Hooked

Fishing in Valheim is boring as shit. Hooked replaces the tug of war with a Stardew-style bobber bar and gives the Fishing skill something worth leveling.

Client-side. Works on a vanilla server.

Playing it

Hold Block to raise the green bar. Let go to drop it. Keep the fish inside until the catch meter fills. Empty the meter and the fish gets away.

      [PERFECT]
     +----------+
     |  #### |  |    coin = treasure
     |  [==] |  |    its small bar fills inside the green bar
     |       |##|
     | +---+ |##|    right side = catch meter
     | |>< | |##|
     | +---+ |##|
     +----------+

Perfect stays lit until the fish slips out of the bar. Keep it lit for bonus skill and one extra fish quality.

The first few Fishing levels get a larger bar, slower drain and a control hint. Change or disable all of it under 2 - Minigame.

Features

• Auto Hook sets the hook as soon as a fish bites. Turn it off for vanilla timing.
• Fish Finder shows how many nearby fish want your bait, the nearest distance and whether the water is too shallow.
• Casting matters. Landing near a fish gives it another chance to pick your float.
• Bait matters. Once a fish is unlocked, trophy-crafted bait gives you a Stardew-style benefit.
• Treasure can appear beside the fish. Hold the chest inside the bar to land it.
• Lunkers are rare, pissed-off fish with better size, skill and treasure rewards.
• Depth rewards make deep water better for treasure, fish size, skill and lunkers.
• Fresh Catch gives carry weight and stamina regeneration after a Perfect catch or lunker.

Treasure uses the biome under the float. It blocks progression items by default and only pays items your character has already found.

Bait

Vanilla locks every fish to one bait. Hooked keeps that bait as the unlock: find or craft it once, then any fishing bait can catch that fish. The bait on the rod is still consumed.

The trophy-crafted baits each have a benefit. Plain Fishing Bait does not.

This does not unlock a biome early. You still need to discover that fish's own bait first.

What stays Valheim

• Casting, fish spawns, bait unlocks and bait consumption.
• Stamina drain from holding a fish and reeling.
• Maximum rod distance and optional line breaks.
• Fish escape thrashing. It makes the bar harder while it lasts.
• Fish quality, capped at 5.
• Full inventory handling. Fish land at your feet and treasure drops in front of you.

The float starts reeling in near the end of the catch. It never comes closer than Minimum Line Length, and it stops while the fish is out of water.

Fishing skill

Skill is paid when the fight ends. Harder fish pay more. A fish that gets away still pays part of the skill based on meter progress.

Multiplayer

The minigame runs on the client. Anyone without Hooked keeps vanilla fishing.

Install Hooked on the server if you want its synced config and Lock Configuration. Interface settings always stay local.

Configuration

The config is BepInEx/config/Azumatt.Hooked.cfg. Use a BepInEx configuration manager unless editing cfg files by hand is somehow your thing.

The useful stuff:

• Difficulty moves the whole fight at once.
• Turn off Enabled to use vanilla fishing without uninstalling.
• Auto Hook, Fish Finder and Bite Proximity Bonus control the waiting part.
• Flexible Bait and Bait Benefits control the bait changes.
• Beginner Assist controls the early skill help.
• Line Breaks, Reel In From and Minimum Line Length control the line.
• Reward sections control quality, skill, lunkers, depth, Fresh Catch and treasure.
• 7 - Interface is local only.

Advanced formats:

• Fish overrides: Fish1=60:Dart, Fish3=85
• Treasure: Coins:20:60:30, Amber:1:3:20

Fish patterns are Mixed, Dart, Smooth, Sinker and Floater. Invalid config entries are logged.

Compatibility

Once a fish is hooked, Hooked owns the fight and skips vanilla line pulling. Mods patching the same part will lose that fight.

Turn off Flexible Bait and Bait Benefits for vanilla bait. Turn off 2 - Minigame > Enabled to hand the fight back to vanilla.

Not in yet

• Fish quality surviving the cooking station.
• Fish trophies. Vanilla has nothing for mounting them.

Credits

The bobber bar is based on Stardew Valley's fishing minigame and rebuilt for Valheim.

The UI uses UIManager, my own library for making mod UI look like it belongs in the game.

For questions or comments, find me in the Hexium, Odin Plus Team Discord or my own Discord:

Changelog

1.1.0

• Bottom line of this update: Fishing in valheim matters more now. It's a worthwhile side path.
• Once you discover the bait a fish normally requires, any fishing bait can catch it.
• Added a different Stardew-style benefit to each trophy-crafted bait.
• Added biome treasure. Chests never pay unknown or progression items by default.
• Added depth rewards and lunkers.
• Added the Fresh Catch buff for Perfect catches and lunkers.
• Added Auto Hook and the Fish Finder readout.
• Made close casts more likely to get a bite.
• Added one Difficulty setting for the whole fight.
• Fixed forced line breaks on long casts.
• Rebalanced fish difficulty against Stardew's numbers.

1.0.0

• Initial release.