Ambling Caltrop...

Why does completing the Crystarium delivery quests make catching this fish noticeably worse? Purely because if you do, it adds Amber Monkfish to the pool, an extremely annoying fish when trying to fish up the Ambling Caltrop since it can bite on your desert frog. It's also much more common.

Completing a quest or activity should not actively handicap you in something else, this is extremely poor design and I don't know why it hasn't been addressed yet. I wish knew about it beforehand because now I'm going to have to be exceptionally lucky in catching it while dealing with unwanted !! bites.

Or just make the fish always available and we wouldn't have this problem. Sure, Amber Monkfish would still be annoying but at least it's not spawned as a direct result of you doing a quest.

Is anyone else aware of this? Is there a way to eliminate this fish from the pool after completing Crystarium delivery quests without having to resort to surface slap?

EDIT: I have finally caught the Caltrop! Also someone stated that Teamcraft shows the monkfish as not being moochable, I just assumed it was due to the !! popping up during mooches but I’ve never actually hooked it to see what it was, so removed this just to avoid misleading in case it was incorrect.

I am on the same boat, takes 10 mins to catch a web footed gecko required for caltrop and more than half the fish are Amber Monkfish. Which means on average I am getting about 2-3 tries on caltrop each window which is just awful. This fish already has taken waay more hours than ruby dragon which is ridiculous. I am able to catch more kuers in the same timeframe than stupid geckos... I am never touching a fishing quest again. I wish they would not punish the players for completing quests, this is really a serious flaw in the design.

Definitely agree with this - as this conversation came up again with Snowy Parexus and Furcacuada. If you're in 90 Gear, highly, highly recommend utilizing surface slap with Angler's Arts stacks for makeshift bait. You can up your average webfooted sand gecko bites with it.

Also, to add, we've found that while it does add a fish to the pool, the bite rates do change when you add the quest fish to the pool. We believe that big fish in this holes are designed around the assumption you have completed the question. So it's not a complete and utter disadvantage and in some cases has been found to advantageous TO do the quests. For example, it's slightly better to have done The Studium and to add Garlean Clams to the pool for Snowy Parexus as it leads to more consistent 3-cast intuitions.

But, like I said, I agree and would prefer they go back to the either the ARR/HW style where the fish are in from the start regardless if you've done the quest. I personally, still recommend folk do them for the EXP, but that's just me.

Just adding my frustration to this thread. I was wondering why Ambling Caltrop seems more difficult to catch than some of the most notoriously difficult fish in the game, and why it wasn't identified as such before, but now I understand why.

I appreciate the advice but Surface Slap isn't a great solution as it only really lasts for one cast since you have a 1/3 chance of getting the right ! spawn. And then on the rare occasion you do catch a Gecko, around 80% of my mooch attempts result in the !! fish, a problem that wouldn't exist if the !! fish wasn't at the hole. So on average I get around 4-5 good attempts per window on a >3% fish with currently 16 hrs until the next window. It's so bad that I may just ignore this fish until they fix it, and this is coming from someone who's caught some of the most elusive fish in the game.

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Originally Posted by Cheezeman3000

It's so bad that I may just ignore this fish until they fix it, and this is coming from someone who's caught some of the most elusive fish in the game.

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I wouldn't expect them to 'fix' any older fish. AFAIK, they have never nerfed a fish via code adjustments.

If you want to wait for something, just wait and see what new tools are added from 91-100. While not guaranteed to help on this fish, there's usually always some form of alleviation for past fishing design when Fisher gets new levels.

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Originally Posted by Cheezeman3000

And then on the rare occasion you do catch a Gecko, around 80% of my mooch attempts result in the !! fish, a problem that wouldn't exist if the !! fish wasn't at the hole.

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I have not fished at this hole in a long time so I very well could just be misinformed, but the data for mooching at this spot indicates that you cannot catch the quest fish via mooch and that the !! fish off of San Gecko is the Nabaath Manta, so the quest fish really isn't getting in your way once you have a mooch. At the most, you are experiencing more potential !! bites when trying to catch your Gecko, but that's just delaying targeting down your !s. That could be seen as a boon for GP regeneration depending on your method.

Any mooch target that cannot be isolated via surface slap or bite time is going to be rough, which is unfortunately the case for the Gecko and you'd still have that problem whether having done the quest or not.

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Originally Posted by ShadowNyx3

I wouldn't expect them to 'fix' any older fish. AFAIK, they have never nerfed a fish via code adjustments.

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This is a unique situation according to OP, which would require a unique solution. If they've never broken a fish like this before then of course they've never had to fix it before.

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Originally Posted by ShadowNyx3

I have not fished at this hole in a long time so I very well could just be misinformed, but the data for mooching at this spot indicates that you cannot catch the quest fish via mooch and that the !! fish off of San Gecko is the Nabaath Manta, so the quest fish really isn't getting in your way once you have a mooch. At the most, you are experiencing more potential !! bites when trying to catch your Gecko, but that's just delaying targeting down your !s. That could be seen as a boon for GP regeneration depending on your method.

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I was going off OP that said it diluted the pool for the mooch as well. But you're right, Teamcraft shows it not available via mooch. Still, getting only 4-5 Geckos for real attempts per 11 minute window leads to lower per-minute catch chances than most other fish in the game, and this isn't supposed to be one of the ultimate rare fish so it was clearly an oversight IMO (it's a 5.2 fish).

Since you admit it's been a while, if you've already done the quests, I welcome you to go back and give it a shot and see if you can come up with a scenario in which the fish may have been improved as you suggested.

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Originally Posted by ShadowNyx3

I wouldn't expect them to 'fix' any older fish. AFAIK, they have never nerfed a fish via code adjustments.

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At the start of Stormblood, various big and legendary fish in ARR/HW were updated to have higher bite rates. Opabinia, for example, was one of those fish.

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Originally Posted by Cheezeman3000

This is a unique situation according to OP, which would require a unique solution. If they've never broken a fish like this before then of course they've never had to fix it before.

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This implies that fishing with the quest done/active means the fish is "broken." Broken is crashing a server when it's caught (King of the Spring, Patch 3.5). Or not being able to trigger intuition (Aquamaton, Patch 6.2ish). Or being able to catch a fish with a versatile lure straight-catch when it should only be a mooch (Basilosaurus Rex, Patch 6.4, Chlorophos Deathworm, Circuit Tilapia, Durdina Fish, Patch 6.5).

Based on what we know so far about big and legendary fish in Studium/Facet holes is that they are designed, assuming that you have the quest done. If you do the quest, then you are fishing for the fish as is intended. The fish bite rates in these holes ARE changed and rebalanced based on if you have done the turn in quests unlocked or not.

Does that make it feel any better? No. But from what we know (again, so far, we're still working to study this), SE is aware that this is a thing and does modify the fishing hole around to compensate.

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Originally Posted by Cheezeman3000

...and this isn't supposed to be one of the ultimate rare fish so it was clearly an oversight IMO (it's a 5.2 fish)

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While typically early patch fish *have* typically be 'easier' it's usually meaning they are up more often. This is not always the case though and is not completely the norm, see: Cosmic Haze (6.3), Priest of Yx'Lokwa (5.1), The Second One (3.3), Aphotic Pirarucu (3.3), The Matriarch (2.3, OG was rough), and then even common fish like Hanatatsu and Saltmill in 4.0. Patch is usually a decent indicator of 'how much time will you spend on the fish' but it is not, if ever, perfect.

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Originally Posted by Fruity_Snacks

Based on what we know so far about big and legendary fish in Studium/Facet holes is that they are designed, assuming that you have the quest done. If you do the quest, then you are fishing for the fish as is intended. The fish bite rates in these holes ARE changed and rebalanced based on if you have done the turn in quests unlocked or not.

Does that make it feel any better? No. But from what we know (again, so far, we're still working to study this), SE is aware that this is a thing and does modify the fishing hole around to compensate.

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Appreciate the insight and all the research you've been putting into this. I was only assuming it's an oversight due to it being bad game design, so I was giving them the benefit of the doubt. If the intention really was to make the fish 5x harder to catch after finishing a quest, it goes against the design philosophy they've applied to the rest of the game.

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Originally Posted by Cheezeman3000

Appreciate the insight and all the research you've been putting into this. I was only assuming it's an oversight due to it being bad game design, so I was giving them the benefit of the doubt. If the intention really was to make the fish 5x harder to catch after finishing a quest, it goes against the design philosophy they've applied to the rest of the game.

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If you're going to make that claim, try making a new character and fishing for this without completing the quests. You might just find that the difficulty does not change nearly as much as you're believing.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

If you're going to make that claim, try making a new character and fishing for this without completing the quests. You might just find that the difficulty does not change nearly as much as you're believing.

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You're right it's not 5x, the math is pretty complex if you want to get technical. But my point is, it feels a lot worse seeing that !! pop up so often when you know it could be gone had you just not done the quest. And that feeling of permanent anti-progression should not be present in this game, and I still don't believe was intentional.

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Originally Posted by Cheezeman3000

You're right it's not 5x, the math is pretty complex if you want to get technical. But my point is, it feels a lot worse seeing that !! pop up so often when you know it could be gone had you just not done the quest. And that feeling of permanent anti-progression should not be present in this game, and I still don't believe was intentional.

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Feels does not mean it's actually harder, you are correct in that.

As I said, it appears consideration is taken to provide a similar statistical experience for the fish regardless of quest status.

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Originally Posted by Fruity_Snacks

Feels does not mean it's actually harder, you are correct in that.

As I said, it appears consideration is taken to provide a similar statistical experience for the fish regardless of quest status.

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Can you explain how diluting the pool by 20% with a longer bite fish provides a similar statistical experience to it not being there?

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Originally Posted by Cheezeman3000

Can you explain how diluting the pool by 20% with a longer bite fish provides a similar statistical experience to it not being there?

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Sure, it's very quick.

From what we can tell so far - they rebalance all the other fish bite rates to provide a similar experience. What before the quest might've been 30% might now be 25% after, to offset. I don't have the specific numbers right now but can see where they were.