Miarrobino wrote:as far as i can tell it is a random range, the quality of the water and you skill raise the max quality - well probably shift the whole range. luck should increase the chance of any given fish being better quality. I just keep the high quality codfish and salmon and toss the rest.
I've been watching this as I fish, and I reckon you are correct. It seems to give a fairly even distribution of results from about Q=(cap - 30) to Q=cap. As you say, there may be factors such as luck that will skew the distribution towards the higher end.
Sometimes I just dump the herring, trout, and lower qualities. Other times I cook a batch and keep it for "general" food, with the high quality stuff kept separate for skill grinding.
Slightly off topic, I find the whole logic of food quality a bit odd. By skilling up Hunting and Nature's Lore I can churn out food with a Tier 1 skill that gives a food quality multiplier of up to 2.0, because by some odd reasoning a fish cooked on a stick counts as a 2 ingredient food. (Mmmm that stick sure was tasty!) Grinding my skills all the way up to Cooking 0 at Tier 4 doesn't give me anything better, and only when I reach Cooking 30 can I improve on it. I'd like to see the improvement in cooking abilities a little more evenly spread across the skill range.