PC Fishing OP?

[Lord Zeoinx]

This isnt a topic to nerf fishing, or change its mechanics, especially since I enjoy its current implementation, but I started up a new world on my laptop for when Im at work during downtime, or when I wanna lay in bed and not take the game as seriously as I normally would with a full desktop playthrough, and one of the pass times I took up in the game is fishing, since it mirrors how fishing works pretty much in WoW. Simple, relaxing and easy to perform. But then, I started noticing, I dont really need to do anything in the game BUT fish for most of the early game ores, and by that, I dont need to worry about digging in the ground, or even having to fight a boss to get Corruption or Crimson ore to create high tier Pickaxe and Saw. You start off fishing in the grassy typical spawn biome, get a few or so random crates, usually you end up with at minimal some ore, and a Tsunami in a bottle, combine that with any surface chests you find, or minimal cave diving, and you basicly just set yourself up with at least a Platinum//Gold Sword, a double jump, some rope (From chests) and possible full set of minimal copper//tin armor. If you managed to find a few quest fish along that like I did, you now have yourself with some possible fishing buff potions, which you then take to the ocean, and long behold (cause it didnt take me that long to get) the Reaver Shark Pickaxe and Sawtooth Fish chainsaw. (Along with a ton of random assortment of bombfish, shrimp, More chests, and other food fish)

All this, and I didnt even fight the Eye of Cthulhu.

Before I started fishing, or even before fishing was added, it was go mining, get basic gear, then save up for Store guy, get some throwing stars, use those on eye of cthulhu, kill him, get new sword (Corruption), go mining, get Gold Gear, maybe some other random loot, survive possible goblin horde, get goblin tinker, get spiky balls, completely dominate, and then proceed to farm the Eater of Worlds Boss, get full Corruption gear, then things speed up, quickly farm out Jungle gear, save gold for mini shark, use mini shark and spiky balls to own the Skeleton Guardian protecting the entrance of the dungeon, go in dungeon, get the loot in there, and farm for your Necro Armor set, then prepare for hell, or farm the Bee Queen boss for full bee gear, then get your lava gear, and if you didnt already metorite, and finish off with the Wall of Flesh, Now with Fishing, you kinda skip all the hard and annoying to deal with early on mining, and just sit peacefully on the surface fishing away your days and collecting bugs with minimal resistance to get your early gear.

Is this to much for less risk or is the time commitment equal to the simplicity of it all...

 

[Altitudo]

Well, it adds a bit of variety, I guess. In my opinion fishing isn't very overpowered. With fishing you have to wait for the merchant, buy a bug net and acquire sufficient bait (which I believe can be a hassle sometimes), wait for a bite, and reel in at the right time. With mining and exploring, you craft the appropriate items (torches etc), go exploring, and while doing so you can also find accessories and upgrade your equipment. For both tactics, it also depends on how lucky you are. Like if you decide to explore a good cave system rich in ore and items, or with fishing, the chance of reeling in crates and certain fish, and reeling in at the right time. (I guess both could be made easier with potions). I'd argue that mining would be quicker than waiting to get something good from fishing, but then again, I've never taken the time to fish a lot early game. I'd say fishing would be a fun alternative to mining and exploring, but I think both are balanced enough. For now.

 

[Lord Zeoinx]

I was more concerned about the : Reward VS Risk issue.

 

[Roxie]

While I agree that fishing is a very strong mechanic in the game that can be abused I don't do it in the same way you do exactly. I only play expert-hardcore Terraria worlds as of now so I find that opening up crates early game to not be that valuable, as I can get much better gear with much less hassle. What I like to do is store up a good collection of crates from pre-hardmode then by time I beat the WoF I can simply just open them all up and at the very minimum craft the most basic tools I need to mine ores and possibly fashion myself some form of armour set with whatever other spare ores I can get, depending if I get enough ores or not.

Is this cheap? Yeah, it really is, but, playing these kinds of runs makes me think these kind of mechanics are extremely helpful to ease some of the burden when the world has that massive spike on power and you haven't caught up to it yet. If I'm ever playing a casual run though, I don't really bother with fishing outside of getting a few basic fish to make some pots.

 

[Sigma90]

For most people, fishing is too boring and tedious to garner OP complaints. In my opinion, yes, some fishing items are OP at the stage you can attain them. The Reaver Shark, for example, can mine up to and including Cobalt. Aside from killing ore-based tier progression, I don't think the developers intended Crim/Ebonstone or Dungeon Bricks to be breakable so early either. (I think @Xylia has a suggestion thread about getting Reaver Shark and going straight to Hellstone gear.)

But the time required to attain them can be so long I'd guess few people bother.