Again, this is a topic that has come up a few times over the years. And that is changing up our fishing system and building in a skill based system where you can earn achievements or improvements to your fishing and turn fishing into an exploration so that you don’t just get all types of fish from any fishing pool around the realms.
@Enzo_Minne, one of our long-time patrons offered a few nice ideas into our DEV channel on Discord, and I loved these ideas so much that I took them on board, and added to the concept, to come up with the below.
I do not want to change the way our fishing works as a whole, and I do not want to take away from the current fishing mechanics that makes SL Colonies unique, and I do not want the system to become pay-to-win.
We need to add a way to have rare varients, and even legendary varients of fish that you can only obtain in certain places. Perhaps broken down into Biomes, such as:
- River
- Lake
- Ocean
- Abyssal
- Frozen
You could get fish like Albino, Golden, Midnight varients that would be considered rare. And then the system would communicate with other fishing zones to make sure that only a few types of rare fish are available in that zone and spread between the others. Requiring you to move around to other worlds that are participating.
So, how will it work?
Designated Fishing Zones
Fishing pools will act as regular fishing pools and have the same loot tables. You still get a chance of collecting nothing, collecting junk and regular fishies.
But, if a region decides to places one of these Fishing Registry signs out on their land:
The owner can click this sign and setup the basic system for that fishing zone. They can give it a name, they can select the type of biome for it, to effect what varient of rare fish may spawn in that location.
You would place this sign close to your fishing pools and you could have more than one on a world, depending on how many fishing zones you want, and what type of biome it is in.
The fishing zone will then display on our meter website so others can find places to come and fish.
On its own, with nothing more done to it, the sign is inactive and does nothing more. The text on it is faded (turned off).
Here comes to fun part.
Activating a Sign
Anyone can activate the sign, by depositing SLC Coin into it. On activation, the sign text will be brightened up and a subtle particle effect will show.
Floating text will appear above it, showing “Rare Fish Active” as well as a countdown, and the “Activated By:” to credit the player that donated to that sign.
I’m thinking an event will run for 7 days. At 7 days, the zone must switch off and will have a 24 hour cooldown before it can be activated again.
While the sign is active, all fishing pools within its range will now communicate with the sign, signifying that anyone fishing in this area, a different loot table will be used.
The loot table will have less junk items, less chance to catch nothing at all, and will include rare fish varients for you to catch.
Upon activate a fishing zone, the zone will randomly pick from the biome loot tables which varient of rare fish for that biome will be available within that location. Meaning that you may need to travel to other similar biomed fishing zones for a chance at different rare fish! This will encourage you to visit different active areas and not just the one spot!
There are other conditions in order to be able to catch a rare fish, including the use of Lures which will be discussed in more detail below.
Legendary Fish
Yes, we will have Legendary variations of fish. And these are very special heirloom items to show off. There are a couple conditions that must be met, for you to be able to have a chance of getting these illusive fishies.
The first condition, is that the fishing zone you are fishing at, must be boosted to Legendary Mode. And this can be done by anyone donating platinums to the sign.
To activate Lengendary Mode at a fishing zone and be able to donate platinum into it, the sign must first have been activated by donating SLC Coin into it.
The zone must have a minimum of 2 hours left on it. Each platinum contribution will enable legendary mode in that pool for 1 hour. There is a 12 hour cool down after that 1 hour is up.
The sign will now have a stronger visual effect of a purple tinge and diplay “Legendary Waters Active” - again it will display the name of the person that activated it.
There are other conditions that must be met by a player specifically before they can even get a chance of rolling legendary fish. And that is, that they must have caught rare fish in the past and done something with those rare fish!
Taxidermy
When a player catches rare fish, they will be able to do numerous things with them, including cooking and the likes, if they really wanted to - but their real benefit, is handing them in to a new Master Fisherman NPC:
The NPC will provide fishing based quests to players with achievements and rewards to earn, including special fishing rods that offer bonuses.
To be able to catch legendary class fish though, you will need to purchase yourself some wooden plaques from a carpenter (will be a new recipe available to them).
Bring your rare fish and the plaque to the NPC, and he will turn it into a taxidermy of your fish to display on a beautifdul plaque as a reward, and reward you with another bonus.
You can display your rare fish in your home, office or guild. They are soulbound to you and cannot be traded to other players or sold.
You also recieve another bonus in the backend, and that is an increased chance of catching a legendary fish.
You start with a 0% chance at a Legendary Fish, but on your first Taxidermy, you increase the weighted chance of you getting a Legendary roll by a factor of 1.
Further Rewards
So what happens when you catch a Legendary Fish then?
Glad you asked, cause I thought about this also.
You will have a couple options. The first option is to create a taxidermy of that fish, which will have a special particle effect associated with it and be proof of prestige. You obviously earn a title and achievement for accomplishing such a feat.
These are soulbound and you will not be able to trade these with other players or sell for coin. If you gain multiple of the same, there may be other endgame solutions added later.
The other option, and also a good option, is you sacrifice that fish in return for a special heirloom fishing rod that matches the biome that fish was caught at.
For example, you could be rewarded with a biome attuned heirloom rod for Lake, River, Ocean, Abyss etc.
They are attuned, because they offer specific bonuses within the biome they are meant for. So in a Lake biome, a Lake-Attuned Heirloom Rod would offer small bonuses, including but not limited to:
- Reducing wait time (quicker gather in that biome)
- Reducing junk results
- Slightly increase rare weight
They are soulbound, so you can only own one. They cannot be traded or sold (they go straight to your tools inventory).
They have a high durability and can still break, but can be repaired from broken. They are cheaper to fix prior to breaking. If you allow it to break, you will need to pay a heftier fee for repairs at the Master Fisherman NPC.
Lures/Bait
Other new recipes will be for special lures. These can be crafted by Herbalists using the Herbalist Table.
A lure can be attached to any type of fishing rod, and these are used to target a specific rare fish. You do not want to waste these when the zone you are fishing at does not have the fishing zone active. As lures are made to target named fish (rares) and even Legendary if they are perfect lures.
EG: In an activated fishing zone that is a River biome. You would use river specific lures. The different lures will increase the weight (chance) of you catching that fish specific to those biomes by a certain factor (lures will be of different quality).
Basic Lures might only target rares and give a weight bonus of 5.
Good Lures might increase it further to 10.
Premium Lures further.
And perfect lures might give a bonus to the legendary varients (but you would need to make sure the fishing zone is also activated for Legendary Fishing).
Lures will add a subtle particle effect to your rod to let you know it is active. And you will need a new lure/bait every cast.
No lure, 0 chance of rare fishies.
No perfect lure, 0 chance of legendary fishies.
Lures/Bait will be expected to be in high demand due to their frequent use and the rewards offered to players by going down the fishing pathway.
We will figure out a way to make them fun enough to craft that they generate a decent enough income, and cheap enough that it doesn’t cost fishing out of a fun hobby to do.