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Just go tback into the game, once I level to 60 and finish MSQ I really really really want to delve into CHOCO RACING. the ENTIRE concept seems so cool....
however, I dont see a lot of people thrilled about it or popular/people talking about it at all. not sire if the hype died down or its not as fun as I imagine it to be.
how long are q times for races and can a buddy of mine q up as 2 and still play and race with people trying to increase rating?
Queues aren't an issue for Chocobo Racing. The game will fill race slots with npcs to get a race going so you never have to wait more than 30 seconds or so.
Chocobo racing isn't super popular. You likely won't encounter many human opponents until you start breeding new birds and hit the higher ranked races as that's where most of the people still playing will be.
As for fun I think it's alright, especially with friends. The main problem is they haven't added new tracks in 2 years so it's a bit stale for people that have been playing awhile. The breeding system also creates a large gap in performance between new players and people with high grade birds so the races stop being interesting if you have some friends investing a lot more time into their bird than others. You can still race together in the Open races but it won't be a close race if one person is several grades ahead and they will cause higher end npcs to spawn in the race as well.
I think chocobo racing would be far more popular if it was in the DF like battlehall and LoV, I know if I were bored I would queue in for a quick race, but getting not only to the gold saucer, but having to get to the second floor can be tedious for some.
I know that there could be limitations due to NPCs, but they are working on getting PotD into the DF, so I'd like chocobo racing to be considered as well (who knows, this might be on their todo list)
chocobo racing has a few problems:
first it's extremely grind and RNG heavy to breed better racing birds. people seem to not like that.
and there are far too many race classes. depending of the strenght of your bird you are placed either in R20, R40, R60, R80, R100, R120, R140, R160, R180, R200, R220, R240 or R300 class. it's not very likely that your friends are in the same class like you. even when you start out together, the one of you wich wins more often will get mehr exp for his bird, wich means he levels faster and will be soon in a higher race class than the other one. and then there is the breeding. it's RNG based wich stats your new breed will have. means again the friend with the better stats will be in a higher race class, so you can't race together.
so even when there are 8 people in the same FC who want to race togehter: they simply can't. so before you can race with your friends you all have to grind the chocobo to R300, wich will take a while, and only a few hardcore gamer have the time and energy to do so...
and of course: the lack of an awesome reward. sure, after some rebalancing chocobo racing is the fastest way to grind MGP. but first you have to grind your chocobo to R300. then you can grind MGP. well... grinding is the reward for grinding? not thaaat a popular reward xD with the weekly challange log you will get enough MGP anyway, and bringing a chocobo to R300 costs a few 100k MGP before you can start grinding MGP... o.@
then there is the chocobo mask and a barding. oh, and 1 or 2 titles, that's it.
It's fairly fun but not so used. At peak times there might be 5 or more people at once but all in different leagues.
It would probably be better if they filled up a race with cross server characters and had leaderboards like those dungeons.
More tracks would be good too, only 3 tracks can get stale.
I'm one of those who love chocobo racing, for me it is the most fun activity that the GS offers. I got really into it and have raced, leveled, retired, and bred over a dozen birds. My current bird has over three hundred wins at max level alone. But, the problem is, racing (and the majority of the GS in general) has not gotten any attention for a very long time. It's the same three tracks against the same pool of 10 to 15 NPC birds over and over and over again. If I am lucky enough to encounter another player (a rare thing on it's own,) when they move into my bracket, they are at the very bottom of it and stand very little chance against me and my high-end bird. After I completely blow them away two or three times, they usually give up and don't queue anymore. Then it's back to grinding the same NPCs again. I would absolutely be over the moon if SE showed some love (anything really, new tracks, let us queue via DF, etc) to racing.
Starting out, you are going to have a lot of fun. The track obstacles will constantly change and you will be against a plethora of different NPCs (and, if you get lucky, the occasional player) as you move through the different brackets and breeding your retired birds is fairly rewarding on its own. If you managed to make it all the way to the very top of the food chain though, it will get stale after a while. It's one of those things that you have to enjoy the journey of, not just rush, rush, rush straight to the end.