Delubrum Reginae: my honest critique

[Jirah]

am i weird for preferring castrum?

[Ramesses]

Here's my very swift summary-- I have a more detailed critique and feedback in the works but I'll just summerize a few points here:

• Delubrum Reginae in itself is very lovely in it's visuals, it's bosses, the dynamics gameplay and the fact that it ties in seamlessly into the storylines-- really brilliant work
• The lighting in the area is simply GENIUS-- people who are into game design, creative art, game visualization and conceptual creators will perfectly understand what I'm referring to
• The fact that they tied it into the relic progression without making it unnecessarily tedious like the 24-man raid phase.
• The ability to gain more items related to obtaining the "Judges" gear, of which I am a massive fan, and that fact that the Devs uses Sochen as the theme -- I'm a FFXII fanatic, so you'll understand.

Okay that sounds all well and good but what could the Devs have done better?

• First of all fifteen runs is a bit much-- ten runs would have been aqequate-- perhaps they made it fifteen so that one would have enough coins to purchase one Law order's gear-- not sure.
• The ability to change jobs once inside-- to give a perspective, the last THREE runs I did on my main charcater, our party did not have a tank-- it was insane and the third time, we got through it because we had a tank in the alliance who turned out to be an excellent player

That's my coin in the pond on this one.

[Nothv13]

i used most of them up during the first 15 runs

This is the problem. They are expected to use them, but required to be farmed and they also give the impression of use only if you must. This creates the issues of not having them when you need them if you use them, and not using them if you want o have them when you need them

[Atma]

The problem for essences is that there are a handful of good ones, and a bunch of junk ones. I ran out of skirmisher a long, long time ago - and my apologies, but I'm not spending hours farming so that I can get enough for 3 more runs when I'm already 4/15 towards my 5th relic and I'm 95% just fishing for the absolutely abysmal chance at getting the hairstyle to finally drop.

My essence is the uptime you get out of me while I'm DPSing when everyone else is hiding in the corner on gunner, running around like idiots while the soldier is playing the shell game, and continuing to hit the bomber because trust me, you really don't need to be out of melee range standing dead center on the bomb to not get hit. Really, you can keep hitting the thing.

[Dogempire]

Honestly, not really a fan of the doom mechanic.

The fact that every single mechanic save the hot and cold one gives the exact same debuff no matter what boss just feels lazy, doubly so because it's an instakill mechanic that ignores everything, including invulns.

Instead of some interesting and boss unique debuff it just feels like the devs forcing you to not make mistakes otherwise you'll die because you have to play this way or else, at least with ridiculously damaging bleeds or a vuln stack that increases the damage you take by 200% there's a chance you might be able to save yourself or others if you have the lost actions or the right class for it.

[Liam_Harper]

The problem for essences is that there are a handful of good ones, and a bunch of junk ones.

This is true. One problem is each fragment has a whole range of bad Essences or actions you might get instead of the good one.

I tend to just farm fragments via gil from craft leves, but recently I bought about 115 fragments and ended up with 1 Deep Profane, 0 Deep Aetherweaver, 4 Banners, 6 Ether Kits and 4 Font of Magic. The rest was rubbish. Considering how few of these drop in Castrum/DR, it feels using the better actions/essences to contribute to your team is some sort of expensive privilege, which doesn't feel right.

[Infindox]

Honestly, not really a fan of the doom mechanic.

The fact that every single mechanic save the hot and cold one gives the exact same debuff no matter what boss just feels lazy, doubly so because it's an instakill mechanic that ignores everything, including invulns.

Instead of some interesting and boss unique debuff it just feels like the devs forcing you to not make mistakes otherwise you'll die because you have to play this way or else, at least with ridiculously damaging bleeds or a vuln stack that increases the damage you take by 200% there's a chance you might be able to save yourself or others if you have the lost actions or the right class for it.

I agree in a way. I feel like it promotes safe play and not taking risks. Compounded with what Liam said about the fragments, it feels like you get punished.

[Catstab]

they also give the impression of use only if you must.

Lost actions do not give the impression "only use if you must."

Do you just auto attack mobs and use weaponskills only when you must? Ok, then why this?

[ForteNightshade]

This is true. One problem is each fragment has a whole range of bad Essences or actions you might get instead of the good one.

I tend to just farm fragments via gil from craft leves, but recently I bought about 115 fragments and ended up with 1 Deep Profane, 0 Deep Aetherweaver, 4 Banners, 6 Ether Kits and 4 Font of Magic. The rest was rubbish. Considering how few of these drop in Castrum/DR, it feels using the better actions/essences to contribute to your team is some sort of expensive privilege, which doesn't feel right.

Further adding to this problem is for those doing Savage. It just isn't worth the expense. I go through so many Deep Essences right now, I'm basically flipping everything else I get to help off set the cost of buying what I need. Sure, I can farm. And I do. However, there is a limit to how much I'm willing to farm the same trash over and over again. And for what? To maybe make DR faster? If the choice is not using Essences/Actions adds another DR or two but I break even for my other expenditures. I'll be less inclined to keep using Essences once I've hit the 20-30 run point.

I've said this multiple times now, but if they want to encourage people to experiment. They need to make it rewarding. Seeing huge numbers can be tons of fun... if said fun isn't undercut by a boring grind where you'll spend more time not having fun.

[MicahZerrshia]

I am going to piggy back on this and just say the essences really kill this for me too. I can honestly say I do not use them all the time, just because they are such a tremendous pain in the backside to get, that I just flat out do not have one to use. I have 8 more runs to complete my second and final relic and I just do not have it in me to spend hours farming a chance of maybe getting a decent essence just so I can spend hours farming the actual upgrade items. I went to buy some the other day as a way to get around it, but fragments were 7k a piece and that is just too big of an expense for the low low chance you have of getting a good one. Great in concept, poor in execution.

Outside of that, the dungeon is not too bad.