Returning Player Fishing Question

[Nightmare of GL]

Hello I'm a long time player (2001) that as of late has been having an off and on relationship with the game. The last time I was on I was really fishing hard trying to get a +20 Fishing Powerscroll now I had been working hard on hundreds of quests and all I been getting is shoddy rewards such as bait yet no PS in sight (I would have taken a +5 just to be able to start). I plan on returning later tonight or tomorrow morning back into the game wondering am I doing something wrong? I would like to be getting PS's and not the junk I've been receiving before you ask my template is as follows:

100 Magery
100 Med
100 Evaluating Int.
100 Inscription
100 Cooking
100 Alchemy
100 (+20 hopefully) Fishing

I might move it over to my Treasure Hunter but I have not decided as this is good enough for now. I was wondering for any advice to help me advance my Fishing and hopefully get some Powerscrolls.

 

[DreadLord Lestat]

The RNG has has been horrible on UO for as long as I can remember. I have done at least a few hundred quests if not a thousand by now and have only gotten 2 +5 scrolls. It seems like once the rewards start to build up, they drop back down again. It's not you, it's the system they have in place.

 

[Basara]

First of all, at 100, you're barely able to get quests that might give a 105 or 110 PS. There are 4 different reward tiers, each consisting of 4 possible rewards (with bait and magical gear being the two most common, at each level).

To get to the tier of quests that give 115s and 120s, you have to be able to fish for dungeon fish (which requires a skill around 105 or 106, IIRC).

Second, once you hit the skill level for Dungeon Fish, the numbers get scrambled for how quest difficulty is based, and you could end up dropping back to 1-2 line quests for the next few dozen quests, and not get back up to 4-5 lines ones regularly until hundreds of quests later. (the chance of getting a second line is based on the percentage of fish you've had at least one completed quest for - and when dungeon fish are added, that percentage drops by almost 25%; the jump from 2 to 3 lines works the same way, and 3 to 4, and 4 to 5, so that the chance of a 5-liner immediately after adding the dungeon fish is 36% of what it was before)

On the brighter side, if you have Time of Legends, consider that ALL the water there is considered Dungeon fishing, and that as a result you can use lobster traps from the shore, even in the narrowest rivers. And, with the taming changes from a couple publishes ago, Giant Beetles are now 1-slot pets. You can release and retame/rebond a 3-slot beetle to bring it down to the current number, at the sacrifice of any skill gain they have accumulated over the years (mine mostly lost skills and never got them back) - or just get a new one. So, they make one of the best mounts for a fisher, as you can carry 160 fish/320+ crustaceans back from a trip overland (or carry a bunch of traps into dungeons or Eodon, and stay there until you lose all the traps). Just be aware that you may need to open their packs to place fish steaks in it, as it might eat ones you drop on it.

 

[Nightmare of GL]

Thanks for the tips Basara but the way you describe it this seems more like a catch22. I need higher Fishing to get better quests for rewards such as scrolls, however I need to get a power scroll to even be able to train my Fishing skill higher . Oh well I’ll just keep plugging along until I get something, heck I need to replenish my fish and crustaceans so I can turn them in faster.

 

[Basara]

It almost is a catch-22. Getting the 105 PS and then the skill isn't all that hard (once you get to 5-line and 6-line quests). Getting beyond that is where the system was screwed up.

What happened with the creation of the fishing quests was that they wanted people to do all stages of the fishing, slowly, not rush to 120 (would make the content seem fresher longer).

So, the idea was that at around 95-100, after enough fishing quests, you'd eventually get a 105 PS drop. You'd then work toward 105 skill, and probably get a 110 drop around the time you hit 105, give or take a few days, if you really concentrated on quest-filling. The same thing would happen 105-110 with the 115 PS, and 110-115 with the 120 PS.

However, whoever designed that part of the system either wasn't paying attention to the effects that adding the dungeon fish had on the chance for additional lines, and therefore quest point values, and how it would REALLY screw up point values toward trying to get a 115 or 120 PS, once the Dungeon Fish went active for the character.

When High Seas went live, several in my guild concentrated on trying to get to 120.

Several got 105 PS before the others. I ended up being given one before getting one myself. But.... In the next month, the others struggled between 105 & 110, while I soon got a 110 PS, powered through the quests to get them back to 5-6 lines, and ended up being the first to get a 120 PS, and ended up getting the 120s for several of the others (especially after we started pooling fish, as the way the crappy RNG of UO works, each person seemed to have 1-2 fish that they almost never caught, for weeks)