Quote Originally Posted by Vogue View Post
There used to be a mini -game- on 1.0... and honestly the amount of people that enjoyed it was very little (if compared to the people that played the game) which is probably the reason why it got simplified so much.

And yes sure, they could keep it complex and only a few people will do any fishing... but if that is the case, then they are failing at their objective, which is make the game enjoyable to everyone. This includes every feature on it.
You're deluding yourself if you think any activity in an MMO that isn't fighting will receive mass attention. This is the concern. They could make the new system so simple that it would do it for you, and the amount of people who actually do it would still be miniscule compared to the overall population. Oversimplification won't lead to a higher percentage of adoption. Instead, you'll see a lot of people trying it at first, then that number will drop off rapidly because it's not combat. It's tedium. The population you'll be left with a few months after launch will be bots, the very few that find they like the new system, and the original fishers who aren't happy with the new system. I can assure you the latter group will make up the majority of that population.

If that's the case, then what was the point of simplifying it? All you've managed to do is make the original fishers unhappy. For some reason the common thought among people who don't gather is that the boredom was due to the apparent complexity of the mechanics, so simplifying it will make it more accessible. There are ways however to keep it complex without driving you to tears. The combo system had its own complexity, and people loved it (in 1.23). The Battle Regimen system had a somewhat complex mechanic and people are still clamoring for it to be added back to the game. Complexity can be fun. The problem with the 1.0 mechanics was that they were a combination of intimidating to start, badly explained, and boring once you got the hang of it. Even I'll admit they were boring. It became so easy that I could fish without watching the screen, relying purely on muscle memory and sound. So knowing that, the fix is obvious. You can remove the intimidation by providing a good tutorial. You can remove the boredom by actually increasing complexity.

No matter what they do, they'll never please everyone. GW2 tried to do that, and every class is boring for it. Deny it all you want, but it's a certain personality that truly enjoys gathering/crafting above combat, and vice versa. Trying to bend the gathering classes to be more appealing to fighters is not only a waste of time because it just won't work over a large enough population to matter, but because it's insulting to the other players. Those of us who do enjoy gathering more.