Chocobo License quest is very off-putting for newcomers and inconvenient for everyone

[Edyth]

The chocobo license quest stands out as very archaic in its structure now that virtually everything else has been streamlined. My brother is joining FFXI next month, and I know he's not going to react positively to this quest. And anyone who's tried to explain this quest to a noob knows that it's frustrating. And right now, I'm working on it for a mule. If you somehow forgot how ridiculous and convuluted the quest is, read this link.

Issues

1. "Chocobo on the Loose!": players are forced to flag this quest when they approach the stables. This is misleading and confusing. The ONLY way to know that this is not the chocobo license quest is if you're following a walkthrough or if a veteran is explaining it to you. This early in the game, not many players are following FFXI wikis like they're the Bible, so this is very misleading and inconvenient. Even after it's flagged, dialogue for this quest prevents the flagging for the license quest unless you talk to Brutus multiple times in a row.
2. The quest takes a minimum of 6 game days (6+ hours) to complete. Noobs have trouble making it back to Jeuno, and if they set it as their home point, they have trouble making it back to their home nations. Forcing them to either dink around in Jeuno this many hours on such an inconvenient and uneventful quest or forcing them to chug along at a wamouracampa's pace without a chocobo because they don't want to stay in Jeuno for 6 hours is like begging noobs to unsubscribe from the game.
3. Gausebit Grass is classified as a weapon in the auction house. No noob in the history of noobdom has ever figured out on his own that he should look in the weapons category of the AH for freaking grass. Also, it has a tendency to be sold out or prohibitively (by new players' standards) overpriced.

Modern-day FFXI Solutions

1. Make completion of "Chocobo's Wounds" required before "Chocobo on the Loose!" can start. Players who flag the quest before the update can complete it normally, but after the update, the cutscene should only activate for players who already have a chocobo license.
2. This is the WORST-case scenario, but the minimum required to make it reasonable: Remove the two days from the quest that the chocobo refuses your grass. Make the rest of the trades once per GAME hour. For example, Noobynoobnoob could trade at 3:53 VT, 4:01 VT, 5:30 VT, and 6:02 VT, where VT = Vana'diel Time. Or better yet, cut down the required trading even more.
3. Add Gausebit Grass to the nearby chocobo shop NPC.

Please?

[Xantavia]

Devil's advocate here.

1) I agree with. All quests are vague and hard to figure out without a guide.
2) Getting to and from Jeuno if you set your homepoint there should be a non-issue. Chances are they have done FoV/GoV and have tabs to spend on repatriation or homing instinct. Or just death warp back to Jeuno.
3) Gausebit Grass is tricky to find on AH. But it is really simple to farm from flies in Mer. Mountains.

[Edyth]

Well, as I suspected, the convoluted Chocobo quest majorly turned my brother off. And I had to pay 20,000 gil to buy his gausebit grass. For a measure of what the average noob might have when they reach this quest: he had about 1.6K gil. The grass needs to be sold for cheap by an NPC nearby, not just at exorbitant prices in the Weapons category of the auction house. The chocobo escape quest needs to come after the license quest (he had to talk to the NPCs in the chocobo pen so many times for the license quest to finally come up). The trade speed needs to be much faster, and the number of trades needs to be reduced.

[Olor]

FYI you can teleport between homepoints now so it is not at all difficult to get back to towns anymore.

Grass also drops from mobs in meriphataud mountains - so 100% free... this is a game, you may have to play it occasionally to make progress.

I agree the quest is kind of annoying but with teleporting from crystals now chocos are barely needed...

[Krashport]

Before we know it Square Enix will be adding Chocobo Licenses to be bought w/ Sparks!

[Eyeballed]

Google is your friend. Google will most likely introduce you to ffxiclopedia.com, and from there you can decide for your brother if taking 15min of your time farming 4 gausebit grasses (opposed to grossly overpaying on the AH) is worth it. The flies that drop the grass have a very high drop rate and can be killed by any job Lv20.

EDIT: If your brother had taken the farming route, he might have noticed that people buy these things often, at 5k each, and are easily farmed not far from Jeuno. Turns that 1.6k he has into multiple thousands just by doing a little himself.

[Edyth]

Let me put it another way.

The chocobo quest is no fun, and the wait times are pointless. Can we agree on that?

[Eyeballed]

Let's agree on one thing: hundreds of thousands have completed this quest as it is, and waiting 4-5 ingame days is nothing compared to the "annoyances" he has yet to face, and certainly small beans compared to the patience & effort required to progress pre-Abyssea.

People have got to stop this attitude of BIGGER, BETTER, FASTER, MORE, ZERRGGGG!!! They are killing these types of games. If you have no patience, please move on to FPS's and let the RPG players be.

[Anjou]

Let's agree on one thing: hundreds of thousands have completed this quest as it is, and waiting 4-5 ingame days is nothing compared to the "annoyances" he has yet to face, and certainly small beans compared to the patience & effort required to progress pre-Abyssea.

People have got to stop this attitude of BIGGER, BETTER, FASTER, MORE, ZERRGGGG!!! They are killing these types of games. If you have no patience, please move on to FPS's and let the RPG players be.

Then there's the JP midnights for things like BLU's and their af quests. Pretty sure off and on it won't kill somebody to wait a little o.O

[lyndshade]

I am new and I ended up farming the grass in wadi. I didn't bother going to Jueno until I left the dunes around 32. Once I hit town I turned in one grass and went outside to batalia downs to exp and farm boxes for armor I needed. I barely felt the quest being annoying, I just kept myself busy so it wasn't bad at all actually. I did however have money for the grass but I am stubborn and rather just go get it then spend money when it just takes a little effort on my side.