Why is it necessary to punish players for missing Vana'bout objectives?

[Zenion]

If failing to clear a Vana'bout objective one day means a new one is not given the next day, this is a punishment for the player. If they are for some reason unable to complete an objective, they lose not only that day's plaudits, but the next day's as well. This is hostile design.

The objectives should simply be replaced each day unconditionally, if holding an objective from one day must necessarily mean not being able to obtain one from the next day.

[Uroah]

Hostile design is on purpose. They know. We know they know.

[Dihlyte]

I can't say I even know what's being said here.

I thought today was the first day.

I also was able to do my daily objectives, so if today is not the first day, then whatever objectives were available the previous day, I have ones that are completable today.

So either you are confused, bugged, or something else is going on, of which I have no clue, sorry.

VBD means Vana'Bout Daily.

VB means its for the duration of the campaign. That's all the advice I can come up with. If you're unable to complete your VBD you're either doing the incorrect objective, or something else is wrong specifically to you and you alone.

[Uroah]

Today is day 2, if you did not do day 1, day 1 objectives remain and it is impossible to get day 2 objectives.

You are officially, permanently, behind.

[Dihlyte]

Today is day 2, if you did not do day 1, day 1 objectives remain and it is impossible to get day 2 objectives.

You are officially, permanently, behind.

I don't really see how that is a punishment.

Are there more rewards for subsequent daily objectives?

If not, then I fail to see how its a punishment.

Perhaps the poster doesn't want to do day 1 objectives? I don't really see that as a big deal honestly, but certainly not a punishment if there are no greater rewards for the subsequent objectives.

[Uroah]

Lets say your friend isn't behind, and you are, now you cannot ever team up for the objectives. Unless your friend skips a day.

Or, you only have 5 days available to log on, but you've already lost one of them. Now you can't get the gold tier. If there's an objective you can't complete, you lose more.

There are titles for doing the most objectives. So it does matter, to someone.

[Zenion]

I can't say I even know what's being said here.

I thought today was the first day.

I also was able to do my daily objectives, so if today is not the first day, then whatever objectives were available the previous day, I have ones that are completable today.

So either you are confused, bugged, or something else is going on, of which I have no clue, sorry.

VBD means Vana'Bout Daily.

VB means its for the duration of the campaign. That's all the advice I can come up with. If you're unable to complete your VBD you're either doing the incorrect objective, or something else is wrong specifically to you and you alone.

So, there was a roughly seven-hour window for "day 1" objectives. If you logged in during that, you got those objectives (and if you didn't, when you log in now you get all the "day 2" objectives; all of "day 1" is lost.)

If you flagged the "day 1" objectives, then at midnight any "day 1" objective you completed was replaced with a new "day 2" objective.

However, any "day 1" objective that was not completed, remains, and the "day 2" objective that would fill that spot is lost.

What this means is if there was a particular "day 1" objective that a player could not complete, or was unwilling to approach, that objective carries over for an extra day, preventing the player from earning plaudits from that objective slot for two consecutive days.

I can't remember if last time the pattern was based on days for the event ("day 1" into "day 2", then "day 3" is always new) or days for the player (if you start with "day 2", slots carry over to "day 3", but then "day 4" is a fresh set.)

What makes this punitive is that there is a finite number of available plaudits, and this can cause any incomplete objective to reduce that available pool by twice its face value. Should a player, for example, be locked out of ENMs when those are an objective, then this 30-point objective becomes a 60-point drain on the pool when it carries over to the next day.

Choosing to skip an objective should cost a player that objective, not the next one as well. Failing to complete an objective should not saddle the player with an insurmountable challenge for another day in place of what could have been an achievable goal. Daily tasks should be daily.

This design choice angers me as much as it does because there are only two ways to explain it: either it is an effort to let players "catch up" on missed objectives, in which case it does the precise opposite by having those missed objectives cause them to "fall behind"... or it is a deliberate punishment, withholding the new day's objectives because they didn't get everything done the previous day. Neither is good game design.

A solution would be as easy as offering players a "skip" option, to remove a day's objective without awarding plaudits, to open that slot up for the next day's objective. Then, at least, they have the choice to shed an unacceptable task without being haunted by it.

[Dihlyte]

I see, thanks for clarifying.

So if it’s a competition, then it does make sense that you would be punished for missing a day.

It’s like a race. If you fall behind, then that is of your own doing, and the person performing better has the benefit, and the only way you can “catch up” is if they also mess up.

This seems intentional, as was mentioned.

[Zenion]

Even putting aside the competition aspect though, there's the 1300 plaudit "target", which requires no less than 840 plaudits from daily objectives, more if, say, you don't anticipate earning 32000 hallmarks and 20000 gallantry in two weeks. That's about 6 out of 14 days you'd need to hit all the objectives - but if one day of objectives you can't clear costs you two days of plaudits, and objectives repeat on a four-day cycle like they did last time... if you flagged day 1 and couldn't do any of it, you now have days 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, and 12: three days of bad tasks mean you have almost no margin of error.

Yes, that's a bit of an extreme case since there are usually some trivial objectives (clear an ambuscade without dying, for 10 and 20 plaudits, seems to be a constant), but there are also some that are either effortless or impossible depending on the player: I've unlocked monster rearing, but if I just got access to my mog garden that objective would not be achievable no matter how hard I tried. I have crafts I can hit 50% HQ rate on, but what about someone who has only focused on battle content so far?

Saying "it's fine, there is lots of content, there are more than enough opportunities to earn plaudits" only works if players are actually given access to those opportunities, rather than having them locked away when they find something they can't do.

[Dihlyte]

Even putting aside the competition aspect though, there's the 1300 plaudit "target", which requires no less than 840 plaudits from daily objectives, more if, say, you don't anticipate earning 32000 hallmarks and 20000 gallantry in two weeks. That's about 6 out of 14 days you'd need to hit all the objectives - but if one day of objectives you can't clear costs you two days of plaudits, and objectives repeat on a four-day cycle like they did last time... if you flagged day 1 and couldn't do any of it, you now have days 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, and 12: three days of bad tasks mean you have almost no margin of error.

Yes, that's a bit of an extreme case since there are usually some trivial objectives (clear an ambuscade without dying, for 10 and 20 plaudits, seems to be a constant), but there are also some that are either effortless or impossible depending on the player: I've unlocked monster rearing, but if I just got access to my mog garden that objective would not be achievable no matter how hard I tried. I have crafts I can hit 50% HQ rate on, but what about someone who has only focused on battle content so far?

Saying "it's fine, there is lots of content, there are more than enough opportunities to earn plaudits" only works if players are actually given access to those opportunities, rather than having them locked away when they find something they can't do.

I think thats kind of the point of Deeds and Vana'bout though.

It encourages you to do content you otherwise wouldn't.

I never knew cooking Galkan Sausage was a thing, and I found it super neat that it existed and was able to experience it, all thanks to Vana'bout.

So if you never did Mog Garden, and now doing it, and find that you enjoy it (perhaps you don't but there will in fact be people who never have, and now enjoy it) then it would be because of Vana'bout.

Perhaps you find you don't like Vana'bout for this reason. I personally find I enjoy it for this reason.

"Variety is the spice of life" is a phrase I think fitting here.

If we all wanted to eat plane white rice, that is glutton free, animal free, etc etc, but super bland, uninteresting, but still filling, we would be playing FFXIV instead of FFXI I think.

[Zenion]

There is a difference between "content I haven't done" and "content I literally cannot do" though. For someone who hasn't started on a mog garden, monster rearing is over a month away. That's not encouraging people to try something, it's shaming them for not having done it sooner. As one objective among many, that's fine. As one that keeps being repeated, that can prevent others from being offered, it is not.

Then there's group content, where you need to have three people to enter. That's not, in itself, a terrible thing, especially when suddenly everybody on the server has a reason to want to do that same content that day. Except for the people who don't because they got locked out of that objective. Now you have a cascade of people who didn't do one fight getting out of sync with people who did, reducing the number of players who are available to team up, making it more likely that someone won't be able to do the second fight, and now they're locked out of tomorrow's fight...

Last time, ENMs came up. You get to do four of those per conquest tally, no more. Objectives were on a four-day cycle. If you didn't figure out the 30-cap fights by your second try, you'd have to get the 50-cap one on the first attempt, or there go those objectives, literally impossible to complete and they lock that slot for the next day too.

That's infuriating for people trying for the leaderboard, and I think there has been less interest in it this time as a result. For people who aren't... well, it's a death of a thousand cuts. No single objective being unpleasant (chocobo digging) or time-gated (monster rearing) or difficult (heroines' combat) or time-consuming (treasure hunter) or confusing (heroines' tower) or requiring a head count (incursion), or costing valued resources (unlocking seals 1) is enough to ruin the event, but stack it all up, factor in each of those stopping somebody from doing something else afterward...

To be clear, I'm not complaining about... most of those, I have tried chocobo digging and I would rather play spin the bottle with a morbol... but the key here is that, again, they only work if players can pick and choose which ones they want to engage with, without being penalized beyond not earning the reward for that particular objective.

Would you eat at a restaurant if you saw the day's special and didn't care for it, then returned the next day to see that the new daily special is something you really enjoy, but you can't order it because you didn't order yesterday's?

[Proserphina]

Emptiness as a Daily objective (promy) makes you wait 5 days to get a new KI to try again. Thats really unfair. I concur with you.

And we were supposed to remember that its only once per conquest tally? from 2007? No warning or anything. Its Bogus

[Proserphina]

And then to add insult to injury they give this objective again in the same week that you still cant do it because you cant get KI until conquest tally. Its like a 150 point robbery

[Tokimemofan]

And then to add insult to injury they give this objective again in the same week that you still cant do it because you cant get KI until conquest tally. Its like a 150 point robbery
It actually isn’t conquest tally, it’s 5 earth days from the second you enter the ENM battlefield. This and Monster Rearing with its month minimum lockout are the worst design decisions in this whole thing as far as objective choices. It is beyond stupid tying objectives to time gated or locked out content especially with the current state of pug groups

[RichLester]

I think this time round, SE needed to lower the top target from 1300 to 900, say. There was too much old content that you couldn't do by yourself. They should've also extended the time to get plaudits by a week, if they wanted to keep that 1300 target. On my server, only 35-ish people registered having reached the 1300 target. It has been a bad bunch of objectives this time round & agree with others, it is unfair.

[Dragoy]

It is pretty heavy on favouring those who have multiple bodies to throw at things.

Perhaps they really want to see people working together, not realising the reality...

I do have to admit that I did have some fun with getting back to Red Maging a bit on lower levels, though I was really disappointed in the beginning seeing all those "need 3 at least to enter even" ones again (not even mentioning the 5-day-wait ones, because that's a bad idea obviously and will never be repeated... right?).

That title thing really probably should be something like "reach this amount of points" instead of 10 first. Do they really not know what is going on in their own game?

Aside from the 5-day-wait ones, and the need-atleast-3 ones, the Ambuscade Hallmarks and Gallivantingry ones seem to also favour only those who can, a lot. I could have grinded the Hallmarks solo in maybe 5 hours, using seals, on Intense Normal, but when it's the Dullahan? No thank you. I could have grinded Very Difficult Regular instead, for hours more, but again, no thanks. I'd need to have perfect score from every day to make sure I'd be up there for that title in any case.

And these two are forth 100 points each, which makes them even worse as they are. I did not do them ending with 2260 points.

Getting someawhats rambly-like here... but I think that's about it for my thoughts on this round. It was not good, especially with so many translation errors around, some I think carrying over from the last one.

We can have better, I think! :]