Current state of the game?

[wildcarrot]

I think many people right now are not happy with the current play-ability of the game. Of course this does happen from time to time with RF4 when some spots dry up a little. But it feels like recently (several months) have felt particularly bad and it doesn't seem to improve. And I do also notice that the team did go through some rough times in the past year and I am sorry that happened. I just want to say that. I only make this topic because I care about the success of this game and currently I just feel like the gameplay is slowly deteriorating. The content the devs create is really great, but the game feels off on the inside.

I understand RF4 strives to be a more hardcore fishing experience, but let's be real here. The game is not a true simulator, it is a fishing game at it's core. The game needs to be fun to succeed.

Every year more expensive items. Now 120,000 silver for reel, more expensive repairs, faster wear. And what about our income? Just staying the same and even reducing too? It's OK if you don't want to focus this game on earning silver, but that's what you are doing infact when you release expensive items and expensive costs across the board. What about some balance guys? The game was already incredibly difficult. And now a new map with completely new skill tree but no new skill points?

Cheaters seem to be becoming more and more popular.. in a fishing game... Why? Because game became too difficult and crossed a line to the point people will just pay anyone to create something for them to play the game without stress. They just want to come and relax and fish, instead of coming from work, and to login back to work. I despise cheating however I completely understand why they started cheating in this game. I don't really have words for this.. It's just not good. I did notice the admins are taking action on this. That's great and thank you for this. However it does not change the cause of it.

RF4 can reach a much bigger audience if it is not so strict on being a simulator. It does not have to be completely arcade game, but we can improve the play-ability of this game so much more and still maintain the hardcore aspect of it compared to other fishing games. Personally I believe majority of people do not want a hardcore simulator. They want a fun fishing game that is not too arcade and not too simulator. Not so easy, but not torture. A fun balance. Nobody wants to stare at a screen for hours in a daze.

There has been a big deterioration in all other maps other than Norway. Many maps are almost completely dormant. Some maps just entirely dead for long periods of time. Why? Part of me can see a potential in this feature that certain map can go "dormant" and another map can become hot. But not like this. Not with such long gaps between activity. Like this the game becomes stale and everyone will be flocking to only one map. The dormant maps producing unprofitable or juvenile fish. I want to be able to go and fish on multiple different maps with a good bite-rate, healthy size fish and reasonable income. I'm not asking for every fish to be a huge monster, I'm not asking to earn 1000 silver every hour. But the balance is wrong right now.

It's not even possible to find a "hotspot" yourself. There are too many lures, too many baits, too many potential spots and too many combinations of such. Everyone is just copying someone else. Nobody is finding their own active spots. Because it's basically impossible. So now you have the issue nobody is searching for a spot, everybody is copying and if you don't copy you will only earn some peanuts, but the items are so expensive so you must copy. And now less spots are found and it's a vicious cycle.

Does the weather system even affect lures? When one lure is working you would expect to be able to use a similar colour/shape/size or when you catch a big fish species on a small lure and up-size to a bigger lure of the same model line. But it doesn't work like that. It feels like it's just a random number generator and whichever lure is active is active and nothing else.




It's really not easy to describe this current feeling because it's not so simple. But this is the general idea. I do believe the devs and admins are listening to our suggestions but right now all reviews on steam are positive (all mostly new players I did notice) and not many posts on discussion board with concerns. However I know this is far from reality and that most higher lvl/hour players are not happy with the current game. I don't know why they don't speak up because like this, the devs think there is no problem.

Anyway I make this post just as a way that we can politely discuss any and all concerns with the current game. Please try to keep your posts civil.

Please just state a few points of concern that you have and maybe some solutions you have. This way it can be easy for the admins to read and convey. I know my post is a bit of a mess. There is many things I missed, I just wanted to get a post started. I will try to edit it later to make it more readable sorry about that.

[KillJoy]

Цитата допису wildcarrot:

Thanks for your response Levo, it's good to know the admins do care and are actively trying to improve the game. The new content and map is genuinely great and I look forward to the future updates where some of the other concerns may be addressed. My concerns right now are mostly linked to balance.

Regarding silver income. If we imagine it on a scale of Low to High. I feel the High end of the scale is fine but the low end of the scale could be bolstered slightly. My concerns with the silver income is related more to what I mentioned before about "consistency". This can be more closely tied to active spots on each map more-so than actual income. If there is more healthy spots and the fishing is of better quality I think people do not care so much about how much silver they are earning within each hour (within reason).

My biggest concern in the game is the fish quality and spot health. If only one thing can be changed and improved, this would be my request (Followed closely by a more dynamic and intuitive lure and bait preference for fish and weather system) We have so many good maps already in the game but many of them are just not fun to fish at. The problem we face is that the fish quality and spot health is tied to the income. So I see that it's not possible to just increase quality of fish and spot health without also greatly changing the income across a multitude of different spots.

If we think about Kuori lake for this moment. The income is very low compared to Norway because it is a low level map. But that means the fish you are catching are generally of low quality or low frequency to balance the income. This (in my opinion) creates a very boring experience on this map where you will either get spammed with low quality lake trouts or perch and maybe 1 or 2 expensive fish (Which is understandable for the rare species like Kuori Char). but I think we would have a better experience on this specific map if the bite-rate and fish quality was increased and in exchange reduce the price of the fish to maintain the balance of income.

I understand this is not as simple as increasing quality/quantity, reducing price. We must also be aware of the added damage to fishing gear this would cause. I can also see how this solution, if applied across all maps could unintentionally have a negative impact on the fishing experience. For example there may be a map that has a different fish that should be more abundant/preferred (e.g. Ladoga Salmon). So it may be that each map will require it's own fine tuning for the best fishing experience for that particular location.

I don't pretend to be a game-designer maybe it's easier or more complex than I imagined. These are just my general thoughts from playing this game for many hours. I hope others can tell me what they think about these suggestions?

I agree mostly with your post and points. And I would like to add to it, to better clarify my point of view.

At the very start, I fished at Mosquito Lake, the starting lake as to speak. I would rent a boat, zoom around the lake, cast my line in some random spots, and return to shore after 1 hour with around 75-100 fish in 1 hour. It was entertaining, it was fun. But it was not "good silver".

I then tried out bottom fishing, and I realised I can make more silver using that method.

I then tried spin fishing, and realised it's way more profitable than any other type of fishing when fishing at Belaya. And cheaper also, because it's only 1 rod as opposed to 3 rods at the same time.

What I am trying to get at is, there's a lack of balance between different fishing methods, and spin fishing is not only cheaper to get into, it's also much more profitable than any other type of fishing for me, and I am close to hitting level 28.
Considering how long it takes to level up, and considering the cost of lower end equipment, it's not entertaining or fun to be stuck in the same place for many many hours.

I would love to go to the other lakes, but as already mentioned they feel dead and are not worth the time to visit. I get the feeling that right now it's all about getting as fast as possible to level 35, so you can access the sea map. The other maps seems to have been turned into graveyards to slow down progress, because after level 35 map there's no map...

I think that is really what needs to be worked on next: make the maps great again, make them fun, reward instead of punish players for trying out completely new things and maps.
Fishing is about exploration and fishing for fun, not about meta data from hot spot Discord and and reach level 35 to get away from the poor maps and into the sea map.

Make the journey fun, before we all fall asleep and go do something else.

[SweetBolin]

Couldn't agree more, my issue is simple, I know how much fun I've had playing RF4 for over 1000hrs. I wanted to progress, in all aspects of the game. I experimented and came up with an affordable cat fishing rod & reel set up that isn't a beluga/venga, quite a cheap set up but was catching from 2-18kg catfish, as well as volga/zander regularly. The record ratings for catfish at Old Burg are about a year old. NOBODY has caught anything close, because they're not there, trust me I've tried. My incentives to buy premium & gold coins for equipment are gone. Not because of anything I did wrong, more, the developer has decided for whatever reason that I was having too much fun. That is my only logical conclusion.

[smithystuart]

for whatever reason i dont think they will ever change the game from the way it is the grid is there on porpoise the time you have to put into this game to progress is nuts still the best fishing game out just wish it was more player friendly and making silver was easier

[Villa1n17]

all true

[Talec]

Don't loose your time on this game, all they want it's your money.
They oriente'd this game for that.
Come on another game this one is dead.

[职业法师刘海柱]

有非常多的中国玩家反馈，而开发者好像根本看不见信息，如果中国玩家向官方邮箱发送消息，他会告诉我们：‘请反馈到中国管理员的邮箱’，但是我已经反馈了很多次，给我的答复一直都是：‘我们收到了反馈，我们也会尽量考虑’，好像说了一堆废话，甚至不值得我花上数小时写的反馈信息，中国玩家至少超过了一半的玩家对此前环境不满意，无数的反馈信好像被他们丢尽了垃圾信箱里

[职业法师刘海柱]

开发者脑子里面到底装的是什么？是屎！

[KillJoy]

Цитата допису 职业法师刘海柱:

有非常多的中国玩家反馈，而开发者好像根本看不见信息，如果中国玩家向官方邮箱发送消息，他会告诉我们：‘请反馈到中国管理员的邮箱’，但是我已经反馈了很多次，给我的答复一直都是：‘我们收到了反馈，我们也会尽量考虑’，好像说了一堆废话，甚至不值得我花上数小时写的反馈信息，中国玩家至少超过了一半的玩家对此前环境不满意，无数的反馈信好像被他们丢尽了垃圾信箱里

That is what I eluded to in one of my previous postings. If the feedback is we read it and thank you for your valuable feedback as we take all feedback into account, what does that actually mean?

All I remember is the true story of me and one of my co-workers. He was installing electrical cables, I was sizing the cables. At one point he said "hey, take into account when you measure the next cable, that there is stuff in the way and we will need a longer one" I said ok, and I gave him a cable of the same length as before.
He said "I told you to take into account there was stuff in the way."
I replied: I took it into account, but I never said I was going to give you a longer cable.

Basically, it's not because you read it and take all feedback into account, anything happens with it. That is where regular dev updates comes into play, where the devs talk about and address the various feedback they receive, so players know there is something done with the feedback besides talking about it and taking it into account.

[2052087430]

Now, 200 silver coins per hour is very high. Since the recent update, I have fished from 27 to 30 in the Amber Lake for a few days after the update. After that, there is no gain. If I am lucky today, I sometimes don't fish for half an hour or 20 fish for 60 minutes, which is no experience for novices. Before, I fished 87 fish an hour on the 24 th.

[Section8]

This problem started a year and a half ago. When they applied changes and didn't post them. 90-100+ fish an hour was doable on all lakes. One by one they LIMITED the fish, not only by the count but also the chance of a bigger fish biting. There was one exception.... Amber. Why? Because that is the majority of their base - bottom fishers from around the world.

Over the years, the bottom fishers have complained that spin fishing / trolling was making too much money all the while they just sat there. Not to be outdone, trolling has been killed. Now if you don't hold the rod and do stuff with the rod, the chance to catch a fish is extremely lower.

So what do we have over the past 2 years... people complaining about spin fishing / trolling has turned the game into minimal fish. All the while gears is 8 million silver. They add a new map where reels made for salt water get DESTROYED just from casting and reeling in small fish / no fish. Making them truly expensive for them to just be fixed. The 100+ fish an hour days are gone yet the cost for equipment, repairs, and gear is still high.

The only focus done in the past 6 months is to leave the economy as such. Why? FORCE people to use real money to repair / buy items because the damage / farm / fun is no longer there. Every time something like this post is made, the fan bois follow through with a stampede.... "You can't always catch trophies"... No people... We want what we had... to catch fish... to use lures and work through size and color to target fish... NOT to sit here for hours with every lure or bait in the book and catch 20g fish.

Fish have death timers for your gear (Nothing random)
Pumping yanking, pulling do not tire fish
Why does a workshop take x% of total cost vs flat cost?
Who fishes and has an oil can you use for your reel gears and it lasts for a few hours?
How / Why / What does leader usage have an effect on fish? The lines are small and should have zero bearing on a fish.
Blanks cannot be repaired - Do you even fish?
Fish in net die - if i was logged in and playing 24 hours straight... sure. but why? Life happens. Stop screwing over players and make the game back to being player centric VS MONEY MONEY MONEY. Invest in the players and they will invest in the game.
Lure types / colors should have a bearing on fish
So many FGA's not even recorded. Why have CTRL Right click in options say that SETS THE HOOK? Why set the hook when it has zero effect on setting the hook? Stop taking away from players.
Why is text not configurable?
Why after all these years are all the options not configurable in the keyboard settings?
Why are you hosting the website and the game server on the same ip? Why is there no api to pull info on a separate server?
Why is all the information a lie on the guides for how to fish wrong, full of lies, false, whatever you want to call it? Be transparent with the players. Stop hiding behind moderators who know nothing about how the game works.

Like everything else, the calculators need to be looked at - "Chance to hook a trophy", "Control of fish", "Blue stats on rods". If they are in the correct direction they are .xx% at best vs 2,4,6,8,10% each.
None of the above has a single thing to do with realism. It is all static / manual settings. There are no true fish fights, just coded pull/runs that occur depending on your rod/reel/weakest point.

What's going to happen at Christmas time? Their one portal for the game / webiste / everything will be FLOODED and their frontend and backend are not going to be able to handle the traffic. 4 years in a row and not one thing has been done to fix the player experience.

At least in all the various forums people are being more outspoken about the fish sizes, bite rates, etc on all maps. This has been happening for past 6 months yet there is no change. Is that the future of this game? Take away from players as much as you can and limit player success because your model is to force money until they quit. Less players = less stress on the infrastructure?

Joe had a couple of live streams with streamers that bow at the presence of whatever. Just like the streamers who received free gear to say how great everything was. If all you did your entire life was have people surrounding you telling you that you are great.... you would be nothing in life. Listen to the community. Fix the game. Don't be offended when people tell you how bad it is. Canned responses are not wanted. Respect is a two way street. Do you think our personal time to play this game is worth nothing? Open your eyes and stop banning people from having a voice.

[Eggz]

Цитата допису Section8:

This problem started a year and a half ago. When they applied changes and didn't post them. 90-100+ fish an hour was doable on all lakes. One by one they LIMITED the fish, not only by the count but also the chance of a bigger fish biting. There was one exception.... Amber. Why? Because that is the majority of their base - bottom fishers from around the world.

Over the years, the bottom fishers have complained that spin fishing / trolling was making too much money all the while they just sat there. Not to be outdone, trolling has been killed. Now if you don't hold the rod and do stuff with the rod, the chance to catch a fish is extremely lower.

So what do we have over the past 2 years... people complaining about spin fishing / trolling has turned the game into minimal fish. All the while gears is 8 million silver. They add a new map where reels made for salt water get DESTROYED just from casting and reeling in small fish / no fish. Making them truly expensive for them to just be fixed. The 100+ fish an hour days are gone yet the cost for equipment, repairs, and gear is still high.

The only focus done in the past 6 months is to leave the economy as such. Why? FORCE people to use real money to repair / buy items because the damage / farm / fun is no longer there. Every time something like this post is made, the fan bois follow through with a stampede.... "You can't always catch trophies"... No people... We want what we had... to catch fish... to use lures and work through size and color to target fish... NOT to sit here for hours with every lure or bait in the book and catch 20g fish.

Fish have death timers for your gear (Nothing random)
Pumping yanking, pulling do not tire fish
Why does a workshop take x% of total cost vs flat cost?
Who fishes and has an oil can you use for your reel gears and it lasts for a few hours?
How / Why / What does leader usage have an effect on fish? The lines are small and should have zero bearing on a fish.
Blanks cannot be repaired - Do you even fish?
Fish in net die - if i was logged in and playing 24 hours straight... sure. but why? Life happens. Stop screwing over players and make the game back to being player centric VS MONEY MONEY MONEY. Invest in the players and they will invest in the game.
Lure types / colors should have a bearing on fish
So many FGA's not even recorded. Why have CTRL Right click in options say that SETS THE HOOK? Why set the hook when it has zero effect on setting the hook? Stop taking away from players.
Why is text not configurable?
Why after all these years are all the options not configurable in the keyboard settings?
Why are you hosting the website and the game server on the same ip? Why is there no api to pull info on a separate server?
Why is all the information a lie on the guides for how to fish wrong, full of lies, false, whatever you want to call it? Be transparent with the players. Stop hiding behind moderators who know nothing about how the game works.

Like everything else, the calculators need to be looked at - "Chance to hook a trophy", "Control of fish", "Blue stats on rods". If they are in the correct direction they are .xx% at best vs 2,4,6,8,10% each.
None of the above has a single thing to do with realism. It is all static / manual settings. There are no true fish fights, just coded pull/runs that occur depending on your rod/reel/weakest point.

What's going to happen at Christmas time? Their one portal for the game / webiste / everything will be FLOODED and their frontend and backend are not going to be able to handle the traffic. 4 years in a row and not one thing has been done to fix the player experience.

At least in all the various forums people are being more outspoken about the fish sizes, bite rates, etc on all maps. This has been happening for past 6 months yet there is no change. Is that the future of this game? Take away from players as much as you can and limit player success because your model is to force money until they quit. Less players = less stress on the infrastructure?

Joe had a couple of live streams with streamers that bow at the presence of whatever. Just like the streamers who received free gear to say how great everything was. If all you did your entire life was have people surrounding you telling you that you are great.... you would be nothing in life. Listen to the community. Fix the game. Don't be offended when people tell you how bad it is. Canned responses are not wanted. Respect is a two way street. Do you think our personal time to play this game is worth nothing? Open your eyes and stop banning people from having a voice.

Not going to reply to everything you said but it's all true.

100 fish an hour was easily doable before any of these dodgy updates came out with the trolling and whatever else they did to minimise catches/trophies.

When i watch people play the game on youtube i see no one setting the hook apart from one person which leads me to believe it doesn't do much if anything.

Only one thing i want to add at the moment is that i've lost more fish in the past couple of days than i have before ever in this amount of time.

Phantom bites, setting the hook and still get away, nothing has changed from how i fish but feels like theres some sort of code in place to make you lose fish more often.

[KillJoy]

As long as the revenue model works, nothing will change... It's up to the players now.
Hopefully the new year will bring rental equipment, so we can try out new gear before deciding to purchase it.

[SweetBolin]

I'm still persevering at the moment, but my 4-5hr sessions have turned into 1hr sessions, and I will not be buying gold coins or purchasing premium with gold coins. Such a shame, but in recent days, on several 5 star rated spinning lakes, I'm losing the will to 'jig step' for half an hour to catch a 300g perch. I did catch an 8kg zander, a weekly record apparently, but nobody is going to invest real money and spend time spinning a reel for 2 perch an hour. It has become both ridiculous & untenable for me. And as stated before, quite deliberate. Has the developer ever explained why they actually want to alienate players with 1000+hrs logged in? I am so confused with recent decisions & updates, surely it will backfire, won't it?

[KillJoy]

Цитата допису SweetBolin:

I'm still persevering at the moment, but my 4-5hr sessions have turned into 1hr sessions, and I will not be buying gold coins or purchasing premium with gold coins. Such a shame, but in recent days, on several 5 star rated spinning lakes, I'm losing the will to 'jig step' for half an hour to catch a 300g perch. I did catch an 8kg zander, a weekly record apparently, but nobody is going to invest real money and spend time spinning a reel for 2 perch an hour. It has become both ridiculous & untenable for me. And as stated before, quite deliberate. Has the developer ever explained why they actually want to alienate players with 1000+hrs logged in? I am so confused with recent decisions & updates, surely it will backfire, won't it?

Backfiring or not will be measured in revenue. I am thinking the idea is to attract new players and get them into premium early on, while older players are into premium and micro transactions later on. Everybody in between is a bonus, an extra.

What I am trying to get at is that unless players stop spending money, it works as intended for the developers and nothing will ever change. It does not really matter if it works for you and me or 20 others, because we are just a small handful of the 10,000 daily players according to Steamcharts.

And that applies to many games, not just this game...

[CrazyHook]

Signed up in July, I liked the dynamics of how fishing is done, quite realistic. Made premium 1 month to support the game, I was low level and I believed that as I grew up I would improve the equipment that limited me, consequently by improving the equipment I would improve the catches.

Paid premium for another 3 months, when I reached level 20 I realized how disgusting this game is currently and in that period of time I must say that it has gotten even worse. With effort I got to level 32 (approximately).

Then in mid-September I abandoned the game, really bored and in disbelief at how everything had gotten worse. The pretty thing is that my premium expires this month...

They won't get any more money from me and if the company policy doesn't change, no problem: lost customer that advertise it for what it really is.