What you need to know
- Destiny 2's new season, Season of the Deep, adds a fishing minigame that allows players to catch fish and add them to an aquarium to earn rewards.
- Players have expressed frustration about an issue where nearby Public Events in the world cause the fishing zones to completely disappear for several minutes, preventing them from fishing and wiping out their Focused Fishing buff.
- Focused Fishing increases your chances of getting rare fish (and better rewards), but it only builds up when you or other nearby players catch rare fish to begin with. Because of this, it takes a long time to max out.
- Some players speculate that Bungie intentionally made Public Events despawn the fishing zones so that players wouldn't be permanently fishing with a full Focused Fishing meter.
Destiny 2's new Season of the Deep launched on Tuesday, and so far, the relaxing fishing minigame it introduced has dominated its launch week conversation. When heading to one of three locations (The Cistern on Nessus, the Outskirts on the EDZ, and Miasma on the Throne World), players will find new fishing spots where they can cast a line and hope for a nibble. Caught fish can be added to your aquarium back in the H.E.L.M., and by using the bait you get by completing activities, you can even reel in Legendary and Exotic fish that reward you with pieces of gear and endgame materials.
The simple and low-stakes activity is a great way to get some solid Destiny 2 loot, especially since getting Legendary or Exotic fish near other players builds up a Focused Fishing buff that improves everyone's chances at catching additional rare fish. However, there's one huge problem with it that's driving players crazy: the fishing areas completely disappear whenever there's an active Public Event nearby. This forces everyone to either wait for the event to time out or complete it, and unfortunately, both options take several minutes.
Having your fishing session interrupted by Public Events is pretty annoying, but what frustrates people the most is that your Focused Fishing buff gets wiped away as well. Building up Focused Fishing takes a while since the meter only goes up when you reel in Legendary and Exotic fish, so its very irritating when a random Public Event that gives terrible rewards ruins your hard work.
Fishing is great. Public events resetting your focus is not. from r/DestinyTheGame
"Fishing holes should rotate locations like public events do. Give them windows of time to appear and disappear, with the focus meter filling up faster with more players," suggested Reddit user DarkGeno21 in a top comment. "But 100% these spots should not be affected by public events or any random enemy encounter."
Some players theorize that Bungie may have designed the fishing spots to periodically disappear so that Focused Fishing isn't permanently maxed out, which could result in the minigame being a little too rewarding.
"I think it's intentional, they probably don't want people having a full focus meter forever," speculated Reddit user IzunaX. "Probably would become too rewarding for barely playing the game, if I had to guess the reason."
Regardless of whether the disappearing fishing areas were an intentional design choice or not, hopefully the developers are taking note of fan feedback and will make some adjustments later in the season.
Destiny 2: Lightfall, the looter shooter's latest expansion, is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One consoles, Windows PCs, and PlayStation systems. With the Annual Pass edition, you'll get access to all of Destiny 2 Year 6's current and upcoming content, including Season of the Deep's Season Pass. Destiny 2 itself is one of the best Xbox games for fans of the genre, so give it a try if you've never checked it out before.
