Chocobo Skillup Campaign Discussion

So with the digging skillup campaign in full swing, I'm going to dig everyday with my mule who is currently at rank 0 and keep track of their skillups and rate of growth.

Ill just use a vanilla town chocobo with them and probably just dig in ronfaure everyday.

It looks currently like delay between digs is set to zero however area delay is untouched, allowing us to still keep track of skillup rate.

Just tested it out and I am now digging at A10 speed on my bird despite being A35, so no way I can test my progress.

YOu no longer have to wait after zone to dig, so i was at 6 second dig wait inbetween, now in campaign no wait, so no way to tell if i level up lol, will have to wait till campaign finishes and just dig everyday to hopefully cap me digging off.

Has anybody else seen a lack of HMP digging since the campaign started? My experience has found some... strange.. results from chocodigging. In Xarcabard[S], I don't find any HMP anymore, but I have been finding Sif's Macrame ( http://www.ffxiah.com/item/8728/sifs-macrame ) instead, which is worth more, so I don't really mind all that much.

I never got HMPs in xarc [S], it always seemed to be missing them.

I also have yet to see a Macrame there, what rank are you?

Edit: Just got one today, I think I am at A20 now roughly, so I am guessing I mustve ranked up in the last few days and can now get it.

I had gotten HMP in Xarc[S] before.. I think the December monthly update may have silently modified the loot tables for some zones.

So anyone else tried out the black chocobo suit yet?

My digging accuracy has plummeted to nearly half what is normal. Not sure what else is happening. I wonder if the suit is cancelling out a major amount of my digs on 'easy prey' items, thus extending my stamina...?

Where do you even get the suit?

The New Years event, the "trade any item to the NPCs running around all the zones" one.

This year its a procession of chocobos, as its the year of the chicken. Trade random stuff to the leader chocobo (I just consumed half a stack of shihei myself) and eventually you'll get the hat and body.

I have yet to see anything interesting and different while digging. All I am seeing is my dig accuracy as low as 33% at the moment, despite being A30. I have done some digging in Xarc [S] and Vunk [S], Im gonna go try ronfaure next.

Instead of maxing out fatigue in 8 stacks of greens, 9 stacks of greens got me to 48/100 so far, it's crazy how low my accuracy is.

I'm also using the chocobo rope too, if that does anything...

Edit: Also I am just not getting Burrow procs at all anymore. In W. Ronfaure I got a LOT of beastmen conquest point caches. Like 8/10 of my first successful digs (which took like 40 digs total to get) were all caches. Huh.

Edit2: Just got a plate of heavy metal in West Ronfaure, that's not normal, is it?

Can someone explain the digging designations? I keep seeing A followed by a number and am lost.

After event im now a35 after you zone into an area you have to wait before youcan start digging. Delay starts at 60 seconds give or take lag on loading. so lowest once you max digging is a10 with only a 10 second digging delay.

Oh yeah speaking of which, dug full stamina every day during the campaign, using skillup body and chocobo rope.

Went from A35 to A25, so that's pretty nice. Three ranks to go!

"A#" refers to how long after zoning you can start digging. With no skill, you have to wait 60 seconds. The value decreases by 5 seconds every rank up you get, which also increases dig accuracy/quality. There's not a lot of concrete information about skilling up Digging because it's not popular and there's no other way to really measure it.

Halfway into the event, I started digging with no skill. Used blue riding silks (for extra digs) and ended up somewhere into A45. Workin' on a new digging bird too. The Black Chocobo Suit definitely messing with accuracy, I sort of expected an "ignores garbage items" effect but still seeing pebbles and bone chips. Weird.

Did you also notice that you stopped getting Burrow/Bore procs too for the most part? I went from like 33% of my digs proccing to like... 1 of my 100 digs proccing. In fact I don't know if I procced at all in retrospect...

I don't have a burrow/bore bird yet, so I can't comment on that.

Could you elaborate more please? Who am I trading items to? Who is the 'leader chocobo'?

Buy a few stacks of Gyshal Greens and head out to any starter zone. Wide Scan for the group of 3 or 4 Chocobos running around (the names escape me but if you can't figure out which Chocobos on Wide Scan are the event ones you have bigger problems) and target the biggest one that leads the others.

Trade that one the greens one by one and you should get the suit and hat quickly - I think I got the hat, suit, and the Cait Sith carving in less than 6 greens.

It doesnt have to be greens. Any item literally means 'Any Item'

I literally just traded individual Shihei and ended up going through about half a stack to get all the rewards.

This has been the new years event every year since the beginning, just look up the new years event. The NPCs and rewards change each year to reflect the year it is (last year was the year of the monkey so it was a bunch of opo-opos) but the stuff you gotta do is the same every time.

I can confirm the "weird" behaviour of the new chocobo suit. I was digging in Ceizak, and I think I pulled up like 6 HP-Bayld. Which is much more than usual. However I'm an A10 digger, and I've NEVER missed so many digs. It seems very splotchy, like it used to be when there was digging competition in a zone, and every minute or so new items would be added to the pool.

What I mean is like the following "hit rate" on digs: o is a miss and X is a hit:

oooooXXXXXooooooooooooXXXooooooooooXXXXooooooooXXooooooooo

Very very curious.