Fishing needs a total overhaul

[Jojoya]

The main problem is the ARR baits. The other expansions would only have a half dozen or so baits to worry about. ARR has around 30 I think. Consolidate those baits so there are only about 8-10 needed and it would free up a fair amount of inventory space.

Players can also learn to not hoard leftover bait and lures. Do you really need those Pill Bugs and Lugworms anymore? They're cheap for the most part and the non-scrip items are usually available on a vendor in the zone where the fish can be caught. I mainly keep the scrip baits since those are the ones I use most frequently anyways. If I need a different bait for something, I buy it off a vendor when I'm heading to the fishing hole then vendor/discard the leftovers when I'm done.

[DPZ2]

Fishing got a rework in the current expansion. I have never spent more than 20 minutes obtaining the fish (HQ or not) needed to complete the quests. The conditions need to be right, sure, but there are places and tools, such as web site with the information) to aid you in getting the best results.

I also haven't finished Feast of Famine (a post-level-50 fishing quest from ARR which requires a bit of consultation about the weather and access to an Eorzean clock), but that has never impacted my ability to fish through level 80.

[TaleraRistain]

Some really great suggestions on this thread. Slimming the bait down would be a huge help, but like someone mentioned, then you can't target for specific fish. So that has the potential to make Big fish even harder to get. Also taking out the RNG is really needed. There's that one eel in, I think one of the Shrouds, that's only open for an hour and if it never bites, you're screwed. And it's RNG if it even bites in that tiny hour it's up for. That's just silly.

[JisKing98]

how bout we just get rid of baits entirely. Just have us go to a spot and toss a line with a bait attached to it. no need to worry about what baits we need to get a certain fish.
Also can we get a ui update to fish logs like it shows us the percantage of catching a certain fish.

[Hinalover]

So my 4 suggestions are mostly focused at big fish

1) A more controlled way of triggering big fish conditions. Some way to more consistantly trigger a big fish spawn than spend half-a-dozen or more windows up to chance. Maybe some rework to surface slap would help a long way here.

2) Allow a higher chance of landing a big fish based on either your gathering or perception stats. Working on ARR fish, having landed a big fish, only it gets away sucks, especially if you out-gear the area by 3 expansions worth of gear. I'm just saying to allow you to more easily capture fish if you out-gear it's fishing hole.

3) Allow Mooched fish to be surface slapped. There are quite a few big fish that are tied to a mooched fish; who share the same base fish.

4) Adjust the cost of abilities. Some of these abilities are way too expensive. Particularly Patient, Patient II, Precision and Powerful Hookshot. In areas that require a mooch, these get REALLY expensive on the GP. Combine that with Surface Slap, and you are just chugging Cordials on cooldown.

[Dzian]

4) Adjust the cost of abilities. Some of these abilities are way too expensive. Particularly Patient, Patient II, Precision and Powerful Hookshot. In areas that require a mooch, these get REALLY expensive on the GP. Combine that with Surface Slap, and you are just chugging Cordials on cooldown.

Patience isn't that bad if you know what fish your after as you can conserve a ton of GP on the btes.. if the fish you need to mooch is an ! then you can use hooksets on any ! bites you get and just hook any !! bites normally to save your gp.

they did change it recently aswell so you can pop patience then chug a cordial.which when combined with the above means you can essentially keep patience up almost continuosly. especially if you use the hq watered cordials as they have basically the same recast as patience.

a lot of the time you can even ignore ! bites as well.. for example doing my skysung fishing rod i needed alagan hunters. and bullwhips shared the same bite. however allagan hunters only ever bite after 9 seconds so again you can safely just hook any bites that occur sooner than that.. pretty simple macro.
/ac cast <wait.9>
/echo <se.1>.
so if it bites before the sound hook it normally. if it bites after use hookset.

there's alot of fish you can do similar things with and it's much more efficient than just using hooksets on every single cast.

i will agree that surface slap and identical cast are too expensive gp wise though. at least for there dutraton. (1 cast basically) if surface slap stopped you catching those fish for 2 minutes then it'd be cool and worth the gp cost imo. as it stands though i never use it.

[Canadane]

and access to an Eorzean clock

There's multiple built into the game...
Anyone who's playing can tell what time of day it is in Eorzea.

[Hinalover]

So another ability that needs a revamp or a cost reduction is Chum. As it stands, it never gets used unless you KNOW your next cast will be a long cast. But given it cancels mooching, the ability cancels out most instances where you know your next cast will be a long cast. If the ability is a consistent buff that increases the speed in which you gather fish for X number of seconds, instead of your next cast, then I can see this ability being as expensive as it is.

[Brightamethyst]

Chum is another one of those abilities that's pretty situational but amazing in its specific niche, which is "straight catches in short windows." If you only have two game hours to catch something and you don't need Mooch or Patience, Chum basically doubles your chances.

[DPZ2]

There's multiple built into the game...
Anyone who's playing can tell what time of day it is in Eorzea.

Absolutely, but lots of folks might not realize that there is local time (where your computer is located), server time (based on where the server is located), and Eorzean Time all bundled close to their minimap/top of screen, 'cuz they've never needed it.