Is anyone else having this problem? Since the pre-patch, I can no longer see fishing pools by running or flying over an area where there are usually pools. The swirling pool effect that used to be there for pools/swarms is no longer there. I can find pools by going into the water and looking for them under the water, but I’m not seeing them from above.
Is this just me? Or are other people experiencing this?
Try adjusting your graphic settings. I think the setting you need to increase might be particle density.
The prepatch lowered all my graphic settings and I had to adjust them before I could see pools.
I played around with my graphics settings a bit to see what happened with the pools.
Particle Density has a big effect. With that set to Fair or Low, the pool flashes on & off and is only displayed about 25% of the time. Set to Disabled, the pool disappears entirely (although you may still see the fish swimming around depending on other settings). Set to Good or better and the pool is displayed all the time.
Liquid Detail also has an effect. Set to Low the pools get hard to see because of the water texture, so ideally this should be at least Fair for better visibility.
Keep fishing long enough, and eventually you’ll fish up a Weather-Beaten Journal which will teach you to track fishing pools on your minimap, making them much easier to find.
Edit July '24: Seems to be pretty much the same in TWW pre-patch. The one thing that might be different (or that I just didn’t bother to mention 4 years ago) is that the height above the pool is also a factor - increasing height has pretty much the same effect as lowering particle density, the higher you get the harder it is to see (and not just because it’s smaller).
Thanks so much for your replies! One of my guildies also recommended checking the graphics settings. I increased my Liquid Detail to Ultra and that brought them back. On your (pl) recommendations, I’m also going to up my particle density to “High” and see if my processor and graphics can handle that. I don’t have a graphics card, just on board IBM graphics, which has always done just fine. Let’s see if it will take the stress.
Again, thanks so much for your recommendations! They really did help.