Castrum Lacus Litore declining participation

[Vahlnir]

Do we know when this is going to happen?

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

[Ftail]

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.

[Vickii]

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.

[SturmChurro]

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.

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.

[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.

[technole]

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.

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.

[SturmChurro]

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.

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.

[Avatre]

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!)

[Marxam]

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.

[MsMisato]

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.

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.