Wow! Did Neverwinter Just Kill Fishing at the Winter Festival?

So, uhm… some changes… are, uhm… interesting. I initially really didn’t put much thought into this year’s changes to the fishing mechanic at the Winter Festival. That’s mainly because I haven’t been farming fish the last two years and didn’t plan to do it this year. But I of course checked out the changes, and really, it’s bad.

Now for those that aren’t completely sure what I’m talking about here. The game since module 10 featured two different fishing mechanics. The one in the Sea of Moving Ice and Chult replaces the character’s powers and acts like an independent mini game. The Winter Festival on the contrary always had its own version of “fishing”. It primarily nets Light of Simril, one of the currencies that you can buy rewards for, and was basically just a simple interaction with the ice holes on the event map.

Fishing Got Even More Boring

For this year’s Winter Festival, the devs then decided to bring fishing in line, and replace the “old” one from the event with the “new” one from SoMI. It might not sound like a big deal, except that the process now takes significantly longer. And that’s not great, because fishing in Twilight Tor is nothing else than boring grind that just got even more boring. On top of that, the new fishing requires lure that you have to buy with Gold or Astral Diamonds. In the old variant, the basic interaction was free, but you could buy optional boosts. Oh, and good luck getting five fish of the same type for the intro quest. Spoiler: It can take a while!

The official reasoning for it is botting by the way, as stated by Community Manager Julia on stream on Tuesday. I’d still say the change was completely uncalled-for. It just added a ton of inconvenience to the whole mechanic for players while, guess what, bots will simply adjust. You believe that the same scripts that botted SoMI won’t work in Twilight Tor? C’mon now! At the very least the devs could have adjusted fishing in a way that you get the same amount of currency out of your time. It’s puzzling that you replace a grind that already didn’t have too great rewards attached to it with something even more annoying.

Less Fish Than Before

And that’s not even the only issue. In the module 15 workshop system, fishing now also nets the resources for the vendor that replaced the former Lightcrafting Profession. It means that in the now bigger loot table, you might get less stuff you actually want. Overall it’s a big mess and once again something you feel the devs haven’t entirely thought through unless they actually meant to nerf Winter Festival fishing in the process.

The best news might be that fishing already wasn’t very profitable and now you have an easy reason to completely skip it. In case you want stuff from the Lights of Simril vendor, just run gift parties or consider trading in your Stars of Fortune during the Festival’s Zenith. There are multiple threads complaining about the change on the official forum by the way, but even if they want to I doubt that the devs will be able to revert the change for this year. Although this doesn’t have as much impact on my own gameplay experience, it’s still  a major “wtf” change. There have to be smarter ways of getting rid of bots without punishing legit players as much.


What is your take on the new fishing? Are you as bewildered as I am? Share your thoughts on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit our message board!

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j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.

28 thoughts on “Wow! Did Neverwinter Just Kill Fishing at the Winter Festival?

  • December 22, 2018 at 9:06 am
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    Took me 1/2 hr the first day to get one of the 5 fish groups I needed for quest. What a waste. No reason to do it AT ALL unless you are that bored with life.

  • December 22, 2018 at 9:53 am
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    if the neverending grinding of skt was not enough the add that stupid fishing crap, then to chult and now the cancer spread to a time limited event and for absolutely nothing, if they used the time replacing the fishing system in winter event to fix the wrongs in the game maybe, MAYBE somebody will ever be somehow pleased with the game!

  • December 22, 2018 at 10:24 am
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    These guys would fuck up a football bat! (For non Americans – that means bad!). Seriously, have they pooled every reject in the gaming industry and put them in the same cubicle to work on Neverwinter? I bet the amount of drool and broken crayons in that place is amazing!

    • December 22, 2018 at 12:28 pm
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      @ZenMarketWarrior
      You mean they could not pour piss out of their boots if the instructions were written on the heel?

  • December 22, 2018 at 11:12 am
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    I can’t decide which of these two possibilities is worse: that they didn’t test it, or that they tested this and thought it was a good idea. The former is sloppy, the later is superbly evil.

    • December 22, 2018 at 2:09 pm
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      The Devs are lazy to a nearly cartoonish level. My guess is that they did not test it, but…there is no way for me to know for sure

  • December 22, 2018 at 11:29 am
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    The worst part is how long it takes to get five of the same kind of fish. If they had made it any five fish, it might at least be tolerable. Luckily the rewards for that event daily aren’t substantial, so it’s fine to skip. Plenty of better things to do with one’s time.

  • December 22, 2018 at 11:37 am
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    And don’t forget replacing a perfectly good already grinded (is that a word?) fishing rod with a new crappy version.

  • December 22, 2018 at 12:29 pm
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    I SO agree, j0Shi. I listed my Top Ten Reasons on your earlier blog.

  • December 22, 2018 at 2:32 pm
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    All of this complaining makes me laugh, obviously none of you have ever fished in Final Fantasy 11, where fishing wasn’t a grind, it is was your life. It took two years for me to go from level 1 to level 100 for my fishing skill. “2 YEARS” the fishing in neverwinter is easy compared to that.

    • December 22, 2018 at 5:06 pm
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      Comparing two games in which fishing probably served a completely different purpose is hard though. If fishing in NW was a true profession that you could level and do other stuff with, people would obviously judge this differently. For how annoying it has become, there are simply too little incentives attached to it.

    • December 22, 2018 at 5:25 pm
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      You must absolutely hate yourself. What you just described sounds like self flagellation.

  • December 22, 2018 at 5:29 pm
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    Absolutely hate the new fishing. In fact I have been avoiding SOMI for a while now, fishing being one of the reasons. I did the Winter Fest fishing as it was an easy F key click and kill a few undead.

    I have no idea what the devs are thinking. Nickle and dime’ing us, I actually understand as they are trying to gen revenue. Even selling bait I at least get if not hate. But the garbage reeling mech is complete BS.

  • December 22, 2018 at 5:57 pm
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    “Botting” in Winter Festival fishing? To what end?

    And yeah, SOMI style fishing sucks. If I wanted to engage in that style of fishing, I’d be spending my days in SOMI. My 999 Krill on my character sheet indicates that I don’t.

  • December 23, 2018 at 7:19 am
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    I hate the new fishing, I think the devs really dont care about their paying players. I pay for VIP every month, I try to support, but all Ove seen is punishment for an obscure minority everywhere. I thought the ban hammer was bad but these changes are getting worst. Its taking the fun out of the game. This game should be run like a D&D game, focusing on fun rather than solely mechanics which is what theyre doing.

  • December 23, 2018 at 9:56 am
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    Not reached the SOMI fishing bit, but will give it a pass if that’s where the got the idea for messing up the Winter Festival fishing bit!
    If theyret planning on making that important I guess i’ll be looking for something else to play!

  • December 24, 2018 at 4:11 am
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    I use to do the fishing on a few toons, now I skip it altogether. One less thing to do at this festival.

  • December 24, 2018 at 2:48 pm
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    Fishing has been a waste of time for the last 4 years. The first year was exciting because it introduced a healer companion (fawn) that was special in those days. The only healing companions in the game was the Cleric Disciple and Lillend. We wouldn’t get our hands on the prized Angel of Protection for another several months. And there was profit to be made selling the heal shitting dear. By the following year there was no real profit to be made from selling the winter fest loot outside of the gift parties. A part of that depreciation in value can be attributed to fishing bots.

    I feel most people are arguing about this the wrong way. They are screaming the new system sucks and o course cryptics response is that its necessary to counteract bots. People should be focusing on having the loot table modified (maybe it has and we just don’t know it). That’s where I’d focus my crying for those who think the event is worth crying about.

    One good thing no one seems to be talking about is the introduction of a mechanic to acquire better fishing equipment for SOMI/Chult outside of rng farming treasure maps in SOMI.

    • December 28, 2018 at 1:18 pm
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      Loot table vs grindiness seems to be the same discussion. It’s just not worth the time for most. But you’re right that fishing was only great the first year and camping currency inclusion hasn’t been able to add enough incentive to revive it. This is very minor, yet still a weird change.

      SoMI pole is an interesting aspect that we might add to the article or festival guide. Thanks!

  • December 26, 2018 at 8:51 pm
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    This is the straw that broke the camel’s back. I know for a fishing minigame in a seasonal event to be what does it may seem strange, but I have been waiting and hoping for them to undo the damage of Elemental Evil and put that content back in. It never happened, Yeah we got a few dungeons back, but many are still missing and oh how I miss the old Gauntylgrym. Continual nerfs, mod 15 I consider Elemental Evil light, removing salvage and the horrendous profession overhaul. I am just done.

      • December 28, 2018 at 12:37 am
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        The problem with the dungeons that they brought back is that they have huge areas walled off and missing, to streamline them for speed runners.

        • December 28, 2018 at 8:02 pm
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          how do you know?

          • December 29, 2018 at 4:40 am
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            How do I know what?

            I know that they walled off many side caverns, hidden crypts and other areas like Daughter of Lolth from Mod 6 onwards because I’ve played since Mod 2 and used to explore and loot absolutely everything. Yes, they called me Neverwinter FOOOOL! for never leaving junk on the ground, but I started Mod 15 with >19,000 gold, Legit. Just never loot during combat in those days, or you’d block people’s screen.

            I know that they are still missing because I still play, and I know that one reason they did it was because the Devs said on the official forum that one objective was to comply with the wishes of the player base to have smoother, faster, slicker runs with fewer side areas to distract them.

            Shame they could not have left the dungeon layouts as they were and left it to the payers to organise Speed Runs or Explore & Loot runs, as they wished.

            I doubt they have changed their strategy for Epic Dread Vault, Lair of the Mad Dragon and Throne of Idris.

            Are they even bringing back Fardelver’s Crypt and Dwarf King Crypt?

          • December 30, 2018 at 2:23 pm
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            only 19k, did you take a long break or something?

            I’m not talking about the module 6 dungeons, I’m talking about the tales of old. So your are attacking cryptic for an assumed modification to the Tales of Old? Or do you have inside knowledge?

            They already brought back Fardelver’s Crypt and Dwarf King Crypt in adventure content. I doubt they would bring them back as dungeons at this point. Not that they were ever really dungeons seeing how short they were.. If they did she they not block off the water area of Fardelver’s so you could run to the end, or would that be another reason to rage about missing content?

  • December 30, 2018 at 7:29 pm
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    Are you drunk? Or mentally ill? Either way, you are clearly delusional, intellectually dishonest and paranoid by proxy. Are you an official forum moderator? Zeb, is that you? Or is it Manic, the moderator wannabe?

    I am not attacking anyone, nor am I raging. I said:
    The problem with the dungeons that they brought back is that they have huge areas walled off and missing, to streamline them for speed runners.

    and I said:
    Shame they could not have left the dungeon layouts as they were and left it to the payers to organise Speed Runs or Explore & Loot runs, as they wished.

    In what alternate reality could that be considered attacking or raging?

    Once again, the incident took place in the imagination of a Putz. You did not even mention Tales of Old, you said that the old dungeons were back. Are they back exactly as they were before Mod 6? Because that would be interesting, to solo Epic Dread Vault with my weakest Alt.

    • December 31, 2018 at 5:48 pm
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      I didn’t say you raged, i said you attacked and you did by saying “The problem with the dungeons that they brought back is that they have huge areas walled off and missing”. OS maybe attacked isn’t the right word for it. You bitched is perhaps a better phrase or maybe just complained or you may have felt a bit bemoaned?

      We do not know if they are back as they were in terms of scale. What we know is covered in the video that was linked which discusses the Tales of Old. I didn’t mention “Tales of Old” because the video does. Shall I transcribe the video for you and post it here?

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