Ocean fishing should be more rewarding

[Eughstein]

Today i would've like to talk about ocean fishing in this game. Personally i think fishing mechanic itself is made very well, i like how different fishes have different behaviour and take different amounts of skill in fishing to catch, but reward Itself... Currently best reward you can get right now is 1 big piece of fish, but it's not really worth it, unless you cooking some specific dish it's way better to kill something like pigs or koalephant instead of fishing because of simply how long it takes to find fish and then catch it.Yes of course you can use summer and winter fishes as thermal stones and also trade fishes for gold as Wurt, but if whole purpose of fishing is only getting better thermal stone and getting gold as 1 dlc character (oh and also of course giving to Pearl how could I forget) what's even the point of being able to use it as food?Even if you do want to cook some specific fish dish that makes you catch ocean fish there are really no point to even try getting some hard to catch fish if there are dirt fish and other very easy to catch fishes?Also what about heavy fish? What's the point of catching fish that is more heavy than others if only benefits you get from them are some more gold as 1 dlc character, using to complete Pearl's task and just showing how cool you are?I think that the harder fish is to catch the better should be reward with more fish meats, also heavy fish should take longer to catch but give more reward than other fishes of same type. Other addition i think would make fishing a better source of food is adding dishes that require some specific types of fishes to cook (like we have with wobster).

[Cheggf]

Pigs aren't found in the ocean and koalephants take a really long time to hunt (and also aren't found in the ocean). Plus fish can make some pretty good recipes like surf n turf. 

[Eughstein]

Just now, Cheggf said:

Pigs aren't found in the ocean and koalephants take a really long time to hunt (and also aren't found in the ocean).

yet

[Dextops]

 

4 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Pigs aren't found in the ocean

If pigs actually were added as an ocean form of them before merms... first spiders then this

[ArubaroBeefalo]

6 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Pigs aren't found in the ocean and koalephants take a really long time to hunt (and also aren't found in the ocean). Plus fish can make some pretty good recipes like surf n turf. 

fish can be found in ponds in the swamp, grass biomes and caves without needing to waste time to catch them, without needing to build a boat and without needing to wait them to spawn and any shark, squirt or gnarwale will come to eat them. Or you can simply kill merms in many ways and even make a merm farm with wurt if you really like fish 

and if you are in the sea and for some reason need food you can turn to land and kill something which will be quicker than fishing

i like the fishing mechanic but it should be more rewarding

[SapoLover]

I agree with you. Unless you're playing Wurt, there's not much difference between ocean fishes and eels (or is it? Is there a dish that can be cooked only with ocean fishes?).

[Eughstein]

21 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Plus fish can make some pretty good recipes like surf n turf. 

To catch fish efficienctly you already need to go in ocean few times to get things for best fishing setup, so you probably will have some food with you before going in ocean, cooked fish is a very bad source of hunger and how was already mentioned you can get it in other methods, to cook surf n turf you already need to have some food with you+crockpot, relying even on catching some fish every now and then and combining with kelp to cook meatballs isn't a very good idea either because why don't you just cook same meatballs before going in ocean while getting ingredient required for them way faster?

1 minute ago, DeadWhereX said:

I agree with you. Unless you're playing Wurt, there's not much difference between ocean fishes and eels (or is it? Is there a dish that can be cooked only with ocean fishes?).

Nope, best fish dishes are still moqueca and surf n' turf that can be easily cooked without ocean fish

[Echsrick]

fishing is how to get meat the safe way, no fight needed, and ocean fishing works in winter, and its rod never breaks

[Eughstein]

31 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

fishing is how to get meat the safe way, no fight needed, and ocean fishing works in winter, and its rod never breaks

Yeah but it takes too much time for too little reward

[Echsrick]

6 minutes ago, Eughstein said:

Yeah but it takes too much time for too little reward

little risk little reward

[sudoku]

What if there was a mechanic where after each successful catch of an ocean fish, the chance to spawn something like suspicious bubbles from shipwrecked increased. And you could try and fight/kill a koalaphant/whale like creature for a large anount of fish meat.

[hhh2]

16 minutes ago, sudoku said:

What if there was a mechanic where after each successful catch of an ocean fish, the chance to spawn something like suspicious bubbles from shipwrecked increased. And you could try and fight/kill a koalaphant/whale like creature for a large anount of fish meat.

eh, still not really a good reason.

[Mysterious box]

Issue is Meat is far more accessible with far less effort most things in dst have easier and/or more rewarding ways to do things making most other things a luxury or pointless and there's not really a way I can think of fixing this without upsetting people the ruins is another good example of this in my opinion while I'm not going to claim it's super easy but it has too much really good things compiled into one area so every bit of content released has to compete with the ruins to be considered "worth going out of your way for."

[Guihhza]

After the Wurt changes ive been dabbling with her a bit and with it I also got into some ocean fishing. Honestly it was pretty weird and difficult at first but once I figured how stuff like lures and floats work properly it got really smooth and very fun, even!
It feels really pleasant to stop during nighttime and fish for a bit, you can get quite some food really easily, I managed to get by with Wurt off of Kelp and Corn cods for like 10 days. Had a fun time.

I am not sure if fishing could become meta or anything, but this adventure changed how I view ocean fishing in general.
Imo the main thing stopping players from getting into it is the starting price, much like how it keeps some people from exploring the ocean; Which is a shame because the Sea Rod only has to be crafted once. Maybe reducing the cost down to like, 1 Board; 3 Spider Webs and 1 Rope would help?

Also the fish crockpot dishes could use some love! most of them endup giving less stats than if you just ate the raw ingredients, which feels wrong and doesnt really make it any more attractive.
 

Spoiler

To those having a hard time with lures; you can make them using a Tackle Repectacle; 2 Flint and 1 Mushroom(Red makes a lure that works well but only at Day, Green makes a Dusk one, and Blue makes the Night version).
Theres a version of these lures that replaces a flint for beefalo wool is even better at attracting fish, but will only catch big meat fish(these are probably the best lure options imo).

Any lure that you craft is reusable and will only be lost if you fail at the fishing minigame. You can get by with very few of these depending on how good at the minigame you are.

 

[Theukon-dos]

 

3 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Pigs aren't found in the ocean and koalephants take a really long time to hunt (and also aren't found in the ocean). Plus fish can make some pretty good recipes like surf n turf. 

1. The issue there is that there's not much reason to go with the ocean. As someone who actually really likes sailing (with a plethora of mods), there's very little to engage with sailing that's not for the sake of it. And even if you make an ocean base, you still need to engage with the mainland inorder to get 90% of the game's resources. And at that point, you can just make an animal meat farm and use that. As it stands, Ocean Fishing is really only good for if you're sailing and didn't pack enough rations. But again, there's little reason to sail for that long if not for it's own sake.

2. No. The *vast* majority of fish dishes either require any amount of fish; such as Moqueca; Fish Tacos; or Fish Sticks, Require a specific species of "Fish" such as Wobster or Barnacle dishes, Or require a low enough amount of fish that they can be met with the much faster freshwater fishing; such as Surf n' Turf. The only fish dishes that require more fish than ponds can provide are Cheviche; which is an objectively bad dish along the lines of rattatoui. And Seafood Gumbo, which can't even be cooked with ocean fish. DST "Buffed" fish meat over SW by increasing the meat value of fish meat items. Meaning it's impossible to meet the fish requirements for seafood gumbo without using eels. But it doesn't really matter, because 3 fish meat will make Surf n' Turf, which is better than the Gumbo in litterally every way.

3 hours ago, Echsrick said:

fishing is how to get meat the safe way, no fight needed, and ocean fishing works in winter, and its rod never breaks

Except that you don't really "need" meat. If you're a new player that doesn't like fighting, than you can just use farms to produce waaay more health, healing, and sanity than ocean fishing would net you, which also happens to be without risk.

 

[ALCRD]

57 minutes ago, Guihhza said:

but once I figured how stuff like lures and floats work properly it got really smooth and very fun, even!

Not to mention you don't even need that much figuring out either.

Using Spork as lure lets you catch majority of the Ocean fishes and Bung is a really good Float.

[kiwikenobi]

What I like about ocean fishing is that you can keep the fish in the fishing bin forever. They'll never spoil and will always be ready whenever you need them. I think this is one of the easiest ways, if not the easiest way, to keep food that never spoils. Hunting land animals or growing crops doesn't have that benefit, and I think that this is a pretty good "reward" for ocean fishing.

That said, I usually fill my fishing bins with wobsters, so I agree that there isn't much incentive to go deep sea fishing. But I also don't mind that it's there for people who just enjoy doing it, with the added benefit of being a source of food at sea if you happen to need it.

[Hornete]

7 minutes ago, kiwikenobi said:

What I like about ocean fishing is that you can keep the fish in the fishing bin forever. They'll never spoil and will always be ready whenever you need them. I think this is one of the easiest ways, if not the easiest way, to keep food that never spoils. Hunting land animals or growing crops doesn't have that benefit, and I think that this is a pretty good "reward" for ocean fishing.

Probably my favourite upside about it! I can spend a day or so fishing and I've got the ingredients for a 60 hp, 33 sanity food for all time without the need of killing a raid boss for bundling wrap.

[jp2k43]

Maybe Klei should add some new equipment to help fishing such as a fishing net capable of catching several fish at once or even a harpoon itself.

[Cheggf]

6 hours ago, Eughstein said:

to cook surf n turf you already need to have some food with you

No you don't. You can get monster meat from cookie cutters. 

 

6 hours ago, Eughstein said:

relying even on catching some fish every now and then and combining with kelp to cook meatballs isn't a very good idea either because why don't you just cook same meatballs before going in ocean while getting ingredient required for them way faster?

Yes it is way faster to every couple of days stop what you're doing, sail all the way around the entire island, go to where your farm is, gather from the farm, cook meatballs, cook meatballs, cook meatballs, cook meatballs, cook meatballs, cook meatballs, cook meatballs, cook meatballs, go back to the boat, go all the way back around the island, and have it take so long to get back to where you were that the meatballs are almost stale already rather than spend literally like 5 seconds catching a fish. 

[Spino43]

2 hours ago, kiwikenobi said:

What I like about ocean fishing is that you can keep the fish in the fishing bin forever. They'll never spoil and will always be ready whenever you need them. I think this is one of the easiest ways, if not the easiest way, to keep food that never spoils. Hunting land animals or growing crops doesn't have that benefit, and I think that this is a pretty good "reward" for ocean fishing.

That said, I usually fill my fishing bins with wobsters, so I agree that there isn't much incentive to go deep sea fishing. But I also don't mind that it's there for people who just enjoy doing it, with the added benefit of being a source of food at sea if you happen to need it.

I wish we could build the fishing bins in the caves. Would be a good way to stockpile food down there.

[SmallBirdHungry]

I think the ability to catch mini treasures while fishing for fish would make it more worth it. I've so far been able to catch all the fish I've ever needed to without ever bothering to make a tackle receptacle, use floats of any kind, just using sticks, berries or seeds on the rod. I feel like it just isn't worth the hassle to make and use certain types of floats, make a tin fishing bin, go out to sea, and catch fish when you could get fish meat from fishing in ponds, eels, merms, or just use regular meat. The only reason I see to go out and catch specific fish, like wobsters, is to complete your cookbook. Some fish meals are good, but considering the time to go out to sea and catch things, better to catch a few eels down below, and it's more of a sure thing too, or just make any other decent meal that can be done much faster.

[Eughstein]

3 hours ago, jp2k43 said:

Maybe Klei should add some new equipment to help fishing such as a fishing net capable of catching several fish at once or even a harpoon itself.

Fishing net actually was intended for dst, you were supposed to throw it in the ocean and then harvest what you got, you can actually still give it to yourself with console commands and it will kinda work(but it can't catch fish)

[ShadowDuelist]

TBH I think fishing should not be the main point of going to the ocean, but mostly a means to stay there for longer while you do other engaging things. The real problem is that there aren’t many reasons or incentives to spend a long time at the sea yet, because the ocean is lacking action or interesting loot.
 

 I think if there were more reasons to live at the sea, fishing would indirectly become a necessary thing and would get indirectly buffed. That said, there is no reason that heavy fishes shouldn’t yield 2 fish meats when killed instead of one, buffing fishing directly as well.