Choco Raising, is it worth it?

[Twille]

So, I just tagged 18 yesterday, got my subjob and all that jazz, and have been looking forward getting my chocobo license at 20, which brings up the question, do i want to raise my own chocobo?
The ability to get various colored choco's is neat, but not really important to me, neither are the stats of the choco really, as long as it gets me from point A to point B.
The part i'm slightly disappointed in is this: You spend 30 days tending to your baby choco, getting it to the point that you can ride it (which isn't bad) only to have the thing 2 months before having to start raising another one, because your original choco dies (or retires according to SE). Just seems like a bit of a hassle to have to raises chocos over, and over, and over for the entire time i decide to play FFXI.
So, in your opinion, is the time and effort required to maintain your choco raising, worth the benefit of having your own choco? (bearing in mind that i'd use the choco only for transportation purposes, no digging or racing for me) maybe it just looks stupid on paper and isnt a big deal, just curious. any input would be greatly appreciated.

PS: one thing i couldnt find in my search was the number of choco's you could raise at one time? because realistically, if i were to raise choco's i'd wanna be self sufficiant, raise a male and female choco of my own, breed them, ect. ^^

 

[Neyla]

You can still ride a retired chocobo. Retirement simply means you can't interact with it via NPC at the stables anymore, to influence its stats. As long as you keep shelling out the gil to recharge your Chocobo Whistle, the bird will keep coming every time you use it.

 

[Pasquale]

The best part about raising a chocobo is having a chocobo when you normally would be walkling. That little whistle saves me a lot of time. (Or it would, rather, if I had bothered to make my damn bird faster than a turtle.)

Make a chocobo, and make him strong.

 

[Twille]

You can still ride a retired chocobo. Retirement simply means you can't interact with it via NPC at the stables anymore, to influence its stats. As long as you keep shelling out the gil to recharge your Chocobo Whistle, the bird will keep coming every time you use it.

thats pretty damn cool, the info i read wasnt clear, so i simply assumed 'retired' meant, well, gone for good, haha. This completely changes my outlook on the choco raising situation. This does raise one final question though, can I still breed a retired chocobo?

And thank you for the info, i'm rather pleased now ^^

 

[Sharpe]

You can still ride a retired chocobo. Retirement simply means you can't interact with it via NPC at the stables anymore, to influence its stats. As long as you keep shelling out the gil to recharge your Chocobo Whistle, the bird will keep coming every time you use it.

Thank you, I always presumed you couldn't ride it once it was retired, I shall now get to work on my own chocobo

 

[Twille]

if I had bothered to make my damn bird faster than a turtle.)

hmm, this made me think of something. i was reading that you have to like, visit your choco everyday or something, to get the most beneficial stat growth and what-not. what kind of decline in choco preformance will i see if i just set the auto-care thing, and only visited my choco 'in person' say, once a week-ish? cause realisitcally, thats about how often i'll remember/care enough to do it, haha.

(edit) PS: i can totally see my choco feeling neglected and running away, so i'm out in the middle of nowhere, blow my choco whistle, and wait...and wait.... lol

 

[Neyla]

You can still breed a retired chocobo as long as you keep the VCS Registration Card you get for it upon its retirement.

I'm not sure how the auto-care thing would affect stats or how fast they level. I always shot to max my birds' speed and endurance as fast as possible, so I'd spend the five minutes a day most days, walking them and giving them the foods best suited for the stats I wanted. Handling it that way, for my needs, both my chocos were "finished" in around 45 days each.

 

[Halifirien]

what kind of decline in choco preformance will i see if i just set the auto-care thing, and only visited my choco 'in person' say, once a week-ish? cause realisitcally, thats about how often i'll remember/care enough to do it, haha.

The care plans are designed to increase your bird's attributes, and the main factor determining the success of those care plans is your bird's affection levels. You can boost affection levels with food, but simply taking it for a walk and interacting with it on a daily basis will do the trick.

If you only visit your bird once or twice a week, I wouldn't expect any miracles. If you're only looking for something you can ride home from a lowbie party in the jungles or Citadel to avoid aggro, a turtle-speed bird may suit your needs.

I'd follow Neyla's advice and try to dedicate yourself to it. It takes a little over a month to get a first-class chocobo, and then you never have to do it again... unless you're a freak and keep trying to get matched breeding pairs of each color like I am. :crazy:

 

[Propagandhi]

That little whistle saves me a lot of time. (Or it would, rather, if I had bothered to make my damn bird faster than a turtle.)

I feel your pain, sometimes I feel I would be better off walking than taking my fat bird.

 

[Arctyrael]

Turtle turtle...

I didn't know you could ride after retirement... I may get one now.

 

[Tok]

raising a choco is fun imo

you get to have your own bird whom u raised and if u get color u feel extra special (mines named firefoot and he's red, still stoked about that)

even if u dont get color u get a free choco ride whenever so i think it's worth it

 

[Lukas]

All I remember from chcobo-raising was being tres annoyed that I had to go all the way to windy everyday just to give it some weeds and a pat on the head so it would not be depressed. How ungrateful! I shelled out the cash for it to eat and to live in a snazzy taru filled stable and all - I rescued its egg from dirty, dirty La Thiene (or where ever I got it - I forget) and all I got was complaining.

There should have been chocobo raising places in whitegate or jeuno! That way it would have still been an inconvenience, but not nearly as severe.

 

[Skaw]

All I remember from chcobo-raising was being tres annoyed that I had to go all the way to windy everyday just to give it some weeds and a pat on the head so it would not be depressed. How ungrateful! I shelled out the cash for it to eat and to live in a snazzy taru filled stable and all - I rescued its egg from dirty, dirty La Thiene (or where ever I got it - I forget) and all I got was complaining.

There should have been chocobo raising places in whitegate or jeuno! That way it would have still been an inconvenience, but not nearly as severe.

How lazy do you have to be to consider trading a silver piece to warp to your home town a "severe inconvenience?"

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Category:Chocobo_Raising#Care_Plans
People have fleshed out an estimate of how much each care plan adds(or subtracts) to an attribute. You need to get 32 "points" per attribute before it ticks over to the next level. Carrots add 1 point per to their respective attributes. 75 and 80 Chocobuck bonus plans are still unconfirmed.

For Interactions I'd say points work like this:
Walk: Endurance +1 for Short, +2 for Medium, +3 for Long. When raising RoiMustang, Endurance always leveled a few days before Strength. Every level it took longer for Strength to catch up. +3 from Long Walks would do that.
Compete: Strength +1 and Receptivity +1. I say Receptivity +1, because your chocobo will be interacting with it's rival Black chocobo. For all I know, I could be dead wrong about it, but it makes sense atleast.
Tell a Story: Discernment +1

For fast stat building diets, here is what I did:
Pick a type of attribute(Mental or Physical.) Get yourself(or grow) the respective carrots.

Feed 2 carrots, check affection. If affection is "Considers you it's Parent," feed a third. If affection is anything besides that, feed it an Azouph green.

The Green must be fed after the two carrots, because it is very filling, and if you feed two carrots after the green, you run the risk of making the chocobo sick. Making it sick lowers the effectiveness of care plans. If it is fed last, the extra filling doesn't count, but the full Affection boost does.

If your chocobo is injured or ill, skip 1 carrot, and feed it the respective wildgrass.

As for care plans, pick a stat type again(preferably the same,) and choose a care plan that raises both stats of that type. As a chick, always do Walk or Music. Never both, they'll cancel eachother out. As an Adolescent and Adult, always do Carry Packages or Exhibit.

When you get to Adolescence and Adulthood, using those two plans, and the diet I described, you will be putting (atleast)6-8 points in to Strength and Endurance/Discernment and Receptivity daily. That means your stats will level up in as little as 4 days.

 

[Lukas]

How lazy do you have to be to consider trading a silver piece to warp to your home town a "severe inconvenience?"

Extremely!

 

[Mym]

Some people camp NMs, some craft, some kill Gods, some raise chocobos.

I personally find it rewarding, because its still one of the relatively unknown things in the game. You cant go to a website and read a detailed strat on how to raise a "perfect" Chocobo... nobody knows for sure.

My #1 goal in the game right now is to raise a Chocobo that can beat that evil StarOnion in a race

Chocobo raising is definitely not for everyone, that's a fact. If all you do is live in Whitegate, Runic Portal out to Merit/XP, or to a HNM or whatnot, raising a chocobo will really do nothing for you.

I on the other hand, live in Windurst. Every day I log in, I feed my chocobo, do a round of Hot and Cold game, and do a bunch of Chocobo races.

Since I live in Windurst, a) I am right there, so there's no travel time to hinder me, and b) can use my Mog storage to hold all my grasses, salads, worms, elixers and whatnot. (serious chocobo breeding takes a lot of inventory space)

The 1k per call is pretty high, compared to a rental.. but if your a level 20+ job, trying to get to a solo/duo camp after OP warping somewhere, you don't need any Oils/Powers :biggrin:

 

[jender]

I looooooove choco raising <3 Yeah, sometimes it's a drag to have to get on a little earlier to feed/walk/race the thing (the new choco racing is fun as hell too, imo) and I really screwed my 1st attempt at raising one up (I hadn't really read much on it, his stats never rose, etc) but once I got the hang of what kind of foods it liked, what attributes would raise based on what activities I gave her to do, my 2nd one (a blue girlie <3) is sort of a badass.

My only real complaint would be that you cannot take your chocobo to a sitter when you have to be away from the game for a few days. I will be gone for 3 weeks coming up, and she will most likely be sick/hate me when I get back. ; ; She hates it when I leave her on Basic Care for longer than a day or so.

Ah well....guess I have to let go of the apron strings at some point <3

 

[hellstorm]

i <3 chobo rasing nothing it dont take to much to take care of them but if you want really good one you going need feed it daily and put them on a strict plan. Also try hot & cold game.

 

[Twille]

about how much capitol would i be looking at spending following your plan Skaw, it seems very balanced, I'd like to try it, but seeing as how i'm just starting over, and just BARELY hit 19, i'm kind of short on funds. I may have to hold off a bit to set some gil aside.

and thank you all so far for your comments, this has been VERY informative.

 

[Zephayra]

When I raised my first two chocobos, I fed them only San d'Oria carrots because I was cheap and I didn't think food really mattered. They're 28 gil a peice, so it seemed reasonable, plus I raised all my chocobos in San d'Oria so they were easy to get.

Unfortunately, that's why both my chocobos sucked. Unless you don't care if your raised chocobo is slow, you can go with that route, but expect your chocobo to end up hating you like mine did.

I'm currently raising a third chocobo, and I've just been growing most of my plants. If you can get to Whitegate, you can buy wildgrass seeds for I think 400 gil. I don't have the expansion installed, so I had to buy mine from the Jeuno AH. I used the cheapo pots, and crystals are obviously easy to get, or if you're lazy, just buy them because they're cheap. If you don't grow your own food, stacks can cost anywhere betwee 5-20k, depending on the type of food. Carrots tend to be more expensive. The better greens are around 4-10k a stack I think. I screwed up my crop and I think I paid just under 20k for a stack of Vomp Carrots. Regular old gyhsal greens (sorry, can't remember how to spell this) cost 400 gil a stack two or three days ago at the San d'Oria AH last time I checked, which is another cheap option.

I read on a guide that chocobos don't really care which of the greens they get, but I'm not sure. I first fed my little guy Azouph greens to boost affection, and then when I grew some Shaug greens, I started feeding him those. When I fed him the Azouph greens, I got the message "StormStallion gobbles up the Azouph greens in a single gulp" but when i fed him the Shaug greens, I got "StormStallion eats the Shaug greens". Azouph greens also boosted his affection when I had to feed more Shaug greens to get the same level back up.

 

[Skaw]

about how much capitol would i be looking at spending following your plan Skaw, it seems very balanced, I'd like to try it, but seeing as how i'm just starting over, and just BARELY hit 19, i'm kind of short on funds. I may have to hold off a bit to set some gil aside.

and thank you all so far for your comments, this has been VERY informative.

If you grow the carrots and greens ahead of time, to get a couple stacks to hold you over while you grow more, you'll end up spending only a couple hundred gil a day. Filling all 10 pots with Wildgrass seeds costs about 3500 gil. Use Ice crystals for Zegham Carrots(Mental), Earth crystals for Vomp Carrots(Physical), Water crystals for Tokopekko Wildgrass(Cures Illness,) Fire crystals for Garidav Wildgrass(Stomachaches[overfeeding]), and well, just about anything else grows greens. I personally used Lightning Crystals.

What greens you get is pretty random, they almost always harvest to be Sharug or Azouph. You want Azouph, for it's very large Affection boost. Sharugs are light filling, takes 5 or so to fill a chocobo(compare to 2 Azouph,) with a very tiny affection boost per green.

For Wildgrasses, I've honestly never had a Chocobo suffer a Stomachache. I had a stack of Garidav available just incase but never used one. Any more is just wasting space. Tokopekko is another story, but 2-3 stacks should be more than enough for the 40 day quick-stat building plan. Illness is random, so experiences may change.

Worms you shouldn't worry about, so steer clear of using Light and Dark Crystals.

I used a combination of Brass(6) and Porcelain(3) pots, and my Arcane(1).

Once your chocobo is an Adult, you can race and get Chocobucks. 10 Chocobucks can buy a stack of carrots, greens, and grasses. The more races you do for chocobucks on a single day, the more money it eventually costs.

Fees go as follow:

100 Gil
150 Gil
200 Gil
300 Gil
400 Gil
600 Gil
800 Gil
1000 Gil

You can do free runs an unlimited amount of times a day, 1000 is the highest the fees peak. If you don't want to spend too much on chocobucks, stop after your 800 gil race. Every (real life) day the fee resets back to 100.

Winning Chocobucks works as followed:
1st Place: 5 Chocobucks
2nd Place: 3 Chocobucks
3rd Place: 2 Chocobucks(Assuming here, have never come in third)
4th Place: 1 Chocobuck

So you can use Free Races to fund your carrots, greens, and grasses very easily.

There are bonus stat raising "plans" from Chocobo racing. They cost 75 and 80 Chocobucks. 75 raises a Random attribute, 80 you can choose. The intensity of the increase is also larger with the 80 Chocobuck plan.

If you start raising another chocobo, you can use your elder bird to win chocobucks to get feed for your newer.

Take cooking to 8 to make Speed Apples to make winning easier.