I didn't see this mentioned anywhere... if it was and I somehow missed it, I apologize.

People on Gamefaqs were mentioning how you have to "age" your monster before training them, or you risk burning them out quickly. What on earth is this about? How do you "age" them or is this a rumor?

It was that way in the other MR's but in this one it seems different. Like in the other ones if you started a monster on hard trainings it wouldn't live as long. This one seems that once the monsters stat sum total the monster will stop gaining stats. No one has done any research on it yet so nothing can be proven but in theory it seems to play out. The last show you do will usually give monsters some off numbers.

Say my monster was getting somewhere in the 150's a show in Int and all of a sudden it gets a 70 and all the other stats lowered also. The next day you'll get a message saying that that monster has reached its max potential. The lowered stats are because it averaged it out to cap the monster.

If you do all beginner tricks the monster will be older when it caps but that may or may not mean anything as to when the monsters cap out though.

Testing is need on this one .

Speaking of that, do monsters ever reach a certain age where they cannot be used in adventures/shows anymore, or can monsters continue to do so forever without gaining any Anima or parameter increases?

They can gain Anima they just don't gain parameter.

You don't say? So not only can monsters remain forever, but they can still get Anima. That's convenient.

Actually they don't get anima or parameter increases. So I just keep my old monsters to combine them for new monsters to train with a lot better stats at birth.

Hmmm. There might be more to this then I though. It seems theres 2 caps on a monster. Theres a parameter cap (which is when a monster has maxed its potenital) and a life span cap(when it reached the end of its working life? I think the game says.) So when you cap a monster you can still get Anima until it says the monster also reached its working max also. Plus I'm guessing if it hits working span first you won't get a chance to finish raising its stats.

I'm working with advanced and some medium gadgets with all genius or champ M tanks so my monsters are capping out before there life span is done.

yeah same here using the bigger gadgets isnt making my monsters age quicker I am just topping out their stats way before they are at the end of their lifespan.

also it seems like if you seal a monster and bring it back it loses some effectiveness. the stats and everything are the same but it seems like they hit for far less and less often in adventures. also if you seal the monster before their lifespan is over it seems like futures combinations suffer as well.

moral of the story....dont seal monsters just because they max their stats at a given time...I have screwed up a few mosters this way at this point and thanx to seeing your post minion you just confirmed what I had been fearing. I am thinking I may erase all my previous monsters now and start from scratch

I see... well, then. I need to either forget about it this generation or try and revive my monsters and repair the damage.

Hmmm...I've always used "Hardest" for every one of my monsters since the beginning. Most of them capped out at 3yr5mo - 3yr7mo. Just some info regarding the training method...

Well so far we just know that theres 2 different points. You might not have ruined any of your monsters yet. I've only seen one of my monsters hit the working span cap so far and thats just because I took her out on adventures every other week for a few months. (Allure about 3y-7m).

Now as for sealling it and bringing it back lossing effectiveness are you getting bonding back up to 100?

Now I'll try to test it when my 4th gen. caps off if theres a big difference or not. (there seems to be a small dif. even if you combine the same monster, save reload and do it again)

My theory on it is probably just so you can't take to long rasing it. Seeing how every gen. has higher and higher stat caps there's probably just going to be a point were its going to be impossible to cap your monster out in its working lifespan.

But ya testing is needed.

my working lifespan is consistantly ending right after shows this happened most recently with a beaclon/golem who had done craps loads of adventures (had like 36k in anima sitting on him beyond skills and traits and having union maxxed

this also happened last night with my straight joker who had only been on one adventure his whole life.

I am thinking working lifespan is just that how long they can perform. anima is probably related to this still.

Anima is not related to this. Working lifespan is basically a monsters lifespan in all the other monster ranchers. Depending on how you trained them policy wise and how many adventures you took them on may shorten it tho. And if its right after a show it might be the stat one. I get the working one pretty much Once they reach a certain age since I pretty much rasie each generation the same as the last.

So far my Allure (Pixie/Naga), Corkasus (Dragon/Beaklon) are hitting the working span at 3yr 6m and my Maya (Maya/Maya) Stop at 3yr 11m consistly. But thats probably because I've just trained them the same way from generation to generation.

You just stop getting Anima when it hits the working span you still do if its at its full potenial tho.

the following is a list of recent monsters and their age as they recieved aging messages. time format year.month ie 1.11 1 year 11 months

tiger/tiger max potential 1.9 working lifespan 3.6

durahan/naga max potential 2.3 working lifespan 3.8

ripper/joker max potential 2.6 working lifespan 3.1

the first 2 are 1st generation monsters the ripper was 4th gen. the tiger and durahan became more and more prone to injury the closer they got to thier working lifespans. none of them had any injuries early on. both the tiger and durhan worked on medium or advanced tricks their whole careers. it seemed the bigger the gap between potential and lifespan messages for the 1st gen. monsters the more they got hurt toward the end of their lifespan. the ripper didnt have any adverse effects. guessing that working your young (ie 1st maybe 2nd gen) monsters extra hard will cause problems after reaching max potential.

after recieving the max potential message all 3 stopped earning stat points. all continued to earn anima. they all stopped recieving anima after getting the working lifespan message.

(especially with 1st gen) monster who do not meet thier working lifespan do not combine as well as monsters who do.

I did donate all my prior discs as I tested this as many of them were sealed prematurely did not produce the high end combination results. since I have been logging the aging related messages all my monsters have reached working lifespan and produce great combinations.

o yeah it was coincedence I keep seeing this after shows...it just seems like working lifespan is like a death message without the dying. it may be set for each breed or maybe a base age that cna be effected by items and training rituals.

ok after doing more research on 10 more monster to working lifespan plus my current group of 5 monsters I have found some interseting things out.

first I was right about 1st gen monsters. if you work them on advanced gadgets they max out potential way faster but seem to be more prone to injury during the time from max potential to lifespan message. this also seems true with 2nd gen monsters but not as severe.

of the 10 only 2 did not max thier potential before working lifespan message they were a true 3rd gen (ie 2 2nd gen) and a 4th gen (ie 2 3rd gen) not sure why this happened as they both were injury free and (the 4th gen had 1 injury) and I worked them excusively on advanced gadgets after 3-4 months old

combining low gen monsters with higher gen monsters will produce stats similar to that of 2 high gen monsters. but there is a downside the further the difference in generation the less room for potnetial. to elaborate I used my 4th gen ripper and mixxed it with a 1st gen golem (was trying to boost up a butcher king to actually use). he popped out with great stats but reached his max potential in 6 months. this is the most extreme example I have come across but it holds true even with a a 1st and g2nd gen monster you will see potential reached faster to compensate for the intial stat boost.

Keep in mind that a monster "Ages" while on an adventure as far as anima gain. I have had several monsters stop gaining anima right in the middle of an adventure. I noticed it on my dragon/joker (named dracolich). Although regardless they still make good Combining fodder and also good raisers too.

That means only the stats lower once or they don't gain anymore if they are old?

They just stop gaining Anima points from adventures and stats from performances. Otherwise, they function normally and they don't lose stats.

I've experienced some things that lead me to believe they may be more injury prone once they're in "old age," but that could be just me.