Please let us mount other mounts while our chocobo is summoned

[kidvideo]

Yes please. Mount roulette should still work if the choco is summoned.

[Fyrebrand]

In my opinion, chocobo companion was totally botched as a feature. It's bad enough that you can't enter DF queue, summon a minion, or use other mounts while chocobo is out -- but the fact that initially you could not mount at all is a joke. Not to mention, there used to be no way to reset skill points at all. Why even bother releasing it, in that state? The fact that they fixed it later essentially just means they could have made it that way from the start, but hastily pushed the feature out the door unfinished and neglected it til later. Even today, I feel like we are using a broken "beta version" of chocobo companion.

I mean, even if you're already in a DF queue and you summon the companion, there is no warning before kicking you out of the queue. How hard is it to make a simple text box prompt? The lack of even this tiny consideration demonstrates complete apathy toward the value of players' time. After all, it works the opposite way -- if you have the choco companion out and try to enter DF, a text warning pops up preventing you from queuing until you manually dismiss. Apparently, auto-dismissing chocobo companion is unacceptable to the developers, but there's no concern whatsoever when booting players from a DF queue they've been waiting in for maybe 40+ minutes. Maybe they see it as gaining 40 minutes of subscription time..??

If the result of their "companion" system was going to end up like this, I would have rather they made the chocobo function like the arcanist/summoner creatures. At least you can issue commands to them directly, and they don't interfere with any other game mechanics. The game even knows to auto-dismiss them when entering a dungeon, for crying out loud!

[KaiKatzchen]

Gameplay >> Lore.

In this case, gameplay is a royal PITA. Change ASAP and ignore any lore in the process.

I don't know if I can agree, Lore is the basis of the game, and therefore the game play. If we removed all the lore just to change the game play we would have a very boring game with no point to it. No one wants to play a game that has no point to it.

[Granyala]

I don't know if I can agree, Lore is the basis of the game, and therefore the game play. If we removed all the lore just to change the game play we would have a very boring game with no point to it. No one wants to play a game that has no point to it.

Eorzeans train and selectively breed Chocobos like we do horses or dogs.
Treating them as domesticated animals is therefore fully supported by the lore and there is 0 reason to treat them as "another player" as the games mechanics currently do.

Also: I am talking about game mechanic changes and not fundamental lore conflicts or retcons (waves at Blizzard).
Lore has 0 influence on that, this is mainly UI/convenience and lore should NEVER be a reason to have a crappy UI / conflicting features (e.g.: can't queue for a dungeon because Chocobo / can't be invited to party because Chocobo / can't ride other mount because Chocobo).

[Fyrebrand]

Nowhere on any official FFXIV site have I seen them refer to a chocobo as a pet, but a companion and comrade. A comrade is a fellow soldier, a partner.

How many partners/fellows/comrades do you keep in a stable, expect to show up immediately when called, and ride around on? And since when do comrades demand you not ride any other mounts in their presence? I'm pretty sure a fellow soldier and partner would enter a dungeon with me, too.

[Grekumah]

There are two reasons why you can only mount your chocobo when you have your chocobo companion summoned. The first is that your companion and you share a trusting relationship and therefore you’d want to ride on their back when you are adventuring together.

The second reason is that we’ve made it so companions and mounts are not displayed at the same time because we’re giving consideration to stress that the servers handle when displaying a large amount of characters.

In the event that we made it possible to summon both a companion and a mount at the same time, it would affect the number of characters displayed. While there wouldn’t be much of a change with one or two people doing this, we have designed this system giving consideration to the fact that there would be densely populated areas within an MMORPG.

Therefore, when riding on a mount, your companion disappears, and when you dismount it would reappear from nowhere, so we’ve currently made it so you can only mount your chocobo. However, if there are no issues with this seemingly strange occurrence, it would not be difficult to lift the limitation on other mounts.

We’re considering at the moment whether it would be better to follow the lore and maintain the current system or if it would be better to allow players to freely use the mounts they like when using a companion. I can’t give a specific time for when the decision will be made, but we would like to see your feedback on the matter, so please continue to discuss this topic.

[VahnValbosce]

I have an idea...

Why not automatically mount us on the chocobo while our choco companion is summoned? No matter what mount we press, that way it will make ppl not have to switch the mount out in the hotbar or dig through the mount guide menu to summon another mount?

[Tiggy]

Therefore, when riding on a mount, your companion disappears, and when you dismount it would reappear from nowhere, so we’ve currently made it so you can only mount your chocobo. However, if there are no issues with this seemingly strange occurrence, it would not be difficult to lift the limitation on other mounts.

I could live with this.

Why not automatically mount us on the chocobo while our choco companion is summoned? No matter what mount we press, that way it will make ppl not have to switch the mount out in the hotbar or dig through the mount guide menu to summon another mount?

I could also live with this. As long as I'm not taking up 2 buttons for mounts on my bar.

Honestly this is semi annoying but not as big of a deal as queuing with your bird out.

[Niwashi]

I have an idea...

Why not automatically mount us on the chocobo while our choco companion is summoned? No matter what mount we press, that way it will make ppl not have to switch the mount out in the hotbar or dig through the mount guide menu to summon another mount?

You can get this effect with a macro. Start with a line to summon your favorite mount or mount roulette, followed by a line to mount your chocobo. If the first command is available, that will take precedence and the chocobo line won't (as you'll be busy summoning a different mount), but if the first command fails (due to having your chocobo companion out), then you'll mount the chocobo.

It would look something like this:

/micon "Unicorn" mount
/mount "Unicorn"
/mount "Company Chocobo"

(For when in areas that don't allow mounts, you could also add a line at the end for:
/ac "Sprint"
but if you do that, you should probably change the /micon to Sprint as well, in order to see the cooldown.)

Um... I don't remember off hand what the macro command is for Mount Roulette, but I know there is one if you want that in place of the Unicorn example I gave.

[Shougun]

We’re considering at the moment whether it would be better to follow the lore and maintain the current system or if it would be better to allow players to freely use the mounts they like when using a companion. I can’t give a specific time for when the decision will be made, but we would like to see your feedback on the matter, so please continue to discuss this topic.

Like Vahn, I think it would be nice just to have the chocobo mounted no matter the mount button pressed (or dismounted no matter the button pressed). If you can mount another while your chocobo is out, wouldn't they try to defend you like Summoner's egis do? That might be a problem, Chocobo off in the boontoolies thanks to monsters pulling aggro.

If they don't defend you then they will feel like bad companions, so you're stuck with losing them all the time (like Summoner Egi) or having them be bad friends like Mario and Yoshi :P.