Fishing and Aquariums: a Discussion

[AbigailOtter]

Ah yes, fishing. The lonely-miqo'te's skill, angling in the high seas, drudging out at two in the morning thunderstorms just to catch the big boi they've always dreamed of, lugging around a bag of cordials so heavy any Skyrim character would brick their britches at the sheer impressiveness of it.
Ah yes, fishing.

I'm dredging up this old topic because I feel like it and none of the other five threads addressing it lay forth and convincing arguments or decent points. Other than 'SE dumb hurr hurr' which no one appreciates, c'mon girls people have feelings.

I'm a hardcore angler, during my freetrial a year ago I fell in love with its simplicity. Finding fishing holes and seeing my log fill out, I done this all unguided. Find a fishing hole and working my way through the question marks. For weather and time-specific fish I kept a log on paper of what times and conditions I had fished in, and with what baits.
It got quite involved, I invited a friend out and we would scout out fishing spots using different baits to cover all the options. We had a lot of fun along the way.

When I began to big fish and found out no one wants to engage in that sort of higgelty piggelty and also that is WAY too big an ARG for one person to undertake I began using a tracker app. And that's okay, landing big catches is challenging, even with perfect knowledge of where and how to find them!

You see, I just enjoy the fishing. I also play other classes, my SCH and AST are both above 60 now and I just got me WAR to 50, all my crafters are 55+. But the fishing is my favorite.

I finally caught the titanic sawfish after, I hec you not, 8 months (yes I bought it for the quest don't @ me). I was so proud I wanted to display it in the FC house. I asked the officer online, I got permission, threw out the silver shark that was in there before (like, really?) and it's now beaming in the main foyer as the first thing people see when they enter the house.

I thought "this is great! I should get an apartment to store all my hard fought catches, that'll be awesome!". And as someone who's never engaged in glam or social or anything else I had a tough time navigating my way through the necessary means. I got the gil to buy an apartment, made a tier 2 aquarium and was very appointed, went off and got the gil for two tier fours, "It's a start, I'll get more later." And just as after I finally hooked the Ndendecki (a VERY cool looking turtle in Moondrip that you can find here) I marched to my apartment and found!

... It wont go in. Huh, maybe it's too big for the tier 2

... Oh.

And that's when I learned that aquariums are very underwhelming!

This saddens me greatly.

""B-but-but, turtles are so cool though? Surely that's a shoe-in aquarium fish."

[AbigailOtter]

~~

I had a long think, I didn't want to assume that all my needs should be catered for and that the asset team are a couple of monsters churning out any asset requested for them. I also appreciate that, as a whole, fishing IS the least popular job in FFXIV. There's no fishing FC (that I could find), I had a bump around on FFXIV fishing discord but that's mainly high level stuff, guides, chat and special gear help. There's no "hey let's go out and do some fishing!" type stuff where people gather in a party and try hunt some toughies together.

I described fishing as "the lonely skill" at the start of this post. I thought for once I may show off, for a community who's so glamorous and passionate I find it weird that there's so little for fishing to accomplish.

Again, I'll reiterate: this isn't a big deal and the dev team are already working hard. Hell I love sea fishing (though it earnestly feels like an attempt to quell the cries of impatient players who claim the progression should be faster...)
But for FFXIV's loneliest skill there should be some pop, some PZAZZ.

~~

So, how to fix it.

I elect that a tri-monthly vote be held in the gathering subforum asking players what fish they'd like to display in their aquariums.

It's a simple method and progressively adds aquarium fish at roughly the same rate other housing items and glam are added into the game. It allows dedicated fishers and housing enthusiasts to show off their prize pieces in the manor THEY want. It also doesn't overload the asset team, which is super important.

A suggestion is only a suggestion and I expect if a SE moderator does pick up on this that there might be some finagling and compromises, and that's okay too. I just want my catches to MEAN something. It would mean a lot to me and I'm sure others who are looking for just that bit more to make them and their character a part of the world.

That's all folks, until next time, or until I post next.

-Abby

[Edax]

And that's when I learned that aquariums are very underwhelming!

Yeah, I don't even bother putting fish in my aquarium. It's most intresting as a color backdrop to me.