Greetings, adventurers!
Matsui here with the latest FFXI news.

As always, we’re going to be focusing on what’s coming for XI this month.
Can you believe it’s already March? We’re rapidly approaching XI’s 20th Vana’versary!
While I am happy to celebrate this momentous occasion with you all, at the same time the development team wishes we had just a little bit more time! Conflicting desires, to be sure.

So let’s get right into the latest version update information.

Starting off with Ambuscade, volume one is a battle against Antica, while volume two is a slightly revamped version of the treant battle.
For the treant battle, we’ve made a couple adjustments to the mechanics and lowered boss HP to make the fight a bit less of a brick wall.
The boss’s ability Chelate, which consumes food buffs and was the cause of much consternation, is to me a representation of flower viewing, when you take time off and are able to use this lull to deal heavy damage.
Now players who are using alter egos as their tanks will be able to benefit from this mechanic, as the bonus will now fire off when Chelate hits an alter ego as long as its controlling player is under the effects of a food buff. Of course, the exact quality of the food buff isn’t important, so you might want to just use random cookies you have sitting around rather than use your expensive, high-end goods.
Of course, if you are actually going to celebrate flower viewing, you might want to pack a little more than some sweet biscuits.

Next up, we have some more adjustments to monster locations.
We’ve opened up a previously blocked-off area of Crawler’s Nest [S] and placed some exemplar point and job point-granting monsters there. These monsters are a bit easier than the ones you may be used to in Promyvion and Alzadaal, so hopefully players of varying gear levels will find the perfect camp for them.

Next up, we had oridinally planned on bringing you the second part of The Voracious Resurgence, Chapter 7, but implementation was a bit delayed because of some unexpected bugs that popped up, so the current plan is to get it into your eager hands in April.
We want to provide you with the best, highest-quality experience that we can, so I hope you will accept our apology as we work to get everything up to our usual standards.

Finally, I’d like to take a brief look at the update schedule for the WE ARE VANA’DIEL website. This month we’re talking with the first leader of FFXI’s story and event scenes, Masato Kato. I was surprised to see that he had actually done very few interviews despite the pivotal role he played in shaping FINAL FANTASY XI.

We’d like to lift the veil on this wonderful contributor to FINAL FANTASY XI, and the interview covers him both personally and professionally, including some experiences from before he joined Square. Make sure to check it out!

Lately I’ve been feeling the wonders of spring as a take my dog out for a walk each morning. The changing of seasons is always a time when people can feel a bit under the weather, so make sure to take care of your health first!
See you in Vana’diel!

Mission and Quest-related
Implementation Timing Update Task and Details In-progress Task Details
March Record of Eminence ・Update monthly objectives -
Content and System-related
Implementation Timing Update Task and Details In-progress Task Details
March Ambuscade ・Replace notorious monsters
・Replace reward items
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March Areas・Change monster spawn locations in certain areas
・Remove level difference penalty in certain areas
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Item-related
Implementation Timing Update Task and Details In-progress Task Details
March Items ・Add new items -