Revamping Interactions for Your Chocobo

Wouldn't it be cool if your Chocobo could interact with you more?? Yes they do fight alongside you and you can change their color unlike other mounts, but other than that, they don't really feel special. They're supposed to be your "companion" especially when you're new and at a lower level, but I think most people at any level only use them as a tool for extra dps or for the regen.

I think giving them extra interactions would be so cool and give more life to them. Eating out of your hand, doing a periodic whistle (partially whistles the chocobo theme or similar), dancing, sitting/sleeping with a player, reacting to emotes, and interacting with other chocobos are a few things I think would be awesome to see.

With these or any others, I think new players (or anyone) would get a lot more out of their "companion", and in general, they'd be more fun to interact with!

I def agree.
Being able to customize them with bardings and skills is cool and all, but the chocobo doesn't feel like a companion to me. Mainly because I have to spend Gil to summon it for 30 minutes. I don't feel like I can just chill with it when I have to pay to spend time with it.

I would LOVE this!!!! 8D

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I def agree.
Being able to customize them with bardings and skills is cool and all, but the chocobo doesn't feel like a companion to me. Mainly because I have to spend Gil to summon it for 30 minutes. I don't feel like I can just chill with it when I have to pay to spend time with it.

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You can feed your chocobo one more time after summoning it to increase its time to 59 minutes. :3

There should be a nest that you can put in your house/apartment. You could have your choco sit in it while you chill at home, and interact with him in the ways mentioned.

I also think the combat needs some work, like you should be able to make him pull.

Chocobos are indeed one of these 2.0 features that have not really seen a lot of updates in quite some time.
Hope they can so something more there as I would barely call them "companions" anymore...
Mine spends more time in the ranch than outside on the field.

I want a fetch minigame. Or to have them help with treasure hunts.

It won't happen in xiv, but if they ever make another MMO, mounted combat would be pretty cool

I would like to see "affection" assets used in a particular mini game in shb for chocobos. Playing with it, feeding it and grooming it could raise it's affection level and grant you some perks. For example, at "level 5 affection", it will start "picking up" random items from the ground like plant materials or gems. Maybe at a higher level, it can revive you if you die on the field.

Another thing I'd like to see is bardings granting different abilities and/or stats to the chocobo, with each barding granting unique or situational abilities. For example, equipping your chocobo with a full maelstrom set nets you 10% extra wolf marks for participating pvp in a maelstrom team.

At this point, I'd almost rather see a retainer as a companion over the Chocobo. At least you could have a glam buddy assisting you in combat.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

I would like to see "affection" assets used in a particular mini game in shb for chocobos. Playing with it, feeding it and grooming it could raise it's affection level and grant you some perks. For example, at "level 5 affection", it will start "picking up" random items from the ground like plant materials or gems. Maybe at a higher level, it can revive you if you die on the field.

Another thing I'd like to see is bardings granting different abilities and/or stats to the chocobo, with each barding granting unique or situational abilities. For example, equipping your chocobo with a full maelstrom set nets you 10% extra wolf marks for participating pvp in a maelstrom team.

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This is a great idea. The chocobo stables are kinda similar, but they feel really weak compared to what it could be. (just feed every hour and "train" with a samey cutscene that you skip every time)
I'd love to be able to actively interact with the chocobo like you do with things like pokemon-amie or pokemon camp.

Giving a treat could be, instead of just getting a single plant, you could cook something up for a boost of affection

You could play with them by playing fetch (go into a little chocobo ranch solo instance that' will replace your hotbar like you're in a vehicle. You have skills like "throw ball" "point to ball" "give treat". The more you play it, the better they get at fetching, the less you have to point to the ball. As they get more skilled they'll be able to get extra drops and items from the open world.

Training could be something similar where your chocobo is training against a mammet, and you have command skills like "strike high" "strike low" "interrupt" "heal" and "give treat". The mammet will give tells and you'd have to command your chocobo the responses to said tells. This training could shorten the cooldowns to your chocobo skills the more progress you make with it.

Maybe they could even have grooming, where if you regularly clean your chocobo their experience gained by kills, affection gained by playing, and.. uh let's call it "aptitude" gained by training gets a boost.

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Originally Posted by Edax

At this point, I'd almost rather see a retainer as a companion over the Chocobo. At least you could have a glam buddy assisting you in combat.

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Honestly both would be cool. Maybe give bonuses when summoned depending on what you chose?
(Choose companion slot anywhere you can currently use glamour plates)

Chocobo companion: Chocobo mounting cast time instant. Riding speed automatically max speed (3 star map) at max bond you can play chocobo hot and cold every X minutes to find items (maybe map exclusive items? Like the rare and expensive stuff should be on the loot table but super rare still)

Battle retainer: Extra drop chance from monsters without training required. Grants duty action based on the role. (Ultimatum for tanks, mana shift for magic dps, Peloton for ranged dps, Leg sweep, but aoe, for melee dps)

MIN/BOT retainer: Higher hidden node proc rate (up to 100% as your bond level increases), gathers crystals from the node you are gathering from.

Fishing retainer: Allows you to attempt to mooch with a NQ fish (lower chance to aquire mooch only fish than an HQ fish, takes longer for a fish to bite). Boosts chance to obtain mooch only fish when mooching. Lowers time it takes for a fish to bite. (all effects become more powerful as bond increases) (When retainer's effect is active, it's the retainer actually catching the fish, so animations should play on them instead)

The retainers should also have a bonus feature where they can talk to you and other npcs as you're going about your business as well as interact with the environment as you would. Nothing super fancy, just a little quip about the settlement you just entered, a greeting towards a guard, a "HAVE AT THEE" to a monster you are fighting, and if you do an emote, they too should do one especially if you're sitting. You should go through a dialogue tree to set their AI as well.

Would love to see just in general a revamping of the chocobos (chocobo paradise, new chocobo jobs/sub job concept, hot and cold, new looks/emotes, etc). Of course interactions in that would be awesome.

I like the passive ideas a lot, had originally just suggested something like if you dance your chocobo might dance or if you wave they might wave (if you do it to them rather that blankly/at someone else the chance would be 100%).. but it would be really something special if they whistled occasionally, investigated other chocobos, minions, came to sniff/nuzzle you, responded to weather changes, or whatever else. In terms of content I thought chocobos might occasionally wark or kweh depending on some special chocobo event (special fate like thing) or / hot and cold event happening, but that'd not be very often.

Passive actions would add a really nice amount of life to them.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

I would like to see "affection" assets used in a particular mini game in shb for chocobos. Playing with it, feeding it and grooming it could raise it's affection level and grant you some perks. For example, at "level 5 affection", it will start "picking up" random items from the ground like plant materials or gems. Maybe at a higher level, it can revive you if you die on the field.

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Oh that would be cool. I actually liked in WoW having to take care of my pet lol, obviously it'd be a different vibe since unlike WoW you'd probably not be able to feed them in the wild if you ran out of food (and stacking 999 greens just seems easier), but was something nice. Occasionally realizing I need to fish to feed my croc or whatever I had out.

If they did for some reason add food other than greens to zones (perhaps just using other veggies in the game), it might be cute to see them gain a bonus of some sort if you fed them food from the environment they're in, just to encourage players who want to play 'off the land' to do so. If you didn't want botanists to get too happy, sorry lol, you could always bind it into a chocobo hot and cold concept- such that you dig up greens from the mini game and can use those to keep them happy (or feed them the basic greens if you don't want to bother with higher affection gains and other buffs). Clearly we've some special foods, like the attack up food, that could be reserved for more of an aside gourmet system perhaps (no need to remove, just make sure they don't become useless if you encourage in zone living off the land concept).

What if once a chocobo is summoned they don't need food but they just get hangry?

Such that if you feed them well they'll do well, can be part of managing their affection (starving them not getting you any bonus points lol, perhaps starve them too long and they die then they just bounce xD). Going back to passive actions they can wark at you or bump into you (if you're stationary) when they're hungry lol. I only think that because if you feed them the basic summoning green at least it seems too tightly wound to just summoning them, not that it's a huge problem but I feel taking good care of them being separate from calling them would enhance the idea you're taking care of them instead. Unless you strictly meant the plants outside of greens being good (like sylkis, rather than the basic summon greens). Not needed to do that extra step, just a discussion of 'feels' lol.

Hopefully grooming isn't exclusively to having to stable a chocobo (don't want to go through all those extra menus of kicking them out of summon state so I can go through a number of menus to confirm their stable state so I can take care of them and then finally take them back out again haha), like I can do basic grooming in the wild with a grooming kit (which I do like the idea of, grooming my stinky birb), of course there could be some advanced treatments- pamper your boco to the spa :p.

I agree, the chocobo stables feel way too passive. It's just "set and forget" and not at all how I imagine taking care of a chocobo would be. Love the idea of an affection level and the things you could do to raise it, and also being able to cook something up for the chocobo (as one way to raise it) sounds cool, even it it's just making a salad lol!!

I always wished I could use my own chocobo in the mini racing game, but that aside, having mini games for just you and your chocobo like fetch would be amazing. The instance could be started from an option in the stable menu, or maybe going to that chocobo farm in Central Shroud or somewhere in Thanalan since there's lots of open space.

I want Chocobo dungeons.

While I would like them to do something with chocobos, I’m not sure what the best plan would be. Maybe an xp boost when chocobo is capped to help w/ fates. If they ever roll squadrons and trusts together, I’d like to see them have our chocobo be one of those available party members.

Beyond that, anything to add to solo content or mini games is always welcome. Perhaps tie in beast master to chocobo in some way? Or a new kind of disciple of land focused on gathering items traditionally found on mobs?

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Originally Posted by Edax

At this point, I'd almost rather see a retainer as a companion over the Chocobo. At least you could have a glam buddy assisting you in combat.

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I would just be happy to be able to the squadron out in the general world to do fates with even with it 2.0 mechanics that are attached to them.

I'd love this, yes. :D

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Originally Posted by MsQi

I want Chocobo dungeons.

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Like... the roguelikes?
Or would you send your Chocobo out like a retainer?
Chocobo dungeons are an interesting idea, but how could they best be implemented?
Maybe a simple deep dungeon where you control your chocobo?

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Like... the roguelikes?
Or would you send your Chocobo out like a retainer?
Chocobo dungeons are an interesting idea, but how could they best be implemented?
Maybe a simple deep dungeon where you control your chocobo?

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I think the only "no" I have is for the retainer thing. I think we have enough things like that.

I personally like fighting alongside my chocobo and when I was leveling my chocobo I wanted some more interesting content to do with him to get him leveled up. I was thinking of a party of 2 - 4 people with their chocobos. But it could also be a party of 4 - 8 chocobos where you control your choco directly.

One idea was chocobo versions of existing dungeons, where the plot revolves around your choco. Dialog is all in kwehs so you kinda have to guess what the plot is. Maybe there is an item you can get/ earn that lets you understand. It could be a case where your chocobo needs your help. Chests would have chocobo consumables and gear would be bardings, maybe base on dungeon gear sets, except they are all individual pieces so you have collect the set like you do for your own gear.

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Originally Posted by MsQi

One idea was chocobo versions of existing dungeons, where the plot revolves around your choco. Dialog is all in kwehs so you kinda have to guess what the plot it.

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I am immediately and completely interested.

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Originally Posted by Edax

At this point, I'd almost rather see a retainer as a companion over the Chocobo. At least you could have a glam buddy assisting you in combat.

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I have all my squadron girls in bikinis ready and waiting to go.

The only thing I did with my chocobo was feed it enough onions to get it to level 20. Now, it's just a buff I need to keep up.