The end of the road

After the day 54 progress report, I entered my chocobo in the "Survival Race" yet again, this time with "a bit deficient" discernment, and to my relief it finally eked out a victory after three attempts. On this successful run, it used a speed apple at the appropriate time during the final leg of the race (as opposed to the middle of the race the first time, when it finished second) on a final spurt directive, allowing it to pull ahead of Sakura at the end. This confirms to me the benefit of a sufficient level of discernment (when I actually get there).

However, it seems that due to the "random variability" that this skeleton crew of "developers" think is fucking cool in the form of "accidents" and cheap-fuck abilities and items used against other racers, the damn sheep actually wasn't in contention this time. Still, I finally managed to win with a still-developing chocobo--SS/A/D/B with Gallop--that had mediocre discernment and no Canter. Considering that these developers still hold the fucking conceit that imposing "Japan midnight" time restrictions everywhere (here, between non-repeat official races) serves a purpose other than to annoy the fuck out of players, I'm glad to get these piece-of-shit races out of the way when I can.

With that in mind I even tried the next race, the "Deadly Race"--similar setup again with mobs that can use their abilities twice (which is cheap) and yet another fucking annoying sheep--and also cleared it after three attempts.

I can't say that I'm ecstatic that I spent 195 chocobucks (about 55,714 gil worth of "free" runs for a total reward of 15,500 gil) for these two official races, but no one forced me to attempt these races with an unfinished chocobo, just as no one forced a group of players to fight Pandemonium Warden for 18 hours to the point of nausea. They knowingly accept the costs and risks of being part of the "vanguard" by fighting an unknown quantity. (Perhaps they should read up on the concept of "sunk cost" before trying again.) Who isn't surprised that the FFXI developers shit on our faces again and again and again and again and again, yet we continue to play? And I was so impatient about my chocobo's unexpectedly slow progress that I decided to roll the dice.

How slow does my chocobo go, anyway? From day 44 to day 55, my chocobo had been digging for treasure (care plan) twelve times, yet its discernment had yet to clear the "average" threshold. This indicates that the increase in discernment during this time was at best between 89 and 91, which does not jibe with claims that the most intensive plans raise an attribute one level in 3-4 days without failures. (In my impatience I used one session of training during this period.) This seems to agree with the idea that a chocobo's personality influences the effectiveness of care plans. It never took more than five days to raise either strength or discernment one level while "carrying packages."

Another explanation is that care plans become less effective as the chocobo gets older. A chocobo is in the prime of its life, so to speak, after the day 43 progress report, but I have never used anything other than "digging for treasure" after day 43. It's also possible that care plan results are constrained when the chocobo is at 640/640, which I finally thought to check today with Robino-Mobino.

Whatever the case, prospective chocobo raisers should consider these things should they strive for a certain attribute "profile." At this point I am very concerned that my chocobo's endurance won't "decay" fast enough so that I'll have to spend even more chocobucks adjusting strength, discernment, and receptivity in order to force my chocobo's endurance down. More chocobucks means more free runs. More free runs means more time. (Depending on how endurance pans out, I could have saved myself the cost if I had stopped endurance training around 192/255 instead of 224/255.)

Even so, at this point in my FFXI "experience," the time spent on free runs doesn't crowd out other things I could do in the game because there are no things I even want to do without having to cajole unmotivated people to do things like the Ashu Talif series of quests, or even some simple assaults to hoard points for Salvage. ZNMs can be spawned on demand, yet no one wants to do them. I am not so enamored with some rare/ex loot that will collect dust in mog storage. But neither do I care anymore about trying things that are off the beaten path (in other words, things that are off the path of least resistance).

I could go on and on, but it's a waste of time in the face of other people's lassitude. Other people can't squander my goodwill because there's nothing left to squander. As for soloing, that doesn't much appeal to me anymore. I will never step foot in Temenos again with the intention of soloing some Goblin Slaughtermen or doing anything else (other than zoning) now that I finally got a fourth Plaited Cord without having to do 10+ attempts between the third and the last, or wait 3+ months because some shitty LS is fixated on Apollyon to outfit with Homam shitty players with worse attitudes and personalities than mine. I don't care much to spend an hour obtaining access to Holy Cow just to be one-shot. Even if I were motivated to solo Genbu, the cost of Winterstone (650k seems to be a common list price if not a selling price) and Gem of the North (100k) means I should expect a net loss in exchange for the "fun" of kiting for hours and some shitty abjurations.

At this point I don't need to manufacture so-called fun through contrived challenges. Instead, I'll simply log on for minutes a day to feed and care for my chocobo and bide time before the next version update is revealed to be the barebones disappointment that I expect it to be, the anomaly of June 9 notwithstanding.