- Prior, you could catch Big Fish at 65 skill independently, not as bycatch of Sea Serp. I like the bycatch on Sea Serps but one must have 80 skill to catch one. I would like to see Big Fish caught independently again, perhaps at skill 70, while maintaining the Sea Serp bycatch (80 skill). - AFK Resource gathering aspect. The timer should go off after a period of time (15min? 5mins?) rather than random. I went to bathroom (2mins tops) and was in jail when I returned. I will give all my fish away to get out of jail. Also, it's not really resource gathering since fish/foods only benefit is to regain Stamina. If I were gathering marble, I would understand jail. Perhaps one could donate fish to local charity to leave? I have a few more suggestions on fishing but those are the main two on my mind right now. Curious on what others think. Thanks.
I believe Chris had a very good justification for the big fish change... I just can't find that thread atm The fishing AFK thing was argued before at great length (also lost that thread). If the system only challenged players when they pulled up a sea serpent or whatever, it wouldn't be very effective. Because all anyone would have to do would be turn the volume up on the computer while they went AFK for a while.... The roar of a sea serpent/fire breath = time to get back on, solve a puzzle, and collect a reward.
Big fish have always been obtainable at 95 skill, since the beta I think. Originally I think they could be fished up at 90 skill. The only two changes made recently to big fish spawning them on sea serpents like other fishing items. This allowed us to move the AFK check for fishing from 90 to 100 skill. We also attempted to adjust the drop rate to be slightly more rare than MIB's and they ended up being a bit to rare. This has already been adjusted for patch 38. As for the AFK check, it is rarely seen while fishing, and once you get a check you have 60 seconds to respond. The same advice we give everyone is to simply stop your macro's when you walk away. As rarely as our system checks, we feel that this is a reasonable request. On Renaissance we will always defer to players who are at the computer, watching the screen. Rather than making allowances for players who want to razor their way to success. In the end this is what keeps the economy stable and keeps inflation in check. The Anti AFK gather system Overall given that you have to defeat the monsters you pull up when fishing, there is no point in continuing to fish if you are not at the computer.
I guess I was going off the guide Gideon put together on big fish needing only skill of 65. However ever since they started spawning on serps, I have not caught one individually. I understand the stance on AFK and don't have issue with it however still believe it's different than logging or mining.
Fishing is resource gathering. MIB's yield gold and large amounts of items and there are plenty of EasyUO scripts out there to auto-fish, collecting MIBs, nets, TMaps and everything else you could want. I even remember one script that claimed it could auto-navigate to MIB locations, but I never tried it. In short, the Anit-AFK system is exactly as Chris describes it. It's what keeps this shard's economy from going the way of every other shard's: to the crapper. Now all of that being said, I have a middle-ground suggestion that I think would be an improvement over the current system: Set Big Fish required skill back to 90 (or 80 or whatever) but only catch-able in deep water.Only enable the Auto-AFK GUMP for deep water fishing. That way the skill is easily macroable to GM at the shore, but we also prevent AFK resource gathering (other than shoes...) As always, I defer to the experience and professionalism of our developers, and take their decisions as final. They have proven time and again that they know way more about UO development and game balance in general that the rest of us.
I think it already works like that? Big fish require a serpent kill, and serpents can only be raised in deep water. I raised 3 fishers from 0 to GM from shore and never got the AFK Gump during that time.
If it already works like that then I'm confused as to why the required skill for Big Fish was raised to GM.
