I appear to have already missed the boat on bozja

[Gemina]

As much as I defend the devs, even my verbal gymnast attempts can't help them here. They seriously screwed this one up big time, and I have no idea what they were thinking. Perhaps as the next patch approaches there will be more peeps needing to clear Castrum. Even if this is the case, players should not have rely/wait on such instances to line up with their goals.

Just terrible decision making on the part of the dev team.

[Vahlnir]

and I have no idea what they were thinking

This is something I have found myself saying pretty regularly during Shadowbringers, unfortunately. Castrum Lacus Litore is par for the course.

[Arkdra]

As much as I defend the devs, even my verbal gymnast attempts can't help them here. They seriously screwed this one up big time, and I have no idea what they were thinking. Perhaps as the next patch approaches there will be more peeps needing to clear Castrum. Even if this is the case, players should not have rely/wait on such instances to line up with their goals.

Just terrible decision making on the part of the dev team.

I mean, adding coins to fates was a smart idea, people weren't doing them once they hit 15. They just also didn't predict that this would kill castrum. It shouldn't be that hard to fix, doubling or even tripling castrum coin rewards is probably enough. Maybe making you not lose mettle in castrum too, but eh.

[Driavna]

I mean, adding coins to fates was a smart idea, people weren't doing them once they hit 15. They just also didn't predict that this would kill castrum. It shouldn't be that hard to fix, doubling or even tripling castrum coin rewards is probably enough. Maybe making you not lose mettle in castrum too, but eh.

Increasing rewards will change nothing but how fast Castrum died (particularly going overboard with them as some people here have proposed). Once a player is done there is no point to do it anymore and this is something that happens with any content, the longer you wait the harder it gets.

In any case, once the new raid is added Castrum should be active again unless SE decided to add Castrum fragments to the new normal mode.

[Cidel]

Once a player is done there is no point to do it anymore and this is something that happens with any content, the longer you wait the harder it gets.

This snippet here truly is the main problem. For the most part, nearly every "endgame" content in this game has a brief shelf life that, once missed, will require more time and luck to complete/farm as the pool of interested participants has nearly run dry. This might not be so bad with quick PF-able 8-man content or 4-man content, but I imagine maintaining interest in larger-scale content is harder. Most people even modestly caught-up with endgame content will flock to new content and participate in it until they've reaped whatever rewards they've wanted out of it before losing interest; if you're not in that initial burst of activity then you'll find that trying to form a group of interested bodies will take much longer than even the content itself takes to finish. It doesn't help that the Castrum itself has next to no rewarding things to maintain interest.

[RokkuEkkusu]

I've noticed the decline in participation too.

However, when there are times 24-30 people do join in Castrum Lacus Litore runs lately, they end up in one or more of following categories:

1. Completely new
2. Has no Lost Actions in their buff section
3. Has no Essences of anything their buff section
4. Unwilling to dodge or meet mechanics as they come.

As a result, the run will be cleared with very little time left (24 person clear with almost one minute remaining) or unsuccessful (27 person run with a failure on last boss because top party could not meet the Lyon DPS check from getting knocked out often).

The rewards and encouragement are just not there yet.

[technole]

I've noticed the decline in participation too.

However, when there are times 24-30 people do join in Castrum Lacus Litore runs lately, they end up in one or more of following categories:

1. Completely new
2. Has no Lost Actions in their buff section
3. Has no Essences of anything their buff section
4. Unwilling to dodge or meet mechanics as they come.

As a result, the run will be cleared with very little time left (24 person clear with almost one minute remaining) or unsuccessful (27 person run with a failure on last boss because top party could not meet the Lyon DPS check from getting knocked out often).

The rewards and encouragement are just not there yet.

The best players, end-game raiders, and people who are more well-versed at the game went through Castrum during the early months because there was nothing else to do. That's why runs were so fast even with little essence use, with little problems of failing unless you got a bad roll of players. Savage was already 10 months old, no Ultimate since 2019. Bozja was the end-game for everyone. Now it's so far down the order of things with Eden's Promise out. I imagine it will pick up again with the next installment and the savage mode being added too.

Although I always used actions and essences because I was stockpiled, and it was fun. It was also a way to get that token raise for the Guardian Angel title since every new player dies to elements or Dawon 50x.

[ItMe]

This snippet here truly is the main problem. For the most part, nearly every "endgame" content in this game has a brief shelf life that, once missed, will require more time and luck to complete/farm as the pool of interested participants has nearly run dry.

And it's exacerbated by the fact that of all its rewards there is only one thing you can get from it you can just get in the rest of Bozja, and that is some rare Bozja actions (or whatever they're called).
[Sarcasm] Which is a very compelling reward.
You have a chance at getting a rare consumable action you've now proven you don't need. Wooooow. [/sarcasm]