Chocobo breeding 101:

(open for business!)

I'll keep this as concise as I can, everything in here will be based on my interpretation of my current research, other players findings and my own speculation.

To start with I'll explain the requirements for breeding:

1. You must have a rank 40 chocobo or higher. Remember it's rank not rating!

2. A covering that can be purchased from the tac and feed vendor at the chocobo square. Make sure you buy a covering that is of opposite gender to the chocobo you want to breed. If you have a male chocobo you need an F covering and for a female chocobo you need an M covering.

3. 6 hours are required to pass once you begin a covering, so prepare yourself for the wait. My advice would be to buy another fledgling chocobo to race in the meantime to earn some mgp and another chocobo.

Next i'll cover what we know about every piece of information you can find in the chocobo menu.

Chocobo genetics:

There are 3 main things to keep in mind here.

1. Star rating (1-5)

2. Pedigree value (1-9)

3. Acquired and hereditary abilities.

First I'll explain what the star rating is and how it affects stats.

Each chocobo has a star rating for every stat, the higher the star rating the higher the cap on any given stat e.g. 1 star gives you a maximum stat cap of 100, 2 stars gives you 140 so on so forth. I'm not 100% sure how much the cap raises per star after 2 stars but I would assume 5 stars is equal to a cap of 200 or higher.

Bear in mind that your very first chocobo has all its stats capped at 100 and all its stars at 2, this is of course contradictory to what I just said though. However I think the way it works is that your pedigree level has to be raised in order for the same amount of stars to provide a higher cap e.g. a pedigree 1 chocobo with a 2 star rating has a cap of 100 but a pedigree 2 chocobo with a 2 star rating has a cap of 140 and with 1 star that same chocobo gets a cap of 100.

Lastly star rating affects the stat values your child chocobo starts with, a 1 star rating gives your chocobo 11 stat points in the corresponding parameter and a 5 star rating gives you 24 points e.g. if your child chocobo has 1 star in maximum speed it will start with 11 stat points in maximum speed and if it has 5 stars in maximum speed it will start with 24 stat points in maximum speed. Star rating does not affect how many points a parameter gains on ranking up, but there is a possibility that it can change how many stat points you gain from training. I honestly have no idea what determines stat gain values from ranking up, it seems random.

pedigree value:

As far as I'm aware I don think it is possible to breed a chocobo that has a higher pedigree value than your lowest pedigree of the two chocobos you want to breed by a value of 1.

As an example, if we take a pedigree 1 chocobo and a pedigree 4 chocobo the highest pedigree you will get from the child chocobo is pedigree 2 because the lower pedigree value of the parents is 1 and you can only gain one pedigree value each time you breed (as far as I currently know.)

I think it's safe to say that a higher grade covering (which is the same thing as the pedigree value) has a better chance of attaining a greater overall star rating than a lower grade covering when you first use it. However you would still only increase your pedigree value by 1 regardless of the covering grade you purchased.

I can't be 100% sure on this yet but it seems like the logical conclusion from my own experience and others.

This next part has only had a small amount of research put into it so far, but I believe the relation between star rating and pedigree is as follows: For every pedigree value your chocobo has there is an increase to the maximum stat cap for each star e.g. I've already observed that a pedigree 2 chocobo has a stat cap of 140 with 2 stars while a pedigree 1 chocobo has a stat cap of 100 with 2 stars.

chocobo abilities:

You can have two abilities at max, a hereditary one and an acquired one.

When ready to breed a chocobo and purchase a covering the chocobo that is generated from that covering will have a random ability. This can be passed onto your child chocobo as a hereditary ability.

Upon retiring your chocobo you will be asked to give him/her some parting words, there are two options; one allows your chocobo to forget its current ability and the other allows them to keep it so if you want to get the covering chocobo's ability you'll need to choose the option that makes yours forget. If you want to keep your ability choose the option that makes it remember. However it will still be a 50/50 chance on which ability is passed on.

In the next section I will cover (presumably) how the star rating, abilities and colour of your child chocobo is determined. We don't know any exact values yet so we can only base it on logic with the available information.

Chocobo hand me downs:

Now that you've handed in your covering and selected the race chocobo you want to use at the bentbranch stables it's time for the two chosen chocobo's to do their business. So what exactly is handed down from the parents to the child?

First of all I will mention that your race chocobo's current stat values do not affect the child chocobo in any way that we can see. So if you have 100/100 in maximum speed this does not mean your child chocobo will naturally have a higher maximum speed stat upon birth. The only thing that gets handed down from the parents to the child are star ratings, abilities and colour (possibly preferred weather as well.)

Next, how do we determine which stars, colour and ability get handed down? Well both parent chocobos have their own individual combination of star ratings that can be passed on to the child chocobo and the number of chocobos that take part in this breeding process is two. With that in mind I feel it is reasonable to say that the determining factor is 50% given that there are only two parties involved. The way this works for star rating is that each star rating from both parents has a 50/50 chance to become the star rating for that particular parameter of the child chocobo. However I think there might be some weight behind the idea that the greater the difference between the pedigree value of both chocobos the more in favor of the lower pedigree chocobo that percentage will be e.g. breeding a pedigree 1 chocobo and a pedigree 9 chocobo will tip the balance towards the pedigree 1's star ratings.

As for colour I think it's safe to say that there is a 50/50 chance regardless of pedigree due to there being only two determining factors, it's either going to be one or the other. Also colour does not affect the outcome of a race so there should be no reason to use anything other than a 50% value.

Abilities may be a different story though as they do affect races, so it is likely that the higher valued ability will be given a lower chance of passing on to the child chocobo.

End.

I can't think of anything else to add to this 101 for now so let's say it's in an 'Open beta' stage. If there is anything you think I missed or could explain better or if you disagree with something please feel free to let me know. I welcome all discussion on this topic too as there is much more to learn as yet!

Hopefully this cleared up the whole breeding process for some people and I appreciate you taking the the time to read my thoughts and findings on the subject!

Tip: You can edit your first post and bypass the character limit. Squeeze all your info into a single post.

The only reason I can think of of why you would want to mate with a higher pedigree Chocobo (bought from NPC) is when you wish to retain those traits of your lower pedigree Choco. Say if you have a pedigree 2 Chocobo (3-stars in all stats, excellent ability like Dash, nice color) and rather then getting a randomized pedigree 2 cover and hope for the best, buy a higher pedigree partner (3 or above). That way it'll tend to use your pedigree 2 Chocobo's stats/ability for the fledgeling. Maybe....

Also, my previous Pedigree 3 Chocobo had 2 active abilities (Heavy removal and Chocobo Shock). That heavy removal ability, Chocobo Ease II I think, was hereditary.

As to whether higher tiered abilities have lower possibility of passing on to fledgelings, I have a feeling it's still 50%. This was what happened in my case:

Pedigree 2 (Dash I) + Pedigree 2 Cover (Chocobo Ease II) = Pedigree 3 inherited Chocobo Ease II, then later gained Chocobo Shock I at level 10.

Pedigree 3 (Chocobo Shock I) + Pedigree 3 Cover (Chocobo Shock II) = Pedigree 4 inherited Chocobo Shock II.

Oh thanks! I've not used these forums much before so I didn't know that. i'll do it now!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aphel

The only reason I can think of of why you would want to mate with a higher pedigree Chocobo (bought from NPC) is when you wish to retain those traits of your lower pedigree Choco.

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I would personally say there is another good reason. If we say the following is true :

"I think it's safe to say that a higher grade covering (which is the same thing as the pedigree value) has a better chance of attaining a greater overall star rating than a lower grade covering when you first use it."

Then it would be beneficial to purchase a higher grade covering as it increases the over all star rating pool that your child chocobo can draw it's own star ratings from. But obviously this comes with the detriment of a lower chance to obtain those higher star ratings. However the opposite could be possible and the max amount of star ratings any covering chocobo can have is 10 and they have to be distributed randomly among the 5 parameters so your long term goal is to retain as many high star ratings from each generation as you can or rather as many as the RNG gods allow you to.

Question if i buy 2 covering letters one male and one female, can i breed them both togeaver or do i HAVE to use my chocobo?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DracotheDragon

Question if i buy 2 covering letters one male and one female, can i breed them both togeaver or do i HAVE to use my chocobo?

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You have to use one race chocobo and one covering as far as I'm aware, but by all means test it out for yourself as you're more than likely going to need another covering in the future anyway.

wondering if theres a certain pedigree needed b4 u start having chance of coloured chocos.. also what if u breed 2 of the same coloured chocos will there be 100% outcome of gettin that colour?? or is it still possible to get default?

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Originally Posted by Spawnie

wondering if theres a certain pedigree needed b4 u start having chance of coloured chocos.. also what if u breed 2 of the same coloured chocos will there be 100% outcome of gettin that colour?? or is it still possible to get default?

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The colour of you covering chocobo is random upon purchase and by the looks of it there are a lot of colours. Also the first chocobo I bred was gloom purple (the colour of the father) and that child chocobo is a pedigree 2 chocobo so i dont think the pedigree value has anything to do with the chance of getting a coloured chocobo. I imagine breeding two of the same colour chocobos will result in the same colour.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DracotheDragon

Question if i buy 2 covering letters one male and one female, can i breed them both togeaver or do i HAVE to use my chocobo?

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One of the Chocobos HAS to be yours. Otherwise everyone would just buy Pedigree 9 Covers to breed and get a 9 fledgeling on Day 1.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aphel

One of the Chocobos HAS to be yours. Otherwise everyone would just buy Pedigree 9 Covers to breed and get a 9 fledgeling on Day 1.

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ahh ok thank you i was curious to see if i could buy 2 grade 3 choco's to mate to make my bird :3

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fealow

The colour of you covering chocobo is random upon purchase and by the looks of it there are a lot of colours. Also the first chocobo I bred was gloom purple (the colour of the father) and that child chocobo is a pedigree 2 chocobo so i dont think the pedigree value has anything to do with the chance of getting a coloured chocobo. I imagine breeding two of the same colour chocobos will result in the same colour.

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yeah im worried about that cause if get lucky with n really uncommon colour n lose it on the next breeding attempt etc lol

Hey there, good info so far so thank you it helps alot
Sorry if I've missed this part but could someone explain this one for me;

http://i.imgur.com/QqA1oYw.png

The chocobo far left (Chaos II) is one I raised and bred from G1 + another G1 bird I raised to 40 and that was the outcome, no mix of star since both parents had 2 star in everything.
The one on right just named "Chocobo" is one I bought with MGP as a breeding partner, but what bothers me is this.
The stars you see is the stars the parents of those birds had, not their current stars, so why does mating two like that give the baby stars of its grandparents so to say?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spawnie

yeah im worried about that cause if get lucky with n really uncommon colour n lose it on the next breeding attempt etc lol

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What exactly is an uncommon colour? This is not Final Fantasy 7 XD

Colour choice is random therefor all colours are of equal rarity/commonality.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YakushiHinata

Hey there, good info so far so thank you it helps alot
Sorry if I've missed this part but could someone explain this one for me;

http://i.imgur.com/QqA1oYw.png

The chocobo far left (Chaos II) is one I raised and bred from G1 + another G1 bird I raised to 40 and that was the outcome, no mix of star since both parents had 2 star in everything.
The one on right just named "Chocobo" is one I bought with MGP as a breeding partner, but what bothers me is this.
The stars you see is the stars the parents of those birds had, not their current stars, so why does mating two like that give the baby stars of its grandparents so to say?

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This is a good question, I think I overlooked that a covering chocobo does not actually show you its own star ratings, but only it's parentage ratings. Also that breeding screwed you over pretty hard given the possible star rating you could have gotten! same thing happened to me with my first breeding.

Because your covering chocobo is female it might be possible that only its female parentage is considered which is the parentage star rating that your pedigree 3 chocobo has. You can quite clearly see that the male parentage has not even been taken into account with G2-F.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fealow

Because your covering chocobo is female it might be possible that only its female parentage is considered which is the parentage star rating that your pedigree chocobo has. You can quite clearly see that the male parentage has not even been taken into account with G2-F.

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That is what I started to think aswell, You have to be lucky to get a male with good stars vs female with same good mix, get two babies with a good mix and raise both to 40. That gives you 10 chances to breed a good mixed one.
This is becoming more complicated than I thought but fun!

Edit: Unless it is 100% that the baby will keep the mix of the father's father? and same with mother's mother..

I have a question. Say if I buy a pedigree 2 covering and then am about to commence breeding and seeing the crappy stats of one of the parents (ex: covering bird is male, and his father has crappy stats), can I cancel the breeding, toss the covering, buy another and see another set of randomized star ratings from the father's side?

I can't test this myself yet since my bird is not rank 40.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lissandra

I have a question. Say if I buy a pedigree 2 covering and then am about to commence breeding and seeing the crappy stats of one of the parents (ex: covering bird is male, and his father has crappy stats), can I cancel the breeding, toss the covering, buy another and see another set of randomized star ratings from the father's side?

I can't test this myself yet since my bird is not rank 40.

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Yes I belive you can, if you have the MGP to spare to keep rebuying.

Parents:

http://puu.sh/ggbWH/e13e9c6cd5.png

Child:

http://puu.sh/ggbYW/2541e84b9c.png

You can check the child, it has 2 star in mother all stats because theirs grand parents have 2 stars (first chocobo).

The father has 4 - 3 - 3 - 4 -2 because theirs grandparents have 4 -3 - 3(4)* - 4 - 2(3)*

Into brackets are maxed stats I could get.

Will check "Max Speed" stat:

we have Father(4 - 4) - Mother (2 - 2): It's a 50% to get 4 or 2 stars. I got 2

"Stamina" stat: Father(4 - 4) - Mother (2 - 2): same percent and i got 4 star.

Now, whe will think into next breeding.
My new chocobo's parents have 2(4) - 2(3) - 2(3) - 2(4) - 2. 2 stars are inherit for my first chocobo.
I'll use my first covering for the example
Covering: 4 -3 - 3(4)* - 4 - 2(3)*
Actual Parents: 2(4) - 2(3) - 2(3) - 2(4) - 2

Max Speed: 75% to get 4 stars and 25% to get only 2
Acceleration: 75% to get 3 stars and 25% to get 2 stars.
Endurance: 50% to get 3 stars, and 25% to get 2 or 4 stars.
Stamina: 75% to get 4 stars and 25% to get 2 stars
Cunning: 75% to get 2 stars and 25% to get 3 stars.

In a good match i will get 4 - 3 - 3 - 4 - 2. So my next covering must cover a 4 stars on cunning because the objetive in each breeding is max all the stats.

Percents are not exactly, because you could get 3 stars where you should get 2 or 4 stars. but will guide you to try max stats.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fealow

What exactly is an uncommon colour? This is not Final Fantasy 7 XD

Colour choice is random therefor all colours are of equal rarity/commonality.

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lol surely some colours are gonna be rarer then others XD

The resulting chocobo is not based on the stats of the previous stats that the retired parent has, it's dependent on the retired parents parent, so if you had a chocobo with parents that had 4-1-2-3-2 and 2-2-2-2-2 and the chocobo ended up was 4-2-2-3-2 there's still a chance that the offspring of that chocobo gets the 1 from it's grandparent, the 1 is just a recessive gene that has a chance to appear. When I bred my pedigree 2 with 4-2-2-2-2 it showed up that it had 2-3-2-2-2 as the parent in the child's pedigree window. The ped 2 chocobo had a parent with 4-3-2-1-2 and the normal 2-2-2-2-2 chocobo as parents.

Explanation 1

What is known about your Chocobo: Precise stats. Write it down before you retire your Chocobo because once you retire it, you have only your parents' stats to go by.

What is known about your Partner Chocobo (That you bought from the NPC): Its parents' stats. Hence, you would have to make an educated guess as to what exactly is the Partner's current stats. It is unknown but can be somewhat predicted. From there then you can estimate what sort of fledgeling you'll get.

Take a good look at Rappa's (3 posts above mine) picture. In his case, the Pedigree 9 cover was actually a 4, 3, 3, 4, 2. But at that point in time before the fledgling was born, all you can go with is the parents' stats. Luckily for Rappa it's quite straightforward since the Pedigree 9 partner's parents have pretty much the same stats.

IF his Pedigree 9 partner's parents had wildly different stats, i.e. Male had 1,1,1,1 Female had 4,4,4,4. Then the actual cover's stats could be 1,4,1,4 or 4,4,4,4 or 1,1,1,1 or whatever combination available. You wouldn't know with a high degree of certainty whether it's actually good or not. It would be an absolute gamble to mate with your chocobo.

Explanation 2 (Which is more accurate come to think of it)

Same as Explanation 1 but your retired Chocobo is taken out of the equation. All that matters is the parents' stats i.e. on the card. Upon breeding, the game will just use those stats and generate an offspring (your fledgling's parents). From these offspring they'll then generate your fledgling's stats. Your retired Chocobo only contributed its hereditary ability. This pretty much explains everything.

TL,DR: Upon breeding, the game takes the Partner's Father+Mother's stats and makes an invisible offspring. The game takes your retired Chocobo's Father/Mother's stats and makes an invisible offspring (stats which will probably be different from your retired Chocobo). Game takes these two invisible offspring and mates them, TADA your fledgling is produced.

So was your retired Chocobo's stats used at all in determining your fledgling's stats? No. Only the ability has the potential to be passed on.

Mystery Solved!!!

I Have a 5th generation chocobo being Covered at the moment.
The pedegree for each random g-9 is simple to check if you Buy Multiple G-9 coverings then you Head to Bentbranch all the ??? will be given precise stats that you can look up later.
Colors are just a random if there are Multiple Colors its either 1 or a Mix between the 2
2 of the same Useally result in the same.
The Pedigree For each Choco is that of the grand Parents but, the 2 diferent stars sytems for each half is decided at random between Grandpa Grandma (dads side) and moms side seperatly.
4*3*1*2*2* dad 4*2*4*2*1* the combination could be any combination (variation) of those so this one could be 4*2*4*2*1*
thats the Fathers Grandparents Pedigree, Parents only decide Abillitys as far as ive been able to tell.
As Example 4* 2* 1* 3* 4* dad 1*3*2*1*4* mom you could end up with 1 half of the pedigree any random combination of those, Ive had multiple diferent outcomes in pedigrees Even using the same 2 Chocobos. but lets say that combination is 2*3*1*2*4*. The above combinations are The resulting chocobo that you take to Chocobo trainer And then of those combinations 2*3*1*2*4* dads side moms side 4*2*4*2*1* , you can end up with variations even though 1 side had all 4* cunning if even 1 has a lower value you can end up stuck with 1* cunning
Hope i am making sence

I just skimmed through your guide to see if I could find the answer to my question but couldn't find it.
So sorry if it actually is in the text.

Two questions:
When I do breed my first chocobo, is it worth it to buy a 9grade chocobo or should I buy a chocobo with lesser grade and save the points for next breeding?

If I remove my current chocobos ability will he aquire a new one by ranking up or will it be gone forever and I wont get a new one unless I buy it?

Its not my guide but The first 1. It is likely that the G-9 covering will increase the overall star rating, so up to you i did personally buy the G-9,

The 2nd 1 if you unlearn the acquired abillity then he will learn a new abillity the next time it ranks Up.
i think the higher the Rank of the Chocobo the greater chance for a better Abillity, I tried to get Dash on 1 of mine cause cover didnt keep dash I got Dash II at rank 25 (4th generation)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mikagaru

Its not my guide but The first 1. It is likely that the G-9 covering will increase the overall star rating, so up to you i did personally buy the G-9,

The 2nd 1 if you unlearn the acquired abillity then he will learn a new abillity the next time it ranks Up.
i think the higher the Rank of the Chocobo the greater chance for a better Abillity, I tried to get Dash on 1 of mine cause cover didnt keep dash I got Dash II at rank 25 (4th generation)

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Thanks! I will most likely get a rank 9 chocobo covering, and I'll remove my silly ability that is too situational.
I have one that gives me some stamina if someone uses bachus water on me but I rarely get to use it

I don't think there is huge benefit to only using G-9 coverings unless you have a pedigree 9 chocobo otherwise there would be no reason to have different graded coverings without there being a negative effect from mixing and matching them.

So can you breed just 2 chocobo's of your own, instead of using the coverage?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Syrellaris

So can you breed just 2 chocobo's of your own, instead of using the coverage?

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Yes you can, however if all fledgling chocobos you can buy at the stable always start with 2 stars in every parameter, you'll never be able to get higher or lower star ratings unless you use a covering at some point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fealow

I don't think there is huge benefit to only using G-9 coverings unless you have a pedigree 9 chocobo otherwise there would be no reason to have different graded coverings without there being a negative effect from mixing and matching them.

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More expensive? G-9 covering seems the best to me, untill you get your own breeds up to high stars.

So if I am understanding this right - There is no real way to progress... Simply put its all a game of chance with every single statistic?

That might be too blunt... 'The only way to progress is by getting lucky and then retaining that luck by refusing to breed the lucky Chocobo with another that could potentially give it a low star statistic'?

So I tried my luck again with my old G2 M with a bought G2 F ...and I dont belive this outcome.

http://i.imgur.com/UpC0zte.png

Maybe I've understood it wrong, but I was under the impression that the father passed on *it's* fathers gene and mother did the same for her mother down to child and it then mixes the stars based on % how many stars the stats have.
So I guess it takes a mix of both parents parents to give to the child.

Yeah it's a mix, and for your case the G2-F was lucky to have inherited all the good stats. Then fortune shined on you again and the fledgling inherited 4 out of 5 good set of stats from the parents.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fealow

Yes you can, however if all fledgling chocobos you can buy at the stable always start with 2 stars in every parameter, you'll never be able to get higher or lower star ratings unless you use a covering at some point.

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Hmm so in that regard, its simply better to just buy coverage from a nother chocobo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YakushiHinata

Snip http://i.imgur.com/UpC0zte.png

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Your retired male gave 2 star inherit by his father and her mother. It's obvious because stats are the same.

To get your mother's stats, the game did random and created your parentage, took Speed(3), Sta(4) and Cunning(4) from mother's father and acc(4), Endurance(4) from mother's mother. we could say you got a perfect :D

Your objective now is level that chocobo and retire.
The next step is stop that bloodline, don't breed that chocobo until next step.
Breed the retired chocobo male with other covering female to get a female chocobo pedigree(3) with high chance of 4 stars on Speed and Acc(others 4 stars are welcomed) .

Something similar to:

Parentage
Father Mother
speed 3 or 4 star 3 or 4 star
acc 3 or 4 star 3 or 4 star

Level to 40 and retire it.
Cover your chocobos (pedigree 3) until you get the perfect stats 4 (stars on both parentage sides). Sometimes you would get 4 stars on child, but still getting 2 star on parentage. Keep that chocobo, but try again other breed. Level your chocobo to get MGP or do GATES and TT for MGP farm until next child.

Don't forget you can retire a chocobo before it reach rank 40, but you lose the chocobo. Useful when the child hasn't good stats for breeding purpose (a lot of 2 stars on parentage).

Why may you do this?
- Lower covering grades are more cheap, and you can buy and throw away useless cover.
- Once you create the perfect bloodline, you will breed them all time to get 4 stars on all stats early pedigree.
- If you level that nice chocobo with other not good chocobo, maybe you destroy the bloodline and you effort would be crashed.

Charles Darwin should approve this thread :D