Regarding Fish Eyes change discussed in Live Letter LX

Yoshi said they'd be looking for community feedback regarding this specific change, so I'll be posting my thoughts and anyone else is free to do the same.

Personally, I think making Fish Eyes no longer required for catching fish is a good change, since it was just an annoying extra thing that burned up your GP for no real reason and it was never clear when or where you should use it. However, changing it to let you ignore time requirements is a bit overkill. While I'm not really into big fishing myself I can definitely see how this change might make some hardcore fishers upset. It makes a large part of big fishing (time windows) significantly easier, but doesn't really make fishing itself much more accessible.

I think if they want to make fishing more approachable, there are better places to start than simply adding an ability that wipes out time windows. For example, reworking the atrocious bait system that serves only to clog your inventory with piles of garbage. Changing it to something inventory-agnostic, like gig-heads with spearfishing, would go a long way to making fishing less of a pain.

As for Fish Eyes specifically, if they need a new function for it, there's a number of potential ideas. For example, Fish Eyes could simply inform you of any special conditions required to catch any unknown fish at the current fishing hole, or it could just say if the conditions are currently adequate, e.g. "You sense that an unknown fish is present". This could help reduce reliance on third party trackers. Or it could just be a buff that prevents fish from getting away for a few minutes.

I'm happy about the change, fish eyes in it's current implementation is just frustrating. Some fishing holes have 2-3 different fish eye buffs for catching different fish, with it being entirely possible, even with cordials, to go the whole window without getting the fish eyes buff you need.

As for allowing fishers to ignore special requirements, for me it'd depend they plan to balance it. If it's just a toggle that stays up and costs nothing, then yea I'd say that's too far, if it's something though along the lines of costs 500 gp and lasts 30 seconds, I'd say that's fairly balanced.

In my experience with big fishing, the window was hardly ever the difficult part of catching the fish, it was either the abysmal bite rate, the high chance to get away, triggering the fishers intuition buff to then hope for a rare mooch.

Some fish also just have ridiculous gaps between windows, some being days apart and as someone that works 60-70 hours a week I'd enjoy being able to have a chance to catch some I haven't had the chance to in weeks or months due to my schedule.

I am of two minds on this subject matter:

One Fish Eyes needs to change, as it stands right now it's only serves as a GP waster for certain fish, that are already annoying enough to catch without the buff.

The other I think, having it negate time windows (I dont think anything was said about weather conditions) has the potential to just be too much of a step in the easy direction, and there are other ways I think Fish Eyes could be changed to make it better and more useful. (Like having it grant a proto-Fishers Intuition buff so for fish with tight windows like the sea butterfly, you dont have to necessarily panic catch the 6 fish needed to get another buff before the window closes)

That said there's a lot we dont know about the changes, would it go to a cool down skill, ala Mooch 2, would the GP cost be the same, how long would the buff last, would it even work on Big Fish? All of these I feel need to have some sort of answer before any clear judgement can be made.

Honestly if it didn't effect big fish, I would be 100% okay with this change, I think Big Fish, is an optional challenge that people know what they are getting into when attempting it (thanks in large part to the Feast of Famine quest line) and I think retaining that challenge is a good idea. Conversely if it was something that couldn't be abused, say had like a 3-5 cool down, like mooch 2, and the buffs weren't super long maybe only a minute or 2 then it could be okay (especially with it not affecting Big Fish).

Though I do agree, this change doesn't really make fishing more accessible, most of the common core fish, dont have timed requirements so much, so I dont think this would help them at all, and even things like Blue Crab, which was just added and is used for high end CUL recipes, doesn't have time conditions, so even if you fish for more intermediary things, it's not really gonna help them out either.

I like letting it ignore time requirements (assuming it has a duration, rather than only affecting the next cast.) Windows are one of the most annoying things about fishing and letting us temporarily negate them would be nice. Even for big fishing it's not that game breaking. Praying that the next window happens to align with your play schedule isn't challenge, it's just frustration.

Not a fan of Fish Eyes ignoring time requirements. There's very few things that differentiate how each big fish is caught as it is(bait, time and weather are all there is, except for intuition buffs on legendaries), and removing something like this turns big fishing into baby mode fishing unless the cost of using Fish Eyes is so prohibitive that you're better off not using it for most fish. Case in point - the easiest big fish by far to catch each time they add a new batch are the ones you can catch any time. These are always the first fish you go after, present little to no difficulty in catching and are ultimately unsatisfying, throwaway big fish.

Maybe it will be like Trained Hand and only work on fish level 70 and below. I'd be cool with that. I've always believed they should ease up on the giant mountain of old big fish, and this would be an interesting way to do it, without impacting the difficulty of current expac big fishing.

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Originally Posted by Espritduo

Case in point - the easiest big fish by far to catch each time they add a new batch are the ones you can catch any time.

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You're talking as if a time requirement makes a fish challenging in and of itself. Time can can add a layer of challenge when paired with other things like intuition or odd mooches, but on its own a time window is more frustrating than fun. Having to schedule your entire play session around 6 minutes starting at 10:22 PM isn't fun, or engaging, or even hard. It's just annoying.

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Originally Posted by MasuraoTsukino

Honestly if it didn't effect big fish, I would be 100% okay with this change, I think Big Fish, is an optional challenge that people know what they are getting into when attempting it (thanks in large part to the Feast of Famine quest line) and I think retaining that challenge is a good idea.

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I agree, there are timed/weather regular fish that are needed for certain crafts but big fishing is a whole adventure of its own, they are not required for anything (although some go in aquariums) other than the task of obtaining them and to make it easier makes it less satisfying. granted some conditions like only available for a few minutes a month dure to weather transitions AND time can be rough especially if you have limited time to play but when the stars align and you get your catch its really fulfilling

Without knowing the full extent of FE's conditions (GP, CD, is it a buff? Is it like chum?), I am of the mind that this is a good thing for fishing, I like and appreciate the change.

It just removes time restrictions, based on what we know already. It doesn't change the weather, it doesn't make fish easier to hook (arguably it might make it harder), it doesn't change the actual fishing for big fish. For something like Ruby Dragon, you still need to get the rare weather transition, be available for it, and you still need to actually get Ku'er's and RD to bite under FE (however that will manifest itself) AND under Patience. You still have to actually fish the fish.

It's not making big fishing easier, it's making it more convenient with some notable trade offs and convenience does not equal to ease.

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Originally Posted by Espritduo

Case in point - the easiest big fish by far to catch each time they add a new batch are the ones you can catch any time. These are always the first fish you go after, present little to no difficulty in catching and are ultimately unsatisfying, throwaway big fish.

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I did say a while back that now they've handed crafting and gathering over on a plate to people who don't even like crafting or gathering, they'd go after fishing next. The arguments will be the same as crafting "time requirements aren't skill, fishing was always easy it was just tedious, it's better this way". I'd imagine this is just the start of further "revamps" and feel bad for the players who enjoyed fishing for what it is.

While time and weather gates aren't a test of skill, a test of patience it is.
This felt like the fish were part of the living breathing world.

I don't think fishing needs to be highly skilled. I enjoy the long stretch of attempts. I made it to Grandmaster Caster, I have ever big fish so far.
While I don't mind Fish Eyes getting changed up from being a GP dump, I don't like the idea of it negating time constraints on the fish. It removed the "feeling" that the job has always had.

Shouldn't we post our thoughts and feedback . . . after we've tried out the changes?

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Shouldn't we post our thoughts and feedback . . . after we've tried out the changes?

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Usually, but they also asked for community feedback on the idea in the Live Letter itself, so this thread is completely warranted.

I agree that it seems a bit stupid to have the skill remove time constraints. However heliocoprion is currently testing my patience OwO. Maybe it would be better to have it be something akin to a 20% increase in catch rate to catch those low catch rate fishes.

A rework of Fish Eyes is appreciated. The skill worked well in HW by preventing you from using Patience I / II, but since the GP cap increased and we can use cordials now while fishing the skill has lost his purpose. All what is left is the stupid annoying problem with multiple different types of Fish Eyes in the same spot.

But circumventing the time requirements for fishing is not the way to go. And it won't make fishing "more accessible". Fishing has other problems, namely too many baits and outside sources are required to catch even the simplest fish. People have long quit before they reach a point where they would need that new Fish Eyes skill...

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Originally Posted by Tint

A rework of Fish Eyes is appreciated. The skill worked well in HW by preventing you from using Patience I / II, ...

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It did? Gee, I used both FE and P I together back then. It wasn't easy, but the difficulty made it fun.

I see no issue with it removing the time requirements for a short period of time especially if it is the same gp cost it currently is. Combining that with patience is still going to drain your GP fast. It just will let people with less time on their hands get into big fishing. There still will be the weather requirements which can still make it rough for some people. Plus for some fishing holes a skill that removed time reqs can actually make it harder to get the fish you want due to multiple timed fish suddenly becoming available. I see it as a better GP use for fish eyes than the current very frustrating use it has at fishing holes with multiple fish eye buffs. (Note I have caught all the timed and / or weather restricted fish and have no issue with it becoming easier for newer players. I still think it that the got away chance should go down for fish that you out level in any case.)

As someone who just completed the log, I think it is a totally fair change and I would have liked to have it earlier.
I'd rather wait for hours in front of a fishing spot, trying again and again until the fish bites, instead of trying for 5 minutes, waiting for an hour, trying for 5 minutes etc.

That being said, I think it would be nice for this skill to be a 'catch up mechanic', so that hardcore fisher can still have the challenge they are striving for when a patch launches - for example by having it work exclusively on previous expansions fishing spots.

So the whole point of these changes sounds like the goal is to make fishing more popular...well consider what actually creates a boom in participation.

Ocean Fishing is released and you have tons of people queuing for it because.......it has rewards people want! I remember everyone wanting that Shark mount so much when Ocean Fishing released it was a very big deal.

So if we want to make overworld fishing more popular as well, what then would be the best thing to add? Items from desynthesis that used to exist! There's other possibilities too...perhaps NPCs that trade big fish for in game items if desynthesis isn't something you want to go back to.

The niche audiences like myself who do fishing because we love collecting or just the challenge will be be attracted to anything, but the majority of players are only going to do something if they can get a reward for doing it and right now there's just not enough of a reward for doing big fishing for most people to care.

I would not make any major changes to fishing windows that makes them unrecognizable to the people who have enjoyed them for so many years. If anything, I would just make kinder windows to avoid things like The Ruby Dragon from happening ever again, or make Fish Eyes a small buff to extend a window for a short time at the cost of GP, adding a new wrinkle in GP management which is the name of the game for big fishing after all!

In my opinion, making a functional change to open up windows isn't going to generate any interest in it because you still can't do anything with the fish you catch. If anything it's just going to make long time fishers finish the content even faster than before which doesn't change anything.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

As someone who just completed the log, I think it is a totally fair change and I would have liked to have it earlier.
I'd rather wait for hours in front of a fishing spot, trying again and again until the fish bites, instead of trying for 5 minutes, waiting for an hour, trying for 5 minutes etc.

That being said, I think it would be nice for this skill to be a 'catch up mechanic', so that hardcore fisher can still have the challenge they are striving for when a patch launches - for example by having it work exclusively on previous expansions fishing spots.

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You mean... a trait?

Fish Eyes - Allows the player to find previously hidden fish (allows them to find any fish available at a Fishing spot and bypass weather conditions for levels 1 - 50)

'Enhanced Fish Eyes I' - Extends the level Range to 60

'Enhanced Fish Eyes II' - Extends the level Range to 70

with the traits being awarded at 70 and 80 respectively.

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Originally Posted by MrThinker

You mean... a trait?

Fish Eyes - Allows the player to find previously hidden fish (allows them to find any fish available at a Fishing spot and bypass weather conditions for levels 1 - 50)

'Enhanced Fish Eyes I' - Extends the level Range to 60

'Enhanced Fish Eyes II' - Extends the level Range to 70

with the traits being awarded at 70 and 80 respectively.

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Yup, could work. (On that note, they should do some clean up on the gatherers' traits, especially for fisher. There are over 20 traits, and most of them are redundant.)