I appear to have already missed the boat on bozja

[Tridus]

SE really screwed up on Castrum loot, and then doubled down and outright ruined it allowing bozja coins to be farmed from fates after completing castrum once. It outright destroys any desire to for most to go back in there as the drop rates on anything else in there are outright garbage. Coins need to be removed from the fate rewards, and castrum should not be locked to only the instance it spawns in.

The coins aren't really the issue. Eventually people move on from needing Castrum even if the coins are only there, and participation dies off. The real problem is "you need to sit in a given instance for Castrum to pop then you need a lot of people in that instance to want to do Castrum" to actually be able to do it. That will not work when participation drops off because most players are done with it, because why would I ever go back there now that I'm done with it?

It's a nonsensical design decision in a game where they already solved this problem for everything else with Duty Finder and roulettes. The problem was entirely predictable and SE walked right into it anyway.

[Derio]

Give it about 3 weeks and you will see people back in there to collect lost actions for the upcoming content. The problem is 5.4 dropped so people are back to running the new content and have no incentive to go back into Bozja.

There are also more underlying problems with Bozja as a whole that will need to be addressed in 5.45

[Vickii]

I feel Bozja as a whole is okay. I went in there last night and even with the diadem stuff going on there was 60 plus people and this may have been a second instance. I was regularly in a full instance a couple of weeks ago..

The problem really is with Castrum. Bozja will probably age too and become a grind, but I can’t see that there’s not usually going to be some people levelling alt jobs there. Castrum though is close to being dead content already.

The other problem you have with Castrum is the people who are doing it. People like to shout how you can do it with 16 people or less, but they forget that at least 12 of them are their first time and most haven’t read up. We went in yesterday with 24 and some new tank just pulled the bottom boss while parties were being sorted. We wiped of course and then half the 24 left.

Right now your 3 options are join a discord premade, be in the instance when a discord premade comes, or wait til 5.45.

[Vickii]

The design of Bozja just seems to deliberately forget what SE used to know about this stuff and it's utterly baffling.

This is very true. They can fill a fishing boat with 24 people at 4am, but can’t get a group of all the level 10 bozja soldiers who need to clear castrum. It’s quite bizarre.

[GeminiReed]

... or wait til 5.45.

That will be temporary at best. So what happens a month after 5.45 drops and we're back in the same pickle?

With no upside and a massive disincentive to run CLL it needs a rethink. To be honest the coins or upgrades weren't that huge an incentive particularly when the gear is toxic for certain classes (DNC). At a bare minimum clearing Castrum should mitigate all or most of any mettle lost in the instance. But it needs something else like memories or XP for leveling classes.

[Vickii]

That will be temporary at best. So what happens a month after 5.45 drops and we're back in the same pickle?

With no upside and a massive disincentive to run CLL it needs a rethink. To be honest the coins or upgrades weren't that huge an incentive particularly when the gear is toxic for certain classes (DNC). At a bare minimum clearing Castrum should mitigate all or most of any mettle lost in the instance. But it needs something else like memories or XP for leveling classes.

It depends what they do. All signs are that a Bozja clear will be necessary for the next relic steps, which will obviously help.

But I can’t imagine they’ll stop there. Likely they’ll nerf the instance or increase the rewards or something. Regardless you’ll be able to clear it when 5.5 comes.

[Sacred-Oblivion]

From what I've seen, lately, looks like the only way to get a clear now is one of those discord premades. That's it.

Even if you join a discord group now it can still be difficult to get into a castrum group. In the past 2 runs I've tried to sign up for I wasn't able to get in because too many people had also signed up. I'm hoping this changes in 5.45, but if castrum and the new raids are still this difficult to find groups for then I'll just stop playing bozja. Grinding fates gets old and boring quickly, and so its nice to have a fun raid in the mix.

[SturmChurro]

Even if you join a discord group now it can still be difficult to get into a castrum group. In the past 2 runs I've tried to sign up for I wasn't able to get in because too many people had also signed up. I'm hoping this changes in 5.45, but if castrum and the new raids are still this difficult to find groups for then I'll just stop playing bozja. Grinding fates gets old and boring quickly, and so its nice to have a fun raid in the mix.

What I've heard from general chatter as well. Castrum is just not being done at all right now. I don't actually go into Borzja anymore myself since I have yet to get my last combat class to 71, and the rest are at 80. I only go in there to cluster farm, to make gil. There really isn't a big reason to go in there unless you are leveling right now, or working on 'Guardian Angel'. If they added a good amount of EXP to Castrum, people would do it just for that. I do think it'll become more lively nearing patch though, either way.

[LaylaTsarra]

I have one character at R10 on Crystal and have yet to try prime time to see if I can get a group with a friend who is leveling with me. I also have a character on Aether which I have just leveled to R7. I've made the decision to get those characters to R15 Castrum or no Castrum at this point. I find it pretty disappointing that SE has done nothing to address the issue. They have to know the numbers for Castrum runs and clears and it must be pretty obvious to them there is a problem yet they do nothing.

[Vahlnir]

I have one character at R10 on Crystal and have yet to try prime time to see if I can get a group with a friend who is leveling with me. I also have a character on Aether which I have just leveled to R7. I've made the decision to get those characters to R15 Castrum or no Castrum at this point. I find it pretty disappointing that SE has done nothing to address the issue. They have to know the numbers for Castrum runs and clears and it must be pretty obvious to them there is a problem yet they do nothing.

They are probably waiting for 5.45 to fix anything, if there's plans to fix Castrum at all. Even so, that'd be too little too late. Maybe they will add a story mode version of it like they are for the raid in the next area. Who knows.