Is spoiling Chao actually a thing?

[Jack the Person]

So while raising a Chao on my little brother's Xbox so I can beat him at 2P, when I noticed it was sad for a short period of time after I fed it, twice. The Chao was not a cry baby and had not been abused, so I believed spoiling was to blame.

I'm not a firm believer in Chao Spoiling, as in I'm not sure whether it actually exists, or if it's just a rumor created by the general SA2 community, so I turned here, where a board of occasionally active Chao researchers lay... probably. If they are there, I would like to request a short study into the effects of spoiling Chao as a quick browse through the forums revealed neither strong evidence for, or strong evidence against the fact that Chao can be spoilt. (Pictures could be nice)

All in all, we could possibly end up with an expansion on the rumors or the behavior page of SA2B.

[Crazo3077]

Spoiling has been the hardest thing to study because it is already hard to know what a Chao's behavior means. For example, when you said "I noticed it was sad for a short period of time" I have no idea what body language or sounds to which you were referring. Because it is hard to archive these actions clearly, it is hard to communicate our experiences with Chao.

If you could more clearly describe the action that indicated sadness, then I might have further input. It could have just been a normal Chao action, or maybe your brother is abusing your Chao when you're not there. We would need more data to work with.

[ChaoGardenBuster]

I honestly thought if you didn't spam pet the chao as a baby the chao wouldn't do that thing where they skip up to your character and ask for pets when they evolved. But now that I look at it, it might just depend how much joy or happiness your chao has either way.

[Jack the Person]

If you could more clearly describe the action that indicated sadness, then I might have further input. It could have just been a normal Chao action

After finishing eating, it's eyes turned to the 'Sad' eyes and it rubbed it's eyes with it's right arm, looking as if it's wiping away tears. This happened twice, and I'm certain my brother couldn't have abused him as I found him in the classroom, it must have been sitting there since at least November (and a certain 5 year-old lacks the intelligence to get it out). Also, it was a silent action.

It could have just been a normal Chao action

Yes, I considered this possibility, as my beliefs on a Chao being spoilt kind of died off along with my beliefs of a Chao bullying other Chao.

I honestly thought if you didn't spam pet the chao as a baby the chao wouldn't do that thing where they skip up to your character and ask for pets when they evolved. But now that I look at it, it might just depend how much joy or happiness your chao has either way.

To be honest, until seven months ago, my concept of Chao raising was as follows:

Spoiler:

• Chao is born.
• Chao is raised by Hero or Dark characters.
• Upon being pet enough by characters, Chao will evolve into either a Hero or Dark Chao (no neutral, no stat alignments.)
• A Chao that is hit enough will die.
• The only races are the beginner races.
• Second Evolution does not exist nor am I aware of it.

Yep, I sure was stupid back then.

Spoiling has been the hardest thing to study because it is already hard to know what a Chao's behavior means.
Because it is hard to archive these actions clearly, it is hard to communicate our experiences with Chao.

Yes, studying this is ridiculously difficult, that is why I believe that this is how the spoiling rumor came about, if it does turn out to be a rumor of course.
I suppose the best person to ask would probably be someone who mods the game as they should have a basic idea of what code does what. Looking at no specific person...

[Arctic]

I know the "sad action" you're talking about, and I honestly don't think it means anything at all.
Chao do it sometimes after they eat.
I've seen my very overfed Chao that I treat very well do it, and I've seen starving Chao that I don't really do anything with do it. Basically, I'm pretty certain it's just random.

As for the "spoiling" part, from what I've experienced, the only thing that over petting a Chao will do is make it skip up to you and beg to be petted. And it only does that if you're using the character you petted it with to begin with. Even if you just normally care for the Chao (feeding it, giving it animals and drives, petting it occasionally), it will probably still start doing this eventually, because it just has to do with how much the Chao likes the character. Each time you pet a Chao, it's character bond increases by 1, I believe. I guess it will start skipping to you when it reaches a certain number.

There may also be one other small thing that changes between a well cared for Chao and a not so well cared Chao, and that is it's personality. I've noticed that many of my Chao will change between Naive and Cry Baby depending on how often I pet or feed them. Feed/pet regularly= Naive, leave GC on for three hours without feeding or petting= Cry Baby. The same thing happens with a Chao that is Energetic/Short Temper.

By the way, all this comes from just observing the GC version of SA2B. I have no way of examining code, unfortunately.

Hope what info I could provide contributes a bit to your experiment! :3