Bozja feedback thread

I view the outside quests as being a nice way to equip multiple roles with weapons. In Eureka you could but you needed a lot more to do so with respect to time and cost in my view. I'm happy to see it and I'm working on my 3rd weapon right now and am close to r11 in Bozja. Just did Castrum and it's a ball.

For those not doing the actual Front well they're missing out in my view. I'm sure it's not for everyone but it's a major content and time sink to the game.

Relative to story my goodness this story line is extremely long and well done compared to the next to nothing story in the Eureka quest line.

Honestly. Once I started to farm cluster memory also dropped like candy. Already completed two relics and I still have 14 extra green memories (meaning two more relics without touching a dungeon).

Is one of the things I like of this area, if you want X you need to do Y instead of just running around following the fate train. Love it.

https://i.imgur.com/PmgMo9f.png https://i.imgur.com/jq8rSN8.png https://i.imgur.com/enYqSgk.png

This kind of drop is rather common if you AoE farm.

Sure, once you are totally done in there fates/dungeons are a better option.

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Originally Posted by Pepsi_Plunge

Bozja is only out since 3 days. Give it a few more (the weekend is coming up) and enough people will get over level 10 to fill Castrum regularly.

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It is not just a issue of not enough R10 but also when the Castrum spawns.

Once enough R10 players are on the map the spawn of Castrum is random.

It basically spawn during a moment when almost every R10 players are already in a middle of a Critical Mission boss fight or already queue up for a Critical mission boss fight thus they can't cancel out of it and join Castrum. There is also no advance warning if Castrum will spawn soon so players must depend on assumptions when it will spawn.

Personally, this type of issue can be avoided easily if Castrum was up more frequently rather than a hour or 2 wait every spawn time.

Not to mention the Instance Lock when a Instance been up for too long they will lock it so no more players can join thus players must leave and join a fresh new instance.

there also consideration that certain number of R10 players will not do Castrum. Due to Castrum nature of only using players in the same instance, if players are in a instance where a good amount of R10 Players don't want to do castrum then that will add to the cause of low amount of participants in Castrum.

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Originally Posted by VictorTheed

How hard is it? Puppets bunker/Orborne Monastery before nerfs? Extreme? Savage?

I'm close to unlocking it

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I would consider it to be a on content Alliance Raid hard, depending on how many people you have and if everyone is working together. We had 29 people and two people knew what they were doing and told everyone mechanics. Last boss I pretty much Focus Targeted the person who knew tbh and followed them lol. As long as you have enough raisers you can be on the floor a few times and still win.

This brings me to the issue I found, is that I finished it and while I very much enjoyed it, it feels a lot like the Alliance Raid on content in that I only want to do it maybe once or twice a day or every other day. The normal gear prices imo are fine; first run I got 19 coins which is enough for one piece that isn't a top. But the amount you need to upgrade ONE piece is insane! Compound that with people being in an instance not caring about the Castrum (usually there to grind clusters like I have been doing, or they just don't care about doing it again), and the fact you can't get coins outside of the Castrum CE. Unless the stats on the gear are going to matter later on when 5.4 happens or they make the Duels "easier", I don't really see the point. They should of had the augmented gear able to be upgraded by grinding something in Bozja itself.

It's very neat and the fights are fun to do, but where are the Lalafell?

I think it wouldn't hurt to add the coins to regular CEs once you've completed the Castrum one cause otherwise you're kind of just left waiting for it to happen and that's really boring.

Apperently reading another thread on here the upgrades have a chance dropping from a chest? Then that's not as bad, at least.

Well after finishing the Castrum (thanks to some of the guys giving the rest of us some pointers) I will only get to the max rank in there since we probably need that for the next zone and after that I will be done with it. (Bought most of the stuff from the MB.)

For quite some time I tried to get a party to farm some clusters but nobody invited me. I also stayed away from some of the CE because I did not want to miss the chance to get into the Castrum. In one instance where I was in for nearly a full hour the castrum started and we were under 20 people in it because another CE had started a bit ago and people were still in it. The shout chat after we had to leave at the start was quite interesting. People cursing SE for their "great" design decision with that one. A timer would be nice..maybe 15 minutes before it will happen there is a message..something like "the soldiers will soon be ready to storm the Castrum". With that people are able to just wait for it.

Still the fights are hard if you have no idea whats happening, especially the first one with the shared kill. I am really not a fan of these dungeon like contents for that, especially if you lock story behind it and maybe progression depending on what you need to start the next step...(but they cant lock the next relic step behind a castrum clear otherwise their talk about how you can do the relic in two ways is a lie..because you would still need the other way to start the next one).

The story was okay, nothing too outstanding and the WoL suffered from the cutscene sickness again...

All in all I am already bored by the few same fights again and again..in the end they are after all just fates. And since there is no other way to raise your mettle its just fate farming..I am really not sure why we needed a whole new zone for this..make the bozja story line a normal side quest with the Castrum being a HM dungeon and just use the existing old content soley for relic. Heck I still even like the books from the old relic more..at least there was a variety of different content you had to do but each one of them was still not hard, just time consuming. Right now its just Atma farming again..in a new zone.

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Originally Posted by dsgawwewerfw

It's very neat and the fights are fun to do, but where are the Lalafell?

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I think the only time I've ever seen an imperial lalafell is in Stormblood when we have to steal armor from the knocked out soldiers. Garleans must just really not like lalafells...

One of the many reasons we like Garleans.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

I would consider it to be a on content Alliance Raid hard, depending on how many people you have and if everyone is working together. We had 29 people and two people knew what they were doing and told everyone mechanics. Last boss I pretty much Focus Targeted the person who knew tbh and followed them lol. As long as you have enough raisers you can be on the floor a few times and still win.

This brings me to the issue I found, is that I finished it and while I very much enjoyed it, it feels a lot like the Alliance Raid on content in that I only want to do it maybe once or twice a day or every other day. The normal gear prices imo are fine; first run I got 19 coins which is enough for one piece that isn't a top. But the amount you need to upgrade ONE piece is insane! Compound that with people being in an instance not caring about the Castrum (usually there to grind clusters like I have been doing, or they just don't care about doing it again), and the fact you can't get coins outside of the Castrum CE. Unless the stats on the gear are going to matter later on when 5.4 happens or they make the Duels "easier", I don't really see the point. They should of had the augmented gear able to be upgraded by grinding something in Bozja itself.

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I personally think the best way to handle this is to remove Mettle loss with Castrum so people are not so afraid to die in it and take part in it. That or reward enough Mettle to be worth the risk of Mettle loss or can cover the Mettle lost.

The most negative reason many feel they don't want to farm Castrum again until they are Rank 15 or only want to do it once for story only is because of the large amount of Mettle lost just trying to beat it.

Easy to avoid mettle loss if they know what to do and have a good organized team but that takes time to prepare and luck for having random R10 players put into the same Instance you're in that wants to do castrum and if they know how to do castrum.

If anything once Rank 10, staying in Bozja to do random things until Castrum is near spawning is more of a long Queue time for Castrum to pop and another shorter queue time to see if you can be among the 48 to take part in castrum. I have been in a few instances where we manage to get all 48 max players into castrum but a good 10 or more players who want to do castrum did not get in because of the 48 player limit.


As for map design, it reminds me of Guild Wars 2 Icebrood Saga Drizzlewood Coast Map a bit but not so open and a bit restrictive. Players progress through the map as a community within the same instance to eventually reach the Fortress where the final boss is and within that Fortress are light raid level bosses and mechanics designed to use everything they got in Drizzlewood Coast (from their mastery and items) and learned through the course of the game to beat those bosses from a Giant Fortress Tank that requires players to defend players controlling their own tanks, throwing explosive grenades, and using sieges to break its armor so the players can attack the Fortress tank directly to eventually the large scale Dragon Champion boss at the end of the fortress as the enemy's last defense against all the players that help fight through the fortress.

One of my all time favorite moments in any MMO was when I was playing the Brawler's Guild in WoW. For those unaware, it is 1v1, solo content, similar to the 1v1 duels in Bozja (but shorter and much more repeatable).
It was incredibly thrilling to finally kill Disruptron on my Warrior. My nerd screams resonated through the house.

In Bozja... being able to qualify for the 1v1 and seeing someone die on it in 10 seconds is disheartening. It feels like a waste of a fate. 18 people qualified, and only 1 person gets to do it...? With how rare these fates pop up, it feels like a slog when I want to re-experience my favorite part of gaming history. I really really really want to experience this awesome part of the game's content, but I am locked behind RNG lottery. It is very disheartening. I feel like an improvement needs to be made, here.

One idea was to let another person have a go if a player died in the first 30 seconds, or something. "Can anyone here offer a challenge?!" Maybe have more than one Critical Engagement spawn the 1v1...? I don't know... I don't want to tell you how to design your game, but it really hurts to miss out on the 1v1s.

Anywho... Thank you for listening.

So far i'm loving the Bozja but there's a few issues I got with it.

1. No punishment for users signing up for Castrum and then leaving it after it started before even pulling the first boss. I've had 4 instances of this happening to me today alone.
2. The "Duels" seem overtuned. I've watched around 20 of them and not a single person got the monster below around 80% and were all one kit K.O.ed by the mob.

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Originally Posted by znushu

So far i'm loving the Bozja but there's a few issues I got with it.

1. No punishment for users signing up for Castrum and then leaving it after it started before even pulling the first boss. I've had 4 instances of this happening to me today alone.
2. The "Duels" seem overtuned. I've watched around 20 of them and not a single person got the monster below around 80% and were all one kit K.O.ed by the mob.

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People generally bail from Castrum because they think there isn't people to finish it. At absolute minimum you'd probably need two parties of eight players as the first and third boss require two teams to be fighting separate battles but it would be rough and you'd get less rewards overall as the more soldiers you save before the second boss the more rewards you get; except you need six groups to split up and handle that efficiently as you're on a timer the moment the branching paths open up.

As far as the solo fights go, considering how much rewards you get for actually beating one of them (99 lockboxes and a ridiculous amount of mettle on top of a zone-wide 50% mettle increase for 30 minutes) them being difficult is justified. It's mostly a matter of consistency because their mechanics start repeating after about only three minutes of combat and you have about nine minutes to kill each boss before they wipe you. My only beef with it is that it's exceedingly difficult for the people who are actually serious about beating the fights to get a shot at them with how many randoms are attempting them just for kicks without knowing what they're getting themselves into.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

People generally bail from Castrum because they think there isn't people to finish it. At absolute minimum you'd probably need two parties of eight players as the first and third boss require two teams to be fighting separate battles but it would be rough.

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I've had 6 people leave at the same time just after it started without a boss getting pulled in an instance where the boss wasn't even pulled yet and the number of users reached 28 players and the only thing said in said instance was "lfg" and "which group is going top/bottom" an such. This is then followed by 3 or so players following them and the rest just tumbles down from there. So while i have also seen what you said, where there just simply isn't enough in the instance. What i'm referring to is when there is enough players but a number of users just ditch the instance before the boss is pulled. Making me think this is more of a matter of users trolling other users trying to do castrum, which is valid considering this is becoming more of an issue with less players doing it.

Castrum needs to be actually queueable via DF or something so that we the players can actually guarantee a full instance for it. Spent all day just trying to get a run done and there were only two occasions wherein Castrum had enough people in it to actually attempt the first boss (only to disband after one pull because the time it takes to get all the stragglers partied up, mechanics explained, and everyone properly set up between top and bottom only leaves enough time for one pull when you only have like 24-ish random people of varying jobs). Every other attempt I had just did not have enough people join, whether it be because the other rank 10+ didn't care to queue for it or because yet again it ended up popping while everyone was tied up with a prior CE.

my thing is why is everyting pretty much 48 people when they limited the instance to 72? like if 2 48 CE spawn then one is failing for one of two reasons not everyone is participating and two 60% of the instance went to the first one so the second fight is 12 people.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I think they already mentioned that you wouldn't be able to progress the weapon unless you finished the story in Bozja so the people who are neglecting to do so are going to be in for a rude awakening when 5.45 drops.

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They probably wont even be subbed by then , they got their glow weapon and that's all most care about. See ya in expansion mot much matters til then. But if male viera isn't coming I'm not buying.

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

WoL... Primal Slayer. God Slayer. Dies to one hit mechanics from random schlubs in duels. Everyone is Zenos level now.

Thats said, Bozja is better designed than Eureka, but it's also more lonely, imo, as I said in another thread. Groups don't form as often. A lot of times I can't get one or find people to invite outside of engagements. People don't interact as much. You call out a star mob and you're lucky to have 2-3 other people show up.

I feel like it gained a lot, but lost something in the process. The community. Now its all "Is Louhi (Castrum) up?" 24-7.

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I feel the content was made to have us party up like we had to back on 11 to get anything worth while done. This game and the people who play it are alot different then what I'm used to on 11. There you were with your end game LS to do content and got used to one anothers strengths and weakness. But you could also count on others to help that were on the same quest etc.

14 is a whole 'nother world. It feels singular but in an MMO setting. Outside of a few FC, ls, statics and if you are lucky people you can rely on there is no community in this game. I'd say within a month two at max the area will be a ghost town until the next wave of people who want to clear it comes along. Get what ya can while ya can should be the motto of 14.

The map is kind of lazy in a sense its just 3 areas that are rectangles, however the skirmishes can be fun with groups as well as trying to get the star level enemies downed with death.

As for castrum its a pretty fun mini raid. I have done it in a pug as well as premades from party finder and have found both to be enjoyable. I don't think there is much of a hassle with "snipers" as there is usually not enough people to even fill it up to 48.

I do think they need to tweak the spawn timer for castrum and make it so that it does not crossover with any of the Critical engagements that also spawn.

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Originally Posted by znushu

So far i'm loving the Bozja but there's a few issues I got with it.

1. No punishment for users signing up for Castrum and then leaving it after it started before even pulling the first boss. I've had 4 instances of this happening to me today alone.
2. The "Duels" seem overtuned. I've watched around 20 of them and not a single person got the monster below around 80% and were all one kit K.O.ed by the mob.

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The Duel is optional and is for an achievement. It is meant to be extremely challenging and its cool seeing the guides on what actions you should bring with you.

with the castrum part that sucks. how full was the instance? I have had it where only like 15 of us go in to castrum so we just backed out and didn't take the mettle loss we knew we would get.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I think they already mentioned that you wouldn't be able to progress the weapon unless you finished the story in Bozja so the people who are neglecting to do so are going to be in for a rude awakening when 5.45 drops.

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Really? Thats just horrible..yeah lets lock the whole next step behind something which might not even be alive anymore in the future...good luck then to everyone who wants to do the relic next expansion...I really dont like how they have done the last two relics..first Eureka with only it being the way to get the relic (but if I remember it correctly the "dungeon" in there is not necessary to finish the relic?) and now you give us at least another way but still will force peope through the other part?

It would be less horrible if they did not include the Castrum in it..or make it so that you can queue for that..I really want the old relic questline back where there is a bit of a story (but nothing so worthwile like the one right now or even Eureka) and mostly just older content being reused. With that you are always able to do them. With Eureka and especially Castrum right now you have to hope that people will still be doing it, that enough players click on it when its active and manage to beat it. Somehow the casual but time consuming relic is turning way more hardcore...and on top of that we might be losing dungeons and new palace of the deaths for them..

The worst content I have played for this game. Boring, repetitive RNG crap that infuriates me to no end and the fact the story is tied to a random instance that i've managed to get into once after 3 days only to have everyone who did join leave cause there was only 20 people is absolute shite design.

I've cleared Castrum twice this morning, did bottom first time and top the second. Its actually not really that bad. I can't seem to get any good dps essences, so I've been using Banner of Sacrifice with Essence of the Beast, which nullifies the hp drain. Gives me a pretty damaging opener.

I have zero interest in the dueling mechanic. Need Manawall for everything, need to be completely perfect with no real way to learn the fight without being selected, which is rare in itself. If you you do prove yourself worthy to get in, the chances of actually do so are slim.


It is grind as all hell, though. You need dedicated cluster farming groups, chest drop rates are terrible when you get fireworks 90% of the time. Its Eureka all over again in that regard. It wouldn't be as bad if the Resistance Weapons weren't more easily gotten outside of Bozja.

It's a fun content, it has everything for casuals and extreme raiders. o: I hope SE keeps making more of these. My only complaint is maybe they should had made the HW fates drop the fragments at 50% chance and Bozja Skirmishes/Critical Engagements at 100% chance at getting a random fragment. It's been a long time since i actually logged in FFXIV and not get bored within 5 minutes lol.

Anyone have a list of field note locations?

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

I've cleared Castrum twice this morning, did bottom first time and top the second. Its actually not really that bad. I can't seem to get any good dps essences, so I've been using Banner of Sacrifice with Essence of the Beast, which nullifies the hp drain. Gives me a pretty damaging opener.

I have zero interest in the dueling mechanic. Need Manawall for everything, need to be completely perfect with no real way to learn the fight without being selected, which is rare in itself. If you you do prove yourself worthy to get in, the chances of actually do so are slim.


It is grind as all hell, though. You need dedicated cluster farming groups, chest drop rates are terrible when you get fireworks 90% of the time. Its Eureka all over again in that regard. It wouldn't be as bad if the Resistance Weapons weren't more easily gotten outside of Bozja.

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Most of the stuff coming from lockboxes can be acquired via the market board. In my server, Gabriel mount is less than 2 million for example.

It's the most boring content I have ever played

Yeah, I'm broke now. Down to 500k. Lol. Spent too much on housing stuff and glass. Need to get to farming/crafting to build my gil stash back up.

Inb4 next weapon upgrade is Stormblood content grind lol

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Originally Posted by Diargoa

Inb4 next weapon upgrade is Stormblood content grind lol

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It literally is currently.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

It literally is currently.

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Not yet it isnt. Helped a friend get theirs done one short session when they got back from work, probably 3 hours in total while i was working on my 3rd one. The grind for the relic upgrade is easily done in a day. Also, you can do the FATEs on any job(including BLU) before you have to do the measly 6 dungeon runs. Do Antitower or Sohm Al hard, that can be done in an hour tops.

So... Yesterday made until Castrum's last boss, but we failed the timer, due to 4 wipes... In the end, I actually lost around 20k mettle overall by my own deaths and the wipes around the instance. I know, I know... But was my 1st run, still learning all of the mechanics.

Said that... My Rank is 11. Would be wiser to wait until rank 15 to try again, so the mettle losses wouldn't matter?

I think there's been about five incidents now where Castrum decided to pop right after most of the instance queued into a different CE.

There seriously needs to be an extension on how much time you're permitted to register, because one minute is absurdly short compared to how much time you get to prepare for the Balsesion Arsenal.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I think there's been about five incidents now where Castrum decided to pop right after most of the instance queued into a different CE.

There seriously needs to be an extension on how much time you're permitted to register, because one minute is absurdly short compared to how much time you get to prepare for the Balsesion Arsenal.

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This always happens from what I've seen.
CE's seem to spawn in certain intervals, which almost always end up lining up with the Castrum pop.

Castrum always triggers after exactly 1 hour into an instance. The countdown starts at 180 minutes, so Castrum will trigger at 120m left on the timer.
Don't register for any CE's after about 128m. And if it's Choctober, just forget it. That always seems to pop around 130-125 and you will definitely not have enough time to do both.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

So... Yesterday made until Castrum's last boss, but we failed the timer, due to 4 wipes... In the end, I actually lost around 20k mettle overall by my own deaths and the wipes around the instance. I know, I know... But was my 1st run, still learning all of the mechanics.

Said that... My Rank is 11. Would be wiser to wait until rank 15 to try again, so the mettle losses wouldn't matter?

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I honestly believe the best way to compensate for Castrum high risk with mettle loss is to atleast provide Mettle rewards for each boss defeated to cover any Mettle loss during fights.

That or remove the Mettle loss from Castrum.

That way people maybe more willing to join Castrum more often since they don't have to risk their Mettle too much.

they really need to do something about Castrum. it's required to finish the story part, so I should at least be able to do it. So far all I joined were ended cause not even 3 parties where present cause of people signed up for another CE. and apparently it's not even that easy So I don't expect to clear it first try

I actually enjoy Bozja. It's great move to combine 71-80 leveling, and Eureka like design for relics and such.

Aside from sharing the sentiment on Castrum, I feel that Bozja clusters should drop from Fates and battlefields too. After a time, cluster farming parties will be less and less as I've been finding.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

So... Yesterday made until Castrum's last boss, but we failed the timer, due to 4 wipes... In the end, I actually lost around 20k mettle overall by my own deaths and the wipes around the instance. I know, I know... But was my 1st run, still learning all of the mechanics.

Said that... My Rank is 11. Would be wiser to wait until rank 15 to try again, so the mettle losses wouldn't matter?

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You can't lose rank, but lose more the higher rank you are. I'm thinking it's probably best to do Castrum asap after hitting 10.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

You can't lose rank, but lose more the higher rank you are. I'm thinking it's probably best to do Castrum asap after hitting 10.

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You don't lose rank but your mettle can go all the way to zero. Anyway, IMO you don't lose that much mettle that a few CE won't fix, something that I find myself doing from time to time to keep my mettle at max.

I actually did rank all the way to 15 before properly farm Castrum and honestly, at this point I think was not a smart move because I skipped successful Castrum runs.