Couple of thoughts on Fishing on "High Seas"

[Luke Carjacker]

Fishing was the first skill I GM'd over a decade ago, and I continued to do it for a long time, even as I trained pretty much every other skill in the game. Finally gave up a few years ago after it got too boring, but I really do enjoy it and I'm so happy with the attention fishing has received. I've spent pretty much all my time fishing since the expansion patched yesterday (did fit in a couple of fights with Corgul, which was fun too) and have some questions/observations/suggestion to help make the new improvements even better.

1. First and most obvious thing is, why do fish have to be so damn heavy? For people who enjoy fishing, we like to go out and FISH, not spend so much time running back and forth unloading, etc. The problem is exacerbated by the number of different fish available now, and the fact that you can't drop stuff into the ship's hold as a container - where it would auto sort. Combined with the fact that you want to keep all the different varieties of fish in order to complete the fishing quests, and what you get is a constant challenge of moving fish around (from pack to hold to storage at home) and traveling back and forth. Couldn't they be made just 1 stone again so we can just FISH?! instead of spending the bulk of the time moving stuff around?

2. 2nd related problem is travel between cities by boat. I'm sure most people are like me in that they never did this before. But now, with the way the fishing quests are set up, you have to go from city-to-city by boat. I'm actually fine with the process, and I understand why the quests are set u pas they are. But seriously, didn't we learn in the early days of UO that people don't like spending the bulk of their gaming time hoofing it from city-to-city? I mean, after the 2nd or 3rd 20-minute trip between Moonglow and Skara, it gets a little tiresome. Here's my suggestion - fix it so tillermen work like they should - when you hand them a map and tell them to go somewhere, they go, rather than running into the nearest obstacle and getting stuck. Seriously, it sailing around like this is not fun gaming after you do it once or twice.

3. Something to show fishing reputation. I mean, we got a loyalty rating for everything thing else it seems, even stuff that isn't really active any more. I'd like to know how I'm progressing along this fishing thing.

4. Finally, how about a little more clarity about what's been added. Fishing PS, what's the big secret? Supposedly we can make trophies out of some of the new fish. I got one of the new fish with weight and catch date, but I can't use a taxidermy kit on it. What's the point of keeping secret which ones can be made into trophies, and what the procedure is?

Anyhow, I want to say I like the fishing additions, because I love to fish. I just hope a few things can be changed so it isn't an all-out grind on time and moving stuff around.

 

[Aerodice]

..travel between cities by boat. I'm sure most people are like me in that they never did this before. But now, with the way the fishing quests are set up, you have to go from city-to-city by boat. I'm actually fine with the process, and I understand why the quests are set u pas they are. But seriously, didn't we learn in the early days of UO that people don't like spending the bulk of their gaming time hoofing it from city-to-city? I mean, after the 2nd or 3rd 20-minute trip between Moonglow and Skara, it gets a little tiresome. Here's my suggestion - fix it so tillermen work like they should - when you hand them a map and tell them to go somewhere, they go, rather than running into the nearest obstacle and getting stuck. Seriously, it sailing around like this is not fun gaming after you do it once or twice.

The tillerman autopilot is fine IMO. If you set up a plot path you shouldn't run into too much trouble. Here's what I do:

-Make or buy a world map. If you have cartography, sea charts are also helpful.

-Open the map and locate the area you wish to sail to. If it's a town such as Moonglow, then click the top of the map to start plotting. The strategy here is to put pins to sail around large obstacles such as islands. When you place more than one pin, a straight line connects to the next. Use this to plot your course.

-Hand the tillerman your map (Make sure you aren't piloting your boat with the mouse). Here's the commands you can use:

START: Starts the ship along your course. Tillerman sails to point/pin 1 on your map. If everything goes well and you don't crash into obstacles, the tillerman will go to each pin on your map (nav points).

SINGLE #: Say this to go to a certain point on your map (You can open your map and check any time). For example, if you pass a pin on your map and wish to skip to the next, say SINGLE # (Where number is the pin you wish to sail to). SINGLE 2 for example, would sail to pin 2 on your map

CONTINUE: If your tillerman stops at a pin on your map, then say this and he'll continue on with the sailing.

STOP: Tells your tillerman to stop sailing. You can use START or CONTINUE to get the tillerman to sail your course again.

NAV: Say this at any time when the tillerman is sailing. He'll tell you the pin/point on the map he is currently sailing to.

Try this out, it's much better than sailing by hand. You can just sit back and enjoy the sea.

 

[Shelleybean]

I agree 100% on the weight of the fish.

 

[Umfufu]

I agree 100% on the weight of the fish.

+1
And also with the show rep somewhere.

 

[Uvtha]

Fish weight is clearly a problem. Either lower fish weight or take max weight off of containers in the hold. I begrudgingly started cutting fish into steaks because of this issue.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

1) Agreed. Fish need to weigh 1 stone.

2) Eh, this is to force us to use the boats. It's not ideal in a world with recall, gate and sacred journey.. But it fits the theme.

However, the way the autopilot works could be improved. If you use a map with a plotted course, it would be nice if the tillerman steered around things that were in the way. (other boats, monsters, dolphins, etc)

3) Yeah, the Loyalty Rating gump would be ideal for this. I've never bothered to check my fisher's.. hmm.

4) Allegedly the fishing power scrolls come from the fishmonger quests, but it'd be nice to have confirmation from 'on high.'

These fish can be used for trophies according to the publish notes:

Unicorn Fish
Lava Fish
Blue Marlin
Black Marlin
Autumn Dragonfish
Summer Dragonfish
Spring Dragonfish
Winter Dragonfish
Abyssal Dragonfish
Ice Dragonfish
Rainbow fish

However, without the proper testing being completed on the booster.. Who knows..

 

[hawkeye_pike]

1. First and most obvious thing is, why do fish have to be so damn heavy? For people who enjoy fishing, we like to go out and FISH, not spend so much time running back and forth unloading, etc. The problem is exacerbated by the number of different fish available now, and the fact that you can't drop stuff into the ship's hold as a container - where it would auto sort.

I don't mind the weight of fish, because YOU CAN just drop them into the ship's hold where they will auto-sort. And with 16,000 stones this storage can hold LOTS of fish.

 

[Luke Carjacker]

I don't mind the weight of fish, because YOU CAN just drop them into the ship's hold where they will auto-sort. And with 16,000 stones this storage can hold LOTS of fish.

Hmm, strange. When I try to drop fish directly into the hold they just lay on top of the grate, i can't drop into the hold without opening it up (thereby eliminating the chance for auto-sort). I did notice you said 16,000 stones which would be the gargoyle ship. I'm using a tokuno ship so maybe that's the problem. If I could drop them straight into the hold where they would sort I'd be fine with the weight on the fish.

The auto-pilot is just infuriating though. They should make it so if you run into a dolphin or another ship or land or whatever that the tillerman finds a way around. Now if you get attacked by a water elemental or pirates or something, I can see why there's no autopilot for that. For anyone trying to suggest it - it's not a feature - it's just poor coding.

And regarding the fish that can be turned into trophies, my question really is what is the process to do this? I caught a Fire Fish in shame (on the list) and tried applying a taxidermy kit to it, but get the message "that cannot be turned into a trophy". I also tried the kit on a Yellowtial Barracuda I caught (with weight, name and date). Same thing. I believe there's some secret process of creating these trophies. Question is...what's the big secret?

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Do you have 90.1 carpentry or better? Do you have 10 boards on you?

If yes to both, you should be able to double-click the taxidermy kit and then the fish. It should be no different then mounting a big fish...

 

[Basara]

Luke, my Tokuno ship has 16,000 capacity.

You can also count me in on objecting to the fish weight increase.

BTW, the small messes of fish got the boost we all wanted, and were pretty much told wouldn't happen. They now act as 2nd level buff spells cast at GM Eval. )much better than 1-2% for 15 seconds). So, that's at least one good thing...

What I'm having trouble with is that the publish seems to have destroyed my "target relative" fishing macros for UO Assist.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

I don't mind the weight of fish, because YOU CAN just drop them into the ship's hold where they will auto-sort. And with 16,000 stones this storage can hold LOTS of fish.

Hmm, strange. When I try to drop fish directly into the hold they just lay on top of the grate, i can't drop into the hold without opening it up (thereby eliminating the chance for auto-sort). I did notice you said 16,000 stones which would be the gargoyle ship. I'm using a tokuno ship so maybe that's the problem. If I could drop them straight into the hold where they would sort I'd be fine with the weight on the fish.

And regarding the fish that can be turned into trophies, my question really is what is the process to do this? I caught a Fire Fish in shame (on the list) and tried applying a taxidermy kit to it, but get the message "that cannot be turned into a trophy". I also tried the kit on a Yellowtial Barracuda I caught (with weight, name and date). Same thing. I believe there's some secret process of creating these trophies. Question is...what's the big secret?

I'm also using a Tokuno Ship, its hold has 16,000 stones. If you drop anything onto the hold, make sure you drop it at the right position. Unfortunately, this works only with a small section of the hold. With the EC you can easily find this section, because when you move your mouse over it the attributes of the hold (size, contents) are displayed in a popup.

To my knowledge, only 5 fish types can be turned into trophies (Autumn Dragonfish, Black Marlin, Summer Dragonfish, Lava Fish, Unicorn Fish). Those fish can only be caught with 120 fishing, and I think nobody has found the powerscroll yet. The fish you caught might just be a normal heavy fish. I recently caught 2 heavy Yellowtail Barracudas, although I only have 100 fishing.
The whole fishing thing and the powerscroll thing seems kindof weird. I'd expect a couple of fixes with the next patch.

 

[Luke Carjacker]

Do you have 90.1 carpentry or better? Do you have 10 boards on you?

If yes to both, you should be able to double-click the taxidermy kit and then the fish. It should be no different then mounting a big fish...

Yes, I have 100 carpentry and was carrying boards. But I guess I'm not certain that the fish I'm targeting can be made into a trophy. It's on the list on UO Herald, but seems like that info is wrong.

My target-relative in UO assist is broken as well, however it seems that they reduced or eliminated the old "the fish don't seem to be biting here" message. At least I haven't gotten it, so if you don't have to move, then target relative isn't that important any more.

Also, thanks for the tip Hawkeye, I can drop stuff directly into my ships hold by targeting the front part of the hold. That helps a lot.

I have one more thing that's bothering me about fishing. Too many shoes! I complained about this when talk of a fishing expansion was mentioned, and to be honest the rate of shoes seems to have dropped a bit. But again, what's the point of this? All it does is force someone to pick it up out of a pack (certainly messy), and drop it on the ground or in the trash. For a time I used to recall to a vendor and sell them to clear out my pack that way, but that's a pain too. They aren't worth anything, don't think there's actually anyone who needs normal shoes. Sure, I understand the realism/role-play value of them. It's kind of funny for someone training fishing to pull out a lot of shoes. But at GM level (or eventually legendary) the chance of pulling out shoes should be almost nil - sometimes I'm still getting like 10 pairs when I go drop 400 stones of fish(40), that's 20%! I mean really, how often does a fisherman really pull out shoes? One pair max each time I empty out my pack is PLENTY for RP purposes (at GM level). Other than that, please reduce our frustration and wasted time.

But, bottom line I'm having fun fishing, so I'm definitely happy they put some effort into the skill. Just a few tweaks would make things so much less frustrating.

 

[Yalp]

I have gotten the "The fish don't seem to be biting here" message on a couple of occasions. It happened as I was sailing via autopilot, while casting, so I know the tile wasn't "fished out".

I have done about 20 fish monger quests, 1 was a double order, 1 reward was the book, the rest were bait. Have not seen any power scrolls *in demoniations of 10, 15, or 20*.

Killed 2 pirates last night, no power scrolls there either.

Fished up a good 1/2 dozen MiB's gained yesterday from the serp's spawned while fishing for fish monger quests.... no ps's to be found with them.

I am still baffled why the dev's withhold the information I did hear there was a 20 for sale the other night on a different shard.. think the asking price was 40 mill....might just be UO urban legend.

 

[Petra Fyde]

The trophy fish are the two body types. The Marlin/lava fish/unicorn fish are one type, the various dragonfish are the other type. I made trophies of Marlin and an autumn dragonfish on test.

'fish aren't biting' comes, as it always has done, when you're actually on a server line.

Fire Fish and Barracuda are not 'trophy' fish. They do make nice pies though

 

[Ralco]

Quick question.

Where does it say in the Patch Notes that they added fishing Power Scrolls?

 

[yanaki2]

so anyone know how i can run a assist macro without having to constantly hit a button every time i want to fish..since i heard u cant use simple little uoloop anymore.dont mean to complain but carpeltunnel (sorry cant spell) is not a nice thing to have.