okay what even is going on anymore

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KittehChao
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okay what even is going on anymore

Post by KittehChao »

TL;DR: One of the youngest Chao in my dark garden is dying at age 4 and after 3 dark Chao went through successful gradual evolutions, the next set of 3 are halfway through age 4 (with level 30+ stamina) and show minimal signs of gradual evolution

Heya fellow Chao pals! Been a while since I made a post here, and boy, have I got a conundrum for you guys today...

This is gonna be a long one too, so apologies in advance.

Anyway, I'm faced with a dilemma I've never come across before. Well, a couple dilemmas, actually--I'm not sure if they're related. Lemme go into detail about 'em and see if you guys can help me out here:

So first of all, some background info: I'm in the middle of perfecting my ideal Chao save file. 8 normal two-tone All-S Chao of various stat alignments in each garden, appropriately categorized based on their neutrality--heroes in the hero garden, devils in the dark garden, that kinda thing. So, I started my neutral garden set first, and everything went fine. Got my swim/swim, fly/fly, run/run, power/power, normal/normal, neutral/chaos, Tails Chao, and sentimental fly/normal Chao all raised and into their appropriate gradual evolutions. Then, I progress to the dark garden. Shouldn't be a problem, right? Ah-haaaaa--WRONG. So I get 4 of the 8 Chao about right, and everything's going well. I like to keep all my Chao aligned in age, so I transfer the 3 non-Chaos complete Chao to my other file, and let time pass for my dark/power Chao, dark/swim Chao, and dark/run Chao, til they hit age 3, wherein I'd normally bring back the other age 3 Chao from the alt save file.

Something to note is that I tend to use SapphireChao's age 3/level 30 method, where gradual evolution is presumed to peak at age 3, so long as the Chao has level 30+ stamina via fruits. All my Chao met that criteria, so you can imagine my confusion when age 3 rolled around and they all still appeared as if they were newly evolved. I mean, okay I guess. Maybe I just gotta wait til midway through year 3 for it to take effect. So I do that. ... Nothing. Age 4 rolls around, and 2 of the 3 Chao appear at least somewhat different from their young evolved forms (although they don't match any gallery photo of any possible stat alignment, and their stats are all perfectly balanced in the middle, so they should take on the appearance of dark/[stat]/normal Chao after having undergone gradual evolution, but they don't). At this point, I'm confused. They're almost dead, and don't even look that different, as if the evolution still hasn't really hit. So I feed them animals to tip their alignments to a solid end of the spectrum. The dark/run becomes a dark/run/run after 20 interactions with a peacock. The dark/power becomes a dark/power/power after 20 interactions with a tiger. ...well, in everything but appearance, apparently. Their physical appearances didn't change at all after giving them the animals. Their stat alignments prior to this were at 0 on their side of either spectrum, so that made no sense to me. Their gradual evolution should have peaked by now--every animal I feed them should put some noticeable difference into their appearance. And yet, nothing. And what's even more baffling, is the next problem I came across.

So I was really confused by the fact that none of these 3 Chao were affected by being fed animals at age 4, level 30+ stamina, in impacting their appearances. I decided okay, I'll just wait another hour and see what happens. Maybe they'll change then? So I let the game run in front of me while I chill on the computer for an hour, and look back up once the time has elapsed. And then it happens. My dark/swim Chao shakes his head morosely, and begins to reincarnate. This seriously confused me, because his affection for me should be maxed out due to the animal grinding from prior to his evolution, so each Chao year should be between 3-5 hours, right? I decide to pick him up and check his age just to make sure I'm not going crazy. I was astonished to find out that he was still only 4 years old. Not just because his gradual evolution--even by the time of his death--STILL hadn't hit, but because of something else too: he was younger than the dark/power Chao who occupied the same garden, (and wasn't dying). And when I say younger, I mean at least a solid hour younger. Like, definitively, irrefutably younger. Neither of these Chao had ever been mistreated or interacted with square/triangle/round fruits, so I have absolutely NO idea what could be causing one of the youngest Chao in the garden to die before one of the older ones. And that's not even considering the fact that he was dying at age 4! Like, what's with that? I'm not familiar with the internal coding of the game, but from 15 years of personal experience, Chao tend to always, ALWAYS die at age 5. Like, not even immediately once they hit 5, either. Sometimes maybe 30 minutes to an hour passes before they die once they hit that mark. So that negates the possibility of him "practically" being 5 but the display just not updating or something.

So, I'm not even sure where to begin trying to solve these problems. And like I said, I'm not sure if they're related, either. The only thing I can even possibly think of to explain the gradual evolution thing is that these Chao were born and raised exclusively in the dark garden, and therefore perhaps the dark garden has some sort of attributes that affect the period at which gradual evolution hits a Chao, or makes it die faster, or something. That still doesn't explain why my dark/swim Chao is dying at age 4 instead of 5 though, or why he's dying despite being one of the YOUNGEST Chao in the garden, (and no, none of the others have been frozen in daycare or alt save files, as far as the dark/power and dark/run Chao go).

Could someone possibly explain anything going on here? Am I misunderstanding gradual evolution? Are there more factors at play here than just stamina + age & alignment? Do some Chao die at age 4? Even with maximum affection? Can some Chao die younger than others despite being treated the same? I pray one of you has some answers 'cause I certainly don't :darkno:
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chaoadventures
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Re: okay what even is going on anymore

Post by chaoadventures »

KittehChao wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 9:18 am The only thing I can even possibly think of to explain the gradual evolution thing is that these Chao were born and raised exclusively in the dark garden, and therefore perhaps the dark garden has some sort of attributes that affect the period at which gradual evolution hits a Chao,
Actually... that's entirely correct.

When going through natural gradual evolution (by not doing anything whatsoever to the chao), a chao's evolution goes up by a super small decimal number. (more here)

However, how much depends on the garden. The Hero Garden for example gives: "+0.008333333768".

But guess what? The Dark Garden gives the astoundingly high number of... 0. It doesn't help evolution at all.

While giving your chao fruit will definitely increase their gradual evolution, that's probably too slow to max out your chao's gradual evolution alone.

So, yes, the Dark Garden is stopping your chao from getting their second evolution.
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KittehChao
Newborn Chao
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Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:26 am

Re: okay what even is going on anymore

Post by KittehChao »

Wow, how odd. Thank you for the information!
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