i have a question. How come certain monsters like each other more than other monsters? does it have something to do with breed? sub breed? how long they are together? or if they are ugly or cool looking?
I will seek the answer, and mean while, if anyone can answer my questions dont hesitate to tell me.
or does it have something to do with adventures? or team ups?

Well, only a few things are proven to affect it, like temperment.
Other things are believed to affect it, but aren't proven. Here's a list of my theories, and some things that have been proven:

-Breed
-Temperment
-Adventures together
-Tag/Team tournaments together

There's more, but I can't think of them now.

This is another theory but perhaps types, like sprite and beast.

I don't think its types because my team consisted of 2 Artificial and a Beast.
The beast was friends with only one artificial.
They all went on the same adventures, and no tag team tourneys.

also
- they were all 1st generation
- made at the same time

I think it has something to do with the time they spend on the ranch together. Simply training my two Hares and making them battle up to C class (No adventures or tag teams) they are up to Great Friends.

So, I think it has something to do with how long they are together.

I have to agree with CHB. I was trying to find out about combining 'good' monsters affecting stats, and I just rested them. They still got up to good friends before I aborted the project.

Yeah, now it makes a little sense. If you spend time together with someone you dont know, ou become friends after a while. But maybe it depends on the breed too.

Temperment: Nearly positive this affect friendship
Gemini Statue: Look at description
Breed: Maybe
Time Spent on ranch: Probably
Adventures: Maybe
Tag Teams: Maybe
Type: Maybe
What gadget level???: Eh, It is said somewhere that monsters on higher level gadgets bond less with phayne, It's possible that it also affects friendship.

maye the higher the gadget level,the less the bond you have with your monster

.. I thought it was pretty obvious time on the ranch affected it. Thats like saying food reduces hunger.

The time on the ranch will no doubtedly grow the friendship, but there are obviously other factors that affect it. Like i said i had 3 montsers on the ranch at the exact same week and only some of them became friends before other..
By the end of thier lifespan all of my monsters reach Inseperable though as long as they spend a long time together (3-4 years).

I wish there was an edit because i would like to add without wasting more space that all Mystic Orb has done in this topic was parrot back previously mentioned thoughts in question form.

I have to stop forgetting stuff... anyway, maybe it's just random, I suppose. I mean, what if the freindship stuff is just randomly generated? it is unlikely but we should consider that too.

It's been proven that friendship isn't completely randomly regenerated in the fact that temperment does in fact affect it.

Okay. scratch off randomminity. I probably won't post here for another 2-3 weeks until I find what really affects it, and what doesn't.

I tried about all your tips, but I can never get to inseparable. Just when they become Best Friends, the older monster dies. I even send them on tag-team battles and everything!

OK, I'm going to try to explain something (I'm confused as how to word it, so if you're unclear on anything, ask again).

OK, let's say you have 4 monsters, A,B,C, and Q (what, you think I was going to say D? How lame).

A,B,C, and Q are all "Great Friends" when you retire them, so you decide to combine A and B to get AB, and C and Q to get CQ. Well, now the probability of AB and CQ becoming "Inseperable" is increased because their predecessors were all buddy buddy.

Make sense? That help any?

try birthing them on the same day. It helps to not have one die.

I tried that, with a darkwhip(ripper/um, the little floating thing with the spear), a pulscorn(hare/tiger), and a durahan. so far they are still just freinds however they are 11 months old
so its not confirmed YET.

but i would also like to add that I had a barghest(tiger/joker) who was bieng raised a long time ago, and when my pulscorn was 6 months old, he became good friends with my barghest. the next month later, the pulscorn become good friends with my blue Antlan.(antlan/???) they all had the same temperament, which is cool, while the others were different temperants. It DOES have something to do with their temperaments, and maybe it was also the breed/sub breed that affected it because my pulscorn became good freinds with my barghest first.

note that my barghest was a tiger, and the pulscorn had a tiger sub breed.

Infernus: Yeah, I just saw what you meant when I just combined two of my monsters! Weird....even bond, fame, and affinities are inherited within monsters...where's the logic in that? XD Thank you for the info!

And Tag-Team Battles helped a lot too, gradually. A months later, the two pals rocketed to being Best Friends.

Da_Mullet: Won't that cause a conflict in tournaments? If one of the two goes first, the other would suffer not improving until the NEXT official tourney.

(Sorry I forgot to add this in my last post.)

yeah, but I just alternated. 'A' goes up one month, then 'B', then 'B' again, etc.

And I don't think breed/subbreed has anything to do with it. my lionkoro(KP/garu) and my Dolaine(antlan/???) were inseperable almost two months before they died, birthed on the same day. Temperment probably does, because they both were normal. But then my green Suezo(suezo/plant) Had an easy temperment, and he was getting along with everyone. He was great friends with everyone before my starting Garu died, even my whatsisname(ripper/???, the one with no face?).

Mystic orb, the 'one with a spear' is Gitan.

P.S. to MO i don't want that to come out rude.
P.P.S. My starting garu was also inseperable with Dolaine and LK

I'm getting really annoyed by those "temperment probably does" comments, etc. Why? I said that in the FIRST reply to this thread. Here, quote:
"Well, only a few things are proven to affect it, like temperment."

It was proven a while back. Case closed!

If 'think' or 'probably' come out of your mouth, then it is still a theory, and we should not have near so many 'think' and 'probably' in this thread.

When (if) you find some FACTUAL evidence, or something resembling a controled trial, THEN post, and leave the 'think' and 'probably' out of it.

Too much work is put into this for us to chase random thoughts. Test your idea, then someone else will double check, then we'll have some truth in this.

I'm not sure if this helps, but, my first monster (garu/garu) and my Chaos Duarahan both got to inseperablle. They were both on the ranch from the time a was able to train 3 monsters, so they spent a good 3.5-4 years together. They went on every advemture together and teamed up alot. I also entered them in alot of tag team tournys. Their attitude was almost always lively. Anyways I'll test what I just mentioned. May take a while beacuase like INfernus, I have quite a bit of homework.

I'd like to add 'Gemini Statue' to the list. FINALLY I got two monsters "inseparable" (One Not-Serious Beaklon and one Hot-Blooded Naga. What the--?). -_- Wait 'till I combine the four and see what'd be their starting affinity level...

Does anyone know how much this gadget affects their affinity? At first I thought it was a dud, until at the middle of their lives it kinda...kaboomed at me.

Oops, I'm sorry Harrabcat. I missed out reading the second line of your first post.

Okaaay......I tried combining four of my monsters with all Inseparable connections--coming out with two monsters. But the starting affinity was "Friend"?! I remembered my Auron came out first with Good Friend to one of my monsters just because one of its parents were "Great Friends" to that other monster. Wha??

Not all monsters are compatible enough for such things to happen. In MRA2 combining I found that Zans and Pixies wouldn't combine worth crap for techs.

Thanks, Infernus. :)

Found something kinda weird. A newly-regenerated Pixie are already Good Friends with three of my monsters, and a week hadn't gone by since her birth then. Hmm.....

Did you had a Pixie before by any chance? Maybe your monsters simply though "She looks like our old pal, maybe she's good too" or something like that... If the AI of the game can do this anyway... Though it happened to me once, in my case however it was just friend level (or whatever the green color one is) towards a monster, and the monster was shrined btw.

It could be their temperment that did it. Maybe there temperment matched and so they became good friends. It makes sense because if I were to find somebody else with all the same interests as me I would get along very well with that person. Just an idea.

It was my very first Pixie. Her temper was "not serious", the same with my Beaklon, but the other two monsters had temperaments "Passionate" and "Cheerful". I guess it wasn't that far off...

I admit, I'm addicted to Tigers. My ranch consists of a
Bargest (Tiger/Joker), a purebred Tiger, a PodDog
(Tiger/Henger), a Ryulon, and an Aero (Pixie/Tiger).

I think that the subbreed affects their relationships. My
Bargest didn't become good friends with anyone but the
Aero for several weeks. The Ryulon and PodDog
became Inseperable with a snap of the fingers, and my
Tiger was great friends with all of them. It seems that
the subbreed affects the favorite foods and which
monsters they relate to...but that's just me.

Sounds like a temperment issue for the friends thing.

As for the sub breed affecting fave foods...that's common knowledge.

Has there been any research done on proximity affecting friendships? I mean, if two monsters spend alot of time on the Ranch next to each other, do they become friends faster?

Other than monsters being rested all next to each other, no. In the case of doing lifespans and resting a monster all their life right next to each other, you'd think it would show up, but it apparently hasn't.

The only way to "properly" test this would be to get two monsters be close together, then reshrine them, get them to be in a different order, and see if it makes a difference.

Thanks. Of course I'll be a little hard headed and see for myself, but it's nice to know I'm not repeating someone else's experiment ;)

Hey, it's always nice to see that people still care.

Well, time on ranch together will draw them together(eventually). I scratched my garu and went straight for a dragon/golem and a pixie/ripper... as time passed they became best friends, even tho they arent unseparatable, they did bond to a certain degree. When i got a ripper/joker on the ranch, i noticeced that my pixie/ripper took a liking to him alot sooner than last time... so im thinking sub class has something to do with it. On the other hand i also decided to raise a ripper/tiger(sonic the hedghog?) with my other ripper, but my dragon became friends with him before the other ripper did, and they are still only friends.

BTW... im just returning from a 2 year absence, its good to see you all again :)

Have you checked their temperments? I'm not willing to rule out the sub breed idea myself, but this could be a clear cut case of temperment issues.

i have one quick question im new to the group and i love the monster rancher games but dose anybody know what the advantge to having monsters be freinds together dose it make it so the do the tag attacks faster or what just wondering??

From the other posts, and what little logic I have, I see
some proof for the sub bread idea.
I'm only raising 3 monsters at the time and said I'd do
some other tests but if I can, I'll help with this at some
point. Maybe, keeping as many variables the same as
possible, I could train the following groups: 3 monsters
with completely different types/subtypes, 3 with same
main only, 3 with same sub only, and 3 all the same.
That should be conclusive.

Well hope this doesnt sound too completely noobish, but how do you check friendship between monster? Havent found that menu yet o.O

It's in your rancher data.

Appreciated, and I apologize for posting a new question in an existing thread. To compensate; is there any research on the subject anyone would like me to conduct?