Reconsider fishing difficulty?

[Kutch]

I'm at level 56 fishing, and just finished my Lu Shang's yesterday after four months of doing nothing else than fish moat carps.

I am now at a stage where I am unable to skill up. The fish I am levelling on (Bladefish) is:

1) too rare
2) It stays at the middle rod position far too often, making it impossible to drain stamina from
3) Rod goes crazy - too fast for me to follow as a "faster-than-average" gamer, I should be able to react to this in good time

This is taking away my incentive to fish. I have no problems with the new fishing system for fish that are below my level, but catching those fish that I can actually level from cannot be this hard! It needs to be reconsidered.

Also, the time and effort put into Lu's should count for something to help wiht this. MORE than what I am currently seeing. Mithran rod is actually a little better than lu's for draining fish stamina, but it looses too many fish because they're too small, and frankly, I'm keen on using my Lu Shang for helping me to level fish, as it has done for so many others before me!

[Icemage]

If you find that your target fish is too jerky when using a wooden rod (Lu Shang's included), switch to the equivalent alchemy rod - in this case, either a Single Hook or Composite Rod might give you better results. The new system makes fish behave differently based on the rod you use.


Icemage

[Kutch]

That is kind of beside the point. I've tried different rods. I now carry with me a small assortment of rods, however, there's a distinct difference between catching fish that are below your level, and above it.

Levelling up on fish is too hard at the moment. the fish that actually give level-ups is made a wee bit too difficult for my own (and many other's I've talked to) liking.

Add to this that in the history of fishing, obtaining the Lu Shang rod meant the world for those in their mid 50 level for fishing in order to proceed with levelling. No other rod was much thought of for this. With the new fishing system, more rods are available for the job, but this disqualifies the Lu Shang as a good for levelling on alltogether, and seemingly promotes it for legendaries only, something I strongly dislike.

I am one of those that started on this quest without rusty caps selling to NPC's for vast amounts of money. I started it after rusty fishing was nerfed (by price cuts) and also after prices were gimped. The rod has never been as difficult to catch, simply because you get no echonomic benefit from catching side-fish to the carps needed. You want a Lu Shang today, you either farm something else to buy the carp with, or you fish up the 10,000 fish yourself, or a combination. Post-fishing system, the carp you catch does not even cover the cost of making your own bait.

Trying to level up fishing now is a matter of spending loads of Gil on bait (lures cost too much to be fighting fish that you can skill up on), I can live with that. What annoys me is that the fish is way too hard to catch.

I am all for the new fishing system. It is much more fun to fish now than before, but skilling up on fishing level should not be this difficult. At fishing 57, I have roughly an effective skill of 63 with gear + imagery, and I should have a reasonable chance to catch my target bladefish which, according to ClanWind caps at 71. But this fish is darn near impossible to reel in, because it wiggles the rod back & forth at in-humane speed - As an avid gamer, I don't find my reflexes to be so slow that I shouldn't be able to react fast enough on this, but I am, and in that respect, I feel that SE should tone down the amount of wiggle to be more within human grasp. I know for sure that my girlfriend doesen't stand a chance in hell of reeling in fish on my character - she tried, and she's simply not used to having to react this fast - this bummed her out quite a bit, since she too found the new fishing system to be fun at her level (around 12 as I write this), but as she says, she won't be able to skill up if it's going to be that hard later on, and therefore, she's inclined to just go back to her "normal" tradeskills which don't require reaction times at all.

[Gman]

From what I've read at other forums, Bladefish is a struggle to catch even if you are above its level. Some fish just seem to be harder to wear down. Keep in mind you still get skillups, even if you dont successfully catch the fish. I believe you have to wear it down to qualify for the skillup, but at least you dont have to catch it. Just keep this in mind... pre-patch there was probably a very slim chance you would catch it as well, now the ball is in your court. It's still hard to catch, but player skill plays a bigger part.

Also, ive never checked into fish at that skill level, but is there anything else you could target?