Ocean fishing is horribly designed

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

This game will be a lot fun if you are stop being content locust and trying to consume a content as fast as possible and move to next “unfortunate” content. Sea fishing is very enjoying as it is. Do a fish trip, then go to other content likes PvP, Eden, Nier, etc. Please stop being a content locust and let every enjoy this content

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Some content you have to consume ASAP, because it will die out and then you'll have a harder time doing it. If you ever want to get all the titles from ocean fishing you probably need to be in an ocean fishing discord right now joining groups that are specifically trying to do that. The number of people who care about that is already very small and only going to get smaller as people get theirs and leave the content forever, and it's probably an impossible task without a full group of 8 dedicated to doing it.

just as a info, you can get the mount with 2 spectral phases, so theres no need to leave the boat when the first dont hit and before you say: "YOU NEED 3!!" no you dont, I got mine with 2. I had 6220 points at the and and 70% bonus and got over 10k.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

Some content you have to consume ASAP, because it will die out and then you'll have a harder time doing it. If you ever want to get all the titles from ocean fishing you probably need to be in an ocean fishing discord right now joining groups that are specifically trying to do that. The number of people who care about that is already very small and only going to get smaller as people get theirs and leave the content forever, and it's probably an impossible task without a full group of 8 dedicated to doing it.

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One would hope that SE would take into account the difficulty of completing dead content in future updates. But they can't even adjust 30 min fates in dead zones. So yeah if its important to get it, get it now or give up down the road. This game has very little past balancing they are more likely to put a relic item that you fish up then rebalance it.

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Originally Posted by YatoShishi

just as a info, you can get the mount with 2 spectral phases, so theres no need to leave the boat when the first dont hit and before you say: "YOU NEED 3!!" no you dont, I got mine with 2. I had 6220 points at the and and 70% bonus and got over 10k.

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Same. With a bit of luck and a few good Double Hook while in a current, I got there with only two currents.

I guess some people don't have that "bit of luck" ... getting to 6K on 2 currents is possible only if you are also lucky on your double hook and can use them on !!!

Over 25 runs now, i still haven't seen 3 currents run and still haven't seen any !!! during currents to double hook on.
Fishing was not my favorite DoL but i was mainly indifferent to it ... now it just make me sick of frustration.

And yea .. my lack of luck was already legendary before this content so i guess i'm not surprised

I got the mount but that content need improvements.

-2 hours for every run its way to long, 30min-1h should be fine.
-Spectral fish should 100% trigger the current.
-Double hook GP is so expensive, 200GP instead of 400 would be fine.
-The achivements to catch X number of Y fish for party are really hard, I tried with a premade, all lvl80, Max GP, food and Hi-cordials and on the 5 runs we did with the most favorable condicions net us like 50-60% of the fish required.

To get 16k points you need to get 3 currents + 4-5 star fish or be very lucky whitout catching legendaries.

After tried this content for the 1st time and checked achievement rewards.
I then told myself-
-“There is no way I can get this mount”.

I just wish the rewards are locked behind the milestones accumulated points or something.
Not behind RNG god.

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Originally Posted by Ashlette

It seems like every time SE tries something new gameplay-wise it fumbles 90% of the time.

Diadem, Lords of Verminion, Eureka.

I wish SE would find a way to host beta tests for new content before they are deployed. Even random surveys would suffice.

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Maybe it would be a great start to have less RNG involved..seemingly they want people to stick with the content for a bit so they introduce RNG to make it stay longer. But the problem is that 1. people with good luck are still done quite fast and if there is nothing more to it will stop going there and those that have bad RNG will either be stuck at this for a long time or give up. Then you have those that simply like the content and will continue doing it.

But I do get the feeling that the last group is too low for all these new content..Maybe create it in a way that is simply fun..give a bit exp on top of that and a few prices (without RNG factor) and you might have something that people will enjoy longer without the frustation of RNG.

Or maybe they have some devs there that deeply love RNG and can see nothing wrong with it..

@SE: Who gave the okay for that riding animation for the shark? It looks absolutely horrible..

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

This game will be a lot fun if you are stop being content locust and trying to consume a content as fast as possible and move to next “unfortunate” content. Sea fishing is very enjoying as it is. Do a fish trip, then go to other content likes PvP, Eden, Nier, etc. Please stop being a content locust and let every enjoy this content

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And then I question why we needed such content if all it gives is just a trip for a bit inbetween? What about all those people that wanted to have deep and fun new fishing content? I mean crafters are getting theirs with Ishgard..yet the new fishing one is just normal fishing but on a boat..

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Originally Posted by Val-K

I guess some people don't have that "bit of luck" ... getting to 6K on 2 currents is possible only if you are also lucky on your double hook and can use them on !!!

Over 25 runs now, i still haven't seen 3 currents run and still haven't seen any !!! during currents to double hook on.
Fishing was not my favorite DoL but i was mainly indifferent to it ... now it just make me sick of frustration.

And yea .. my lack of luck was already legendary before this content so i guess i'm not surprised

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As someone with the same lack of luck I can feel your pain.

This is actually the biggest problem with the content: either you get 5k/10k for minon/mount or you have wasted 30 minutes (and a bunch of Cordials) for nothing (the few scrips can farmed faster/easily and you currently really don't need gatherer scrips for anything anyhow). They should have added any other kind of rewards for it.

Thing is there is a very simple way to improve this content with changing as little as possible.

Increase the time limit on the boat to 15 mins per area. You still have to have some luck to get the mount and title achievements, makes it easier to deal with leavers, better chances at getting spectral current, makes it more relaxing since more likely to get what you want, be fine to do it with less people at a later stage. The only downside being the achievements are easier to get, but they still are not guaranteed so effort still has to be put in.

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

Thing is there is a very simple way to improve this content with changing as little as possible.

Increase the time limit on the boat to 15 mins per area. You still have to have some luck to get the mount and title achievements, makes it easier to deal with leavers, better chances at getting spectral current, makes it more relaxing since more likely to get what you want, be fine to do it with less people at a later stage. The only downside being the achievements are easier to get, but they still are not guaranteed so effort still has to be put in.

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Another thing I would include to this would be if you manage to catch a spectral fish in Fishers Intuition it has a 100% chance to proc spectral waters. I say this because of the very particular method to proc it should at least be rewarded. I've done the effort multiple times and caught spectral fish only for nothing to happen which is just...bleh.

That'd likely hurt less if each area was 15 minutes but still.

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Originally Posted by TheUltimate3

Another thing I would include to this would be if you manage to catch a spectral fish in Fishers Intuition it has a 100% chance to proc spectral waters. I say this because of the very particular method to proc it should at least be rewarded. I've done the effort multiple times and caught spectral fish only for nothing to happen which is just...bleh.

That'd likely hurt less if each area was 15 minutes but still.

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I can very much agree with this change, after recent outing of strong start horrible 2nd and 3rd act, during 2nd act we caught required fish 9 times no spectral pop, 3rd act 6 times no pop, yet 1st act I pop it on 1st fish with base ragworm, way way too rng heavy on top of an already heavy rng system.

I feel rather bad going in to level now because it looks like I unknowingly gimped my party. I had no idea it was going to be this intense and I agree that without some changes it's going to get old fast.
I do like the suggestions people have made for battle content, fishing up treasure chests etc. At the moment it's just fish until the timer runs out and not at all social. Everyone is in too much of a rush to even notice other players let alone interact.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

I feel rather bad going in to level now because it looks like I unknowingly gimped my party. I had no idea it was going to be this intense and I agree that without some changes it's going to get old fast.
I do like the suggestions people have made for battle content, fishing up treasure chests etc. At the moment it's just fish until the timer runs out and not at all social. Everyone is in too much of a rush to even notice other players let alone interact.

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The interaction is supposed to come from just having conversations with your group or with friends, which I can say is perfectly fine given the nature that this was supposed to be "relaxing" content. They just shot everyone in the foot by making the only real incentive to do the content outside of leveling being a mount that requires some hardcore cooperation and sacrifices to RNGesus.

But if you're going in it to level by all means to in to level, and don't feel bad about it. That's part of the original intention of the whole thing.

As someone that has always hated fishing (and still do) i find the Ocean Fishing not too bad.
The 2 Hr thing is the one thing however that is annoying and i wonder why, why could they not of had it a half hr or 1 hr apart instead

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Originally Posted by Solarra

I feel rather bad going in to level now because it looks like I unknowingly gimped my party. I had no idea it was going to be this intense and I agree that without some changes it's going to get old fast.
I do like the suggestions people have made for battle content, fishing up treasure chests etc. At the moment it's just fish until the timer runs out and not at all social. Everyone is in too much of a rush to even notice other players let alone interact.

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Don't feel bad for leveling on the boat. It's one of the instance's purposes. Heck you can do whatever you want. I triggered currents when I was level 40 ish so I don't see why being there so level would be an issue.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

I feel rather bad going in to level now because it looks like I unknowingly gimped my party. I had no idea it was going to be this intense and I agree that without some changes it's going to get old fast.
I do like the suggestions people have made for battle content, fishing up treasure chests etc. At the moment it's just fish until the timer runs out and not at all social. Everyone is in too much of a rush to even notice other players let alone interact.

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The thing is, it doesn't really matter what you do. As long as you keep fishing, you're helping your party members about as much as you can. The statistics on cat became hungry show that all non-spectral current fish bite on all bait more or less evenly, including the spectral current-triggering fish. There is a very slight difference based on their "preferred" bait, but it is very small. Just fish, no matter your level, abilities, or bait, and you will still get spectral-trigger fish just like everyone else. The party bonuses you're actually going to realistically ever see naturally happen regardless of what people are doing, since they are mostly a natural side effect of just...fishing and triggering currents. The only person who is really affected by being low level is yourself, if getting hi-scoring points is your goal, due to lack of certain abilities and GP. If you're just leveling, then just fish and fish and fish and you will not be a "burden" to the group.

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Originally Posted by Yeul

Ocean fishing is not a end game content for FSH. Its for group content, a throwback and social, thats it. Its not long, its fun, its rng, and u can powerlevel and do something different. Its nice, a change from the whole game from time to time.

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I agree. We need way more social things in this game to bring the community together. Pity it's still an instance but baby steps, people. lol

Before Ishgard restoration I hated crafting. Now I'm starting to see value in it. Same with FSH now. If anything SE managed to convert me. An doing the ferry with FC friends is good fun. I hope they improve upon it and implement more. Social mining in a shaft anyone? Maybe find rare treasure or gold veins. I'm all up for it. Couldn't care less about a 2nd dungeon that's as cookie cutter as the last 70.

Now that I've had a chance to play it, I have to agree it's poorly designed. There's just too much RNG involved for it to be fun. The only real input you have is which bait you choose. Most people don't even bother with Patience and hooksets because its better to just fish for as many spectrals as you can so you can double hook during the rainbow.

When I'm a level 80 overmelded fisher with high stats... I shouldn't be randomly losing !!! because the game decides it doesn't want me to have it. I literally went a whole voyage without snagging one spectral fish, despite using the right bait for and lost like half my !!! to random chance. The rest were sharks.

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Originally Posted by Maero

As someone that has always hated fishing (and still do) i find the Ocean Fishing not too bad.
The 2 Hr thing is the one thing however that is annoying and i wonder why, why could they not of had it a half hr or 1 hr apart instead

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Same, I find the 2 hour wait time annoying as well, especially for a casual player that only have 4 hours of game time everyday, so I can only do 2 trips (1 if I didn't log in fast enough) and hope that I'll be lucky enough to see spectrals on those few trips, I really wish the wait time would be shorter.

I come to ocean fishing for a different reason than most. To complete the fishing log book. I want to get every fish in the game, and keep up on that as more are released.

Once the fishers discord worked out catch conditions for the normal and spectral fishes it's mostly down to being on the boat at the right time and you get the fish. The intuition fishes are more tricky, but doable over time with reasonable numbers of attempts. Mostly getting a bite during the 60 sec intuition is the stumbling block there. But throw enough chances at it and you get them.

The Brutal ones are the 4 legendary fish IN the spectral currents that have their own special pop conditions for the Int to catch them. You get a whopping 15 seconds. Two casts? One of the fish that bites takes a bit? And of course that's IF you can pop the Intuition inside the spectral current. These will be truly difficult for filling out a book. And not because they are 'hard' catches, strictly because they are behind multiple levels of RNG.

But one keeps trying. Eventually the slot machine pays off. It's something to do.

So far I am 0/4 for the big blues as well (most other fish are caught now except for a few time-specific spectral fish in the third leg of the trip), but I have had ample intuition chances for them when spectral currents actually occur. The real kicker for these fish is just that dang spectral current RNG. You just don't get enough spectral currents to have a decent shot at catching them. It always seems to come back to spectral currents being too rare.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

I feel rather bad going in to level now because it looks like I unknowingly gimped my party. I had no idea it was going to be this intense and I agree that without some changes it's going to get old fast.
I do like the suggestions people have made for battle content, fishing up treasure chests etc. At the moment it's just fish until the timer runs out and not at all social. Everyone is in too much of a rush to even notice other players let alone interact.

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You shouldn't feel that way at all.

This content is clearly meant to get people interested in fishing just like the restoration was great for leveling crafts. The rewards people are looking for come mainly from RNG so as long as you're fishing you're helping.
I went in as a level 48 on my last trip ... came out a lvl 51 with a shark mount. RNG gonna RNG. Don't let others or worrying about other efforts gate you from content that's based more so around fun and rng and progression than other things.

Think they couldve done a better job with the achievements, like having to complete x number if times at a reasonable score, like 20x complete runs at a score over 3000 for minion and maybe 20x runs over like 5000-8000 for mount. And then just have titles for having scores over 10k and 15k kinda deal.

If the boat doesn't have random pirate attacks and chances of an HNM called Sea Horror spawning to eat all the people fishing then meh. Those were the fun part of fishing on the ferry in FFXI... >.> I also kind of miss the chance of pulling up monsters on your hook.

After 3 more ocean fishing trips, where spectral waters proc'd only once, I can safely say I think I'm done with this. I cannot see how anyone can find a random chance at a random chance during a random weather pattern to be enjoyable, but it's clearly not for me. Hopefully next patch they'll tweak the proc chance of spectral fish but for now I is out.

Good luck everybody else. I salute you. /gcsalute

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Originally Posted by TheUltimate3

After 3 more ocean fishing trips, where spectral waters proc'd only once, I can safely say I think I'm done with this. I cannot see how anyone can find a random chance at a random chance during a random weather pattern to be enjoyable, but it's clearly not for me. Hopefully next patch they'll tweak the proc chance of spectral fish but for now I is out.

Good luck everybody else. I salute you. /gcsalute

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I mean I'm just enjoying a nice chill bit of fishing every few hours. Don't stress yourself out over a mount you'll get it eventually till then just relax and enjoy chatting with randos while fishing

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Originally Posted by spf1200

I mean I'm just enjoying a nice chill bit of fishing every few hours. Don't stress yourself out over a mount you'll get it eventually till then just relax and enjoy chatting with randos while fishing

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I may see it if I keep going in. I may never see it if I keep going in. The fact that I don't know is what drives me up the wall. So I won't stress myself out about it anymore. If I want to relax and fish I'll park my but at a regular fishing hole.

I love ocean fishing but there should be a shop that lets you trade in the Spectral and Rare fish like little Leviathan
Example 10 spectral sea bo for a minion 20 spectral megalodon for a housing item 15 discus for a hair style etc etc
Just so fish are not so useless and atleast give people a incentive to pop the rainbow them self

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Originally Posted by eaudaemon

Same, I find the 2 hour wait time annoying as well, especially for a casual player that only have 4 hours of game time everyday, so I can only do 2 trips (1 if I didn't log in fast enough) and hope that I'll be lucky enough to see spectrals on those few trips, I really wish the wait time would be shorter.

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The two hour windows make it difficult for me to get on the boat due not wanting to sit around for 1 hour and 40 minutes and do nothing... so I do something else and then friends want to do something else and.. yea... I'm going to prioritize my friends over the fun of the fishing boat.

I got into it twice while all my friends were farming it but now there done, its hard to be social and still do it. I also only have 2 opportunities each night to do it due to work so I strongly dislike the fixed 2 hour windows. It is not casual worker friendly at all, I'm not sure what kind of friendly it is but its nothing nice in my book. You can either fish or do anything else, there not very compatible.

I honestly like it except for the RNG factor in junction with the time limit. Remove one or the other and and I think it'd be fine. The RNG is maddening. I've caught 4 spectral fishes in one of the 6m intervals, and not one of them triggered the rainbow thing. Another round, someone else caught 2, and neither triggered either. Meanwhile, I have more runs than not of not seeing any spectrals. I think they're rare enough in that they don't need RNG to proc the rainbow thing. Personally don't like the 2 hour interval thing either, for only getting like... 15-20m of fishing time. Seems excessive.

Copy/paste from another similar thread, but I feel:

Personally, I think ocean fishing should be overhauled.
1) Make a currency like anything else, so with enough currency you can buy XYZ. Then we don’t care if anyone else is fishing or not aside from less chance to proc rainbows. Perhaps trade in the fish for currency? Hell, make the fish spectral fish the currency.
2) Why don’t the boats move... (as in not parking at a location, but sailing through) that was a huge thing in FFXI. Just taking in the sights as the ship moved was great, relaxing fun.
3) Add other social things on the ship, so people can fish..but also can do other things to make friends, socialize. I was in a group randomly that just hung out for the trip and kinda gave up on fishing partway through because it was impossible to get 10k.. it was a lot of fun to just chat- basically forgot to fish for a good chunk. Was the best trip I’ve had.

I really think there should be more things like this where you go in as an alliance or full party, but there simply is no combat or pressure to individually do anything to push for more socialization/simple fun.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

I feel rather bad going in to level now because it looks like I unknowingly gimped my party. I had no idea it was going to be this intense and I agree that without some changes it's going to get old fast.
I do like the suggestions people have made for battle content, fishing up treasure chests etc. At the moment it's just fish until the timer runs out and not at all social. Everyone is in too much of a rush to even notice other players let alone interact.

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Dont worry about that, as long as you do fish you are helping. You can get spectral fish randomly and there is a group bonus on catching x different fishes per place. So if you fish the whole time and switch bait up a bit you are helping with the bonus at the end. :) And maybe you get lucky and catch a spectral that will start a rainbow.

I've been enjoying Ocean Fishing for the most part. The RNG element is both highly annoying and sometimes satisfying.

What triggers me is the fact that you can't queue as an alliance. Players have wildly different expectations going into Ocean Fishing. Some are just there to level, most people are there for the minion/mount and then you have certain players who are there for the titles. This creates a type of content where players are actively working against each other because of the requirements of the mounts and titles (although leveling players can still pop currents so it's not too bad). When trying for a title you need to fish for a certain type of fish (so you don't want to waste time in Spectral Current unless the fish is in it). Also the specific time frame for a certain title doesn't pop every 2 hours so you gotta hope the planets align with both weather conditions and no spectrals during one route.

Please make it easier to coordinate.

To add to this bit, apparently it's easier to get the mount and titles with the less people inside the instance. So if you somehow managed to sign up at 14:55 left on the timer, and get it either alone or with like few people, you up the chance of getting everything you want dramatically.

That's....not good if accurate.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

1) Make a currency like anything else, so with enough currency you can buy XYZ. Then we don’t care if anyone else is fishing or not aside from less chance to proc rainbows. Perhaps trade in the fish for currency? Hell, make the fish spectral fish the currency.

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Honestly, I'm all for that... but I don't see that happening since it's tied to achievements.
I'm pretty much just doing the content for the scrips at this point. I've lost too many !!! fish for stupid RNG reasons (no, this wasn't from Patience and using the wrong hook. RNG just really hates me and has me miss potential spectral fish 9/10 times) and have been on too many boats that either have one or no spectral currents whatsoever (last voyage for the night had one spectral current. No one got over 4.5k).

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Originally Posted by Duskane

I love ocean fishing but there should be a shop that lets you trade in the Spectral and Rare fish like little Leviathan

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Honestly, it'd be nice to be able to do anything with the fish other than vending them, or desynthing them into sand or—if the fish is good and you're lucky—extra ocean fishing bait.

But right now, you need to empty your inventory before ocean fishing so you have enough slots for the almost ridiculous variety of fish you can catch... but there's no actual difference between most of the fish (other than filling out the fishing log). Sure, certain fish give you white scrip, and different fish are worth different points, but does anyone consistently do anything with their fish at the end of a trip other than desynthing or vendoring everything? It just seems weirdly wasteful to clear out all that inventory so you can fill it on the boat, and then immediately just trash everything again afterwards.

Being able to make the fish prints for housing decor is neat, I suppose...

I wish there was more that you could do with all the fish you catch. Were there glams/items you could turn them in for I think it'd last a little longer. So far its taken my FSH from lv 9 to 71 but I've already earned my minion/mount so I'll probably tap out once I hit 80.

I was thinking a bit, I wonder if we could get what we wanted which is fishing any time and still meet the desires of the devs. The idea would be to place a 2 hour debuff that prevents us from going on another voyage, simple enough and easy to implement. It would be similar to the deserter debuff. This way, we can go in whenever we do not have the debuff.

I would bet the two hour interval is intended to group the instances of queuing all up neatly, so the queues don't take as long. The debuff wouldn't help with that; it'd actually make queue times worse since people would still be waiting two hours between, but now they wouldn't all be lined up neatly on the same two-hour windows.