs to affix to their line is a skill players should obtain once they’ve mastered their fishing skill in that expansion. This affords them the ability to recognize bait in the zones of that expansion. Insect Critters and piles of dirt, old logs and other potential bait havens can become interactive objects these master fisherman can interact with to obtain the appropriate bait.

The End

That’s all I have for now. I hope you enjoyed this trip down fantasy land with me and the Word of Warcraft fishing system. I plan on doing more of these types of articles as there are many changes that I would envision for World of Warcraft. There are also many gripes I have to level at Blizzard as well which are on my to do list to share with the world.

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You put allot of work into this clearly. I’ll be a pal and at least comment under it.
Whatever it is you wrote, I’m sure it’s better than live. so make it happen blizz.

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Seems fairy well thought out. I would love an item slot and t-mog for fishing poles and similar items.

However, I don’t think blizzard will do anything to improve fishing beyond adding in some quests and vanity items which is sad.

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Personally, I don’t see the point in having fishing skill levels at all.
They are an archaic time sink that does nothing for QoL.

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Yes. Please.

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Perhaps they should get rid of skill level for all secondary professions. Fishing skill certainly doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Cooking could easily just be a trainer taught system for rank 1, producing random food amounts, with discoveries for higher ranks and more consistent results…both on food consumed and feasts received. Archeology is already a time sink, might as well just make it fragment based.

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Looking for pools has no value at all anymore. Sure you get all of one kind instead of 50%; however, the time looking is more than a 50% time waste.

Bait to get 80% of what you really wanted in open water (with some skill based component) would be awesome.

Bait to increase midnight salmon catch window would be awesome (the lack of a daylight savings time shift cut out the time frame when I was fishing). A leatherworking lure that requires expuslum to make isn’t going to cut it. Expuslum is much, much harder to get than the “higher” crafting reagents of hydrocore and sanguicell.

Even using serious +fishing skill items at max level fishing doesn’t put you over a threshold to get “no junk” fishing in Boralus Harbor. Skill doesn’t seem to matter anymore in any way except for “get to max skill get an achievement”. The achievement might as well be fore “catch X fish or other things”.

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I am not sure fishing pools are intended to be farmed like herbalism or mining nodes, at least not anymore. I always thought of them as something occasionally worth stopping for while you are questing. Especially changes to fishing eliminating the need to equip a fishing pole a few expansions back.

There is also supposedly a leatherworking lure in todays patch (haven’t checked the patch notes yet) that increases midnight salmon catches, while the sanguinated feast, if it went live, reduces the need for the rare fish.

EDIT: Oh, and expulsom can practically be bought off of the AH, it is infinitely easier to get then hydrocores (requires mythic dungeon content) or sanguicell (requires coordinated raid group).

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You probably need to fish the coins in WotLK Darlaran and need WoTLK fishing which you could learn from the trainer next to the fountain.

The coins are relatively rare catches.

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I like this idea. WoD’s minor expansion into the fishing of the game was nice. It wouldn’t hurt if you could craft your own bait out of the various meats and cooking ingredients you can use in BFA cooking, like all those steaks and briny flesh.

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I like your ideas. That would make fishing more fun. I have always wished fishing were more interesting. The nodes would be more fun if you occasionally caught a treasure chest or some rare reward like back in BC and other xpacs. There are still lots of pets/mounts i have yet to get because it is so boring to sit and fish though lol :frowning_face:

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Love your ideas. There should be rewards for maxing out fishing levels such as pole transmogs, maybe a master angler’s fishing hat, exclusive-fish based cooking recipes. Fishing just needs an overhaul, period.

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Don’t know if i agree with WoT but Fishing needs more depth. Fishing boat sounds fun? Maybe make fishing pools more meaningful. If the pool has what I’m already fishing for in that zone…why go out of my way to find pools?

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You can fish from the anglers raft.
It may not be a boat but it floats and moves over water.

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True! Found the rafts on wow-head a short time after posting.

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I am entirely down for this. I want to see fishing revamped. I love it so much. I would love to see it treated like a main profession perhaps one day!