The FFXIV Devs Made a Weird Secret Change to Chocobo Racing

Update: Loki Iridescia has updated the Chocobo Racing wordpress to account for the change- huge props and thank you for continuing to maintain that guide and keep it current for nearly a decade, even if the minigame itself doesn't get much recognition from the devs! Also I finally managed to breed a perfect chocobo literally like this week, couldn't have done it without you.
Chocobo racing has been pretty much the same for years... or has it? It's no surprise when info in online guides is out of date, but what about when there was never an official "update" made to the content at all? Join me as I try to unravel the mystery of what exactly changed and when in one of the Gold Saucer's most elaborate yet least remarked-upon attractions. Is this all common knowledge and I'm an idiot wasting my time? Who knows! But I had fun.
Sources used:
Chocobo Racing Wordpress: ffxivchocobora...
Reddit post regarding weather info: / chocobo_racing_data_on...
Icy Veins guide: www.icy-veins....

[@InfinitusMG]

The entire community of dedicated chocobo racers will be interested to hear this; I'll let all three of them know.

[@MH4wheel]

Thank you, friend! I'll let the other two know when they wake up!

[@MarioSonic46]

I didnt even know this game had racing. You might gain a fourth.

[@sodenoite45]

thank you

[@quesopasso]

I'm aware and awake. Gonna get my bird.

[@MakeSureYouCleanUp]

Glad to see the entire community come here in this thread. ❤

[@Throwaway-v1p]

Hi there, this is the author of the Wordpress guide! Thanks for looking into this! I guess it makes sense that this flew under the radar so long, with it being such a minor mechanic in a minigame that has sadly gotten so little dev attention in many years. Either way, I'm happy to update the guide; would you like me to credit you?

[@CafColeo]

Hello! I actually tried messaging you on reddit while I was still writing this video but I saw on the wordpress itself that you don't check it often, so I'm happy to hear from you! A credit would certainly be nice but I'd just want to see the correction made since your guide is the gold standard for the minigame and as far as I can tell you were the main person doing most of the real heavy-duty testing back in the day. I'm very happy to see you're still around as I didn't have any way to get in contact!

[@scaper12123]

“So I watched every chocobo race video on youtube” Alright, have my like xD

[@sodenoite45]

dude spend i hour to make the video.. watching theses three others videos

[@chrism6880]

And also this phone number to a trusted pyschiatrist:

[@NekoDalian]

I actually do chocobo racing. Followed the guide to the letter, bred a perfect stat, perfect ability combo chocobo. I can tell you, this change does not affect the most popular build, which is super sprint, because super sprint specifically ignores weather and terrain penalties. I pop super sprint early on into the race, often right out of the gate, so there's not even a moment where weather applies. As to whether all that chocobo breeding was worth it... eh. It's a really good MGP farm, but the thing is, you eventually run out of things to spend MGP on. Just do the other weekly challenge logs and 80 point fashion report and you'll be good. I only did it because I got really really bored in between savage tiers.

[@TaranTatsuuchi]

I wanted the barding.

[@mandersdanny]

It highly depends on the zone you optimize for. Sagolii and costa being quite short dont matter as much on the choice here. Sagolii effectely requires instant sprint. But on costa late/early sprints can often end up with similar results, there just isnt enough to throw you off before/after the sprint. But on tranquil, you often dont want to early sprint as it has a few significant downsides: The later coffer items often involve stronger effects, this includes meteors or stamina swappers/preservation. This can extend your sprint by a lot. Sure, being ahead you can dodge being frenzied a bit easier, but its also the place where it happens more often. But if out on stamina early in tranquil, there is almost no recovery for your race possible, yet if hit a lot early on, you can just delay the sprint to a more optimal time. And here is where weather matters, and where fair weather on your chocobo is the better stat to have, fair weather makes the start more efficient. If you ignore tranquil though, foul becomes better as races are more likely to end up in such weather (if a change happens, it only has 2 fair and 3 foul options, making foul more likely - its a minimal benefit here though as with 2 changes both are equaly likely again. and weather changes are more common than never having a change at all).

[@TheNatos]

id say the breeding isnt worth it for most people, but I really like birds. Only reason I did it lol

[@ginger-ham4800]

Christ, how much did you play this that you don't have anything to spend MGP on?

[@Fidel_Cashflow]

But the reason it's the most popular build is because it isn't penalized for bad weather. The fact that races no longer begin with bad weather, and the fact that fair weather can now transition to another type of fair weather, means that you have to reevaluate the advantage of SS. Sagoli Road is the only track that a max stamina SS chocobo can complete without running out of stamina (assuming no stam items drop from chests). So on Costa and Tranquil, which chocobo is faster: A perfect bred chocobo with Head Start who has enough stamina to sprint across the finish, or a chocobo with Super Sprint that runs out of stamina 5~10 seconds before the finish? The weather is the variable that changes how that math works out. That's what needs to be tested.

[@SniperTheSwift]

I wish I had the autism that made made me good at math and science and shit. Instead I got the autism that made me care about Chocobo racing mini game in FFXIV 😢

[@Hjortur95]

💔😔

[@kaidaw6546]

I feel you cuz I apparently really like breeding mechanics in video games (see Sonic Adventure 2 Chao Garden), and chocobo breeding was no different. Why is this the thing I am good at???

[@meekrophone_]

this will come in handy when I'll start my chocobo racing adventure... any day now

[@TheKyleman6]

I *think* I last left my Chocobo Raising shenanigans at Grade 7? Or 8. Point being that if there’s a Make It Rain event going on, Chocobo Racing and Lord of Verminion tend to be my Priorities (after Fashion Reports anyway)

[@remi3246]

As someone with absolutely zero interest in chokobo racing but a thirst for random factoids thank you for the thorough research :D

[@WeskAlber]

What's that? Can't hear you over my Super Sprint. This really is a weird thing to change. I haven't been back to grinding races in years since I got my wins. So good catch.

[@FarelForever]

You dont even like something, but you commit extensive time to research it and verify all of the info related to it? ........... My kind of guy

[@RiskyStrats]

I have never once participated in a chocobo race. I have no interest in it. I watched the entire video because I felt a strange kinship with you and wanted to honor the effort you put into researching this. Good job

[@Grimnoire]

Yo tbh I find the, "I don't give a shit about the topic but I watched anyway" comments kind of annoying. It's probably because they're made mostly by bots

[@Grimnoire]

It's always a good day when Pigpooper43 uploads

[@stereotreme]

it's honestly a fun rabbit hole to fall down if you've got some extra MGP to spend on a bird. it's also a great source of weekly challenge MGP if you want to save up for something big at gold saucer

[@Grimnoire]

@@stereotreme that shit is not fun, do you know how many hours I've spent doing the same track over and over and over just to get a chance of doing it over and over and over again, but slightly better.

[@stereotreme]

@@Grimnoire idk dude sounds like a skill issue

[@arashikou6661]

My original guess was going to be that the changes to allow multiple weather environments in one zone in DT were to blame, but if it was 5.0… I remember there were some changes to how weather worked in 5.0 to accommodate the way players at different parts of the MSQ see different weather in ShB. If it wasn’t intentional, maybe this was a side-effect of that change.

[@ScarletSky03]

That was my thought too; that even the devs didn't "intend" for this change. It just sort of happened. A quirky little bug.

[@vaan_]

same reason why the patch that added a bahamut boss reskin (paglthan) broke the visual rendering of bahamut towers in ucob they sloppily modified reused code without caring for the consequences

[@general8250]

It feels really odd to find something so niche and interesting before anyone else seems to have seen it but hello! This is a very well made and articulated video, and you do a very great job at describing the situation you found and your suppositions on it! I have no plan if you have plans to make more videos later on but thank you for the interesting watch!

[@206Zelda]

Hotdamn, more research and care went into the Chocobo Racing WEATHER than DT MSQ. The length of that spreadsheet is impressive! That's dedication right there!

[@LakeBane]

They made another silent change much more recently too. Back in Shadowbringer when I started the process (I was bored) you were able to run through NPC chocobos, but not run through other player chocobos. Heavied chocobos were also solid regardless of them being NPC. At some time between the last two Make it Rain campaigns though, there was a change that made it so you can't run through NPC chocobo at all, even if you are running significantly faster than them and they aren't heavied. Not a massive change for max level chocobo since it is literally hit a button and walk away, but it made ranking up the race chocobo tedious because the NPCs could just randomly decide to walk in front of you, and you wouldn't even know for a bit because you are playing on server latency.

[@Dyxid]

I'm almost certain it's not "random" and the NPC ones will purposefully block you, especially when certain other NPC racers are on the field and they try to make a wall to prevent you from catching up to or using items on 1st place. I've noticed it happens most often when Starbreaker is racing, where it seems every other NPC goes full simp for them, or how Roe and Elezen racers in particular (the ones with the biggest birds) are the ones that try to block and box you in more often then the rest.

[@celesyn]

they've always been able to block you, it's just that the latency used to be even *worse* so it was very common to clip through one who had in reality changed lanes by then

[@kirigherkins]

Someone has to ask YoshiP just so he can say "what's chocobo racing?"

[@MaximillianGreil]

So, as a chocobo racing fiend, I can say this does affect what is BiS for chocobos. It's not a HUGE deal since 99% of the time you're racing easy to beat NPCs, but... it is interesting!

[@Fidel_Cashflow]

It actually does have an effect races now. A chocobo with Super Sprint will always have the best time on Sagoli Road, but not necessarily on the other tracks due to their length. A chocobo with max stamina will still run out of stamina before the end of Costa del Sol and Tranquil Paths without some lucky chest powerups if it's Super Sprint. It's entirely possible for a player managing their stamina without SS to pass you on those 2 tracks. And now it's even more likely, because fair weather doesn't penalize stamina drain like other weather types do. The change effectively buffs the amount of stamina conserved by chocobos that don't use SS.

[@SophiaAstatine]

As an avid chocobo racer, who doesn't simply play exclusively by the plebian sagolii build, I can say with complete confidence that I've never noticed any significant performance changes between fair and foul weather. I mostly use stamina based builds as I prefer to race tranquil or bloodshore, but even with my slightly more rng and chaotic item reroll build, the outcome usually depends entirely on stamina management and luck with items. So either the impact is incredibly tiny, or they removed the effect entirely without telling anyone, at the same time where they changed the system.

[@melissaspencer7050]

This has been my experience as well. I like to race bloodshore and run a-typical builds. It's all down to stamina management and items, especially once you get into the top race bracket.

[@Crankey239]

As someone who does the weekly chocobo racing challenges for the MGP and achievements, I had no idea weather was even a thing in chocobo racing after ~2000 races.

[@saltiestsiren]

Us Gold Saucer frequenters are built different. Especially Verminion players. I'm more of a TT and mahjong fan myself however I do have a chocobo at rank 24 but I really need to redo his stats

[@Kasaaz]

My guess is all the changes to the lighting system for Dawntrail necessitated a rework of the weather system too. They probably just didn’t remember it might affect this.

[@Kasaaz]

I think it must be way more recent than Shadowbringers. Though I can see it happening with the Stormblood engine changes, maaaaybe.

[@SuikodenGR]

I do believe foul skies like rain and thunder DID indeed start at the beginning of some of my races right after 4.x early 5.0

[@TigeriPlaysGames]

I lived and breathed chocobos for a bit while trying to get my perfect max-stats bird and I never noticed this! :o

[@kaidaw6546]

Aha! My time has come to finally finish my Perfect Racing chocobo! (it's been WIP for a while now, but this is good motivation to go back to it lolol. i'm almost there!)

[@CenKyne]

Finally someone made this video. When I did breeding and racing seriously it occured in mid 2020. I asked why I wouldn't breed for fair skies since I noticed we start that way in every race. A guy in my novice network said the change recently made it so only the weather in the second half of the race matters for your chocobos preferred weather now.

[@YUXKE]

I mainly did chocobo racing and breeding when it was new content so those guides did not exist. Also we were informed back in the day that no developer works on the content anymore after heavenward days, hence only getting duty finder changes rather than new content.

[@ralphbeez1411]

As someone who got the Racing Chocobo Mask, here's my tip to get it: It's not worth the race spam.

[@blackh9604]

Good job looking through videos to guess when the change happened!!

[@HikariVictor]

Woooooow an awesome video... Until now I've never EVER imagined that we had a weather system at Chocobo Racing... AT ALL

[@KyoukiJuuno]

Considering how cursed rng in FFXIV is, I wouldn't put it past the game that every single race in the last 5 years has been legitimately randomly decided to start on Fair Skies. There is no definitive way to disprove it.

[@zenfrodo]

I get into chocobo racing from time to time. It's fun and very different from the usual round of FFXIV activities.

[@karasutsuki1733]

Heres the plottwist now xD Supersprintbuilds, which everyone that actually cares bout racing uses, ignores weather, so all this doesnt matter

[@augustday9483]

That's actually super funny 😄

[@SophiaAstatine]

Only if you queue Sagolii exclusively. They generally break on the other tracks.

[@alexandreporter705]

Super what? Is there a competitive scene? is this a habbit hole?

[@SophiaAstatine]

@@alexandreporter705 It's a pseudo afk build for farming MGP. It works best when all other racers are npcs, so it's definitely not competitive in any meaningful sense.

[@maybesomething1367]

Maybe I am really lucky but I had rain at the start of my races around the launch of Endwalker. Just one or two times but it happend. But yes, now it make sense, that it's always fair weather. Thank you for your upload, that was really interesting. 🙂

[@jamierose9095]

I can attest to the quality of the wordpress guide and thanks to it I have a dominant racing chocobo. As far as I've seen weather has a minor, if not negligible effect on the outcome of a race. For the record, I started playing in 4.5 and I have been doing chocobo racing consistently since. I would point out that I have never really noticed the pattern of weather in races, but I have not really paid much attention to them because weather is such a minor issue in chocobo racing.

[@powergi3996]

Chocobo racing will never be competitive and taken seriously so long as Super Sprint is unchanged. They should at the very least not be immune to slow.

[@ProfessM]

Oh that feeling of something you don't even care about having a mystery you need to solve. Mad respect. I also don't care about racing and greatly enjoyed this vid.

[@viralspiderzero3677]

I think the only thing this will really effect is that there will no longer be a foul weather preference on ped 9 max rank chocobo's, so a good sneaky change imo

[@ValkyrieTiara]

Surprisingly good video for someone with 83 subs lol If you'd like a suggestion, I'd advise you to invest in a higher quality microphone. It doesn't have to be a professional quality $1000 microphone with mixer or anything like that, but this one is noticeably low quality to the point where it's a little distracting and even hard to understand you sometimes. A decent quality USB condenser mic, such as a Blue Yeti, can be had for $100 - $150 new, and would really do a lot to "up your game" so to speak.

[@CafColeo]

Actually when I posted this I had 26 subs lol, I'll keep that in mind for the mic, the one I'm using was literally $10

[@BlazeBuds]

Never used any guide for 8 years, only now im trying to breed a rank 10 i have to look at one

[@sergioandujar6570]

Always hated how awkward chocobo's move in races, they don't behave like that on overworld maps.

[@amorasilverspark]

I only do the Chocobo Races for the bonus MGP in the challenge log. I literally had a 50 1st place win streak until a couple days ago where I ended in 2nd. One of the random chocobos had choco meteor and killed my stamina. Rarely do I ever pay attention to the weather effects.

[@rjhick1]

Just another fun type of group content that SE came up with 2.X and never updated or cared to improve upon

[@ZZValiant]

THEY CHANGED THE LAST TURTLE MOB OF THE LV99 DUNGEON SO THAT IT CAN'T BE STUNNED LIKE, LITERALLY BETWEEN A WEEK AGO AND WHEN DAWNTRAIL RELEASED I'M SO PISSED THAT YOU CAN'T STOP IT FROM STOMPING ANYMORE AUGHHH

[@KirliaFan15]

I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ME?!? I THOUGHT I IMAGINED BEING ABLE TO STUN IT BEFORE BECAUSE LAST NIGHT IT WAS UNSTUNNABLE

[@AC3handle]

You know if Asmongold ever comes back to FFxiv, he'll be interested in this.

[@gothicshark]

interesting. I mean I remember more varied weather long ago, but I only did a lot of Chocobo racing in 2015, and I don't even play that character anymore. My 2019 Au Ra character is now my main. But this does remind me, I enjoyed doing that way back when. But OMG the breeding bit was overly complex.

[@Frimbertrips]

I resonate with this chocobo named Foot. For mine is named Cart.

[@softtaur4200]

Love how there is no explanation in this video if weather has a mechanical effect on chocobo racing :)

[@CafColeo]

I don't know lol

[@perrythefridge]

My knee jerk suspicion is a weather coding change-Not sure if you're aware, but The Firmament and Empyreum have very strange weather behavior compared to everywhere else in the game, and Firmament got added in 5.1. Might be a link there!

[@CafColeo]

I am EXTREMELY aware of the weather in Empyreum, it was my first ever weather-related rabbit hole lmao: twitter.com/CafColeo/status/1803920569945198811

[@perrythefridge]

@@CafColeo LOL it was your thread I learned it from, I should have known! xD

[@Xbob42]

I have started writing a hate-fueled tirade to Mr. Yoshert-P. This cannot stand.

[@RespheaI]

Huh, thanks for discovering this! I pull out my race chocobos really only during the Make It Rain events but this'll be helpful then >:)

[@Saieden]

*checks chocobo card* Off to the gril.. I mean, farm for you.

[@afishcalledminnewawa]

that's a lot more than I ever have to say about something I don't care very much about.

[@PegasusBrill]

As someone who has perpetually worn the chocobo mask since Heavensward and wears "The First Across" as a title. I can say I never even regarded the weather mechanic before once. I knew of it of course, but I never really paid any attention to it.

[@augustinandre14]

Approaching the tail end of my chocobo grind with perfect grades 7, I never stumbled upon those guides... Hence why I never realized their were supposed to be rules to weather. Feeling so dumb, so thank you.^^ But I had realized that it always starts somewhat sunny. As for what it changes... since Fair is so much more probable, it may give a slight advantage in having a chocobo which thrives during such weather. Chocobo racing may more often than not be decided by the luck of chest spawning timers, nature and order of the items inside and the quick-thinking to use them right. But things like avoiding deep water, cutting corners, avoiding unnecessary strafing (yet strafing more at 0%!), etc. all affect how your vitality fairs. And, over a "career", those slight changes may be the statistical advantage that makes the difference on multiple occasions. Weather is but another optimization thrown on top I'd say.

[@PrayforMe831]

Good catch!

[@Zeithri]

Me, who loves Chocobo racing and yet still not gotten into Chocobo Breeding yet because the MSQ and sidequests are so overwhelming; _Weather has effects?_

[@zagorim7469]

Interesting. I have been playing this game for over 3 years and never tried chocobo racing.

[@aaronsound]

That is so weird lol, thanks for the vid.

[@whodistoodis]

Given that this change was never in the patch notes, which are usually pretty meticulous, I have to assume that either a; this change was an unintentional side effect of some other system being changed that bled over into chocobo racing and no one ever really noticed or cared to report it as a bug, or b; some dev made the change intentionally because he thought it was a good idea and never reported it because, again, only like a dozen people seriously do chocobo racing.

[@Sl0thb0yy]

the hyperfixation claims yet another

[@AegixDrakan]

**Does a double take** How is THIS how I discovered there's chocobo racing in 14?! I've been all over Gold Saucer, how did I not hear about it? ...Unless I did, but very early on in ARR, and I forgot? :o

[@TigeriPlaysGames]

it's a bit out of the way! there's an NPC by an elevator in the main entrance room with all the vendors, talk to them and they'll take you to the area with choco racing and lords of verminion!

[@cubicflan]

So with such intensive research into this weird change... what does weather actually do in chocobo races? I did a fair amount of racing when I first went to the gold saucer a couple years back, but I never really did any research on anything, I just had fun with it until I wanted to start actually playing the game. XD;

[@psymar]

I wonder if this was accidentally caused by a back-end change to how duty finder works? Like they put everyone in a zone that has fair skies by default whereas previously it was random by default, and in every other instance that weather gets overridden later, but not in chocobo races?

[@Zkid531]

Actually such a good video. My nerd ass loves watching scientific research take place lmao

[@Azella_]

Edit: nvm finished watching the video at 4:20

[@TenshiKisai]

My guess is that it's actually a bug and nobody noticed because it wouldn't have affected someone who followed a guide to the letter, and anyone who wasn't using the guide was already not using an optimal strategy, so even if their chocobo preferred foul weather, it was already not optimal and there aren't that many human players playing the chocobo racing, so you're mostly playing against NPC's that aren't as good.

[@EdgeKisaragi]

Chocobo racing the easiest MGP you’ll ever earn I am the community

[@Scerttle]

I also don't like chocobo racing and I don't care about it much either. But I feel like if I ever meet Yoshi P I will ask him about this lmfao

[@DP-fq7iy]

Multimillion dollar company, btw.

[@WarrenGarabrandt]

I've only done a handful of races, but... what does the weather even *do* in chocobo racing?

[@arthurdowney2846]

I subscribed @ 3:04

[@smolington]

I love this, and I'm not even into chocobo racing and understand the random obsession

[@menosay1912]

I don’t think any of is who took racing seriously enough to care about this do anything but super sprint out of the gate.

[@cheffdonty]

Well yeah, if that's true then I assume that chocobos that prefer fair weather are objectively the best

[@dbzfanexwarbrady]

ive been meaning to do chocobo racing , ive played a few but other stuff usually takes presidence

[@DevilSeiji]

Does the weather affect something?

[@stonium69]

Based on your chocobo's preferred weather category it affects handling during the non foul weather types and speed/energy drain during foul weather.

[@LivvieLynn]

Never paid attention to think weather had any real impact. Just never wanted to spend mgp on raising chocobo so never bothered.

[@notsomoody5338]

Nice vid

[@fuseman99]

epic video

[@BlazeBuds]

Could be a mis translation.. maybe check what the Japanese section says about it

[@nonotorious1467]

All i want is some new tracks, also idk what you mean by challenges being added in 3.w/e, i'm pretty sure that stuff was there since the start of the gold saucer.

[@SophiaAstatine]

I'd love an ultima thule track. Like rainbow road.

[@nonotorious1467]

@@SophiaAstatine There's so many good zones that would make great tracks, ultima thule is a perfect spot with the cafe there.

[@CafColeo]

Patch 3.25 notes seem to indicate that the chocobo challenges were added as part of that update: "The Chocobo Challenge has been added to chocobo racing, which pits players against special racing opponents." Then again, as we have learned here, the patch notes can simply lie.

[@nonotorious1467]

@@CafColeo Well it might be that chocobo racing itself wasn't added to the gold saucer until 3.25, i certainly remember that area being under construction for vermillion but it's been 10 years so my memory is fuzzy. I DO remember making my first million mgp from finishing the challenges and i do remember getting into racing fairly early when it was added and the gold saucer itself wasn't added until practically the end of ARR.

[@nonotorious1467]

Btw the mgp bonus buffs work on the challenges, so if you haven't done them yet a good time to do them is when the make it rain campaign is on.

[@ricky_pigeon]

KWEH!

[@BaldingSasquatch]

lol people still do chocobo races? rebirth does chocobo racing well

[@IaconDawnshire]

I stop need to get around to playing Minionmon

[@batboy555]

This song gives me ptsd.

[@alexandreporter705]

"What is your level of autism?" "Chocobo Racing secret changes!"

[@RomuloSilva]

i didn`t get the point of the video - but i hope you are free from chocobo racing already

[@shirrenthewanderer414]

Most people who have maxed out chocobos, have super sprint builds, which ignore all of this. I don't even understand what the point of this is. Maybe have different chocobo tracks at some point?