Lifespans Of Pure-Breed Monsters (New!)
Monster Rancher Metropolis: Monster Rancher 1 Archive (PSOne): FAQ (Required Reading!): Lifespans Of Pure-Breed Monsters (New!)
By Lisa Shock on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 12:37 am:

Since we don't have any lifespan data derived from the cheat devices, I decided to attempt to determine them on my own, using MR2 data as a guide. In each instance a monster was created through combining. (Since we know that MR2 monsters off CD can have big variations in lifespan. -No items used in the combos.) Five monsters were tested twice to verify accuracy. The method for raising them was as follows:

Rest every week
Always fed Fish
No Battle
No Training
No Peaches
No Plant Eggs
No trips to town
No Items held in inventory

Monsters will see a comment from Holly near mid-life about how the monster is entering his most important stage, and how it's important to take care of him or "Whether or not he becomes a good fighter depends on what you do now." I (and John Hawley) have gotten both warnings by resetting and raising the same monster, the warning you get seems to be random.

All lifespan variations take place before the first warning ("Most Important" or "Good Fighter"). After that warning appears, the first retirement warning will pop up 2years/8months/2weeks (130weeks) later. The monster will then die 1year/1week (49 weeks) following the first retirement warning. In between the first warning and death, a warning will show up on the birthday between, and 9 weeks prior to death, unless the birthday falls near that 9 week mark.

After completing this experiment, further work by John Hawley and myself on Hares brought some startling conclusions. We each got wildly differing lifespans from Hares made through combining. I got 96 weeks, then starting over in a different week and using a different CD to make my combo I got 179 weeks, and John got 104 weeks. Now noting that I got identical results from resetting, and so did John, I suspect that either a factor from the original CDs affects lifespan, or the week of birth determines it.

Worm

Worms cocoon on June 4 of their 3rd year, making lifespan calculations different from other monsters.
Below is a chart showing some possibilities. All breeds have Worm sub-breeds.
Hatched BreedDOB1st Ret. Warning2nd Ret. Warning3rd Ret. WarningLifespan
Hare/Worm5/38/5/19yrs9/3/1454wks
Hare/Worm7/18/1/28/11/29yrs439wks
Gali/Worm7/18/1/28/11/29yrs439wks
Golem/Worm7/18/1/28/11/29yrs439wks
Jell/Worm7/18/1/28/11/29yrs439wks
Monol/Worm7/18/1/28/11/29yrs439wks
Naga/Worm7/18/1/28/11/29yrs439wks
Pixie/Worm7/18/1/28/11/29yrs439wks



Commentary:
Apparently, the lifespan of hatched Worms depends on the week it was born on, regardless of type of monster it hatches into. See my post in the Worm section of the Monsters Category for more info.

By Lisa Shock ©2001
Any reproduction of this chart must include the following notice:
By Lisa Shock ©2001, courtesy of https://monster-rancher-metropolis.com
By Anonymous on Tuesday, June 18, 2002 - 10:32 pm:

This information is posted with permission of the author, Richard Ryley.


All right, I have just finished performing some tests on the lifespans of the various monsters in MR1. I took these values from the save game file. I think I've been able to establish that the lifespan is generated randomly, whether you get the monster from the Market, the Shrine, or in a Combination.

My first test was to generate three of each of the monsters available at the market. I got the following number of weeks for each:

Dino - 280/315/319 Tiger - 305/295/318 Suezo - 324/377/321

I then combined three monsters of each of those three types. The first of each type I combined from the previous test, while second two were combined from new monsters. (which I didn't test the lifespan of)

What is important is that while the lifespan of the Dino and Tiger were greater that their parents, the Suezo had a shorter lifespan. I performed more tests later, but this shows that lifespan is probably not inherited. (just as in MR2)

Dino - 324/370/343 Tiger - 344/307/316 Suezo - 353/320/311

My third test was to generate monsters from CD. I created three Tigers from the same CD, three Gray Wolves from the same CD, and three of the Rover from the game CD.

Tiger - 348/355/280 G.Wolf - 313/285/356 Rover - 378/307/323

Finally, I collected data on all of the remaining monsters, by combining five copies of each type. I'll include the data in the collected table below, but for now I'm going to show the Dragon data. The parent Dragon here had been given drugs, and was near death.

Dragon - 266/262/286/300/293

Note the Dragon's lifespan is considerably lower, although there is overlap. (I had a Tiger with lifespan 280 and a Dragon with 300, for instance) I then repeated the test using my well-raised Dragon which has had a Peach and has only lost eleven weeks of life due to training.

Dragon - 277/247/249/200/291

This seems to confirm that drugs and raising style do not effect lifespan. In fact, the overall scores were LOWER for this set of data, although of course this was just due to randomness.

I then created ten additional Plants from CD, 9 more Suezos from the Market, and enough Dinos to get my number of samples for that type up to 50. The final range of lifespans for all of the types in the game are as follows:


Type Samp Values Range Mid Base

Dino 50 280-379 99 330 280
Golem 5 280-359 79 320 280
Tiger 12 280-378 76 318 280
Pixie 5 267-318 51 292 260
Worm 5 300-396 96 348 300
Jell 5 285-369 84 327 280
Suezo 15 293-379 86 336 280
Hare 5 260-359 99 310 260
Gali 5 259-349 90 304 250
Monol 5 256-342 86 299 250
Naga 5 259-346 87 302 250
Plant 15 304-383 79 343 300
Dragon 10 200-300 100 250 200
Magic 5 260-332 72 296 250
Henger 5 341-399 58 370 300
Nya 5 333-377 44 355 300
Ape 5 322-397 75 359 300
Ghost 5 311-342 31 326 260
Doodle 5 264-342 78 303 250
Disk 5 252-340 88 296 250


The most telling data for this set are the Dragon and Dino. The Dragon is exactly 100 points in range, and is a good value, 200 to 300. The Dino is a little stranger, as it appears to range from 280 to 380. I would expect the numbers to increase by 50, as in MR2.

I've made an estimate of the base value, however, assuming that a random factor of 0 to 100 is added to that base. The base does not seem to follow any reasonable pattern, the range for Hare seems to start at 260, but Naga and Monol start at 250, which is just to close for me to think that this is really the base value.

It is still possible that this data is incorrect. I am simply assuming, given the range of the Dragon and the fact that I've collected so many points for the Dino, that the range, or the random factor, is 100 points. It could be 120, or 150, or any larger value, though. More data is needed to confirm that this range is only 100.

In addition, the sample set for Ghost, Nya, and several others is too narrow to be sure of exactly what the base value is. Again, more data is needed to widen the sample set and establish the base.

Clearly, though, we can establish that the lifespan of a monster IS random, and it is random for the same monster taken off of the same CD twice. So if you have a monster with does not live long enough to be of use, you can generate it off the same CD again and probably get a better result.

I'll probably do some more research later, but of course, MR1 does not get that much attention these days. Probably a rough estimate of the monster lifespans will do fine, and I will try and add that to our FAQ.

[edit]I have compared the lifespans from this table to the monsters in MR2 and found some interesting comparisons. Except for Henger and Worm, which both had obviously lost lifespan in MR2, the monsters do seem to follow the same patterns, its just the spacing between lifespans isn't regular. I have adjusted my estimated base accordingly and eliminated some of the question marks, which indicated ones I wasn't sure about. Even so, those monsters for which the range is small (Mew and Ghost) I still can't be sure about.

Also note that I did not test combinations, except for the Rover, Tiger/Hare. I am including the Rover's data in the Tiger test data because the Hare's lifespan should be equal to or shorter than the Tigers. (And that 378 establishes the upper limit of Tiger's lifespan) But I do not have anywhere near enough data to determine if lifespans are adjusted up or down due to subtype, or if they are the same as the main.