MVP Fish: Most Valuable Fish

When talking about Tapfish I often get asked about what is the best fish to raise. Often when people ask me this, they generally mean which fish will make them the most money. However the amount of coins a fish produces is only one factor in when choosing a fish. Recently I talked to one tapper who was feeling down about leveling up. She said it was going too slow through the 70's.

Looking at her coin total, I was surprised that she had almost as many coins as I did! "1.5 billion coins! Only level 73? What on earth were you doing?" Apparently she was raising electric eels and nothing else. Considering she had to wait 4 long days every time just to refill her tank, it is no wonder she was feeling down about leveling up. Hers was the classic case of a person too caught up in the coins too look at the big picture.

What are the factors, then, that make a good gameplay fish? Here I will try to judge the fish from all aspects of the game so we can determine an MVP. Note that I am talking from a gameplay perspective, how pretty a fish is does not figure in, and fishbuck fishes are naturally eliminated. Bred fish have restricted quantities, so they are also excluded from this talk.

1. Profitability

Of course we will start here, simply because it is the easiest recognized. Lets calculate the profitability of some key fish in the game on a profit per day basis. 91% happiness, bulk sold.

We will use this as the base of all the fish we consider.

2. Points

Points are much more valuable than coins because they are harder to come by. Just look at my friend in the story above. However with no way to determine how much more valuable they are I will make an arbitrary judgement by multiplying the coin total by the total number of points they can produce in a day. In this sense a green snapper's total will be multiplied by 6, a White Grunt by one, and an eel by 0.25 because it takes four days to produce a point.

3. Reasonableness

A valuable fish should be easy to buy. Something like a Scott Fairy may seem to turn a good profit, but people starting out in the game probably could not afford more than one or two. In that case, one's money is much better spent on something like Grunts or Goldfish. This is not a big factor, however, so in my system I will subtract 1coin from every 100 coins it costs from its profit. A reasonable fish like a Goldfish or Green Snapper would not lose any coins, a Grunt would lose 42, while a Scott Fairy would lose 480.

4. Breeding

Breeding fish plays just a small role, in the gameplay aspect of Tapfish, but it does have its advantages. Let's give a 10 point bonus to any fish that can be bred.

4. Availability

A valuable fish should be a fish that you can readily use. Since a great white shark is only available at the end of the game, it has a value of zero. I will calculate the availability of fish, not on their level, but by what percentage of XPs are still needed to reach that level 80. For instance, the electric eels on Level 65 requires that you obtain 600,000 of the 1, 600,000 XPs you need to complete the game, that is 37.5 % of the total number of XPs, so its total will be multiplied by.625. Of course using availability is debatable because its importance depends on where you are in the game. A person on level 70, for example, does not really care that a spiky puffer was made available on level 45, whereas a person on level 40 would certainly care. With this in mind, I will make pre and post availability scores for each fish.

So who is our MVP? Calculating the score for every fish would take time, so I will shorten the list to fish I consider "contenders" and/ or are often used.

Here we go!!!

(Profit per day ×Points) - Reasonability+Breeding=sub score×availability=MVP Score

Green Snapper (20*6)-0+10=130*1=130

GoldFish (45*2.6)-0+10=127

Barracuda (2285*0.17)-230+0=148*0.8=118

White Grunt(2856*1)-42+10=2824*1=2824

Scott Fairy (3955* 0.4)-480 +0=1102*1=1102

Gray Reef Shark(4572*0.5)-450+0=1836*1=1836

Spikey Puffer (3400*0.2)-550+0=130*0.78=102

Electric Eel (15000*0.25)-750+0=3000*0.625=1875

Great White (11625*0.1125)-1500+0=-192*0=0

From this sample of what I feel are the most likely contenders, we see that the Eel has the highest sub score at 3000, but since it suffers from an availability issue the White Grunt wins out. Figuring out other fish like the Boxfish or Swordfish could be interesting, but I don't think it would fair any better. Using these calculations, then, I hereby declare the White Grunt being the most valuable fish in Tap Fish, followed by the electric Eel, and then Gray Reef Shark! Note that if even I didn't dock the Grey Reef and Eel for being expensive, they still wouldn't have caught the White Grunt.

So what are you waiting for? Hurry up and stock up on White Grunts!

No no no. What this means is that no matter what you are after, points, coins, or breeding, the White Grunt would be a good choice. If you go to either extreme, then fish like Eels and Green Snappers come into play. But when in doubt, buy Grunts!