Any way to make fishing less likely to cause repetitive strain or damage to hardware?

[Edyth]

I've been an avid gamer for 17 years and no game (except the infamous N64 Mario Party) ever gives me any issues of this nature besides this one, and it's with fishing.

Now, fishing skill ups, even at the lowest level, are less than one skill level per hour. Which means I'm in for 100+ hours of fishing. That excessive mashing makes me worried about my hands/wrists and my hardware, even if I were to do it in 200+ 30-minute sittings.

The options I know of for fishing are:
Keyboard, index finger and choice of middle/ring finger mashing the 4 and 6 keys. Worried about this unnatural repetitive strain for the hours upon hours required to skill up fishing.

Mashing the control stick left and right with thumb. Worried about damaging the controller doing that for dozens of hours. Also worried about repetitive strain because of the nonstop, repetitive flicking of a stick with my thumb.

Mashing the control stick left and right with index finger/thumb. Worried about damaging the controller doing that for dozens of hours. Also worried about repetitive strain because of the nonstop, repetitive flicking of a stick with just two fingers.

What I would like:
Is there any way to fish using buttons? I wanted to fishing using Square and X on my PS3 controller on PC. I thought I could just adjust gamepad settings in FFXI Config, leaving the game unplayable except for fishing with the gamepad (which would be fine), but it doesn't look possible. Any ideas?

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Buttons help how? You still get the same issues.

[Edyth]

Buttons help how? You still get the same issues.

The thumb of my dominant hand on ergonomically placed buttons (Square and X) would be a lot less strain on my wrists, and it would be no strain on my middle/ring fingers, which aren't designed by nature for frequent, strenuous individual use.

And I've never had issues with a controller's face buttons being ruined, although I've had issues with control sticks loosening.

[Raksha]

Thread: Any way to make fishing less likely to cause repetitive strain or damage to hardware? (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/26805-Any-way-to-make-fishing-less-likely-to-cause-repetitive-strain-or-damage-to-hardware)



Do what evreyone else does.

[Kristal]

Switch hands, switch fingers, don't fish to exhaustion in a single run, use pelican ring.
Go hang out with the hippie at the ponds near cities.

Simply put, don't plan taking fishing from 0 to 110 in the least amount of time and you will be fine. If you don't like the mini-game, don't do it.

And hardware issues are irrelevant. They are designed to withstand way more then the average player can throw at it. Unless you use a piece of junk.

[Theytak]

You know you can just hold the buttons down, instead of repeatedly pressing them.... right.....?

I mean, sure, you might need to mash for some of the tougher fish that dance back and forth constantly, but even ones that get a great blue vibration rating of moderate are fairly easy to catch without mashing. Just hold 4 or 6 down depending on the direction, and stop pressing when it's centered. It's not all that different, and is a lot easier on your hands and your hardware.

[Edyth]

You know you can just hold the buttons down, instead of repeatedly pressing them.... right.....?

I mean, sure, you might need to mash for some of the tougher fish that dance back and forth constantly, but even ones that get a great blue vibration rating of moderate are fairly easy to catch without mashing. Just hold 4 or 6 down depending on the direction, and stop pressing when it's centered. It's not all that different, and is a lot easier on your hands and your hardware.

I don't have time to play today, but if that works, consider this topic closed. I did not know that you can just hold the direction.

[Kristal]

I don't have time to play today, but if that works, consider this topic closed. I did not know that you can just hold the direction.

Holding button works. Only use buttonspam for crazy fish, where holding tactic will generally feed them stamina instead of reducing it.

[Khiinroye]

Holding the button is also significantly slower than repeated pressing of the button, which can make it too slow for fish that have a lot of stamina as well.

Pretty much any top-level fish that people go for to make money will require pressing rather than holding.

[wish12oz]

I know the solution.

Don't fish.