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A Master Angler's thoughts on the fishing in Northern Elsweyr
MojaveHeld
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I generally enjoy fishing in this game. I've been a Master Angler for a while now, and I often go and fish the DLC zones whenever new content is released. So, I already went and completed the fishing achievement for Northern Elsweyr, after the chapter's release last week. https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/803243228396070938/6998D1614186BEB207E8331560ADAF4E7D4A59C6/
The fishing in this zone was... interesting. I wanted to flesh out what I found after spending several hours fishing in the zone. Right off the bat, I knew that there would be some unpleasantness involved, because all of the holes were river holes. Zones that only have one type of fishing hole are more grueling than those that have a variety of water types. That's because there are now several blue fish for the same water type, meaning not only do you have to deal with the low odds of getting a blue fish on any give cast, but you have even lower odds of getting a specific blue fish if there are multiple for the same water type. So if there's just one blue river fish in a zone, when the odds come up in your favor and you pull a blue from a river hole, it will be the one you need. If all the holes in the zone are river holes, any time that you are lucky enough to pull a blue, you have a large chance of not getting a specific blue river fish for that zone. So your odds of getting all the fish you need for the achievement are significantly lower in a zone with only one water type, than in a zone with three or four different water types.
Usually, ZOS only makes a zone all one water type when it's the only thing that makes sense. For example, Coldharbour and Clockwork City are both all foul-water zones, because they each only have one type of liquid found in the wild in those zones, and in both cases (blue glowy stuff and oil), that one type of liquid makes sense to be foul water. So, I assumed when I started fishing in Northern Elsweyr, that the situation would be the same, that the only water features found in the zone would only make sense as river holes. And I noticed that ZOS definitely took steps to make a one-water type zone more palatable here. The places where fishing holes are found in the zone are some of the most picturesque and pleasant I've encountered while fishing in any zone. Like this, for example: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/803243228396070139/DCB2D63D60B1EBF47E0FD55BE98008550DA2FF00/
It's a lot less boring to be fishing for hours in a landscape that looks like that than in the monotony of Coldharbour (there's a reason why people going for Master Angler hate that zone). I also noticed that there were an absolute ton of harvesting nodes located near fishing holes in Northern Elsweyr, much more than I've encountered when fishing any other zone. So the stunning scenery and plentiful crafting nodes I encountered as I fished the zone helped some in combating the monotony of it being a one water type zone.
The other thing I encountered, however, was the realization that there was no reason whatsoever for Northern Elweyr to be all river holes. There was no reason for ZOS doing that, unlike in Coldharbour or Clockwork City. ZOS is often a bit arbitrary with how they classify certain fishing holes (like with the random foul hole in the lake next to Riften that's just feet from a lake hole), but they generally follow a basic guideline. Fast, running water is river. Large, contained, still bodies of water are lakes. Oceans are ocean (simple enough). And foul can be either small, shallow bodies of water surrounded by dead trees and animal carcasses, or places where ocean and freshwater sources meet. Here's a map of the fishing hole locations I found in Northern Elsweyr. There may be a couple holes I don't have on here, but this is the overwhelming majority of the fishing hole locations in the zone. https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/803243228396071314/A0D2B62D21993F39FFC60791920B5BBB3FBF49B5/
Looking at that, most of the holes you see in the northwest and southwest are in water that very clearly had to be river. A couple in the east are as well. However, the very northwest 3-4 holes, a group of another 3-4 holes in the southwest, and all of those holes in the south-central portion of the map near Merryvale Farms are in water that very clearly should have been lakes. There's no way to look at those sources in person and think they could be anything other than lake holes. So that's a good 20 fishing holes right there that obviously should have been lake holes, but were made river holes for no reason. In the east, most of those holes you see should be foul holes, as they're in small, shallow bodies of water surrounded by dead trees or dead animals. In addition, that one isolated hole in the northwest below all the other clusters of fishing holes is in a water source that could only be foul water. So that gives us a good 30 or so river holes, 20 or so lake holes, and 6-7 foul holes that are already fishing hole locations. Without adding holes to any of the water sources on the map that don't have any (most of which would make sense as foul holes when you see them), ZOS already had plenty of spots to make a balanced zone with three different types of fishing holes.
After fishing it all, I realized that there was no reason for Northern Elsweyr to be a one-water type zone. In fact, they had to break their usual norms to make it one. A large chunk of the fishing holes in the zone don't make sense as river holes, but that's what ZOS made them. So all the aggravation of having to deal with the lower odds inherent in a one-water type zone was totally unnecessary. It's unclear why ZOS made the fishing in the zone this way, it didn't make sense to, and added some completely pointless unpleasantness to fishing in the zone.
With the gorgeous scenery and nearby crafting nodes, Northern Elsweyr could have been one of the single best fishing zones in the game. But by breaking their own guidelines and making it a one-water type zone when it shouldn't have been, ZOS shot themselves in the foot. It's a completely self-inflicted wound, and I bring it up so that ZOS realizes that there's no reason to make this type of mistake again in the future. I still enjoyed my fishing experience there overall, but it simply wasn't as good as it should have been, and it's baffling that ZOS made this error with the zone when all the pieces were there for them to absolutely nail the fishing in Northern Elsweyr.
Edited by ZOS_Icy on May 1, 2023 12:37PM The fishing in this zone was... interesting. I wanted to flesh out what I found after spending several hours fishing in the zone. Right off the bat, I knew that there would be some unpleasantness involved, because all of the holes were river holes. Zones that only have one type of fishing hole are more grueling than those that have a variety of water types. That's because there are now several blue fish for the same water type, meaning not only do you have to deal with the low odds of getting a blue fish on any give cast, but you have even lower odds of getting a specific blue fish if there are multiple for the same water type. So if there's just one blue river fish in a zone, when the odds come up in your favor and you pull a blue from a river hole, it will be the one you need. If all the holes in the zone are river holes, any time that you are lucky enough to pull a blue, you have a large chance of not getting a specific blue river fish for that zone. So your odds of getting all the fish you need for the achievement are significantly lower in a zone with only one water type, than in a zone with three or four different water types.
Usually, ZOS only makes a zone all one water type when it's the only thing that makes sense. For example, Coldharbour and Clockwork City are both all foul-water zones, because they each only have one type of liquid found in the wild in those zones, and in both cases (blue glowy stuff and oil), that one type of liquid makes sense to be foul water. So, I assumed when I started fishing in Northern Elsweyr, that the situation would be the same, that the only water features found in the zone would only make sense as river holes. And I noticed that ZOS definitely took steps to make a one-water type zone more palatable here. The places where fishing holes are found in the zone are some of the most picturesque and pleasant I've encountered while fishing in any zone. Like this, for example: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/803243228396070139/DCB2D63D60B1EBF47E0FD55BE98008550DA2FF00/
It's a lot less boring to be fishing for hours in a landscape that looks like that than in the monotony of Coldharbour (there's a reason why people going for Master Angler hate that zone). I also noticed that there were an absolute ton of harvesting nodes located near fishing holes in Northern Elsweyr, much more than I've encountered when fishing any other zone. So the stunning scenery and plentiful crafting nodes I encountered as I fished the zone helped some in combating the monotony of it being a one water type zone.
The other thing I encountered, however, was the realization that there was no reason whatsoever for Northern Elweyr to be all river holes. There was no reason for ZOS doing that, unlike in Coldharbour or Clockwork City. ZOS is often a bit arbitrary with how they classify certain fishing holes (like with the random foul hole in the lake next to Riften that's just feet from a lake hole), but they generally follow a basic guideline. Fast, running water is river. Large, contained, still bodies of water are lakes. Oceans are ocean (simple enough). And foul can be either small, shallow bodies of water surrounded by dead trees and animal carcasses, or places where ocean and freshwater sources meet. Here's a map of the fishing hole locations I found in Northern Elsweyr. There may be a couple holes I don't have on here, but this is the overwhelming majority of the fishing hole locations in the zone. https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/803243228396071314/A0D2B62D21993F39FFC60791920B5BBB3FBF49B5/
Looking at that, most of the holes you see in the northwest and southwest are in water that very clearly had to be river. A couple in the east are as well. However, the very northwest 3-4 holes, a group of another 3-4 holes in the southwest, and all of those holes in the south-central portion of the map near Merryvale Farms are in water that very clearly should have been lakes. There's no way to look at those sources in person and think they could be anything other than lake holes. So that's a good 20 fishing holes right there that obviously should have been lake holes, but were made river holes for no reason. In the east, most of those holes you see should be foul holes, as they're in small, shallow bodies of water surrounded by dead trees or dead animals. In addition, that one isolated hole in the northwest below all the other clusters of fishing holes is in a water source that could only be foul water. So that gives us a good 30 or so river holes, 20 or so lake holes, and 6-7 foul holes that are already fishing hole locations. Without adding holes to any of the water sources on the map that don't have any (most of which would make sense as foul holes when you see them), ZOS already had plenty of spots to make a balanced zone with three different types of fishing holes.
After fishing it all, I realized that there was no reason for Northern Elsweyr to be a one-water type zone. In fact, they had to break their usual norms to make it one. A large chunk of the fishing holes in the zone don't make sense as river holes, but that's what ZOS made them. So all the aggravation of having to deal with the lower odds inherent in a one-water type zone was totally unnecessary. It's unclear why ZOS made the fishing in the zone this way, it didn't make sense to, and added some completely pointless unpleasantness to fishing in the zone.
With the gorgeous scenery and nearby crafting nodes, Northern Elsweyr could have been one of the single best fishing zones in the game. But by breaking their own guidelines and making it a one-water type zone when it shouldn't have been, ZOS shot themselves in the foot. It's a completely self-inflicted wound, and I bring it up so that ZOS realizes that there's no reason to make this type of mistake again in the future. I still enjoyed my fishing experience there overall, but it simply wasn't as good as it should have been, and it's baffling that ZOS made this error with the zone when all the pieces were there for them to absolutely nail the fishing in Northern Elsweyr.
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Hippie4927✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭I had some of the same thoughts about water types in Elsweyr because some of the fishing holes were clearly lake not river. That being said, I didn't find the odds of catching the rare fish to be lower. I only caught 150-some fish to get all 12 rare fish. That's pretty quick compared to many of the zones I have fished. I have 6 Master Anglers so I am no stranger to fishing and I was pleasantly surprised by how fast it went. Maybe I just had better RNG than you.PC/NA/EP ✌️2 -
MojaveHeld✭✭✭✭✭Yeah, you definitely lucked out with RNG, because I had to catch a bit more than 500 fish to get all the rares, which is a lot more than I needed to complete zones with multiple types of water.2
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Svenja✭✭✭✭✭
✭I needed around 450 fish to get the Elsweyr Angler Achievement, and I seriously disliked all the fishing holes being River water. It didn't make any sense whatsoever and as you wrote, many holes are in fact lakes.
My favorite fishing zone by far is Summerset, I like the occasional Pyandonean Motifs you get there.
PC | EU
Svea Rochaud | Templar Healer | AD
Grand Overlord - Flawless Conqueror - Immortal Redeemer - Tick-Tock-Tormentor - Gryphon Heart - Spirit Slayer4 -
Cardthief✭✭✭It went by pretty quickly for me as well, but honestly lower RNG isn't necessarily a bad thing, at the very least it means you have more chances of acquiring Perfect Roe!(MC) Main DPS: Redz Kuinn - Lvl 50 - MagSorc - PvE
Main Healer: Soranna Anilu - Lvl 50 - Templar - PvE
Main Tank: Seamus Kuinn - Lvl 50 - Dragonknight - PvE0 -
MojaveHeld✭✭✭✭✭I did get 7 perfect roe out of it, but given the extra hours I spent there to get my final two blue fish, it was only a small consolation.0
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MojaveHeld✭✭✭✭✭EvilAutoTech wrote: »I have over 20K insect parts so...
Let them be rivers.
Ooh, you make a strong point. But my buddy with 35k guts might disagree with that point...1 -
Fur_like_snow✭✭✭✭✭
✭Anything worth fishing for? I remember when Summerset came out everyone was trying to get the satchels for the gold recipe. Anything like that in this chapter?1 -
MojaveHeld✭✭✭✭✭No, just your normal trophy fish. Although the green fish do seem to have a decent drop rate, so I probably made as much vendoring those as I paid for in bait to finish the whole zone.0
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VanyelMohr✭✭✭I've gotten a about a dozen Moon-Sugar Shrimp and a handful of the Moon Tetra but not a one of the other two blue fish after at least 500 attempts. Had to come here to make sure they even existed.Edited by VanyelMohr on June 7, 2019 5:53AM0 -
MojaveHeld✭✭✭✭✭Yeah, I got a lot of the moon sugar shrimp as well, as did my fishing buddy.Seems to have a higher drop rate than the other blue fish. I felt the same way as you, wondering if the remaining two blue fish even existed for a while, as I got the first two blues in the first two hours or so of fishing, and the last two took me another 4-5 hours.0
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OrphanHelgen✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Greater senchefin doesnt drop for me. 2k fish maybe idk, been standing here all week.PC, EU server, Ebonheart Pact
Finally a reason not to play League of Legends1 -
MojaveHeld✭✭✭✭✭That was the last one I got, winded it up pulling it out of the one fishing hole next to the waterfall on the other side of the bridge down in the southwest corner of the map. Thought I had fished up all the holes in the vicinity and was heading to the wayshrine to port to a different part of the map, happened to see that one hole and wound up getting the senchefin from it.1
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Shawn_PT✭✭✭✭✭
✭Maybe they realized people are sitting on thousands and thousands of insect parts and wanted to introduce a sink?1 -
Wildberryjack✭✭✭✭✭
✭This puzzled me also. Many of those areas are clearly lakes not rivers, and some should def be foul.The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. ~Pablo Picasso3 -
jcaceresw✭✭✭✭✭Definitively the worst 3 days fishing there. Just because of a effing blue shrimp that refused to be caught in rivers! I forgot how many runs I did on the whole maps. Do consider I "played" mostly 16 hours every day waiting for the reel prompt to appear in order to catch that "fish". So imagine my boredom.Edited by jcaceresw on June 10, 2019 11:37PM0 -
MojaveHeld✭✭✭✭✭Wildberryjack wrote: »This puzzled me also. Many of those areas are clearly lakes not rivers, and some should def be foul.
That's what was so weird about the whole thing. I have no idea who at ZOS looked at the water in the zone and said "Let's make them all river holes." It broke with their own conventions, so it just made no sense all-around. Lookingb at other DLC zones, in all of them the fishing made some sense, so it's weird that they made such a bizarre decision for Northern Elsweyr.0 -
Nirntrotter✭✭✭✭✭Excuse me if this is too old a thread to necro, but I've used about 1.2k river bait and plenty of Artaeum Pickled Fish Bowls at this point, I'm "swimming" in Pupfish and have yet to see a Moon Tetra. 100% agree that there should ABSOLUTELY be lake and foul fishing holes for all the reasons mentioned above. My whole Master Fisher run was not as painful as this, including that feckin Dab.0 -
kamimark✭✭✭✭Well, joining in the necro, Southern Elsweyr is half the size but has Ocean, Foul, and River types. I don't see why Northern Elsweyr doesn't have Foul, Lake, and River.
Kitty Rainbow Dash. pick, pick, stab.0 -
Moon Sugar Shrimp, DO THEY EVEN EXIST???? I love fishing N. E., except for one thing: the one blue fish that refuses to be caught. I've been fishing here every day trying to get that one, I start out catching the greens (which I already have countless of), finally the Tetras fall excepting the elusive one aforementioned, which just does not exist, if you showed me a pic of one I would not believe it, just a fabrication to me. If I catch one, I've got a cold bottle of Dom ready to be popped.0 -
rpa✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I have not fished for long time and never at N. Elsweyr, but when I was actively working toward Master Angler I had at least three zones where the last fish I was missing was lurking in a fishing hole I had not found before. Two at small isolated ponds, one in a long stretch of shoreline in midst of holes I already had cleared. So my suggestion is to keep looking for holes you have not yet tried.Edited by rpa on May 1, 2023 3:12AM0 -
I have not fished for long time and never at N. Elsweyr, but when I was actively working toward Master Angler I had at least three zones where the last fish I was missing was lurking in a fishing hole I had not found before. Two at small isolated ponds, one in a long stretch of shoreline in midst of holes I already had cleared. So my suggestion is to keep looking for holes you have not yet tried.
This^^ Thank you for answering but this raises questions, one of which is: Are there specific holes where certain fish can only be caught? At least this seems to be what you're implying. I thought it was all RNG no matter where you fished, it took me a while to get the blue Tetras and they had come from the same holes that I fished over and over again to get them. One crazy thought I had is maybe you can only catch fish, with "Moon" in their name, at night and with moons in the sky. That would be cool if the devs got that specific, but I don't think so, I think it's all RNG and doesn't matter where you fish except for the type of water. In N.E.'s case, it's only got RIVER holes.
To the last replier: If this is "necro" and too old, then why didn't they close this thread? I think they realize there's more to be said about the OP's question and therefore not completely answered.
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Hapexamendios wrote: »I just love the smell of 4 year old necro thread in the morning!I have not fished for long time and never at N. Elsweyr, but when I was actively working toward Master Angler I had at least three zones where the last fish I was missing was lurking in a fishing hole I had not found before. Two at small isolated ponds, one in a long stretch of shoreline in midst of holes I already had cleared. So my suggestion is to keep looking for holes you have not yet tried.
THIS AGAIN^^ I caught it in one of the two little ponds directly east of the Defense Force Outpost. I cannot thank you enough for not giving me a snarky answer and some clues as to what I should do. I caught the Moon Sugar Shrimp on my 4th cast after trying the other little pond northwest of the Outpost. So your implication seems to be correct that certain fish are only caught in a specific hole. Also the two moons were full giants up in the sky and it was sunset.
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ZOS_IcymodGreetings,
We have closed this topic as it was originally created in May 2019. In many cases, it's better to create a new thread on a topic that you want to discuss as opposed to bumping one that is rather old.
Thank you for your understanding.0
This discussion has been closed.