Fishing is in the game. Write how you want to modify it.
Sure, by diving underwater and harpooning salmon.
This is more of a tangentially related thing to the fishing topic, but this all just popped into my head right now and I’m making it up as I go along. I’d like to see an alternative to swimming on the surface of the water. Paddling across the lake and being soaked to the bone doesn’t feel very heroic.
Not unlike deploying a Glider out of nowhere, I’d like to have some kind of small raft-like vehicle that players can use to cross bodies of water. A small raft, rowboat, canoe, magic hovercraft, a lilypad, a comically small steamboat… Unlike the current design where swimming on the surface locks you out of everything, you could have access to some skills. When your character is Downed underwater and scrambles to the surface, rather than just gasping for air for half a minute, they could instead be animated trying to climb on to their raft.
Now, carrying that raft idea on for fishing, instead of “standing on the side of a lake, casting a line randomly and waiting”, player characters have their own personal seaworthy vessel on which they go fishing. You don’t just stand still and wait for a catch, you go out on to the surface of the water and actively search for areas with higher density/quality fish, using Spearfishing, Netting and Angling to catch different things. The surface would be littered with a significant number of simple bubbling effects that indicate the presence of fish. Sailing close to them will have them quickly move out of the way, so you need to do your fishing from a distance (with the exception of the second fishing method below).
The three different methods have different mechanics.
Spearfishing in general would be the fastest minigame of timing and leading your shots, manually aiming an AOE targeting reticle and pressing 1 to harpoon quickly moving fish nodes near the surface. Being the fastest, Spearfishing rewards you mostly with medium sized fish and chum to use as bait for Angling. You might also end up spawning a hostile monster you’ll have to spear a few more times before it reaches you and knocks you off the raft.
Netting would have the effect of being a sort of Sprint skill on the water surface, useful for both travel and fishing. When you press 2, your vessel automatically moves forward at a high speed for about five seconds and the fishing nodes won’t try to move away from you for the duration (so herding a handful of nodes in advance so you can net them all would be advantageous). During this sprint, you steer left or right (no instant turning with a mouse) and any fish nodes you pass over during that time will get you small or medium fish. The more nodes you cross over in a single Netting sprint, the catch bonus exponentially increases, a very high Netting bonus might get you an item.
Angling would be counter to the typical MMO “waiting” fishing of many other games and instead you get a bite almost immediately; the focus is on the fight – a give and take to wear down the fish, tug and slowly reel it in without snapping your line. As what should be the most challenging of the three, Angling is the one that would earn the biggest rare catches and chance for treasure.
You press 3, wait no more than 3-5 seconds for the casting animation and bite, your skillbar changes to a set of fishing related skills for the battle. Angling will require simple bait to be used, however whenever you use Spearfishing or Netting, you gain some Bait as a resource.
Recap in a Skill Description way, you get a seaworthy water glider. When on the surface of the water, you get four skills.
1. Spearfishing – AOE target the surface of the water. Successfully hitting a moving fishing point will earn a small Fish or spawn an enemy. Earns 1 Bait.
2. Netting – Sail quickly across the water for five seconds, scooping up multiple fish in a row. Press A and D to steer. Earns 1 Bait per every two fishing points covered.
3. Angling – Equip a fishing rod skillset and cast a line. Requires 1 Bait*
4. Embark/Disembark – Dive into the water or climb back on to your vessel when on the surface.
*Angling Skills – Your health bar represents the fishing line. If it drops to zero, the line breaks, you tumble out of your vessel and need to recover.
1. Pull Left – Use when the fish is tugging hard to the right to guide them towards the boat. A fish that veers off too much to one side has a chance of escaping.
2. Hard Reel – Close the distance quickly while causing a lot of stress on the line. Using this on a Fish in the Determined state will cause extra harm to you.
3. Pull Right – Use when the fish is tugging hard to the left to guide them towards the boat. A fish that veers off too much to one side has a chance of escaping.
4. Slack – Ease up on the line to recover health. Best used when the Fish is in the Thrashing state to minimize its own recovery.
5. Cut The Line – Surrender the fish and return to sailing.
Something like that. I think that having “water mounts” would be nice, and to accommodate their inclusion, making fishing active like this would make it fun for players, rather demanding for bots to automate, and not a thing where you’re just waiting around as a passive moneymaking scheme.