I redid this post instead of making a new thread but to see the original post I saved it as a comment here FISHING Idea/Suggestion (my take on how to add in game):
Something I and many others think Rare is missing out on as a in-game activity in Sea of Thieves is FISHING!
Fishing has been one of the most common requests from Sea of Thieves fans on the Official Forums, Facebook Groups/Comments, and Reddit alike. Video games and fishing go waaaay back... and as a side thing they are a great pass-time in many a larger experience.
Please RARE give us the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful sea waves by giving us more to do while on them. I love the islands and all but I'de rather be out at sea. Fishing would be a great addition to the game!
The RARE devs are already well aware we want Fishing. “During the first three months we’ll make small additions to enrich the experience,” executive producer Joe Neate says. “Later, we’re always going to be looking at things that enrich [the game] for everyone – that could be new quest types, new trading companies or new mechanics like fishing.”
"Sounds like an awesome idea," design director Mike Chapman said. “Love the fishing idea!,” principle coder Andy Blastable agreed. But studio head Craig Duncan might not, "Not sure fishing is part of the pirate experience."
I'm pretty sure Fishing -- in some form -- is on the road map for post launch additions but here's how they could/should do it.
Net Fishing | The Equipment:
The type of fishing that many people today are familiar with is the hook and line method. Bait fishing. Today this type of fishing is mainly associated with recreational purposes. In the past however fishing was not seen as a recreational activity rather a source of food to sustain oneself or commercial fishing to sell their catch and make a living to support oneself. This hook, line, and bait method was not a very popular method of fishing back in the golden age of piracy days.
By far the most common way to fish back in the day was use of nets. Drag unwilling fish into a boat by net and the use of ropes. Without going into too much detail castnet fishing or net fishing as a general idea for Sea of Thieves fishing method could be as simple as clicking a button on a fish and capturing it. Net fishing doesn't have to be any more complex than chasing a chicken or pig with a coop or cage.
This is the method that Pirates would use if they were fishing.
As a game mechanic fishing should be tied in to or added in to the Merchant Alliance voyages systems. Fish/Aquatic Wildlife could be one more thing they list or request on their voyages. So you would have to sail around like you do to find the islands with pigs, chickens, and snakes to find the right species of fish by searching schools of fish in the sea.
The Merchant Alliance is perfect and there's no need to add a separate Trading Company just for fishing. They already task you with knowing where to find and gathering certain resources and some of them resources are land animals so why not aquatic animals? If you can chase and capture chickens, lure pigs with bananas, and charm snakes with your instruments why not go fishing for requested species of fish or other aquatic wildlife?
I think this would be ideal as they already tie into the existing game mechanics and fits the theme or narrative of the Merchant Alliance so well. They could even make them have drawbacks akin to the pig who needs to be fed a banana. Once you have the fish drug aboard in nets you gotta keep them alive before you can deliver them to the Merchant Alliance turning them in at the Outpost. Maybe you need to throw water on the fish or "give them a drink" by pressing a button to feed them every so often like you must do a pig. If you don't then they start to 'crappie flop' on the deck in their nets container and should you neglect to water them they'll too eventually die. Or as an alternative solution you could choose to keep the ship partially flooded by allowing the bottom hull of your ship to carry water. With the bucket/pails dump water ONTO your ship instead of bailing water out. Do this purposely so you can put the fish nets with said fish inside in the standing water so they can survive being submerged in the water. We know the game has a system where it already detects if the animals are submerged or not because chickens will die by being drowned so they already have this ready to go to detect if a fish is out of the water too long or is submerged and okay. It only leads to some quirky/funny emergent gameplay if you ask me. Don't you think?
The act of fishing in gameplay should function as simple as other acts of gathering animals in game. It would be akin to capturing the pigs in the cages or chickens in the coops. Just add one equipment item – the Fishing Net – and RARE doesn't have to do much more than add the net and the fish themselves that you capture. The mechanics are already there in the game with capturing pigs in cages and chickens in coops and snakes in their containers. It's just a net and a fish (or other aquatic wildlife see below) in the sea not on land.
The process could get started by visiting the Merchant Alliance NPC on the docks and that's where you would receive a fishing net. The fishing net is just like a chicken coop. Acts as the same as a coop/cage for their respective land animals. You use it to capture fish and it holds one fish of a varying type/color.
First a school of fish must be spotted. As you sail around the sea you come across and see these spots to fish at. This could be someones task from the Crow's Nest up top spotting fish like you can see Seagull's circling shipwrecks or barrels off in the distance. The fish would be detectable only at far closer ranges but similar to how you see the seagulls circling the shipwrecks or the barrels but just in the ocean instead of in the sky. What they appear like is up to RARE but I suggest a cluster or a small school of fish swimming together just under the waters surface, swarming one little area in the ocean in circular movements. If you're not paying careful attention one can easily sail past it without even noticing. OR as the animated gif above shows a simple bubble effect could indicate there are fish below.
After a school of fish had been spotted, the Pirates would then use the fishing net to throw it into the middle of the bubbles and trap the fish from above on the ship. Just like capturing a chicken in a coop or a pig in the cage it yields just one fish, even though it's cast into a school of fish, but that fish can be of a certain color or type. They can either make it a random thing like when you capture a fish from a school by using the net it gives you a randomly colored fish or random type of fish. That or they make different color/type schools that spawn so you have to search from school to school to find the right fish type. However they choose to do it, the different color variants or fish types are requested by the Merchant Alliance in their voyages just like the different colors of chickens or different pigs are requested. I.E. 2 Black Pigs, 1 White Plumed Chicken. Each sells for a various amount and some more than others just like Golden Chickens sell for more gold than White Plumed Chickens do.
They could even do a system where schools of fish in the three different regions spawned different types of fish. More aggressive/dangerous fish like Swordfish, Barracuda, etc in The Wilds schools of fish, more Blackfin Tuna, Clown Fish, etc in The Shores of Plenty schools of fish, and some other different ones in The Ancient Isles schools of fish. This region specifics could tie in to the Merchant Alliance with 2 Outposts in each region. There could be different markets for fish from their region and from outside their region. Sell fish from outside their region for more gold perhaps than fish from their local market region.
It's difficult to fish from a ship on the open sea. Yes this is a concern many have shared but it doesn't have to be. You can't go chicken or pig hunting without first stopping sailing. Whether you glide to a stop raising your sails or drop the anchor. You should have to raise your sails so your ship can be becalmed for fishing too. If the sails are down and the wind is enough for sailing, the ship is probably going to be moving too fast to be able to be fishing. Clicking that capture button prompt should not be allowed if the ship is sailing past.
If they do add in the often asked for Rowboat(s) this would be a perfect pairing. Using the rowboats that can be dragged along behind a Galleon/Sloop by rope to go fishing. But even if not they could have you simply pull your sloop or galleon up next to a school of fish and throw the net out overboard to capture them and drag them into the boat.
The final method of fishing during the time uses a spear or harpoon (maybe Trident). While I'm all for using a net they could choose to include an alternate type of equipment too. Using a spear to fish with yields much less fish than that of a net and was done at night which makes it easier to see the fish. The use of a torch or lantern “fire-basket” would have been used to lure fish close to allow for a better shot. When I first read this I thought like this would make for fun gameplay in Sea of Thieves. You could have to work as a team, with one pirate holding the lantern high and the other spearing the fish that come to the surface.
The Targets | Fish Variety:
Sea of Thieves already has plenty of aquatic wild life present in the early test builds. I definitely saw fish swimming around underwater. They could add more and other varieties of fish post launch.
They could have schools of smaller fish like sardines, anchovies, and other forage fish.
They could add generalized salt water fish of various colorful patterns kind of like the orange and white striped Clown Fish I seen swimming in game already.
They could also add like medium-larger fish that function similar to how the Sharks do now that don't swim in schools but as individual fish.
Hammerhead Sharks, Dolphins, Blue Marlin/Swordfish/Sailfish, Stingrays/Mantarays, Sea Eels.
Of course the common sea fish like Albacore or Blackfin Tuna, Sea Bass, Mackerel, Barracuda, Anglerfish, Grouper, Flounder/Flat Fish, Hogfish, Puffers/Scorpion Fish, Winged/Flying Fish, Tarpon, Piranha (yes I know they are fresh water).
It could even be expanded to include other sealife (non-fish).
Lobster or Crab(s) and other Crustaceans (Oysters/Conch) could be collected for Merchant Alliance voyages. You must dive down for to collect. Or place lobster cages out in sea. And then the pirate aspect can be how you can steal other players planted lobster cages before they come back to check them. (credit reddit user Normathius)
Barnacles aka “Crusty Foulers” should be in this game. Something parasitic like (Lamprey, piranha, leeches) that sticks to your ship and makes holes and causes other complications. Have them attack the under side of your ship so you and your crewmates have to go under water and shoot/cut them off! If you don't and they continue to add and build up on your ship it slows you down by a small %. (The U.S. Navy estimates that heavy barnacle growth on ships increases weight and drag by as much as 60 percent) Moving objects like ship hulls are particularly vulnerable to these pesky critters. Large barnacle colonies cause ships to drag and slow down, leading to -25% movement speed of Galleon/Sloops. Combined with them opening up holes periodically these nasty little critters would make for a great additional complication. Maybe they can only be gotten or picked up around certain islands. Maybe just while immobile/docked at an Outpost for too long? I want them to bring some added complications to the game that make sense so sailing doesn't become so mundanely simple.
Sea Turtles
J*******h even sea anemones
Octopus/Squid or rather mollusk related cuttlefish or baby Krakens! even... (How cute!)
All kinds of as aquatic animals they could add to Sea of Thieves.
Some of these could even become new waterbased enemies alongside the current in-game Shark(s).
For example;
Barracuda are some of the most ferocious and speedy fish in the ocean. Short of Piranha they have some of the most fearsome behavior of any fish in the world. They would be a perfect choice for a medium sized fish that could attack players. Making for a Shark-lite type of enemy where they bite you the same as Sharks do but deal less damage. Maybe 4 bites to kill you.
Pufferfish, could fill the role of the medium-rarity fish, harder and scarcer to find but not impossible. Don’t feel lucky for long once you do find them though. A pirate who manages to snag or catch a puffer is inflicted with the drunken effect (instantly as if they were drinking 10 tankards of Grog) as it inflates and sticks them with the pokey needles/quills. This of course would be hilarious as you try to swim back to ship drunk all over the place. Pufferfish contain toxin and with this toxicity they could have the pirates health slowly drain until they ate a banana to stop this effect. Rare could decide to just do the visual effect of being drunk without the health loss depending on if they want to make it another enemy obstacle or not or just something unique about puffers that kinda funny.
Sea Eels could wiggle and swim after pirates in the water and when they get close enough to you bite you and you become stunned momentarily. These electric eels shouldn't be as heavy hitting as a shark two biting pirates to death but more of an annoyance as you swim long distances, nibbling bites of your health (8 bites to die) and stunning you for a few seconds. J*******h could also suit this role as more of a passive threat you must avoid while swimming or else.
Swordfish or Marlins could stab you. Basically a charged sword attack move with short bursts of speed. They could keep circling where they swim away and then come back near you in quick bursts of speed and then charge you to stab you only to swim away again.
Also they should add the Hammerhead shark. As a rarer spawn of Shark that the Merchant Alliance wants sometimes. One in every 25 sharks or something ratio so you actually have to do some hunting for them.
EDIT: Saw this video and thought Sea Serpent definitely a great idea. Large creature, a threat akin to the Kraken, nice skeleton model already spotted in game in multiple places. Video
I've heard some stuff about possible harpoon guns as cannon upgrades or items/weapons in game? If they are a thing they could even implement them into taking down certain larger fish, whales even. (such as Moby D**k the great white whale that rams ships opening up multiple holes at once. The new Kraken?) Needing to utilize a harpoon gun cannons to their fullest to take it down.
They could even have rare breeds of certain fish like they have rare(r) chests like the Chest of Sorrow. Making them very unique and having special challenges to transporting them on your ship. Maybe something like the Great White Shark a red eyed shark or maybe even ghost sharks or something crazy like. I mentioned above the Hammerhead Shark which is basically just a Shark reskin but behavior is exactly the same just more rare to spawn.
The Reason | Narrative:
Already went over it a little bit about how they should keep it simple and add it into the Merchant Alliance.
Seafood seems like it might have been an easy source of food for pirates. Being out on the largest bodies of water one might think it was only natural to fish for your food. However, it was rare that pirates would actually have the time to sit around and fish all day for a bite to eat. There was a lot of work to be done on a pirate ship with repairs to sails and the ropes among other things that just made fishing quite honestly unpractical. It would've taken too long and not have produced enough food especially considering large areas of the sea are actually barren of fish. Though that being said, I'm sure desperate times called for desperate measures and at some point pirates may have fished rather than starve. Low winds could make ships become adrift for extended periods of time leaving crews forced to kill or eat what they could due to lack of supplies.
Shipboard food was necessarily limited to what would keep in the course of prolonged voyages. The reality of life for these voyaging pirates was not always so fanciful. Often so pirates were out to sea for months on end. In these long periods of time their food supply would dwindle and many would become stricken with diseases such as Scurvy or Dysentery. In preperation to be stuck at sea, ships setting out were able to store lots of salted food and sea biscuits (a hard dry bread meant to last long periods of time) but still needed fresh fruits and vegetables or dried beans and fermented/pickled vegetables. Rum was preferred for drinking since it kept better than fresh water, which spoiled and turned slimy in its storage casks. Also these are pirates we're talking about here so whatever they could steal from other ships, they would eat.
Smart pirates would steal or keep livestock such as cows, goats, pigs, and chickens on board. They were often brought on board to provide milk, eggs, and eventually meat. When the animals were no longer able to be fed, they were used as food. Leftover meat was often salted/cured in order to prolong its shelf life but in reality the meat served to the crew was often rotten and filled with maggots and for this reason heavily spiced to mask the rottenness and taste. Galley cooks became quite good at masking the rancid meat with herbs and spices. Occasionally sea turtles and fish were caught for additional, fresh protein.
Salmagundi was a common meal served on a pirate ship. Loosely described as a “salad,” and consisting of a random hodge-podge of ingredients, generally a scrambled concoction of meat, fish, vegetables, and fruits. Any mixture of widely disparate things from whatever was available or on hand really. This miscellany often included chopped or cubed poultry or fish, chopped meat, anchovies, eggs, cabbage, onions, oil, salt/pepper and other spices etc.
Thus in Sea of Thieves, fishing should be more of a commercial effort type of thing rather than a source of food or a fun pass time. That's why I propose the Merchant Alliance Trading Company to request fish or rather their customers are requesting the fish and they are using the pirates to go get them.
They can do rare fish or a bunch of common fish. They should keep it simple as the Chickens, Pigs, and Snakes though. Color A, Color B, Color C, Color D. Each one worth a different amount. Accept and start one of their voyages and it might ask you to get 1 White Chicken, 2 Black Chicken, and 1 Pink Pig. Keep this basic request but just add in fish for like 1 Blackfin Tuna Fish, 2 Sword Fish, 1 Puffer Fish.
I also think they should add more fruits. I'm pretty sure I've read that there will be more than just bananas in game. I hope so... Pirates also ate yams, plantains, pineapples, p*****s, and other fruits and vegetables indigenous to the tropics. They could choose one or more of these and make them like a enhanced banana where it heals your health fully but you have to actually harvest them on certain islands. Coconuts would be ideal for this as they have palm trees already in place just have it like a digging animation where they shake the tree trunk or you gotta shoot em down with the flintlock pistol. This could be another collectible you are asked for by the Merchant Alliance voyages and must go out in search of on the various islands to collect the different fruits. Crates of Coconuts. Crates of Bananas. Etc. You could remember key locations where there's a lot or a big grove of trees or just go to a random island in search of them stored in barrels.
P.S. Rare if you do like my net fishing idea and use some of it maybe throw me a bone or a shoutout in-game, the Cipher Fish or something rare and exotic/colorful. Little easter egg. That would be epic!
A pirate's life for me: Rare's ambitious plans for Sea of Thieves revealed
