The whole the fish gets away thing...

[desufin]

That was really not what I experienced. While Cornelia and the Matriarch were a pain, I personally fished the Terpsichowhatever and Iron Noose on my first try. On the other hand, all these fish escaped MULTIPLE times: Rivet Oyster, Joan of Trout, The Sinker (<- this one was BRUTAL), The Gobfather, The Lone Ripper, King of the Spring, Olgoi Khorkhoi, Charon's Lantern (<-very evasive lantern also), The Drowned Sniper (at least got away 8-9 times), Anomalocaris (4-5 times away too)...and I'm not even mentioning the legendaries. While I got Kuno and Heli on my first try, Endoceras and Namitaro easily escaped 10 times each, and Nepto Dragon escaped around 13-14 times before I got him.
So no...there are not just 4-5 evasive fish, at least not from my experience (I'm at 109/112 now).

You pretty much proved my point earlier about some people being lucky and unlucky. Iron Noose took me 10 tries or so, including a stupid line break. The Terpsichorean made me mad enough I made a rage thread about it elsewhere as it escaped 17 times with Fog in itself almost never showing up (on average 1-2 times a real life day which was worse than Helicoprion weather at the time).
I've had no major issues with legendary fishes so far but then again I've only actually caught 3 of them (and only gone for those 3), and while yes they have escaped numerous times, it's hardly been to the point I find them to be bad design. Besides the last 6 SHOULD be hard to catch, but as it is right now, there are several fish with way lower requirement that are in fact, harder due to really bad RNG in their favor.

[LineageRazor]

I've come to the conclusion that Gathering skill has no effect whatsoever on how "slippery" a fish is. I've come to believe that Gathering Skill determines one and only one thing: whether you have a zero percent chance of reeling it in, or whether you have a non-zero percent chance.

Once you have the capability of catching a fish the odds of the fish slipping the line are a seperate statistic, and one that the fisher has NO way to improve. They simply have to deal with it, and wait for that 5% chance or whatever to finally turn up. Some fish, like Slime King, have an especially high slip-the-line chance.

I think that, as a general rule, fish with generous catch windows tend to have a higher slip-the-line chance, but that (along with this entire post, really) is just speculation on my part. I kind of wish that FFXIV angler had a catch-rate value, where users could enter how many times a fish got away before they actually made the catch - it'd help us narrow down what the actual percentage catch rate is for these fish once hooked, and whether they vary from fish to fish.

[SarcasmMisser]

That was really not what I experienced. While Cornelia and the Matriarch were a pain, I personally fished the Terpsichowhatever and Iron Noose on my first try. On the other hand, all these fish escaped MULTIPLE times: Rivet Oyster, Joan of Trout, The Sinker (<- this one was BRUTAL)

What a coincidence



No single sample will be the same and therefore cannot observe true rates.

[Gallus]

What a coincidence

LoL. No comment xD.

[Shadygrove]

I've come to the conclusion that Gathering skill has no effect whatsoever on how "slippery" a fish is. I've come to believe that Gathering Skill determines one and only one thing: whether you have a zero percent chance of reeling it in, or whether you have a non-zero percent chance....

While leveling my fisher alt on sandfishing I would occasionally get a "fish gets away" message on a normal bite. Mind you I had no problem landing what ever the mooched fish was, and I think it was a L 50.

Leveled, maybe got better gear, may have made it and melded it, I forget, but never saw that message again till big fishing was introduced.

From that I believe that "slipperiness" is modifed by gathering

[Fynlar]

I've come to the conclusion that Gathering skill has no effect whatsoever on how "slippery" a fish is. I've come to believe that Gathering Skill determines one and only one thing: whether you have a zero percent chance of reeling it in, or whether you have a non-zero percent chance.

Speaking as someone that's 109/112, I'm inclined to agree with this. It might be something like what crafters face now with regard to 4-star synths and Ingenuity II, where the recipe is so far above our level 50 that the ability actually has far less effect on progress than it did for 1- or 2- star synths. I'm not one of those such crafters, but it wouldn't surprise me if the 4-star stuff absolutely required Piece by Piece even to just NQ a synth.

I'm hoping both of these things are something that will be alleviated by level 60 (although I expect even harder stuff to take its place and work the same way...)

[Kumeno]

Trying to get Drowned Sniper for the last 2 hours . I have full gear and over meld of Pactmaker from endwalker .
The fish escaped me 7 times already .

[Fruity_Snacks]

It has since been long confirmed that most fish (especially Big and Legendary fish) have capped success rates, and that no fish regardless of quality or status has a 100% catch rate.

No fish has a 100% successful catch rate.

[Nenluen]

I would prefer it if there weren't just a RNG catch cap on Fish, if you manage to haver the right gear, be at the right spot, at the right time, with the right weather, jump through all the right hoops (intuition, mooch chain) and then manage to beat the final RNG of 'will this fish bite on what few attempts I have this window', there shouldn't also be another arbitrary roll of the dice that the player can do absolutely nothing about. Because some of these windows are quite small, quite far apart, or sometimes, both. (at the time of this writing the next window for the Duskfish in Stormblood is 28 Earth days away)

In my magical Christmas Land, for all fish that aren't part of the latest expansion:
All fish could get to 100% catch with enough gathering, and I mean ALL fish, not just Big Fish, because getting 'Fish Gets Away' on a Sky Faerie or Scorpionfly while trying to trigger intuition for the Sea Butterfly is like 'c'mon, really?'
Surface Slap would last on a single fish (like release) until you move from the spot, but this is because I have an unwanted affinity for Scholar Sculpins (Upper Thaliak River, for Armor Fish) and they will not stop taking my bait and there's only so much GP one can spend slapping them away (seriously, I have some sort of inverse luck with these things, my ratio of sculpin to crickets on my latest, and finally last attempt at the Armor Fish, was 11 to 5, and I slapped one sculpin away). This could be worded like "this lasts until you catch a fish near to your own level" like.. 81-90 for a level 90 character.
Fish Eyes would last longer, like 2-3 minutes, to allow for more than one mooch attempt (I did pull the Wootz Knifefish Zenith on a fish eyes pull, so, while sometimes one is all you need, it helps to have more chances to use it).

But I also recognize I am possessed of some truly bizarre luck, like having landed the Slime King (Lower Soot Creek, Central Thanalan) on my first ever cast at that fishing hole and then going and getting 'The Fish Get Away' 19 times in a row on some fish that I have blocked from my memory in La Noscea.

[Fruity_Snacks]

<snip>

Fishing in FFXIV tries to mimic real-life fishing. If I recall correctly from some interview - the guy in charge of the fishing 'team' (that does all the other gathering stuff) does actual fishing rather often in the Pacific. In real life, you can go out, find place with Coal, see the coal and... get Coal with relative ease. With fishing (in real life), you can see the fish in the water, have the right bait, be right there when it's hungry - and still not get the fish because it decides to run away when it nibbles the bait, or you scare it off, or you fail your hookset. That's what FFXIV fishing is replicating (to a degree). You shouldn't compare FSH to BTN/MIN because it's so far away from them. FSH is basically the BLU of the DoLs. It was the first limited job. On top of that all, each fish has a certain personality and behavior - part of which is determined by their get-away rate. You take that away, you really take away the personality of fishing.

Surface slap already does act like release, in a way. Surface Slap will ONLY be removed if you catch a fish. If you're going for Armor Fish - Hedgemole Cricket is only a ! bite, so if you get a !! bite -- just... don't reel it in (ie; don't press hook or powerful hookset). Not only does it save time, it preserves the Surface Slap and Prize Catch buff. So you don't have to re-slap a fish every time. This isn't super well conveyed in the game, but is extremely helpful!

(Also that La Noscea fish that got away 19 times was probably Faerie Queen, and it is known to be a "Common, but slippery" bite - meaning it bites often, but gets away with a higher rate. Some fish are the inverse. If you go through the Clown Tetra > Eryops > Priest of Yx'lokwa chain to mooch into Greater Serpent of Ronka, you have a really good chance that it won't get away.... but it's also a Legendary Fish, so it's still not 100%... and that's just the nature of Legendary fish).