Advanced chocobo raising

[CDF]

3 million toward a racer is outright absurd. If you wanted a SS/S/C/C (8/7/4/4) chocobo, you could max STR and END with training plans then push either DSC or RCP to ~96 points with "digging for treasure." That would leave either of DSC or RCP to raise to ~95 with 19 75-chocobuck training tokens. At 28 chocobucks per 8,000 gil, that's around 407,000 gil. Then you can fine-tune attributes until you get 255/192/96/96. Even if you wasted gil on carrots or greens, you'd be hard-pressed to spend over 3 million gil on that.

[Teorem]

I'm curious where you're getting a 28 Chocobucks:8000 gil ratio from. Even with items, someone running the cycle of Free Races on a chocobo they're raising is going to come in 3rd-7th a significant portion of the time until they hit the higher tiers of STR/END, which isn't until later in development (Day 45).

Not that it changes the overall point much, but the 75-Chocobuck trainings are for a random attribute. The specific attribute trainings are 80 Chocobucks, and the only "tokens" available are 90 and 100-Chocobucks.

[urat]

The 3 mil gil is based on starting off without canter and gallop, I'd say itd be more about 1 mil if you got lucky and started with those.

Also, you dont spend the 3 mil all at once raising like synthing. You end up spend about 10-15K a day or so, and it just adds up overtime.

Speed apples npc back for twice the cost a good racing bird spends earning the chocobucks to buy them, my racer averages 4 chocobucks a race, at 1K a race it costs him 2.5K to get a stack of vomp carrots, which NPC for about 5K

If you race every day and spend half your chocobucks on upgrades to bird, and other half in vomp carrots, you'll end up making back the exact money you spent, possibly a bit more if you have high enough fame. When I was racing I sometimes sat and raced my bird for 5 hours or so while watching a movie or something, and could pump my bird with 2-3 chocotrains a day.

I'll give you an example, it costs me 100K to get 400 chocobucks, if I spent 200 chocobucks then on the 100 trains (to make it even) then the other 200 to get 20 stacks of chocotrains, I'd end up selling those to NPC and makin back 100K, maybe 110K with high fame, thus it balances out allowing you to earn the chocotrains for free ^^

[Guppy]

The only way I could possibly see someone spending 3 million on a chocobo is if they end up buying most of their upgrade tokens. And, for wealthy players, it may make sense to do so. But for most of us, there are many ways to economize.

If you get to know the other chocobo enthusiasts on your server, you'll be able to obtain card for breeding more easily, allowing you to simplify obtaining a chocobo with a starting ability.

If you have previously raised chocobos, you can use one of your older birds to start gathering chocobucks several weeks before you hatch your egg, doing just a few races a day to take advantage of the low starting price. Once you near the 1000 chocobuck cap, you can purchase tokens and store/mule them to stay under the limit. Continue racing as your chocobo hatches and develops.

Try to make the most of your daily activities, to pack in as many "points" as possible before day 64, since these boosts are free (or slightly profitable). If you're diligent, you should be able to shave off a substantial number of tokens from the bill.

A few hundred thousand gil should be sufficient to raise a racer with capped stats.

[CDF]

I'm curious where you're getting a 28 Chocobucks:8000 gil ratio from. Even with items, someone running the cycle of Free Races on a chocobo they're raising is going to come in 3rd-7th a significant portion of the time until they hit the higher tiers of STR/END, which isn't until later in development (Day 45).

If you're on the Windurst team, you face the supers only four times instead of five on the others. For any decent chocobo, that means a lower bound of 28 per 8k gil after the first seven races after JP midnight. I wouldn't bother using speed apples for any free races and I wouldn't do anything that's even more of a timesink like trying to profit off chocobucks by NPCing carrots... opportunity cost 'wut'.

I acknowledge that it's easier to have a store of chocobucks ready to spend (and having tokens on the side also). But starting from scratch, what exactly precludes one from farming chocobucks when you get STR/END maxed, supposing you were hyper-conservative and simply refused to do free races until then? I really doubt not having gallop or canter, given 8/8/1/1, actually matters when matched up against only the scrubs.

Besides, if you spread out the chocobuck farming, the first seven races after JP midnight cost 2,550 gil total.

Not that it changes the overall point much, but the 75-Chocobuck trainings are for a random attribute. The specific attribute trainings are 80 Chocobucks, and the only "tokens" available are 90 and 100-Chocobucks.

Noted. I actually meant 80, and the training program, not the redeemable token.

[EvilSid]

And there is another question, which I did not find in your guide. It may seem obvious but... can I have only one chocobo?
I've read you can trade another egg after retirement, but does the older choco remain? For example, can I raise a digger, and then a racer, and use them both? Or should I make a decision in advance?

Up. I need to know this before starting.

[Amok]

You can. You get a VCS card so you can always switch your callable Choco and switch the Choco you have registered for racing.

[EvilSid]

Thanks! ^^

[Sarial]

So I got to First Class STR/END and then started to exhibit my chocobo to get Gallop/Canter. I got both and have Average DISC and REC. Now I've gone back to packages to get First class STR/END again. . .but they don't seem to be raising.

At what point to care plans stop affecting the birds?

[Guppy]

So I got to First Class STR/END and then started to exhibit my chocobo to get Gallop/Canter. I got both and have Average DISC and REC. Now I've gone back to packages to get First class STR/END again. . .but they don't seem to be raising.

At what point to care plans stop affecting the birds?

Day 64, there will be a cutscene when your check your chocobo. After this point, care plans no longer boost stats. However, you can still using chocobuck training to increase until you cap out.

[Sarial]

Fuuuuuck. I didn't know that. . .Well, that leaves me kinda screwed.

Edit: Any reason to not retire now? Might as well cut out the cost of food >_>;

[nitsuj]

Fuuuuuck. I didn't know that. . .Well, that leaves me kinda screwed.

Edit: Any reason to not retire now? Might as well cut out the cost of food >_>;

Price of the chocobuck training goes up significantly if you wait till he's retired...

If you're going to keep using them, keep him active while you do.

[tsaroth816]

Digger: Diggers are dirt cheap to make, and the reward is pretty decent in hot and cold once you get to altep. I often dig up items worth 40-50K there, though generally they're in the 6K and 20K market each. It pays for itself pretty fast

How? The bolded part makes it seem like you win Hot and Cold everyday? I've gone 10 straight days in Altep/Jungle w/o seeing a chest. I've read all the guides, have the skills, etc. It just seems too flaky to win everyday or am I doing something wrong?

Do the 2 mental stats affect digging like the 2 physical stats affect Run Speed & Time on Choco?

[Amok]

Discernment is supposed to improve digging results. I've found it does help, but have no hard proof.

Does your chocobo have Treasure Hunter? Once you get yourself a pattern and stick to it you should be able to win hot&cold more often than not.

Also, it might help to get your greens today, and dig twice tomorrow and repeat the next day. That way your chocobo will be "energetic" half of the time you go out for Hot&cold, which gets you a few extra digs.

[Guppy]

How? The bolded part makes it seem like you win Hot and Cold everyday? I've gone 10 straight days in Altep/Jungle w/o seeing a chest. I've read all the guides, have the skills, etc. It just seems too flaky to win everyday or am I doing something wrong?

Your chocobo's performance has a major impact on Hot-and-Cold results. I almost never succeeded in Altepa and rarely in Elshimo, with my first digger. With better stats, on my second digger, I manage to find the treasure in Altepa better than 2/3rds of the time (although I haven't been playing HnC much lately, so I may be a bit rusty by now).

I'm not entirely sure what characteristics contribute to HnC. However, my current digging chocobo is a blue male with the Fine Beak body shape, First-Class INT/REC, and capped stats with a few points in STR/END. Abilities are Treasure Finder and Bore.

I also have a few levels in the hidden chocodigging craft skill, probably equivalent to Novice or Apprentice (although I suspect this plays no part in the Hot-and-Cold game). For now, I would recommend you focus on the lower-level zones. If you'd like to chase after the higher level zones, I would recommend working on your next digging chocobo, or maximizing what you can on your current bird.

[urat]

I'm pretty sure discernment increases the range of how far away you can be from dead center on the chest to get the caps kweh.

Dont be discouraged by altep. First off, you get very few digs so you need to be very accurate, and it takes forever to get up the chest.

Even worse, because of the nature of altep's scenery, it is very hard to keep track of the places you've dug at.

The trick to altep is to, #1 use the scenery to your advantage, use those little rocks here and there to mark your spots, aim for them even.

Second, memorize the distances each mark by your bird measures. It requires a bit of geometry skills, but also on the sloped dunes you need to remember your birds message is no longer based on a "ring" but a sphere around it.

Your best bet is to work in triangles, see if you get two messages that are the same, that means from the same distance from both of those is the chest.

Thus, if you draw a triangle with one line between you and the other same dig, mark the middle pointt in your mind, then draw a line out at a 90 degree that is as long as your memorized, the chest should be in that rough vicinity.

It's hard to describe, but just takes some work.


Anywho, after about 5 months of doing hot and cold daily in altep, yeah I pretty much win the thing every day, at least every second day.

There are a few spots that are really hard even for me, theres a spot I get sometimes on the middle east side of eastern altepa, where the wall curves out in that C?

Yeah it gives me the dot on the way upper side of the C, and no matter where I dug I couldnt find even a hint of a Kweh, until I went down and around the bottom side with one dig left and got a kweh?

Other than that, I can now often predeict to within a step where the chest is after 3-4 digs, you just memorize it through repitition.

[Tomasello]

Hardcore racer: (capped stats) my bird cost me roughly 3 million gil in races to cap my stats, very very expensive D:

No, no it didn't. Maybe you used all that money you made fish-botting to afford that imaginary expense. I think you give crappy advice about chocobo raising on purpose so people will raise crappy birds on your server.


qcdn.org/ffxi/showthread.php?t=71665

[urat]

I love all these people from quetz who keep wandering in and posting this thinking its new news.

No one gives a fuck about the QCDN circle jerk, sorry

[Tomasello]

I love all these people from quetz who keep wandering in and posting this thinking its new news.

No one gives a fuck about the QCDN circle jerk, sorry

Says something about the source now doesn't it? Kind of like a bank robber trying to offer financial planning services.

[urat]

Says something about the source now doesn't it? Kind of like a bank robber trying to offer financial planning services.

http://i35.tinypic.com/5wf3w0.jpg