Comments from the Devs

[Rocl]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...653#post299653

Hello, this is Yoshida, the producer/director.

I am very impressed with everyone's ideas for Chocobos! As I have stated before, we are working on the Chocobo growth system, but implementation may take longer than expected. (We are planning on implementing some gear for Personal Chocobos in patch 1.20. )

Final details will be revealed prior to the patch release, but here are a few teasers for you all:
Rental Chocobos will be rented using gil. Prices will be very low, even players under rank 20 will be able to easily afford one.
Rental Chocobos can be used for limited periods of time, so they will serve as short-term transportation supplements.
Personal Chocobos will have no recast timer. (They can be called instantly, unless you are being attacked!)
The use of Personal Chocobos is unlimited. (You can ride them for as long as you want!)
Both types of Chocobos can be attacked by enemies while you ride them.
If you receive too much damage while you are riding a Chocobo, you will be knocked off the Chocobo.
We are currently working on the speed of the Chocobos. (There will be no speed difference based on the character’s race.)
The sizes of the Chocobos will be different based on the character’s race.
Rental and Personal Chocobos will have different appearances and different background music.
That’s about it. Since Personal Chocobos will become the basis of the Mount System, they have no recast timers and no riding time restrictions. However, they can be attacked by powerful monsters.

I hope you guys can ride the Chocobos well!

o ok

[miokomioko]

Just about all of those things are good... although being attacked while on chocobo-back sure doesn't increase the ability to explore much considering you can get nailed in the ass even while running past something with Quickstride.

Unlimited and uninhibited riding of personal chocobos is fucking great, especially in comparison to how XI's worked.

[Spider-Dan]

To be honest, I'd prefer XI's completely-safe bird over this WoW-ish not-really-safe version... particularly in a game with no real stealth skills on the foreseeable horizon.

The practical restriction on XI's personal chocobos was not the 5 minute whistle recast; it was the constriction on which zones you could use them in. And you will notice that Yoshida's notes carefully avoid any statement implying that you will be able to summon your chocobo anywhere you wish, or that you can take them into any area.

[miokomioko]

There's only 5 field areas in the game... Why would there be a restriction on where you could ride a chocobo if you can still get a 9000 damage Vorpal Roar up your asshole if you don't watch where you're riding in Mor Dhona? I'm sure it's safe to assume you won't be able to call a chocobo inside The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak or Dzemael Darkhold.

Either way, people want chocobos for transportation (primarily riding from town to camps), not to roam around completely pointless, far away, obscure corners of the map. No way in hell I would prefer XI's system over what he explained above. At most, riding to normally-visited areas in the game right now means going past a handful of rank 40-ish mobs at most. I doubt 100 damage from a Feather Flurry is going to knock you off your chocobo.

[Rocl]

I thought the biggest problem with the XI personal chocobo was upon initial release they couldn't even match the speed/duration of a rental tbh. And afterwards, slightly beating rentals (but only if you raised your chocobo post patch!). I'm really crossing my finger there's no month of babying a bird.

[Fiddle Sticks]

Scourge and Banish doesn't add DoTs......>_>

Grrr you beat me to it. What game has this guy been playing? They are not Dots, they are debuffs that lower the resistance to that nuke....

To be honest, I'd prefer XI's completely-safe bird over this WoW-ish not-really-safe version... particularly in a game with no real stealth skills on the foreseeable horizon.

You mean every other MMO besides FFXI...

[Cichy]

fuckin Yoshi making gear for chocobos and not us, god damn it

[Spider-Dan]

There's only 5 field areas in the game... Why would there be a restriction on where you could ride a chocobo if you can still get a 9000 damage Vorpal Roar up your asshole if you don't watch where you're riding in Mor Dhona? I'm sure it's safe to assume you won't be able to call a chocobo inside The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak or Dzemael Darkhold.

Are you going to be able to call a bird in Cassiopeia Hollow? How about Nanawa Mines?

You act as if it's obvious that you'll be able to call a bird anywhere outside an instance.

Either way, people want chocobos for transportation (primarily riding from town to camps), not to roam around completely pointless, far away, obscure corners of the map.

Yeah, I mean, why would anyone want to ride a chocobo through KRT when there's only overleveled mobs down there anyway that no LV60 party could kill? Oops, wrong game. I'm sure nothing like that will happen here.

I presume you can conceive of a time when this game is not capped at 50. Surely, then, you can also understand that later on, players may actually want to travel to those pointless and obscure corners of the map. And, if you try really hard, you may even be able to imagine a time where you want to take your LV60 WHM to a camp full of LV70 Kobolds, but you have travel past some LV55-60 toads to get there.

No way in hell I would prefer XI's system over what he explained above. At most, riding to normally-visited areas in the game right now means going past a handful of rank 40-ish mobs at most.

At least no one can accuse you of focusing too much on the future...

P.S. I'd really like to hear you explain the actual advantage of this new system, because I don't see it. Did you really see the 5 minute recast on whistles as a problem? Was the half-hour of riding time not enough? Keep in mind that for all you know, the chocobo raising in this game could be more tedious and grindy than XI's.

[miokomioko]

I'm not sure how much of this game you can argue about based on the semi-distant and uncertain future. What matters is what they are doing for current and relevant issues. Sure, it's very possible that you won't be able to enter Mistbeard/Nanawa/Cassiopeia/Copperbell/Mun-Tuy/Tam-Tara with a chocobo... So what? Outside of those areas, the regions are all big, open, field areas. It's pretty unlikely that your bird is just going to stop in its tracks at the vague and invisible "zone-lines" from say Drybone to Halatali.

As the game sits right now, every bit of what Yoshi just said sounds better than anything XI did with mounts. I don't understand why someone would rather have invincible chocobos for the cost of them being as limited as they were... on top of the fucking 1-month raising period. Mount invincibility isn't going to be an issue for a long time and we all know it.

[Spider-Dan]

I'm not sure how much of this game you can argue about based on the semi-distant and uncertain future. What matters is what they are doing for current and relevant issues. Sure, it's very possible that you won't be able to enter Mistbeard/Nanawa/Cassiopeia/Copperbell/Mun-Tuy/Tam-Tara with a chocobo... So what?

The point is not just being (un)able to enter; it's not being able to call your bird when you're in some random camp deep inside (again, think KRT). And again, this is no worse than XI... but there's no indication that it'll be any better.

As the game sits right now, every bit of what Yoshi just said sounds better than anything XI did with mounts.

I'm still waiting for you to explain how.

You can call them as often as you want? Recharging my chocobo whistle was never an issue.
You can ride them forever? I can count the number of times that my personal bird ran out of mount time on my antennae.
There is no recast on mount summoning? 5-minute whistle recast was never a factor.

As I already stated, you have no clue as to the nature of XIV chocobo raising, so for all you know, XI's raising could be a cakewalk in comparison.

I don't understand why someone would rather have invincible chocobos for the cost of them being as limited as they were... on top of the fucking 1-month raising period. Mount invincibility isn't going to be an issue for a long time and we all know it.

You don't understand why someone would rather have invincible chocobos... in a game completely devoid of any practical stealth abilities, where literally every character can teleport his entire party from literally anywhere at virtually any time?

What kind of value would you assign to, say, a stealth cloak that lets you run past any enemy in any open-world area... and lets you run at double-speed, to boot? Would you take an XIV chocobo over that? Would a 1000g/use cost and a 5 min recast/30min+ duration affect your decision at all?

Surely you cannot be this shortsighted.

[Corrderio]

Just about all of those things are good... although being attacked while on chocobo-back sure doesn't increase the ability to explore much considering you can get nailed in the ass even while running past something with Quickstride.

Unlimited and uninhibited riding of personal chocobos is fucking great, especially in comparison to how XI's worked.

QFT. I hate sounding like a fanboy, but why change the basics of chocobos?

[miokomioko]

You don't understand why someone would rather have invincible chocobos... in a game completely devoid of any actual need for stealth.

Fixed. Get it now?

[Spider-Dan]

Why would there be a restriction on where you could ride a chocobo if you can still get a 9000 damage Vorpal Roar up your asshole if you don't watch where you're riding in Mor Dhona?

So I guess we're back to the part where you claim that if an area filled with big, dangerous mobs is pointless and obscure today, it's probably going to stay that way forever, so we shouldn't really worry about the defining characteristics of mounts or anything like that.

Is your argument summed up as, "Well, I don't go to any zone that needs stealth today, so I almost certainly never will"?

The best part of your argument (re: the uselessness of stealth) is that you've never had to worry about getting to the other side of that unpassable mob because, um, you've never been there anyway. So it probably sucks and is useless! And filled with grapes of questionable ripeness...

[Vuitton]

Why should chocobos be invincible / stealth mounts? Because XI had them? They're supposed to be a convenient alternative to walking from point A to point B. Not a means to explore deadly areas without any danger. You can ride them in dangerous territories, but you'll still need to exercise some caution. I don't see why this is a big deal. Heaven forbid there be some danger in this game that forces you to exercise caution.

I think people just want to AFK with auto-run on or something and come back to their computer with their bird on the other side of the map.

[Spider-Dan]

Why should chocobos be invincible / stealth mounts? Because they are in every other FF, including XI?

Pretty much, yes.

[Lordender]

ugh... thats like Daze in Word of Warcraft where you get knocked off your mount, HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE!!!!!!!

Exploration is going to blow it looks like.

[Waraji]

It seems they want it to work somewhat similar to how we run right now. Get hit too much and you'll die. Same effect on chocobo. I'm willing to bet they will have an HP meter for your chocobo, that will probably regen by itself same way player HP regens. Very interesting concept and in no way, in my opinion, is it cumbersome.

[Gulkeeva]

To be honest, I'd prefer XI's completely-safe bird over this WoW-ish not-really-safe version... particularly in a game with no real stealth skills on the foreseeable horizon.

Must be either trolling, or hasn't played Wow Since cataclysm came out where you can fly everywhere and be 100% safe. (also you don't get dazed by ranged attacks in wow, only melee hit, so no worries unless you plan to plow through mobs instead of taking effort to avoid them)

Anyway, good to see they will have chocobo's out, only question I got is... will there be various color choices on raising chocobo's and will there be faster ones in the future

[Cichy]

Must be either trolling, or hasn't played Wow Since cataclysm came out where you can fly everywhere and be 100% safe.

Anyway, good to see they will have chocobo's out, only question I got is... will there be various color choices on raising chocobo's and will there be faster ones in the future

I have no doubt about that. Yoshi is a big fan of FF7. Honestly, it's one of the time sinks I'm most interested in.

[Kurokikaze]

I like it. Needs more of that progressive non-FFXI way of doing shit please.

Dude definitely wants to make World of Fantasy and I fully approve.