Feedback related to Vana'Bout

[Okieeomi]

Greeting adventurers,

We'd like to hear about your experiences with Vana'Bout! We’ll be sharing this information with the Development team for their consideration.


What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?
How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?
What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?


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[Armarc]

The idea is cool, using RoE for points. But Ambuscade everyday....no thanks!

[Armoredwolf]

Players who can clear very difficult ambuscade will exhaust all relevant rewards from ambuscade itself long before reaching the plaudit goals. This means that those players are expected to do ambuscade solely for the minimal plaudit reward or the sense of satisfaction in helping attain the cooperative goal. Because each reward in ambuscade is limited, and players will cap on the better rewards first, there is a natural taper so the pace at which plaudits are accrued is likely to slow throughout the challenge period.

This is poor design, players are not likely to be incentivized by that. It would have been better to use an event where rewards are not front-loaded, and remain constant. Or, spread the objectives across a variety of different events so that players can continue to contribute while doing events that provide rewards.

[Herraa]

I think the concept of this event is fantastic. I think each months vana'bout should have different content for the ROEs. The biggest issue is the daily ROE. I think the content should be Weekly ROE and just make the ROE worth more event points per ROE.

Overall I love the idea of a community event but it just needs fixes.

[shwetty]

Scheduling it during the holiday time, while festive, was a mistake. People will be travelling during this time or spending time with family and will have less time to do the event.

Setting the Gold tier reward so close to maximizing the goals every day is challenging, especially considering the above.

The individual rewards are not very special, and the reward tiers are also strange. The Gold tier rewards are the weakest in my opinion, and none of them are very exceptional.

Making the objectives require certain jobs (healer, magical damage, doing WS) could be annoying for players who only play certain jobs.

The original goal of plaudits for the community was much too high.

It is difficult to be excited for extended campaign durations when we don't know which campaigns will be taking place next month.

Those problems aside, I think it's a great idea to have cross-server rewards and something to work on as a community. I like the idea of the extended campaigns and the Ambuscade reward is very potent.

[Zenion]

The structure was too rigid. Do all of these things, every single day, or else you won't get the points you need. Some repeatable goals and a an overall limit on plaudits earned per day or week would have felt a lot better than ten objectives for 100 plaudits, take it or leave it.

Tying the entire event to one kind of content wasn't a great choice; if it's content players are willing to do, it leads to congestion, and if it's content that players don't want to do, it sours the event. Maybe consider spreading objectives out across a few different aspects of the game? Ambuscade, Sortie, and Campaign would make one repeatable instanced option, one daily instanced option, and one non-instance option, to spread the load out a little and give players just a bit of variety. Crafting or gathering would be interesting options too if they weren't the entire focus.

A little more insight into what the prizes are actually good for would be nice too. I was pretty excited about that Kupon I-Aby, until I learned how many items it actually provides on use.

[ragnarzero]

like or dislike: From everyone I have talked with the idea is awesome and fun, the execution/choice of event is not. Having to do 12 days of ambuscade (even doing V2 on normal) it will take you about 3 runs day at about 10mins per run to get your dailies done. No one wants to spend that much time grinding an event for very little ambuscade points or plauds. That is 6hrs of work, for what a lock style of a weapon we already have, but now in new color? Not really worth doing it. Plus the other rewards are not great, a Beitetsu Box, i can spend 5-6hrs to get one, or i could do one Oddesy Run, and make close to a million gil and buy two stacks of 99 in 30 mins. I think this boils down to the fact were not all 20 something year old's with unlimited time on our hands were grown adults with jobs and families and kids who loves playing this game. I am not asking for free loot or anything like that, just make the rewards more, rewarding. Make them worth the time/effort, Even the Extended campaigns, while good, a lot of them people don't need any more, so if new ones like Sortie or Odyssey were added it might draw more people into to doing them. Something like Odyssey you get 1 free mooglephone per day (so you can go farm 2x) or Sorite gives you 2x points for your first run per week or something like that.

objectives/difficulty: They don't seem to hard, but putting them into something like Ambuscade where there is wait times, only leads to congestion. Plus the fact that objectives are personal meaning if I go in with a group of friends, only 1 person get it, so a healer won't get "Execute a skillchain" unless they go back in again after changing jobs.

The future iterations of Vana'Bout: Consider new ROEs for things that people do or need help with, Odyssey, or Sortie, Things like extra points for those if we beat the vanabout, people would flock to those things. Or even new rewards, i realize that the team is small and just doing minor things, but add in more cosmetics that are new. If you added in Iconic Final Fantasy weapon skins people would do these events in droves in hopes of getting a Gunblade, or Buster Sword etc.

TLDR: The idea is great and sounds amazing, the rewards for time spent is lackluster.

[gims]

As a returning player, my playtime is limited so when I login I have to decide if i want to do sortie, segment farm, omen, xp, or actually play the game. I was going to pass on Vanabout to utilize the time I have per night, but the 100 deeds is a huge time saver since I have another four months to get Monbro.

Sometimes I feel like the developers lost sight of that message that I have to click on every time advising me to care for the time I invest my friends and family and to not lose sight of that. All these "dailies" seem against that message and the vanabout event on top of that is making playing a chore instead of feeling fun. The event should have been a month and not two weeks with holidays and the current campaign bonuses going on.

Also increase the amount of RoEs we are allowed to have active. Vanabout is taking about 15 slots.

It would be great if you could bring Vanabout to other older less utilized areas like Legion, etc. My friends enjoyed that content.

Again I am just sharing my perspective as a returning player who started over earlier this year.

[Haldarn]

Other events! Oh gosh how about HNM killing blows, just to capture that 2005 competitive camping feel! Also a great opportunity to get people co-ordinated to play Ballista, Monstrosity or er Pankration?

The low-tier reward of an Ethereal Weapon once a month is fine. The other personal rewards seem ok. The overall rewards seem a bit lame - extending the thing we're doing? How about unlocking Cornelia or Matsui-P Trusts for a month? Unlocking an old item on next month's login points? Unlocking an old seasonal mini-game and associated rewards for a month?

[VoiceMemo]

If you want people to do daily events that add on to all the other daily events we already have to do, the rewards must benefit.

I suggest that if you meet the vanabout goal, for the next month there is a 2x Gallimaufry bonus added until the next update. Sortie is one of the main events going on in game. Vanabout should focus on the events that players are acutally working towards. Yes some do ambuscade but since there is a reward cap on items, the hallmarks/gallantry are quickly reached by those that can do VD.

[Herraa]

One recommendation I would put in place would be if you keep the ROE as daily, to add like 5K or 10K Exemplar Points to the completion of the daily ROE. This would encourage more of the veteran player base to want to participate, since the rewards appear to be more lackluster.

[Alhanelem]

What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?Likes: A cooperative event that spans servers.
Dislikes: Doing a bajillion Ambuscade runs.
This event should have spanned multiple content types.



How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?Some of the objectives are redundant and can/should be combined. For instance, you are essentially guaranteed to complete three of the daily objectives just by doing ambuscade three times, so these objectives will always complete at the same time and could be made to take up one RoE slot instead of three.



What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?Already answered this above, but feature different content types. Maybe have an objective for crafting. For Sortie. For general grinding.

[Gwydion]

What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?
Likes: Earning points through RoE is a great idea, especially through a shared goal across all servers.
Dislikes: The objectives shouldn't be restricted to Ambuscade because this incentive was exhausted by players YEARS ago. The objectives can be anything across FFXI (See below). Also, I would prefer that rewards can be spent multiple times, as 1 reward per tier is extremely demotivating in a given month. (Yes, I understand that multiple 100 deeds rewards might be a problem, but choosing one reward from each tier is extremely frustrating, especially not knowing what might come the following month).


How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?
The objectives are repetitive and that's fine. However, they do not universally apply to each member in the party. Many players only attempt Ambuscade on VD difficulty daily, so there is little incentive to do Ambuscade, as the satisfaction of earning plaudits alone, just isn't enough. On the otherhand, many players, solo Ambuscade on Normal to hoard as many daily objectives for themselves, which creates congestion and stifles collaboration.


What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?
There should be a mix of Pre-99 and Item-Level ROE objectives, daily/weekly, such as:
Kill 3 Kings, Kill a Salvage Boss, Kill Shadow Lord, Get to Floor 100 in NNI
Kill a Dyna-Divergence Wave 1,2,3 Boss in a single run
Kill all sortie top-floor bosses (major and minor).
Kill all sortie basement bosses (major and minor).
Help another player get an Odyssey V0/V5/V10/V15/V20/V25 Clear! (Repeatable)

I would like to suggest rewards from Vanabout that apply to Odyssey and Sortie: Give Odyssey Mog Amplifiers as an Ambuscade Reward.
Give a reward that forces or removes the random Aura from Odyssey bosses.
Give out a Sortie Seal that gives the effect of Gaulimaufry+25%
Give us an all jobs movement speed item that is usable in Sortie.
Remove RARE tag from NYAME Armor set or earn a Second/Third/Fourth Augment set.
Generic rewards should exist, such as Rainbow and Gold mog pells (for various points and costume/vanity items).
Event Timing: Points should allowed to accumulate! As each day passes, our potential plaudit earnings decreases! Someone who starts on Day 1 vs Day 7, should be able to earn as much plaudits as possible!

We need to stress to SE that the Vanabout rewards provided are extremely low-value items, that are easily obtainable elsewhere (such as similar costume items and furnishing come from as little as 100 login points!).

We need group RoE objectives, better rewards and insight into the next month's campaign schedule that we are working so hard to augment!

Thank you.

[CeviAN]

1. What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?

I like the idea of Vana'bout. The concept of working together for a common goal is core to the FFXI Experience so something that leans into that is a good decision for me. It's implementation is just lacking. The point values are all wonky (just look at the fact that the group goal had to be cut down to a fourth of what it was originally intended). Some work needs to be done to work out how to have that all work and be sensible.


2. How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?

I think the objectives are fine, to me. As someone playing a bit more casually I've not exhausted the unique rewards I can get from just doing Ambuscade. In fact I'm actually using it as a way to motivate myself to build a Naegling finally but that brings me to the to the general issue. Half of the Daily Objectives basically need you to come in with a Mage Job that can do Ambuscade reliably. I am only in such a good position because I was already gearing up Red Mage and was at a position where I can actually get some rewards I want out of Ambuscade. If Ambuscade is the only thing you can do for points and you basically need nothing for it you run out of stuff to get from just grinding it 3 times a day.

3. What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?

Several Things:
Make the Point Balance better. Right now getting Max Tier means playing every day. On top of that, the aforementioned goal nerf shows that gains by day weren't what was expected. Maybe aim to have lower goals and more "stretch" goals at higher percents instead of a high 100% for any group rewards?

Diversify the kinds of objectives. Make it not just one content but spread it out a bit so it's not so monotonous. Also, as others have said, it's basically locked to level 99 characters. Due to the Crossover Raid with FFXIV there's actually a handful of newbies checking the game out right now. Making this something they can work on for rewards too would help the old players be incentivized to help out newbies more.

Better structure with the rewards. As it stands, while the Gold Level is hard to obtain, the rewards don't seem worth it. If you're gonna put things like Exemplar and Job Points on it, give us a ballpark of how many we get. Ideally I would make something like that it's own reward tier that's like "you'll get to pick a pile of one or the other that scales based off points as a category in addition to tiers with other rewards." That way they are there as a reward that keeps going up in between Tier Benchmarks. You can maybe also put a bump on that reward category as one of the overall goes like "If we get to this level of overall points, the amount of Exemplar Points or Job Points gained by everyone is boosted a bit."

Since it's the big Endgame Grind right now too, you might even add Gallimaufry as one of the options in this category to help shave off the Prime Weapon Grind.


Vana'bout is a generally idea and I would be sad if it just faded into obscurity after a rocky launch. It just needs some polish to shine.

[Darion82]

What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?
How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?
What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?

1. I liked that I could solo the objectives, having limited time on my hands and not being able to reliably group up for things makes it difficult to complete objectives that require a group. What I disliked was the lack of repeatable objective that could be used as a catch up mechanic incase I missed a few days logging in or could not complete all the objectives, I also disliked being forced into one type of content with no way to contribute outside of said content. As it stand due to only being able to play 2 hours a day a few times a week because I work at minimum 10 hour shifts I wont be able to get any rewards worth while so my desire to do this event wound up being pretty low.

2. Most of the objectives were fairly easy enough with some research and having already having jobs I could use as a sub job on warrior to magic burst and heal. I can however see where this could be an issue for some players and kill their desire to participate if they lacked the means to complete some of the objectives, thus preventing them from ever acquiring the top rewards,

3. I would like to see future vana'bouts be more accessible in regards to what you need to do to complete the objectives, let us do some sort of repeatable objectives any where in the open world as well as doing content like ambuscade and sortie or omen at the same time. Don't have the objectives locked to just one place and give each place a repeatable like defeat monsters or acquire xp or do X amount of damage like we already have with ROE so people are able to catch up if they missed out on a few days, and those that want to contribute more can. I would love to see better rewards, especially in gold tier, I have long thought we needed an alternate avenue of acquisition for items like the Mogbonanza weapons and this would be a great way to do that in some fashion.

I have played off and on since 2004 and have covered a multitude of games during my time as a game journalist and have even worked on a couple of MMORPGs, I think this event round just simply missed the mark in terms of incentive and accessibility but I don't think it was necessarily a bad event.

[helmaru]

What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?
Good idea, cooperative event.
Ambuscade is already something players have to do, forcing it even more doesnt make sense.
Its a missed oportunity to revive old content or zones which noone does anything anymore, use those contents to generate plaudits.

How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?
They are fine but we need more incentive to do them , give EP (10k EP) rewards to them

What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?
EP rewards to daylies.
Dont use content for RoEs we already do on a daily basis.
The objectives should not be individiual but obtained if one in the group obtains it

[Xerius]

There is no reward in that list that's worth a month of grinding Ambuscade every day. As has already been stated, this is just going to further reward those who are already catapulted ahead.

[Cdryik]

The dailies are horrible, there's plenty of things to do before doing that, and spamming Ambuscade is meh.
The reward are a bit meh too, but, you can add a yearly bonus to in reward (whole server wide) like currencies bonus +xx% (ex: CP bonus +15%), etc... Some bonus that will shortened the time to gather some currency we need years to acquiert.

Some example :
- Abyssea NM will drop 1 more empyreal weapon/armor seals drop.
- Gallymaufry +20%
- Ambuscade points +20%
- Capacity Point +30%
etc....

Bonus for everyone, that could year monthly/lastly.

that would help newcomer like older people to keep up.

[Velodan]

I can't do Vana'Bout as a new player which is a huge disappointment. There should have been more options for newer players to take part. I came back to enjoy the world I loved in the 2000's and see the stories. I did not come back to rush to max level and grind one piece of content.

[kylani]

Others have captured my thoughts about how this was implemented. It's holiday time and spamming ambu was not what I was expecting at all.

Personally, I was hoping for this event to be something like the Treant event where the servers got teleport points. I was expecting something more general for the servers.

My hopes were things like:
- Have timers to be reduced for re-entry to Dynamis D, Omen.
- Allow 2 or even 1 person to enter Dynamis D and Vagary
- More teleports (I know we have a TON now so I am not complaining that we NEED more).
- Maybe new strategic teleports (I'm looking at you Yorcia wields with your moving bushes! even though hopefully I'm past having to deal with that now)

Basically, some general QOL changes.


I need more ambuscade stuff, so in a way, I don't mind the goals, but I can't imagine how tiresome this has to be for people who don't need ambuscade gear. I've decided to do what I can and leave it. It's the holidays. I know I can't sit there and spam it constantly.

I do appreciate that SE wanted to do a server wide event and hope they will continue to do stuff like this. I do love this game.

[Vargasfinio]

What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?
The idea of a "competition" to encourage engagement is a great idea. Giving players both personal goals and community goals can encourage players to take part. Earning points by setting RoEs is a good system.
I would love to see a future VanaBout that isn't tied to "you have to log in every day and grind objectives", though.


How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?
Given the content required (Ambuscade), the objectives are too strict and actually interfere with regular Ambuscade runs. Keep in mind that most players only do a few Ambuscades every week, so having to do at least 3 very specific runs every day doesn't make a lot of sense. While having varied objectives is an ok idea as it incentivizes having multiple jobs, the reality is that most players focus on one or two specific jobs and may not be able to complete all of the objectives.
The vast majority of points comes from grinding Ambuscade daily - and this just isn't how players these days actually play the game.


What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?
The first major change would be the rewards. The rewards are, quite frankly, awful for the amount of time you need to spend to get them. I actually don't mind the Etheral Weapons for a low-tier reward, but the Silver and Gold tiers really don't incentivize players to get them. The only real standout award is the 100 Deeds, (at Silver) but all three tiers should have had multiple choices of similar value to really make the event worth it. Also, the reward for reaching the community goal is...you get to do more Ambuscade with free Seals next month. It doesn't make a lot of sense.
Tying VanaBout to a daily RoEs also seems like a poor choice. Yes, you want players to log in every day but a large portion of your current playerbase only logs in maybe once or twice a week and that type of player should be able to take part in the event too.

One final note: The initial estimate of global points to achieve was WAY off, I have no idea where the number came from but it really speaks to the fact that SE has difficulty understanding just who and how many players actually play the game at this point. Yes, it is a 21 year old game, but getting active player counts shouldn't be too difficult. Even with the 75% reduced goal the playerbase still might not hit it as the rewards vs the time investment aren't really worth it.
I would like to see other VanaBouts that focus on content that doesn't need to be grinded every day.

[Sirmarki]

I like the addition of sparks rewards and RoE's. However (as mentioned before)... Can the ability to store more sparks be implemented (similar to pot pourri as an example)?

The spending cap is there for a reason and should remain, but storing them would be nice... There are so many ways to gain sparks now, that most get wasted because there is no where to store them.

[Fawkes]

What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?
I appreciate that it's Ambuscade, if it were all objectives for Sortie or whatever I wouldn't be able to do them.

How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?
It's a little weird that the objectives are limited. For an event that's about everyone hitting a goal by filling a progress bar, there's no way to pick up slack. It seems likely some people will get fatigued and stop, or stop because the holidays, or hit their personal goal of 900 plaudits for the 100 deeds and stop. If that happened there wouldn't be anything the remaining players could do to make up for it. And I just started doing it yesterday, so I've already missed days and there's nothing I can do to make it up. It would make more sense to have repeatable objectives so that overachieving players could do more than their share, and everyone could grind at their own pace.

What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?
Either change the daily objectives into repeatable objectives or add additional repeatable objectives.

[Ferth]

It's been said, but I'm going to repeat it. Dailies are bad. Stop piling daily content on to us. I already am not doing sortie every day because I hate it, adding this didn't make me any more inclined to log in.

I appreciate that ROE was implemented in a very clunky old game to try and streamline some things, but ROE is also old and clunky now. I don't even want to assign 9 dailies every day, let alone DO 9 dailies every day. If you are going to make these events use ROE they need to use the same system as the limited time challenge ROE that is always active and changes every 4 hours, have it activate for everyone automatically during the event and reactivate at whatever arbitrary intervals you decide on, this way it also won't count toward the already very limited ROE cap.

In a game with a monthly sub, trying to make this content done via limited daily events is unnecessary. Make the quests repeatable, if someone wants to crank out their 1300 in one day, let em. If they want to keep cranking out more until the event ends, let em.

The rewards are awful. They just are. There is no carrot here. Give us something cool to get or don't be surprised when we choose not to waste our time.

The initial community goal was laughably wrong and blaming it on "congestion" is embarrassing. I sincerely hope the dev team (?) takes this opportunity to reflect on how out of touch they are with the community and perhaps reevaluate some of the other egregious decisions they've been making recently.

[Shinook]

The idea behind this was good, I like the generic idea, but the implementation from start to finish is really poor.

For starters, the timing was awful for an event that requires daily participation. Forgetting the problems with daily content for a moment, you are running this across multiple major holidays where people are going to be out of town, away from their computer, with family, or doing other things. Reaching gold tier and requiring daily participation across this season really wasn't a good idea.

The initial objective of ~16m was absurdly out of touch. Someone did the math and it would require around 10,000 people to do it daily and reach gold tier, that's just not going to happen. The current goal is more reasonable, but I think you would struggle even with better rewards to find 10,000 people willing to participate daily, again considering the holidays especially, but also considering the rewards and general state of the playerbase right now.

The RoEs themselves are OK. I am not as irritated about the objectives themselves as some, but I would prefer to see options that cater to a more endgame focused crowd, like Sortie or Odyssey. I realize this is exclusionary but Ambu doesn't do much for the endgame crowd and I think we'd rather focus our time doing things that are engaging or interesting, not fairly trivial or mundane daily events. This also plays into the rewards, because for endgame players the time spent doing this would be better off just farming the same reward while doing something more engaging or interesting. I also think there are too many, cut it down to 3-4 daily and make them more challenging or engaging (note: doing something 50 times is not challenging or engaging, I mean make the objectives actually require some engagement and thought). Ideally, this wouldn't even be daily, maybe weekly or something that you can stack up if you can't do it one day, but still I'd prefer to see fewer.

The overall campaign reward itself was pretty poor, as well. The choice of Ambuscade makes some sense as it caters to lower level characters, but most endgame players would just run V1VD a few times rather than spend the time to do objectives and try to reach the goal. It really just isn't worth our time. There is no real motivation to reach the goal across servers for the people who are capable of doing this solo. I think for campaign rewards, you'd get a better response if you ran a combined EP/CP/Exp campaign, this can help the entirety of the playerbase including endgame players. I'd like to see Galli and Odyssey (RP and/or segments), both of which I think would benefit most of the player base. It'd also be ok to rotate if you plan on doing this every so often, run it with Ambu as a campaign to help lower level characters, then a month or two later run one that caters to endgame characters. The other problem is that we don't know if this reward is even going to be reachable or interesting, because Ambuscade runs in rotations with some of them being really annoying or not clearable readily. For example, what if we put all this work into making progress and hitting the objective, only to find out you run the Sahagin ambu next month and no one can take advantage of the campaign? Finally, one single boost to hallmarks/gallantry really isn't that appealing to endgame players especially daily, basically you are running a daily event that must be done on a day to day basis, only to unlock a campaign that....also must be done daily to take advantage of. That is too much daily and not enough opportunities for us to participate or take advantage of the reward if we have to do it every day.

As a rule in the game, you really need to back off forcing people to do things daily, we aren't 17 years old anymore. Most of us have jobs, families, and other commitments, we can't login every day and the time we do have, we'd rather spend doing interesting and engaging things, which these goals aren't, and th rewards aren't worth the time. I think the devs need to take an honest step back when they add content and look at their own lives in light of what they are adding, asking themselves when they go home from work: "Would I want to spend my limited free time doing this?", because that's the question the playerbase asks whenever stuff like this comes out and it feels like no one at SE is asking themselves that question..

The individual rewards leave a lot to be desired. Basically the only rewards worth doing are arguably the Aby Kupon, which could be obtained in less time anyway but does have some value, and the Deeds if you slacked on Deeds or are a little behind. Everything else is just not worth the effort. The gold tier rewards in particular are really poor, I am not logging in daily to spend 20-30min doing mind numbing RoEs across major holidays just to get 10k EP, I could earn that in under 20 minutes with friends in a single day. These rewards do not appeal in any way or form to endgame or experienced players or basically anyone who is "finished" with the critical parts of Ambu.

I really like this as a general idea. I think it has potential to bring engagement to content that is otherwise overlooked or that needs a bit of a boost, but you need to recognize that players are not in high school anymore and logging in daily especially during holidays is really just not feasible for most people, even if the rewards were worth it. Make the rewards worth it, give us a margin of error or make it not tied to dailies, and people will do it. Otherwise, you are just wasting resources on implementing game systems that people dislike.

Also, please, no more lockstyle rewards. There are enough as is. Give us things we can actually play with.

Possibly community-wide campaign ideas: EP/CP/Exp boost (Ep being the critical addition), Gallimaufry campaign, Segment campaign, Odyssey RP campaign, Sortie earring box campaign (boost # of +1s), subjob unlock in Odyssey Gaol during campaign, Sortie movement speed boost

Individual rewards: +1 cases, Ody RP vouchers, EP boost rings/items, Pre-charged Mog Amplifiers for Ody, Amplifier-type effect for Sortie


I can't do Vana'Bout as a new player which is a huge disappointment. There should have been more options for newer players to take part. I came back to enjoy the world I loved in the 2000's and see the stories. I did not come back to rush to max level and grind one piece of content.

Just something to consider: reaching max level doesn't really put you at endgame any longer, it's more like reaching lvl18 in 75 cap. There is a lot of progression involving gear, earning RP, and such after lvl99 that happens. Most of the more interesting content starts at level cap, which is a little different than it was during 75-cap. I wouldn't hesitate to push to 99 as quickly as you can, there is a lot going on after that, including Ambuscade. So while I get your frustration, expecting new content to cater to players below level cap isn't really reasonable considering the majority of the player base has at least one 99.

[Zhronne]

Greeting adventurers,

We'd like to hear about your experiences with Vana'Bout! We’ll be sharing this information with the Development team for their consideration.


What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?
How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?
What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?


* Please follow all forum guidelines and only post feedback related to Vana'Bout in this thread.
* Before posting your feedback, please read through the recent replies and “Like!” any posts that you agree with, rather than create a new post with the same opinion. This helps us get a better view of how many people agree with a certain opinion.

1) The rewards are not strong enough to give players motivation. I'm not talking much about the player-specific rewards that you can choose from the three tiers, but more about the "collective" rewards. Could use more relevant stuff like unlocking special Trusts for a month, boosting Gallimaufry rewards next month, boosting Exemplar Points rewards next month and so on

2) Objectives were cool and fun

3) In addition to the daily and monthly objectives I would add weekly objectives too, and I would give more space for people to be allowed to miss a couple of days of objectives, but still manage to reach the top rewards tier. Feeling like you "have" to do every single day or you're not gonna make it is a stressing pressure on your shoulder and takes part of the fun away from this.

[ManaKing]

1. What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?

I like that you're doing anything at all with the game. Everyone seems happy about the ability to catch up on deeds. Giving us something to work on casually is a good idea, in theory.

I dislike that it doesn't encourage or introduce alliance content since that seems like it would bolster the community aspect of the event.

I dislike that it doesn't address the fundamental pain points of your endgame. There is nothing to use Prime Weapons on that is new and exemplar points are not something you can casually accumulate while doing adventurer campaign events.

I dislike that the Overall rewards for doing a bunch of ambuscade is to be able to do more ambuscade. That's just not an adventurer campaign I want being extended. There are limits to how many capes you can make so it's overkill.


2. How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?

The objectives are poorly planned and executed. They created artificial congestion on your servers which lowers the quality of the gameplay experience for your customers. Don't link them to anything that has a solo queue unless you want that queue to become terrible and defeat the purpose of an event that was designed to be enjoyable and rewarding for the community. Womp womp.

These are daily objectives, which is hated by your older/aging community. Sortie is daily, odyssey is daily, this new community feature is daily. People want to log in on the weekends and play for several hours, maybe the whole day, and actually accomplish something. You continue to deny a good game play experience with decisions that cheapen the customer service aspect of your game and the value of your subscription. If you include any kind of daily lock out for ANY content, you should understand that people don't have flexible schedules to play every day. Those daily activities should be weighted much less than weekly or monthly objectives if you want people to continue to want to play. Which we actually do.

If someone has limited daily play time (most of your community), why would they prioritize these dailies instead of all the other dailies you've already packed into the game that have rewards that we will miss out on if we don't do them?

These objectives were clearly created with data you had for ambuscade. A large portion of your ambuscade is done by bots. Those bots don't care about doing community events. Your target numbers being completely unrealistic confirms this. Please take a closer look at your game so you can make choices that that positively grow your actual player community and the longevity of the game.


The difficulty is fine. Difficulty has never been an obstacle for this community. This is not where you are failing to motivate people.

3. What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?

Eliminate the required daily aspect of the system. Weekly and Round RoEs only. You have too many other events that have to be done daily. We can do Vana'Bout on the weekends after we've run through all the dailies we can do. That way the adventure campaigns add value to our play time instead of detracting from it by making us choose between forced daily login ins that we might not be able to do or missing out on rewards.

Give us a reason to party up and do stuff together. The larger the party, the more the community building aspect of this will be felt. Pick things that allow for more than a single party and rotate them monthly with an associated adventurer campaign to enhance as the flex goal.

Past Campaign is perfect for this with reworks. You can leave the original zones untouched for returning/new players and as you get close to the throne room or beastman strongholds, the difficulty ramps up significantly to iLevel to encourage people to band together. These zones give experience points, capacity points, and exemplar points for evaluation rewards to incentivize all players to want to participate and keep them cleared. The Union registration process is eliminated during this month and everyone is automatically registered to the Vana'Bout Union so everyone is eligible for potential coffer spoils at the end of a battle without going through the extra tedious menu steps to get rewards. Make the experience/capacity/exemplar points from evaluations increase with party size to encourage parties and alliances. Even if they are just superfluous for the sake of rewards, it will still encourage socialization and community building.

The weekly rewards for Vana'Bout would be to just open X amount of Union coffers in a week. When you get done with that RoE another identical RoE opens up after it so that you don't have to take up more than 1 RoE slot with weekly RoEs. There are 7 of these RoEs, when you're done with your weekly RoEs you are capped on Plaudits just like the current system and will get more once the week rolls. Less clutter for players and less maintenance for devs coming up with unique objectives. Save that for the Round Objectives.

The Round Objectives can be anything but I wouldn't want more than the 5 we have right now for RoE space concerns. They don't even have to be tied to the current event.

The overall goals being met means people can do campaign ops for longer if they need materials for making weapons and a larger window for campaign battles that rewards capacity and exemplar points. Make sure both are lucrative enough to be a reward that people will want to do them and you will address anyone that plays this game.

The additional benefits of this approach are: Valaineral and Noillurie will be readily available for new players going through the Voracious Resurgence, the Stronghold Campaign OPs (Splitting Heirs, Cracking Shells, Plucking Wings, and Fiat Lux) will actually be available on the month of their bonus, there is no experience loss penalty on death when under the Allied Tag effect so people can bring whatever jobs they want, you can play with campaign weapon skills on something relevant, normal leveling zones will be less congested, and there is no queue to clog up.

---

Dust off Voidwatch. You can do a lot with Voidwatch because it still has good rewards. The only thing you have avoid is clogging up the spawn points by making some of them much more lucrative than others. The weekly objectives are open any voidwatch coffer X times. If a voidwatch location doesn't drop plates/cinders/dross, then during the campaign, they drop plates at the same rate as a plate only mob like Akvan. That's what makes the adventure campaign worth trying to get to the extended goal. To add iLevel adjustments for more geared players, do it to Aht Urhgan and Tavnazia encounters so that it won't get in the way of new players using the event to fast track the story. Include capacity and exemplar points to the voidwatch coffers in that area that scale up with the size of the party/alliance. That is 10 mobs with 3 locations each that can accommodate 18 people, so 540 spots. That's probably larger than some servers total population at this point.

If you need to add an Alliance Level Primer so you can have an Ambuscade for the month, go for it. Dynamis D and Omen both accommodate alliances already and have adventurer campaigns to enhance. Just make sure you add enhanced Exemplar points to the adventurer campaign event and you'll make everyone happy.


All of the Alliance content I'm suggesting shouldn't be harder than Dynamis D or Omen is currently. The point is to let people casually work together to accomplish a goal and encourage people to group up for the rewards and avoid congestion in instances from solo queues.

I envisioned Vana'Bout as something like an updated besieged that did something like rebuilding Ishgard from FFXIV. A live event that we could enjoy as a community and see some kind of tangible progress or rewards. To me, the reward is being able to play the events that are put on adventurer campaigns more similar to how we used to when the game supported alliances and the social rewards that came with it.

[Kylos]

Have no issues with the daily objectives (although they are not "fun"), however, when you look at the rewards, the only truly unique reward is the 100 Deeds. Everything else can be found easier with less effort, either by doing the content, or by paying for it on the Auction House. Some will get the 100 Deeds and not bother with the rest.

Having this tied to an annoying fight like the Soulflayer/Imps makes it a chore for anyone wanting to get Hallmarks/Gallantry for their monthly income. It seems mostly catered to those who solo the Flan on Very Easy difficulty. Teaming up should be heavily encouraged in any newly introduced content, and defeating higher difficulties should be more rewarding. Also, the objectives should line up with the fight you are doing. How many groups are using Ice/Thunder magic with Magic Bursts this month? I would say very few.

And then there is the monthly goal reward, which in itself is underwhelming. It basically offers you a free Abdhaljs Seal each day, but you then feel obligated to do more Ambuscade. Players didn't need more encouragement to do Ambuscade. It is already well-established as the most rewarding content in the game.

Instead, Vana'bout should be about encouraging players to do other, lesser-done content with significant rewards for doing so. To provide an example, you could tie a month to the Odin/Alexander/Cait Sith/Lilith HTMBs, and give players who already have all the equipment, the motivation to do it in a party of six. This may encourage players to bring others who have yet to do this content, so they can pick up the equipment, while the veterans accumulate plaudits for unique rewards. You could do the same with Dynamis-D. Give significant rewards for clearing wave 1, 2, and 3 bosses in an alliance.

This content feels poorly implemented. Square Enix should have gathered more information from its player base before introducing something like this. It felt like the developers don't really understand how its players view the game in 2023. However, SE has a track record of this. Look at what happened to Unity and the Assist chat channels. Nobody uses them, because it makes little sense to use them when we have linkshells. Get people who actually play this game onboard, and this could end up being a nice addition to the monthly campaigns.

PS: If you are going to add lockstyle rewards, make sure those lockstyles look BEAUTIFUL! Nobody cares for Ethereal Weapons because they look terrible. Otherwise, I'd rather you added some sidegrade equipment that either helps returning players to reach endgame, or are proper choices for veteran players in some scenarios, without blatantly killing off other equipment.

Look at what players are using for spells like Stoneskin and think... could we replace Shedir Seraweels/Haven Hose with something stronger? We shouldn't still be using Limbus gear for anything. There are so many ways to make new equipment interesting without churning out a bunch of red models of old weapons, and then calling them "Ethereal"... like that somehow makes them worthy of wasting time for.

[Rinjo]

What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?

I like that it gives players that aren't doing sortie and odyssey something more to do. I find it to be OK in pace. Players that are maxpilled are probably not going to benefit from this system. Ambuscade queue can be long at times.

How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?

I have been able to complete all daily objectives on a red mage with out any challenge in DynaD/Pre-Odyssey gear on Normal Mode. I would like to see objectives outside of ambuscade and higher-tier difficulty objectives for more reward.

What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?

More objectives in other battle systems, while remaining solo/low man. Offer slightly better rewards from moogle and or reduce the cost. Level 99 Campaign Battles. :o

[ManaKing]

Feedback from people who can't post on the official forums:


It's simple, they design the content for a party of 6 like usual, but then just allow up to 18 to enter if they all meet the entry qualifications.

And that's it, no need to screw with rewards or scaling or anything to discourage or punish friends casually hanging out.


If they made Sortie 18 man I’d resub.

I get why Ody is 6 man. That’s fine. Albeit 18man Mboze would be hilarious.

Feel free to delete if this isn't allowed.

[TickleMonsterCG]

I enjoy the concept, unfortunately cannot play literally a single day because I'll be traveling. Having these events right before holidays is rather bad timing.

[Insamity]

I was intrigued by Vanabout before it started, I thought it would be something fun to work on over the holidays and earn some cool stuff, maybe even boost my gear a bit or something.

Kind of disappointed in what we got.

Ambuscade is probably the worst possible content to choose for round 1.

New players under 99 can't participate in any of it until they 99 and geared, even then they may struggle.

This month, Players without the correct jobs cannot do V1VD forcing people to solo V2, creating congestion even on quiet servers. (Asura must be hell to get ambu)

Pure melee jobs such as MNK, THF, WAR etc have difficulty doing the elemental magic damage dailies.

The rewards are very poor for the effort it takes. The bronze tier is all trash, except maybe the dark matter. Silver the only good one is 100 deeds. Gold isn't worth it either. Where is the incentive? You could have, 5K Alexandrite, 500 Heavy Plates, 5k Beitestu, byne bills, etc. A couple of the Kupons that let you select gear like full 75 relic sets etc. Gold tier could have a Kupon to give 12 of all rem chapters. There is so much potential to make this fun and rewarding for everyone, no one 'wants' to grind for little trash rewards. You should think of these rewards as a mini bonanza, put some crazier stuff in here, and make the choice hard not because all the options are trash but because they are so good.

Make the daily and weekly objectives spread over multiple contents, and refresh some older ones. EG: daily objects: complete 3 campaign battles, complete a besieged, kill XX Amount of enemies, Level up, or get merits points, This way newer players can participate and old stale content will get an uplift.

Also, the whole community works together to beat the score and all we get is an extra campaign. A seal per day is nice but it's still kinda of lacklustre, It takes a few days to empty the ambu vendors of their loot, so the rest of the month that bonus is wasted. Double the vendor capacity, and reduce the prices for a time. Make it a bit more special.

[Lutia]

I'm kinda glad that the rewards from Vanabout are total trash, so I have no fear of missing out. So uh, I'd say, good job on that part without being ironic at all. If I was forced to do Ambuscade daily to get something that is worth the EXTREME and out of touch effort that you're asking for, I'd rage and still not do it. In this event, I get to go on with my normal business withoug raging, as I can completely ignore it.

Also, having 15 more objectives for the same pool of 30 RoE is a bad idea. If you wish to continue in this direction, please enhance the RoE pool. It may be old and clunky as previously mentioned, but right now, it's also being overloaded with daily objectives.

And I would like to repeat two of the previous comments, because it looks like the developers often don't seem to realize it:

- This isn't FF14. Although I want to touch the stretching Mithra in the bonecraft guild in places I shouldnt even be thinking about at my age, this game is not about lockstyle.
- 75% of the population is ran by bots. This needs to be considered when gathering data.

[Nenyo]

Looking at the rewards this feels like a catch up event for new/returning/casual players which I think is a great idea. However the implementation is completely not friendly towards that targeted player base. These players just aren’t going to log in to do 4-5 Ambuscades every day, and that’s assuming they even have the available jobs to complete the objectives.

I think there needs to be fewer, more generic repeatable RoE objectives so people can knock this out at their own pace. Daily activities suck.

[Catmato]

Maybe make the objectives things that people don't have to go out of their way to accomplish, and make party members' actions count to encourage people to team up.

[Alhanelem]

I dislike that it doesn't encourage or introduce alliance content since that seems like it would bolster the community aspect of the event.I disagree, alliance content doesn't really foster community the way you think it does, it just frustrates people who don't have friends to team up with since PUGging for large group content in this game is really bad. I don't like alliance content in general, and they clearly wanted to create something everyone could participate in. Alliance content generally excludes less serious players. This is why they haven't made any, the last thing they're going to do is make an event that promotes it.

Having said that, I agree there's too much daily stuff in the game now. There's too much pressure to spend hours doing like a dozen daily things. Make it objectives that you complete over the course of the event duration instead, so you can play more haphazardly and still participate.

[Shinook]

I disagree, alliance content doesn't really foster community the way you think it does, it just frustrates people who don't have friends to team up with since PUGging for large group content in this game is really bad. I don't like alliance content in general, and they clearly wanted to create something everyone could participate in. Alliance content generally excludes less serious players. This is why they haven't made any, the last thing they're going to do is make an event that promotes it.

There are two types of alliance content: content that requires a fully geared / efficient alliance (early Dyna, Dyna-D, early Omen, basically all alliance content when it gets initially released) and content that can be done by 6 people but allows more (Omen currently, for instance). I think when most people make this comment, they are referring to the latter. It's really frustrating when you have a steady group of 8-9 people, but end up having people left out because they got on 10 min late and weren't racing to get on in time.

I think when most people talk about alliance content now, they are just trying to balance the fact that they have more than 5 people they like to do things with and want everyone to be able to participate together. I agree that the old style alliance content breeds drama and it's not something I think the game should return to, but allowing people to bring more than 5 friends especially to more trivial content can help community. Looking at Omen now is a good example, 6 people can do most or all of it, but they are able to bring lesser skilled/geared players on to participate.

[Khajit]

What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?
I enjoy the concept of it but there are several dislikes in the implementation that feels like a lack of familiarity with how the players interact with the game as well as the design for the endgame progression. While it might theoretically be ok for an opener in a vaccum, the playerbase is heavily skewed towards veteran players to the point that relic, mythic, empyrean, or even prime weapons are not completely unusual to see.

The objectives take up too much space in my objectives list. A temporary Vanabout Armband (key item) that tracks our progress may have been better if resources were available for a basic implementation. I think it's too late for that now as you've already made the framework for how you want to implement Vanabout, so streamlining some of the objectives together or focusing more heavily on the long term objectives is a simpler idea.

Daily grinds are tiresome and I can't even let the objectives carry over like certain other Records of eminence objectives that rotate the same objectives with different IDs like "kill multiple enemies" so that I work on them every few days rather than a race to endure. I personally believe that it should have been a weekly set of objectives even with the risk of congestion on a weekend as there are still plenty of players that would work on them during the mid week in order to avoid the congestion, but simply being able to save 3x of the same type or rotation before actually "losing out" would have been a welcome middle ground. Overall I prefer to pick one or two things I'm doing for the day rather than spreading out across several events. Eg work on Mastery or job points one day. Farm omen detrius on another once the omen KI have racked up. Divergence on another. My current participation level is entirely because I do not want this idea to fail when it can be a fun new thing you have given us with better implementation once tweaked a bit rather than an interest in rewards.

The reward system is rather... strange. Many players have noted that they will not be aiming for the Gold tier or are disinclined to after getting the tier they want because they can just buy a stack of beits easily instead. The effort/reward ratio is extremely off. The main reward of interest to players right now is the 100 deeds and nothing else as it is easier to get the rewards or something comparable without participating in Vanabout. Players simply have almost anything else in the game they could be doing that would be a better use of their time playing like actually participating in the campaigns rather than trying to extend them.

I have a great deal of space dedicated to lockstyle gear thanks to all of the room Moogle slips gave me that has been tested to the max by Sortie earrings. At least make something more unique if I'm going to lose space for these or find a way to make us use /equipsets to lockstyle gear stored on a slip/npc. Or the xiv style junkmongers that let me buy items that are not storable via moogle slips back for 100 gil after I've registered them so that I can start tossing things?

The objectives run counter to the core concept of teamwork the entire game was designed upon. I and everyone else is motivated to carry out these objectives solo as it becomes detrimental towards helping anyone that is actually at the level of content chosen for this vanabout. While I appreciate the ability to carry out content on my own, actively ruining the ability to team up by not allowing fellow players to increase objective progress as a party does not fit the general underlying core of why we are playing this game in the first place. The longevity of this game is due to the community that was fostered and this event actively breaks it despite this also being a community event. People do not like it when you take away choices and you effectively took away the choice to work together as the v1 ambusade alternative where the monsters actually have enough HP to survive several players attempting objectives or following the strats does not line up with actually being able to complete the objectives or fight. It does not have to require a full party, but I want to at least be able to try vanabout with others.

I also suspect your initial numbers were based on many misconceptions like the idea that every character on an account that made it to 99 is a fully active character when in reality many players after the silver voucher campaigns have taken to leveling their "mules" to 99 so that they can partake in AMAN once a month or get extra dark matter campaign augments. A month with moogle Bonanza in particular has many characters that exist entirely for the lottery.

The current batch of objectives overly incentivize rdm in order to complete them. I and everyone else in the game is used to there being a "flavor of the week" when it comes to ambuscade but this was far greater than the norm when coupled with the objectives. It was clear that the content of objectives were made in a way that prioritized lv 99 players in mind working on their first sets of ambuscade gear or job points, however somebody that fresh to lv 99 and ilv gear will not have the versatility of other players with multiple jobs nor is it plausible that they have an actual job leveled with regards to the all of the objectives set forth. The objectives essentially harm the portion of the playerbase that should be benefiting the most from this iteration of Vanabout due to this and my earlier mention of how the daily objectives heavily discourage any teamwork.


How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?

Attempting the objectives on alternate characters in order to try and help community progress was sufficiently difficult due to a lack of character gear progress on rdm at the level of an experienced player, but it also felt like much more of a slog. Possibly due to having already done the objectives once already combined with the previously mentioned better things to do for players? I believe this event was tuned to the level of players that would be actually participating in ambuscade volume 2 content from this observation and that opening up collaboration on the objectives or more time to work on objectives would have readily solved this issue. On my actual main character the NM would easily die by accident because I was far beyond that content although I admittedly could use a much weaker weapon.

The cure objective is designed in a way that results in players having to manipulate their own hp via equipment in order to sufficiently cure while taking up valuable queue space in ambuscade on more congested servers. My trusts are very fast at curing, so completing that objective is generally not an option once engaged. In essence it's an objective that actually is good with teamwork nestled in an event that discourages it and as such leads me to just take a spot in the queue specifically to complete it. Altering the objective to not include self cures does not fix the main problem as players would simply dedicate an ambuscade instance to healing via hp manipulation with another () when a more ideal result is having a person that cures (most often the healer) count for the entire party's objective.

What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?

There is currently a large influx of ffxiv player interest in the game due to an alliance raid series based on XI coming out in their new expansion. Several objectives that are nostalgic for veteran players while helping out new players would have been ideal for this first vanabout as an easy test concerning player participation this month. There was a community planned event of new players being helped by others through the game currently going on right now based on (but not limited to ) Bahamut server. There is another iteration/wave planned for approximately March as the game has often been on sale in the past around then. I suggest that a small amount of objectives during a late march or early April iteration the Vanabout may help welcome these new players into the game and showcase the different eras before getting into the post 99 content with the rest of the objectives. Not as many plaudits as the post 99 ones, but it would let these rookies or weaker players feel like they are participating while being reasonably simple to those post 99. Additionally make them in line with the current campaigns going on so that participating in the campaigns helps increase plaudits? Plaudit time is generally better spent participating in a campaign rather than plaudits because we'd waste more time on plaudits than we'd gain back from an extension.

Examples of possible objectives I can think of include:
Defeat any version of the shadow lord x times (mission. Dynamis lord, high tier battlefield, etc)
Defeat King Behemoth, Aspidechlone, and/or Nidhogg or their Kindred seal 99 equivalents (The pop items being obtainable via login points makes this one rather simple)
Occasionally attack twice with a jailer weapon and virtue stones equipped x times. (Do during the absolute virtue campaign month)
Participate in Salvage, Nyzul Isle, or Einherjar, Limbus,etc with another player.
Defeat an Abyssea Zone Notorious Monster boss (Eg Itzalpolatl, Briareus, Dragua )after activating a red/blue/greelow proc.
Have Oseem attempt to augment an item 10 times.
Summon a trust that is locked behind mission/quest/event progress.
Participate in skirmish/vagary.
Ambuscade objectives.
High tier battlefields associated with the current vanabout theme with objective progress based on difficulty as an attempt to simulate milestones they would have participated in back in the day?
Defeat a Unity Notorious monster of X level Y times. (In order to avoid congestion, base this on NM level which spreads everything out instead of a single NM)
Obtain X amount of Omen cards/objectives
Earn X segments in Sheol A B or C.(I would suggest adjusting segment earnings from A and B to be more in line with C at the same time)
Earn X rank points from a Sheol Gaol NM?
Kill a Sortie Boss or miniboss.
Have doom/curse removed if the theme of the vanabout is in line with this (Can be cheesed at Pashow if players find using holy water or getting doomed/cursed too tough as an alternative)
Participate in various types of BCNMs. (easily obtainable via login points with lower level ones resulting in less progress towards completion?)
Help a player complete a mission (be in the same zone and party at the time of mission completion. Repeatable missions also work so that sufficiently veteran players are not locked out of progress.)
Domain invasion or Geas Fete

I included a mix of various content that can be completed by both old and new players while also presenting some that would enable low level participation from those not at the extreme veteran end of the spectrum. Many of the later objectives even allow veteran payers to help rookie players become veteran players while doing an event that would benefit them rather easily if the rookies do not team up with each other to do so themselves. Please note that some of these do not work at all as a daily objective like anything that will have major competition or is based on a limited resource like login points.

[Alhanelem]

There are two types of alliance content: content that requires a fully geared / efficient alliance (early Dyna, Dyna-D, early Omen, basically all alliance content when it gets initially released) and content that can be done by 6 people but allows moreAnd I particularly dislike the latter situation because I only think alliance content is fun/interesting if an alliance is actually needed to clear it. otherwise its just a couple people doing work and the rest being afk which is, honestly, bad game design.


I think when most people talk about alliance content now, they are just trying to balance the fact that they have more than 5 people they like to do things with and want everyone to be able to participate together.I've never seen this as a problem, if you can fill an alliance, you can make three parties, just switch who's with who here and there, and chat in the LS about it. no one has to be excluded due to max player counts.

[Catmato]

And I particularly dislike the latter situation because I only think alliance content is fun/interesting if an alliance is actually needed to clear it. otherwise its just a couple people doing work and the rest being afk which is, honestly, bad game design.

To be honest, that sounds like a player problem, not a design problem. If that was happening, I'd try to find better people to play with, not try to convince the devs to force everyone to play the way I prefer.


I've never seen this as a problem, if you can fill an alliance, you can make three parties, just switch who's with who here and there, and chat in the LS about it. no one has to be excluded due to max player counts.

Unless you have 7 people. Alliance content doesn't necessarily mean a full alliance, as the second option in your first quote suggests.

[ManaKing]

I disagree, alliance content doesn't really foster community the way you think it does, it just frustrates people who don't have friends

Yeah they don't incentivize partying up with strangers anymore. Old exp parties were just shouts where you wanted a party because everyone benefitted vs soloing. We don't need any daily event where everyone is just spamming solo queue for whatever content they pick and making it miserable for everyone. If you make this event target casual alliance content and then add extra rewards for including more people, then you incentivize people to party up with strangers and go back to having a social community. I'm not saying everyone is going to be best buddies, but if people have reasons to use the extra communication channels they added for something other than RMT spam, then Vana'Bout would immediately be a positive change to the game and it's community.

Edit: We definitely don't have to continue any discussion that doesn't provide feedback for Vana'Bout. Let's keep it relevant since they are asking for feedback.

[Gwydion]

Please go back and like my post: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/61335-Feedback-related-to-Vana-Bout?p=658082&viewfull=1#post658082

We need to stress to SE that the Vanabout rewards provided are extremely low-value items, that are easily obtainable elsewhere (such as similar costume items and furnishing come from as little as 100 login points!).

We need group RoE objectives, better rewards and insight into the next month's campaign schedule that we are working so hard to augment!

[Khajit]

I've been informed that the event is similar to the mog tomes events of FFXIV. If it was derived from a similar place, adding the daily restrictions was unneeded and plaudits being a personal item drop (stackable to 99) turned in to the moogle would have been slightly less clunky even with inventory space woes some characters have. XI does not need daily checklists to maintain player interest. It is not a mobile game. We are often content to engage in a specific adventure in bursts until we get bored instead of becoming actively bored by having to do the same adventure every day. We can't get multiple rewards from the event anyway, so whether the event is done immediately or slowly over the course of the Vanabout does not matter so long as we are the ones choosing whether or not we do so.

If weekend congestion truly is a major problem, then breaking up the objective events to be specific during that week to the player's Unity NPC might be a workaround although it will be skewed towards the unity healer npcs for those without Monberaux. Deeds being a reward lessens that worry significantly.
Examples
Unity npc Team Aht Urghan vs Unity team Windurst vanabout round 1 to make it a Vanabout between unity NPC teams.

Unity team Aprururu vs Yoran-Oran Vanabout. Apruru (UC) players have a different adventure from the current campaigns than Yoran-Oran (UC) Various other Unity NPCs pick a side they want to represent to split the objectives in two.

Nashmeira vs Shantotto to depict their "rivalry" during Aht urghan missions. (reward players with a unity trust version of the winner or upgrade their trust AI/capabilities similar to the Moogle Mastery trust upgrades in Odyssey if one wins? (One tier of a player's moogle mastery accessible outside of Sheol per win?) Do both if maximum goals are reached?)

Ovjang vs King of Hearts (Similar upgrades to trust parameters to be more in line with the more popular stronger trusts)
These rivalries serve to maintain interest in those wanting a specific character to win after they have completed all of their personal objectives from vanabout.

[Kahla]

Really interesting idea. I think the concept of it is great but I do think it needs to be a little tweaked. I wish the dailies were actually different everyday. I've just been doing the exact same strategy every day 3 times in a row to complete all. Last 2 are just aiming to get clear in under 5 minutes for progress towards monthly. More variety would be nice so I could utilize more jobs I've geared and be able to use.

Understandable that you didn't do this but at the same time it was a little upsetting... I would of really liked to been able to spend all the points that I acquired instead of it just being one selection from each rank. I had my hopes up I'd be able to get multiple Mog Pells and get the Pupil's Attire set that I keep missing out with login points but.. I can only get one piece :(

Otherwise, like to see how it finished out! See you at the finish line! :)

[Sp1cyryan]

Greeting adventurers,

We'd like to hear about your experiences with Vana'Bout! We’ll be sharing this information with the Development team for their consideration.


What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?
How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?
What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?


* Please follow all forum guidelines and only post feedback related to Vana'Bout in this thread.
* Before posting your feedback, please read through the recent replies and “Like!” any posts that you agree with, rather than create a new post with the same opinion. This helps us get a better view of how many people agree with a certain opinion.

Thank you for taking feedback, but also please take much of it with a grain of salt.

At any rate, the concept is good for the event. But the implementation leaves a bit to be desired. Due to the current structure of content and player power there is a lack of venues to direct players towards as they walk all over most things. This leaves options such as engaging in semi-irrelevant content like Incursion or Skirmish. While that is something, it can't carry the event and still makes clear system bottlenecks like with Ambuscade if it is the focus.
What would be nice though are the RoE objectives from TVR missions. Add some comparably more powerful NMs around the world like that just for VanaBout. The existing Peculiar Footprint RoE NMs would be too weak for this event.

Granting exemplar points in general is a fine rewards in lieu of more item rewards too. Personally, I prefer Exemplar Points as the reward for interacting with the world. Item rewards like Beitetsu are everywhere, and most materials you could provide are saturated or better earned elsewhere.

[Alhanelem]

Unless you have 7 people. Alliance content doesn't necessarily mean a full alliance, as the second option in your first quote suggests. If you have seven people, find five more. Alliance content *should* either necessitate or at least encourage the participation of all involved- That's not what happens in practice. The very minimum needed to achieve the goal participate and the rest leech. I'm not really sure how this is inclusive in any way other than "hey look more drops."

That aside....


Edit: We definitely don't have to continue any discussion that doesn't provide feedback for Vana'Bout. Let's keep it relevant since they are asking for feedback.I am providing feedback for Vanabout. I don't want to see any Alliance content as an objective for Vana'Bout, and I explained why. To add to that, alliance content is easier to participate in on some servers compared to others, so it's not a good fit for this event which is designed to be done by everyone across all servers big and small.
Also, you aren't a forum moderator, so please don't backseat mod. If they decide something isn't relevant they can/will delete it and I will have no problem with that. What is and isn't relevant is for them to decide.

And in general I don't think they want to use anything people really have to jump through hoops for to get at least some credit- that's why they chose Ambuscade, which can be entered solo or with a group, and included many trivial objectives and a few that require a bit more effort.

I'll make an exception for Omen since you can enter that solo and still do a lot, although it does require total RoV completion, so I'd probably still prefer contents that don't have a lot of requirements for the sake of newer players.

Other good options for VB because any number can participate: Reives, Campaign, Stuff involving the Escha areas, Geas Fete (or whatever its called), Domain Invasion; I'll add more to this later.

Content that requires a minimum number of participants greater than 1 is not ideal.

[Alhanelem]

Thank you for taking feedback, but also please take much of it with a grain of salt.

At any rate, the concept is good for the event. But the implementation leaves a bit to be desired. Due to the current structure of content and player power there is a lack of venues to direct players towards as they walk all over most things. This leaves options such as engaging in semi-irrelevant content like Incursion or Skirmish. While that is something, it can't carry the event and still makes clear system bottlenecks like with Ambuscade if it is the focus.
What would be nice though are the RoE objectives from TVR missions. Add some comparably more powerful NMs around the world like that just for VanaBout. The existing Peculiar Footprint RoE NMs would be too weak for this event.

Granting exemplar points in general is a fine rewards in lieu of more item rewards too. Personally, I prefer Exemplar Points as the reward for interacting with the world. Item rewards like Beitetsu are everywhere, and most materials you could provide are saturated or better earned elsewhere.
I don't think objectives like this should feature powerful NMs. This is an event that everyone across every server is meant to work towards, so they should avoid more demanding contents.

I agree that Exemplar points (and Job points) are acceptable as rewards, but for something that takes a month (?) , the current rewards are pretty small. There should be other rewards as well for people who may not need these things so much.

[Sp1cyryan]

I don't think objectives like this should feature powerful NMs. This is an event that everyone across every server is meant to work towards, so they should avoid more demanding contents.

I agree that Exemplar points (and Job points) are acceptable as rewards, but for something that takes a month (?) , the current rewards are pretty small. There should be other rewards as well for people who may not need these things so much.

Group NMs. You know like people have been doing in Abyssea, Voidwatch, Skirmish, Delve, SR, Incursion, Omen, Ambuscade, Odyssey, and Sortie for the last 15 years. Things in the field at a spawn point have less of a continuous bottleneck than the actual aforementioned content does. It is also more meaningful than doing completely irrelevant content like the original Skirmish designed for pre-iLvl. Not only can the server not handle a global Ambuscade event, but it's not engaging players outside of their normal routine.

[Dihlyte]

What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?
This has mostly been covered already, but summary:

-The choice in content is poor (we already do lots of Ambuscade.)
-The rewards are not good, except for 100 deeds and darkmatter.
-I like the idea of the community aiming for a similar goal.


How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?

The objective should not be ambuscade.
The difficulty is fine, but all objectives should encourage party efforts to encourage grouping up, but can be accomplished solo as well.
*

What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?

I would change the content to being open world.

"Kill 3 enemies in Konschtat Highlands."
or
"Defeat 3 enemies in Voidwatch"

FFXI has a lot of content, players do not want to do the things they already do, even more, but inefficiently.

I would also create more meaningful rewards.
-100 Deeds
-Dark Matter
(These should be kept.)

(Some suggestions)
-Escha Beads
-Potpourri
-Domain Points
-Bayld
-Mog Segments
-Gallimaufry
-Voidstones
-Traverser Stones
-Mweya Plasm
-Etched Memories
-NM Pop items (Gaes Fete, etc.)

(other rewards locked to "3 or more party member" type content.)

[Uroah]

Going to give you the only feedback you need. For anything you can defer to this.

To get people to do "anything";

The reward needs to be good. It's really that easy. The gold tier rewards are junk. If 100 deeds weren't in silver, the results would've been even worse than they're going to be.

[Velner]

Thank you for opening this thread for feedback on Vana'bout. I enjoy the idea of Vana'bout with the community working towards a common goal. However, I feel like the implementation might have been too restrictive for widespread participation.

My main critique of Vana'bout is that the objectives do not compliment the content which is being highlighted. In this round, we are encouraged to participate in Ambuscade, where the main goal is to clear the monsters with a group as quickly as possible to earn Hallmarks and Gallantry, get a new Key Item, and run the fight again. However, because I do not play any job that can singularly clear every objective, in order to also earn the Plaudits for Vana'bout, I have found myself running Ambuscade alone just to clear all the various daily objectives without any focus at all on actually completing the Ambuscade. The result is that I'm either participating in Ambuscade OR I'm participating in Vana'bout. . . I am rarely actually doing both.

To address this, future rounds should remove the daily objectives and instead replace them with repeatable objectives. This would allow each player to set objectives appropriate for their roll in the party and we can continually earn plaudits while still focusing primarily on the content itself.

Another solution would be to allow for the objectives to be cleared for everybody no matter who accomplished an objective i.e. if one player does a 500 Wind Damage attack, every player in the party would get credit for it.

If both of these changes were implemented, we could simply form a party for the content, primarily focus on that content, and still participate in Vana'bout. And as a side bonus, the community could rally and push to complete the Vana'bout goals as the event closes. As it stands now, we don't really have any ability to push for the goal because we can only get 100 plaudits per day.

Thank you for your time.

[Uroah]

If the only thing they take and go forward with is that individual ROE should be party wide objectives.

Sorry to ruin the secret but your entire playerbase is multiboxes. Those players are very unwilling to do the same individual objectives multiple times. As they found out on the 3rd day when 16 million plaudits was hysterical.

It's not good enough. But if that's the bare minimum it's a significant improvement. It deters congestion. it promotes teamwork. and fulfills the secret goal of just letting everyone take their 6 box accounts through. Wins all around.

[RichLester]

What do you like or dislike about the latest Vana'Bout event?
Gaining sparks for doing ambuscades was good to help speed that up before the week is out. It's the repeativity that's annoying & how long it takes to complete the daily ROEs. The Damage Taken Round ROE depends on what kinda job you're on & party setup. I never managed to complete it. It was set too high.

How do you feel about the objectives and their difficulty?
The objectives were ok for the daily ones but should be brought down to say 5 magic attacks & magic burst, instead of 10 and 1 instead of 3 for clear ambuscade/heal 300+ hp/don't die/a few others. Also, as others have said, it takes a long time to do it

What changes, if any, would you like for future iterations of Vana'Bout?
Quite a bit. As people have mentioned in this thread already, us old veterans of the game have moved on in terms of the game & life. We don't have time anymore & we have pretty much done The Voracious Resurgance missions now so that we are just leveling up now. The rewards don't help us, apart from the deeds & the kupon i-aby for those who still need some empyrean gear to get to +1 for +2/+3 in Sortie.
Next round should be Sortie with gallimaufry given away as ROE rewards, instead of sparks. Why job points weren't given at 300 plaudits, I don't know. 100 job points we can just find a party & get that within an hour or so. The round after can be Odyssey with capacity points as rewards for ROE.

[chief_bigman]

I agree with what Velodan and ManaKing have said. When I first heard about this event (in an announcement way back I think, before it was given a name) it gave me the impression that it would be some kind of semi-casual, large player count, highly social content encouraging players at varying stages of the game to group up and hang out with strangers. My expectations were tempered by what I know about the heavily-instanced, low man, static, endgame focused direction the game has headed in, but I still had a little bit of hope.

What we actually got was incredibly uninteresting and very much not what I play the game for. As others have said, I also find the idea of dailies in a game with a playerbase who is (mostly) relatively old to be an absolutely bizarre choice.

From Vana'Bout, to the rampant botting and RMT problems, to the many bizarre utterances* of Fujito himself, I must also agree that the developers seem to be incredibly out of touch with what the actual charm of FF11 is.

* some exerpts from the recent New Years greeting, for reference, as I don't feel like making a new thread just to whine about it:


Our other guiding concept this year has been that of creating an "archive" of the game, which are topics that fall outside of the game itself.

In addition, it is our goal to continue creating content outside of the game itself in order to keep up with the excitement generated by you adventurers the world over

We're also currently working on the Echoes of Vana'diel alliance raid content for FINAL FANTASY XIV.
Once the content is added to the game, we hope you'll enjoy this whole new look at Vana'diel as well!
Ugh.

[Alhanelem]

While I do like the raid concept for Dawntrail as it could pique curioisty in FFXIV players who never tried XI, those other two bits definitely have me concerned, it makes it sound like they're planning the plug-pulling.

[JKap_Goat]

I agree, it sounds like they are pulling the plug and it makes me sad, I love vanadiel and I joined FFXI three years ago coming from XIV, I wish they just remake the game

ffxiv is such a boring game and I hope the next FF MMO doesn't have Yoshi P running the game

[Teraniku]

As for Vana'Bout how about making different events rotate through, since objectives are Records of Eminence based, why not try the format with Odyssey / BCNMs etc, at least rotating the event through different areas of the game will help it from getting stale and keep players engaged depending on the objectives / events.

[ManaKing]

Vana'Bout would increase in popularity tremendously if it unlocked a 2nd set of Nyame. ^,~

[chief_bigman]

I'd like to believe they're trying to attract new players to the game with those FF14 raids, but if they are, man is their effort an embarrassment. Maybe all of the following can be excused by "old codebase 2hard to work with sorry" but I can't know for sure for myself so bugger it, here comes the rant:

1. The free trial is still garbage, compared to SE's other two currently running MMOs. Only 14 days and only the base game? Both FF14 and DQ10 have infinite free trials with almost full access to the basegame and first expac of each.
2. The registration/install process.
3. A fairly poor tutorial, my standard for judging this is my recent experiences with DQ10 which has a lot of information easily accessed ingame AND a huge manual of sorts on the official website. The tutorial RoE objectives are a good start.
4. A new player generally won't even make it through the intro cutscene after making their character before seeing RMT yells in the chat, which their attention is of course directed to because that's also where the story dialogue shows up. Also, they'll quickly be exposed to all the bots running around right outside town. This isn't the first impression a game so important to SE's legacy should have on new players. Disgraceful.

I was over all this a few months ago but then I tried the DQ10 free trial and got mad again after seeing just how much better a treatment that game seems to get than FF11 does. They could be treating this game so much better, and I have to wonder why they aren't.

Going forward, the bare minimum I'm hoping for is that they can at least somehow archive the actual game so that I can chill in the world in the future even if they take the servers offline, like how DQ10 has an offline version. I don't think we've heard anything about that so far, just talk of improving the server hardware.

[Rinuko]

Seeing I was out of town for holidays when it was active my feedback is, it was bit short so I never got to take part in it.

[Alhanelem]

DQ10I thought DQ10 was turned single player?

[chief_bigman]

Nah, the online version is still going in addition to an offline version being available. It's even getting a new expac this March, I believe.

cries in FFXI

[RichLester]

The main question now is will SE listen to our concerns, just in time for Round 2? I hope they do. Also, I don't know why couldn't get the 10,000 exemplar points for some reason, even though Round 1 is now over. Guessing I can get them next week on update.

[Dragoy]

Also, I don't know why couldn't get the 10,000 exemplar points for some reason, even though Round 1 is now over. Guessing I can get them next week on update.

Yeah I suspect that will be possible after the version update, though they do word it in-game like you should use your points /during/ the event... and the UI options certainly seem unfinished.

Edit:

Hrm. Looks like it is indeed unintended that the option is visible at all [1], but I'm unsure if it was ever intended to be there. They don't seem to mention it on the Vana'Bout website either.

1. Current Known Issue (Jan. 4, 5)

[Alhanelem]

Nah, the online version is still going in addition to an offline version being available. It's even getting a new expac this March, I believe.

cries in FFXI
Has it gone to other platforms? Didn't it originally launch on the Wii?

[Alhanelem]

Yeah I suspect that will be possible after the version update, though they do word it in-game like you should use your points /during/ the event... and the UI options certainly seem unfinished.

Edit:

Hrm. Looks like it is indeed unintended that the option is visible at all [1], but I'm unsure if it was ever intended to be there. They don't seem to mention it on the Vana'Bout website either.

1. Current Known Issue (Jan. 4, 5)
I reported this bug, although it was EXP, not exemplar points, listed in the menu. They always spell out Exemplar points to avoid confusion with EXP.

That menu is apparently not supposed to be there at all. Though it may have been intended to be some sort of participation prize if you didn't get enough plaudits.

[Sirmarki]

I reported this bug, although it was EXP, not exemplar points.

Just out of curiosity, why would you choose EXP?

[Alhanelem]

Just out of curiosity, why would you choose EXP?
There was no choice. It was the only thing listed. And it didn't actually work either.

This is not the menu where you choose Exemplar Points or Job points for the Gold tier. This had no tier at all, no plaudits required, and EXP as the only reward. Based on the known issue listed, the menu option isn't supposed to be there at all.

For clarity: The Exemplar Points are one of the Personal Rewards, earned for Plaudits.

The Overall Reward(s) is the bonus campaign among the periodic set of campaigns. But in-game, there is a "check overall rewards" command, which brings up an option to claim 10,000 EXP (that's Experience Points, not Exemplar Points). It does not work, but apparently this option isn't even supposed to be there. It seems there was to be a claimable reward for the overall rewards instead of the campaign but they didn't end up doing that.

[chief_bigman]

Has it gone to other platforms? Didn't it originally launch on the Wii?

I think it came out on PC at the same time? That's the version I play. And I believe it's on the Switch and PS5. I'm pretty sure it even had a 3DS version.

[Dragoy]

I reported this bug, although it was EXP, not exemplar points, listed in the menu. They always spell out Exemplar points to avoid confusion with EXP.

It was only experience points for me at first too, but after a while (of everyone doing the thing more?), examapopos appeared to my list as well.

From that I was guessing if you did things enough, more stuff will appear, but yeah, not sure now what their intentions with it were.

[Alhanelem]

It was only experience points for me at first too, but after a while (of everyone doing the thing more?), examapopos appeared to my list as well.

From that I was guessing if you did things enough, more stuff will appear, but yeah, not sure now what their intentions with it were.
Well, now, a few days later, exemplar points is appearing as an option, even though the event was already over when that option wasn't visible. Regardless, neither selection works, because again, this section of the menu is a bug and the "Check overall rewards" option isn't even supposed to be there, because there are no "overall rewards" other than the bonus campaign, which is on the schedule.

This option isn't supposed to exist, and no selections beneath this selection on the menu actually function:
https://i.imgur.com/qbLNJIJ.png
If you try to select anything here, it will act as if it's going to actually grant you a reward (and deny you access to others), but nothing actually happens.
https://i.imgur.com/t2y7c8y.png
The exemplar points option was not there when I went to report the bug. Regardless, neither selection actually does anything. And the known issue indicates the "check overall rewards" selection and everything contained within is not supposed to be visible to the player (at least, not currently):


We have confirmed the following issue. We are currently investigating and ask for your patience as we work to resolve the issue.

[Confirmed Issue]
- The option to "Check overall rewards" is displayed when speaking to the Coordinator Moogle NPC in Mhaura for the Vana'bout event.Read: that menu option being displayed is the "issue." Honestly, this entire NPC dialog is pretty bugged. Some of the messages for some of the actual rewards that we ARE supposed to be able to get are not displayed correctly either.

[BobbinT]

came back on current return campaign, only to realize these Vana'bout about few days later. Decided to fully focus on Ambu. Thankfully, V2VD even soloable on my current ambu+2 gears. Sadly only got like 3-4 days before current Vana'bout expired. Unfortunately at the time, can't even solo V1VE myself, have to join party just for the sake of it.
But honestly, no complain so far other than that realizing this a bit too late & perhaps a bit overwhelmed due to FF11 itself already got so much things on my 2-do list. Well... there is that RoE global on total gallantry & especially hallmarks required being tad too much since the normal total hallmark from npc were way smaller, but i guess that's due to me only having small window time frame to do them.
Also, just finally got the time to log on forum due to how hectic my experience in FF11 this time, suddenly got so much to do. Guess this would be one of rare moments where I got truly overwhelmed. ^^;

[Alhanelem]

Wondering when round 2 will begin and what if any changes will be made? Guessing that it will start after the current campaigns conclude?

[Haldarn]

Yeah, I was kinda expecting Vana'bout to repeat with a different set of objectives each month so that the following month we'd get that campaign bonus.

Slightly concerned that there was no mention of it in the New Year letter. Hope they haven't just ditched the concept because it didn't have the impact they intended.

[RichLester]

I was expecting something to be mentioned in this month's updates forum posting but nothing. Most likely people will check the site to see what rewards there will be in round 2 & if the prizes are the same again. then forget it. No point. Too much effort for hardly anything so work on other things. As others have said before & myself, we don't have time for this game anymore. Couple of hours every now & then, an hour per day to do daily stuff & that's if I want to.

[Alhanelem]

vana bout 2 is coming in may and there will be varying/rotating objectives in different contents instead of just one kind of content

[RichLester]

Yep, saw the notes for this month's update on the main site. I'm hoping the overall rewards are much better than last time. Dunno how changing the objectives daily will work, though. I think it may be a double-edged sword as one day you can do most objectives but the next day, you can do hardly any & I expect Round 2 won't last long like last time, I bet.

[Alhanelem]

Yep, saw the notes for this month's update on the main site. I'm hoping the overall rewards are much better than last time. Dunno how changing the objectives daily will work, though. I think it may be a double-edged sword as one day you can do most objectives but the next day, you can do hardly any & I expect Round 2 won't last long like last time, I bet.
Literally anything is better than spamming the bejeezus out of Ambuscade.

[VanaFan82]

I hope that people who are start on Day 3 or Day 5 vs Day 1 are not automatically excluded from the highest tier of prizes.

[ManaKing]

Half the dailies being easy ambuscade and half not being related at all is a great change.

I have cleared the first 2 days' objectives fully and while the battlefields are tricky because of the level restrications, i cleared them with a party of 2 so they are definitely not extremely hard. The only objective I had trouble with was Incursion on day 1 because it requires 3 people and there was very little time for NA users to get it done before JP midnight. A small alliance let me join them or else I would not have been able to accomplish the objective, regardless of my desire to do so.

You could add an extra bonus to vanabout to allow entry into battlefields and content that normally require 3 people to have no requirements. I have been meaning to do Incursion and Peach Power recently but my free time doesn't doesn't line up with most of the people I play with. Dynamis D and Delve are always pain points for people.

Don't forget to keep making the rewards better every round. Stagnation is what we're really all fighting against. See Rapsodies for reference.

[Zenion]

I have to say, some of these objectives have been... questionable. Heroes' Conquest and now Mercenary Camp, those are a lot to ask players to pull off with less than 24 hours to plan and organize.

Worse, though, is that the feedback asking for some kind of catch-up mechanic seems to have been heard, but misinterpreted or twisted into something that works in almost the opposite way. If failing to complete the objectives on day 1 means not seeing new objectives on day 2, that's just missing out on a day with extra steps.

What I, personally, think would make for an overall more enjoyable experience would be take this round's 150 plaudits per day, call that the target number, and offer enough additional objectives to earn 225 plaudits per day next time - with a weekly cap of 1050 plaudits earned from daily objectives.

This will give players a little more room to skip seemingly impossible tasks without being left behind, and it will give those players with little time to log in during the week the option to, say, do a quick Ambuscade run for a few plaudits each day, then do everything on the menu Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Being given a to-do list with the implication that everything needs to be done every day just makes it feel like work. I'm finding this Vana'bout stressful because having that title on the line means I can't afford to miss even a single plaudit, no matter how impossible a task I'm set. It's a neat idea but it's just too much. Having something like a title or a silver voucher reward for reaching the weekly plaudit cap and completing more objectives would help encourage player to try their best and excel with a bit less pressure.

[BobbinT]

My personal latest complaint is the Lost Chocobos, made me realize that timer on mount time would be great if it doesn't exist or at least prolonged. The other day was just getting request to deliver from Windurst to Sandoria, totally forgotten about mount timer which I rarely deal with since WotG days, only to had it ran out on me right after entering South Ronfaure, while the other LS mate were so lucky only need to deliver his from Bastok to Jeuno, which is only half amount of distance with mine. And worse, while unconfirmed due to lack of infos on various wiki, one of discord sources says it's only weekly reset.

Thankfully I can finally repeat this right on weekly Sunday reset, & jumping on towns to find Jeuno destination & finally got mine to deliver from Sandy instead.

That said, if not for various wiki guides on proper map & their ledges markings here & there, this would be tremendously time waster. This might be fine 2 decades ago where the game still in its infancy, but having to waste time on current situations with these pointless blockages. Not to mention that when one starting this, needs to fully concentrate the paths needing to thread & can't even had time to take emergency break, whether toilet or real-life stuff, which so happens to be my situation on my 1st failed attempt having both happening same time.

In short, please get rid of mount timer, or... if still technical limitation, at least prolong mount timer.

[BobbinT]

I have to say, some of these objectives have been... questionable. Heroes' Conquest and now Mercenary Camp, those are a lot to ask players to pull off with less than 24 hours to plan and organize.

Worse, though, is that the feedback asking for some kind of catch-up mechanic seems to have been heard, but misinterpreted or twisted into something that works in almost the opposite way. If failing to complete the objectives on day 1 means not seeing new objectives on day 2, that's just missing out on a day with extra steps.

What I, personally, think would make for an overall more enjoyable experience would be take this round's 150 plaudits per day, call that the target number, and offer enough additional objectives to earn 225 plaudits per day next time - with a weekly cap of 1050 plaudits earned from daily objectives.

This will give players a little more room to skip seemingly impossible tasks without being left behind, and it will give those players with little time to log in during the week the option to, say, do a quick Ambuscade run for a few plaudits each day, then do everything on the menu Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Being given a to-do list with the implication that everything needs to be done every day just makes it feel like work. I'm finding this Vana'bout stressful because having that title on the line means I can't afford to miss even a single plaudit, no matter how impossible a task I'm set. It's a neat idea but it's just too much. Having something like a title or a silver voucher reward for reaching the weekly plaudit cap and completing more objectives would help encourage player to try their best and excel with a bit less pressure.

From my experience on other mmo, FF14 in this regard, I found that camping on NM zone entrance & waiting for passerby parties to ask to join theirs still very useful on my end, in which how I got mine done rather than staying in town shouting for hours & not to mention not everyone having same objectives or even care to do it, which is how I discover these situations.

Regardless, can just hope some of your points could be considered by devs.

Also, for my personal addition notes: Might be best to make the NM objectives to be soloable entries rather than minimum of 3 player parties, since it is already very easy to solo even without trusts with current gearing, at least for the non level capped limit.

[Zenion]

I have to say, the Emptiness objective does not feel good. Win in one of four level-capped battlefields; okay, that's fair. You have 24 hours to make it happen; little bit of pressure there. You can only attempt each battlefield once every seven days, that is not good news. Repeat this objective every four days; yeah, no, that's just unfair and unnecessary.

Emptiness could be a fair and reasonable weekly objective, but it's asking too much on a four-day rotation.

Heroes' Combat and Mercenary Camp, those were a vicious challenge but they at least had the benefit of letting players try to form strategies and find out what works and what doesn't. I don't like that they're daily objectives but they're not strictly unfair, but Emptiness... it crosses that line. The mechanic where incomplete objectives can carry over to the next day makes it doubly punishing: if you find yourself unable to even attempt it, then not only can you not clear that objective, but you can miss whatever objective would be there the next day, effectively automatically failing that too. That turned out to be less of a catch-up effect and more like a fall-behind one.

If level-capped fights are going to be included in the Vana'bout Round 3 lineup, it might be nice to see them added as a set of weekly objectives, rather than rotating daily ones. Let players take some time to figure out how to handle them, space them out so there's no conflict with content time gates, and again, so importantly, have something that people who can't play for several hours every day can tackle on their weekend.

[Alhanelem]

TBH that 7 day limitation should be abolished, no one cares about these battlefields anymore, it's not going to like disrupt the economy or anything if players are allowed to do them more often.

[kylani]

I just want to say how much I have enjoyed this round of Vanabout. I agree with the questions raised about weekly resets, but despite a few issues, I have thoroughly enjoyed checking out the menu each day and doing the quests. It has been very nostalgic, and I discovered fan fest quests I didn’t know existed. Thanks SE!

[RichLester]

Well, from what I find from Vana'bout Round 2, I do wonder if it's worth doing. We still only get one prize from each tier, not the whole lot & the only thing that interests me is the 100 deeds & the Kupon i-aby for if I need any empy gear base +1/+2 upgrading to lvl 109. 15k exempler points is fine for low level master levels but nowhere near for master level 15 onwards. Also, no sign of gallimaufry to go towards our prime weapons. Several little ROEs to do in a short space of time I don't like. None of the gold tier prizes peaks my interests. I'll stop after I got my 100 deeds, I think. If I need sparks then I might but then again, there is gain experience ROE for that when it pops up.

[Alhanelem]

This is definitely better than the first iteration (and by a wide margin) but the pressure to complete everything is high, despite an attempt to add flexibility to the system (which actually fails to do so as players have found).

[Zenion]

This one was actually not terrible in terms of making you do everything, really. Sets of objectives on the 16th through 29th, that's 14 days, 150 plaudits a day and 460 for static objectives gives you a potential 2560 out of 1300 required; you could plausibly hit 680 just by doing the significantly toned-down Ambuscade dailies and collecting a good month's worth of gallantry. If you're just trying to hit the reward tiers, it's a pretty chill event, which is a huge improvement.

But that title for the top 10, that put breaking pressure on. That's where now you feel like you absolutely have to do it all, which isn't cool.

Placing a title at, say, 2200 plaudits would have felt good. A little bit of a margin to miss targets, instead of failing one and being out of the game, but it would still be a target for high performers only.

I'm not going to lie though; I actually unsubscribed in December, largely over Vana'bout round 1 (and a little bit of Peach Power, I'm still bitter about that.) This time, I stopped in to give Vana'bout round 2 a try during the free period, and actually enjoyed myself enough to re-subscribe. For all I focus on what wasn't great about this attempt, it was really a huge step in the right direction. Round 3 could still be better, but it won't have to be making up for round 2.

The reward pool could use a little re-balancing next time though. A mulcibar's scoria is, like, two to three hours of dedicated work, an umbral marrow is fifteen to thirty minutes depending on drops, and then two stacks of alexandrite is, what, ten minutes on a sensible Ambuscade month? It's a little like putting coffers of swart and murky detritus both on the same tier of Bonanza - these items are not remotely equivalent, picking between them isn't a choice.

[Alhanelem]

given the relative shortness of the event id really like to see it happen more frequently. This would also facilitate more gradual tweaking and refining. I definitely think the event is closer to achieving its goals this time around and I do want to see more of it.

[Rinuko]

Make it every 3-6 months.

[Zenion]

Yeah, 3 - 6 months sounds about right. The Cornelia stretch goal makes 6 months sound like kind of the intended "optimal" timing, but it would be neat to see trusts on 6 month cycles and something else in between. Like... I dunno, "Cornelia for 2/4/6 months", "Abyssea trophies added to next 1/2/3 login campaigns", "Matsui-P for 2/4/6 months", and... man I can't even think of a good fourth one.

Six months does potentially put them at May (anniversary) and November (11th month) though, which is pretty big symbolically for FFXI.

[Rinuko]

Yeah, 3 - 6 months sounds about right. The Cornelia stretch goal makes 6 months sound like kind of the intended "optimal" timing, but it would be neat to see trusts on 6 month cycles and something else in between. Like... I dunno, "Cornelia for 2/4/6 months", "Abyssea trophies added to next 1/2/3 login campaigns", "Matsui-P for 2/4/6 months", and... man I can't even think of a good fourth one.

Six months does potentially put them at May (anniversary) and November (11th month) though, which is pretty big symbolically for FFXI.

Indeed, I'd be fine with that for the anniversary and November events. Since we usually get return to the game campaigns around these months too.

[Aslani]

I posted my opinion about how unfair this round of Vana'Bout has been for those seeking the title here:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/61738-Vana-Bout-Round-2-Rollout-Unfair-to-Those-Seeking-Title

To recap, basically you need a perfect score to be in the "top ten rank", so missing even one daily objective completely disqualifies you. I point out in the linked thread more details, but this was incredibly unfair to those who were impacted by the bug, and was also disproportionally unfair to American players, giving Japanese and European players a huge advantage. I saw this feedback thread as hope that SE cared about their English-speaking playerbase, but it seems that was naive.

------

Now that Vana'Bout is over, the results for the title ranking are even more unfair than I previously considered. Speaking for Bahamut, there are exactly 10 "rank 1" winners, and the second-highest score (highest 'non-perfect') is at rank 11. Here's the thing, though... several of the 10 winners are all the same person. So, one person on the server dragged his alternative accounts along with him while he did the objectives, and basically stole the title from other players who actually deserved it. Fewer than 10 players on Bahamut got the title! This is incredibly unfair to the hard working players who actually deserved it, and were denied an opportunity due to one jerk's alternate accounts getting carried through.

Again, SE should award this title to players who have achieved some high but reasonable threshold of plaudits, or at the very least, expand it to more than just 10 "players" (really fewer than 10 on Bahamut at least). Perhaps award it to the 10 highest scores, not counting ties?

I'm not just suggesting this as feedback for a 'round 3', I'm asking SE to fix this now for the players that worked hard during round 2. Please include a fix in your next update.

[Alhanelem]

I'm not just suggesting this as feedback for a 'round 3', I'm asking SE to fix this now for the players that worked hard during round 2. Please include a fix in your next update.

The only realistic immediate fix is "give the title to everybody" or just "remove it and the competitive facet unless and until there's something you can actually compete in"

[Zenion]

The only realistic immediate fix is "give the title to everybody" or just "remove it and the competitive facet unless and until there's something you can actually compete in"

Not necessarily true, the quick and dirty fix would be to change how the ranking works so instead of "1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 5, 5, 8, 9, 9, 11" it would be "1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5." It dilutes the title a little, but there is simply no good way to do "top 10" anyway - either there's an 11-way tie and more are handed out than expected, or ten random people out of a pool of however many at the top score get it, making it a game of... I don't know, "who has the lowest character ID number" or something, since it sorted consistently but not alphabetically.

But yeah, this one is... I really hope the titles for the top 10 thing goes back to the drawing board, it had good intentions but the implementation was a bit of a dumpster fire.

[Alhanelem]

Not necessarily true, the quick and dirty fix would be to change how the ranking works so instead of "1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 5, 5, 8, 9, 9, 11" it would be "1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5." It dilutes the title a little, but there is simply no good way to do "top 10" anyway - either there's an 11-way tie and more are handed out than expected, or ten random people out of a pool of however many at the top score get it, making it a game of... I don't know, "who has the lowest character ID number" or something, since it sorted consistently but not alphabetically.

But yeah, this one is... I really hope the titles for the top 10 thing goes back to the drawing board, it had good intentions but the implementation was a bit of a dumpster fire.
As I wrote earlier in the thread, the main issue is just they wanted to throw in a little friendly competition.... but there is no way for it to actually be an interesting competition because its literally impossible to catch up on or overtake someone who's ahead of you. If there's no way to challenge someone's dominance, there is no competition.

[Gwydion]

I posted my opinion about how unfair this round of Vana'Bout has been for those seeking the title here:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/61738-Vana-Bout-Round-2-Rollout-Unfair-to-Those-Seeking-Title

To recap, basically you need a perfect score to be in the "top ten rank", so missing even one daily objective completely disqualifies you. I point out in the linked thread more details, but this was incredibly unfair to those who were impacted by the bug, and was also disproportionally unfair to American players, giving Japanese and European players a huge advantage. I saw this feedback thread as hope that SE cared about their English-speaking playerbase, but it seems that was naive.

------

Now that Vana'Bout is over, the results for the title ranking are even more unfair than I previously considered. Speaking for Bahamut, there are exactly 10 "rank 1" winners, and the second-highest score (highest 'non-perfect') is at rank 11. Here's the thing, though... several of the 10 winners are all the same person. So, one person on the server dragged his alternative accounts along with him while he did the objectives, and basically stole the title from other players who actually deserved it. Fewer than 10 players on Bahamut got the title! This is incredibly unfair to the hard working players who actually deserved it, and were denied an opportunity due to one jerk's alternate accounts getting carried through.

Again, SE should award this title to players who have achieved some high but reasonable threshold of plaudits, or at the very least, expand it to more than just 10 "players" (really fewer than 10 on Bahamut at least). Perhaps award it to the 10 highest scores, not counting ties?

I'm not just suggesting this as feedback for a 'round 3', I'm asking SE to fix this now for the players that worked hard during round 2. Please include a fix in your next update.

I hate to break it to you, but this is how you "win" in an MMO. You simply have to have more time than the next person. But I do agree with you, it could made more fair.

[Alhanelem]

I hate to break it to you, but this is how you "win" in an MMO. You simply have to have more time than the next person. But I do agree with you, it could made more fair.
The problem is, as I said it isn't even a competition. This is not about putting in more hours than the next guy, all you have to do is get all the paludits for each day. If you miss even one plaudit, you lose- There's no way to get it once you miss it, no way to overtake someone else if they are ahead of you unless they don't do something the nexty day. So there is nothing to make it interesting.

[Dragoy]

Thank you for tweaking Vana'bout!

- In general the changes seem good, though the battlefields could be difficult or impossible for some to tackle (mostly requiring a party of three or more).

- The rewards could definitely use some more tweaking, as others have already mentioned.

- One thing that caught my attention in particular, was the placement of the Vana'Bout objective category [1]. Me and many others have gotten very used to opening the Quests menu, then pressing up once, and then confirm to enter the Objective List. I would recommend placing the Vana'Bout menu back somewhere under the Objective List menu. The current placement seems rather odd, especially since the menu is disabled a lot of the time.

- The ranking system seems something that should be looked into as well, as it does not seem to be very fair at this time.

- There seems to be some inconsistency on the spelling of Vana'bout. I suppose it's Vana'Bout in most places, but there are some where it is capitalised as Vana'diel is: Vana'bout (Coordinator Moogle dialogue for example).

- There were/are some misspelled objective titles (Heroes' Combaat, and I believe at least one other, but I can't find a note of it nor remember what it was), and at least one that had text overlapping other text in its description (Incursion (VDB)).

I think that's all I can think of for now.

Thank you!

1. Vana'Bout Category Placement Feedback

[kaffy]

"The Great Odyssey Campaign" is by far the least impressive monthly campaign ever created, and a poor reward for Vana'Bout. The amount of bonus segments in particular is paltry when you compare it to other campaigns like Omen job cards where your return is doubled or tripled. 10% is just too low.

[Armarc]

I was excited about the campaign since Segment farming is old and boring content. But 10% is not enough to bring me back into Odyssey. What a miss.

[Alhanelem]

Okay would you rather they just don't have campaigns at all?

I'm not going to say it's an amazing campaign because it isn't, but you could sound a little less ungrateful lol....

[Zenion]

Odyssey campaign: Good, we like to see this.

Odyssey campaign in its current form: A little underwhelming, apparently, not enough to incentivize players to do Odyssey if they weren't already.

Conclusion: Keep "The Great Odyssey Campaign" for normal monthly rotations where a little of anything is nice, but consider developing the "PLUS" version to use if it's to be offered as a special reward in the future?

(That would help motivate people to do Vana'bout more, too; offer the regular campaign at 100% of plaudit goal, and the improved version at 150%?)

[Alhanelem]

Odyssey campaign: Good, we like to see this.

Odyssey campaign in its current form: A little underwhelming, apparently, not enough to incentivize players to do Odyssey if they weren't already.

Conclusion: Keep "The Great Odyssey Campaign" for normal monthly rotations where a little of anything is nice, but consider developing the "PLUS" version to use if it's to be offered as a special reward in the future?

(That would help motivate people to do Vana'bout more, too; offer the regular campaign at 100% of plaudit goal, and the improved version at 150%?)
That's more like it :)

[RichLester]

What they also should've done for that new campaign is make the time limit 1 hour, instead of 30mins. That would've been worth it, then.

[Dragoy]

~ Vana'bout Feedback (2025-02) ~

This time around I completed only about 2 day's worth of objectives, in part due to how the event still works, and in part due to unrelated matters.

I really do want to like the event as a whole, but it's just not quite there yet.

Hopefully we will see a lot of improvements with the next round!


~ Objectives ~

The Good

The only good thing I can really say about these, are the changes made since the last round.

There were some new objectives added too, which is nice!


The "Emptiness" objective was changed to a one-time objective.
The requirements for the following objectives were reduced:



I'm on a Boat (VB)
Obtain Gallantry (VB)
Obtain Hallmarks (VB)


The number of daily objectives was reduced.
The amount of plaudits needed to receive the personal rewards were reduced.


The Bad


Vana'Bout starts at an odd time, with 7(?) hours of a day left for a full set of objectives.
Vana'bout ends at an odd time, with 7(?) hours of a day missing for a full set of objectives.
The objective list menu item placement is not user-friendly, disturbing muscle memory every time the event comes and goes.
Daily objectives remain when not completed, meaning players are stuck with objectives they could not complete, and likely will not be able to complete during the next day either. This makes them not only lose on total points available, but it will also be difficult, if not impossible to synchronise with other players to do the same objectives at the same time.
There is no way to catch up if a single daily objective was not completed.
The battlefields that may or may not require three (3) characters to even enter /can/ be fun, but they don't fit into a daily schedule in my opinion. Furthermore, they require spending either log-in points or Beastmen's seals, which have better uses.
"Weekly Routine" and "Emptiness", though one-time objectives, can still be a bother due to the time limit on the quests required.
The requirements for following objectives are (still) too high:



Obtain Gallantry (VB)
Obtain Hallmarks (VB)




The Ugly


The first set of objectives included the Monster Rearing objective, which I am sure many were unable to complete due to the time Vana'Bout starts.



This kind of objectives would not be an issue if the Vana'bout round started when the day changes (Earth time).




What Do?

Ideas towards how things could possibly be changed.


Start and end the Vana'Bout round when the day changes (Earth time).
Move the event related Records of Eminence menu item into 'Objective List', away from the Quests window.
If we really need to include them, perhaps change all the objectives related to battlefields that require at least 3 members, log-in points items, or Beastmen's seals into one-time objectives.
Replace daily objectives on the next day, even if they were not completed.
Add the new objectives when the day changes, while keeping the incomplete ones available as well, resulting in a kind of a back-log of objectives that can be completed when it is more convenient to the player. This would also give players a way to catch up.
Either don't include objectives that require completion of quests that can be attempted only once per week, or adjust the quests so that they can be attempted more often (why are there time restrictions like these still around at all, one doth pondereth).
Lower the requirements for following objectives (more):



Obtain Gallantry (VB)
Obtain Hallmarks (VB)





~ Personal Rewards ~

In general, the personal rewards seem very underwhelming, and/or just very weird.

For some of them "honourable" mentions will follow.

The "O.K. I Maybe Guess" Good

Bronze Tier


Kupon I-Aby



Would be nice if this was more than 3. Say, 11 maybe? That might make it a bit over-the-top for players who have multiple characters... but are we taking that into consideration in anything else, really...
Someawhats surprised this is not Gold tier (good that it is not!).




Silver Tier


100 Deeds of Heroism



Actually pretty good for those chasing Monberaux.
Someawhats surprised this is not Gold tier (good that it is not!).




Gold Tier


Moogle Memorandum



Good especially for those wanting to try Odyssey Gaol solo or with a friend or few at least a second time.


3 x Old Case +1



Perhaps this could be like, 11 x Old Case +1 instead, but compared to everything else, I suppose it is okay. Of course +2 would be much more better appreciated!




The Confusing Bad

Silver Tier


1 x 100 Byne Bill / L. Jadeshell / M. Silverpiece



Were these suppose to be 11 x or so? Just one of these can often be obtained in less than 5 minutes in Dynamis. These seem really out of place here.




Gold Tier


198 x Alexandrite



Was this supposed to be 1980? This seems even more out of place than the Dynamis 100-coins on the Silver tier.




The "Why Is This a Thing" Ugly


I do not know for certain, but I dare to assume a little that the title reward is still given only to the 10 first ranked characters.



One player can effectively push everyone else outside the realm of title-having by using multiple characters, and even if there weren't so many players nowadays playing more than one character (at the same time or otherwise), and every one of them were real players, this just seems wrong. I can not see a good reason for it to remain implemented like this.




What Do?


Bestow the title reward to everyone who reach Gold tier.



The title is pretty much the only thing I am interested in what comes to the rewards at this time. Last time I was pushed down to 11th in the ranking at the end, and I really did hope I'd get it this time, but it just was not meant to be. ^^


Some of the rewards seem very out of place, and/or come in a strange quantity considering the effort they are normally obtained. Overall the rewards seem to be in need of a lot more thought.



~ Overall Rewards ~


The Exemplar Points Bonus Campaign will probably be a good to have, though I am unsure why it needs to have that 500,000 points limit.
Unsure if the 6 more days on the monthly campaigns will be noticeable, but I suppose it is something.
I never really used the Matsui-P alter ego (I'm sorry!), so I don't really have anything to say on that one.


The personal overall rewards for me currently advertise '10000 exemplar points' and '10000 EXP.' (which I can not receive as the menu simply returns back where it was), and I kind of feel like the 10000 experience points does not compare very well to 10000 exemplar points, but since the menu appears to be broken, I can not really tell what it is supposed to even award us at this time.

Now if it was like last time, 21100 job points, that would be a little bit more like it, though of course that was a text error only, which was present during the previous round (proably still is, but can not confirm... and it probably was the Gold tier Job Points reward that had and/or has that issue).


https://i.imgur.com/dB6wnu9.png

~ See Also ~

These are related stand-alone threads from ages past, or not so past.


Vana'Bout Category Placement Feedback
Vana'Bout Round 2 Rollout Unfair to Those Seeking Title
Vana'bout Gold Tier Rewards
Why is it necessary to punish players for missing Vana'bout objectives?
Vana'bout: "I'm on a boat"
Thank you for Ballista in Vana'Bout
Why I'm choosing to Scan'a'Trout instead of doing Vana'Doubt.


I do believe that is, as they say, that... for now.

Thank you!

[BobbinT]

Personally agreed with rearing, albeit glad on my end already having access to it being the quickest VBD to tag clear for. The process unlocking that still quite long, especially furrows ranking if players too new for finding out the "cheat" way to fast rank it, which personally took the long way & finding out a bit too late back then.


As for 1-time Ambus, unfortunately v1 this month didn't make it easier for gallantry farms, my latency's just way too worse to attempt /heal to avoid Odin's ohkos. & yes, unfortunately Odin even pops on v1ve as well. Doing v2 are even worse since near-worthless amount of gallantries to get even on d+.


Btw, i picked exemplar on gold tier, is that why I didn't see another exemplar point reward after current VB ends? only saw the xps.

[Dragoy]

Personally agreed with rearing, albeit glad on my end already having access to it being the quickest VBD to tag clear for. The process unlocking that still quite long, especially furrows ranking if players too new for finding out the "cheat" way to fast rank it, which personally took the long way & finding out a bit too late back then.

Yeah, unlocking it in the first place is quite the adventure... but the fact they had it as the first day objective, which is not even a half a day long, means that many would have already interacted with their critters before the event starts, and as such, be unable to complete it just because of that.

Not very nice, I think.


As for 1-time Ambus, unfortunately v1 this month didn't make it easier for gallantry farms, my latency's just way too worse to attempt /heal to avoid Odin's ohkos. & yes, unfortunately Odin even pops on v1ve as well. Doing v2 are even worse since near-worthless amount of gallantries to get even on d+.

Yep.


Btw, i picked exemplar on gold tier, is that why I didn't see another exemplar point reward after current VB ends? only saw the xps.

When you checked the overall rewards, did you have a job set that is able to obtain exemplar points at the time?

[BobbinT]

When you checked the overall rewards, did you have a job set that is able to obtain exemplar points at the time?


I guess it finally does. I did checked few days ago, about a day after VB ends, but there was only exp option on it, which I didn't take since all my jobs already capped level. Unfortunately I forgot taking screenshot at the time. Another thing is that I changed job on Mhaura at the time to mastered ones before checking with moogle, it might be another cause though can't really confirm, today I was just curiously changing job before coming to Mhaura, hence that might trigger perhaps...


https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/792442281893822474/1347142562422456383/Bobbinthrdbare_2025.03.06_163939.png?ex=67cabfc7&is=67c96e47&hm=dd27d31e4d7aae1d9aba82206e3974c4d7d36a24c1ef84712261da91d8c87f66&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=681&height=510




There's another another issue, albeit not that important on my end: have registered my name to ranking, albeit around midway of VB. Moogle did say the change would take some time to register. Unfortunately in the end it didn't register at all, despite mine should've met midway. Oh well... ^^;


https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/792442281893822474/1347143972727947364/Bobbinthrdbare_2025.03.06_164514.png?ex=67cac117&is=67c96f97&hm=3dec972d2bad9f059dacc1264e45de6b1b3ce6d4bc07118cc31362ee041bb5a8&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=681&height=510https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/792442281893822474/1347143972379824168/Bobbinthrdbare_2025.03.06_164530.png?ex=67cac117&is=67c96f97&hm=5ac39979801a8fc768c2f7a322151e6549ab977c68ffaae58ea5acfb3396b13a&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=681&height=510

[Dragoy]

There's another another issue, albeit not that important on my end: have registered my name to ranking, albeit around midway of VB. Moogle did say the change would take some time to register. Unfortunately in the end it didn't register at all, despite mine should've met midway. Oh well... ^^;

I suspect you didn't have 1440 plaudits yet at the time you registered?

Perhaps you are lower on the list, if you had enough to still be ranked, but they don't keep track so we need to register again to update the score.

[BobbinT]

I suspect you didn't have 1440 plaudits yet at the time you registered?

Perhaps you are lower on the list, if you had enough to still be ranked, but they don't keep track so we need to register again to update the score.


Haha perhaps that's it, albeit iirc have nearly 1000 when discovering the option to register for ranking. Kinda sux having to reupdate manually tho. Oh well... ^^;

[Alhanelem]

Actually pretty good for those chasing Monberaux. I hadn't been very diligent about the monthly objectives. I just unlocked him thanks to this vanabout.

[RichLester]

I found this time round, a lot of the objectives were aimed at needing 3 or more people to be online to do battlefields. I barely made 700 plaudits this time round as I usually solo (though did a few battlefields). The month's ambuscade did not help matters, so for me, it was worse this time round & prizes were the same as last time. The 100 deeds for 700 plaudits is always worth it. Also, the overall rewards was only available for a week or so to pick them up, then disappeared on the latest update. The vana'bout website had the timeframe to collect them on there. Always worth checking the website. And SE, please make the double exempler pts campaign a permanent fixture? we all need it.

[BobbinT]

iirc the only non daily VB is just Emptiness @ promy. Personally was lucky seeing shouts doing it for VB & jumped the wagon. Fights even very easy solo.

But yea, the daily BCNM can be quite PitA, if don't do it early then can forget about it till swapped 2 days later, which is a shame since there's certain days where I can't even do them early due to JP daily reset also around my sleep hours. Still glad can still get over 1400+ by the end, as shown on my pics @ previous page. Like I said however, my biggest challenge this time is Ambu, since v1 is not easy, especially if wanna do as party for gallantries, with even v2vd rewards kinda abysmal & don't have the time to do lots of it, sad truth being not young anymore & irl stuff getting bigger the older one gets. ^^;

[Alhanelem]

Now if it was like last time, 21100 job points, that would be a little bit more like it, though of course that was a text error only, which was present during the previous round (proably still is, but can not confirm... and it probably was the Gold tier Job Points reward that had and/or has that issue).This was s upposed to be exemplar points, plaudits x100

It was fixed for round 4, the job points is some fraction of plaudits, you get around 100 or so after meeting the minimum

[Tokimemofan]

iirc the only non daily VB is just Emptiness @ promy. Personally was lucky seeing shouts doing it for VB & jumped the wagon. Fights even very easy solo.

But yea, the daily BCNM can be quite PitA, if don't do it early then can forget about it till swapped 2 days later, which is a shame since there's certain days where I can't even do them early due to JP daily reset also around my sleep hours. Still glad can still get over 1400+ by the end, as shown on my pics @ previous page. Like I said however, my biggest challenge this time is Ambu, since v1 is not easy, especially if wanna do as party for gallantries, with even v2vd rewards kinda abysmal & don't have the time to do lots of it, sad truth being not young anymore & irl stuff getting bigger the older one gets. ^^;

I never had an issue getting a party for any of the daily’s even at weird hours. The key always seemed to be to have the entry item already, if I put ki provided in my yell I would usually have a full party in about 10 minutes. Emptyness though was another matter, often someone will forget ki or be on lockout or get lost in promy of god knows what else. I’m glad that was no longer a daily for round 4. I still would like to see fewer repeat objectives and less clustering around login points and ambuscade.

[RichLester]

Next time, I would like to see objectives like "Kill 20 monsters in any Abyssea" or "Participate in a campaign battle" for 30 plaudits each, "Synthesize 10 Alchemy items" for 10 plaudits each. That kinda thing

[Alhanelem]

Yeah, I mean we wouldn't want people doing any actual content or anything now...

the low level BCNMs were a mild inconvenience- and many can be soloed by pet kiting with summoner. The event BCs are all stupidly easy. I had no problem with most of the objectives in this round. For me the least liked objective was probably the ENM objective. Those weren't even that popular when they were new, due to the inconvenience of accessing those areas, and even though those zones are now uncapped, there is still no home point for those BC areas.

[Zenion]

I just don't like BCNMs in general as objectives. Beastmen's seals are for Up In Arms, all other crests and seals are for trading in in for beastmen's seals during 2:1 campaigns; saying "no, you have to spend 20 of those seals you're hoarding to do this one" just doesn't sit well with me. Having to spend login points kind of sucks too, but at least with those you don't have any better use for them most months anyway (except more seals, for more Up In Arms, for more treasure pools with no kraken club in them...)

Which takes me back to the complaint I still have about the whole thing: If I decide I'm not spending my beastmen's seals, and I can't get 20 plaudits for that objective, that's okay. If I can't get a further 20 plaudits because that objective is still lingering and taking up the spot tomorrow, that's not okay.

It's not even about how many points you can or can not get over the event - though if you want the mulcibar's scoria at the end, you have a lot less freedom to skip impractical or distasteful objectives than you think. It's about the message, that "how can you have any meat if you don't eat your pudding" mentality. It's a game, I am paying to play, don't condescend to judge and punish me for deciding that I don't want to (or simply can't) do some task. The appropriate response is to not award points for a task not completed, not to spitefully deny access to another, potentially more desirable task, that should have been offered tomorrow.

I mean really, if the goal is to make people really want to push to complete every objective no matter how they feel about it, reduce the value of the slot and then give a streak bonus for completing consecutive objectives from that pool. Turn it from a penalty for missed tasks to a reward for consistently completed ones. People like rewards, and they dislike penalties.

[Alhanelem]

I have about a billion seals of all types from rarely ever doing BCNMs, so... it really wasnt much of a problem.

[Zenion]

I mean... I'm literally capped on a couple of seal types because I hate running around to actually do Up In Arms, but I still don't want to be told that I'm using some for that or else.

Maybe just a little category reorganizing would help? I'm pretty sure the BCNMs were on the same slot, but then login point items were on two of the others? Maybe it would be better just having a spot dedicated to the daily pay-to-play fight so nothing of value is lost if you leave that one to go stale.

Now that I'm really thinking about it though... this probably isn't feasible, but imagine if instead of a daily roster of objectives, you just had a whole pool to choose from. Vana'Bout category A, B, C, D, and E; choose any one of these five options in each category, but you can only clear one per day that pool's been open. I'd say just one per day period, but letting you do four on day four of the cycle would be a great actual catch-up mechanic. Renew the pool every four days, so if there's a single objective players just can't stomach, it's freely skippable. Make most objectives once-per-cycle, but have some that can be chosen multiple times, to avoid having one list look like "Monster Rearing, Monster Rearing, Monster Rearing, Galkan Sausage, Monster Rearing."

But eh, what do I know. That's just me being a selfish western player, wanting to do things for enjoyment, not out of obligation, right?

[Zenion]

So this April Fools' thing, with the Shami's key... having that running from April 1 to April 8 is basically giving us that event as a little bonus in the campaign extension days from the latest Vana'bout.

That's a nice reward. I, for one, would like to see that make a return on future Vana'bouts: if the goals are met to extend the monthly campaigns, the monthly campaigns are extended and Shami's key is available to obtain and use in just those extra three or six days at the end.

[Alhanelem]

It would be nice if Shami was put in a better position to easily interact with him though. if you tab target you'll get the chests first.

[Zenion]

Yeah, I don't like that about the situation. You can't really catch Shami with F8, and with the crowd of people around, you'll really want to. If Shami stayed in his usual spot but the boxes remained where they are, that would probably be less of an issue.

[Alhanelem]

Please remove Monster Rearing from the possible vanabout objectives. I never unlocked this, have barely ever visited the mog garden. And if you get that objective in this situation, that's just lost plaudits- you're not unlocking that at the snap of a finger- You have to visit the mog garden daily for a fair while to unlock it. And I'm hardly the only one who never bothered with this. Most of the other objectives don't require that much to access/unlock if you haven't done them before. Even the Ballista one, even though many people never did Ballista, you didn't actually have to unlock it in order to get that done, you could just join someone who has unlocked it to complete it.

Meanwhile, I doubt I'll have Rearing unlocked before the next vana'bout hits.

[Zenion]

Might as well ask for Sinister Reign to be struck from the rotation while you're at it. Oh, sure, let me just casually speed run the entirety of Seekers of Adoulin in just two days so I can get those 30 plaudits.

This is where I'd offer some kind of suggestion on how I think this could be made into less of a problem, but man, I'm burnt out on shouting into the void about Vana'bout. Instead, let me offer the sage advice I always seem to hear when I bring up problems with how it works: "Just don't do that one then, there are loads of objectives, it's not that hard to hit the top reward tier, stop complaining."

[Alhanelem]

Might as well ask for Sinister Reign to be struck from the rotation while you're at it.The difference is you're far more likely to naturally do that over time as you play the game. Mog Garden has been out for years and I never found a compelling reason to use it. collecting 1-2k of vendor trash a day is not enough to convince me to check it every day, while the reward for completing SoA is compelling.

And in all honesty, yes, I wouldn't remind if they removed SR either if I'm being honest with you, but that doesn't require weeks and weeks of daily check ins. it definitely takes longer to do than completing the SoA story.

Really, I think you just made that post because you've seen me say something similar before, though when I did it, it was more tongue-in-cheek.

[Dragoy]

The difference is you're far more likely to naturally do that over time as you play the game. Mog Garden has been out for years and I never found a compelling reason to use it. collecting 1-2k of vendor trash a day is not enough to convince me to check it every day, while the reward for completing SoA is compelling.

I think having the additional items sold by the Green Thumb Moogle can be convenient, and there are those cheers for a movement speed bonus, zanshin, capacity points... etc., and so I did rear every single creature available so far on three characters (soon) on three different servers.

On one of them I got all the titles too, which took rearing no less than 2000 creatures... because titles are important!(¿)


And in all honesty, yes, I wouldn't remind if they removed SR either if I'm being honest with you, but that doesn't require weeks and weeks of daily check ins. it definitely takes longer to do than completing the SoA story.

Pretty sure unlocking rearing takes less time due to the imprimatur requirements... maybe?


Really, I think you just made that post because you've seen me say something similar before, though when I did it, it was more tongue-in-cheek.

Quite sure the reason was that having Sinister Reign included is just not a very good idea. :]

Just like including Monster Rearing is not a good idea, but hey, at least this time it wasn't on the very first day, and since Vana'Bout still for some reason starts /not/ at the Japanese day change, which resets rearing monsters, many would often do that before Vana'Bout starts... so there's that, I maybe guess! Might be the only positive thing I have to say this time on the thing in general.

That written, my feedback for this round is mostly the same as it was for Feedback 2025-02.

This time, however, I am going for the perfect score for the title, so that I will never have to do it again I suppose. That is only happening though because of one very good motivation friend to do it with.

Otherwise I would be ignoring the event again this time, but I do have hopes for it getting better in the future!

The Ambuscade Gallivantry points was probably always the biggest obstacle, but I found we could do the Intense thing on Normal this time, so that's nice... but I think the requirements for those are still way too high.

1000 points max, maybe.

Yes, yes.

[Catmato]

I think having the additional items sold by the Green Thumb Moogle can be convenient, and there are those cheers for a movement speed bonus, zanshin, capacity points... etc., and so I did rear every single creature available so far on three characters (soon) on three different servers.

Doesn't it take months of checking multiple ???s every day just for a bunch of vendor trash just to start monster rearing or anything interesting in Mog Garden?

[Alhanelem]

Pretty sure unlocking rearing takes less time due to the imprimatur requirements... maybe?imprimatur requirements for what? I don't recall being required to do a ton of coalition assignments to complete the main mission line.

If you're talking about getting the +1 versions of the rings... That's far, far beyond just completing the story and not what I'm referring to.

[Alhanelem]

Doesn't it take months of checking multiple ???s every day just for a bunch of vendor trash just to start monster rearing or anything interesting in Mog Garden?Well, this is exactly my point. While I dont come anywhere near checking the mog garden regularly, I do occasionally go in there (only to be disappointed obviously). Even now my gathering points are all rank 2 and they need to reach rank4 I think to get a combined total of 20. It definitely can't be done in just a week or two.



at least this time it wasn't on the very first day,I've gotten it 4 times so far, so that's 4 objectives that are entirely impossible for me to complete.

SR is my second most hated objective, because I can't quite do it solo even though you can certainly enter it solo. #3 are the event battlefields which have a 3 person minimum. Which is itself annoying just because the fights are very easy. It's less that I can't find people and more that I don't like asking someone else to do otherwise trivial/not useful content.

[BobbinT]

For more feedback with current VB, on my end would be about the Siren's tears VBD @ north Gustaberg, it was quite exhausting trying to nab tears when there's so much ppl doing same thing & worse, already camped the predetermined pop spots. There's a time I just had to give up that quest for a day since it'll be carried over next day where I can finally do that with much lesser competition.

Also for the one time Lost Chocobo, not really much, but it would be better to be able to do the one's related with Windurst since all would avoid that city at all cost due to it being near-impossible to carry out within default 30 mins without actually investing in special chocobo gears that adds the timer, added the fact that a failure will lock players out from redoing it until another weekly tallies. Not really big deal since one can just do on other cities & avoid Windurst related by resetting the quest, but it would be better if can do without the tricks & do quest by default.

[Alhanelem]

You can just teleport to a different city for the quest to get a different route.

[Zenion]

Windurst to Jeuno is very doable inside the time limit; I'm not sure why anyone would choose to accept a run between two starter cities since there is always a run to Jeuno on the table somewhere.

[Alhanelem]

Windurst to Jeuno is very doable inside the time limit; I'm not sure why anyone would choose to accept a run between two starter cities since there is always a run to Jeuno on the table somewhere.
Bastok/Sandy is multiple zones shorter than either one to Windy and takes less than 20 minutes. Jeuno/anywhere or Kzham/Norg are all faster of course. I don't think sandy/bastok to windy can be done within the default time limit. I tried once and barely reached saruta.

[BobbinT]

Windurst to Jeuno is very doable inside the time limit; I'm not sure why anyone would choose to accept a run between two starter cities since there is always a run to Jeuno on the table somewhere.

lol yea, anything that leads to Jeuno ofc would be a huge boon, only if one can reset enough to get lucky getting that destination. Other than that, there's no really fault having destination between main cities, as long as it's not Windy coz anything related to that one sadly is not possible within default 30 mins, not without additional timer buffs from some equips that's very rare or need to grind high enough crafting skills, not to mention getting those means more hogging your space as well. ^^;

Besides, my original post intention is to be able to do anything with Windurst related, sans Jeuno, without having very tight time limit. It's like that particular VB objective hates Windy so much, & I'm Windy citizen which makes me kinda a bit sad.

[Zenion]

only if one can reset enough to get lucky getting that destination.

There's no luck involved. At any given time, each city has a specific preset destination it will ask you to go to, and one of those is always Jeuno. There's a tracker you can use to see which destination is tied to which city at any given time: http://www.mithrapride.org/vana_time/chocoracetable.html

I thought you could just decline in one city and try the next, is that really not an option? Does declining a long run actually lock you out for the... looks like 57 minutes and 36 seconds each set of pairings is valid for?

[BobbinT]

There's no luck involved. At any given time, each city has a specific preset destination it will ask you to go to, and one of those is always Jeuno. There's a tracker you can use to see which destination is tied to which city at any given time: http://www.mithrapride.org/vana_time/chocoracetable.html

I thought you could just decline in one city and try the next, is that really not an option? Does declining a long run actually lock you out for the... looks like 57 minutes and 36 seconds each set of pairings is valid for?

Didn't know about that, good to know.

Still, to reiterate again: my intention is to be able to do this objective even from/to Windurst without Jeuno involved & by default as in not using any kind of timer buffs, in case this wasn't really clear. And yes, I can decline & recycle the request till I got within desirable time, but that's not what I meant. Please read again.

[Zenion]

Okay, so, on reading all that again, my question is, what does that have to do with Vana'bout? It's trivial to bypass the issue by just not choosing to do the quest in the worst way possible. It's not preventing you from getting other objectives. If this is making it difficult to earn plaudits, that is 100% on you.

It sounds like your concern is with the quest itself, and there's a whole other forum section where you can go offer up your feedback on that. I'm not sure what exactly you think can be done about it - what you're asking for would require chocobos to be faster, rental chocobo riding time to be longer, or zone geometry to be different, all of which seem like pretty big changes to make just for one quest that people are only doing however many times a year Vana'bout runs anyway.

[Dragoy]

Doesn't it take months of checking multiple ???s every day just for a bunch of vendor trash just to start monster rearing or anything interesting in Mog Garden?

Right, there is the part where we need the total of the things to rank up to 20.

Would imagine I'd kind of remember how long it takes, considering I did it on a few characters from 0 after the last Vana'Bout round... I think it was, but I really can't quite remember now. And I didn't even do the Vana'Bout objective on them yet, that'll show 'em!

Kind of feel like it didn't take months, but time's a mess!


imprimatur requirements for what? I don't recall being required to do a ton of coalition assignments to complete the main mission line.

There are certain points during the missions where a certain amount of imprimaturs must have been used, or at least there was (as an example, Arciela Appears Again I think is one such point).

I don't remember if I ever actually hit that wall on the few characters I did those missions on, however, but I also had probably done coalition tasks quite a bit before those points already.


I've gotten it 4 times so far, so that's 4 objectives that are entirely impossible for me to complete.

Fun how they push the not completed objectives to the next day, isn't it? ^^;

Almost wonder if it's even working as intended. I don't see a point in it aside from maybe being an extra punishment.

Now if they pushed it to the next day, and also gave us the normal next day objective, it could work as a catch-up mechanic... but nope!

[Zenion]

Fun how they push the not completed objectives to the next day, isn't it? ^^;

Almost wonder if it's even working as intended. I don't see a point in it aside from maybe being an extra punishment.

Well, considering this gets pointed out every time Vana'bout happens and it still works like that, I have to assume that yes, it is working as intended. And hey, you know what, it's a mechanic that does a great job... of completely stifling any spark of interest or enthusiasm for the event. If you get a bunch of stuff you can't get done, and then you know that that's going to be there tomorrow too, and now you're that far behind on plaudits, what motivation is there to give it a solid effort? Just decide what reward tier is worth it, go for exactly that many plaudits, and walk away from the whole situation.

[BobbinT]

Okay, so, on reading all that again, my question is, what does that have to do with Vana'bout? It's trivial to bypass the issue by just not choosing to do the quest in the worst way possible. It's not preventing you from getting other objectives. If this is making it difficult to earn plaudits, that is 100% on you.

It sounds like your concern is with the quest itself, and there's a whole other forum section where you can go offer up your feedback on that. I'm not sure what exactly you think can be done about it - what you're asking for would require chocobos to be faster, rental chocobo riding time to be longer, or zone geometry to be different, all of which seem like pretty big changes to make just for one quest that people are only doing however many times a year Vana'bout runs anyway.

Personally I don't mind with geometry challenge, nor needing to have faster chocobos. My main issues is having Windurst felt being mostly ignored for doing this particular quest, as if it was intentionally to make players hate if having anything related to Windurst.

Kinda strange for a Taru yourself, didn't felt inclined to defend your own nation community (despite one can just chose any other nations as their main), my Hume should be a Bastok native, but I chose Windurst as my starter, same as how I chose Gridania in FF14 as my main coz its similarities.

Ofc, the day I would get my hand on Chocobo Wand for example, would annex this issue personally, but still... (again no need to point out the optional crafter gearsets which already iterated on previous posts)

And finally, you asked why this related with Vana'bout? Well, being always included in every Vana'bout rounds seems already clear enough to unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) having players who might never learn much of their own geographies to get closer on the adventure landmarks, which again came back on how this kinda miss-fire the intention if gotten Windurst related as it would be near impossible to finish the quest, not without having timer buffs. I personally enjoyed this quest, reminds me back in 1.0 days where needing to navigate my way from Gridania through Black Shrouds which back then was more like a maze to even reach Uldah.

So yea, again the tldr is to considerate making Windurst more accessible for VB rounds, & not having players to recycles objectives because hating the near impossibility to do it.

[Alhanelem]

Fun how they push the not completed objectives to the next day, isn't it? ^^;Well it did eventually change? so I guess that only happens once per objective.

And yeah, its probably working as intended, but that doesn't mean it's (always) a good thing.

[Mimiikyu]

This is about the worst decision Square Enix has made with Final Fantasy XI. I've been playing this game since North American Release on PS2 so I hope it's not understated how long I've been around to say this.

I still cannot wrap my head around how the very theme of Vana'Bout was to complete various ROE's and if successful enough was to increase our Monthly Campaigns by X amount of time. So... Now we'll be rewarded 3 more days of Campaign yet you limited our Campaigns this month by 2 weeks... so we could get 3 days?

Maybe I'm not understanding something? Explain it to me like I'm 5 years old please if that's the case.

Another thing that is extremely upsetting is the fact the way you set this up; it's as if you don't even know your own game. Prime Example, the ROE that you need to take 75k Damage during any Ambuscade. You know where everyone's head immediately went? Go in on Very Easy SOLO and sit there and tank hits over and over without trusts to make sure you're continually taking damage and healing yourself. With this said, Vana'bout as now become a waiting game sitting in Mhaura waiting extremely long queues... It's not fun, at all.

Know what I'd love to be doing instead? OTHER MONTHLY CAMPAIGNS!

At this point, I never want to see Vana'bout again. In all fairness if there's another month where Vana'bout takes priority over monthly campaigns and we only get them for 6 days, I'll be unsubscribing that month. Hopefully I don't find something more entertaining that takes up my time and I go on hiatus again.

[Alhanelem]

I like the spirit of vana'bout, but not the implementation. They should have kept a set of content campaigns going and based vanabout primarily around those campaigns, that way it's covering things players are naturally going to want to do. I get that they want everyone to be able to participate- but there's very few new players and such, we don't need things like tiger fang and flint stone quests as objectives.



At this point, I never want to see Vana'bout again. In all fairness if there's another month where Vana'bout takes priority over monthly campaigns and we only get them for 6 days, I'll be unsubscribing that month.Personally though, I just do whatever content I need to do, I don't live or die by the periodic campaigns. Unless there's an exemplar campaign again lol. Aside from that, they're not that important to me, just a nice little bonus if I happen to be doing that content at the time- it has very little impact on how I play the game.

[Mimiikyu]

I like the spirit of vana'bout, but not the implementation. They should have kept a set of content campaigns going and based vanabout primarily around those campaigns, that way it's covering things players are naturally going to want to do. I get that they want everyone to be able to participate- but there's very few new players and such, we don't need things like tiger fang and flint stone quests as objectives.


Personally though, I just do whatever content I need to do, I don't live or die by the periodic campaigns. Unless there's an exemplar campaign again lol. Aside from that, they're not that important to me, just a nice little bonus if I happen to be doing that content at the time- it has very little impact on how I play the game.

yeah yeah yeah... we get it... you've made your point to every single person here about anything and everything, Mr. 10,895 Posts... Go play! lmao

[Zenion]

I still like the idea of Vana'bout too, but the execution is just so off-putting. I was delighted when I discovered that this round I could get enough points to collect my bronze tier rewards in one day, and then just ignore the event for the rest of its duration.

The problem comes down to choice and control; players like it, Vana'bout seizes it.

You will do today's objectives, because if you don't you will be locked out of tomorrow's.

You will log in for the four hour teaser period, or you are locked out of contention for the end-of-event title.

You will keep on top of the daily objectives, because missing just a day or two can snowball into missing the reward thresholds, rendering previous effort wasted.

You will do the fights we say you will, complete the quests we tell you to, fish for what we say you will fish for, because these are the demands set before you.

You will engage with Vana'bout, because we're taking away anything else you might have focused on during this time.

Vana'bout should be a guide, not a taskmaster. I love that it often highlights some kind of content that normally gets overlooked, but I hate that I'm then obligated to do spend my day on that content regardless of how awful, unpleasant, tedious, or personally distasteful it may be. Yes, fine, it's fair to expect people to go a little out of their way to engage with the event - though maybe a Limbus, Odyssey, or Sortie objective would fit in there with "oops all Ambuscade" - but a little bit of freedom to choose how and when would go a long way. I've said it before, probably here in this very thread: Lay out, say, ten choices for a given category, let players pick seven of those over the course of a week, and it will make the event so much more pleasant. Reducing the time crunch and giving a viable way to skip the very worst tasks while still putting a spotlight on content that's been largely forgotten - that's a Vana'bout I would engage in like I did round two.

[radar]

Vanabout is a great idea, and a log of coding went into it. With some changes to the objectives it would be great.

They just need to ask for feedback about what players would like for objectives.

Here is an idea for a fun objective, the chocobo racing game. The faster you finish the quest, the more points and make it a daily.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/A_Chocobo_Riding_Game_(Windurst))

the objectives today:

"clear an ambuscade" (causes congestion)
"Heal 300 dmg in ambuscade" (causes congestion)
"deal 500 fire dmg in ambuscade" (causes congestion)
"don't die in ambuscade" (above)
"complete ambu on normal or higher'" (..)
"i'm on a boat" (fishing, 15 fish)
"weekly routine" escort for hire etc quests, (this one is ok but they are single completion and many have alts or want to group up, the quest should group complete)
"emptiness" (this is far too much effort, for 50pl)
"Ballista" (this one is good, but the signup for ballista is super annoying and takes too long, make ballista easier to signup for..)
"total damage ambuscade" (congestion)
"obtain hallmarks" (again.)
"damage received in ambuscade" (congestion, adn this one is worse cause most people will just sit in a VE and let the monster hit them for 10 mins)

[Alhanelem]

yeah yeah yeah... we get it... you've made your point to every single person here about anything and everything, Mr. 10,895 Posts... Go play! lmao
Man you sure got up on the wrong side of the bed today LOL

[Zenion]

Here is an idea for a fun objective, the chocobo racing game. The faster you finish the quest, the more points and make it a daily.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/A_Chocobo_Riding_Game_(Windurst))

That one's a lot more fun if you're only trying to do it once per event... but it definitely couldn't be a daily, it's a once-per-Conquest-tally quest.

[Kahla]

This Vana'bout was so poorly executed. I had posted before it started my frustrations with Campaigns being shortened.
Nothing about it feels creative just, infuriating. Your "congestion problems" with Asura are because you made an ROE to take 75,000 damage. That's all on the development team.
People apparently made complaints they didn't have the time to be successful at Vana'bout so reduced our campaigns? We're over 350% completion at the time of this post...
Frankly, I never want to see Vana'bout again. I'd rather development be more focused on making great content for the new Limbus.

[Alhanelem]

Your "congestion problems" with Asura are because you made an ROE to take 75,000 damage.If you think that it's just any one thing you can pick on as a reason, you're wrong. Asura has been congested for years, and its population is way over what the game was designed for, all because Reddit et. al. told everyone to go to Asura, which then led other people to want to go to asura because that's where all the pop is.

See thing is, the servers are designed to handle so many people. There are more players than that, so more than one server is needed. If the community pushes everyone to dogpile onto one, it's going to cause things to break. It has virtually nothing to do with one RoE objective making people waste time in content.

This is a case where the community made its bed and now has to sleep in it. It is unhealthy in many ways for too much of the population to converge on one server. It both makes their own experience worse dealing with overcrowding, as well as making the experience of those on other servers worse by there not being enough people.

This is the reason why originally FFXI had the world pass system. Not letting people freely pick their worlds except to join an already-playing friend meant that server populations stayed balanced and everyone would have roughly the same experience.

[radar]

Asura is not congested, it's a multi region server and so people do things at different times. You can usually get into things within 1-2 mins, during NA/JP prime times maybe 10 mins. It's rarely actually ever more, usually less.

The only time there is massive congestion is when the developers funnel players into specific content, for instance when they have omen card campaigns it can take 30-40 mins to get into omen. They are also having serious problems right now with Ambsucade, becasue of vanabout and very bad objectives.

The problem isn't the server, or the number of players but things they do that don't take into account they are encouraging everyone on the server do one thing at the same time.

[Kahla]

Listen, I've already proven you wrong before. Just because you need to post in everyone's business and have like 11k posts doesn't make you an authority figure that can tell people they're wrong. I have never once seen Ambuscade be so full that you can't even register for the event and that's the case right now. Our population isn't as crazy as you may believe. What you don't realize is that majority of the population is RMTs / bots that are doing CP/ML 24/7.

The population is no more crazy for overall numbers here than it was when I was Lv75 farming HNMs and heading to FPS dropping zones such as Dragon's Aery and Behemoths Dominion during a KB spawn on Lakshmi.

This channel was made to give feedback. Not the Late Night Show with Alhanelem.

[Alhanelem]

Asura is not congested, it's a multi region server and so people do things at different times.Every server is "multi region." All of the servers are in japan and there are both JP and NA players on all of them. Aside from that, players don't have to all be on siumultaneously for there to be issues:

Maybe you forgot that time earlier when Asura's character name database got maxed out and resulted in people being unable to create characters until they fixed it.

Maybe you forgot how they had to add copies of certain instanced content zones SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE Asura had long wait times for content like Ambuscade and others, when other servers didn't have an issue

Maybe you forgot how even if different people play at different times, Asura still has by far the largest concurrent user base, and it's larger than any server's was back in FFXI's heyday.



The problem isn't the server, or the number of players but things they do that don't take into account they are encouraging everyone on the server do one thing at the same time. Again. This is NOT A NEW PROBLEM. It's not JUST BECAUSE of Vana'Bout that they're doing this.



This channel was made to give feedback. Not the Late Night Show with Alhanelem. And maybe you forgot that name dropping people and making these kinds of comments only makes the problem you are complaining about worse.

I wasn't even the one who brought this issue up in the thread, so if you really want to blame someone for something, blame the person who specifically chose to go off topic over a person who replied to the off topic comment. Oh wait, that was you. YOU decided to bring up the Asura issue in this thread, and now you're complaining that someone replied to that. If you didn't want anyone to discuss it, then you shouldn't have brought it up.

[radar]

Again. This is NOT A NEW PROBLEM. It's not JUST BECAUSE of Vana'Bout that they're doing this.

You are not on Asura, it's not normally a problem.

As I said, it's only a problem when they funnel all players into one content at the same time and do not have campaigns for other things at the same time. If there was an XP campaign, a card campaign running alongside vanabout, players would not all be doing vanabout ambuscade so hard.

Asura has the potential to be massively congested, but only if you don't diversify things and don't make too many objectives in ambuscade.

[Alhanelem]

You are not on Asura,Do you really think that just because my main isn't on Asura that I don't know anything about what happens there? lol.



it's not normally a problem.It's a problem in many ways that have nothing whatsoever to do with this-

- There are disporportionately more bots/RMT compared to other servers
- More people at grind camps which can easily lower the FPS and in some places increase competition for targets. Even on Shiva there have occasionally been times when I can't camp in a particular area because the good spots are taken.
- There is more stress on the server hardware in general, this might not be visible to you, the player, but it's a problem on the server side
- Certain contents at certain times have wait times to get into that have no wait times at all on other servers

That last one was mitigated by cloning the zones for certain instanced content- but it's only because of Asura that they had to do this, none of the other servers had this problem. And there have been other cases where changes had to be made specifically because of Asura server when other servers didn't have an issue, but which affected other servers anyway.


Asura has the potential to be massively congested, but only if you don't diversify things and don't make too many objectives in ambuscade. If the populations were balanced, that potential wouldn't exist.

Stop defending this. Balanced populations are better for everyone. Even if things are "OK" on Asura now, it clearly can't handle much more of a userbase influx, and that's what they're trying to prevent by closing it off.

[radar]

You are fixated with balancing populations, most people not only don't care about that but like it how it is.

If they merged all the smaller servers for instance lots of players would quit the game, they are too used to how things have been. XI is not like most other mmorpgs, people like it how it is.

[radar]

If they booted up an XP campaign today, they would elevate congestion problems.

reduced duration of campaigns that diversify things people do, congestion problems intesify in ambuscade

[Alhanelem]

You are fixated with balancing populations, most people not only don't care about that but like it how it is.
I'm not "fixated" on anything- you keep saying that like I have tunnel vision or something- I'm fully aware of the factors and issues at play, I'm not just making blind suggestions.


Most people may not explicitly care, but everyone's experience will be better if server populations are better balanced. That doesn't mean making every server perfectly equal i.e. forcing people to move or whatever, it just means the community i.e. reddit needs to stop pushing people towards one server, mostly. Your comments mostly come across as "How dare anyone close my precious overpopulated server or encourage anyone to transfer. HOW DARE THEY! like it's some kind of terrible thing. Asura isn't going to die overnight just because the devs hit the pause button. They know better than you or anyone else about the state of the servers and what they can handle and what problems and issues there may be.

The game has a bunch of servers for a reason. Because the server systems can't handle the entire playerbase on one. Asura has too many players. A couple other servers aren't that far away. Then there are servers with not enough players. The solution seems clear.

[radar]

The system should bend to the desires of the players, the players don't want balanced servers because FFXI is not a normal mmorpg (the world and community is important on XI, in a way it's not on almost every other mmo). Some players want small servers (<500), some players want big servers (3-4k).

If you force everyone to be on equalized servers, they will quit playing and it won't matter anyway.

There is normally no problem on Asura because people do different things, the problem with congestion now is because they removed the XP and other campaigns early and so everyone is fixated on Ambsucade due to Vanabout instead of getting XP, farming cards, doing dyna or whatever else.

The entire point of the campaigns was to diversify the things people did, instead of just everyone fixating on one thing.

XI does not have instancing, it cannot function in a world where everyone is doing 1 thing exclusively.

[Alhanelem]

If you force everyone to be on equalized servers, they will quit playing and it won't matter anyway. No one said anything about forcing anyone to do anything. I don't want to see merges or splits.

Stopping character creation/transfer doesn't force anyone on Asura to leave, but every person that does will make the place they go to a better place, and eventually they may release the lock. But they should take this further and offer increased EXP/CP/EP/currency gains/something for a period of time to incentivize people to transfer off until their goals are achieved.

We're dealing with an increase in activity right now, this is a good thing. The fact that they had to consider this at all is a good thing, because it means the game is doing better than they expected.

[Uroah]

Supremely disappointed in your efforts in these events. I was entirely unable to participate due to the bots running ambuscade nonstop for the entire duration of the event. And the excessive reliance on ambuscade.

I'm not going to sit in line for an hour every day as a requirement for participation. This was disgusting.

[Alhanelem]

Supremely disappointed in your efforts in these events. I was entirely unable to participate due to the bots running ambuscade nonstop for the entire duration of the event. And the excessive reliance on ambuscade.

I'm not going to sit in line for an hour every day as a requirement for participation. This was disgusting.
Well, there's a simple solution: Get the heck off Asura. You already know they're not going to do anything so why not make things easier for yourself?

[radar]

Well, there's a simple solution: Get the heck off Asura. You already know they're not going to do anything so why not make things easier for yourself?

Do you seriously not know who you're replying to?

[Alhanelem]

Do you seriously not know who you're replying to?
Yeah, I do, and I know they won't even read much less respond, but I'll say it anyway.

[Dragoy]

At last the round 6 is over and done.

I think this was the last time I'll go for the perfect score, so I can ignore the thing again fully. \ö/

That is unless things actually get fixed, and I'll have some reason to do it again.

I can't think of any of the feedback for improvements having been implemented in any way yet, still, not from the English side, nor from the Japanese side (which thankfully is giving pretty much the same feedback the English side is). It does often take time to fix things, though, so maybe there is some hope left yet.

Overall my feedback for this round is the same as it was last round, but here's a list of "highlights":

Good

- No "orb battles" so no seals/crests/time wasted on those.
- Not as many daily objectives.
- No total Gallantry objective.
- Reported text and menu issues have been fixed (and so far no new ones spotted, though the Ballista! objective did lead me to a new issue (to me), but it has probably been there since ages past).

Of course since this was a "special round", all of these good points may be turned around for the next round again.

Something Betwixt Good and Bad

- Ballista! This can thankfully be cleared without actually doing it, by having two adventurers sign up in the Diorama, and then end the match as soon as possible. Getting a match going outside the Diorama can be difficult since it requires at least 6 adventurers to sign up (maybe the objective could be cleared for just having signed up?). Also a good thing it was not a daily objective.

Bad

- Too many daily objectives.
- Log-in points used for battlefield entry for daily objectives.
- Daily objectives with battlefields that are difficult, if not impossible to solo depending on jobs available.
- A lot of the rewards still make no sense (10,000 EXP!?), or are ultimately utterly unappealing.
- Too many objectives that require spending time in Ambuscade just to clear objectives, which will not be cleared while participating in Ambuscade in a normal fashion (which for example "clear an Ambuscade" does; that much is probably fine).
- Days with only Ambuscade daily objectives (provided the punishment for having skipped objectives hasn't messed with the list).
- Total damage received in Ambuscade objective.

Super Duper Bad

- The title reward probably still requires 100% perfect clear of every and each objective every day (at least it isn't as bad as I thought it is some rounds ago, where I had the impression that it is awarded only to the first top 10 registrations, not everyone in top 10 regardless of timing (in reality though, it is only for those that get the top rank 1 score until people stop doing the thing)).
- The event does not start at Japanese midnight, but the daily objectives reset at Japanese midnight, meaning the first day is not a full 24 hour day.
- The event starts with the Monster Rearing objective, and since the event doesn't start at the day-change where the objectives reset, many people have already used up their chance to clear this one earlier during their day.
- Uncleared objectives remain through the next day, as a double-punishment for not clearing them.

Potential Points for Possible Improvements

There already are a lot of good ideas around here forums, both the English and Japanese side, that I'll try not to repeat too much, but:

- Let the event start, or reset daily at a time that results into every day being a 24-hour day.
- If the first day absolutely must not be a 24-day, at least do not start with an objective such as Monster Rearing, which can be done only once per day.
- If uncompleted objectives must remain for the duration of 2 full days, at least give us the actual new objective for the day as well. This would, to some extent, work as a catch-up mechanism in that, one could miss out on doing 1 full day of objectives, but still complete them the next day, along with the objectives for that day.
- Do less Ambuscade related things that require taking time in Ambuscade. In a way, the Gallantry objective was actually better than the Receive Damage objective, since it will be cleared by actually clearing battles, not by standing idle in there, "tanking" things for 30-60 minutes if not more. Of course doing something like clearing Normal Intense battles as a samurai without a proper tank will clear this one "naturally" too, but what about the bards and white mages and such? In general, the point usually is to *not take damage* so this objective is just weird from the start.
- Maybe award the title for reaching Gold Tier points?

----

Probably forgot to include some things, but that should be most of it.

I hope the next Vana'bout round will do better. I believe it can do better!

[Alhanelem]

Personally I want to keep Ballista in it, sure, most people will cheese it but I've had some good times as a result of it. Which is really what these events are supposed to do.

[Dragoy]

Personally I want to keep Ballista in it, sure, most people will cheese it but I've had some good times as a result of it. Which is really what these events are supposed to do.

Yeah, I'm fine with it staying in general, though might adjust the completion conditions for the non-miniature version.

Think most comments aimed at it on the Japanese side I've seen, have been negative though, but I'm not sure those will have any more effect than the comments on this side.

[Alhanelem]

Yeah, I'm fine with it staying in general, though might adjust the completion conditions for the non-miniature version.

Think most comments aimed at it on the Japanese side I've seen, have been negative though, but I'm not sure those will have any more effect than the comments on this side.
Not sure why anyone would complain. after a quest that only takes 5mins (used to take much longer without HP warps) and buying ballista points with sparks, you can complete the objective for an unlimited number of people with minimal effort. easiest 80 points ever. But for the people who want to take the event in its spirit? you get to have some fun messing around (and earning some titles if you can get at least 6 ppl for an official match). Frankly, seems like win-win to me. lol

[Dragoy]

Not sure why anyone would complain. after a quest that only takes 5mins (used to take much longer without HP warps) and buying ballista points with sparks, you can complete the objective for an unlimited number of people with minimal effort. easiest 80 points ever. But for the people who want to take the event in its spirit? you get to have some fun messing around (and earning some titles if you can get at least 6 ppl for an official match). Frankly, seems like win-win to me. lol

I suspect it is highly likely that not everyone knows about the Diorama method, though it is mentioned in the description (or that the points needed can be converted from sparks part).

I'd complain too, if I didn't.

Or they just really don't like Ballista (some comments I remember seeing was something along the lines of them not wanting to take part in PvP at all, or that it is a hassle to set up).

[Alhanelem]

I suspect it is highly likely that not everyone knows about the Diorama method, though it is mentioned in the description (or that the points needed can be converted from sparks part).I actually didn't realize it the first time and thought it didn't count. And I did get some official matches to happen even on Shiva. But admittedly some of the JP players just AFK'd the full hour- those are the people who could have just completed it in minutes with the diorama if they wanted to (you can start a match and just end it right away and it still counts)

Honestly I think at least some people could appreciate ballista more if they just freakin' updated it-

- remove the 30/40 level caps, add 75 and 99 (no master level) caps
- remove the gear swap penalty. We have lockstyle, character blinking is no longer a big issue.
- Adjust the damage calculations for uncapped and said caps (currently damage is way too high- even on SMN I can come close to oneshotting some jobs with gate of tartarus)
- Add a second currency not exchangable for sparks and create vanity gear rewards to exchange for the currency. like 80% of the reason it never caught on outside of die-hard fans is the lack of any real rewards. ALL content in an MMO is driven by reward. People rarely will do stuff "Just for fun."
- I realize it was supposed to add in-world flavor but ditch or dramatically shorten the scripted events before/after the match. No one wants to sit through that lengthy spiel about fair play and history and crap every single time.