Suggestion : Add new content for Chocobo Racing

[AlliciaCapulet]

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now.

Back in late HW/ early SB, I've done a lot of chocobo racing. I completed over 3,000 races for the title, optimized breeding to get the best possible pedigree and skill combinations, and cleared every challenge that rewarded barding. At the time, it genuinely felt like a side activity you could invest yourself in — something with depth and long-term goals. Also, I've always been a Mario Kart lover. So having it in the flavour of XIV was great !

But since then… almost nothing has been added.

Chocobo racing has so much untapped potential, yet it’s been sitting untouched for years. Even small additions could revive interest.

For example:

A new achievement at 5,000 races with a unique title or cosmetic reward would immediately give veteran racers a reason to return.

Introducing a higher breeding tier, new inherited skills, or even raising the max chocobo rank would create meaningful progression again.

Adding a new race track, new traps, or rotating track modifiers could refresh the experience without reinventing the system.

New challenge series with exclusive barding or cosmetic rewards would bring back that sense of purpose.

Right now, very few players queue for races. And for those of us who already completed everything years ago, there’s simply no reason to go back. That’s the saddest part — not that the system is bad, but that it was left behind.

After so many years without updates, I really believe it deserves some attention and a bit of love. Even modest additions could breathe life back into it and give veterans and new players alike a reason to visit the Chocobo race again.

[Kirutsuki]

As someone who's only played a match or two of Chocobo Racing AND Lord Of Vermillion, I think they are both games that are unnecessarily complicated and hard to understand for no reason.
And they really only pull in a specific kinds of people who enjoy that sort of convoluted aspects in videogames where they can really dive deep into some weird nuanced gameplay about breeding birds.

But it will never attract a massive audience because of it. In the same vein for example XIV PvP was largely too complicated for many players until Crystaline Conflict was introduced and Serier rewards were added.

If something similar is done to Chocobo Racing and Lord Of Vermillion I am certain it would attract more players, simplify the concepts, simplify the rewards and how you get them and surely you have an audience.

But the fact that you need a PhD just to understand Chocobo Racing is the wall for most. And no matter what rewards to put behind it is going to change that.

[AlliciaCapulet]

But the fact that you need a PhD just to understand Chocobo Racing is the wall for most.

I never felt it was that hard. In fact, when I do compare to what it was (the breeding and race) in FF7 on PS1, the races and breeding on FFXIV feels really simple and easy to get.

But I'm an old millenial, I'm used to have to read stuff to understand it. Having to read a page or two doesn't mean you need a PhD to do it (Btw, I also have a PhD and this doesn't even compare).

But I'm an old millenial and I notice that many of the young people doesn't like to have to think or spend time on stuff... If it's not mastered in 5 minutes it's "too hard".

[Daralii]

Lords of Verminion (Savage)
Ocean Fishing (Chaotic)
Chocobo Racing (Ultimate)

[Aidorouge]

From what I've been told, they can't do much with Chocobo Racing because some of its coding is tangled up with ARR weather and modifying the racing could mess something up in the overworld, there's also code that ensures the game keeps your racing chocobo and companion chocobo separate, and one wrong move and they get fused somehow. To top it off, the person who was on the team to do the programming for chocobo racing doesn't even work on the game anymore, so they would need somebody else to go in to untangle the mess.

Not to say Square-Enix shouldn't do SOMETHING because Chocobo Racing is a more interesting side activity than most, but I can see why they ignore it in favor of adding/fixing other things because it was never super-popular, and they would need to tread carefully going through the spaghetti code otherwise they'll break three different things.