Feedback related to Vana'Bout

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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).

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.

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.