Why does fishing have to be boring?

[Alaltus]

I personally really like the Dark Chronicle's (Dark Cloud 2's) fishing system and you did have to do that alot if you wanted to participate in the fish based minigames <- did not get bored. I got fishing to 60 recently and i do prefer it over the other dol if only because i don't have to run around all the time. Fisher is convenient for some and i don't think theres a good argument to take that away; atleast not without changing one of the other dol or introducing a new one to take it's place. However i still miss the wasted potential of a proper fishing minigame.

Theres two ideas i have on this.

1: Apex gathering- Instead of treasure maps Fisher fishes up a special item every x hours to unlock a special zone for DOL to gather in. Fish in this zone require this minigame to be caught. My thoughts on the lore could be something like a hidden green house within azys la where they kept all sorts of GM produce which continues to be maintained. That or some hidden part of the shroud the elementals only allow to be opened in return for this special item. Fishers can still avoid this minigame if they so wish as they could just sell the item like treasure maps.

2: Competitive Fishing- A minigame in the Gold Saucer much like Chocobo Racing. In this case you'll build up your rod, earn mgp and eventually participate in tourneys.

[Tint]

[...] and even more for collectability. A fisher has already enough constraints from weather to time periods to deal with and above all that, he needs to pray the NRG god to have the collectability he needs. And this collectability is not really depending on his statistics but seems really random (like ranging from 300 to 800 - WTF ?)

that's what patience and patience 2 is for. the collectability is the size of the fish x 10. and all HQ fish are really big. sure, it's still kind of random, but i have no problem catching dozens of fish with high collectability rating.

fishing with patience for collectables is also a bit more involving than regular fishing.

[Chyro]

Hm.. I really liked the fishing minigame from 'Stardew Valley'. Didn't get tired of it even though it was used for every single fish.
The difficulty of the minigame also indicated what kind of fish you hooked - each fish moved in a different pattern, faster and slower, some more jumpy than others, others changing directions at regular (or some at irregular) intervals.
And completing the minigame doesn't take very long, so it doesn't become tedious, just a little challenge with each catch. Also makes it more of an achievement to catch the difficult ones, rather than just 'got lucky'.

[Scammin]

"FFXIV 1.0 had a mini-game for fishing but it was far too complicated like a lot of systems in that version."

The problem wasn't that it was too complex, the problem was (as was the problem with the entire game), they gave you NO information. It may have been the greatest fishing game ever made, but nobody knew what most of the buttons/clicks etc. did.

"After the twenty thousandth fish caught, you'll be CURSING that minigame, and wishing you could go back to the old, mindless method"

This is a response I absolutely cannot understand. You're essentially saying 'rather than take the chance that it eventually gets boring, I'd prefer that it just starts out boring and remains that way.'

[vigioX-Sun]

I love fishing the way it is(i know there is a lot of RNG) but i will not mind if they add something new to it.

[Scammin]

The other baffling thing about fishing is that it even has the lamest abilities. Harvesting at least has things to increase quality, gathering rate, gathering attempts, etc. Fishing abilities really add nothing to the task; not even the slightest bit of strategy or even thought is necessary. That, and how about adding some kind of benefit to releasing fish, like better chance at HQ or something? As it is right now, releasing fish is simply throwing money away.

[LineageRazor]

This is a response I absolutely cannot understand. You're essentially saying 'rather than take the chance that it eventually gets boring, I'd prefer that it just starts out boring and remains that way.'

While it is true that I've never been interested in dedicated fishing games like Bassmasters or whatever, but even if you ARE such an individual, imagine that you stumble across the most amazing and innovative such fishing game ever created. It would be awesome at first. You play it a ton when you get it, and in later years occasionally pick it up and play it again. It's just that good. But imagine playing it for hours a day, every day for a year. For five years. For TEN years. There are very few gamers out there who can maintain dedication for a game for that long.

MMOs are an exception - but only because they CHANGE over those ten years. They offer new content, and the better MMOs offer new content that's different in some ways from older content. That older content is still there, but players tend to touch it a lot less... unless they're given incentive to. At that point, the old content becomes WORK. Stuff you do not because it's fun, but because it contributes toward a long-term goal. Achieving that goal can be satisfying (in fact, most MMO's bank on this phenomenon to keep their subscribers subscribed in the long term), but the process of getting there is work, not play, and not entertaining in itself.

Fishing is no exception. It will become work, in due time, no matter how fancily you dress it up. Fishing is an exception to most work in this game, though, because it's simple enough that you CAN entertain yourself while doing that work. Adding a mini-game would add short-term fun at the expense of long-term drudgery. It may be drudgery now, as well, but it doesn't have to be. Netflix awaits! (Not that some gamers don't try to 'flix it up even while doing more complex content - I'm sure you've all run into a player by now who apologizes after a wipe for not paying attention due to such distractions.)

Now, it's possible that, with enough dedication, SE could keep fishing entertaining in the long term. I mentioned that MMOs maintain their playability through evolution and change - the same could be applied for fishing. If the fishing mini-game changes and grows over the years, it could remain fun. How likely is that to happen, though? How many resources do you expect them to dedicate to Fishing, already most likely the most niche of all gathering classes? In all likelihood, what will instead happen is what happened in FFXI: We'll get that mini-game we asked for. It'll be fun for a little while. Then it will become boring and frustrating, and folks will long for the old days when they could read a book while fishing.

[Mwynn]

I love fishing the way it is(i know there is a lot of RNG) but i will not mind if they add something new to it.

There is too much RNG on it, what in the seven hells did SE thought in that moment, when we had to use a HQ Fish to Mooch for another HQ Fish to mooch for another HQ Fish just so a useless Fish gets on the line and spites us in the face.
Putting RNG unto RNG and adding a little flavour RNG unto that again was the worst thing they could have done with Fishing.

Big Fishing is useless, the only Fish that are "USEFUL" are the ones that give Glamour when desynthesing.
The rest you can throw away such as "Kuno the Killer" or "Nepto Dragon", as only 0.5% on a FFXIV Server have done the Big Fish Quests.
Heck, I know "Real FFXIV Fisher" that had a Love for the Gathering Class, once Big Fishing came in most of them left FFXIV due of the RNG being a chore.

They should fix the Perception Stat for Fishers, can't be that I have 519 Perception and land 20-30 NQ Fish in a row that is needed for mooching o_O

[Scammin]

I agree with the NQ fish comment (the biggest slap in the face is when you cast out a HQ fish, and catch a LQ fish of the same type - how the hell does a smaller fish eat the bigger fish?), and that's where my suggestion for releasing fish would be great - the more fish you release, the better chance you have of catching HQ fish.

[FoxyAreku]

They tried to have minigames on gathering in 1.0 so I've heard, which were the botany and mining games you see in the gold saucer.

Would you like to do something like that on every single fish? I sure wouldn't. But hey, different strokes.