Fishing-only playthrough. Limitations, goals, strategies.

[Pixel Peeper]

I despise both the River map and Joja, but I like Fishing. So I thought I'd knock them both off my list with a Fishing-only playthrough.

The limitations that I set on myself are as follows:

I am allowed to:

Fish
Eat or sell anything I fish out
Buy from Willy
Buy bigger packs from Pierre's
Buy a membership and Community Development upgrades from Joja
Edit: crafting a chest, but only with Wood found via Fishing

And that's about it.


I am not allowed to:

Gain any EXP or perform any activity in any other skill (such as picking up forage)
Craft anything (except Chest, and then only with Wood found via Fishing)
Buy anything from any store or NPC other than the things listed above
Donate any artifacts or minerals
Do any notice board quest
Check any trashcans
Pick up and turn in Robin's axe
Upgrade my house or get any building
Etc.

You get the picture. I'll pretty much only be fishing and selling what I get.

The goal for me is to restore the town via Joja community development.

Strategies:

I'll have to check the Energy per gold ratio of fish to know which ones I should eat first. Chubs are only worth 50g and restore 25 Energy, for example, so it's better to eat them than Sardines which sell for 40g and only restore 13 Energy. Alternatively, Trout Soup's ratio isn't great but it does increase Fishing so I might use that, especially early in the game when Energy will be a huge problem and Fishing skill is very valuable.

I'll have to fish in appropriate locations. Easy fish first because I can't afford to miss a fish when bites are rare early on. Then mostly places/times where the fish are more valuable (depending on the weather too), or have better Energy per gold ratios if that's a factor.

The Legend might be a good target in the second half of spring. Since I'm allowed to buy from Willy, I can buy Trout Soup and get a Cork Bobber. That's 11 Fishing with a greatly enlarged fishing bar. Tough catch but a gold-quality Legend sells for about 10k. Worth fishing at the Mountain Lake when it's raining.

Speaking of which, I believe the Angler profession is better than Pirate in this particular playthrough. The +20% value to fish that Angler gives is usually very lame and the increased chance for treasure chests from Pirate is normally important for getting artifacts, but if all your profits come from fish and you just vendor artifacts, the +20% value is superior.

I'll need about 200k for everything (all development upgrades plus random pole, bait, food and bobber expenses), so I expect the playthrough to only last about two months. That means I likely won't be fishing in autumn, and certainly not in winter.

I believe that's the basics of it.

[TheAlmightyQ]

Just out of curiousity, why aren't you returning Robin's axe, or donating to the museum?

The fishing only run, sounds like a fun challenge, I enjoy fishing, but don't do much of it because I'm currently doing a min/max run (and I hate the fishing reward for the community center, so I skip it entirely)

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by TheAlmightyQ:

Just out of curiousity, why aren't you returning Robin's axe, or donating to the museum?

The fishing only run, sounds like a fun challenge, I enjoy fishing, but don't do much of it because I'm currently doing a min/max run (and I hate the fishing reward for the community center, so I skip it entirely)

I won't be returning Robin's axe because that has nothing to do with fishing. I won't be donating artifacts because the only profits I can make are from selling things that I fished out myself; selling the artifacts gives me some legit gold while the rewards for donating them don't qualify (I can't use them and can't sell them), and neither does the gold from completing the initial donation quest.

Just to be even more of a purist, I don't allow myself to complete Fishing quests either. Wouldn't make much of a difference anyway.

Indeed, even in normal runs I don't do the Fish Tank either. The reward isn't just bad, it actually makes you weaker if you attempt to benefit from it. As a certain, appropriately aquatic admiral would say... it's a trap.

[TheAlmightyQ]

Ah, that makes sense... May the fish be with you

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by TheAlmightyQ:

Ah, that makes sense... May the fish be with you

Thank you. They will.

Oh, they will... so many. At an average of 100g per fish, I'll need close to 2,000 of them.

Maybe I should take a screenshot of each day's haul... FOR SCIENCE.

[Pixel Peeper]

Well, here we go...

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1139187172

[I Kinda Fail]

Depending on how deep this run goes, you could get the beach totem from the Wizard. I think I heard that you can fish up a void mayonnaise in the witch's swamp.

You could also allow panning for ore, since it's a fishing reward, and intended to be used (I assume) while fishing. It'd be a good study into how rare or common the ore spawns actually are when you camp a spot. I'd also allow the noticeboard quests for Willy, as it's still a fishing challenge, and it increases your friendship with him.

Depending on how cheat-y you want to be, there's also that... glitch, I guess, where you can click the quest button by the clock as soon as you throw your bobber into the water, then click to close it when a fish bites - you can catch a LOT more fish per day this way, but it's also not intended.

Which mod did you use to look like Haley? :P

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by red255:

Um...so you mean wood from fishing chests? cuz I thought you were going to also allow recycling machines and driftwood wood.

but you aren't allowing yourself to craft any recycling machines.

Indeed, no Recycling Machines allowed. Only way I'm getting Wood is from treasure chests.

Originally posted by I Kinda Fail:

Depending on how deep this run goes, you could get the beach totem from the Wizard. I think I heard that you can fish up a void mayonnaise in the witch's swamp.

You could also allow panning for ore, since it's a fishing reward, and intended to be used (I assume) while fishing. It'd be a good study into how rare or common the ore spawns actually are when you camp a spot. I'd also allow the noticeboard quests for Willy, as it's still a fishing challenge, and it increases your friendship with him.

Depending on how cheat-y you want to be, there's also that... glitch, I guess, where you can click the quest button by the clock as soon as you throw your bobber into the water, then click to close it when a fish bites - you can catch a LOT more fish per day this way, but it's also not intended.

Which mod did you use to look like Haley? :P

Pretty sure this is never gonna get past two months, haha. Also I couldn't do the Fish Tank section because I can't mine at all (required for Ghostfish and Woodskip) or buy anything from the Traveling Cart. And panning isn't fishing so I can't get ore that way either.

I'm not using the Journal glitch either.

Basically I'm doing a super-purist Fishing run. This will show how much gold you can get purely from Fishing and absolutely nothing else (in this case, not even Crab Pots).

The "Haley as Player" mod is found alongside the "Feminine Female Farmer" mod (which I haven't tried) on Nexus. I noticed that it messed up my male farmer on the character creation screen though, so I'll probably uninstall it when I'm done with this little experiment.

[Pixel Peeper]

Alright, here we are.

Day 1:
No fishing pole.
Can't fish.
Life is not worth living.
Immediately went back to bed to cry myself to sleep.

Day 2:
Ate too many fish, ended up with extra Energy. Probably lost 150g.
Reached level 1 Fishing.
Reached level 2 Fishing.

Day 3:
Bought Fiberglass Rod and about 170 Bait.
Notable treasures: 6 Iron Ore, 2 Frozen Geodes, 2 Frozen Tears. Oh, and 3 Wood!
Reached level 3 Fishing.
Reached level 4 Fishing.

In addition to the fish I sold to Willy early in the day, I also made 1,800g. Gonna buy the 24-slot bag tomorrow.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1139202614

It's late so that's it for today.

[Nakos]

Geez... no wood except for what you get from chests? And no forage?

That sounds ... painful. I get why you're adding the limitation, but it still sounds like it'll be kind of punishing.

You won't ever be able to cook either, that'll hurt too.


Also, I had no idea you could recreate Haley that exactly.

[jay jay the dank planezinho]

Originally posted by Nakos:

Geez... no wood except for what you get from chests? And no forage?

That sounds ... painful. I get why you're adding the limitation, but it still sounds like it'll be kind of punishing.

You won't ever be able to cook either, that'll hurt too.


Also, I had no idea you could recreate Haley that exactly.

You can with mods.

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by Nakos:

Geez... no wood except for what you get from chests? And no forage?

That sounds ... painful. I get why you're adding the limitation, but it still sounds like it'll be kind of punishing.

You won't ever be able to cook either, that'll hurt too.


Also, I had no idea you could recreate Haley that exactly.

Well, I already have 3 Wood after one "real" day of fishing (the first one was super slow because 0 Fishing and no bait), so it won't be that bad. Besides, getting to 50 Wood won't really do all that much for me; it'll simply allow me to store my farming tools and old fishing rods to free some inventory space.

I'm buying the 24-slot bag today, that alone will make me go from 5 free inventory spaces (I'm currently using 7 slots permanently on my four farming tools, two fishing poles and stack of Wood) to 17 free inventory spaces, enough for decent fishing trips. At the rate I'm making gold I'll be able to afford the 36-slot bag in a few more days.

Crafting the Chest will only free 6 or 7 spaces. It'll be nice but not strictly necessary.

I barely ever cook even in my regular playthroughs because cooking is almost useless. Even Sashimi wouldn't have done much for me; the lowest-value fish (30g) still increases to 67g when you account gold-quality and professions, almost as much as converting it to Sashimi (75g). Frankly, taking the time to give Linus gifts would have cost me as much as his Recipe would have helped me.

I'm totally fine with this being a strict Fishing-only playthrough. The only thing that really hurt so far is all the great Energy Forage I found (there were three Dandelions at the Bus Stop on Day 2, on Day 3 a Leek spawned there too) that I have to walk by without picking up. Lots of shells on the beach too, but heh, I'm making tons of gold anyway.

[TheAlmightyQ]

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

I'm totally fine with this being a strict Fishing-only playthrough. The only thing that really hurt so far is all the great Energy Forage I found (there were three Dandelions at the Bus Stop on Day 2, on Day 3 a Leek spawned there too) that I have to walk by without picking up. Lots of shells on the beach too, but heh, I'm making tons of gold anyway.

So, even the shells are off limits (some do count as fish after all)? What about crab pots, are you going to buy some from Willy? Or, as I suspect, are they not worth the initial investment?

I'm curious because this sounds like a challenge I'd like to take up... My min/max run has pretty much reached an impass, making far more per day than I can spend... Or maybe because it's winter and I had so much iridium from the skull cavern that I just finished turning the entire farm into a massive field for spring... In any case, I think it is time to abandon my current run and try a challenge run...

[Pixel Peeper]

My main rule for this run is "If I don't fish it out with my fishing pole, it's off limits" and I can't sell it or eat it or use it.

I won't be using Crab Pots at all because this will be a short playthrough. It will all be over long before a Crab Pot would have paid for itself, especially since I can't craft them, don't use Recycling Machines and I won't be cooking Sashimi, things that greatly improve the efficiency of Crab Pots.

Challenge runs, yes! The basic game, while fun, doesn't offer a lot of goals. By the end of the first summer, you're swimming in gold and starting to notice that there isn't much left to do. The dev is super overwhelmed and still has to fix bugs, apply polish and make a basic balance pass, so I doubt he's going to have the time or the will to implement alternate game modes (usually an efficient way to artificially multiply the amount of available content), so it's up to us to come up with less efficient, themed playthroughs.

The one I'm doing is of limited interest unless you really like fishing or are really curious about how it performs, but there are many other challenge runs one could do, and everyone is free to set their own goals and limitations.

[TheAlmightyQ]

Yeah, I love fishing, but it just doesn't have much value in min/max runs, or deep mining (which is what I've been doing with my last couple of plays)... I want to do a fishing only run too... There's a bit of luck involved with getting the right fish on the hook, but keep us posted & we'll see who can finish the Joja route fastest

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by TheAlmightyQ:

Yeah, I love fishing, but it just doesn't have much value in min/max runs, or deep mining (which is what I've been doing with my last couple of plays)... I want to do a fishing only run too... There's a bit of luck involved with getting the right fish on the hook, but keep us posted & we'll see who can finish the Joja route fastest

I expect most of the luck evens out over the two months... but there is one major factor: the Legend.

Someone who gets multiple rainy days in late spring and manages to catch a half-dozen Legends will be around 70,000g ahead of someone who does not. In a 200,000g run, that's quite a difference!