Fishing needs a total overhaul

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Originally Posted by MellowMink

Minor thing, but I feel like the nine Gulleye traits are unnecessary and also make the traits window needlessly overcrowded; for example, why would it make sense that you would have to be level 55 in order to see fishing holes between levels 50 and 55? Why wouldn't you just say automatically have access to a level 54 hole once you reach level 54?

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It looks like this particular preference of mine was implemented and I’m very satisfied with that, so thanks Square Enix!

Is anyone else having an obscenely difficult time with this overhaul?

I rarely get anything to mooch, even when I catch a large fish that should be mooch-able I am not given the option to mooch. I know there are buffs to be able to mooch off normal fish, but that only works after you are able to do 5 mooches to begin with.

I have been fishing for hours for days now and I'm not able to catch any of the living legends (yes I meet all requirements) and I'm trying to get the CatKiller and in 3.5 hours of fishing I have not been able to get it and have only been able to mooch a handful of times.

I'm also losing tons of fish without even having an indicator that something is on the line.

It just really seems very off ever since they made the changes. I like the changes, just feel that some other things changed in the RNG machine and it's kinda borked right now.

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Originally Posted by AesirSyn

Is anyone else having an obscenely difficult time with this overhaul?

I rarely get anything to mooch, even when I catch a large fish that should be mooch-able I am not given the option to mooch. I know there are buffs to be able to mooch off normal fish, but that only works after you are able to do 5 mooches to begin with.

I have been fishing for hours for days now and I'm not able to catch any of the living legends (yes I meet all requirements) and I'm trying to get the CatKiller and in 3.5 hours of fishing I have not been able to get it and have only been able to mooch a handful of times.

I'm also losing tons of fish without even having an indicator that something is on the line.

It just really seems very off ever since they made the changes. I like the changes, just feel that some other things changed in the RNG machine and it's kinda borked right now.

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Few things:
1) Not all fish are moochable. So you can only mooch fish which can be mooched.
2) The Living Legends (presumably for Feast of Famine) are legendary fish - they are notoriously difficult. This is unsurprising to hear. As for Catkiller, make sure you're fishing with Brute Leech during Clear or Fair skies. Beyond that, just unlucky.
3) I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you're not seeing the !'s over your head, you'll need to adjust your battle effects so that they appear. If you are using the wrong bait, or don't have the right gathering (unlikely) the game does tell you.
4) RNG numbers don't seem to have changed. Any time that RNG have been changed, it was announced.

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Originally Posted by Calysto

Now complains about FSH compared to the others gatherers : Maybe it's time to rebrand it as a "limited job".

-still almost no use for fishes
-retainers still useless outside of 1 minion
-still no QoL for logs (usefull infos ; search ; items link ; tp from map ; flags) but maybe that's just me on this one
-leves rewards are a joke (MIN/BOT get dozens of crystals ; you get 3 baits you can buy from npcs ; not even scripts ones)
-desynth still moslty sands (and no longer HQ ; for shame !)

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Just make fish usefull as a combat item much faster (no complex cooking recipes needed). Give them small passive bonusses (bonus XP, a little bit extra on stats) and prevent them combining with other foods, and suddenly fish becomes a lot more popular in use.

I stopped fishing a long time ago because it simply wasnt rewarding the effort. And even now i only just level my fisher by selling fish i bought on the market (and only with cheap fish).

I would like it if fishing rolled right into culinarian without having to overly complicate it with extra ingredients. Maybe some of the various salts, or maybe just one other simple indredient. A simple grilled fish can be amazing by itself. So, unless that changes, not a lot of reward for the effort.

I can't see them reworking everything like this, though. One simple suggestion, make Mooch II either no CD and a higher GP cost, or just lower the CD. 3 min is a little long for that.

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Originally Posted by Jaid

I can't see them reworking everything like this, though. One simple suggestion, make Mooch II either no CD and a higher GP cost, or just lower the CD. 3 min is a little long for that.

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I can, because currently culinarian is quite extreme in the number of ingredients needed for each recipe early in the leveling process. Having some easier fish oriented recipes can aid this part a lot (and with it, those fish become easier to sell with it, giving that some extra value).

Fish is already quite unreliable if you need a certain fish anyway (especialy for quests). And those spare fishes will just flood the market, making those part of the easy recipes will benefit the f2p because they can easily fish those and side level with it, and also aids the p2p as they can easily buy it from the market when they desire. Sure, those recipes can be weaker than the alternatives, but at least it gets them beyond a sudden wall of 'you need 6 ingredients for every recipe'.

If 2 classes become this dependant on each other, its best if they also spread the leveling process with each other. For fishing and culinarian i rarely managed to use a fish i was able to catch. Even if i was going for 1 fish that i could use, i ended up with 4 i couldnt. That made fishing a real waste of effort during my f2p days. And now as p2p i still cant care about it, because the market is simply 10x more convenient compared to the effort. The spent money can easily be obtained using a botanist or miner in a similar timespan than i would have used fishing it myself.

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Originally Posted by Jaid

I can't see them reworking everything like this, though. One simple suggestion, make Mooch II either no CD and a higher GP cost, or just lower the CD. 3 min is a little long for that.

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While I agree that the CD is long for what it does (2min would be nice), Makeshift Bait already lets you Mooch basically forever now.

A nice way to make that happens would be for (most) fish desynth have a chance to become some kind of "fish meat" ; with like steak/slice/whatever depending on the fish level for appropriate CUL recipe.
CUL is the desynth for fishes ; I don't eat sand.
And yes 80+ grilled fish would have been great for both FSH and CUL.

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Originally Posted by Jaid

I can't see them reworking everything like this, though. One simple suggestion, make Mooch II either no CD and a higher GP cost, or just lower the CD. 3 min is a little long for that.

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Between Patience I/II, Prize Catch, and Makeshift Bait, it's entirely possible to never have to use Mooch II at all. If Mooch II is on cooldown, you use Patience I or II (or Prize Catch or Makeshift Bait). It's an "oopsie" skill, not something to be relied upon.

(*Oopsie as in "oopsie I forgot to use Patience, Prize Catch, or Makeshift Bait")

I still just really hate the rare fish with time requirements and crap like that.

I really hope that they keep spearfishing relevant to crafting throughout the whole of Endwalker because with it being impervious to bots (At least as far as I can tell...), it would give FSH a convenient niche in the economy.

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Originally Posted by Beytran70

I still just really hate the rare fish with time requirements and crap like that.

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It's not like you're being forced to catch them so I don't really what the issue is.

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Originally Posted by Beytran70

I still just really hate the rare fish with time requirements and crap like that.

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If that was true of common crafting materials I'd agree, but that's not usually the case. Like 85% of fishing is a self-contained, completely optional collectathon so the RNG is fine (if admittedly annoying at times.)

So, from my observation of the Shark Tuna window in Costa Del Sol:

I identified 15 opportunities to catch the fish in question.

I had ONE eligible bite, which failed (at appropriately geared level 90)

I had 8 silver sharks from a variety of large fullmoon sardines and Mooch II when available

I had 6 fullmoon sardines, that were not large, and Mooch II was not available

This is not a worthwhile experience. It's far too many layers of RNG. Ultimately, when a player catches these fish, they cannot reasonably claim any input besides they had enough gathering/perception, and they were fishing at the appropriate time/weather, That's it. It falls short of what I'd consider actual gameplay.

The solution(s) seem fairly obvious.

Get rid of Mooch II. Large fish are acting as pseudo-HQs, It's unnecessary. Mooch with *any* fish will still require the RNG of time/weather as well as actually getting the eligible fish to mooch with, as well as getting the correct catch from the Mooch.

Fix Fish Eyes: Longer duration/Persistent duration, lower GP cost, Makes only timed fish catchable for duration.

Introduce a threshold in gathering/perception where fish cannot get away.

Yes, I know, nobody forces people to fish. It's not mandatory for progression, but at the same time, don't make it this unwelcoming for people that choose to do it.

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Originally Posted by Bloodbeat

I had 6 fullmoon sardines, that were not large, and Mooch II was not available

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Between Patience 2 and Makeshift bait you should be able to Mooch almost 100% of the time.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Between Patience 2 and Makeshift bait you should be able to Mooch almost 100% of the time.

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Perhaps, but it's that gruelling RNG again. You have the mooch success RNG, then the correct moochable fish RNG, then the mooched catch RNG.
Let's not forget you have to bypass ALL of that in 9 minutes before you start relying on Fish Eyes and the weather not changing.

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Originally Posted by Bloodbeat

Perhaps, but it's that gruelling RNG again. You have the mooch success RNG, then the correct moochable fish RNG, then the mooched catch RNG.
Let's not forget you have to bypass ALL of that in 9 minutes before you start relying on Fish Eyes and the weather not changing.

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Oh, I also forgot the "fish doesn't feel like being caught" RNG

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Originally Posted by Bloodbeat

Let's not forget you have to bypass ALL of that in 9 minutes before you start relying on Fish Eyes and the weather not changing.

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Fish Eyes doesn't affect big fishing in the first place. It's just for regular timed fish.

From the 5.4 patch notes: "This action has no effect on legendary fish, fish found when ocean fishing, or any fish introduced from Stormblood onward."

The actual specification for Fish Eyes is "does not work on big/legendary fish introduced in Stormblood onwards".

It definitely works on all of the fish in ARR/HW.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The actual specification for Fish Eyes is "does not work on big/legendary fish introduced in Stormblood onwards".

It definitely works on all of the fish in ARR/HW.

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Did that change recently? The 5.4 patch notes literally say:

https://i.imgur.com/BwSjSwL.png

Can they perhaps change the fishing log to give actual information once you cought a fish? It is really annoying that every time you need to look up on a website at what time and weather something is there or not.
You got timers on gathering too once you gathered it, it shows the EZ time of the spawn.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Did that change recently? The 5.4 patch notes literally say:

https://i.imgur.com/BwSjSwL.png

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The actual specification for Fish Eyes is "does not work on big/legendary fish introduced in Stormblood onwards".

It definitely works on all of the fish in ARR/HW.

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As of patch 6.0 Fish eyes now applies to all Stormblood fish, except for Legendary fish (so, Ruby Dragon, Stethacanthus, Drepansis, Xenacanthus, Warden of the Seven Hues, and Unconditional)

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Originally Posted by Bloodbeat

So, from my observation of the Shark Tuna window in Costa Del Sol:

I identified 15 opportunities to catch the fish in question.

I had ONE eligible bite, which failed (at appropriately geared level 90)

I had 8 silver sharks from a variety of large fullmoon sardines and Mooch II when available

I had 6 fullmoon sardines, that were not large, and Mooch II was not available

This is not a worthwhile experience. It's far too many layers of RNG. Ultimately, when a player catches these fish, they cannot reasonably claim any input besides they had enough gathering/perception, and they were fishing at the appropriate time/weather, That's it. It falls short of what I'd consider actual gameplay.

The solution(s) seem fairly obvious.

Get rid of Mooch II. Large fish are acting as pseudo-HQs, It's unnecessary. Mooch with *any* fish will still require the RNG of time/weather as well as actually getting the eligible fish to mooch with, as well as getting the correct catch from the Mooch.

Fix Fish Eyes: Longer duration/Persistent duration, lower GP cost, Makes only timed fish catchable for duration.

Introduce a threshold in gathering/perception where fish cannot get away.

Yes, I know, nobody forces people to fish. It's not mandatory for progression, but at the same time, don't make it this unwelcoming for people that choose to do it.

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So reading this I don't think the issue is (so far) an issue with fishing. It's an issue with how you're fishing.

As Brightamethyst said, you should be using Patience II and Makeshift bait while Mooch II is on cooldown. Not doing so is hooking yourself in the foot and you're making it harder on yourself.
Shark Tuna is up rather consistently compared to other fish, the layers of RNG for shark tuna are there - but are pretty much bog-standard fishing rng. You'll find plenty of other fish in a similar boat as shark tuna.
You can also increase your changes (affect the RNG) by using certain baits. For example, using a Versatile lure on fullmoon sardine instead of say - Spoon worm - you're going to see a lot of issues and are (again) putting yourself at a disadvantage.

The game does tell everyone these things - when Patience II is good, which baits are better in what environments, etc. There's very little (outside of window information) that the game DOESN'T tell you about fishing mechanics, or when to use certain skills. It's not well presented, or... people just don't read things like tooltips.

Fishing is equivalent to bluemage, but for DoL's. It was a limited job before limited jobs were a thing. Comparing it to and expecting it to be like MIN/BTN is just going to set yourself up for frustration. It's a minigame tied to a job.

Big fish don't need such a high chance to get away, they are already rare enough.


The bait system is stupid, outdated, and it clutters the inventory. Get rid of it.

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Originally Posted by NamazuFanatic

Big fish don't need such a high chance to get away, they are already rare enough.


The bait system is stupid, outdated, and it clutters the inventory. Get rid of it.

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Just use versatile lure if you're so against the bait system. It'll be no different if they scrap bait altogether.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

Just use versatile lure if you're so against the bait system. It'll be no different if they scrap bait altogether.

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That doesn't even work for big fishing.

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Originally Posted by NamazuFanatic

That doesn't even work for big fishing.

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Oh well. One less thing to do.

The right bait helps focus in on getting a specific fish and you want to eliminate that. Versatile Lure's equal chance to catch everything is where we end up with no bait to mess with. Think about what you're asking for before you go and ask for it. Maybe fishing is not for you.

Gosh, imagine defending having to carry over two bags' worth of bait.

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Originally Posted by NamazuFanatic

Gosh, imagine defending having to carry over two bags' worth of bait.

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If you're carrying two bags worth of bait, you're really making your life so difficult. I only ever carry a few at a time while I work on clearing the log.

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Originally Posted by NamazuFanatic

That doesn't even work for big fishing.

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Yes it does. It'll probably take a lot longer because it's much less targeted, but I've caught big fish with versatile lures and boilies before.

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Originally Posted by NamazuFanatic

That doesn't even work for big fishing.

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Fun fact!

Versatile Lure will catch all fish in the game except for straight catch legendary fish (so like, Cinder Surprise, Aquamaton, Sea Butterfly, etc).

After ARR, there's a huge amount of bait that you can get rid of once you caught the fish, even more you can get rid of if you go the Versa route.
Bait bloat is mostly an ARR problem, and once you clear that out (or just ignore it and buy like, 20 at a time when you go fishing cause it's cheap) - bait management is significantly easier.

It's all about organization. If you're looking to fill the log, just take it by section.

After ARR, you only need a few different baits to catch everything in each expansion. Once you're done, just dump it. Unless you're gonna do it regularly, don't bother keeping ocean fishing stuff on hand when you can just buy it at the dock or on the ship.

The design is objectively terrible. There is no defense of lancet jail.

We already pinned down the real problem, so I don't know why you keep arguing. Just because it's painfully accurate doesn't make it terrible. If you could just blow through the log with little effort or time spent, it would be even less fun... just another stupid checkmark.

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Originally Posted by NamazuFanatic

The design is objectively terrible. There is no defense of lancet jail.

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Well, the defense for Lancet Jail is "That's something the players choose to do and it's been proven time and time again you don't need to jail for it"

So it's you're fault for that.

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Originally Posted by Fruity_Snacks

Well, the defense for Lancet Jail is "That's something the players choose to do and it's been proven time and time again you don't need to jail for it"

So it's you're fault for that.

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No, the game design encourages it. Therefore it's the fault of design.

Thankfully, it takes more than a vague notion to get a change pushed through. :cool:

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Originally Posted by NamazuFanatic

No, the game design encourages it. Therefore it's the fault of design.

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While in most cases I agree that intentionally bad is still bad, it's a little different in this case. XIV's fishing is completely optional side content specifically designed to appeal to the people who like that type of grind. It's not a vital feature that's forced on everyone. People who don't like it can ignore it and not miss anything.

And, as stated, there is no mechanic for Lancetfish that forces Lancet Jail, nor makes it even the preferred, beneficial strategy.

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Originally Posted by Fruity_Snacks

And, as stated, there is no mechanic for Lancetfish that forces Lancet Jail, nor makes it even the preferred, beneficial strategy.

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.........k

After suffering The Greater Serpent (Ronka) getting away twice despite BiS gear...sorry, but I gotta necro-bump this thread.
I've been trying to catch the bugger for around two weeks (multiple windows per day), and it's (almost) all RNG based. Priest mostly slips off the hook when Pipira/Robber doesn't eat the bait; That's disgusting. Ocean fishing is one thing; I know I'm boarding a floating casino...but these rare fish which should be at least 90% stats? Naw dog, it's freaking RNG again. I'm starting to wonder if I'll even get any satisfaction of getting it at this point since that will only be when the RNG gods decide I've won the fish lotto.

That needs to change. So, yea...fishing needs a giant overhaul and threads like these should keep getting bumped until it changes.