This is a plea to the developers. Skill-ups for fishing need to acquired more frequently.

With recent changes, anyone crafting with a crystal can now (with enough proper inventory), simply macro /lastsynth and spam the button with regular frequency without having to stop to load items into the dialogue box. A welcome change, to be sure, but now crystal crafters can skill up even faster than anyone ever could with fishing.

I am bringing about this request with the recent update to Mog Gardens that increased the ranks to an available 7. With Rank 7 nets, Pioneers can now fish up rather heavy big fish, which would be great to start gutting in Selbina. Getting fishing skilled up to 30 to unlock this quest is proving extremely frustrating.

The recent UI change to fishing has actually made it quite enjoyable, and my keyboard's NUMPAD salutes you for it. However, skill-ups are still just as painfully evasive as usual, and that's if you even qualify for it.

With crystal crafting, you are eligible for a skill up if the following conditions are met:
1) The synthesis recipe is higher than your current skill level
2) Not so high up that the game rejects your attempt

With fishing (and I say fishing is a craft because it's under the CRAFT SKILLS menu), you're eligible for a skill up only if the following conditions are met:
1) You didn't hit your fatigue limit
2) The fish is higher than your current skill level
3) (With the new UI), you can actually deplete the fish to 0% health to land it
4) It was actually a fish, and not an item or a monster


Point 4 is my sticking point against crystal crafting here. When crystal crafting, you are eligible for a skill up whether or not you make the item or shatter all the ingredients into oblivion, provided the 2 points are true. With fishing, you are only eligible for a skill up if it's actually a fish. This doesn't happen with crystal synthesis. The things you are crafting (or desynthing, even) don't suddenly turn into monsters to try to kill you, or become something else lower level.

That means, with fishing, you CANNOT get a skill up when:
1) You didn't catch anything
2) Something's pulling at your line (most people cancel these because of fatigue)
3) Something clamped on your line feriouciously (cancel again)
4) You lost your catch (didn't deplete)
5) Line snap / rod break (uncertain here, haven't had any in a while)

Even with accepted rod + bait combinations at favorable locations, you can get a run of bad luck and not be eligible for a single skill up over the same length of time a crystal crafter got 2 full levels.

Skill-up frequency needs to change, for fishing, for the better.

As an aside, I'm aware that fishing in Adoulin areas with Ionis can help with the skill-ups. However, despite my best attempts at science, the only fish I can find in all the Senroh Sea are Mackerel, Senroh Sardines, and Quus. If anyone has any tips that a level 14 fisher can catch for skill ups, I'm all ears.