I can't wait to see how this one starts coming together. I was very much hoping that since rods don't seem to make much of a difference in the possible catch list that bait wouldn't either.
I tend to fish for 4~5 hours at a time in the same spot, and I tend to pull up every possible fish that comes out of that water at least once. My working theory so far has been that any fish in a certain water can bite on any bait that works in that water, but changing your bait will change the frequency in which those fish bite.
Fishing in the Limsa fountains for a couple of hours, a friend and I both pulled up the same list of fish using different baits, but in the end he had a hugely disproportionate amount of Goby and I had the same of Vongola.
I'd be kinda bummed if certain fish just disappeared entirely with no chance of recovery if you didn't have its specific bait, I was hoping the new messages like "The fish seem to be biting on [bait name]." were indicators that if you want to target the next fish that bites in the future, use that bait again -- but not necessarily that it'll vanish if you don't have one of the few it likes.
I think a huge factor of what bait works and what doesn't is the hidden attributes that bait possesses compared to the numerical difficulty ("rank") of the fish you're pulling in. Check out XIVPro's bait lists. The two highest hidden attributes are ACC and M.ACC. It can't be a coincidence that these line up with DEX and PIE, the driving forces of fishing.
A fish's refusal to bite on a certain bait might not be that it doesn't "like it" but that it doesn't give enough boost to DEX and PIE to even target that fish. (NOTE: This does not mean that certain fish don't like others BETTER, because they "seem to be biting on" the ones they like.)
This theory will be easiest to test against Legendary fish. If one actually prefers a disproportionately lower rank bait, then it might very well "like it" and thus shatter my theory.
But if it runs off with your Vulture and ignores the moth pupa, it might just be because, comparatively, the Moth Pupa gives f'k all in required stats. If this is the case, I'd equip +PIE +DEX equal to the stats between vulture fly and moth pupa and see if the little buggers start working then.
Edited by user Wednesday, January 05, 2011 8:22:05 AM(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified