Guide to the Lord of Verminion Mini-Game in FFXIV

Lord of Verminion is a mini-game in FFXIV based off of the Lord of Vermilion series, which is an arcade game popular in Japan. Lord of Verminion, or LoV for short, is a real-time strategy game where the objective is to destroy your opponent's structures with a legion of minions while defending your own.

Lord of Verminion is a mini-game from the Gold Saucer. Players can do battle with their collected minions against other players, participate in tournaments, and complete NPC challenges to earn MGP, minions, titles, and other rewards.

Lord of Verminion is automatically unlocked when you unlock the Gold Saucer. Players must own at least three minions to participate in LoV, and most battles are done in the Minion Square on the second floor of the Gold Saucer. To learn more about the Gold Saucer, visit our Gold Saucer hub.

Minions are collectable, cosmetic pets that follow the player around when they are not in an instance. Players can view all the minions they have collected in their Minion Guide, which can be accessed from the Character menu.

In Lord of Verminion, you summon these minions to the field to do battle for you. Each minion has a type, unique stats, cost, auto-attack type, strengths, and special action.

Minions are divided into four different types: monsters, critters, poppets, and gadgets. Three of these follow an advantage system depending on what type of minion they are attacking or defending against.

• Monsters are strong against critters and weak against poppets.
• Critters are strong against poppets and weak against monsters.
• Poppets are strong against monsters and weak against critters.

Gadget minions are neutral against all other types of minions.

Minions have four main parameters, which are used in combat against other minions.

1. Hit Points (HP) show the health of the minion. If a minion's HP reaches 0, it will be removed from battle.
2. Attack (ATK) determines the damage dealt by the minion.
3. Defense (DEF) reduces the damage taken by opponent minions.
4. Speed (SPD) determines how fast the minion moves. It is a rating from one star (★) to four stars (★★★★).

Additionally, minions have a cost attached to them. The cost determines how long it will take for the minion to be summoned to the battle. There is a total cost of minions which can be summoned to battle, and the cost of all summoned minions cannot exceed this total cost.

Minions may also have strengths. These are shown on the Minion Hotbar Editor, which can be accessed from the Verminion tab in the Gold Saucer menu. Minions can be strong against Gates, Search Eyes, Arcana Stones, and Shields - we'll explain this in more detail in the how to play section.

Each minion has a special action, which can be executed when four of the same minion are in close proximity and have filled up their special action points bar. These special actions range from area-of-effect attacks to enfeeblements, and some can even set traps that can be triggered by enemies or themselves after a while! You can view their special action and points required in the Minion Hotbar Editor.

At its core, Lord of Verminion is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as games like StarCraft and Age of Empires. Players will summon their minions to do battle against their opponent's minions. The object of the game is to destroy the enemy's Arcana Stones, of which there are three.

To summon minions, players must first place them on the minion hotbar. You can have a total of 24 minions set on your hotbar, and they correspond to your Hotbar 1 and Hotbar 2. You can use your hotkeys to summon minions just like how you would use skills.

Lord of Verminion is a simple game to play and pick up, but has a lot of depth in controlling minions, countering your opponent's strategy, and securing a win.

Battles are divided into two phases: briefing and engage. During the briefing phase, players can choose minions to summon immediately when the engage phase begins. The cost of these minions cannot exceed 60. To summon a minion, select it from your minion hotbar or battle list. You can cancel any queued summon by selecting it. Minions not summoned will not incur any cost.

The engage phase is where players do battle against each other. The cost of minions summoned in this phase cannot exceed 240, and summoning minions will incur a recast time based on the cost of the minion. Up to ten minions can be queued at a single time. Additionally, players can queue up to three minions once their cost is capped, but they will not be summoned unless minions on the field are destroyed.

In the engage phase, players will control their minions, move them around, and battle with them. To select a minion, click on them. To select a group of minions, click and drag over the minions you wish to select. You can then move minions to locations on the map, where they will automatically attack minions and structures close to them.

Victory is achieved when all of the opponent's Arcana Stones have been destroyed. If the time limit is reached, the winner will be whoever has more Arcana Stones remaining, or more health on their Arcana Stones.

The action bar will show your current cost, the gate you have currently selected, your minion hotbar, and buttons to Execute Action (red) and Trigger Trap (blue).

• To execute an action, you must select four of the same minion in close proximity. Then, press the Execute Action button.
• To trigger a trap, you must have used a special action to place a trap. Ten seconds after placing it, you can trigger it with the Trigger Trap button.
• To change the gate selected, click on another gate.
• To summon a minion, click on the minion or use the hotkey.
• You can view other commands by clicking on the menu buttons. Display help text with the Help command, or retreat from battle, forfeiting the match, with the Retreat command.
• Withdraw a selected minion from battle with the Withdraw command.

There are four different structures, which all serve a different purpose. All structures except for Arcana Stones will regenerate a while after being destroyed. A gauge above the structure will show how long it will take until the structure is reactivated, and minions positioned close to the structure will hasten this process.

The Arcana Stone is the health of the player. They will be destroyed if their HP reaches 0, and is the only structure that cannot regenerate. Shatter all of your opponent's Arcana Stones to win. Once again, if the time runs out, the player with the lowest Arcana Stone HP will lose.

Gates are used to summon minions to the battlefield. Each player has three gates, and they will regenerate health to any minion inside them. If a gate is destroyed, minions cannot be moved in or out of them, and players cannot summon minions to them.

Shields increase the defense of Arcana Stones. If a player's shields are destroyed, their Arcana Stones will take more damage.

Search Eyes will reveal enemy minions and their movements. If a player's Search Eyes are destroyed, the map enters a fog of war state, and will only be able to see enemy minions in close proximity to their own minions.

Rank Points (RP) determine the skill and strength of a Verminion player. These points increase or decrease based on how the player does in battle, in addition to how much RP their opponents hold. Your current RP can be viewed in the Verminion tab in the Gold Saucer menu, as well as in any upcoming tournaments.

Verminion Challenges is the main PvE campaign of Lord of Verminion, where players are first presented with a tutorial to learn the rules of the game. There are 24 challenges in total, and defeating them all rewards the player with a Clockwork Twintania minion.

Players can play Lord of Verminion with other players by queueing in the Duty Finder. There are two modes, one of which affects your RP and one that does not. In addition, players can challenge NPCs through Master Battles.

Verminion Tournaments are events where players battle each other to earn great rewards and be crowned the best Verminion player on the data centre. To participate in a tournament, speak with the Tournament Recordkeeper in Minion Square. Players must have completed the second Verminion Challenge in order to be able to register.

To play in the tournament, players must queue up through Duty Finder by selecting the Tournament or Master Tournament mode. Players earn tournament points by playing against other players or NPCs, and the standings can be viewed on the Tournament Ranking Board. Players are allowed to play up to fifteen matches per tournament, and points are decided based on win or loss, in addition to skill of the opponent.

At the end of the tournament, the points are locked and players will receive rewards based on their points. In the case of a tie, it will be broken by whichever participant recorded a result first.

Rewards from tournaments include a huge sum of MGP, and there is an item awarded to those who reach double digit wins in four tournaments - a rare minion, the Penguin Prince!