Castrum is dead. Please do something, Squenix

[Vahlnir]

It seems this will be a problem. This is the last bit of catch up I need to do after resubscribing. I grinded out level 10 in a couple days, but it seems to pop incredibly slowly, and if it does it doesn't fill. If it gets a sufficient amount.. people leave, because there are too many of us new players. Quite annoying. Hopefully I can get this done tonight, or this weekend. Seems like pretty bad design for this story mission. You either do it early patch, or you never do it. For that matter, Borzja in it's entirety is bad design, honestly sucks, but that is another matter entirely.

Personally I don't think Bozja is bad, but all it really is is Fate spam. I'm glad they separated the relic from this type of content this time around, but I do think that Bozja suffers from a lack of incentives to actually do the content within, so it's sort of a double edged sword. I was hoping they would address the Castrum issues, but it looks like they're waiting until the next zone releases or they aren't going to do anything. They would have benefited from fixing things earlier. I'm currently at rank 10 and getting Castrum done is pretty much an impossible task as things currently stand.

[SturmChurro]

Personally I don't think Bozja is bad, but all it really is is Fate spam. I'm glad they separated the relic from this type of content this time around, but I do think that Bozja suffers from a lack of incentives to actually do the content within, so it's sort of a double edged sword. I was hoping they would address the Castrum issues, but it looks like they're waiting until the next zone releases or they aren't going to do anything. They would have benefited from fixing things earlier. I'm currently at rank 10 and getting Castrum done is pretty much an impossible task as things currently stand.

Okay, dude, you caught me. I am about to go on a rant, because I am already incredibly annoyed after spending probably 30 hours in this trash.

Let's start: The new player experience has got to be some of the worst for any content I have ever seen in FFXIV. You get thrown into a zone populated with worthless mobs, and you get one MAYBE two fates at a time, until you unlock level 5. You move at an incredibly slow speed on a fairly large map with no teleports anywhere in-between until you have leveled up enough to do the story mission. Even then, the teleports you unlock are extremely far out, no matter what you still have to move at a 2 mph around this map, again, populated with worthless mobs. Oh? Am I ignorant to these mobs actual purpose? That's the new player experience, you are gonna be ignorant. It's SE's job to inform, make this content enjoyable, or at least rewarding. If I want memories I'll go to a HW zone and do FATEs, complete waste of time here.

The FATEs oh yes the FATEs.. all you do, with no reward other than mettle, exactly what I want! Mettle! Mettle that apparently is so important nobody wants to do Castrum. One wipe DONE. Everyone out. Story requirement, by the way. Go do some big boss, also if the zone was populated you have a problem. Players get locked out of content... Anyway.. You do that, you get more mettle! Mettle you can use to level up and get locked out of Castrum! Don't do Castrum? What's the point in all that mettle?! You'll never get to the next zone! "But.. but.. lockboxes!" Yeah! Exactly what I wanted lockboxes! So I can get my 80th indigo star! or my 15th black checkered umbrella! HYPE! Screw that. "Buuut duels!" I couldn't care less about Yu-Gi-Oh.

Borzja is dog poop trash, only reason to do it is for the future content - which will be equally as garbage, but hopefully more rewarding. At this point you can't even advance. Oh I should add "find a free company and do it!" I don't want to join a free company to do BORZJA. IMAGINE joining a free company to become near obligated to do trash content. Yeah, nah, I'm good. Worthless. I've spent probably 30 hours in this zone doing FATEs, and registering every hour for one failed Castrum after the next once I hit 10. "just do it bro".

METTLE! DUELS! INDIGO STAR!

[Morningstar1337]

Castrum is Dead, Castrum remains dead and we have killed it. Yet its shadow still looms :P

Honestly I do think this is a problem that needs to be addressed. And I think the best way to solve it might be to offside the mettle losses and add Lockboxes and Memory rewards based on how well the party did. Like a total of 6 bitters and 20 of the FATE ones assuming all three bosses (Door Bosses, Adramalech and Lyon and pet) are cleared, or have the Fate ones be obtained from clearing the bosses and the Bitters be based on how many prisoner are free of their bindings instead of their mortal coils.

Failing that they could put it and Baldesion Arsenal on the DF/RF

[Vahlnir]

Okay, dude, you caught me. I am about to go on a rant, because I am already incredibly annoyed after spending probably 30 hours in this trash.

Borzja is dog poop trash, only reason to do it is for the future content - which will be equally as garbage, but hopefully more rewarding. At this point you can't even advance. Oh I should add "find a free company and do it!" I don't want to join a free company to do BORZJA. IMAGINE joining a free company to become near obligated to do trash content. Yeah, nah, I'm good. Worthless. I've spent probably 30 hours in this zone doing FATEs, and registering every hour for one failed Castrum after the next once I hit 10. "just do it bro".

METTLE! DUELS! INDIGO STAR!

Oh, I'm not saying it's good. I agree with you 110%. But I personally don't mind it, mostly because it's mindless. Castrum though...that's a bit of a sore spot for me. They could have, and should have, handled all of that better. They could have handled Bozja as a whole better, really. But for what it is, a glorified Fate grind, it is about as casual as it gets. I can just listen to music/watch Netflix and come and go as I please. I like THAT I guess. Castrum can jump off a cliff though.

[SturmChurro]

Oh, I'm not saying it's good. I agree with you 110%. But I personally don't mind it, mostly because it's mindless. Castrum though...that's a bit of a sore spot for me. They could have, and should have, handled all of that better. They could have handled Bozja as a whole better, really. But for what it is, a glorified Fate grind, it is about as casual as it gets. I can just listen to music/watch Netflix and come and go as I please. I like THAT I guess. Castrum can jump off a cliff though.

Sorry, I was just really annoyed at the time of posting. Wasn't really directed at you. Just had to let off some steam. Like I get it, some people like this kind of content. I've seen people defend it in chat, but like, for me, it's a means to an end. I'll do it for the gear, and rewards. That's about it. I wish they had made the zone fun, but unfortunately they didn't. Castrum itself, is okay as an instance. Decent raid, but the way it is implemented is definitely just AWFUL. I don't really understand why they have it limited to every hour a pop, and players in zone or whatever, but it's arbitrary and needs to be removed. As we were discussing in the other thread, they need to up the rewards as well. I can get more coins in less time grinding FATEs in there. Considering that hour long wait - if you even get in and can clear it.

[Liam_Harper]

I think they overestimated the value of the Haste gear tbh. Probably after the high prices of Skoll's Claws and Cassie Earrings in Eureka, they figured we'd happily farm Castrum 50+ times trying to chase that full Haste set. Unlike Eureka however, it's simply a small dps boost and doesn't affect your survival rate at all, so unless the dps checks in the Savage mode of next stage are so high that even dps lost actions aren't enough, it's not worth the effort.

Mettle isn't worth it because Bozjan exp is largely worthless after rank 10 right now and reaching 15 just means a higher penalty on death.

Regular exp would have to outweigh the equivalent of doing Fates and Skirmishes in that same time.

Memories aren't worth it because they decided faceroll HW FATEs should rain them down on us.

Dropping more fragments doesn't help that much, they're already very cheap on the mb. Clusters wouldn't work since you can farm them anytime.

They've locked themselves into a corner really where they have to buff the rewards to silly amounts to make it worth looking at. Almost everything in Bozja including the Relic is handed over on a plate already.

[Theodric]

I'd rather farm Castrum for memories over FATE's, personally.

[SturmChurro]

I'd rather farm Castrum for memories over FATE's, personally.

Imagine being a game dev and rather than encourage players to do your new content, you encourage them to do 4 year old content instead - and not even the good stuff.

For that matter, we already had to grind these same FATEs for HW relic, so.. what exactly was SE's thought process here? I can understand, maybe they wanted to get players to work on their old relics at the same time, admirable, but they have made these FATEs more rewarding for memories than anything Borzja could offer. It's nonsensical, in my opinion. Also, coins. I can do FATEs in borzja, or the big bosses, because of the amount of time inbetween Castrum qeueus, EVEN IF you could get enough players to do it, there is no point. People can just continue to gather their coins through the zone, at a MUCH higher efficiency. Better than even registering for Castrum and clearing it.

[Deceptus]

Imagine being a game dev and rather than encourage players to do your new content, you encourage them to do 4 year old content instead - and not even the good stuff.

For that matter, we already had to grind these same FATEs for HW relic, so.. what exactly was SE's thought process here? I can understand, maybe they wanted to get players to work on their old relics at the same time, admirable, but they have made these FATEs more rewarding for memories than anything Borzja could offer. It's nonsensical, in my opinion. Also, coins. I can do FATEs in borzja, or the big bosses, because of the amount of time inbetween Castrum qeueus, EVEN IF you could get enough players to do it, there is no point. People can just continue to gather their coins through the zone, at a MUCH higher efficiency. Better than even registering for Castrum and clearing it.

The FFXIV Developers love to "revitalize old content' by making current relic hunters do old stuff. Has happened since 3.0

[Morningstar1337]

The FFXIV Developers love to "revitalize old content' by making current relic hunters do old stuff. Has happened since 3.0

AFAIK, Eureka weapons didn't seem to involve doing old content in any way shape or form.