Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

[Taskmage]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

Very interesting. Sounds like there is definately a minimum discernment level for each ability. Has anyone been able to teach an ability at all before reaching average discernment? It's said to be possible with a very very low chance, but I wonder if people weren't just assuming that because they hadn't learned it yet.

Btw, first-class discernment by day 40? That's quite impressive. My second chocobo, who was started before the care plans were improved, is only better than average in strength and endurance at day 40.

Auto-regen seems to be detrimental so far. When I taught the ability, his energy bar refilled, so I told another few stories but left him with ~80% energy because he was scheduled for rest the next day and I don't like him "starving" on his off days. The next day when I checked on him he was asleep with a full energy bar and "almost full." The day after that when I checked on him he had a full energy bar and, to my surprise, was "completely full." So it seems like Auto-Regen took care of his hunger since his energy was full, and I lost the chance to feed him that day.

Has anyone been able to try out Gallop or especially Canter yet? What do they do?

[klvino]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

Has anyone been able to try out Gallop or especially Canter yet? What do they do?

They're racing abilities, you'll have to wait until chocobo circuit opens up.

[Taskmage]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

They can't be used when riding in the field?

[klvino]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

No, you can't activate them during normal riding. They're specifically for the Chocobo Circuit which was scheduled to be released on or before December.

[Dragonly]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

So what does Gallop do? I have both Gallop and Auto Regen. Is it for Racing only?

[Jei]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

Do you think regen will help for racing? Just my guess, it probably will help your bird recover faster from each race but may not actually do anything on the actual running contest.

Gallop definitely sounds like a running ability.

What does Canter mean? o.O?

[Nakti]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

Canter is supposed to increase riding duration. If Gallop gives you a burst of speed, maybe Canter allows for a longer sprint?

Taskmage, thanks for the info on Auto-Regen!

[Nukapai]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

Here's a thought - shouldn't it be technically possible to raise STR & END high first, then just raise discernment with a high-level care plan (which will knock some off END, but not STR)... and that wouldn't really damage the overall stats much... *ponders*

[Sabaron]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

Yes, this is entirely possible, but the best way is to inherit the ability or abilities (if it's possible to inherit 2) from parents and then ignore Discernment unless you're making a digging chocobo.

1. Create two (one male/one female) chocobos using discernment/mental plans drilling stories until they learn the desired ability/abilities. Once abilities are learned, retire them and produce a couple cards and make a new egg.

2. Keep hatching eggs until you get a chocobo with 2x inheritance and raise that one.

This should produce the best result, but is very intensive and will require you to have help and may take significantly longer than breeding a single chocobo.

For a first chocobo, I recommend just buying an egg and raising the physical stats to max then retiring it. Functional, but not spectacular. After that, try something a bit more daring since you've already got an economy class chocobo (nice but not too nice) to use while you make your luxury chocobo.

The care plan you outline would be a "Hybrid"--mixing a mental with a physical. You sacrifice some work in the process. The most efficient way to do this would be to mix Messages with Digging once they become available.

EDIT:
I can't remember whether Messages lowers DIS or REC... and I can't see the careplans on FFXIClopedia right now (can't connect), so you might have to use Packages/Digging instead which wastes points.

[Nukapai]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

Sabaron, I like your breeding concept - however, I am not sure if I have the time/patience to get a) another coloured chocobo (just had my 3rd one turn to adolescent and it has black tips, woohoo), b) breed the required lineage for BOTH colour AND abilities... not to mention the months it would take to get the final result with high STR/END, abilities and colour.

My mules are under level 20, no choco license.

So... naaaaaaaaah. I am going to stick with FireClaw for now - maybe at some point I'll try to do something more ambitious. Ultimately, I am most interested in high STR because I want to try the choco racing. I can sacrifice some END for an attempt to learn an ability, or I can just forget about trying to learn abilities alltogether.

My first attempt was abysmal because I mixed the care plans. This time, I know what I'm doing a bit more, so looking at that chart, one should be able to get STR and END very high, then use "digging for treasure", which would drop some END, but raise discernment at a higher rate than the END would be dropping - so you'd end up with a slightly rubbish END, high STR and average or higher discernment.

What I'm yet to find out is - are these abilities worth the bother and will they be the clincher in chocobo racing or not... that question still remains.

[Sabaron]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

Well, I would suggest finding an associate or two (or three or eight) in your LS to do the breeding. It's a bit of a pain to mule chococards since you have to trade them directly (they can't be delivered) and you have to drive all the way to Jeuno to get them. None of my mules are level 20 either, so it'd be a stealth mission.

[Nukapai]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

It would be cool to have a chocobreeders' LS!

[Joran Dax]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

The care plan you outline would be a "Hybrid"--mixing a mental with a physical. You sacrifice some work in the process. The most efficient way to do this would be to mix Messages with Digging once they become available.

EDIT:
I can't remember whether Messages lowers DIS or REC... and I can't see the careplans on FFXIClopedia right now (can't connect), so you might have to use Packages/Digging instead which wastes points.

You see, this is the part I just don't quite understand.

1) Abilities learned through high Discernment levels can affect how well you perform in the races
2) STR and END also affect how well you do in the races

Now the problem here is that pre adult phase, enhancing one or both physical attributes will decrease both mental attributes by an equal amount of physical gain, and vise versa. Its not until you reach the adult phase that you recieve care plans that let you dial it in specifically, which means for half your life you have very little choice in the matter, its either one or the other.

Granted the Delivering Message option lets you increase strength while only losing receptivity which would seem to have little or no bearing on racing, but using Digging for Treasure at this point to increase your discernment is a detriment to your chocobos endurance.

There doesn't seem to be any way at all for you to keep discernment or endurance without sacrificing the other. Which leads me to believe that both endurance and the discernment abilities will have a similar or equal effect on your chocobos racing abilities and all things being equal, the birds strength will be the major deciding factor. Its either that or endurance will have no bearing at all on the chocobos racing ability.

[Sabaron]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

That is why my proposal does away with that by using inheritance from breeding rather than trying to get abilities onto a physical chocobo.

As for the specific care plan, it will result in such a loss--you cannot attempt the plan without losing something, therefore you're not "maximized" and it won't result in a super chocobo--thus the proposal for breeding a 2nd gen from 1st gen ability chocobos.

[klvino]

Re: Learning abilities. Is there a trick? ; ;

For racing attributes of a chocobo, you only require discernment to be level 3 or 4, which can be attained very easy before your chocobo reaches adulthood. By the time your bird is an adult, it should know both the desired abilities at which time you switch your food, care plan, and direct care to raise STR or STR&END. Within 40 days of being an adult, you should be able to reach max or near max STR, it would take longer if you were doing both STR&END. Birds can stay around until at least 100 days, so you have plenty of time using the adult care plans to raise your STR&END.

Why raise discernment first? If you work on STR and END first, when you go to raise Discernment, you'll have to sacrifice END or STR&END, which results in wasted raising time of your bird. After your bird learned its two abilities, you could care less what happens to Discernment.