Is Ocean Fishing Dead

[Ekymus]

I've been trying to get into an Ocean Fishing expedition for the last month now and I haven't been able to get even one to pop for me.

Over the last month I've tried at least a dozen times and I've waited at least 10 minutes per attempt.

I've never had this issue in the past, even during the "downtimes" of Shadowbringers or Endwalker.

Are others having this issue? Or is this maybe just a problem on the server I'm on?

[VeyaAkemi]

I thought Ocean Fishing always popped, like even if not enough people join, every two hours, the ship will simply depart after 15 minutes from the top of the hour with however many registered, regardless how few, did they change that?

[FiletMignon]

This is still the case. It will depart at 15 min mark even if you're the only person in instance.

[Sylpharia]

Over the last month I've tried at least a dozen times and I've waited at least 10 minutes per attempt.

12 times in a month is not enough to label something dead honestly, when were these times? what days? I have never had any issues popping this content so I highly doubt this content is 'dead'.
Also if it doesn't have enough people after 15 minutes it pops regardless of the amount of people in the queue so unless you left the queue after these 10 minutes this story is quite literally impossible.

[Fruity_Snacks]

As others had said, you'll always be put onto a boat at X:15 at the latest.

How quickly you get onto the boat does depending on how many people are fishing on your DC at that time. It also appears that more folks are using Indigo Route than the Ruby Route, so you might be waiting for longer on the latter route if that's what you're doing (which is weird because Ruby Route usually has more consistent scoring than Indigo).

If you're worried about how the ocean fishing will go with less people on your boat - the chance of triggering a Spectral Current per Spectral Fish Caught scales based on the # of people on the boat, so you're not at a disadvantage for not being on a 'full' boat.

[Jeeqbit]

I queued for it several times the last week on Dynamis. I had full or near full parties of 24 players. This is despite it being a much lower population data center. You will see more people on the first route rather than the Stormblood route.

It isn't a problem with the "server" you're on, because severs are interconnected by something called a "data center". Even if you switched to a different server on the Aether Data Center, you are being matched with the same people in the same queue. Aether is also known for being very populated.

[Tint]

It is kind of important to queue up the instant the queue opens at X:00 on the clock. Otherwise the queue fills without you and everyone departs while you are left on the shore and have to wait until X:15 when it forces the queue to pop. The other players are basically all gone after 10 seconds.

[Hallarem]

The game is dead.

[hynaku]

Game is dead most the time I only see 10 mentors on at a time use to see 90 to 100 on.

[Striker44]

Game is dead most the time I only see 10 mentors on at a time use to see 90 to 100 on.

Meanwhile, hunt trains are full, any sort of queues pop anytime (including the random non-standard dungeons I specifically queue for when doing WT), there's swarms of people whenever Special FATES or S-ranks spawn, and the active population is just over 1 million player (or significantly higher than throughout the ARR-SB eras).