Chocobo Racing 2.55

So after finally getting around to racing again after the patch, I fully stand by my previous post in this thread about the NPCs being the core problem.

Either lathered needs to get nerfed/removed entirely (I wouldn't go this route, though) or the NPCs need to get slapped into the dirt. There's no reason people shouldn't be expected to regularly place 1st versus computer controlled opponents if they race well and have a decent bird (fully fed, even low pedigrees), we're Warriors of Light after all. The real play should come from racing other people, and nobody's gonna wanna just get beat down by NPCs so participation is going to drop off hard, and already has quite a bit on my server.

the problem is: you need zero skill for the race because the bird will run alone over the track. you can't be faster than others because of you can break later and use the perfect line in the corners like you can do in gran turismo xD no, alone your birds stats (RNG) and the chests on the track (RNG) is the ONLY way to be faster than the others and win... or not win...

that's a faildesign, and people will never like it. then the massive grind to get a nice chocobo... the race is dead. so... why add new tracks and things when only like 3% of the playerbase actually is racing? xD

it's time for chocobo racing 2.0 - a race reborn o.o/

The situation is now you need defensive abilities. Once you reach rank 100, npc are more clever and they will punish you hard. Using grade 1 food was useful, but with my chocobo pedigree 5 and more, the last ten levels are a pain and sometimes frustrating. If you are hitted by 2 waters, say goodbay to win the match unless you get potions or tablet.
Npc steal is annoying, it's like i'll press the button to be stolen.

The xp and mgp are fine now, but it's not fun when at 20% to finish the race, all participants have theirs stamina to 0% by items, random mobs, negative tiles, etc...But still preferable than press "w" and :o i won.

Keep in mind these changes seem to reflect the changes in abilities or other things (like weather) that were requested by the community..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tint

that's a faildesign, and people will never like it. then the massive grind to get a nice chocobo... the race is dead. so... why add new tracks and things when only like 3% of the playerbase actually is racing? xD

it's time for chocobo racing 2.0 - a race reborn o.o/

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Honestly, most of the replies to this thread are from diehards who don't care about the grind, but I can say that the reason no one in my FC wants to race (other than as a rare sideshow where we do it together (and that's happened only once)) is that it feel like a huge waste of time due to the ridiculous grind. If they doubled or tripled chocobo xp, I think it would finally get people interested in breeding a P9 chocobo just for the fun of raising and breeding a fast chocobo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aeyis

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And SE should have a grasp on what they develop to say "No." or make the adjustments in a way that doesn't hurt the game. But they obviously don't test their changes, and leave that up to the paying consumer to determine the results of their 'tweaking'.

Someone on their dev team should have enough common sense to know that buffing reds would be compounded by them significantly increasing the % to which they spawn. Do you truly think people would ask for changes to gravi/bacc if chests were like this to begin with?

NPCs are OP with these more frequent and buff'd red drops and low % buffs in chests... and the mgp/xp buff becomes completely void when trying to lvl for new people in the R60-160 classes. It's brutal and more difficult than it should be to get to 1-4th place, nullifying the mgp/xp buff in a way. Bad design learning curve is bad.

Heavensward is less than 3 months away now and being the first FFXIV expansion pack, it's kinda understandable (though not ideal) that they're focusing all their efforts on that. You'll have to do many races to get a feel of what is going on and I don't think they have the time for it. The different pedigree levels (and thus raw stats) make it tougher to balance around.

Take this for example:

My Chocobo's a P9 with decent stars now and I've decided to give it Level 3 feeds right from the start. But I'm dead broke because I spent so much MGP trying to get an ideal cover previously. In the end my Chocobo leveled up faster than I could train it, resulting in 14 unused training sessions. I'm in R160 now but even with those 14-session handicap (14 x 14 = Missing 196 stats) I'm blasting through the competition, consistently taking 1st place in Sagolii unless it rains throughout the entire race or I get hit with 2 frenzies. Not even 1 frenzy + 1 graviball is enough to take me down. Cure III helps too lol but I'm sure it's way different once I reach R300.

http://i.imgur.com/edL7G40.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/R58WGUU.jpg

That's the thing. If they buff the NPCs even more to match me, it'll absolutely destroy lower pedigree players. It's difficult to balance because of raw stat differences between pedigrees.

Imo, Pedigree has nothing to do with it. Take 2 chocobos, lets say P1 and P9 both trained with grade 1 food, that race against each other in the R-100 class. the P1 will probably be around Rank 35 and the P8 maybe Rank 10. Their base stats gonna be about the same, because else they couldnt race in the same class. The stat gain from food is much higher for the P9, but he trained 10 times, the P1 trained 35 times, so there wont be any difference.
The difference comes from using grade 2 or 3 food, which most people wont do until they reach their perfect chocobo. So they could fix this by lowering the prices for better food.

Feeding does not increase your rating. Your rating increases upon leveling up and is rather dependant on your Pedigree (starting rating).

Before feeding:
http://i.imgur.com/MkyMcDf.jpg

After feeding:
http://i.imgur.com/1O3iL96.jpg

Same rating of 179 as you can see. So I was indeed racing with a handicap of -14 training sessions (and still getting 1st place) which, at P9 and 3 stars translates to 14 stat points when fed with Level 3 veggies. If I had the MGP to spend on level 3 feeds I would have an extra 196 in stats, totally blowing away the competition. So should a P1 ever meet up with a P9 in the same rating (say at R120) and both train their Chocos with Level 3 feed, the P1 will only get a +3 stat boost while the P9 gets a +14 stat boost (3-star stat).

The difference is huge and when a Choco levels up 3-4 times within the same bracket, the difference is drastic. P1: 3levels x 3 = 9 stat , P9: 3levels x 14 = 42 stat.

How then should SE balance the AI? I do agree with you on the feed cost though. It is so prohibitively costly that it discourages people from even buying them until that perfect bird comes along, and that's where the complaints are coming from isn't it? Low pedigree + cheap feeds mean that your stats look something like:

Rank 40
Speed: 150/300
Endurance: 150/300

Racing against high bracket NPCs who are catered towards higher pedigree racing:
Speed: 300/400
Endurance: 300/400

Wherein lies the problem. In order to be competitive you'll have to constantly breed your Chocobo to a high Pedigree. It's a big time sink and a big MGP sink. Stats on Covers are randomized, good fledgelings are miracles. The prohibitive cost of high level feeds/covers + RNG involved in producing a reliable Chocobo takes way more time than Triple Triad. Racers also want some MGP to buy those shiny cosmetic stuff right? Yet they have no extras, no leftover MGP to spend.

The only time when there's decent and reliable MGP returns from Chocobo racing comes at the end R300. But by then players are bled dry of MGP, sunk hours and hours into a minigame and so sick of the whole racing system. Yet SE knows they can't make it any easier because like Triple Triad, once you unlock those 60 cards (P9 Chocobo), it's yours for the years and years to come.

Feed your chocobo using 39 grade 2 are 42.9k MGP (you can craft this kind of food to reduce mgp drain: around 60k gils each one, around 2'4kk gils if you don't harvest mats)
Feed your chocobo using 39 grade 3 are 107.5k MGP

My actual chocobo is pedigree 4

http://puu.sh/h2enx/fb4b747b68.png

I faceroll npc until r-120 when the balance using grade food 1 instead of grade 2/3 is more pronounced, but i have to level from 3x to 40, so is just a few races.

If i had a ped 7 or more i will feed with feed 2 or 3. Until that, feed 1 is good.