Echoes of Vana'diel FFXI Alliance Raid

Not a fan of the shoe-horning ultra fan service content. It's one thing to have easter eggs and cool references to the FF franchise but just using a crowbar to push content that makes no sense lore-wise is annoying. Golbez then Alexandria et al were complete nonsense and I suspect this will be more of the same (even if from a fight and spectacle perspective the raids might be completely enjoyable).

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

https://i.imgur.com/7H2JFS7.jpg

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It's been so long since I got an alliance raid that I actually wanted to farm for glams.
Guess I'll have to keep waiting, because this just doesn't appeal to me at all. Even seeing the dye variations was like, what even is this aesthetic. It's just the edgiest thing they could find, with white swirly lines on top. My friends who played 11 were all gassing this up and telling me we'd definitely get some cool and colorful glams as a tribute to the 20 years worth of outfits that game has, but we literally just got some mall goth looking stuff, like come on man. That gacha crossover in the cash shop came out with a better outfit, assuming they don't go idiot mode and make it all one piece.

I'm stuck in copium mode, hoping that the outfits look better in game, hoping the gameplay in this alliance raid (as opposed to the last one, and the one before that) is actually engaging and fun. As someone who didn't play ff11 in its prime and doesn't care about it now, the scenery pics from this raid look gorgeous. But good scenery isn't enough. Please tell me they learned something from how hard euphro and thaleia bombed.

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Originally Posted by Zaniel

Not a fan of the shoe-horning ultra fan service content. It's one thing to have easter eggs and cool references to the FF franchise but just using a crowbar to push content that makes no sense lore-wise is annoying. Golbez then Alexandria et al were complete nonsense and I suspect this will be more of the same (even if from a fight and spectacle perspective the raids might be completely enjoyable).

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Just pretend you don't know it's a FFXI raid and it's like Mhach or something where there's just a humongous city with a giant pyramid and a disco ball on top that nobody noticed until now. Why should it bother you if the disco ball is a reference to another game or how well the reference is done? It's nonsense that you have to suspend disbelief for either way.

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

It's been so long since I got an alliance raid that I actually wanted to farm for glams.
Guess I'll have to keep waiting, because this just doesn't appeal to me at all. Even seeing the dye variations was like, what even is this aesthetic. It's just the edgiest thing they could find, with white swirly lines on top. My friends who played 11 were all gassing this up and telling me we'd definitely get some cool and colorful glams as a tribute to the 20 years worth of outfits that game has, but we literally just got some mall goth looking stuff, like come on man. That gacha crossover in the cash shop came out with a better outfit, assuming they don't go idiot mode and make it all one piece.

I'm stuck in copium mode, hoping that the outfits look better in game, hoping the gameplay in this alliance raid (as opposed to the last one, and the one before that) is actually engaging and fun. As someone who didn't play ff11 in its prime and doesn't care about it now, the scenery pics from this raid look gorgeous. But good scenery isn't enough. Please tell me they learned something from how hard euphro and thaleia bombed.

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Yeah, I think most FFXI players probably would've preferred gear that they actually wore back in the day. Lots of people have posted gear they wanted to see in this thread, but I don't think anybody said the Ark Angel gear. I mentioned earlier it was just added as glamour gear to FFXI in the last couple months, nobody has fond memories of wearing it (yet?). I don't think it's bad but there were better options for sure. And also I think we all wanted them to drop the rigid way they reuse gear for different jobs and actually have at least 7 different sets. FFXI gear is going to be pretty samey anyway so it'd probably just be different textures, but we didn't get that either.

Is the armour definitely role locked? Am I stewing in complete delusional fiction hoping these will all work like the 2b coffer? The answer is probably yes [to the delusional part] >:C

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Originally Posted by OgruMogru

Is the armour definitely role locked? Am I stewing in complete delusional fiction hoping these will all work like the 2b coffer? The answer is probably yes [to the delusional part] >:C

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They're probably role locked based on the jobs and types they were in XI as the Ark Angels of Apathy, Arrogance, Cowardice, Envy, and Rage
Hume - WAR/NIN
Mithra - BST/THF
Galka - SAM/DRG
Tarutaru - BLM/DRK
Elvaan - PLD/WHM

With the Image by Fawkes (assuming they're sticking somewhat to the order of the gear in the picture), and being that they can't have two sets per classes:
(left to right)
Male Vierra: Aiming set most likely
Miqote: Scouting set (based on bst/THF)
Lalafell: Casters set (based on BLM/drk)
Elezen: Healing set (based on pld/WHM)
Hyur: Fending set (based on WAR/nin)
Au Ra: Maiming set (cause striking set is taken by Roe)
Roegadyn: Striking set (based on SAM/drg)

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

The most fun fact about Shadowlord is that in his transition cutscene to phase 2, on the PS2 which the game was originally coded and engine built for, he has dark purple flames coat him in that black. It's an effect they could never get the PC port to faithfully recreate, so no player that played on PC only their whole life has ever seen it in game.

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That fact wasn't fun at all!

But I did find a video of it on twitter.

I wonder if they'll recreate this for the raid on PS4/PS5 only :p

Wow that gear is ugly as heck, is that really best they could do? Aren't there any better looking sets in FF11? (no clue as I've never played it)

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

I remember trying to play FF11 back in the day, and pretty much got trapped in Jeuno because that was when you had to party up just to kill basic mobs, you were at the level range where dying could cause de-leveling, and if you weren't the "correct" race and job combinations, you'd be left LFG literally all day long. I made the mistake of starting as a Mithra Red Mage, and the whole game just fell apart around me after reaching Jeuno.

So yeah... unfortunately I don't have fond memories of that game, and I haven't touched it in over 20 years, so this raid series not only falls flat for me but I'm kinda soured on it in general.

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The majority of the game's been soloable for a very long time(probably about a decade at least) because you can form a full party of trusts almost everywhere to complement whatever job you're playing.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

I remember trying to play FF11 back in the day, and pretty much got trapped in Jeuno because that was when you had to party up just to kill basic mobs, you were at the level range where dying could cause de-leveling, and if you weren't the "correct" race and job combinations, you'd be left LFG literally all day long. I made the mistake of starting as a Mithra Red Mage, and the whole game just fell apart around me after reaching Jeuno.

So yeah... unfortunately I don't have fond memories of that game, and I haven't touched it in over 20 years, so this raid series not only falls flat for me but I'm kinda soured on it in general.

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The mistake wasnt mithra-- cause honestly, anyone would tell you that race didnt matter (it didnt matter then, and doesnt matter now). It was starting as a mage job that required 95% gearing and having specific items and spells all the way up to 70 (not too mention the worst Maat fight in the game by far).

RDMs were gods, completely replacing WHM in party leveling content. Could solo from 18-25 skipping qufim with silence and burn on worms. You could DUO with a BLM killing beastmen pets and mobs weak to gravity all the way to 75 never touching a 6 person party. Not to mention being a Mithra you had the world at your fingertips and tons of guys willing to give you free stuff.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

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As someone who started on the PS2 with the Japanese version (when the cap was 50 before it hit NA), it was hit or miss. Also depended on server and whether you were socializing on the forums or other places. I'd say the gameplay of XI is still about the same. The only difference is that you can do everything solo. So the game is pretty much soloable for most expansions, but at endgame you have the ability to play with more people ofc. You can still play with friends though earlier in the leveling or mission progress. Making gil is night and day difference. However, there's only a few servers that you want to be on these days. Otherwise most are at dead ends or dead servers as a whole

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

I've heard the game plays radically different nowadays, but I was never sure if it was worth trying again while still being busy with FF14.

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Oh man you should really take a look, its a completely different game in both good and bad ways.

They added a lot of QoL features, like there being multiple options to fast travel. But they also stripped the game of a lot of its charm by also adding mounts that prevent aggro so you can run around without a care in the world, trusts so you never have to speak to another person letting you play the game completely solo, and so on. Rhapsodies also added KI that you get while advancing through the quests that give you more exp, faster skill ups, and unlocks an npc that will sell you all the food, coffer keys, etc that you need for basic gameplay, maps are all purchasable, and nearly every spell is available from npcs, there is absolutely no need to farm that stuff. You can even buy gear with a currency called sparks, so no farming/crafting leveling gear. Sparks will also buy you skill tomes to skip skilling up your jobs and they have items that sell for a fair amount to npc vendors so gil rains down upon you, removing the need to craft or farm items to sell.

It's not quite as bad as XIV but its still a very accessable mmo these days with the only real hurdle still being learning how to use the UI and menu systems. Even the once great and fun NM and other overworld systems are mostly abandoned for instanced content or they just pushed the items to npcs. But the game is still very leveling dependant. You have actual job levels, skills, merit points and now job points and master levels to earn, which most ppl do by mercing it so getting a party for that stuff just doesn't happen and you are almost forced to merc it, making it pointless outside of a new way to feed gold sellers. You still need to farm items for your relics, mythics, empys and such too, but that is all 100% soloable now too and many of the great weapons are now obsolete even with adding ways to leveling them up.

Basically they stripped away all the busy work and farming outside of leveling so you can just jump right on into endgame, which is also down to just a few things these days since all lvl 75 and most lvl 99 content is dead and/or soloable. The game is a mere shadow of its former self and with it officially being said that there is no future content being released, it makes doing anything feel absolutely pointless unless you simply like the new grinds. But once you get what you need for a job, the only reason to use that job is to do the same for the next job since you won't be using anything you earned for actual story or new content.

The gear is underwhelming so not worth farming. Probably just gonna do raid for story but after not much to log in for...

Looks like they got a normal looking Prishe, thankfully.

https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/51...png?1731052489

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Originally Posted by Kisshu

Looks like they got a normal looking Prishe, thankfully.

https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/51...png?1731052489

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She doesn't look ugly!

I had been wondering what the weekly coins would be and uh

https://i.imgur.com/uXjd1kL.png

Ordelle... coin? Not bronzepiece?

I hope it's more like how they handled the story for the AR back in Stormblood.

Was miles better then how it was presented back in ShB & EW in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Fhaerron

I hope it's more like how they handled the story for the AR back in Stormblood.

Was miles better then how it was presented back in ShB & EW in my opinion.

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ShB AR quests are genuinely some of the most dreadful, mind numbing quests in the game. One of the quests after the second AR was so bad it made me stop playing the game that night and go to bed early.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

I had been wondering what the weekly coins would be and uh

https://i.imgur.com/uXjd1kL.png

Ordelle... coin? Not bronzepiece?

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My guess is Ordelle bronzepieces. Windurst had tukuku shells and bastok had one byne bills.


EDIT:
Checking the lodestone patch notes

Completion Reward
Upon completing Jeuno: The First Walk, players can also earn a separate reward once per week: two Cracked Novaclusters and one Ordelle Coin. The Ordelle Coin can be exchanged with Uah'shepya in Solution Nine (X:8.7 Y:13.5) for items used to enhance equipment purchased with Allagan tomestones of heliometry.

New afk spot in ffxiv will be Lower Jeuno at the auction house. Lullll

"Tattered Sheet Music found in the treasure chests of Jeuno: The First Walk can be exchanged with the peculiar goblin in Lower Jeuno (X:6.5 Y:5.2) for special orchestrion rolls relating to Echoes of Vana'diel."

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Originally Posted by Elkanah

New afk spot in ffxiv will be Lower Jeuno at the auction house. Lullll

"Tattered Sheet Music found in the treasure chests of Jeuno: The First Walk can be exchanged with the peculiar goblin in Lower Jeuno (X:6.5 Y:5.2) for special orchestrion rolls relating to Echoes of Vana'diel."

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Sick. I'm guesing LJ is gonna be like the Bozja camp then, with a couple NPCs to chat up and maybe a Tetra Mast-- er, Triple Triad NPC to play with? Here's to hoping.

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Originally Posted by Elkanah

New afk spot in ffxiv will be Lower Jeuno at the auction house. Lullll

"Tattered Sheet Music found in the treasure chests of Jeuno: The First Walk can be exchanged with the peculiar goblin in Lower Jeuno (X:6.5 Y:5.2) for special orchestrion rolls relating to Echoes of Vana'diel."

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This sounds like they'll be putting in a truckload of orchestrion rolls if they had to add an exchange item instead of just having them drop, which is fantastic news.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

This sounds like they'll be putting in a truckload of orchestrion rolls if they had to add an exchange item instead of just having them drop, which is fantastic news.

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It's a great idea that I wish they'd backport to the older alliance raids. I'm still missing a lot of rolls from Ivalice.

I can only hope the 2nd and 3rd parts of this series don't make the gear 'matching' like this. Matching gear from a raid *sucks* and I'm pretty disappointed in the choice of Ark Angels as the equipment source. So many XI fans were hypothesising what sets we would get and then it just kinda ends up being, what I would consider, an easy option. I hope we get more like the Ivalician raids had with diverse sets that were nicely different from one another but still thematically fit. (Just let me dye them please!)

Gimme the Igqira Weskit damn it!

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

This sounds like they'll be putting in a truckload of orchestrion rolls if they had to add an exchange item instead of just having them drop, which is fantastic news.

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Come on Battalia Downs!

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

https://i.imgur.com/uXjd1kL.png

Ordelle... coin? Not bronzepiece?

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Well they're called オルデール古銭 in the JP patchnotes and Ordelle Bronzepieces are オルデール銅貨 in FFXI, so I guess it's a choice and not a mistake to not call them the same thing.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They added a Light Staff/Chatoyant Staff on this NPC but I don't see it obtainable for me to have anywhere :mad:

Also Shantotto's Staff is still sideways

https://i.imgur.com/G49tJaX.png

Day 1 thoughts:

Purely mechanically I haven’t had this much fun on a day 1 alliance raid since puppet’s bunker. It probably won’t be as exciting when people know what to do, but it felt like it had more mechanical variety than definitely thalia and euphorisine, maybe on par with aglaia? Apart from the doughnut on boss 2, the telegraphs seemed pretty fair - I thought it could have gone either way between doughnut and cone. There were some shared mechanics (concentric aoes) but didn’t feel too noticeable otherwise.

Boss 1 felt like a refined gladiator from sildih. There’s not really a lot more to say.
Boss 2 was probably the weakest despite causing the only full wipe. The knock up aoes were annoying during the wall phase but that’s their purpose.
Boss 3 was fun and relatively novel (2.1 I think the last time it was tried).
Boss 4 was fair and the mid fight change was visually interesting without being a “sit down shut up and watch this cs”. Currently the training wheel phase and real phase hp thresholds felt about right, but that probably won’t last long unless it’s hp% threshold.

I am a bit concerned about the impact of higher item level on this raid though, no one felt particularly tanky until half the alliance exploded, which is only going to get more prominent when people know the mechanics and have better gear. Hopefully this ages well and ends up being an enjoyable roulette in future patches.

I can’t shake the feeling I’m walking on my own grave wandering through some of the hd areas.

I’ll run it a couple more times later and see if I change my mind on anything.

This alliance raid is amazing. The nostalgia is strong and I loved all the smaller subtle references to FFXI and its community scattered around. More importantly the raid is actually fun! Myths of the Realm was so incredibly boring from start to finish and this new raid series knocked it out of the park right out of the gate. The mechanics are a blast and it was enjoyable to actually have to stop and chat with the group after a wipe. I'm very excited to see what the next two chapters have in store now!

Also holy cow there's a lot of FFXI music in this series. I feel like I've already heard half the game's soundtrack. It's great!

Overall I enjoyed it. The fights are good and enjoyable, and especially the third fight is fantastic.

If they keep up with this fight design, this will be a very enjoyable series.

Plus some of these areas such as Sky in full HD looks incredible. The flavor text in both Jeuno (Mea... 1K... Can i have) and also the journal in Sky of taking the wrong teleporter are good.

https://i.imgur.com/sMGVJ4d.png

https://i.imgur.com/pFKKKTd.gif

I love Prishe.

The music while an obvious homage to original XI, felt a bit flat for the fights.

The fights themselves were fine.

Cutscenes still should have had voice acting.

Neat to see the most interesting villain in the expansion survive, for now.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

Cutscenes still should have had voice acting.

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I'm glad they didn't, I don't like the english voice for Prishe in the raid. It wouldn't have fit any of the post-raid cutscenes with her at all.

Alright lets start this early, Prishes hair when?

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Originally Posted by Mecia

Alright lets start this early, Prishes hair when?

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Probably with her outfit on the mogstation in 3 years. :X

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Originally Posted by Kisshu

Plus some of these areas such as Sky in full HD looks incredible. The flavor text in both Jeuno (Mea... 1K... Can i have) and also the journal in Sky of taking the wrong teleporter are good.

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There's a hidden note behind the first set of stairs in Sky too.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...a2c72d66112f5&

Overall, I grinned like a big dork the whole raid. But I do want to know for the people who haven't played FFXI -- did the multitude of references trigger that "I know that's a reference to something, but I don't know what it is." part of your brain or was it fine enough as-is? To me it felt fanservicey, but I'm the fan being serviced so I'm happy with it.

My personal favorite being

a group of adventurers showing up just like 2 seconds too late to claim Aquarius. Get rekt nerds try again another time!

Also the fights are cool, though I wonder how well they'll hold up after a couple weeks. Certainly a step up from the Twelve raid series though.

I loved the brief moment in the Aery where there was no background music, only the battle theme - really reminded me how quiet many areas in FFXI were.

The difficulty has definitely been ramped up. I have now had the worst luck with two different alliance groups abandoning at the final fight with 10 minutes left. Three hours wasted now.

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Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

The difficulty has definitely been ramped up. I have now had the worst luck with two different alliance groups abandoning at the final fight with 10 minutes left. Three hours wasted now.

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Damn, that sucks. My first group wiped on every boss but kept going, even throwing up call signs. It was amazing. We completed it.

A "Royal Damask" material can drop from the raid for crafting a Royal Bed.