Castrum Lacus Litore declining participation

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Do we know when this is going to happen?

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5.45. Anyone's guess when that actually is though.

It’s such shame to see castrum in this state, it was such a fun place at launch, personally I thought it had the perfect level of difficulty and I used to be sad when I couldn’t get into the top group for the last fight.

I do think the rest of bozja is pretty well done. Fates are still very active, people are levelling there, there’s always cluster farming groups and all the content is being done besides castrum.

This kinda adds to the problem of castrum though. If we could get rid of the levellers and the cluster farmers we’d have more people in the instance who wanted to do it.

It just doesn’t look like they really foresaw the problem with castrum and I can’t see that it would be that hard to fix. There’s quite a few things they could change that would help it - the timer to join, ECs popping at the same time, the timer inside, the difficulty of the bosses, the rewards of the raid etc.

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Originally Posted by Vickii

It just doesn’t look like they really foresaw the problem with castrum and I can’t see that it would be that hard to fix. There’s quite a few things they could change that would help it - the timer to join, ECs popping at the same time, the timer inside, the difficulty of the bosses, the rewards of the raid etc.

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Oh yeah, I've seen Castrums go from nearly 30 people to like a dozen before, because some boss spawns. That really shows people's priorities when it comes to Castrum. It's quite ridiculous actually.

Tried to do castrum yesterday and we had to beg for people in /shout chat to get a 2 digit number and even then were were not enough to do it.

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Originally Posted by OrpheusKappa

Tried to do castrum yesterday and we had to beg for people in /shout chat to get a 2 digit number and even then were were not enough to do it.

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I actually went back to Bozja the other day for the first time since the patch to see how things were. Less CEs up north because of less activity, CEs much slower, more death. It's no wonder people don't want to do it anymore. Still think the coins dropping from everything non-castrum is a huge detriment.

It'll bust at the seems again in 5.45 when they likely will go beyond level 15 and add the next raid, along with savage. Having savage is good because that means end-gamers want to do the content as well, aside from the relic being tied this go around. Although I wonder how popular the next relic stages will be this go around for raiders since they finally caught up on Eden Promise i535 weapons having Crit on every weapon.

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Originally Posted by technole

I actually went back to Bozja the other day for the first time since the patch to see how things were. Less CEs up north because of less activity, CEs much slower, more death. It's no wonder people don't want to do it anymore. Still think the coins dropping from everything non-castrum is a huge detriment.

It'll bust at the seems again in 5.45 when they likely will go beyond level 15 and add the next raid, along with savage. Having savage is good because that means end-gamers want to do the content as well, aside from the relic being tied this go around. Although I wonder how popular the next relic stages will be this go around for raiders since they finally caught up on Eden Promise i535 weapons having Crit on every weapon.

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I've been in several full instances for the past few days. Trying to make gil in there (sell cluster items). Even cleared a castrum for people at 3-4 AM, the other day (posted about it in this thread). Cleared it with 26. Hours of full cluster farms, with multiple groups. People just don't want to do Castrum.

They need to boost the rewards for Castrum. I've mentioned my idea in another thread, but it was basically:

• Full clear of Castrum yields 1 of each memory, at the very least - double that if all prisoners are rescued
• Add lockboxes to the chests as well as what is already there
• Give mettle for the boss fights, at least enough to off-set the amount lost due to death
• Give a multiple of the current number of coins for a clear of Castrum(at least 3x the number of coins)

They could also change up the way the memories are given for Skirmishes and Critical Engagements. 75% chance with Skirmishes, and 100% chance from CE. And get rid of those damned fireworks from the lockboxes. Or at least drop the % by 90% of whatever it currently is, which I'm sure is a 90% chance to get the fireworks, and 10% chance to get ANYTHING else. Change it around to be 10% chance fireworks, 90% chance anything else(even the cracked clusters for materia is better than fireworks!)

It's going to get buffed/adjusted eventually however the initial implementation is always something that irked me as "grindy with little incentive". The upgrade drops are horrible (I have yet to see one), coin drops were incredibly low when they were castrum exclusive, and you could potentially wipe before getting to the last boss because you don't have enough time for more than two pulls or people to scared to go up top. Ultimately putting coins as drops in fates is what killed castrum because that's what people wanted in the first place so rather than increase the coin drop in castrum they just made it appear everywhere else. The deep essence were fine but even the lesser versions can be farmed with ease and with much higher yield rather than waiting for almost an hour to get in only to get 5 at a time.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

I've been in several full instances for the past few days. Trying to make gil in there (sell cluster items). Even cleared a castrum for people at 3-4 AM, the other day (posted about it in this thread). Cleared it with 26. Hours of full cluster farms, with multiple groups. People just don't want to do Castrum.

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I mean its not worth the effort or mettle loss to join castrum. I can get coins way quicker now via fates and CEs and clusters as a bonus since im not about cluster farming. It sucks because you can see the lack of foresight on the first implementation of bozja. The rewards need to match the time spent there at this point and they aren't planning to address until later or the next step in bozja.

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Originally Posted by MsMisato

I mean its not worth the effort or mettle loss to join castrum. I can get coins way quicker now via fates and CEs and clusters as a bonus since im not about cluster farming. It sucks because you can see the lack of foresight on the first implementation of bozja. The rewards need to match the time spent there at this point and they aren't planning to address until later or the next step in bozja.

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Meddle loss in Castrum is the weakest excuse people ever give. Even those who are afraid to do the content.

Why? Say you die 2x in your first ever run at level 10. You know you are going to do more Skirmishes and CEs later anyway to do another run of Castrum, and that takes at-least 60 minutes to spawn another one. In that time you'll make up the loss in 1 CE, and probably be at level 11 by the next queue.

Even at level 15, all it takes is 1 CE to get back to the cap. Which doesn't matter, you're always 15 no matter what happens currently.

It was way too early to give people a lazy way to get coins.

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Originally Posted by Sarevok_Thordin

It was way too early to give people a lazy way to get coins.

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Eh, that was only part of the problem. The biggest issue was how unrewarding Castrum was to begin with. It needed, and still needs, more than coins and nearly impossible to get gear augments. Even without being able to grind coins from Fates and CEs it would have lost traffic regardless.

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Originally Posted by Inzoum

or nerf it so it can be done with no more than 16 players, or have the encounter difficulty scale with the number of participants

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16 players can do it already.

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Originally Posted by WoW

16 players can do it already.

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It's been done with a single party, don't hope on saving all prisoners though lol.

two parties, just a shred of co-ordination and it's doable. People are just lazy and want others to do the co-ordination for them.

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Originally Posted by Shinklet

It's been done with a single party, don't hope on saving all prisoners though lol.

two parties, just a shred of co-ordination and it's doable. People are just lazy and want others to do the co-ordination for them.

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I've been in there my fair share of attempts. Not once have I ever seen it done with less than 25. Any less than that simply aren't capable of killing the first boss(es), let along what comes next. This has been my experience.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Eh, that was only part of the problem. The biggest issue was how unrewarding Castrum was to begin with. It needed, and still needs, more than coins and nearly impossible to get gear augments. Even without being able to grind coins from Fates and CEs it would have lost traffic regardless.

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I agree with this. The average player is motivated by better PvE gear, glamours and collection items like mounts. Castrum offers outdated 495 gear, coins to buy augments which most people don't care about and an hour away from cluster farming. All for what? Negative mettle? There is no reason to run it except once for the story.

Monsters should have never been the best way to get clusters, fragments and memories.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

I've been in there my fair share of attempts. Not once have I ever seen it done with less than 25. Any less than that simply aren't capable of killing the first boss(es), let along what comes next. This has been my experience.

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Done it with 16. The Most I've ever done it with is 22.

Please people. Remember the context of this thread. The OP is (or was) trying to complete it, first time. Sure, OCCASIONALLY, if you can even get 16 players, God forbid, 22, you can clear it. Especially if there are a few people who can lead the raid, and or parties and know what they are doing, and use their lost finds holster. Many of the players right now, are new. They probably haven't gotten a ton of forgotten fragments. For example, when I cleared it last for new people, people got lost, the fire was literally nuking parties because people were moving. We had to do that boss like 3 times. We nearly full wiped on the last one. We got a clear, because nobody decided to leave. This is not a common case, the most common case is. People don't bother with less than 24, or leave at the first wipe. If people had left during the first wipe, the Castrum I was a part of last would have NEVER been completed.

This is why every time I enter borzja to make gil now, I see new players desperate to get a clear in chat, literally begging people to join. Most of the time that never happens. A new player shouldn't have to wait until the weekend (and even that's iffy), or until they maybe get lucky. They should be able to clear it, and continue the story. People shouldn't even be getting clears with 16, people should be fighting for a spot to get in!

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

I've been in there my fair share of attempts. Not once have I ever seen it done with less than 25. Any less than that simply aren't capable of killing the first boss(es), let along what comes next. This has been my experience.

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I have been in a PUG that did it with 18 people on the first week. We only died once at Lyon, but that was a coordination issue on which party goes top and we had a bunch of players that were new including me. Of course saving all prisoners was out of the question.

Just add Castrum to the Duty Finder queue and slap some Tombs of Revelations on there in the Alliance Queue. It is already an instanced thing but forming groups takes forever and groups fall apart quickly.

Add a little indicator that says "Castrum is available" or just have it auto queue just like you do Praetorium 24 hours a day.

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Originally Posted by technole

Meddle loss in Castrum is the weakest excuse people ever give. Even those who are afraid to do the content.

Why? Say you die 2x in your first ever run at level 10. You know you are going to do more Skirmishes and CEs later anyway to do another run of Castrum, and that takes at-least 60 minutes to spawn another one. In that time you'll make up the loss in 1 CE, and probably be at level 11 by the next queue.

Even at level 15, all it takes is 1 CE to get back to the cap. Which doesn't matter, you're always 15 no matter what happens currently.

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I remember rezzing my friend over a dozen times on his first run. Even at level 15 people don’t want to lose mettle because eventually they will add more content to bozja meaning more levels. It’ll be a total pain to get to level 16 in the future if we lose too much mettle now.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

I've been in there my fair share of attempts. Not once have I ever seen it done with less than 25. Any less than that simply aren't capable of killing the first boss(es), let along what comes next. This has been my experience.

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I've seen it done with 10, *not completely premade* they used a discord server and did have voice comms.

As I said content like this just requires a shred of co-ordination from the people involved

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Originally Posted by Shinklet

I've seen it done with 10, *not completely premade* they used a discord server and did have voice comms.

As I said content like this just requires a shred of co-ordination from the people involved

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Discord premade with voice chat is like... maximum coordination.

A shred of coordination would be shouting what job you are when you ask for an invite.

There's just no reason to do Castrum past completion.
What most people go to Castrum now it's either clusters farms or xp, Castrum gives neither.
I personally hate Bozja in general, but I would have liked to get at least to rank 15. Castrum gives no mettle, it even makes you lose a lot of it. And tbh Bozja in general is so empty right now that even doing CE you lose more mettle than you gain, as with such small groups (max people I've seen in a CE last time I went to Bozja was what, 10 maybe?) you're bound to die more. Honestly, they could at least make it like Eureka, that you only lose xp if not ressed, but this way it's easier to lose mettle than to gain it tbh.
My friend used to do Castrum for coins, but stopped when they added them to the rest, since right now Castrum is just an unrewarding waste of time and mettle that often ends in failure anyway.

And honestly I hope they won't require rank 15 for the next part, as it's required for relic progress.

Hopefully they'll make Castrum more rewarding so that people have less of a hard time completing it once to move with story, such new content already dead is sad, especially when it's needed to unlock more. For now I think PF and discord are the best bets.

What time are you people even doing Castrum for your datacenter? I'm on primal, and with the exception of like now 4-7 AM EST weekdays, the instances I get later are usually full, or fairly filled. Many of the times I've ran cluster farm groups, people have to keep trying to get into the instance before I can invite/re-invite them. I was just killing time leveling my MNK in there with FATE farm. Did a CE with like 16 people, half of them dead, completed it fine. Certain CE's can be difficult, but they can still be completed if people know what they are doing. Mettle means nothing, I respawned 3 times because I didn't feel like waiting for a revive from the party I was in, and I could just get my gold for my previous contribution and move on to another FATE. I just left Borzja with my mettle capped at level 15. Mettle loss is meaningless.

You definitely shouldn't be going into Castrum and coming out with a net loss of mettle, but losing it is overall not a big deal at all. The big deal is that time investment vs. reward. Always a waste of time in there when yeah, you can just earn more outside of the instance for the same time investment.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

What time are you people even doing Castrum for your datacenter?

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I don't know about the other DCs, but on Chaos Bozja died pretty quickly. I remember the first week there were maybe 2-3 instances full and Gangos also crowded, but already after a few weeks Gangos was empty and Bozja generally only having one instance.
It might be a matter of EU dcs being smaller, idk. I haven't been there in maybe a month or more now, but I think right now it's not really more crowded than Eureka is?
At the time you described not even roulettes pop on chaos mostly, so there's that.

The coin drops from it are far too low. You would be better off doing skirmishes and CE than doing castrum for coins. They would need to triple or quadruple the drop rate in castrum to make it worth while.

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Originally Posted by Derio

The coin drops from it are far too low. You would be better off doing skirmishes and CE than doing castrum for coins. They would need to triple or quadruple the drop rate in castrum to make it worth while.

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I feel that the coin drops are fine. The instance just needs something...more. And those gear augments with a laughable drop rate aren't the answer. Exp and relic item drops would be a good start. I also view mettle loss as a non issue, but throwing some mettle gains in there as well wouldn't hurt I guess.

I’m lvl 80 and rank 15 and would do bozja a lot more if people did Castrum. Grinding fates & CEs gets boring quickly, and so it’s nice to have a fun raid in the mix. But since bozja is too monotonous with castrum dead, I can’t bother with it until patch 5.45. I was hoping I wouldnt have to wait that long for them to fix castrum but it is what it is.

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Originally Posted by Sacred-Oblivion

I’m lvl 80 and rank 15 and would do bozja a lot more if people did Castrum. Grinding fates & CEs gets boring quickly, and so it’s nice to have a fun raid in the mix. But since bozja is too monotonous with castrum dead, I can’t bother with it until patch 5.45. I was hoping I wouldnt have to wait that long for them to fix castrum but it is what it is.

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I totally feel that.
The other thing really holding me back from really going at it in Bozja (if I could go on a tangent quick) is the droprate on Indigo Star is too high.
Whenever I get a lockbox, instead of being excited at the chance of getting something cool, I just feel tired by the seemingly 60% chance to get another Indigo Star.
Actually, I've completely stopped opening them in the vague hopes they'll tweak the drops sometime later. It's not like SQEX determines what's inside them when you get them lol, so I'm just kinda stockpiling them for now.



Edit: That stuff I said about the T-Rex Mound and Red Mage Barding being patched into old Eureka lockboxes was incorrect and has been removed.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I totally feel that.
The other thing really holding me back from really going at it in Bozja (if I could go on a tangent quick) is the droprate on Indigo Star is too high.
Whenever I get a lockbox, instead of being excited at the chance of getting something cool, I just feel tired by the seemingly 60% chance to get another Indigo Star.
Actually, I've completely stopped opening them. At the end of Stormblood they patched in the T-rex mount and Red Mage Barding into Eureka's version of lock boxes. I expect they'll change the drop rates and add new prizes as Shadow Bringers winds down so I'm waiting to open mine. It's not like SQEX determines what's inside them when you get them lol.

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YES! That STUPID Indigo star, all I get, LITERALLY. It's incredibly annoying. I know they have other things in there, other than umbrellas, but STILL all I get is INDIGO STAR! I am level 15, done HUNDREDS of FATES/CE I have NEVER once got the mount out of a lockbox - I had to buy it. They have chocobo barding in it, I have barely ever gotten any of those. Hundreds upon hundreds of indigo star. Yeah, I know some people have gotten a few mounts, but God, like I can't be the only one who gets indigo star over and over and over... at this rate.

I cleared Castrum on my main when it was relevant. People were doing it all the time and the groups had good coordination.

I tried doing bozja on my Chaos alt in december, and when I finally got to rank 10, I couldn't do Castrum. Beyond the instances being quite empty, when castrum popped I had to beg people to join... the most I got was 20 people. All other times we disbanded because there weren't enough peolpe. But this time with 20 we tried and couldn't pass the first boss.
It seems kind of impossible to complete castrum at this stage, at least on Chaos, unless I try to coordinate in some bozja discord. Hopefully in 5.45 they update castrum to be more rewarding so people will do it. It may get more populated because people need to do it to progress, so I'm hoping I can do it then.
If it doesn't get better, lots of people won't be able to continue the relic... Seems silly to lock the relic behind this weird kind of group content. Imagine people trying to do this relic in 1, 2 years from now...

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I totally feel that.
The other thing really holding me back from really going at it in Bozja (if I could go on a tangent quick) is the droprate on Indigo Star is too high.
Whenever I get a lockbox, instead of being excited at the chance of getting something cool, I just feel tired by the seemingly 60% chance to get another Indigo Star.
Actually, I've completely stopped opening them. At the end of Stormblood they patched in the T-rex mount and Red Mage Barding into Eureka's version of lock boxes. I expect they'll change the drop rates and add new prizes as Shadow Bringers winds down so I'm waiting to open mine. It's not like SQEX determines what's inside them when you get them lol.

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T-rex mount and red mage barding were always in the anemos lockboxes from the beginning. The only change they ever made to lock box drops is making the anemos glamour gear sellable on the market board. I've been hoarding a stack of 999 of those for a long time now on the off chance they ever change anything, but so far they haven't. I wouldn't expect them to at this point. ( I am still holding them though!)

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Originally Posted by Espritduo

T-rex mount and red mage barding were always in the anemos lockboxes from the beginning. The only change they ever made to lock box drops is making the anemos glamour gear sellable on the market board. I've been hoarding a stack of 999 of those for a long time now on the off chance they ever change anything, but so far they haven't. I wouldn't expect them to at this point. ( I am still holding them though!)

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uhh...
(compares patch notes and release dates)...
Oh snap you're right. My bad. I'll amend my post.

I'm not expecting the bozja lockboxes to change much either, but if there's any chance that I can open them later this year and get less Indigo Stars for my wasted time... I'll wait. I won't hold my breath, but I'll wait.

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Originally Posted by Burningskull

I think in the future they should keep things like Castrum Lacus to the duty finder. Especially since it's going to be required to do the relic weapon. Open world events always die out over time but things being in the roulettes people grind for tomes will always be healthy... except guildhests maybe lol.

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I agree with this, their greatest mistake was to make an instanced event that takes away half the zones population and makes it punishing to those who remain. Its bad design and the instance should be something you unlock, give it a lot of good drops and put it on a weekly loot cooldown like the 24s. Easy to fix, easy to implement and while I understand they are trying to do something "different", this is not the way. If they really want to not have it in the Duty Finder, then have it unlocked and then EVERYBODY gets to charge in and participate. Use the players who are below level 10 to do other things that can help progress things along that are totally optional.

Chances are they'll make it mandatory for the next patch that you can't continue until you beat it, which can incentivize participation or even tie the next relic step behind it.

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Originally Posted by Tracewood

Chances are they'll make it mandatory for the next patch that you can't continue until you beat it, which can incentivize participation or even tie the next relic step behind it.

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It already is tied to progression. It's part of Bozja's story, so you probably won't be able to progress to the next area without completing it. That incentive already exists, but without the proper rewards...players who are already done with it have little to no reason to do it again. THAT is the issue.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

It already is tied to progression. It's part of Bozja's story, so you probably won't be able to progress to the next area without completing it. That incentive already exists, but without the proper rewards...players who are already done with it have little to no reason to do it again. THAT is the issue.

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Which is really ridiculous. Like I said before, people should be fighting to get in. Literally there's this whole thing spending clusters or whatever to try and secure a spot in CEs, that's how it should work. Not that I like that (people getting locked out), but still people should want to do it. Now all we have are veterans farming the instance, who don't want to clear. People who haven't cleared might as well be just wasting their time in there. They can't even get borzja coins unless they cleared. Whole thing was mangled.

Every time I'm in there - which is everyday pretty much now - I always see the new people in chat getting so excited for Borzja when it pops. Those poor souls.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

Which is really ridiculous. Like I said before, people should be fighting to get in. Literally there's this whole thing spending clusters or whatever to try and secure a spot in CEs, that's how it should work. Not that I like that (people getting locked out), but still people should want to do it. Now all we have are veterans farming the instance, who don't want to clear. People who haven't cleared might as well be just wasting their time in there. They can't even get borzja coins unless they cleared. Whole thing was mangled.

Every time I'm in there - which is everyday pretty much now - I always see the new people in chat getting so excited for Borzja when it pops. Those poor souls.

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Yeah. It really is sad to see. I'd love to do Castrum, but I refuse to do it with less than 25. Sure, people have claimed to have done it with much less, but I have never personally seen it done with less than that. Right now, with the new players outnumbering veterans 10-1 in that instance, it is just very unlikely to see it actually done. Most can't make it past the first boss, let alone anything beyond that. Like you said, people should be fighting to get in.