Feedback related to Vana'Bout

[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 more

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.

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.