Big fishing is poorly designed and isn't very fun

[PotatoTree]

After doing a lot of content in this game, nothing has made me realize more that it is all pointless and to unsub than fishing. The reason is the standard deviation of people who are lucky vs unlucky is just too big. In no way is it fun to see someone catch a fish their first try while you have to sit there window after window. This is not like some other horrible grind in the game (which are also extremely lazy game design, but that is beside the point) where everyone who has completed the grind has spent the same amount of time in it. And it's not like while I'm sitting there doing attempts I'm getting some other passive bonus. No, the junk fish I fish up are worthless, and most of the time the mechanics of fishing actively encourage you to not real anything in so you don't even get any spiritbond/other achievements, etc. You're literally just pissing away your time into the wind for zero progress on your character.

"But that's fishing, the rng/torture/whatever is part of the fun"

Yea no. When I finish this stupid achievement it won't be pride I feel, only anger that it took so long when it could have taken so much less time. There is only a feeling of injustice that my shot at the reward was artificially harder than someone else's attempt.

I remember when someone quit the game after it took them 800+ Dragon's Neck dungeons to get the TT card, when everyone around them got it in like less than 10-50 runs. These kind of large variances should be protected against so the occasional player does not fall through the statistical cracks, anything else is poor and lazy game design. Think about it this way, a player that is excited for getting good rng and one-shotting this content is literally getting excited about not having to do this content anymore.

And on top of that the content just doesn't respect the players time. Having to wake up at ungodly hours, be out of luck if you have work or other scheduled events, etc is not fun. There is no world where anything involving a "jail" is fun in any way, like the literal name for the strategy shows you how negative the experience is.

How would I fix it? Change it so that player skill or decisions can greatly augment the chances of catching the fish. For example, the choices of ability usage, the timing of hooking in fish, etc. And add a method where the player can augment the timing windows so they don't have to get up at 4am. Fish Eyes should work for legendary fish, why the arbitrary limitation? There is ZERO skill in abiding to some 2 week long wait for some rare window.

"Just don't do fishing if you hate it so much. Just unsub if you don't like the game". That is not a valid excuse for poor game design. The devs put this into the game, added rewards that can only be achieved through this path, then therefore it is valid to criticize this content.

Here are some free ideas for better fish design:
1. intuition that pops if you catch 5 different fish in some specific order. The fishes have bite times or are slappable in a way that allows an informed fisher to correctly catch these fish in order.
2. an ability that removes the slip rate of the fish on hooking, but only usable under some condition such as catching 20 fish in the fishing hole. This allows better prepared fishers to augment their luck.
3. if you fish in a party, if one person catches the fish it gives a rate up buff to everyone in the party. In this way fishers can recruit buddies to help improve their odds.
4. Add some way to get a big fish masterball-type bait, maybe through some repeatable weekly questline involving doing other content in the game. That way the fisher can grind a big fish through a different means, or at least have some way to progress while waiting for a long fish window.
5. Maybe add a negative-intuition/super surface slap mechianic, like if you catch 10 copies of a fish at a hole you can pop this ability that gives you a 10m negative intuition buff that makes this fish not show up anymore like it was slapped. Players can prep and stack multiple of these for different fish to try to filter the pool for the big fish. Catching 10 of a fish requires some player agency since you have choices on how you want to identical/triple cast and how to manage your GP for such a strategy, and also the player can show up to a window early and be rewarded for being better prepared.

And I don't want some BS where in after adding these designs in the fish is tuned to be even more rare to offset the increased odds. Fish should take at most 2-3 windows to catch through blind luck, and a less than 30m of player time if some strategy is employed. If the devs want to increase player time, add MORE fish with lower rng spread instead of making a specific fish super rare that someone can catch it first try and someone else can take 20+ hours on it. That's not fun.

Fishing RNG and atma RNG are the same, and there is a reason nobody liked Atmas. Tsuyoshi “Mr. Atma” Yokozawa is not hailed as some genius for adding that to the game, nobody looks at the time spent on that fondly as fun or rewarding. A third party observer looking over my shoulder when I'm raiding can see why someone would want to play the game and why it is fun, but the same observer would conclude the game sucks if they see me grinding atmas or fishing. Mechanics based purely on rng are archaic and lazy in this day and age.

TLDR: Big fishing is not fun, does not respect the players time, and anyone who says otherwise has some Stockholm syndrome.