Region (NA/EU): NA

Suggestion(s)/Comment(s): In addition to the largest fish caught in a week, reward players who caught the most of those fish in a week. The exact implementation is up for consideration.

Details: The current system of fish size is, to our knowledge, complete RNG, and contributes to making the current implementation of the fishing contest not particularlly compelling.  I'd personally rather fish my go-to silver spot for the guarenteed silver than waste a week at random spots for less silver and most likely no reward.  My thought in response to this conclusion is that, somehow, the number of fish players' catch during the week should also be a factor in determining rewards.  Not a replacement for size entirely, but reward players who dedicate their efforts to a single fish or spot.
 
Some potential ideas for implementation:

 1. Have each player's size score for the contest be the average of their largest 5-10 of a contest fish species caught.
(Still RNG, but softens by requiring consistency.)

 2. Split the 100 rewards per contest fish species across two categories: largest single fish size, and most fish caught in the week.
(Ideally can only win one prize per fish.)

 3. Determine a well-balanced metric that takes both size and number of contest fish caught into consideration to determine a player's score each week.
 

A rough idea for #3:

Where all numbers are specific to a contest fish: "player's max size Grouper", "Grouper average size", etc.

Where FISH_RARITY is a value based on the tier of the fish, to balance relative catch rates.  For example: blue = 1000, gold = 500, red = 100.

Assuming a contest gold fish species (max 80, avg 30), a lucky player (80 max, 100 caught) scores 91 (80+11), a dedicated player (55 max, 400 caught) scores 84 (55+29), and a lucky and dedicated player (80 max, 300 caught) scores 102 (80+22).  Likely would need further refinement, if considered.

anything other than RNG lottery please and thank you

AGREE

or bring back the total catch requirement for certain size limits so that people who dedicate themselves to fishing a certain spot have an advantage at that spot, as they SHOULD

Hmm, that is a good idea: needing to catch X of the fish minimum to be able to participate.  It doesn't solve my key concern of the current system being pure luck, though.  It just cuts out people who get lucky quick then run off.

Hard disagree

There is nothing wrong with the current system besides it not being lucritive enough. Catching more fish means more attempts at the leaderboard already.

Adding an extra requirement to participation is just gatekeeping the system. Why would you want to lock fresh faces out of content.

If my interpretation of your suggestion is incorrect, and you're suggesting EVERY fish you catch at ANY spot be a factor, you're making the system needlessly complex when you could make it lucrative in other ways.

A better suggestion would be to add a special jackpot prized fish that shows in in the loot table for every valid zone for a given contest. (and a filler one that activates in the cases where a table has no reds otherwise so you're not pulling the jackpot 100% of the time.)This would make the contest spots worth afk fishing for money in their own right.

Again, the idea proposed by December addresses a potential concern of a player getting a lucky cast first, then running off to another spot. A minimum catch of a fish to participate requirement can be scaled to not be significantly restrictive: as low as 20 blue, 10 gold, 2 red.  Prize aside, any player should be able to fulfill that in a day or so.

I'm not sure of your interpretation, but my initial suggestions are limited to the specific fishing contest fish.  It's how many "Groupers" you catch, not how many "gold fish", for instance.  The intent is that a player who persists at a spot is rewarded for those efforts.  Additionally, a player who tries to do all three fishing spots is disadvantaged unless they are exceedingly lucky.

The fishing contest rewards are what is making those spots temporarily valuable, especially for newer fishers.  Likewise, when a fish in the pool of an existing silver spot is in the contest, that would most likely detract the silver value by diluting the prize fish pool.

If the silver differences of each spot is an issue, then my suggestion would be to distribute all prize fish to all valid spots (fresh vs salt), though that is unlikely as it would avoid the Abundant/Exhausted system that balances locations based on player behavior.

Half that of a minimum could work. Not everyone has high mastery and lose out on the orange fishes as a whole (0 catches with lots of effort that week), if you want to include fresh faces it can't get too hard. Then it scares away new players. 

The three tiers and options exist for a reason.  I'd argue that a newer player who hasn't had the opportunity to build up mastery yet shouldn't be trying to get the red/prize fish for the rankings.  The rewards are the same between the tiers, so start with green/blue, invest what you get each week into the accessories to break into prize/red.

2 red contest fish is the minimum value for setting a limit, going by my original premise of not rewarding players for one/few lucky catches.  (My personal goal is to encourage players to focus on one fish a week, two at most, with it being difficult to get rewards for all three.)

the problem is that it is not 100% random.

the more fishes you catch the higher the chance of getting bigger fishes gets. and not only because of more tries = better. no but because the total catch count increases the size of the fishes.

we of cause do not know 100% how that system works and if or what parts got changed with the fishing event thing.

1) make it one a month

2) everyone that catches more then x fish will get the minimun reward

3) the persons being on rank 1, 2, 3 all time catch size get the rewards

4) the persons having fished the heaviest (lt / kg) fish durring the events also can win place 1, 2 and 3. how heavy the fish is is TOTAL random.

5) if you want make active fishing have two rolls on the fish size, giving it a higher chance overall, without making it unfair / unreachable for others

Career catch contributes to fish size? -_-'  That is silly, relative to this contest.

I like what is here other than #3.  Not sure I like the idea of having a career catch being rewarded, potentially repeatedly (not often in practice, I know) if no one is luckier.