Ocean fishing is horribly designed

[MOZZYSTAR]

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.

[kaynide]

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.

[Alleo]

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.

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.

[Odessium]

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.

[TheUltimate3]

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.

[Nestama]

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.

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).

[Packetdancer]

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

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...

[Rokke]

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.

[Hyperia]

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.

[Packetdancer]

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.