Chocobo Lottery aka "Weather"

[RobinRethiel]

Hmm so I guess it must have been the combination of my slight reduction in speed + favourable weather for competitors that gave me the impression that it was sluggish. Haven't gotten a fair-weather Choco since my pedigree 1 so I must have forgotten how it's like.

It's normal, that the chocobos does not seem to run at eh same speed all the time, depending on what part of the course you are on.

[Welsper59]

The weather effects really are pretty dramatic of an opportunistic advantage. I mean, even if it's intended to allow an underdog a chance to win, it could easily mean the same in the same weather for someone that was likely to obtain first anyway lol. The underdog advantage, I thought, was going to be related to items or that the degree that weather affects the bird would vary depending on position (i.e. the worse your position, the better your advantage becomes in favored weather, while ill weather wouldn't hurt your bird as much as it would better positions).

On the other hand, if you're one of those folks that find it normal to obtain 1st, how often do you not? Considering it's normal to do so lol. Losing 1st place once in a while isn't the end of the world.

[RyuujinZERO]

The "problem" isn't so much that sometimes you may lose, it's because the penalty appears lopsided in favour of foul weather birds.

If it worked the same way both sides, then there'd be an ebb and flow to the race, where at certain points certain types of bo have the edge, and then work to cement their position; this is a good mechanic. The problem right now is that foul weather birds seem to operate at 100% all the time, and fair weather birds may operate at like, 66% if the weather is bad. This means that in good weather both bos are equal, in bad weather, fair weather bos have a disadvantage. As we can tell, wet weather bos never have a noticable penalty.

I also think the penalty itself is just far too high, it feels like being perma-heavied in wet weather

[Lilianne]

Exactly what Ryuujin said, it's the fact that there is an imbalance that is the issue. Unless the whole race is in rain I can still usually scratch out a top 3 or so. But as it is right now, only one type of chocobo is getting a penalty due to the weather (fair)compared to the other birds who are always running the same, no matter the weather.

[RyuujinZERO]

I'm now rank 20 on my pedigree 4 bird. My P4 bird is my best to date, it has the highest stars, best stats and those stats are in the right places, by all rights I should be kicking ass and taking names. I've been keeping a rough track of my win/loss rate, and I think it speaks for itself:

P1 [Foul, Choco Ease, Speed/Cunning]: 70% Win rate*
P2 [Foul, Choco Sprint, Dressage, Speed/Endurance]: 90% Win rate
P3 [Foul, Headstart, Choco Calm, Speed/Stamina]: 95% Win rate
P4 [Fair, Headstart, Choco Cure, Speed/Stamina]: 50% Win rate

*We were all newbies once

Yes. I'm winning about half my races, even though this bird is faster, stronger, smarter and I'm way more experienced now. When it starts raining; and, it rains often, even in Sagolii, it's like being heavied for that entire leg of the race. If it rains at all I'll be lucky to get 1st, if it rains the entire duration of the race I can forget about even placing in the top 3, you simply cannot go physically faster enough to do so without a celestial alignment of speed boosting chest drops.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

words

I don't feel like it makes much of difference when you get to the realllly high rated races, like R-80 or so, since the NPCs get faster no matter what the weather is.

And I do believe you and I raced earlier today.

[Lilianne]

I don't feel like it makes much of difference when you get to the realllly high rated races, like R-80 or so, since the NPCs get faster no matter what the weather is.

And I do believe you and I raced earlier today.

R-80 is super low though, and it has an effect there. In R-140 with head start and the race in rain, I will be in 6th or 7th by the first box I get slowed *that* bad.

[RyuujinZERO]

I don't feel like it makes much of difference when you get to the realllly high rated races, like R-80 or so, since the NPCs get faster no matter what the weather is.

And I do believe you and I raced earlier today.

R-80 is pretty low, it goes to over R-300, for high pedigree birds R-80 is the starter tier. Unstandably then, if the rival birds are getting faster and harder to beat naturally, having a random 30% movement speed penalty is going to take you right out of the race there and then, when it's something you have no control over whatsoever (other than perhaps turning all fair weather birds into Manderville Fried Chocobo to ensure you don't get the penalty when it rains.)


EDIT:
I put together a video demonstrating the difference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v20I2zEMXU

[Lilianne]

EDIT:
I put together a video demonstrating the difference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v20I2zEMXU

Great video showing the difference between the two. 109s in the sunny video vs 123 in the rain with a hero tonic and sprint shoes and heat waves at the back end.

[Welsper59]

R-80 is pretty low, it goes to over R-300, for high pedigree birds R-80 is the starter tier. Unstandably then, if the rival birds are getting faster and harder to beat naturally, having a random 30% movement speed penalty is going to take you right out of the race there and then, when it's something you have no control over whatsoever (other than perhaps turning all fair weather birds into Manderville Fried Chocobo to ensure you don't get the penalty when it rains.)


EDIT:
I put together a video demonstrating the difference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v20I2zEMXU

While that's a good video to demonstrate the impact of speed, it really doesn't showcase the difference or unfair disadvantage fair weather type bird apparently deal with. I've only played with fair weather birds, so I can't really comment on the difference yet.

There's a number of things I need to bring up about the video and the time difference as a result. In the first half, you had preferred weather for the entire race, whereas the second half was 3/4 bad weather. The second half also had you miss a dash pad (though you sort of made up with it with the item), got hit by Caltrops, got blocked by the NPC for a long time, etc. A lot of that adds up significant time differences versus being in good weather conditions. While the reported time difference between the two in the end was around 14sec, if you take out all the differences of happenings, it really only made a difference of your end time by several seconds. Caltrops forced you to slow down in bad weather (-2 or 3 sec), Heavy effect (-1 sec), cock blocked in bad weather (-4 sec), missed dash pad but used dash item in bad weather (-1 or 2 sec). In reality, the weather did what it seems like it should (ignoring those unfortunate events of what happened in between). Can't really comment on NPCs due to not having the exact same ones that ended in top 3 in both matches.

Again though, I can't speak on the unfairness of the different weather type birds, just on what I see in the video.