Fishing vs Foraging

[Genkismet]

This is a quote from Ngreth in another thread, but I wanted to start a new discussion on this as I didn't want to derail the other one.

Fishing (and foraging... though foraging does not cap out its effectiveness at 200 like fishing does) has three tables.

Ideally, when the tables were made more "rare" stuff was put on the third table.

Or if there is nothing "rare" maybe more of a chance to fish the "special" fish.

When you fish you make a roll. if the roll = success, add the roll to 200. then there is a split of "if roll < x do low table" then "If roll < 201 do mid table", else do High table. which means at 200 + any roll (roll is 1 to something...) gets you the high table. So you will ALWAYS fish the high table.

What is on those table is up to designers. It has been used for "unique" rare thing, or to make some harder to get things more common.

I recently spent quite a bit of time fishing in Cobalt Scars for Cobalt Cod so I could do some tailoring skillups. The following is the results of my fishing expiditions. I decided to keep track of it after I was seeing some "funny" results. Now I have not tracked any other zones, just this one, so I don't know if this is a game wide problem or zone specific one.

The following is broken down in the use of 200 fishing bait runs:

First run:

Fish Scales: 68
Fresh Fish: 72
Dragon Bay Snapper: 36
Cobalt Cod: 23
Sandles: 15
Rusty Daggers: 8
Total items caught: 222

Second Run:

Fish Scales: 71
Fresh Fish: 66
Dragon Bay Snapper: 31
Cobalt Cod: 34
Sandles: 11
Rusty Daggers: 7
Total items caught: 220

Third Run:

Fish Scales: 68
Fresh Fish: 63
Dragon Bay Snapper: 42
Cobalt Cod: 26
Sandles: 9
Rusty Daggers: 8
Total items caught: 216

Fourth Run:

Fish Scales: 65
Fresh Fish: 60
Dragon Bay Snapper: 40
Cobalt Cod: 27
Sandles: 14
Rusty Daggers: 12
Total items caught: 218

Fifth Run:

Fish Scales: 65
Fresh Fish: 64
Dragon Bay Snapper: 39
Cobalt Cod: 29
Sandles: 8
Rusty Daggers: 9
Total items caught: 214

Sixth Run:

Fish Scales: 60
Fresh Fish: 71
Dragon Bay Snapper: 39
Cobalt Cod: 23
Sandles: 16
Rusty Daggers: 9
Total items caught: 218

Seventh Run:

Fish Scales: 69
Fresh Fish: 71
Dragon Bay Snapper: 37
Cobalt Cod: 29
Sandles: 11
Rusty Daggers: 5
Total items caught: 222

During my second run, I actually /logged it and came up with these results:

Spill your beer: 32
Cast your line: 257
Didn't catch anything: 38
Caught fish scales: 56
Caught fresh fish: 66
Caught cobalt cod: 34
Caught dragon bay snapper: 31
Caught something: 23
Lost bait: 3
Caught sandles: 7
Caught rusty dagger: 3
Broke your fishing pole: 1


Grand total of all seven fishing runs (1400 fishing bait used)

Fish Scales: 466 (30%)
Fresh fish: 467 (30%)
Dragon bay snapper: 264 (17%)
Cobalt cod: 191 (12%)
Sandles: 84 (5%)
Rusty daggers: 58 (4%)
Total items caught: 1530

General observations from this:

1. Fish scales, Sandles and rusty daggers are (what seems to me) each on two different tables. You can catch "fish scales", "sandles" and "rusty dagger" or you can catch "something". And "something" always turns up to be one of those three.

2. Fish scales are much too commonly caught, accounting for 30% of catches.

3. If you catch "something" it doesn't eat your bait, hence I got 1530 items caught from 1400 fishing bait. And that doesn't include the bait that I lost while fishing either.

4. If you combine fish scales, sandles and rusty daggers, they total up 40% of all the catches. To me this is the junk category. Fish scales are vendor sold afterall, and are very very rarely used anymore, they do stack to 100 tho!

5. (real life observation) I've gone fishing perhaps a dozen or so times in my life, and I've never once caught a "fish scale" /boggle


Now I can't recall where the post was (I did look around for it) but if I'm remembering correctly Ngreth said that the chances of NOT foraging something with maxed skill was zero. Why isn't that the case with fishing? Why do we have two chances for getting "junk" catches? Why are the "junk" catches such a high percentage of what is being caught?

I understand that this information was only collected in one zone, and it might only have one table to start with, but there's got to be some way of adjusting each table so that max skill has some effect on it.

So those are the observations of a drunken fisherman. Feel free to add your own or to even debunk mine.

Genkismet
Cazic Thule

[Ngreth Thergn]

Because some designers also put the "junk" catches on the "success" table.

Me... I only put the scales on the "success" table, unless there is a good reason for other junk.

To me this represents you almost getting the fish, but it pulled away leaving a "part" of itself. The highest I set this chance at normally is 8%. It is usually lower than that.

[Ngreth Thergn]

And..

I have been putting "junk" items on the forage tables... so though they do definitely forage something... they could also get "junk" (plus there is the old forages that have been fazed out...)

[Strokker]

You are truely an Evil Ogre. Bad ogre. Not nice...lol

[Genkismet]

And what of the dual messages for catching the "junk" stuff? Is there truly two chances at catching this stuff, or is it just a different message? If it is two chances, that should be looked at. Catching fish scales 30% of the time is definitely above the 8% you said. (yes I understand you didn't set the table up in this zone tho). Just wondering how this zone compares to others.

Anybody else out there with some info on other zones?

Genkismet
Cazic Thule

[trebbleclef]

Apparently the EPA is not set up in Norath ... or someone would be trying to clean up all that dirty water. I have never caught rusty daggers or sandles while fishing,not to mention the fish scales, in my rl world. But in EQ, wow the junk I catch is staggering.

now that I think of it.. the water should be full of broken fishing poles. I know I must have thrown them in the water since i never had to destroy them.

Thanks for posting your results. Now I know i am not the only one who seems to catch more fish scales than Cobalt Cods.