Fishing Improvements

[Supreme Cocktus Leader]

For quite a while now, fishing has been nothing more than a time-sink during 100% completion and an occasional occurrence during arcade which offers some benefits, but not that many. I have a few ideas that could be implemented so as to increase the luster of fishing.

Fishing Weapon Class​

So we have 3 flavours of support magic, 2-handed melee, 1-handed melee, and four offensive magic classes (though all magics are boosted by staves & wands). However, even though fishing is such a major historical part of RPGs, and also being so important for 100% and 'roiding up your pets, why exactly is there no fishing class?
A few ideas for that include:

• Adding a weapon class, Rods. Rods would function similarly to bows, in that they require ammunition to be used, but don't require EP like other skills. The thing that changes how the rod weapon class works from the bow is, of course, the ammunition it uses. It would use different catchables and have a new effects based on the ammo you use
  • Eels would act like Chain Lightning, chaining on to different enemies (amount based on rod type), however unlike chain lightning you are required to hit at least one of the enemies first.
  • Ice Fishes would have a chance (decided by rod) to freeze an enemy
  • Snow fishes would be same as above, but with chill
  • Zombie & Vampire Fishes would heal you for an amount of health decided on the type of rod you're using and which fish you shot
  • Rockfish and fatfish would be a slow projectile that, if it hits, deals a large amount of damage (decided by rod) and also stuns
  • Starfish would fire five projectiles in a star shape around the player character

• I mentioned other types of rods, before. These would allow the weapon to scale with the player without having to make different fishes all deal tiered types of damages. You'd likely buy upgrades/new rods from Haddock. You could potentially make the rods themselves have special effects, but that'd take away the appeal of the ammo, and might be overkill.

Bettering the Fishing Minigame​

As is, the fishing minigame is pretty much the same everytime you do it, with the exception being that your catching zone is smaller or larger, but this doesn't impact you all that much after you've done it a few times, if at all, and especially won't if you've played Stardew Valley or another game that implements a similar system. So, mentioning stardew, adding more variety to the fishing game without changing it tremendously would do good. Give different fish different behaviours when catching them, such as standing still, and then jumping straight to one end. Including other aspects, like having to press a button while they're in your zone to catch them every now and then, to emulate reeling a fish in could also be beneficial to make the minigame less boring.

Emulating a Fishing Economy (and miscellaneous ideas)​

Adding in an economy of sorts with fishing, like for example being able to sell fish in bulk to specific fishing merchants and cooks around the game world, or only being able to sell for cheap if you recently sold a big stack of fish, would add in a sort of strategy to fishing in the game. You could spend the next god knows how long grinding enemies to get gold. OR you could spend the next god knows how long fishing in Seassonne and selling it all to Haddock. Another idea for the economy concept is to add pots and fish nets that you can set up in areas after catching 1 of every possible fish from that lake. which will produce 1 catchable per X enemy you kill (either in total or in the area) which would allow the people who don't enjoy the minigame to still be able to get the benefits of it, after at least doing it once.