Family Name: Carp

Region (NA/EU): EU

Create a clear, actionable blueprint for modernising Fishing (and possibly other lifeskills) in order to improve depth, engagement and profitability.

One key focus is on active play, in line with the philosophy of the successful Green Thumb update for gathering. The aim is not to simply buff existing AFK gains even further, but to introduce meaningful progression, appropriate active-play rewards, and quality‑of‑life (QoL) improvements.

1.1 Current State of Fishing

• Hotspot & Harpoon fishing do not scale with mastery - which is currently the only progression system.
• Active fishing is uncompetitive and possibly the worst active lifeskill in the game.
• AFK fishing monopolises a handful of locations, with few alternatives all providing almost equal loot.
• Mastery as a progression system is extremely linear and the complexity of Fishing Mastery is underwhelming.
• Despite recent additions like Prize Catches and the Weekly Fishing Contest, long-standing concerns remain unaddressed.

1.2 Context

Players across all regions feel ignored with their feedback. This feeling is not exclusive to the fishing community but a much broader issue. Language or cultural gaps may exist, but complete silence is unacceptable.

While trust has been strained, we would still love to set a positive example.

This open letter aims to reopen a functional two-way feedback channel. For this, we strongly suggest:

• A clear acknowledgement of this proposal
• A public roadmap update
• A named Liaison to facilitate ongoing communication

1.3 Personal Note

I've been fishing back in 2016, when it was one of the very few lifeskills in the game. It brought people together - whether it was through guild missions, hotspot trips, or just chatting on a boat with strangers. I want to see active fishing return as a fun, rewarding and viable part of the game.

Hopefully this proposal will help achieve that!

P1. Active vs Passive Fishing

Symptoms

• AFK fishing (150 m/h) has similar yields to active Hotspot Fishing (200 m/h) when optimized.
• Harpooning is even worse.
• Bite Times in Hotspots are higher than most regular waters.
• No Prize Fish obtainable from Hotspots (active fishing does not scale with mastery at all)
• Fishing Resource Mechanics negatively affect active fishing.
• Fishing Chair animation delays affect active fishing (animation lock & slower casts).

Impact

• Exploration and effort have no appropriate economic value.
• Players avoid engaging with active content and resign to remain AFK or close the game instead.
• Players need to avoid equipping the Fishing Chair while active fishing.
• Overall reduced playtime and interest in the game.

P2. Zone Balance & Variety

Symptoms

• Profits are tied to Yellow Corvina & Blue Bat Star.
• “Fishing Resource” system fails to rotate value between zones.
• Lack of Variety: High Profit is exclusive to fishing zones with high rates of Yellow Corvina & Blue Bat Star

Impact

• Velia is heavily overused and there are few alternatives to consider.
• Almost all other regions are irrelevant and the world feels empty.
• All profitable spots are permanently exhausted.
• Everyone catches and sells the same fish.
• 80% price floor across the board

P3. Hostility towards Cooperative Play

Symptoms

• Needless Competitiveness in a lot of systems.
• Hotspots disappear much faster with more players.
• Fishing Resources are drained faster with more players.
• Fishing Contest Rewards are much harder to obtain, the more players are participating.

Impact

• Players actively avoid other players.
• Players have no opportunities to socialize and form communities.
• Players avoid participation in Fishing Contest, when chances to win are exceedingly slim.
• The game encourages hostile behaviour towards other players.
• The game encourages gatekeeping of knowledge.

P4. Trade Mechanics

Symptoms

• 80% price floor
• Unpredictable trade values
• Competitive imperial turn-in caps
• The price curve will suddenly drop from 130% down to 105%.
• The value shown when selling a full inventory does not account for trade prices dropping when selling fish, and is thus incorrect.

Impact

• Players focus on finding “perfect” prices, which is perceived as waste of their time.
• Demotivation due to needless and frustrating competitiveness.
• Price curve dropping by a large margin immediately is unexpected, frustrating and may appear to players as if it was a bug.
• Distrust in price accuracy and integrity of the game’s code.

P5. Mastery & Gear Progression

Symptoms

• Most Stats on End-game gear are meaningless (e.g. Fishing Level, Chance to catch x group).
• The best Lightstone Set is a combat related Set “Blacksmith’s Blessings”.
• Mastery is the only progression system.
• The effect of fishing mastery is very simple in complexity and boring.
• Mastery above 2000 yields little to no return.
• Fishing Groups interplay is unintuitive (“Chance to catch x group” reduces prize fish rates).

Impact

• Lack of variety in gear choices
• No incentive to invest or progress beyond 2000 mastery
• Investing in Mastery above 2000 is effectively wasted opportunity cost.
• Using Floats like Ash-/Maple-Float decreases profits (instead of increasing them).
• Even the Prize Catch Rate of the Character Profile is automatically incorrect and effectively lower than displayed.

P6. Bugs & Functionality Issues

Symptoms

• Frequent disconnects
• Auto-fishing doesn’t resume properly after reconnecting.
• Harpooning regularly glitches out and doesn’t work on most boats.
• Shai class stuck at 81% DRR, due to lack of Item Effect of awakening weapon skin.
• Fishing for extended periods requires the PC to remain on continuously.
• Fishing Chair locks you inside chair animation which is hard to exit and slower than fishing without a chair.
• Cannot sell fish anymore when using the Tag system.

Impact

• Frustration and disengagement
• Maintaining optimal setups involves real-world monetary cost over time.

P7. Underwhelming Systems

Symptoms

• The use of Energy on fishing is extremely unrewarding.
• The Fishing Mastery effect is very boring & uninspired.
• The Weekly Size Contest is too RNG-based.
• Mystical Fish Quest lacks meaningful rewards (proper treasure item).
• Harpooning lacks depth or reward and the minigame is painful to play.
• Harpooning is bloated with lots of non-harpoon exclusive fish, making title hunting nearly impossible.

Impact

• Existing systems are ignored by players.
• Players stop engaging with Harpooning or the Weekly Contest.
• Players have no motivation to go after an existing treasure item since there is virtually no reward for doing it.

P8. Community Trust

Symptoms

• Existing systems are ignored by players.
• Forum posts and feedback go unanswered.
• No visible feedback loop on years of forum suggestions and issues.
• Some changes to the systems are not communicated clearly via Patch Notes.
• Removal of Feedback Phases (e.g. Discussing, Applied), Compare:
• Introduction of Adventurer Feedback Board to NA/EU https://www.naeu.playblackdesert.com/en-US/News/Detail?groupContentNo=4141 https://youtu.be/oQgVVmirrYwCurrent
• Feedback Board NA/EU https://www.naeu.playblackdesert.com/en-US/Forum/Home/FeedBack was removed and redirects to https://www.naeu.playblackdesert.com/en-US/Forum/Main !
• Current Feedback Board KR https://www.kr.playblackdesert.com/ko-KR/Forum/Home/FeedBack

Impact

• Existing systems are never improved.
• The QoL of the remaining players keeps suffering.
• Player morale & retention slipping
• Decreased participation in central community elements such as theory-crafting, guides, tools, suggesting improvements

These objectives should serve as guiding principles for any future related developments.

O1. Reward Active Play

Goals

• Active fishing should be capable of at least matching mid-tier grind income.

Metrics

O1M1. Active Fishing Revenue
Active fishers earn ≥ 1.5 B Silver/h at 1800 mastery over a 3-hour continuous active session.

O2. Encourage Exploration

Goals

• Make all zones similarly economically viable
• Provide varied target fish (not just corvina + blue bat star)
• Introduce frequent dynamic events

Metrics

O2M1. Value Distribution
The Expected Value of the prize catch table for any zone is within ±50% of all other zones.

O2M2. Player Distribution
Over 25% of people fishing are fishing outside of Velia.
Implementation Detail: Use Fishing Resource system to track individual number of casts done per node group.

O3. Reward Progression

Goals

• Mastery and gear choices must feel impactful.
• Provide goals to work on outside of mastery.

O4. Preserve AFK Fishing

Goals

• AFK fishing remains as an entry-level and decent passive income source.

Metrics

O4M1. Passive Income
The average passive income has not increased.

O5. Restore Community Trust

Goals

• Prove community voices matter.
• Be transparent about changes.
• Reintroduce a two-way feedback process.

Metrics

O5M1. Initial Acknowledgement

An official acknowledgement of this proposal was given by the developers.

O5M2. Patch Transparency
100% of future fishing-related changes are detailed in patch notes.

To allow for directed feedback, to anyone looking to propose features in this forum, here is an example template of how issues could be addressed following the guidelines in this post:

Title: Replace Fishing Resource Depletion with Bite Time Boosts

Family Name: Carp
Region (NA/EU): EU

Summary

Replace the current mechanic that punishes popular zones with slower bite times. Instead, introduce a rotating system where certain regions gain faster bite times for a limited time, encouraging exploration and reducing player friction.

This template can be copied simply by selecting everything of it above this line and pasting it into your post's editor window.

(Please see the Appendix for a repository of suggested proposals.)

1. Public Acknowledgement: Confirm receipt and status of this proposal.

2. Roadmap Update: Include lifeskill priorities in future Developer Notes.
3. Designated Liaison: Assign a CM (preferably KR local and ENG/KR bilingual) for feedback tracking. (Note: dedicated to all kinds of feedback)

Continued silence will reinforce the belief that feedback is ignored, accelerating player attrition.

We are willing to test, iterate, and help improve this system. All we ask is to be heard.

Pearl Abyss, please acknowledge.

Suggested Proposals

Great post! Support!

Please let this be seen

Thank you for putting this all together, Carp!

Many good points, making active fishing worth doing would be a lot more fun!

Karpfen's Manifesto

This may seem like a lot, and it is.  However this post is not just commenting on the current state of fishing, its a Fishing Manifesto capturing 9 years worth of fishing information.  Though the community will not agree on everything I think the general sentiment is clear that of passion, frustration and a desire to communicate.

Now that Fishing is getting more attention from PA & AFK fishing its time to show just how deep the problems run in fishing. Velia Beach is just the tip of the iceberg.  

I think the problems can be fixed, but not if you don't understand the issues.  I hope we can open lines of communication, work together to preserve the magic, fix the frustrations and hopefully steer the future of Black Desert Online Fishing.  

more importantly;  Manos Chair needs a visual toggle.  I will pay.  thank you

We have known for a long time that KR is basically the only feedback that PA listens too and acts quickly on. While NA/EU and other regions are just there for income which we can see with pearl price differences granted most of this is due to local currency differences, but still sucks.  However, this is the first time I have ever seen that the KR Forum pages are different than ours which just reinforces the fact that we are just the wallet. Would be cool to see this change but with China being a new region and probably swipin more than NA/EU who knows what the future of player feedback looks like.

 Fun fact: For the last 2 years, NA/EU region players makes up 60% of BDO's profit, while KR only 20%.

They keep ignoring their more profitable customers, they'll end up regretting it sooner or later when their wallet feels lighter.

I remember taking a fishing trip to the deep sea, fishing a full inventory for a few hours, and then grabbing the desert buff, and selling @ Valencia. That was quite the time investment, but it was so much fun. I miss it.

The eloquently put suggested changes are exciting and well thought-out, and I hope this reaches PA.

Great post! 
C'mon PA wake up