Fishing - Inherently Flawed and Problematic

Siliconhobbit_ESO · August 2014

I've been reluctant to work on fishing achievements simply because I do not have any success with it. I can fish for hours at a time, like I did today, and not come up with a single fish that can be used for any of the various achievements. What frustrates me even more is I know several other players, one in particular, who seems to have amazing success with fishing and constantly sends me tells when he catches a green or blue fish....much to my chagrin. I hope he'll chime in and post his experience with fishing, below.

Today I spent quite some time fishing along the northern coast of Stonefalls. It was a disappointing experience to say the least and further seems to support my assumption that something is inherently wrong with fishing. Whether that problem is a problem with fishing in general or it is a problem based upon a character per character basis is what is up for debate in my mind. I'm inclined to go with the latter however.

Over the time I spent fishing the northern coastline of Stonefalls today, here are my results:

Ocean Fishing Only: Worms used as bait only
204 casts with 204 successful retrievals
Fish/Items Caught:
92 Dhufish
60 Longfin
24 Minnow
10 Gunny Sack
7 Armorhead - Achievement Fish
3 Travally - Achievement Fish
3 Used Bait
3 Slaughterfish
2 Trodh

This is typical of my experience with fishing, EXCEPT I generally do NOT catch any green achievement fish.

What makes fishing even more un-enjoyable is the need to use so much bait. Going on this experience, and the amount of bait used, if I were to fish in every zone for what I need, I would use 16800 bait alone and even then I would not catch the BLUE fish I need to complete the achievement (based upon my results today).

For the time and effort spent in fishing, the rewards...even the simple act of fishing itself and relaxing, is not worth it.

Fishing IRL is more rewarding AND enjoyable then it is in ESO.

Please post your experiences with ESO fishing below.

Natjur · August 2014

Ocean fishing spots only give Dhufish, Longfin, Minnow or achievement fish

If you got 3 Slaughterfish & 2 Trodh, that was not an ocean spot.

The change of an achievement fish is about 5% per cast so your return is about normal.

BUT if you have two people fishing the same node, it jumps to 10% (for both players)

We had four players doing the same nodes and one of us were getting an achievement fish per cast (25%), but the node only latest 3-4 casts each.

Never fish alone, you will die of boredom. Find at least two-three other players interested in doing it and go with them. Like real life I guess, fishing solo is boring.

Siliconhobbit_ESO · August 2014

I was fishing only on the northern coast of Stonefalls. I didn't fish in any rivers, lakes or foul water. I still got those Slaughterfish and Trodh, from an OCEAN fishing hole.

And I disagree on fishing IRL alone. I quite rather enjoy it

Natjur · August 2014

Siliconhobbit_ESO wrote: »

And I disagree on fishing IRL alone. I quite rather enjoy it

My comment was meant to be a joke

But if you do get a few players fishing from the same node, your chance of getting an achievement fish goes up (double, and double again with 3 but seems to cap out at 25%)

Tavore1138 · August 2014

Some ocean holes can count as foul, for example if they are in a busy port or if there are corpses in the water nearby. Same can be true in other areas... slow moving rivers can class as lakes and so on.

Since they 'fixed' fishing in 1.3 I have gained 2 of the starter isle achievements and Eastmarch and I am close on several others. I would say that I tend to get at least a green fish out of maybe 2 in 3 or 2 in 4 holes. Blues are much harder to find but they do drop.

I wish the green fish had a money value though, blues do and whites do but for some reason greens do not.

I don't mind using the bait up as I do a lot of material gathering for my crafts so I get a lot of worms & crawlers just in nodes (I actually don't mind too much when people just leave those behind)... insect parts are easy... but guts is annoying since they broke the drop lists on critters... I have an alt I maintain at level 3 just to run around and gather them for me from time to time.

I don't fish lots but i I have the chance to play for a few unbroken hours I tend to do a bit in amongst whatever else I am doing when I stumble across a convenient fishing hole.

All in all I kind of like it as just another thing to do in the game when the mood takes me...

ZazikelsShadow · August 2014

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

I don't mind using the bait up as I do a lot of material gathering for my crafts so I get a lot of worms & crawlers just in nodes (I actually don't mind too much when people just leave those behind)... insect parts are easy... but guts is annoying since they broke the drop lists on critters... I have an alt I maintain at level 3 just to run around and gather them for me from time to time.

As far as I can tell guts don't drop for low level characters anymore either. when I decided to start trying for the fishing achievements, I had a terrible time finding guts, someone mentioned that they don't drop for higher level characters anymore, so I tried with one of my alts (a level 3) and after i'd killed a few critters....nothing. I don't really like having to kill non-hostile critters in the first place, but I'm definitely not gonna keep doing it if nothing is coming from it. So, I dunno if it's just me or if this is an actual thing, but yes, the unavailability of bait these days is rather annoying.

I also have an issue of catching multiples of the same few rare fish, instead of one of each. If I were catching a different one everytime, instead of the same few over and over, I would already have all 12 long before now.

Also: I totally agree that rare green fish should have a monetary value, & it SHOULD be more than the regular fish.

gunplummer · August 2014

When I first learned that ESO was going to include fishing as an activity I figured it would be similar to Fable (which I really enjoyed). However, I have found that fishing in ESO is not fun at all. I have been religious in my attempts to catch any fish to satisfy the achievement. I have been fishing since early access so every time I see a fishing spot I try it out. In 5 months I have never caught a green or blue fish.

I was beginning to believe green and blue fish, and collectibles were myths until I finally found a collectible. I figured after the update fishing and collectibles were fixed , but apparently only collectibles were squared away.

I was fishing again this weekend when I ran out of bait. I figured I would try to buy some quickly on my way through town at the local guild stores. They wanted $5k for 100 worms. How is it possible that worms are worth more then legendary tempers? I have found the next big money making gimmick.

I will spend the next couple of days gathering bait just in time for the weekend to open my own bait shop and will say screw the fishing until its properly fixed.

On a side note to the guy who has just been harvesting the plants but leaving the worms and crawls in Eastmarch thanks. Your attempt at humor is netting me $50 gold a pop.

Neyephe · August 2014

If you already caught 2 types of green fish from the ocean nodes in one zone, then that is all you will get. You can still get one blue fish. To get the other rare fish you must fish the other types of water. You wont get all the rare fish from one type of node.

I have been working on the achievement for the last month now, off and on. With the exception of Craglorn, you need the 4 different types of nodes. In Craglorn, I believe you only need 2: river and lake. Coldharber may be different too, but I haven't tried fishing there yet.

Iorail · August 2014

Siliconhobbit_ESO wrote: »

....snip....

I can tell you are doing something wrong, either you don't understand fishing or you think you can just catch all rare in one zone/one water type. Instead of going into a lengthy explanation here, I'll link a post I created (still working on it and about 3/4 done) that will explain fishing and all that you need to know and do.

I got tired of going to different sites/guides to actually find the information needed so I put all of it in one post, I hope this helps you understand fishing:
Complete Fishing Guide
Any other help I can offer you, just pm me here or in my site, enjoy!

Siliconhobbit_ESO · August 2014

*sighs* I'm fully aware of how fishing works and that there are rare fish in each of the types of fishing nodes in each zones. I'm not attempting to fish up all the rare fish for the achievement in just one water type. I was attempting to show the problem with fishing.

I'm not doing anything wrong here. I'm fishing with the right bait in the correct location.

I just do not want to have to spend 800-1000 bait or more in an entire zone to catch all the fish available for the achievements.

And on a side note, I've read just about every ESO fishing guide there is.

KayleeSeranada · August 2014

In my personal experiences, it took me about 3 weeks of gameplay to ever see a green or blue fish. Since my first glimpse of one, though, I have caught maybe a dozen green fish and about 3-4 blue fish, this being in the last 10 days alone (it probably helps that I was fishing with a partner for much of this).

HOWEVER, this partner that I was fishing with swears up and down she was using the correct bait in the correct locations. In places that I was getting 100% success with worms and catching Ocean fish, she was retrieving used bait with worms from the same hole about 50% of the time (as if she were using the wrong bait, even though 3 times I insisted she double check to make sure).

This indicates to me that for some reason fishing experiences might be different per player, where some people experience serious bugs with it while others don't. I'm aware that this doesn't seem to make sense, but the evidence is suggesting otherwise.

I think people who are having a difficult time fishing should start recording videos of the poor fishing chances that are happening so that others can see first-hand what is going on with your screen. Either we'll figure out common mistakes made while fishing, or we'll find some perplexing bugs - either way, the community wins.

Umfafa_Umfafason · August 2014

Fishing ocean in stonefalls near the lava flows will yield foul water fish. If you get foul water white fish, switch to foul water bait or you're not gonna catch the rares.

The river fishing location in stonefalls will also yield foul water fish right at the node where the lava comes into the river.

Just gotta pay attention.