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[Fishing] Fishing Power Scrolls

Irulia Darkaith

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
forgive me if this information is somewhere on this forum, but at what point do the PS become possible as a reward? I saw something on the FAQ referring to different tiers of rewards but couldn't find the details of the tiers. So far just getting bait, books (1, 2 and 4) and the occasional bit of fishing equipment (lava trap, junk proof hook, etc).
 

Basara

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from the start - they are just a really rare drop compared to the others.
 

Silverbird

Slightly Crazed
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Stratics Legend
You seem to get better chances once you have hit 106 fishing. You start to get requests for dungeon fishes at that level. Those have a higher rating than the other fishes and you can get easier and more often into the ranges for powerscrolls. It takes a lot efford, if you want to get your first 110 on your own but it is possible. I have done it once and wouldnt do that again. (Actually I got a 110 for a secondary fisher on a fresh shard before I started with the fishmonger quests.)
 

Irulia Darkaith

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
You seem to get better chances once you have hit 106 fishing. You start to get requests for dungeon fishes at that level. Those have a higher rating than the other fishes and you can get easier and more often into the ranges for powerscrolls. It takes a lot efford, if you want to get your first 110 on your own but it is possible. I have done it once and wouldnt do that again. (Actually I got a 110 for a secondary fisher on a fresh shard before I started with the fishmonger quests.)
Would love to buy a +10 scroll...but I've never seen a fishing PS for sale...not a +5, +10 or +15. Saw a +20 but they wanted 25 million gold...seemed a bit steep.
 

Irulia Darkaith

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
What shard are you on?
Catskills. I put out a call on that shard and got a single reply from Flutter who kindly sold me one of the +10s she was saving to bind into a +20. So back to the deep ocean to try and work up fishing again. Hopefully lobster fishing will be a little less depressing once I get to 106. That is the magic number to stop getting unnamed lobster/crab, correct?
 

Silverbird

Slightly Crazed
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Stratics Legend
That is the magic number to stop getting unnamed lobster/crab, correct?
Hehehe. Sorry to disappoint you. I havent heard yet of anyone not getting those crabs/lobsters. But the unnamed ones are worth 20 points/each at the Britain Library. 106 fishing is the point at which the fishmongers start to ask you for dungeon fishes. Dungeon fishes have the highest weighting when it comes to the questing.
 

Irulia Darkaith

Sage
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Stratics Legend
Hehehe. Sorry to disappoint you. I havent heard yet of anyone not getting those crabs/lobsters.
Well now I'm depressed again. Does the occurence of unnamed lobsters/crabs go down as your skill goes up? Right now, about 60% of the my lobster traps are filled with the unnamed! It's bad enough that lobster fishing is absolutely tedious, but to have almost half your traps come up empty and then to empty them and find junk lobsters/crabs. Ouch. At the very least you should be able to haul up some amazing item that gets caught in the trap now and again.
 

Basara

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What determines the quantity of unnamed stuff is the longer you leave the trap out, the more likely there will named stuff in it (and the rare ones for recipes are also affected by this).

However, most people find that placing a bunch of traps, then waiting until JUST ONE bobs a second time, then pulling all of the traps quickly (in the order they were placed), maximizes the number of named crustaceans. They are making up in quantity, the quality that might be lost if you let traps sink, as traps start being lost on the second "bob" check. Most of the traps retrieved this way will only have finished 1 bob cycle, and likely that several will be empty. You still end up with about 50% generic ones.

I'm personally trying to catch rare ones (to have one of each), so I tend to leave mine out until the 3rd or 4th bob cycle, instead of the second.
 

Irulia Darkaith

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
However, most people find that placing a bunch of traps, then waiting until JUST ONE bobs a second time, then pulling all of the traps quickly (in the order they were placed), maximizes the number of named crustaceans.
That's what I've been doing. I work with about 20 traps in a straight line, by the time the last one is down, I have enough time to back the ship up and grab the first trap that's bobbing. Well I'm just relieved I'm not doing it wrong so to speak though I was just hoping that at a certain skill the unnamed lobsters/crabs would disappear. Now I have to fish up 60 Dungeoness crabs - and by my calculations, that will take about 10 hours...gah. Yes I will get other named in the process, but that's just painful to have to spend that much time just to fill the orders I already have.
 

Redxpanda

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I am in a similar boat. I have a hold full of fish and lobsters that i am afraid to do anything with just in case a future quest requests it.

Is there a list of the quests and the fish/lobsters/crabs required to complete them yet?
 

Basara

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For Quests, there's
  • 12 Shallow Water Fish (not counting "a Fish", which you stop getting as you near GM)
  • 18 Deep Water Fish (not counting "a Fish")
  • 12 quest Crustaceans (6 lobsters & 6 crabs) with names (plus the 2 facings each of unnamed lobsters & crabs, which are only good for collections)
  • 12 Dungeon Fish.
There's far less than that many body styles. Each named fish comes only in one facing, though, and the quest fish of the same body type are all of the same color (except for the ones that look like the old "a fish", which retain a different color for each facing). To give you an idea, there are 3 shallow fish, 3 deep fish, and 2 dungeon fish that all have the "grouper" body type, all of the same color, so if you are looking at one of these 8 without context of where it was caught, you'd have to mouse over it to see which type they are.

The 5 basic body types:
"Grouper" (large red fish)
"Trout" (thin red fish)
"Dorado" (green - ironically there's no dorado in the game, and none of the fish that use the art named for real fish look remotely like it in real life)
"Pike" (silver-blue)
"Classic" (brown, yellow, blue or green, depending on facing, just like non-HS fish)

If a fish has a weight other than 10, and an odd color, it's probably one used in a recipe or a quest (Mud Puppy, Red Herring), or one of the classic "Big Fish".
 

Doubleplay

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
What determines the quantity of unnamed stuff is the longer you leave the trap out, the more likely there will named stuff in it (and the rare ones for recipes are also affected by this).

However, most people find that placing a bunch of traps, then waiting until JUST ONE bobs a second time, then pulling all of the traps quickly (in the order they were placed), maximizes the number of named crustaceans. They are making up in quantity, the quality that might be lost if you let traps sink, as traps start being lost on the second "bob" check. Most of the traps retrieved this way will only have finished 1 bob cycle, and likely that several will be empty. You still end up with about 50% generic ones.

I'm personally trying to catch rare ones (to have one of each), so I tend to leave mine out until the 3rd or 4th bob cycle, instead of the second.

There may be a misunderstanding about the chances of obtaining more named creatures by leaving the traps in for a second or third bob.
Granted, I may be the one misunderstanding this but bear me out:
If you flip a coin, the chances that you will get heads on one toss is 1/2 or 50%. You could tell someone that if you toss the coin two times, their chances of getting a head are better. And in fact they are. Your chance of getting a head with two tosses is 3/4 or 75% (you can get HH, HT,TH, or TT). There are three chances of getting a head and one chance of getting no head. Obviously your chance of getting a head with two tosses is greater than if you toss just once.

Likewise with lobster fishing. If the chance is 50% that you will catch a named crab or lobster on one bob, then your chance is 75% that you will catch a named crab with two bobs. However, note that for each bob, the chance remains at 50%. If you add in the chance for losing the trap with two or more bobs, it may be best to stick with one bob because the loss of traps will reduce your 75% or more chance by the loss of all crabs caught when the trap sinks. Not having any information about the chance that a trap will sink, the best pulling strategy remains a guess.
 

Basara

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No, there's not a misunderstanding.... A dev specifically said that with each pulse (possible catch) the target number for a random Rare crustacean improves, and it's almost impossible to catch one after just two pulses. Of course, the chance of losing the trap starts on the second pulse as well, and that's what makes it a crap shoot.
 

Doubleplay

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No, there's not a misunderstanding.... A dev specifically said that with each pulse (possible catch) the target number for a random Rare crustacean improves, and it's almost impossible to catch one after just two pulses. Of course, the chance of losing the trap starts on the second pulse as well, and that's what makes it a crap shoot.
If that is what the dev said, then I stand corrected. However my memory is that he said that your chance increases with each "pulse". Been looking for the reference, but cannot find it.
 

Basara

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yeah, that's the basis for 2/3 of my response. Discussion in another thread had Mark or another dev comment that it would be extremely difficult to catch rare ones (what Mark called "enchanted or legendary") if you only left the trap to soak for 1-2 pulses like most do, because at 2 pulses the chance for one was so small.

There's actually a few things with the HS fishing systems that aren't quite as the devs think - which is true for many other systems (mining, for example), but in the case of fishing, these aren't misinterpretations of legacy systems but not realizing that a new system, as implemented, is not behaving as they think they designed it. Traps end up producing more uncommon crustaceans by quick fishing, for example, than leaving them for a reasonable time, and appear to be lost much more quickly than the devs think the rate is, and then there's the multiple issues with baits.
 

Silverbird

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Stratics Legend
I think, one of the problems with those calculations given from the devs about sinking traps and caught uncommon custodeans, was, that you usually dont loose empty traps. If you set out multiple traps (as most do) the first traps are sinking before others got their first 'bob'. That way the number of lost crabs to sinking traps is too high and you get better results, when you dont risk your traps.
 

Rhiannon

Sage
Alumni
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Stratics Legend
Sorry to bring this old thread back up but I want to make sure the information is still accurate. As a GM fisherwoman, do you I still have a chance at getting a +5 PS while out fishing (actually doing monger quests)?
 

azmodanb

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
No. Fisherman do...but fisherwoman get -5 fishing scrolls due to there constant talking and bickering about how the sun is to hot and bugs flying around. :(

;)
 
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