Ocean fishing is horribly designed

[Azurymber]

I am way too committed to fishing in this game.
I've caught over 150k normal fish, and nearly 20k spearfish.
And I was really looking forward to ocean fishing (and love it).

But it will be dead in 2 weeks.
The only meaningful reason to do ocean fishing is to spam-level fisher, or to get the mount (which I already have).

There are no rewards or benefits from doing anything else.
The fish are essentially worthless.
There are no rewards for the super-rare fish.
And the available title achievements are likely impossible without coordination and serious luck (so 99%+ of people will never get them)

Ontop of that, the entire system is time-locked and pure RNG. I have the mount because I got lucky, not because of any innate skill. My friends have gone 10+ runs and never seen 3 rainbows. And most runs I don't even see a single rainbow, even though people are consistently catching all the fish (including spectrals and legendaries)

MOST IMPORTANTLY ocean fishing is pointlessly stressful. You can't just have fun. You have a limited amount of time, and you're desperate to see a rainbow. And there is always a major disappointment when one doesn't appear (leading to some people leaving or just giving up, which likely hurts everyone else).

Ocean fishing should be changed.

There should be incentives to repeat it -many- times (e.g. # of fish caught, total points, etc). Or some of the fish should be valuable on the marketboard.

Rainbows should not be RNG -UNLESS- the time lock is removed so people can spam it.
Nothing is more boring than pointlessly fishing for 25 min with no benefits a few times a day when you have work and real life commitment, just to get a mount.

Make it fun so people keep doing it.
Otherwise, it's just going to be another verminion or chocobo racing. A dead side-activity that people only ever do if rewards suddenly become available.

And that would be a shame. Because the concept is great.

Edit:
People are now regularly leaving boats if they don't get spectral first round and re-queuing. This in turn screws everyone else on board that stays. See http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ts-for-leavers
And these people who are multi-queuing are likely the ones who are going to get high scores as they increase their chances. While those who stay are almost always at a disadvantage.
This system is straight up broken.

[Khalithar]

+1 OP, I agree with your points. Though I'm ok with the 25 minutes if the cooldown is reduced i.e. if it's 25 minutes then a ship should leave every 30 minutes.

[Espritduo]

After hitting every fishing trip since 2 this morning and never coming even close to the Mount, having spectrals get away constantly (and not have rainbows occur when I catch them anyways) and having legendaries just never ever bite, I have to agree. This is stupidly designed content that will be dead very soon. It's a great idea, and the core Fishing Point system is already there for cripes sake to make it worthwhile, but they decided the points would ultimately mean nothing overall and only maxing your points per trip matters, and is entirely reliant on things out of your control. The 500k cumulative achievement should have been the mount achievement and there should have been a shop were you could exchange the points the fish give you for stuff. And knock off all the group-locked required bonuses/triggers, or at least not make them absolutely critical to getting anywhere. This is fishing not raiding.

[hynaku]

Just wish you could trade in the fish you caught for items at the end. not sure how you ever will score enough for the mount unless they make it longer the time in it. I never have luck on my side catching those legendaries.

[Jojoya]

I don't think ti's really intended as content for the more hardcore fishers. Seems to be more tailored toward leveling and social groups. Even after the rush dies out, our FC plans to keep doing it on occasion for fun.

As for getting the mount, the bonuses for meeting special objectives is the key. You will be seeing a lot of players with it.

[Catwho]

I'm pretty sure that Ocean Fishing is solely designed as a throw back to FFXI's fishing, which could be done from the ferries and ships that traveled in real time between cities.

[Azurymber]

I don't think ti's really intended as content for the more hardcore fishers. Seems to be more tailored toward leveling and social groups. Even after the rush dies out, our FC plans to keep doing it on occasion for fun.

As for getting the mount, the bonuses for meeting special objectives is the key. You will be seeing a lot of players with it.

To get the mount you just need 3 rainbow waters & double hook twice each time. And it's basically guaranteed. You can also get it if you get lucky with 2 rainbow waters and double hook !!!s. But the point is that people shouldn't have to run it 20 times to see -anyone- score above 9k in a round. Bonuses don't matter with consistent bad luck.

[Azurymber]

I'm pretty sure that Ocean Fishing is solely designed as a throw back to FFXI's fishing, which could be done from the ferries and ships that traveled in real time between cities.

yes. but those ferries went back and forth near-endlessly. Not a 2 hour wait. They also were casual. You could fish when you want, walk around and chat. There was no rush. No focus on getting every single point possible. And you weren't responsible for other people's success.

also for nostalgia here is my thread asking for this from 2015: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ly-fishers-%29

[RyuSaarva]

I wish that the fish did not go to your inventory at all since they are all level 1 anyway, I don't have the inventory space to keep them and I lose more time because of the fish release animation.

[Nedkel]

Colour me surprised, they took away 1 dungeon and gave us this pointless feature that will be more dead than eureka or squadrons.

Majority wanted dungeon taken away and given this fishing content, so here we got enjoy.