Saltwater Fishing is Still Incredibly Tedious and Simply Unfun

[North.1438]

While the patch on Tuesday gave a (slight) increase in drop rates for saltwater fish at fishing nodes, Saltwater fishing is still awful to try and achieve. I have now spent over 40 hours collectively trying to catch the one last fish I need (the Aurelian Herring) with no luck. Not 40 hours to complete the entire achievement, no, it has been 40 hours of constant fishing trying to get that specific fish, sitting at 13/14 in the avid saltwater fishing collection.

 

There is no fun gameplay in this, no reason why it should be this exceedingly rare, especially when all of the other fishing achievements were much easier and well balanced, not requiring any massive amount of grind to complete them.

 

My proposed solution is to adjust the rates to be similar to that of the World Class Fisher achievement, and to make a node like the one in Kessex for Saltwater. It would still take time to complete, just not the ridiculous amount of hours that it currently takes.

 

Please ArenaNet, this one achievement has effectively ruined my experience with fishing in this game. Don't make others experience that as well

[Hesione.9412]

I wish I could get to Avid, I've been waiting on Red Gurnard for hours. I can see I will need to brute force this in Ember Bay.

[Ghast.9231]

Also currently stuck on the regular Saltwater Fisher achievement for the last 25 hours of fishing, missing the Mantis Shrimp.

In the meantime I have caught anywhere between 1 and 8 (!!!) of all the other saltwater fish in the collection, meaning I've effectively almost completed it twice but, ya know, none of this will count for avid.

So that's a bit of a pain.

I'm quite dedicated to seeing this through, but as you said

Quote

Please ArenaNet, this one achievement has effectively ruined my experience with fishing in this game. Don't make others experience that as well

I have a feeling that once I complete it I won't look at fishing for a long long while.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Ghast.9231

[Hollowhisper.1093]

ANet manages to turn every facet of their game into a grind.

[Donari.5237]

I don't mind it taking time to get the fish (I don't even have 5 collections complete yet and I've been spending a good amount of my game time in fishing when I couldn't commit to longer activities).  The way I see it, I'm accruing useful mats and occasionally progressing an achievement.

That said, I was fairly pleased to find that the fishing in the new lounge has some distinct advantages.  Not game-winning ones, and it could get tedious once map chat isn't full of people discovering nifty things, but for now, well.  I hit 99 stacks for the first time because the pools kept spawning as I circled the island, and in the hour or two I was there I got some saltwater and several world class fish, including ones I hadn't found previously.  Zero hostile mobs, too, so it's a serene time.  It did feel a tiny bit grindy at the end since I was fishing just to move my stack count higher and couldn't go ashore to explore due to needing to preserve the stack.  That, however, was my own choice.

Yes, I anticipate some won't be happy to know a paid pass has good fishing, but as I said it's not a game-winner, just nice for those who enjoy the process of fishing without caring about speeding through the results.

[Preppy.7046]

if anet doesn't want to buff the Saltwater Fish drop rate from nodes, can Ember Bay saltwater fish *open water* drop rates be boosted?  For those of us who ground out Cod Swimming early, I think we can all attest that the commiseration flotilla in Ember Bay was a real game highlight.  I know several of my compatriots described it as a top five game experience - and this was while we were grinding there for tens of hours making little progress!  Netflix and fish was a lot of fun.  After the buff to saltwater fish drops from fishing *nodes*, it makes more sense to tour the fishing holes.  That requires a lot more active play which makes the community communication harder.  The flotilla was delightfully low pressure and low key.  If the node saltwater fish drop rates aren't increased, bringing back the flotilla seems like at least a step forward.

[Hesione.9412]

I spent almost 4 hours fishing with food and 99 stack buff in Ember Bay today, fishing in only coastal fish nodes. In those four hours, I managed to catch 135 Geyser Batfins and 17 Sunscale Strikers. I managed 3 Redfin Barbs, 2 Googly-Eyed Squid, 1 Horseshoe Crab, and 1 Sea Robin.

 

I am 28 of the 30 fishing achievements needed. How many hours am I expected, by the devs, to spend on saltwater and avid saltwater? 

 

Edit: I caught other items as well, put those in to show the volume of rare and exotic irrelevant fish caught.

Edited April 17, 2022 by Hesione.9412
It might be read as those were the only fish I caught.

[Nata.9812]

I am also completely stuck at 1 saltwater fish left.

I already spent many hours fishing everywhere, but cant complete this achievement no matter the fp level, bait type or map.

I think I will need more half year to complete avid saltwater after that.

[Duglaive.5236]

I at first misread the title and looked past the "Saltwater" part. Thought I'd peruse a thread merrily trashing this "mini-game" and its accompanying Masteries. Definitely my mistake.

 

Glad ya'll enjoy it, but hours at this activity? Masochists, the lot of you 😧

[Hesione.9412]

5 hours ago, Duglaive.5236 said:

I at first misread the title and looked past the "Saltwater" part. Thought I'd peruse a thread merrily trashing this "mini-game" and its accompanying Masteries. Definitely my mistake.

 

Glad ya'll enjoy it, but hours at this activity? Masochists, the lot of you 😧

Our map chats are good.

[morpheus.6489]

On 4/17/2022 at 10:00 AM, Hesione.9412 said:

I am 28 of the 30 fishing achievements needed. How many hours am I expected, by the devs, to spend on saltwater and avid saltwater? 

That's really the question. All the other fishing achievements are very manageable yet this one Saltwater achievement can take just as long or longer than all the other achievements COMBINED

[Silent.6137]

I've basically giving up on getting Saltwater & Avid Saltwater. Already completed every single other achievements as well but the one item for Saltwater remains totally elusive after spending countless hours at many locations, following the completions of the rest.

If so many are having problems with this one achievements, then it needs to be severely tweaked or completely removed. Not just increase the drop-rate by a miniscule amount, which doesn't really address the issue.

[quaniesan.8497]

Anet's great manifesto:  You fish, then you fish again.

[Nakasz.5471]

On 4/4/2022 at 7:52 PM, Hesione.9412 said:

I wish I could get to Avid, I've been waiting on Red Gurnard for hours. I can see I will need to brute force this in Ember Bay.

Same here, i need Electric Eel to open avid collection, but i abandoned this collection after spending more than 8 hours trying to get the fish, too much grind and boring

[doenerfritze.2648]

Did they really increase the saltwater droprate already? At this point I would higly doubt that. Why? Well, look:

Since a few minutes I'm finished with every Map Avid Achievement and therefore at 26/30. I still need 1 fish for the Saltwater and 1 Fish for the World Class Achievement.... and then obviously all of them again for the Avid ones. That could not be how its intended, right? And the worst part is, I cannot just throw in a specific bate to fix that... no.. I have to mindlessly grind and pray to the RNG gods. What a fun activity...

[Silent.6137]

Tried and true method. Complain enough and the fish you need will drop. Guarantee!! Posted on this thread yesterday, and got the one I needed today. Same with a few hard to catch ones. Complain to guildmates and the fishing gods just got tired of me whining.