'Bout; Slightly Less Worse Each Time

On Lakshmi, about as backwaters as it gets, we already have 43 people with 1400 points registered.

I'm registered and my name is showing in the first 100. One of the members of my group is also registered with 1400 plaudits but their name is not displayed within the first 100. Should be quite easy to confirm if they also get the title.

Vana'Bout is over


See you guys next Vana'Bout

First Vana'bout I completed every objective.
I found that for level capped objectives this time I just shouted for people and got swarmed with tells and it helped that the bcnms weren't actually difficult with a full party.

I did register for the Vana'Bout rankings this morning (intentionally registered late to see if I could even get on the list as there were already 100 characters with max plaudits) and had 1400 plaudits.

Even after confirmation of registration, I did not break the top 100, did not get the above message this time after the end of Vana'Bout, and did not get the title 'Venerated Adventurer' automatically bestowed after interacting with the Coordinator Moogle.

Thanks for putting together all the quest info and site! I seriously would have just ignored this event again

You're very welcome, I'm glad I could make something that's helped!

Definitely sucks, get the pitchforks I guess

Can't remember, is it automatically given to you by the moogle? Isn't there an extra step to obtain it? Reason I ask is because I missed out on the title one or two VBs ago where I definitely obtained the plaudit rewards but somehow missed on the title despite being top 10 on my server.

You just need to speak to the Moogle and view the plaudits rank. After that it will bestow the title to you.

Got 1400 plaudits, definitely registered with the moogle when it still allowed it prior to the end of the challenge period, no title was awarded after picking every option on the moogle (I picked every option the moogle offered both before and after the challenge period officially ended). There were already 100 individuals on the moogle's list when I registered.

The line on bg about "If more than ten registered players are tied for first place*, they will all receive the title" needs an asterisk.

*up to 100.

Better question is has anyone obtained the title -without- their name appearing on the list, despite having 1400 plaudits.

I'm feel the need to find a mog garden tool right now...

Finally! 16 Ingredients for cooking possible!

Can attest to not receiving the Venerated Adventurer title, despite presumably qualifying for it at 1,400 Plaudits.

Registered late on the 30th, and it seemed as though my entry was indeed accepted... Yet that appears to have been a total lie, as there's no sign of my name showing up on the rankings - and thusly, no title earned.

Strangely, I don't believe there were already 100 entrants tied for first place when I attempted to add my name to the pile. Was certainly up there, though, probably around ~75-85 or so.
Stranger still, there are a few registered names listed on Bahamut's rankings which somehow locked-in their position on the 31st, despite that presumably being too far outside the realm of feasibility to properly qualify (at least if my own wasn't accepted on the 30th). Very peculiar.

Wouldn't have went nearly so hard on Vana'Bout were I aware that there was no guarantee in earning its full-completion title, despite fully completing it. Feels Badman.

There's never been 100+ maxed out.

Definitely blows for those. I'd be mad as hell bothering to max out and still getting *** over.

Taint was 100 on the list, my mule was 101. Taint got title, mule did not. Very glad I didn't register my mule before Taint....

Looks like there were 81 people with capped Plaudits on Carbuncle

I'm at least slightly curious why so many people capped this time.

Was it just the compulsion or was it so much easier (shorter etc)

Like a thousand people total capped. That's ridiculous. There can't be that many title obsessed people chasing hoxne earrings.

Lots of mules I'd guess.

There's absolutely no reason to cap a mule, or a box (some compulsively cap their boxes while doing mains, obviously)

For me, it was simply because the Day 0 was a Saturday morning and I woke up early enough to Plaudits in the 7-hour window. If I had missed this window, I'd have no chance at earning the title, so I kept going.

Also, I think Hoxne Earring is a strong motivator.

In the past I couldn't commit to doing anything daily and there were group-based requirements like Ballista (6+). This time it was all soloable.

I think it's mostly down to (1) being more accessible, and (2) more positive word of mouth since last time.

The initial Vanabouts with only Ambuscade objectives, I just ignored immediately. No variety in the event. And I didn't even pay enough attention to know, but there weren't very good individual rewards in the initial ones, right (mostly just the server-wide bonuses and campaigns)?

But last time? That one was pretty decent, and I did enough of it to get some rewards (got the AF+3 set last time and was happy with that, was on vacation for part of Bout so didn't bother going past that). The mix of quests they sent us on were a pretty good nostalgic selection. Personal rewards were worth the time. That made me and some others take more notice.

This time they improved it more: no objectives where people might have gotten locked out and annoyed (like the sparks one in the previous 'Bout, where if people already spent their weekly sparks cap they couldn't finish a VBD objective), got rid of truly obnoxious stuff like Wildskeeper Reives (Colonization/Lair are so much more reasonable), most stuff is reasonably soloable or low group requirements (3 person incursion, maybe some people needed to team up on the BCNMs).

We also understand the event better, so people are getting tips like the ones here to remind people how the quests work, how the title works, how not to dismiss your quests and lose them permanently (and then get annoyed with the event), etc... We even know about how it's rolled out and the "day 0" objectives, which I actually got this time and that did motivate me to stick with it more since I was still running a "perfect score" Vana'bout. And for the objectives themselves, shoutout to Daleterrence for the awesome and visually pleasing VB site, and many others here posted good info.

It just felt more fun to me this time. The first few Vanabouts we had a few people in my casual-ish/small event LS who did some random objectives when VB came up but we mostly ignored it. Last time, a few people did pay attention to AF+3 reward. And this time, we had most of the LS actually into the event the whole time, I'd log on every day and see people doing VB stuff. Multiple people with 1400 plaudits, we mixed in some of the VB missions into our normal event nights (did Incursion one night, went and killed a Dynamis Lord for people who needed that one), etc.

I just took it as a casual but consistent thing for a reasonable length week and a half period. I like that it's not all the time, 2-3 times a year works as a fun change of pace, I was fine soloing this instead of being bored soloing Limbus.

The title is cool, even if I'm not obsessing over it for Hoxne Earring (Mastery Rank 7 here though and I feel like I can't be too far off from 8). But I would have probably capped out my points even without a title, just because I was already in to get the max rank this time and at that point I didn't mind finishing it off just to say I got a perfect score.

I think it's mostly down to hoxne earring. Now there is a carrot to make sets better, suddenly Vana'bout is sooooo popular.

Coincidence, surely.

Also a lot of people couldn't get it last time due to having spent their points

They coulda just made these items not part of the sparks cap and the problem goes away

The way the list orders people seems to be handled very unfairly, I can't say for certain *how* it is ordered, but it's definitely not by first registered as my LS buddy was consistently above me in the ranking, even if I had registered prior to them each day.

I don't really know enough about unique identifiers for your character past your name, such as character ID, but I'd be willing to bet the list is sorted by something like that, when it absolutely should be listed in order of registrations when plaudits earned are tied.

Hoxne probably did drive some increase in interest among the most hardcore players. But I think the AF+3 set kupon is a bigger draw that appeals to a larger number of players. A lot of more obviously casual players have been pretty interested in the event too, and most of them probably don't even know what Mastery Rank is (much less that they're seeking out titles to use a specific earring, that would still require them to do years worth of other content to make it worthwhile).

Looking at the Personal Rewards lists, SE has been steadily increasing the rewards over time while simultaneously making the objectives less obnoxious. Eiryl was right on the money with this topic title, that's exactly what they've been doing - minor iterative improvements over time to try to keep making the event more appealing until they get more people interested. It's also a little telling that the FFXIclopedia Vana'Bout page has much more complete past event data than BGwiki, something that usually means we're talking about content that's either quite old or on the more casual side.

• First Vana'Bout (December 2023) - this one was pretty lame for the personal rewards. The Silver tier was the choice of an Abdhaljs Seal, Facility Ring, Mog Pell (Red), Mog Pell (Marble), and 100 Deeds of Eminence. Gold tier was a single Beit/Boulder/Pluton box, exemplar points, or job points. I happily skipped this and let others do the tasks to get the worldwide benefits.

• Round 2 (May 2024) - they bumped the Silver tier up to receive THREE Abd. Seals instead of just one, and added 100 Dynamis currency pieces to the reward options. Gold tier increased from a single pluton/beit/boulder box to five of them, and added Marrow and Scoria as options. Still not great, but getting a little better. Still not enough to motivate me to engage with it.

• Round 3 (October 2024) - they added Old Case +1 x3 to the Gold reward list. OK that got some people a little more interested, but not really enough to substantially move the needle.

• Round 7 (November 2025) - we got the AF+3 set kupons. That's what got me to take notice and actually participate. And I told a lot of other people about it, so they were more interested THIS time around. I don't think a lot of people even realized last time that it was an entire 5/5 armor set until people actually started obtaining the rewards, it is not communicated very clearly by looking at the item description or the official site. If I didn't know better, I'd read "tradeable for item level 119 artifact armor +3" as probably meaning one piece, not a full set. But now we know, and word got around after last time making more people want to participate in Round 8

Not all that surprising that when you finally add a reward worth several tens of millions of gil, that saves countless hours of steps to upgrade gear from its base form to the 119 +3 version... uh, that's a lot more appealing than the almost token reward of "here's 16-30 Beitetsu for your trouble". Combine that with continuous improvement in how the event works, from the original Ambuscade-only objectives to moving to a wider array of content, with tweaks to make it a little more player-friendly each time, and it's no wonder that the event is finally catching on now but went more ignored in the past.

I wonder if it's a timestamp of when they hit the 1400 mark. I also noticed an EU player was at the top when I registered, still at the top when I checked-again before the final day was over. Then when I went back the next day a JP player was at the top.

My alts and I were always all grouped together and stayed in the visible top 100. (which I feel bad about now, knowing that it meant some other players may have been excluded - won't happen again, promise!)

Can't be that, me and another friend hit 1400 at exactly the same time, as we did it together, we registered together too, and she was considerably further down the list as it populated, it's a good theory though!