[Suggestion(s) + Poll] Ocean Fishing

[Hornete]

(Question 1 Information)

Everytime the fish comes close and pauses at the tackle, they are nibbling the tackle, and the attraction the fish has towards the tackle increases on each "nibble" and the higher chance for it to finally hook on. Were you aware of this mechanic?

(Question 2 Information)
Gif courtesy of @Electroely showcasing the reel charm mechanic.

There is a mechanic while ocean fishing where when you reel your tackle, it'll temporarily increase or decrease the charm of the bait and quickly go back down. For consumable lures, it decreases the charm when reeling, for usable lures, it increases the charm when reeling. Were you aware of this mechanic?

(Question 3 Information)
When using baits other than the rainy/snowy lures while it's raining/snowing. The baits charm will be cut in half. Meaning to fish at full charm during rainy/snowy weather, you'll need to use their respective special baits. Were you aware of this mechanic?

(Question 4 Information)
There is a stamina mechanic tied to ocean fishes that determine how long they can keep resisting your fishing rod(More in-depth in Electroely's Fishing guide here)

Were you aware of this mechanic?

Since we're in a beta. I wanted to explore the Ocean Fishing mechanic and provide feedback from both me and the community.

Ocean Fishing in my opinion is a fantastic food source. Most people don't think so, and I think that comes to the main problem I have with it. It's extremely tedious and unintuitive to learn. Ocean fishing is a wonderfully in-depth mechanic like the RWYS farming, but unlike the RWYS farming, it's extremely unintuitive and there are a lot of mechanics that just are not intuitive to learn on your own without searching these things up. I would appreciate responses to the poll and any replies providing your own feedback. I may add more questions later on. This is my first poll, so Im willing to hear feedback.

I think it would be extremely beneifical to add an animation to possibly the fish and the tackle for the nibbling mechanic, to show the fish is nibbling on the lure every now and then. Currently, it's hard to tell that the fish is actually nibbling, and for the longest time, I personally did not know this.

[Zepp]

My God, I never knew the Ocean Fish nibbling mechanic!

[MondayNight]

For relatively successful ocean fishing in general: use Down Quill or Malbatross Quill Float with Stupefying Lure. Or Hardened Rubber Bung as float and Bent Spork as lure. And reel periodically to up the chances of successful catches. That's it - rest is clutter noise, very unintuitive and mostly revealed via code-digging - which bulk player-base has nothing to do with.

[SomebodyRandom]

I think Ocean Fishing is very fun but there's a major lack of fishes in the Ocean to do any proper fishing without having to go sail again or throw fish food. I only knew a little bit about the stamina mechanic because it made sense but everything else I never figured out the slightest bit about.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

I only "knew" that some fish likes lures that moves and others that are still like in real live fishes wanting alive preys or eating veggie based stuff but i didnt know if was placebo

 

[Pumking7]

I only knew about these because of the Electroely thread hehe.

However I find many of these strategies kind of pointless when it is much more efficient to just throw a highly effective lure into a group of ocean fishes which it appeases, where it is much faster than using these strategies to get the perfect catch. 

43 minutes ago, Hornete said:

Ocean Fishing in my opinion is a fantastic food source

I don't wanna sound rude, but how is it a fantastic food source? I have ocean fished for every season, and it seems to be outclassed by eel fishing and barnacle farming for their higher efficiency while farming for bone shards(eel only) and fish value for crockpot. 

My issues with ocean fishing come down to this mainly

• Ocean fish shoals spawn at an infrequent rate, so if you got all the fishes from one you are going to have to wait around for another one to spawn.

• Gnarwails/Rockjaws are WAY too pesty, snagging all the fish and booking it when you are going to get the kill.

• The only reason to catch harder/heavier fish is only really for the collection, feels pointless to go for a heavy catfish if a light deep bass has the same exact value.

• Where 9 eels only requires 2 silk and 2 twigs, ocean fishing requires at least 6 silk (more for masts), at least 4 boards, a large amount of rope, some rocks, unless you want to be minimalist and go only fish rod, oar, boat which may prove annoying. 

• Pearls items aren't worth the cost, why would I want a lure for rain and snow if it happens so rarely, and normal lure works fine even in stormy weather, a weighted lure(3rd bullet explains), and a stamina lure which has so low attraction the time spent using it feels no different to normal lure. Pearl does have one good item, fish food which costs 3 bottle for ONE with the better uses for bottles I would rather preserve them.

• Maybe a nitpick but it does feel annoying that the lures need 3 types of mushrooms to fish efficiently, but only gives 1 lure per craft, again a nitpick but it is annoying considering how easy it is to lose them, especially for newer player who doesn't know basic mechanics.

I really do love the concept of ocean fishing and it is awesome how the devs added all of these mechanics to take advantage of. In practice though it seems kind of niche to use (considering how rarely people ocean fish). I really do hope they maybe will touch up upon it a tiny bit so new/old players may give it another shot.

[Hornete]

15 minutes ago, Pumkingthegreat said:

Ocean fish shoals spawn at an infrequent rate, so if you got all the fishes from one you are going to have to wait around for another one to spawn.

Schools of ocean fish try to spawn every 15-30 seconds for every player. There are of course checks at the end of this timer, stuff like is there already too much fish and etc.

There is a invisible entity that spawns called "fishschoolspawnblocker", where if theres 3 in an area no more schools of fish will be able to spawn. These dont disappear when their associated school disappears but rather they have a seperate timer of one day, meaning you gotta move around if you want more schools to spawn. I never found this bothersome personally as I'm always moving around, and I've never had a problem of a shortage of fish.

Now is this spawning mechanic okay? Imo, No lol. Why does the fishschoolspawnblocker entity stick around even when their associated school has completely disappeared? I'd like to see that change.

17 minutes ago, Pumkingthegreat said:

Gnarwails/Rockjaws are WAY too pesty, snagging all the fish and booking it when you are going to get the kill.

Can we switch bodies? because I WISH I got Gnarwails, I despise the spawning mechanics for gnarwails/sharks! It's pure RNG and sometimes I'll get three in a day, and sometimes one in three years. I've never found them too bothersome while fishing, but I can see why you would.

 

18 minutes ago, Pumkingthegreat said:

The only reason to catch harder/heavier fish is only really for the collection, feels pointless to go for a heavy catfish if a light deep bass has the same exact value.

Correct! Only reason I'd catch black catfish for food is because I'm in the hazardous ocean biome and I'm desperate for food. I really want to see different types of fish and heavy fish give more fish meat on kill. My friend @Electroely has a mod that does this and I enjoy playing with it at times.

19 minutes ago, Pumkingthegreat said:

Where 9 eels only requires 2 silk and 2 twigs, ocean fishing requires at least 6 silk (more for masts), at least 4 boards, a large amount of rope, some rocks, unless you want to be minimalist and go only fish rod, oar, boat which may prove annoying. 

Ocean fishing is much more accessible than eel fishing, considering it surrounds the entire surface world, and you dont need to go sailing, I've personally done fine on land, and when I do go sailing, I'm usually doing other things too, not just fishing.

 

22 minutes ago, Pumkingthegreat said:

• Pearls items aren't worth the cost, why would I want a lure for rain and snow if it happens so rarely, and normal lure works fine even in stormy weather, a weighted lure(3rd bullet explains), and a stamina lure which has so low attraction the time spent using it feels no different to normal lure. Pearl does have one good item, fish food which costs 3 bottle for ONE with the better uses for bottles I would rather preserve them.

• Maybe a nitpick but it does feel annoying that the lures need 3 types of mushrooms to fish efficiently, but only gives 1 lure per craft, again a nitpick but it is annoying considering how easy it is to lose them, especially for newer player who doesn't know basic mechanics.

Very understandable complaints. I agree.

[Just-guy]

While I didn't know about the Reel charm mechanic, I still did it because it seemed like something you'd do in fishing minigames.

[dish-order man]

To be honest, I think the only problem of ocean fish is "lack of characteristics", which is an embarrassing problem similar to Varg.

 

We all know that barnacle has its unique dishs, so people will spend time to obtain it. Many of the ocean fish have nothing special, few of them, such as seasonal fish and salivary fish, have their unique uses, which leads to the player's no positive purpose to obtain these fish.

In my opinion, the current ocean fishing system is more suitable for the leisure time in the later game, enthusiastic fishing lover and collectors.

 

The mechanism of fishing is interesting, fairly, but at present, the internal differentiation of fish is not so obvious, which may be somewhat similar to hounds and varg. It is attractive but not attractive enough to absorb the players from other things, IMO.

I don't have enough wisdom to give more advice since i don't have more experience in fishing games

[lowercase skye]

18 minutes ago, Pumkingthegreat said:

Ocean fish shoals spawn at an infrequent rate, so if you got all the fishes from one you are going to have to wait around for another one to spawn.

rarely are you ever supposed to just sit and "wait around" for something on the ocean, the idea behind a lot of its mechanics is that you simply spend your time out there and the stuff comes to you. ive never went out to only fish for ocean fish and nothing else, ive always caught them almost passively while collecting figs, spawning the malbatross, going after treasures, getting salt, etc.

ocean fish are sort of like butterflies or seeds. you dont actively farm butterflies or seeds while on land, you just play the game and they come to you!

21 minutes ago, Pumkingthegreat said:

Where 9 eels only requires 2 silk and 2 twigs, ocean fishing requires at least 6 silk (more for masts), at least 4 boards, a large amount of rope, some rocks, unless you want to be minimalist and go only fish rod, oar, boat which may prove annoying. 

fishing eels requires 2 silk and 2 twigs.... for every 9 fish. ocean fishing is cool because once youve got the initial setup done and understand the mechanics pretty well, youve got free food for life, it only costs your time (and maybe a few bottles for new lures if you slip up). eels also takes a whole trip to the ruins, and they cant be preserved infinitely like ocean fish without bundling wraps, which is a boss drop

 

about the actual post, i wasnt aware of 1 or 3, but i dont think this makes the mechanic tedious or unintuitive. i think its pretty intuitive that when it comes to fishing, a lure thats actually moving is going to be more interesting to a fish than one thats just sitting there. and then the rest of the mechanics in this post are just like... backend, technical type things that you dont have to know in order to do good with fishing, its just the innards behind the mechanics rather than the stuff you as a player are supposed to be actively keeping in mind

[Hornete]

2 minutes ago, dish-order man said:

Many of the ocean fish have nothing special, few of them, such as seasonal fish and salivary fish, have their unique uses, which leads to the player's no positive purpose to obtain these fish.

Absolutely, I think they're great for food, but that's about where it ends, and it's kinda a small problem I have with farming too, I'd like to see more non food uses with crops and fishes. I really liked that idea of giant garlic repelling bats. More uses for ocean fish would be really interesting and fantastic, the thermal fishes are a great start and I'd love to see more fishes like that.

[dish-order man]

2 minutes ago, Hornete said:

I really liked that idea of giant garlic repelling bats.

indeed, Genius. 

 

3 minutes ago, Hornete said:

the thermal fishes are a great start and I'd love to see more fishes like that.

my friends told me that fish in TR seem to have some new uses？ i have no idea but for sure more uses is    very attractive for fishing

[Hornete]

2 minutes ago, dish-order man said:

my friends told me that fish in TR seem to have some new uses？

Sorry, I don't understand. What is TR?

[dish-order man]

1 minute ago, Hornete said:

Sorry, I don't understand. What is TR?

that is Terraria, I'm used to short it as TR. sorry for that

[Notecja]

Yes, but I read that things on forum. Also Wobsters likes to nibble a lot...

[Hornete]

2 minutes ago, dish-order man said:

that is Terraria, I'm used to short it as TR. sorry for that

Aaah yeah! Terraria Fishing! In Terraria fishes are mainly used for potions and I really like them there too, the potions are very strong stuff like increasing max health and damage, and you can also catch crates which provide resources like ores and such. Some fishes can be used as weapons and tools by themselves too. There could be some cool inspiration pulled there for the idea of using a type of ocean fish as a weapon, kinda like the cutlass supreme but you're just using the fish itself lol.

[Rovyy800]

wobster traps should be in dst. maybe pearl can sell them

[Cheggf]

I think it's pretty intuitive. Maybe not to someone who's completely unfamiliar with fishing but everything you need to know is pretty accessible if you understand the concept.

[Baark0]

3 hours ago, Hornete said:

(Question 3 Information)
When using baits other than the rainy/snowy lures while it's raining/snowing. The baits charm will be cut in half. Meaning to fish at full charm during rainy/snowy weather, you'll need to use their respective special baits. Were you aware of this mechanic?

why is this a thing, thats kinda of stupid

[Hornete]

10 minutes ago, Baark0 said:

why is this a thing, thats kinda of stupid

idk man, I came into dst fishing with my knowledge of other fishing games thinking "hmmm weather events should help my fishing!" and then I look into the code and I see a .5x multiplier on baits during rain and snow.

[Yuuko]

I think the general mechanics of ocean fishing are fine.  I don't have many changes, except to maybe increase the recipes you can use fish for, and maybe up the production for some fish to a large + small fish piece, or maybe even 2 large pieces per catch.  I enjoy fishing, swapping lures based on weather and day / night cycle, and ultimately getting what @x0-VERSUS-1y pointed out - a stupifying lure + malba/ mg quill that I can just use mostly any time.

The reeling, nibble, and varying weather / bait interests all make sense to me.  Maybe there could be a suggestion for the loading screen tips to prompt people who are unfamiliar with fishing concepts? idk  marketing problem, not mechanical problem imo

[maradyne]

Caveman not grasp big brain concepts.
Caveman need visual input.
Caveman not have visual input.
Caveman wait for fish.
Caveman not get fish.
Caveman sad, caveman leave.

Caveman eat pointy lobster instead.
Lobster always there, close to home.
Lobster always come eventually.
Lobster good.

 

I know the mechanics are there, but I really just can't be bothered to learn them. No reason appealing enough. Visual feedback doesn't look that different to me whether you're using good equipment or the bare minimums...

This is my thoughts only, as one person with no experience fishing IRL.

[-Variant]

I did! I did!! I know all of this, and only about 50% of the rain one.
I've been putting almost all of my hours recently into fishing, I love it so much.

It took me a while but I eventually did manage to figure out the nibbling mechanics and stamina on my own purely from watching the fish' behavior in-game. It's super in-depth which I adore, though I can easily see how it can be confusing for most others.

More visual ques for everything that's not already explained is how I'd go about trying to touch it up. Something for nibbling, for example. Stuff to visually show and teach the player.

[GenomeSquirrel]

The most unintuitive part is the reeling, but I'll admit I've given up on ocean fishing long ago; being neither fast, nor easy, nor bountiful, it's just not worth my time.