Companion Chocobos and Their Role in Modern Battle

Part 1
I'd like to take a few minutes out of everyone's day to talk about your dear mount and friend, the Chocobo Companion. Specifically, in its roll as a partner in battle and how underwhelming they can be.

After spending many months grinding challenge log exp, and many hundred crunchy krakka roots, my dear Chocobo is currently Rank 19 and on her way to Rank 20. While I'm proud of how far we have come together, it must be said that she sometimes is very slow and indeed, useless. While this can range from activating moves for no reason in Free Stance, to spamming Choco Medica while at full health, only us two in a party, and I with one foot in the grave, I feel like all Chocobo Companions could benefit from some higher education in combat technique and prowess.

Part 2
By no means am I suggesting to increase their stats, for there are already methods available to do so (two that I know of), but rather rework the AI (artificial intelligence) such that they handle things much better instead of how they sometimes do, or rather don't.

For instance, when in free stance a Chocobo should look at its party roster. If it sees that there are many dps and healers, it should try to fill the roll of a tank and do its darn best to keep enmity. If the party has no healers, it should heal its heart out. If the party is lacking in DPS, it should waggle it's tail feathers and prepare it's talons for some bloodshed. Essentially, programming Chocobo Companions to fill the roll needed should be of top most priority.

Part 3
Another thing that could be fixed is where/how Chocobos stand/move. When I set my own to Healer she simply follows behind me quite close. This means she gets hit by every AoE move thrown at me, some of which can paralyze or sleep. Even if I move to get out of the way, she is too sluggish and will always get hit regardless. Though it may take some effort, programming a Chocobo to dodge would be very useful to everyone indeed, and spare many poor Chocobos hp and status afflictions.

One of the biggest issues is not only what kind of moves a Chocobo uses, but when and why they use them. Even when setting my Chocobo to healer stance she loves to spam Choco Medica, especially so when I'm low on HP. I have no idea why this happens, as she uses Choco Cure while I'm healthy, but after a certain threshold she seems to troll me. It's not as though she needs HP as often times she is completely full. Fixing things so that they use the right moves at the right time is essential.

Part 4
Honestly, just these few things would make Chocobo Companions feel more alive than ever and increase their use tenfold. SE could even create a Chocobo Academy or something silly and cute like that, where after training them with books their AI progressively ranks up and causes them to start acting smarter. If they did things that way they could create a massive Gil sink for players too!

What are your thoughts reader? Have you had any issues with your Chocobo Companion before? Do you feel they're fine where the are, or could maybe use improvement? (Also, if there's a way to go above the 1000 character limit, please let me know!)

I feel like almost all of these have work arounds if you're skilled enough.

Want it to heal more because no healer? Set it to healer mode. Sounds like you basically want the 3 roles to vanish and have free stance as some super mode that can do all 3

Having problems with your chocobo eating Conal damage? If you BARELY cross up the monster you can get it where you're half inside it. You can get the chocobo behind it while you're in front. This doesn't avoid circle AOEs, but at the very least you can do this to avoid Conal. It adds difficulty to your spacing which isn't usually a mechanic makes it interesting for me. Like when I solo Mahees in MNK.

Id be fine with a target placing command though to order your chocobo to move to said location instantly even cancelling it's current cast to get there, so you can command make it dodge and or stand in a safe spot.

I recommend unlearning the rank 10 skills - the aoe heal is rarely useful, and the aoe damage carries the risk of pulling unintended mobs.

Smarter AI would be great, but the summons are just as dumb. I would love to be able to manually control chocobo skills as well.

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Originally Posted by Ayirez

Part 4
(Also, if there's a way to go above the 1000 character limit, please let me know!)

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After making your first post, edit it. As far as I'm aware there's no limit on the size of your post. At least not one in an attainable measure.
If this reply was going to be over 1000 characters, I would have typed up my reply, copied it, simply posted "incoming edit" or something similar, and then edited in with the pasted reply with speed that it's likely nobody even saw my placeholder.
In fact, I'm going to attempt to make this post over 1000 characters just to show you exactly how it's done!

I always see people 'snip' out quotes to which I imagine is to lower their character count. But it just makes the conversation flow harder to follow! It'd be nicer if SE simply did away with the 1000 character limit, but I suspect it's there to stop people from initially spamming large posts to their hearts content, or something. I didn't say the worst snip, please don't quote me on saying it people! :(

The text that you have entered is too long (1093 characters). Please shorten it to 1000 characters long.
Oh ho... now watch the magic.

I dont know my chocobo is pretty damn smart in free stance. 8/10 he starts off with the DoT, and seems to stun when I need it the most.

I do pretty well with my chocobo. Placement is definitely important and sure sometimes I've gotten close to death because of her heals. But you should also consider- Their skills undoubtedly have a recast timer just like ours. And they also don't have as many heals as us--even at their max level..they have like 3?
Eating aoes is annoying but as posted earlier you can command them to move or watch your own footing. I love my chocobo and am honestly excited to bring her to dungeons with me.

I actually kind of like that my chocobo is a bit... Dumb. I think it adds to their feral nature and is more realistic that they don't do everything you want them to. They're birds!

So Henry is not the smartest creature in eorzea. It's OK. I still love my aoe eating chocobo! :)

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Originally Posted by RoseOfTheRaven

I do pretty well with my chocobo. Placement is definitely important and sure sometimes I've gotten close to death because of her heals. But you should also consider- Their skills undoubtedly have a recast timer just like ours. And they also don't have as many heals as us--even at their max level..they have like 3?
Eating aoes is annoying but as posted earlier you can command them to move or watch your own footing. I love my chocobo and am honestly excited to bring her to dungeons with me.

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Not to be that guy but your company chocobo is undoubtedly male.

If they're going to let us bring chocobos into dungeons as battle companions then they'll need to make some adjustments to the algorithms for how they work. Honestly, more so the tank and dps trees than the healing one. As for how they are now, I think they're fine. They require about as much micromanagement as carbuncles to be useful. What I would like to see is Choco Sprint (with stamina meter) and choco break (Limit Break). Preferably I'd like both of these to be player controlled, but that might be too much to ask.

Mine's rank 20 (all skills capped) and usually when he's out I'm white mage and I force him into DPS mode and that works well as I can just heal myself when needed and I'd rather switch stances a lot than rely on him for heals. I can set him on one mob, I take out another and we finish at a similar time. I'm personally happy with the DPS, he's not as good as if I go a dedicated DPS job myself, but puts out enough damage as an assistant for me not to complain.

Tanking wise he was great when I had worse gear (and if I gave him a headstart to get hate), but lately I haven't even bothered as he can't keep hate off me, but I feel that's because I've geared up a lot more when he's really stayed the same.

Healing though I have the same complaints as everyone else, the AI is rediculously stupid with spamming chocobo medica. I could unlearn it, but I don't want to. It also bugs me that when he's in healer stance he insists on following so closely he gets hit by every AOE under the sun that tries to hit me (that I dodge and he still gets hit by).

If SE could just adjust it so when he's in dedicated healer stance the chocobo:

A) Stays ranged, unless I move out of ranged and then he moves back into range (only as far as is needed)
B) Doesn't use medica to cure unless it's actually needed and/or forces switching back to regular cure if a person gets under a set HP level, say 50% (their heals aren't that powerful so anything less might be a bit risky).

I don't use free stance enough to know how it performs under that, but I think generally I think if we want it to be doing a specific role, then we should tell it, not have it being a super chocobo that knows everything. It might be our faithful companion, but essentially it's still a dumb bird who needs us to feed and train it :)

In some cases, Chocobo's are smarter than players.

Which is a little sad o:

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Not to be that guy but your company chocobo is undoubtedly male.

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Ummmmm.....while you, sir, have a very valid point, being that this is a RPG, what's wrong with roleplaying that the chocobo is female? I am. I named my chocobo Pwnelope and I see her as a female chocobo! :D

On topic, I think the gambit system (FFXII) would be a great way to give us more control over our companion chocobos AI.

i love my chocobo lol i had to leave a fate once due to visitors arriving so ran out of fate to where i thought i was far enough to drop boss targetting.. came back 5 mins later my chocobo was still alive tanking the boss lol was in coethas aswell so wasnt low level boss :P

My chocobo is rank 20 and I reset his SP and didn't put it in choco medica. I did this because I'm usually in a party of 2 and he was constantly casting medica, now he just throws cure and quite frankly does a better job than some healers.