I think that’s the real difference between “grinding time” and “fishing time”. When you’re grinding, you always have a feeling of progression. The progression might feel super slow, but you’re always gaining more paragon or working on that next aug. It’s an immediate and obvious form of slow progression. Lots of people enjoy that feeling (let’s face it, that’s a big part of why we’re all still playing this game)
But with fishing, you aren’t spending time progressing. Or I suppose more accurately, the progression isn’t obvious. You’re throwing darts at a board and hoping for the best. There’s no feeling of constant progression. Sometimes you get lucky on the first key, sometimes it takes 1000+. There’s no way to measure how far you’ve progressed until you land the rift. You don’t progress at all for hours until all of a sudden you make a huge jump.
I think it’s hard for a lot of people to trick their brain into realizing that fishing is also a form of progression towards a higher rift clear. It’s easy with grinding GRs, the reward is immediate and obvious: you visibly gained some XP and gem levels.
It’s harder with fishing. Technically fishing is a form of progression too, but it’s not immediate and obvious and I think that makes it less enjoyable for a lot of players. Myself included. I tend to do smaller fishes (50ish keys) where I know I have a reasonable chance of landing the rift in a few hours over an evening. Then I can walk away from that session feeling like I’ve progressed. If it’s going to take me multiple days to get it done, I’ll walk away from several sessions in a row feeling like I haven’t progressed at all, and I really don’t enjoy that feeling. It’s logic vs. emotions. Logically, I know I’ve still progressed. But it just doesn’t feel good until you get the clear, and I think that’s tough for a lot of players.
I used to be the front page king of early season leaderboards. I do enjoy the thrill of fishing and hooking a legendary map. BUT, I don’t play enough 4 man to mathematically compete with some players. My only hope is augments along with using fundamentally competent gameplay mechanics. You can get loads of xp fishing but I miss out on the gem ups.
Yep I was thinking of you two guys when I wrote that!
A good analysis, I think, on how a lot of folks feel about this stuff. For me, well… I guess the flip side of me always performing a “paragon adjustment” or “gear adjustment” in my head on GR X clears, is that I never really feel particularly good about getting more paragon, higher gems, better augs, etc, since I kind of “cancel out” that stuff anyway.
For me the big questions are always, “have I done as well as I can?” or “how can I improve my play?”
But, y’know, different strokes for different folks, and all that. I certainly don’t think my way is the only way, just that it’s a way.
Minor set back from peanut brain today. I salvaged my CHD/CHC/AD restraint with an aug. BIG OOF. Based on my luck with rings with season that’s a gut punch.
EDIT: Found it and it didn’t take long to sync back to yesterday’s (most recent) save state. Upside, ring is back. Slight downside, had a nice string of primals drop yesterday while farming up the 400+ keystones for later grift speed runs. (Most are garbage, but I had a NICE BK Solem Vow drop. xD sadface.
Still, probably easier to find a primal BK weapon than a ring that juicy. And Keystones can always be re-farmed. Nice save, Rage.
Shoot, I probably should have warned you better that you can also lose gear when doing a rollback. Still, good F&R rings are really hard to come by… so it was probably worth it.
It was an acceptable loss. I appreciate you having had that information so readily. If I could link GIFs I would totally link the handshark/arm meme with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers. xD
It’s only 3 rollbacks per account right? I burned one a while ago for a pair of quad rend gloves. I’ve since replaced them at least 3 times now so I’m not about to go willy nilly on rollbacks anymore haha.
Welp, after adding some augs to my MOTE gear (about 950 points worth), I bagged 137 in about 35 keys. Double Battlefield with Shield - Channeling - Power, Man Carver for RG. Fingers crossed that I make it through 139 before the season wraps up.
