Please fix this part of fishing :{

I get that some things are supposed to be more difficult. Tedium is not something I've ever had a problem with.

Yes, I AM a completionist and I collect achievements.

When the line is crossed where even *I* am starting to pull my hair out - something is up.

It all seems to be in the lower levels. I'm wondering if there is something broken in the code where if you have too MANY stats - you miss.

Cause that's what happening. Ignus Horn - I'm looking at you.

I have hit dozens of windows. Many have no bite - and the few I've had - were misses.

Do I need to strip naked to fish? That doesn't seem right at all.

Just because RNGesus isn't being kind to you doesn't automatically translate into "the game code is broken".

If there was an actual bug, you should report it.


If not, game is playing out as intended and you're just having a run of bad numbers not rolling in your favor.

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Originally Posted by fulminating

Selecting the correct bait is the bare minimum and not strictly necessary when versatile lure exists.

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Uh, unless it's mooched from another fish, you definitely can't catch the big ones with a versatile lure, or at least it's virtually impossible.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

Just because RNGesus isn't being kind to you doesn't automatically translate into "the game code is broken".

If there was an actual bug, you should report it.


If not, game is playing out as intended and you're just having a run of bad numbers not rolling in your favor.

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That is why I came here - to see if it matched up with anyone else's experience. Trust me - there are things that can happen after this long a time and very old content.

Whether it has or not, is what I'm trying to determine. But when I am sitting in maxxed out gear and lvl 90 for hours - and I see sprouts land beside me and THEIR catch lands, it does make me wonder.

It's not that the bites are few and far between - which they are, it's that I can't seem to land them for the life of me in ARR content.

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Originally Posted by Ianmaru

hmm now this makes me think.
Is it not fun because its catered toward the niche audience? Or does it have a small amount of audience (hence niche) because its not fun?
If it's the latter then that's a good reason for them to fix the design, basically to make it more fun so a lot of ppl would do it. I believe the dev wants that every content in the game to be enjoyed by as many players as possible anyway.

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You're making a couple of assumptions that you shouldn't make.

1- The developers are not trying to make every content appealing to as many players as possible. They know that isn't possible. Instead, they're trying to create a good experience for those who do enjoy that content type.

2- The "niche" audience for big fish content isn't small. It's rather large. Fishing is a popular pastime in Japan and the JP player base, along with a fair number of NA, EU and OCE/SEA players, enjoy the big fish content.

Do not expect SE to make any changes to big fish content beyond adding more big fish to catch. If you're not enjoying the system as is, the best thing to do is ignore it. You can always fill your fish log with all the normal fish then ignore the big fish that you haven't caught.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

Fishing in most games is something that is added just to satisfy a niche audience, because there will be that one person that is like "why can't I fish in this game?"

The amount of people that fish consistently in this game is very small.

Hence not a lot of resources are allocated to the niche activity, regardless of the "fun level" of it.

It's continued to be developed because it's part of the game and actually a larger amount of people that don't fish would complain if development stopped on it and no more resources went towards keeping fishing levels going as expansions keep going.

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This. THIS. Someone who actually identifies the problem instead of just blindly defending the current design and be like, "it is what it is man, take it or leave it". I agree with everything you said.
Talking about niche, there was another niche content in the game: PVP. It was niche until they finally reworked it and made it fun.

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Originally Posted by fulminating

1 king of each pond + 6 legends spread across each zone is a pretty good distribution. Some are significantly easier, some tend to be the last caught. You are probably not approaching it efficiently if you don’t have at least 100 - you can catch most big fish in nearly no time. My fishing alt did in a few days. It's even easier when you start due to the sheer number of attempts and windows you can make.

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Ok first, I got your point. You want me to know how doable the big fishing is. Yes I know it is doable. But is it actually fun? If it was fun it would have attracted more ppl to play it. And if you think I say its not fun because its difficult, then that's wrong. Ultimate fights are difficult, but they're fun.
And saying that the current big fishing design work as intended is just like saying pre-rework PVP worked as intended. It did work, and it did have niche audience. But should it be improved? Obviously. They reworked it and not only the niche pvp audience, but also those who are not into pvp enjoy doing it more than before. Same as current big fishing. It has obvious flaws that can be fixed.

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Originally Posted by Everra

Whether it has or not, is what I'm trying to determine. But when I am sitting in maxxed out gear and lvl 90 for hours - and I see sprouts land beside me and THEIR catch lands, it does make me wonder.

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Yes I definitely feel you. Although I believe its just RNG messing with you, not a bug. That's why I'm saying RNG is the source of the problem.

Again, im not asking big fishing to be nerfed. But to be less RNG heavy and make the player skill & character stat matter more than it currently is. They can stay elusive, but not because of RNG, but because they need the player to be skillful enough to catch them.

Fun is subjective. The fishing discord has around 10,000 online members with another number offline and mainly revolves around big fishing. It's a subset of the population that enjoy fishing as it is. As a subset of the population, it's a bit larger than blue mage discord, larger than the eureka/bozja one and larger than an ultimate one. Not everyone shares your view.

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Originally Posted by VictorSpoils

Uh, unless it's mooched from another fish, you definitely can't catch the big ones with a versatile lure, or at least it's virtually impossible.

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Versatile should work on everything up to legendary big fish. I'm fairly certain I caught at least one ARR fish with it (green jester) and a sanity test in moraby bay yielded a !!! bite that escaped with no message about unsuitable bait/stats etc. It's not as efficient as using the correct bait for certain, but should work.

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Originally Posted by Ianmaru

This. THIS. Someone who actually identifies the problem instead of just blindly defending the current design and be like, "it is what it is man, take it or leave it". I agree with everything you said.
Talking about niche, there was another niche content in the game: PVP. It was niche until they finally reworked it and made it fun.

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Except waaaaaaayyyy more people PVP than fish so good luck getting the purse strings loosened to get resources allocated to fishing.

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Originally Posted by Ianmaru

That's why I'm saying RNG is the source of the problem.

Again, im not asking big fishing to be nerfed. But to be less RNG heavy and make the player skill & character stat matter more than it currently is. They can stay elusive, but not because of RNG, but because they need the player to be skillful enough to catch them.

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There's not enough interest from either the devs or a scant few threads on the forums to change the system. Want to see change? You're going to have to start a movement.

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Originally Posted by fulminating

Fun is subjective. The fishing discord has around 10,000 online members with another number offline and mainly revolves around big fishing. It's a subset of the population that enjoy fishing as it is. As a subset of the population, it's a bit larger than blue mage discord, larger than the eureka/bozja one and larger than an ultimate one. Not everyone shares your view.

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Firstly, discord member count doesn't prove anything. I hate the current design but I would still join the fishing server because I need the infos shared there to make things easier for me.
Secondly, you're right. Fun is subjective. But the formula is not. There's a set formula in designing a game to make it enjoyable. FFXIV wouldn't be as successful as it is now if it doesn't use a good formula. And this formula is used nicely almost in every contents in FFXIV except big fishing. And that's what I meant when I said that the current big fishing is not fun compared to the others.
Thirdly, ok sure I believe what you said about how you and everyone in the big fishing community enjoy the current design. But then it doesn't mean improving the design would make it no longer enjoyable for you.
See, the goal is not to take away 'the kind of fun' you're currently having. But to improve it so it's not fun only for you, but for others who don't share your view too.

Telling a lot of ppl who are not lucky enough with the RNG to just give up with clearing the log is selfish & gatekeeping at best.
The least the dev can do is, again, taking the big fish out of fishing log the way they took out master recipes from crafting log checklist.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

There's not enough interest from either the devs or a scant few threads on the forums to change the system. Want to see change? You're going to have to start a movement.

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Yes I noticed that's why I decided to make a thread and hopefully get their attention.
One thing I'm sure of is, there's barely any complain thread about fishing is not because the design is already perfect, but simply because there's not enough ppl doing big fish to get to that point.
Idk about starting a movement though, sounds like a big deal. Wouldn't be harder than clearing the fishing log with the current design though LOL.

Has anyone pointed out that the original and still intentional design of fishing is not to be a collectables thing, not to be something players just do and move on with, not even meant to be a place for players to show off their 'skill'?

It is - instead - designed to be a part of the game that intentionally slows the player down. It has, and continues to be, designed in such a way that the player has to stop and appreciate the environment and the world. "[Fishing] is a way for the player to communicate with the environment of Eorzea" is the quote from YoshiP around the launch of 2.0, I believe. You can even look at the fishing log to see how fishing and the world itself are intertwined.

Now, to your point on catching Lv50 fish in 90 BiS, and claiming "what's the point if it's not making it easier to catch?" The thing is, it does make it easier.

At Lv50, when the fish would be 'on content' - you have barely any skills. Fish would be significantly more difficult to catch. Even if you're, Lv90 in Lv50 gear, you won't have enough GP to utilize some of the recent skills. Shonisaurus, over in Witchdrop - when it was released back in 2.5 or something, you had only Mooch to use, which means (at the time) you had to get lucky with your bites and hope for multiple HQ (now large-sized) fish in a row to even had a chance.

Come Heavensward and the level cap of 60, Fisher's got Patience I and II (P1 was originally a Lv50+ skill!), meaning you didn't have to hope for luck to get your HQ fish to mooch; a HUGE nerf to the fish. Add in some new baits and in just one expansion, it went from being one of the hardest fish to catch to one of the easier ones.

Then Stormblood, we get Double Hook. All those Heavensward fish like Charibenet or Sea Butterfly that required multiple fish to trigger Fisher's Intuition? All nerfed because now you could catch more than one at a time, meaning more intuitions per window, and more chances to catch the fish.

Jump ahead to Shadowbringers and we get Identical Cast and Surface Slap - the latter being the most powerful skill in a fishers arsenal. Literally able to affect the chance of a fish biting. Unconditional, a Stormblood Legendary fish in Azim Steppe overnight became one of the most straightforward fish to catch. Use Stonefly Larva, catch a Nhaama's boon, and Slap it, and the next fish that'll bite in the window will be Unconditional, 100% of the time. Will it stick? Not as often, but it went from being "it'll take me multiple windows to catch" to "I can probably catch multiple in a single window." ... and this is before we even talk about the new Fish Eyes change.