Ideas to balance fishing

[TROY]

59 minutes ago, Mroz4k said:

That is rather ignorant viewpoint. Most survival kits offer only empty hook, no tackles or spoons - and you can still catch a fish on it, even without bait, if you try hard enough. I have a friend who tried it once (he left his equipment at home and was too lazy) and caught a simply on hook, after which he decided to get some ringworms on-site to increase his chances. But I guess we could argue that the baits are made out of food scraps, the same way bottles just appear out of thin air (human garbage is ever-present so I never really questioned that part too much, either).  Chances to catch fish on an empty hook are not that impossible.

First, let me start by saying I mean this only a means of education. I have no wish to re-kindle an arguement, but you may wish I had left you blocked...    

The idea that fishing without bait is unlikely to produce results is not ignorant. Its an accepted fact.  Why do you think mankind BEGAN using bait to fish with?  Posting youtube vids showing some guy doing it doesnt make it common or viable. I can find vids on youtube about monkeys getting pregnant by martian invaders... doesnt make it a good way to get a baby monkey for a pet. 

There ARE certain species of both salt and fresh water fish that its easy to do so, because they travel in huge schools, and compete fiercely for food, thus attacking anything that moves. Those kinds of fish however, are not the types we are fishing for in the game, and they are not the types you would be fishing for through a hole in the ice.  What @Ruruwawa said about the fish not moving in cold water is absolutely true, and this is why you wouldnt simply catch one on a bare hook.  In the winter, the water is extremely cold, and the fish are extremely sluggish, both from the cold, and lack of stuff to eat. The little minnows arent moving around either, so theres less food available for them. Even a normally aggressive fish isn't going to expend his energy checking out something shiny for shits and giggles. This is why minnows are used as bait for ice fishing. When you pierce them with the hook, it serves two purposes: 1) It injures them, and triggers attack instincts in predator fish, and 2), it makes them swim around when they normally wouldnt, trying to escape the hook, and thus increasing the chances of coming into contact with said predator fish who ARENT moving around. 

Please let this go, and accept that you've assigned an assumption to something that simply isn't true.  I spent many years as a licensed professional fishing guide, and when you're getting paid to help folks catch fish, it's a good idea to know a little more than the average joe about fishing. On top of that, I've actually ice fished, many many times, each and every single winter, for over 45 years, and I can tell you with absolute dead certainty, if you dont put bait on the hook, you're gonna wait a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong ass time before you pull up a fish. I hope your rabbit snares did well. 

[Mroz4k]

Let me stop you right there. I skimmed over past of it because even though you probably didnt intended it, its still very provocative to me, seems you cant bite down that I have my own opinion on something and its different to yours. I may not have your experience, but I am rather intelligent and well educated, I think both of us are about equally arrogant and stubborn. And I do have SOME experience, as much as my location and life allows me.

I never said it was easy. I simply said it was possible. It is possible - the only point I was trying to make here was that it is not as impossible as people think it is.
It obviously is far more difficult than fishing with a bait on. Especially in winter lakes when fish are hardly active.
I also never said that adding baits makes no difference, which is something you suggested is my claim. Never did say that. Obviously, adding a bait does make a difference, and a grand one in that. It is intended to imitate prey in the water. The whole point of using live baits is to injure them and make them move, which then triggers the predatorial instinct in the bigger fish, just like you said. It is exactly what I would have done, even if you didnt say it right now, if I was in a situation like that in TLD. I dont dissagree with anything you said in particular to one thing - that fishing on a bare hook is impossible. It is no doubt hard, but it is possible.

Either way, this is not worth an argument over. I stand by my opinion, lets leave it at that. I dont see "bare hooks" in TLD as a big problem, because like it was already mentioned in this thread, we can assume that the survivor is smart enough to put some bits on it to imitate the bait. In a survival situation, I would probably experiment around a bit, with what I believe would be the next best thing to imitate a living bait (hard to find insects in northern Canada, small fish would do the trick but you would need to catch those first anyway), so I expect I would put on a piece of cloth, put some food bits, a small strip of meat or even a piece of seaweed, rope, something... as opposed to using a simple empty hook.

I am not an ignorant to think that baits make next to no difference at all, I know they do. I respect your experience, @TROY, but I hope you can respect the fact that my opinion may be somewhat different to yours. I believe catching a fish on an empty hook is possible, albeit highly unlikely.

[TROY]

You're right, it's not impossible, but its implausible. Enough so that surviving on the number of fish you caught, while ice fishing, would be impossible. Catching a fish that way would be exceptionally rare- unreliable at best.  I don't think you are brainless, or uneducated. In this digital age, it's easy to believe something that you've found information on, if you don't have personal experience to know better. From what I know about you, it's clear that you are fairly smart, and that you think about and analyze things in very intelligent ways.  I'm only arrogant when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt from personal experience that I'm correct about something. Stubborn. Yes, I'm all of that and then some, on a good day.   I'm glad we found something we can agree on.  

[Mroz4k]

Yea, what bothers me most is the lack of experience I have in general, I actually HAD to go to the States because I couldnt stand the confinment of the central Europe, and the lack of free nature in here (joke is on me for going, in the end I didnt see nothing of the US nature anyways due to my work conditions). I suppose I wouldnt argue it that much if I didnt have a friend who actually pulled it off, twice in a row, and who boasts about it over a beer (but I trust he is not bullshiting) - but the points are true, that especially in such cold conditions, the fish would move very sparingly to save up their own calories, and expecting anything to bite on an empty hook would be equal to dancing naked and praying for a rain to come on a sunny day in a desert. I doubt my friend has experience ice fishing, and even if he did, it is something entirely different to fish in a pond in central Europe where many people fish and often release the fish back to water, and some isolated, wild natural pond in northern America where fish hardly ever get to taste the fisherman´s hook.

It is horrible, being born with those genes of our ancestors, constantly feeling that calling of nature, and being unable to realize it because you live in the middle of biggest pool of civilization, where the closest wild forest is 1000 km to east in Ukraine. Have a buddy with whom I am planning an expedition there, just so we can calm that voice in us for a bit. Not much of a room I have for gathering experience in here

Sorry folks, for going rather off-topic.

[cekivi]

Hey guys, no need to get into a big argument. Bait does work wonders but you can certainly catch fish on bare hooks too. As you both pointed out it is just a LOT harder. 

Fun fact, I actually snared a fish once by accident while trolling in the summer so weird things can happen! But I've only managed that once in 20 years of fishing so...  

[deathbydanish]

I'm not much of a fisherman myself, but a casual search on google indicated that you could simply use animal gut as bait. I figure one gut form a rabbit would do the trick, I know at a certain point I had piles of the stuff laying on the floor of my dwelling

[TROY]

18 minutes ago, deathbydanish said:

I'm not much of a fisherman myself, but a casual search on google indicated that you could simply use animal gut as bait. I figure one gut form a rabbit would do the trick, I know at a certain point I had piles of the stuff laying on the floor of my dwelling

I'm not so sure it would work well with ice fishing, but its really the best option we have IF a bait system were to be implemented.  Once a fish is caught, then IT could be turned into bait that would be more effective.  To be honest, I'm quite fine with "pretending" that my survivor has baited that hook with whatever was available. I don't really want to see the ice fishing mechanic made more complicated by the addition of needing to spend time manufacturing bait, and applying it to the hook after every single catch.  Ice fishing is one of the few things in the game where a player can actually relax and have a bit of fun. It's an escape from the harsh reality of the quiet apocalypse, a "recreation activity" if you will, that has the added bonus of stocking the larder. 

[Mroz4k]

2 hours ago, cekivi said:

Hey guys, no need to get into a big argument. Bait does work wonders but you can certainly catch fish on bare hooks too. As you both pointed out it is just a LOT harder. 

Fun fact, I actually snared a fish once by accident while trolling in the summer so weird things can happen! But I've only managed that once in 20 years of fishing so...  

No argument was made, pretty sure we both want to avoid those as those really lead nowhere

As for the "snares" - glad you brought that up. This is something I would love to see in the game - an ability to set fishing snares. It would take up to 5 fishing tackles and one or two cured guts, plus a stone and a stick at least, but man, those things can be really useful... for 5 hooks, thats chance to catch up to 5 fish per trap. Could get ruined and would need more fishing tackles to repair it, but honestly, I feel like in terms of "neccesities" it makes more sense to set a fishing snare then sit by a freezing hole, waiting for fish to bite (though I agree with TROY that fishing in TLD is a great for relaxation).

[cekivi]

@Mroz4k: In my case it was a literal snare. My line got tangled up in itself and somehow a pike managed to wrap the whole assembly three times around its head!

What you're proposing is actually used and is even mentioned in survival handbooks. The bonus is that you set it up and walk away and catch multiple fish. While a good idea in real life... I can't really think of how it'd be balanced in the game. I agree with @TROY that ice fishing is the closest we have to a recreational activity. It'd be nice if it had more depth but making it even easier to catch fish is probably not a good idea.

[Mroz4k]

Dont think it would be that great, think about it:
You have to break open the ice to set the snare, and again once the snare is set, to collect it. The catch could be from nothing at all the way to 5 fish, of course - and the trapping time would be 24 hours. Now the snare itself is rather expensive in terms of resources, and the point here being that "each fishing tackle" has a chance to catch a fish, as well as a chance to be "torn off" - meaning that you would get, say 2 fish and 2 of your fishing tackles woulc be ruined, so to repair it, you would need to add two new fishing tackles to the trap. Not sure how well would such a trap fair against the bigger fish - I expect the catch would mostly be only the smaller fishes, too.

The tackles would not be quaranteed to catch anything, same with rabbit snares. So, chances are you come back, break open the ice for the second time, and nothing in there...

Sure, there would be plenty of bonuses, but there could also be quite a bit of downsides to it to make it balanced. 

[cekivi]

True but it would still be difficult. The balance with fishing right now (which still has decent odds to wreck your tackle) is the need to stay warm while fishing. Admittedly, this is resource management as well (wood as opposed to hooks). However, with scrap metal being a renewable resource now the loss of the occasional set of fishing tackle is much less impactful to a late game player who likely already has many sets. 

[TheHunter280]

In my post I've said. Which mean that the old way is still there but it's cool to know the community feeling about fishing right now.

Quote

"-Spoon Line

Craftable with a line and a spoon at any place, it work like the old tackle but you can't sew with it (At least they can be stackable) and it's chance to catch lower"

 

[deathbydanish]

On 9/12/2017 at 10:57 AM, TROY said:

I'm not so sure it would work well with ice fishing, but its really the best option we have IF a bait system were to be implemented.  Once a fish is caught, then IT could be turned into bait that would be more effective.  To be honest, I'm quite fine with "pretending" that my survivor has baited that hook with whatever was available. I don't really want to see the ice fishing mechanic made more complicated by the addition of needing to spend time manufacturing bait, and applying it to the hook after every single catch.  Ice fishing is one of the few things in the game where a player can actually relax and have a bit of fun. It's an escape from the harsh reality of the quiet apocalypse, a "recreation activity" if you will, that has the added bonus of stocking the larder. 

Well I was thinking if you got a really low weight fish, I'd say use that as bait for bigger fish. Although for me I was really wanting just another way to use the gut piles I had built up.

[cekivi]

The fish offal could be used as bait and you'd still have a fish to eat. That'd require an updated cooking system though.