Well, I wrote this out once and the spell check button deleted the message.


First, thank you for all you all do here.


Problem
When fishing, too much time is spent getting MIB and fishing up green nets and not enough time is spend fishing the SOS.

Information
It takes me about 7 days @ 2-4 hours of (attended) macroing a day to get 150-200 MIB. This number of SOS reduces wasted time when collecting. It takes about 1 day to collect all those SOS(excluding zones that have too few). This means 7/8 of my time is used collecting SOS, and 1/8 is used fishing them up.

I get nearly 1.6 green nets for each MIB. 150 MIB will "net" me nearly 250 green nets. Out of 250 green nets I will see about 170 krakens, giving me 170 more green nets, which repeats over and over. A starting point of 250 green nets easily ends up being 400+ casts, while netting 30-40 MIB. That is very tedious work.

Proposed Solution
The goal is to make fishing more interactive and less macro oriented. Increase playability without making it too lucrative.

My thought is to make SOS/MIB self sustaining in a way using green nets.

New Rules:
All Krakens now give guaranteed 1 SOS and no longer give green nets.
SOS still give 1 green net guaranteed as loot.
Green nets now guaranteed spawn 1 (and only 1) Kraken(keeping in mind new rule #1).

This allows fishers to spend time fishing up SOS. This gives an equal number of green nets. The green nets replace the SOS. Spend time re-plotting the new SOS so you can go back out on the sea and fish them up. Some loot table numbers might need to be tweaked ultimately.



Difficulty
As with a lot of people here, I am a software developer and try to think of ways to get results without causing complete refactoring of whole systems. These changes would be relatively small. Force krakens to drop 1 MIB instead of 1 net. Force nets to spawn 1 kraken(plus serps and water elementals). The numbers might need to be tweaked IF you feel that this would cause fishing to much gold per day compared to other systems.

Conclusion
The goal is to try to make fishing more interactive so that players can actually participate 7/8 of the time, instead of macroing 7/8 of the time. This system would allow those who enjoy fishing an interactive way to replenish SOS quantities by using this system. This is similar to BODs. Bypass BOD timer by doing and turning in a BOD. That is more interactive than collecting every 6 hours on 5 accounts. I am looking for a similar result here. Less green nets to throw(due to removing the Kraken green net loop) and less time macroing (due to kraken giving MIB instead of nets).

This would be a good QOL buff to fishing. Thanks for reading!!

I believe that Kane once mentioned in TS that he had plans to overhaul fishing. I'm not sure that giving Krakens a guaranteed MIB drop would be great considering that the loot table is similar to that of t-maps and you can get socket scrolls. The proposed system would increase the number of MIB's done by a very large margin and could devalue one of the more sought after items in the game. I like the idea and think that any additions to fishing would be spectacular, the only part that gives me pause is the 100% drop rate. Excellent presentation as well, good data always makes it more though provoking.

Thank you for the response.




As I did try to mention in my post, loot tables might need to be adjusted.


It would increase the number of SOS done per day/week/month by a certain percentage, and I would be ok with decreasing the drop rate of teh socket scrools(and level/magic cloth deeds if needed) by whatever seems fair.


Again, my goal is not to make fishing so lucrative that it becomes the "go to" method for farming, but rather change the method so it's not so boring and macro heavy. If we offset the easy of obtaining MIB by decreasing the actual drop percentage(perhaps give a bonus rate to Ancient sos?) then increasing Kraken MIB drops shouldn't unbalance the economy.

Fishing was my second favorite thing to do in UO, Mining #1. I would love to see more improvements into it as well. I love the what Kane has done for Fishing Tournaments, which adds a whole new aspect to the craft. Keep up the discussion =)

I agree about the tournaments. And I know that gold panning was brought in to make fishing more profitable but it doesn't help Derrick's issue of being interactive. Most people do an attended macro for gold panning as well. I swear I have heard Kane speak about fishing changes in TS, but I honestly can't recall any of the details. Which actually makes the memory mostly worthless... Maybe he will spot this and give us a glimpse into his vision or take this idea under advisement.

 Hello,

   After refreshing my mind on what MIBS, SOS, fishing nets, and krakens, are up to these days. I figured I'd share the following thoughts, in no particular order. 

  I agree with you derricks2 that the number of green fishing nets is a problem. Something should be done to change things up a bit. When I have the time, I'll make sure I mention this to Kane, if he hasn't come across this post on his own, by then.

  I am with Zoltan, however, on the topic of every kraken dropping a MIB. An increase in MIB drop rates might be appropriate, but that it is up to Kane, of course. Having mentioned that, I would definitely suggest to Kane that additional items of value be added to a kraken's loot table, along the lines of a fishing theme.

 A coil of rope seems to always drop as loot, as well. According to my sources rope was necessary to make hitching posts; at least on OSI shards. Maybe the rope can have a new purpose as well, or maybe it will just be a once in awhile drop instead.

  With Dante always trying to keep the server tidy, I'm sure he would want to look into monster loot tables, which are adding tons of unused coils of ropes and multiplying green fishing nets, and see if there is a better solution.

  I liked the presentation, it was well thought out, but it is my opinion that the proposal is potentially harmful to the UOE economy. I would vote no towards it, but as I am open minded, I look forward to a rebuttal on the topic, should one arise.

 I would, however, recommend that Fishing be given an update, to spread the wealth so to speak. There has to be tons of potential profit submerged under the rivers, lakes, and seas/oceans of Britannia. The difference, at least for me, is that gaining that profit needs to have a risk versus reward factor that keeps the player economy balanced.

  We have a Sin dungeon, and the rewards are epic. Maybe fishing needs to have new threats/rewards to make doing it epic, is all I am saying. Though, I am not saying that new system has to be as harsh as the Sin dungeon, not even a little bit.



   --Sturger, of Skara Brea; reporter at larger, EVO-Herald--

I still need to re-read this and note some things down but.. wanted to chime in

We do have a new fishing event system that is pretty much done except waiting for me to code the timer for it.  This will work kind of like the town evasions do currently.. twice a day.  The idea is there will be 1 or 2 fishing events each day (taking into account time zones) and the prizes will be based on the total number of people that turn in their big fish before the ending of it. 

I do want to clean up the whole process of the SOS especially given some of the many problems I see in it at the moment.  I am not a fan of 100% drop so probably won't see that come from me.  I personally would like to see different themed stuff for it done.  I can only handle one or two major projects at a time though and at the moment I "NEED" to wrap up Vecna's Tomb.  So please understand that.

Thank you to all who have responded and given feedback.


I am not married to the idea of 100% drop rate on Krakens, that was simply a simple way to make the system a bit more interactive. I would welcome any method to make the fishing process more hands on, and less "macro macro macro macro macro play macro maro macro" etc...


My post was only meant to get discussion going and bring attention to the fact that fishing as a profession is nearly all macroing and for those that enjoy it, would like to play it a bit more.


That said, I wan't to re-iterate that this server is amazing, and that I apprecaite the work that is put in and the dedication to the playerbase.


Over the next few days I will try to think of some interesting ways to improve fishing without (necessarily) increasing the number of SOS/MiB given overall. Thanks for the feedback!

Hopefully there are people still reading this.

Over the last 24 hours I tried to think of another method to help improve fishing.

Pain Points
Green Nets need a better purpose
I need to manually fish more and macro less
Loot Tables
Risk vs Time vs Reward


Problem
Above points #1 and #2
I have gone over this in the original post as to WHY we need a new system. I won't repeat that here.

Loot Tables
In discussion I have heard that it's hard to do things with fishing because it shared loot tables with treasure chests. Unfortunately this might need to be separated. I don't know it's exact difficulty, but Treasure chest and Fishing are 2 different skills/activities, with 2 different sets ofdifficulty and 2 different sets oftime investment, and as such should have 2 different loot tables so that one profession can be adjusted without fear of unbalancing the other.

Risk vs Time vs Reward
Someone in the article mentioned Risk vs Reward. We do need to remember that it isn't JUSTRisk vs Rewardbut rather Risk vs Time vs Reward. There are few things in the game that are truly "risky", therefore a major factor in reward isValue Over Time.In other words, how much does this activity make monetarily in X hours time compared to other professions. Going to the Doom Gauntlet in decent gear is norisk, let's just be honest. So it's more about an activity not providing too much monetary value over a certain time.

Proposed Solution
In my first proposal, I tried to keep development effort in mind finding a simple change, however here I am simply going with outcome in mind.

My latest concept is a progression system of SOS. Here are the ground rules/assumptions as a base:

Rules/Assumptions:
All SOS now have a "Level" of 1-6.
Level 6 are ancient SOS
All SOS found by fishing/panning are always level 1. (There is no way to "find" above a level 1 SOS).
SOS chest contain another SOS that is 1 level higher than the chest that was fished up IF gathered in within the time limit.
Level 6 sos do NOT contain another SOS. The level 6 ends that sos progression cycle.
A level 5 chest will always contain an Ancient(level 6) SOS
Level 1-5 SOS cannot be Ancient.
Level 6 will always be ancient.
Progressive SOS are timed(not level 1 sos). You have XX min to find your next sos. If you find it within XX min it will have the next level sos.
Each level of SOS chest has a different loot table just as Treasure chests have.

You start with a Level 1 SOS. You fish it up, and get a level 2 sos and have XX min to fish the second one up. If you within the time limit, your level 2 chest will have a level 3 SOS with XX min time limit. Etc etc... Once you successfully find the level 5 chest in the timeframe you will get an Ancient(level 6) SOS(no time limit to get the ancient. It is the last step in progression).

It is now impractical to stockpile SOS. You no longer "need" to do them in bulk for efficiency(reducing sailing time). Now, you need to sail across the world to get the next leveled SOS. As this assumed that each chest will have a different loot table, level 1 chest will not have the same %% chance to drop good drops(socket scroll, magic cloth and level deeds) as level 6 chest do obviously. The goal is to get to the level 6 chest for best chances. This system gives incentive to take 1 SOS, and see it through to the end. Doing a bulk of 100 at once would result in failed timeframes and never getting level 2 SOS. Each SOS is a separate adventure that would take (I would estimate) an hour to complete level 1 - level 6.

Difficulty
Sorry on this subject. You would need to re-do a few things for this system to work. You COULD match up the rewards in a level 1-6 SOS with the loot tables of a level 1-6 Treasure map to save effort, or just create a new loot table for each level chest. Creating a timed system for the reward wouldn't be TOO hard, but you would still need to code the loot table of the SOS to becontingent on the time frame so it knows if it should include the next level sos or not. It doesn't seem incredibly difficult but will require more effort than the original idea.
Fishing Nets
So this section is independent of the rest of the idea, but happens to compliment it. A new concept for fishing nets is that they will completely fish out the area you throw it. So if you throw it on a SOS spot, it will collect all the pre-chest look and the chest. If you throw it on normal water, it will count as you fishing X individual times until that spot has no more fish. So you could pull up 3-4 serpents(all with a map/net/SOS)  or 0 with a net .
This would allow someone to find a few SOS to fish up relatively quickly. If you needed 6 or 8 SOS to keep you busy for the evening(with the new system) then you need only grab 4-5 nets rather than macroing for an hour or 2. This is slightly different from the current system and it gives the added benefit of being able to fish up your chests on the first try instead of 10-20 trys sometimes, which comes in handy if your SOS are timed now.

Conclusion
This would completely take the macroing out of fishing. Even if it only takes you 10 min average per SOS, 1 sos would equal 60 min to complete to the end. 3-5 level 1 SOS would last you the whole evening. The loot tables would be adjusted so that you're not finding lots of socket scrolls and such off level 1-3 sos maps, but for those who fish the whole SOS through, you get a higher chance at the end as level 4-6 SOS have a higher drop rate(to compensate for the low drop rate of level 1-3... see MATH section below).

MATH!!!
If I math a little bit we can see how close this system might compare to current rates.

Right now I get about 8-12 MIB per hour with 2 accounts. If we assume around 10 per hour it takes me about 16 hours of macroing to get 160 sos and about 9 more hours to fish those up. 25 hours would =160 MIB fished and 160 SOS retrieved in 25 hours.16 hours macro. 9 hours played. Average 8 ancient SOS with the 1/20 chance.

With the new system we assume 10 min to sail from one chest to the other(even going to mainland, docking, recalling). That's 6 chest per 60 min/Hr. That is 1 full cycle in 1 hour. With a few fishing nets(new net system) it won't take much time to get 25 level 1 SOS. At 1 full sys progression per hour 25 sos = 25 hours. 1 progression = 6 sos total. 25 progressions * 6 sos each = 150 total sos. 150 sos in 25 hours = 150 sos in 25 hours. 0 hours macroing. 25 hours playing. 25 ancient sos (level 6 are always ancient).  

The new way will do numerically less SOS over the same time frame, but do more ancient sos. Since Ancient SOS have a slightly higher drop chance for scrolls I think that these number are going to be pretty close for the monetary outcomes AND the new system is MUCH MUCH more interactive.

Food for thought: Since we are mathing, it might be practical to change the scroll drop percentages by -50% for level 1-3 SOS and increase it  by +50%  for 4-6. This nets the same average drop rate over the 6 chests, but gives a higher incentive to go all 6 chests as the 4-6 have the best chance to get the scrolls. Doing 150 level 1 chests (as a way to circumvent the system) would yield worse results than actively playing the system. I think that is healthy to encourage participation over macroing. Math: If we assume there is a base 5% drop rate for scrolls(I know it's not 5% but easy math numbers) then level 1-3 having 2.5% drop rate and level 4-6 having 7.5% drop rate averages to 5% over the 6 chests. 2.5 + 2.5 + 2.5 + 7.5 + 7.5 + 7.5 = 30

30 /6 = 5% average 
Thoughts?

 First, I'd like to say that I like the way you explain your ideas.


  I am for the idea that a 'certain' fishing net color-- or type-- be allowed to fish an area out. What I get from this, is that the fisherman is using the magical net to replace the X amount of times it would take to fish out Area Y. This idea has room to grow, in my opinion. New special theme monsters spawns might be netted here. Additional boosts in other fields; like T-map quality, trophy fish size (in stones), or special materials needed for the new Item crafting system all come to my mind, as well.

 I especially like your idea about: risk VS Time VS reward. I will grant in some situations, things that were once tough to handle solo, are now your simple everyday gold makers. However, I think Kane and staff are doing a great job in supplying us with new challenges, here and there, which is why I mentioned it in an earlier post.

  I like the idea that SOS's should have a level attached to them; however, it would be my opinion that certain guardians should then be created to challenge players on the open seas, in accordance with the level of the SOS in progress.

  As Kane mentioned, I am not for an SOS leading to another SOS, maybe a lower level T-map (which makes more sense to me) would be okay to find in a sunken treasure chest, but I leave that to Kane to decide.   

  I do like your SOS progression idea, but I believe it is risky, because a level 5 SOS always grants a level 6 SOS. Nothing should be a given, save death and taxes? (which reminds me to wonder, again, why Lord Brittish doesn't tax us?.. looks at Kane...)

 I for one, believe that the open seas should eventually grant us a slew of new/forgotten artifacts to discover, and all we need to do is be patient, and give Kane, Domino, and Dante some time to bring these potential wonders to us.

 
  --Sturger--

Well first of all, let me appologize for the way that was formatted. Somehow, some of the formatting was lost and it was a mess!! Thanks for reading it anyway.




To your points:


1. Thank you for your compliments and being constructive where you give feedback.


2. "However, I think Kane and staff are doing a great job in supplying us with new challenges, here and there, which is why I mentioned it in an earlier post."
I agree totally. There are definitely some aspects of the game that ARE challenging, however not every aspect needs to be challenging. Some things, like custom housing, herbology, crafting etc all have a tranquility about them as they don't require some sort of combat to enjoy.


3. "however, it would be my opinion that certain guardians should then be created to challenge players on the open seas"
I kind of disagree here. Fishing up a old message from a bottle for sunken treasure shouldn't necessarily require some sort of monster or guardian. See my post from point #2. I don't mind there being cool new monsters to fight(you could attach them to rare colored nets or ancient nets). We even have monsters to initially get the MiB's. I really would be unhappy if they added more fighting to fish up the chests. I want to enjoy my time when fishing and not have to worry about things jumping out at me and mowing them down. There are plenty of other areas of the game where I can fight if I want to do that. I want fishing to be challenging, but not necessarily another combat profession. It's fishing afterall.


4. "As Kane mentioned, I am not for an SOS leading to another SOS"
I guess my point here was that it isn't REALLY one sos leading to another. This is a storyline. You find a MIB, that tresure takes you to another and another until you reach the "end of the line" with a better reward for sticking with that "storyline." I don't want a never ending line of MIBs, but with this method 1 MIB last for an hour, instead of 6 mins. In reality you can do whatever you want if you don't want it to be a "level 2" MIB in the chest, you can have it be "MIB Page 2" that continues off the original MIB you found etc. Either way it's not meant to be a endless supply of MIB, but rather a story that plays so your MIB lasts longer. You are just spreading the reward of 6 individual MIBS now over 6 mibs in a story in the new system and back loading the rewards for completing the storyline.


5. "I do like your SOS progression idea, but I believe it is risky, because a level 5 SOS always grants a level 6 SOS. Nothing should be a given, save death and taxes?"
I am not sure I understand the logic here. Aagin this is a new system so this is a story. Remember the Risk vs Time vs Reward? As long as the progression into the ancient SOS doesn't provide more payout in the end then why is it a problem?


We are still thinking about SOS how they are now. Don't think of "New system guarantees you 6 SOS!" and rather think of it like "1 MIB now provides you with a 6 part story with dialog that will take around an hour to complete." The only differenc is that I get more enjoyment out of finding 1 mib, instead of having to macro for 30 min to get 6 of them. It still takes 10 min to find 1 MIB, then 60 to fish the progression up. As now, it takes 30 mins to find 6 and then 30 min to fisht hem up. You still do the same amount per hour. You don't have to find as many, but it takes longer than it does now to complete X number. As long as the system is balances from a financial standpoint, it shouldn't matter right?

[removed section about acceptance criteria. Not needed]

Also, don't think of my idea as something that would have to be impliment as I wrote it. Change aspects of it to your liking and post those! If you like 80% of my idea, feel free to change the 20% you don't like into something more accetable and post that here. I am not married to my idea being what is implemented. I just want to help promote change for the better

Thank you for all the good fishing ideas and information!  We have been making a new fishing script and creating an automatic fishing tournament.  Keep the ideas coming!

No problem. Just looking to help shrae some ideas