Purebred Chocobos not viable?

Hi there.

So, it seems we can only buy and race Chocobos who have 2 star Pedigree across the board - meaning, all their offspring will be 2 star across the board as well. Is there any way to influence their Pedigree, without breeding with Gold Saucer's NPC Chocobos?

I'd really like to do it the hard way and make my own purebred Chocobo, but with this restriction it seems like that's not going to get me anywhere at all, ever.

Does nobody know or care? I figured I wouldn't be the only one who'd like to breed only their own Chocobos, rather than making use of randomly generated one-use NPC Chocobos.

I'm pretty sure the only means is the NPC bought breeding horse birds. Technically, they are all purebred anyway in that a chocobo is only a chocobo in this game (I get what you actually meant). I haven't bred them yet, but I'm assuming you can only stable 1 bird at a time (not including a breeding one). Maybe they'll expand it someday to allow this, so that you can breed them once then start working on your own, assuming they don't change the base 2 star starters.

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

I'm pretty sure the only means is the NPC bought breeding horse birds. Technically, they are all purebred anyway in that a chocobo is only a chocobo in this game (I get what you actually meant). I haven't bred them yet, but I'm assuming you can only stable 1 bird at a time (not including a breeding one). Maybe they'll expand it someday to allow this, so that you can breed them once then start working on your own, assuming they don't change the base 2 star starters.

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No, no. We *can* breed our own Chocobos. The problem is, all the Chocobos we can buy and race with in order to retire them at 40 so they'll be available for breeding, have 2 stars at everything, so any offspring of theirs would have 2 stars at everything as well, and they'd also permanently retain their default color, as all bought Chocobos seem to have the same.

So as it looks, only breeding with NPC Chocobos can yield anything better than 2 stars, and it seems to be the only way to get a Chocobo of a different color as well, which I find rather disappointing, as I'd immensely prefer breeding exclusively my own raised Chocobos, but that seems to be an entirely unviable thing to do, apparently.

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Originally Posted by Riepah

No, no. We *can* breed our own Chocobos. The problem is, all the Chocobos we can buy and race with in order to retire them at 40 so they'll be available for breeding, have 2 stars at everything, so any offspring of theirs would have 2 stars at everything as well, and they'd also permanently retain their default color, as all bought Chocobos seem to have the same.

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You need to use foods to help raise their stats. You can't get above 2 solely by breeding.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

You need to use foods to help raise their stats. You can't get above 2 solely by breeding.

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Food raises their stats, but not their Pedigree, does it? And only their Pedigree affects what their offspring will be like, unless I'm misunderstanding something.

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Originally Posted by Riepah

Food raises their stats, but not their Pedigree, does it? And only their Pedigree affects what their offspring will be like, unless I'm misunderstanding something.

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This is just my understanding so bear with me. Let's say I raise a choco with max speed stat. When I breed it selects some stats from 1 parent to be passed and some from the other parent. I believe it's random each time. So if my choco is chosen instead of the other parent for the speed stat that enlarged stat in part propagates down to the child. Since that speed stat can be directly effected by food it must naturally effect the child.

I think your confusion on how to gain ranks proves the point since food is the only method to really raise your stats. So if you eliminate the other options then this must be the only way.

TLDR: Yes, stats raised by food can be passed to the child.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

I think your confusion on how to gain ranks proves the point since food is the only method to really raise your stats. So if you eliminate the other options then this must be the only way.

TLDR: Yes, stats raised by food can be passed to the child.

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Excuse me, but I am not confused about how to gain ranks. Ranks have nothing to do with the topic in the first place. Ranks raise your Chocobo's stats, allow you to Feed them, and at rank 40 you can retire them to be used for breeding. But what affects their breeding effectiveness is not their Rank, but their Pedigree. And raising stats with food does not influence Pedigree, as it seems.

Pedigree is measured in Stars. Every bought Chocobo has 2 stars in everything. Gold Saucer Chocobos for breeding purposes have a random amount of stars, therefore, breeding with those does affect your offspring and enable you to attempt to get a Chocobo with 4 stars in everything in the long run. This seems to be entirely impossible by only breeding your own Chocobos though, as you'll be stuck at 2 stars for everything, forever.

In order to get 100% chance to increase pedigree you need to breed your retired bird with a covering 2 pedigrees higher than yours. Otherwise I think you can breed 2 with the same pedigree for a chance at an increased pedigree bird but it is not 100% guarenteed. Keep in mind that you can breed retired birds 10 times so in order to avoid coverings you would have to get a bird to 40, retire it, then get another bird to 40, retire it, and pray that you get a pedigree increase based on rng.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

TLDR: Yes, stats raised by food can be passed to the child.

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As far as I know this is incorrect. The only thing that can be passed to the child in regards to stats is the star ratings and pedigree which cannot be increased by food. Basically the stats are irrelevant and the child takes 1-4 stat star ratings from each parent. The star rating, in turn, increases the stat caps available to the chocobo. The pedigree also increases the stat caps for the chocobo.

I haven't bred any yet, but it did say in-game that trained skills had a chance to be passed down to offspring. Does that not apply to stats as well?

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

I haven't bred any yet, but it did say in-game that trained skills had a chance to be passed down to offspring. Does that not apply to stats as well?

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If the retired parent has one ability that ability will be passed to the child, if they have 2 abilities it lets you pick one according to other people. I have not confirmed this but that's the general consensus from people I know who have already started breeding.

I was going off this guide. http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...eedingraising/

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BREEDING
When you breed chocobos, you ideally want a chocobo 2 pedigrees higher then your current chocobo. This will give 100% chance to increase Pedigree. Using higher pedigree chocobos will give a better chance at higher stats and Tier 3 abilities, but will never increase your pedigree more then 1 per breeding. So, there is a lot of risk/reward to determine.

Stats are determined at random, with 1-4 stats coming from the lower pedigree chocobo and the remainer coming from the higher pedigree. It is completely possible for your new chocobo to have lower stat ratings then the sire, but higher pedigree still means higher stats. Abilities and colors have a 50/50 chance of being passed on, your fledgling with have the color and ability of either of the parents, there is no 'mutating'.

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This had me believing the stats are based on the parents but perhaps I misunderstood his meaning.

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Originally Posted by DoctorPepper

Keep in mind that you can breed retired birds 10 times so in order to avoid coverings you would have to get a bird to 40, retire it, then get another bird to 40, retire it, and pray that you get a pedigree increase based on rng.

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That's my plan, yes. So there *is* a chance to get more than 2 stars on offspring even if both parents only had 2 stars in a specific stat? That is good to know and would possibly make what I'm trying to do possible, though not the easiest method, but that's okay.

Another thing I wonder about; can we keep breeding Chocobos indefinitely, or is generation 9 the end of the line?

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Originally Posted by DoctorPepper

If the retired parent has one ability that ability will be passed to the child, if they have 2 abilities it lets you pick one according to other people. I have not confirmed this but that's the general consensus from people I know who have already started breeding.

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When you retire a Chocobo, you're asked which of their skills you want to praise - the skill you pick will become a hereditary one, this much I can already confirm. The offspring will receive one of their parents' hereditary skills at random, I believe.

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Originally Posted by Riepah

No, no. We *can* breed our own Chocobos. The problem is, all the Chocobos we can buy and race with in order to retire them at 40 so they'll be available for breeding, have 2 stars at everything, so any offspring of theirs would have 2 stars at everything as well, and they'd also permanently retain their default color, as all bought Chocobos seem to have the same.

So as it looks, only breeding with NPC Chocobos can yield anything better than 2 stars, and it seems to be the only way to get a Chocobo of a different color as well, which I find rather disappointing, as I'd immensely prefer breeding exclusively my own raised Chocobos, but that seems to be an entirely unviable thing to do, apparently.

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I meant as far as addressing your concern about the stats, NPC bought breeding Chocobos are the only means to gain varied stats and then you can start breeding using your own for varied stat results, since that was the main point of your post. Sorry for not stating that clearly. It's still early though, but maybe it'll be confirmed sometime that you could still get a 3 star stat offspring from 2 star parents. If not, then yeah, you're just stuck with breeding at least once using the NPC bought ones.

Keep raising their stats as far as they can go and breed only the ones that RNG good stats. From what I'm hearing if its anything like chocoboo breeding in FF7 (was it 8? or 9?). Then you'll be spending a lot of time breeding them until you get that gold color one with the best racing stats. Or did they change the color association to pedigree in Gold saucer?

I was really hoping that breeding would be somehow useful for a companion chocobo with stats for outdoor use :(

Will have to give this racing a go though, in the practice mode the controls are terrible ..sloppy and very slow to respond....but if racing is just to build points it will do.

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Originally Posted by MistyMew

Will have to give this racing a go though, in the practice mode the controls are terrible ..sloppy and very slow to respond....but if racing is just to build points it will do.

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That delay seems to be intentional - you're supposed to make your intended move about 1-2 seconds in advance. The tutorial mentions that Chocobos take a while to react to your command, so I think they did it to alleviate latency issues somewhat - that is my best guess, anyhow.
Give it a chance anyhow, I personally find it insanely fun despite the sloppy controls.

It's not even so much a delay; it's more like your chocobo doesn't respond as instantly as a well-trained one would :) It's just like real life racing, they need to be trained to respond quicker, just like they need training to become faster, have better stamina, ect. Mine is much faster at responding now that it's had some training.

Well, my two Chocobos are working on making a new Chocobo for me tonight, I'll know more tomorrow. Anything that isn't 2 star on everything would be a good sign.

Sadly, my new Chocobo, "Bloody Uranus", has 2 stars on everything. I guess there's no way around Chocobo prostitution if you want to breed a really good one.