Fishing is always a frustrating experience

[Peridot]

For me, in these types of games, fishing has always been a frustrating experience. I'm the type of person who had to download an easy-fishing mod for stardew valley and STILL had to go crying to my husband to catch me the harder fishes so I could complete my fishing collection.

Even in Animal Crossing, it was frustrating, it was all about placing your fishing ball in the correct way. So there was a lot of throwing out your fishing ball, pulling it back in again, and out again, and in, and positioning yourself differently.

And the games, names which I cannot recall, where you have to spam click to reel in? No. It has always been a frustrating experience.

So I was over the moon when fishing was such a calm experience in Cozy Grove. It didn't matter if my fishing ball went behind the fish, or ON TOP of the fish! The fish would re-position itself and try to eat my bait. And when they ate the bait? Even if I didn't react right away, they didn't run away with the bait! I managed to catch all my fishes!

But then the NEW fish came..
Now I have two types of fish who will run away if I don't place my fishing ball correctly. And it's back to being a frustrating experience.

And I realize, I'm probably among the few who find this annoying. It's such a simple concept isn't it? But I keep scaring away my fish. I wish the fishing rod would show me the entire path of my fishing ball, because as simple and easy that calculation might seem to you. I keep messing it up.

[Find the Strawberry]

I really don't like how the fishing works. The gauge of direction and power never feels like it goes where I want it to.
For most fish it's fine, as you mentioned, they'll just come for your line even if they're not overly close, but the ones where they get scared frustrate me so much! I either don't get close enough to them, or in the right spot, or I land right on them and they disappear.

[Nowhere]

I agree with both of you (although I love the fishing system in Stardew Valley haha) In this game I admit it's particularly frustrating. The first fish are given, but the new ones.... The very thin ones are horrible, I spend 5 minutes on them each time, then the big ones, you just have to touch it a little too close and it disappears ... I'm not even talking about fishing the recipes and spirits, we recognize them easily but good luck to fish them ...

[Minxell]

I try to throw my bobber at either an angle or sideways at the new fish. Trying to fish in front of them I always scare them off.

[Pwaeogxer]

Scaring fish by landing the bobber close to them is unfairly punishing, since you can't know exactly where you are throwing it. It's a bad system in my opinion.

[RyuKajiya]

It is actually quite easy if you understand how it works.
The indicator is spot on, you throw the bobber in the direction indicated.
The power is a bit strange. You throw the bobber the same distance you move your mouse back. But not from the center of your character like the indicator but from the center of the circle above your chars head when it displays the fishing rod icon.
Took me a while to figure out that power is not relative to same spot as indicator but once you get that aiming is quite easy. Manage to place the bobber right in front of fish about 90% of the time.

[V.V.]

Its like that in Animal Crossing too, if you land too close or on top the fish will get scared and and swim off. You have to land in front where they can see your bobber before they gain interest.

[Pwaeogxer]

In Animal Crossing you don't scare fish by landing the bobber on top of them; only by pulling the rod too early or running too close to them. If you don't land it in front of them, they just ignore it, but don't run away.

[V.V.]

Originally posted by Pwaeogxer:

In Animal Crossing you don't scare fish by landing the bobber on top of them; only by pulling the rod too early or running too close to them. If you don't land it in front of them, they just ignore it, but don't run away.

I remember in WW scaring fish by landing the bobber on top of them. Doesn't always happen as they can get spooked and just move away, but I remember that it can happen sometimes. But it's been like a decade since I've played and I played the heck out of that game.

[Pwaeogxer]

Definetely isn't a thing in the most recent ones, and for a good reason. It's bad design.

[Nefrarya]

I find the regular fishing surprisingly meditative (I don't usually like fishing in games), but the skill-based ones are highly frustrating for me. Also, I hope there won't be even more behaviour types since I don't really want to memorize all the different strategies based on silhouette..

[Tentakeltier🦑]

I'm not too fond of the fishing either, normal fish are okay but it feels lie 90% of the fish take up to 4 tries until they bite which is already annoying to me. I like the ones that bite instantly best. If they all would bite instantly and it was just about not clicking too slow, it would still be relaxig to me (at least if the reaction time stays like it is right now).

I haven't once caught the other fish types because I fail at throwing the bobber close enough to attract them without scaring them off.

I'd really love some additional automatic form of fishing, like fish traps you can empty out once a day.

[coineascar]

in my opinion the fussy fishing mechanic is designed to make you spend more time in the game, so some can say: "oh, players can spend up to an hour in the game!"
but it's 20 minutes of content and 40 minutes of frustrated fishing.

[Danc]

Good feedback.

The design intent was to give folks who wanted an additional / optional skill-based challenge. They have a distinct silhouette so they are easy to avoid if you want. The slow fish still spawn so there should be lots of easy fish to catch. The very hard fish spawn relatively rarely so they shouldn't hurt your harvest much.

[Nefrarya]

Originally posted by Danc:

Good feedback.

The design intent was to give folks who wanted an additional / optional skill-based challenge. They have a distinct silhouette so they are easy to avoid if you want. The slow fish still spawn so there should be lots of easy fish to catch. The very hard fish spawn relatively rarely so they shouldn't hurt your harvest much.

But then I'm missing out on certain species, which I personally think is very painful in games with a strong collection mechanic.

[oi__io]

I think being able to see exactly where the bobber will land when you cast it would greatly improve fishing experience. I fish A LOT in this game and manage to catch the more difficult ones 70-80% of the time but it's not worth it and I don't like it at all. Maybe limit it to the unique and legendary ones?