Castrum Lacus Litore declining participation

[Inzoum]

I've been trying to complete Castrum Lacus Litore in the Bozjan Southern Front for quite some time already. What typically happens is that while I'll hang out in an instance where 55-60 people out of 72 are ranked high enough to participate, we get *at most* 20 participants and fail the instance (typically less than 15 participants).

I've managed to reach the final boss with as few as 24, but it's incredibly difficult with so few participants when the players need to split up.

I don't believe the content itself is too hard, it seems balanced well enough for 32+ players (two parties in each half of split encounters), the problem I see is there's a lack of incentive for players who've completed it to return to it, or help new players complete it for the first time. This is made worse by the fact that Bozjan coins can now be earned outside the engagement once it's been completed (much faster and much safer)

I'm not at all worried that I'll be able to progress with my relic weapons otherwise once the next addition to the campaign is added, I'm worried I'm essentially story-locked at this point because no one gives a rat's ass about Castrum Lacus Litore anymore.

Maybe adding some kind of bonus to returning players when players who've yet to complete it are signed up? I don't know, that or nerf it so it can be done with no more than 16 players, or have the encounter difficulty scale with the number of participants

[Vickii]

I just started Bozja at the end of last week and Castrum was cleared with an almost full group on both Saturday and Sunday evenings. Unfortunately just before I reached level 10.

Today there were a bunch that didn’t get near to enough people all day but we had one try with about 24 people and had a 10 percent wipe at about 9pm. From this I’m taking it that evenings and weekends are seemingly the time for this.

But it’s as you say, they’ve given no incentive for people to replay it. Worse even, I think we’d get the helpers we need if they didn’t lose such obscene amounts of mettle if they died.

[Seraphor]

People think it's harder than it is. I don't think I've ever done it with more than about 20/22 people and I've never rescued any fewer than 5 prisoners. Lowest was 16.
So people see that there's less than 24 people, incorrectly think "it will fail" and leave.

The reason why there's less than 24 people? Not enough incentive to re-run it.

[LalaRu]

I think the duty is too much punitive in order to go there again, once you already have completed it.

I think only way to have more people accepting go there, is adjusting rewards and/or punishments (mettle you lose there) in order to make it worth again, for people that previously done it because they had to, to complete the quest.

[MoofiaBossVal]

I've been trying to complete Castrum Lacus Litore in the Bozjan Southern Front for quite some time already. What typically happens is that while I'll hang out in an instance where 55-60 people out of 72 are ranked high enough to participate, we get *at most* 20 participants and fail the instance (typically less than 15 participants).

This has ALWAYS been the case for Castrum, since week 1.

If you want to clear Castrum reliably, you really don't have a choice but to join a Castrum farm discord for your datacenter and sign up for a organized premade. I don't recall having cleared Castrum with randos.

The problem isn't the low amount of players. Castrum can still be easily cleared with under 20 people, and premades are usually about that size. The problem is the lack of organization. Random groups just don't coordinate anywhere near as well as premades. The first and last bosses require some pretty strict coordination to prevent a wipe, and there isn't enough time for more than two attempts. The hallway encounter with the prisoners being executed also requires coordination in order to maximize the number of coins. Only Adramalech can be sleep walked through without coordination.

[Deceptus]

But it’s as you say, they’ve given no incentive for people to replay it. Worse even, I think we’d get the helpers we need if they didn’t lose such obscene amounts of mettle if they died.

I'd be MUCH more inclined to go if I could gain mettle instead of losing a ton of it. Whoever thought that was a good mechanic is just wrong.

[MoofiaBossVal]

I'd be MUCH more inclined to go if I could gain mettle instead of losing a ton of it. Whoever thought that was a good mechanic is just wrong.

After my first 10 times, I had memorized the mechanics and didn't really die anymore. Not worried about mettle loss. Besides, you can pretty quickly get mettle back by farming critical engagements.

The problem is the grind. You get about 20-30 coins per run and it's just not worth running it 20 times for a pair of boots, or 100 times for a full set (each run takes about 3-4 hours: signing up in Castrum discord and waiting an hour or 2 for your queue to pop, and then 30 minutes of zoning in and out of Bozja until the whole premade is in one instance together, and then farming for cluster for up to an hour waiting for Castrum to spawn, and then finally doing the 30 minute long Castrum run. I'm not going to spend 400 hours just to get one single set!). I'd rather just casually level up my jobs from 71 to 80 doing critical engagements and get coins on the side. We're probably going to get far more coins from the next Bozja instance/dungeon anyway, so why bother?

[Inzoum]

I see a lot of people mention discord farm groups. I haven't been able to find one for Mana that's not japanse-only. As for coordination between randos banding together, we did get pretty far with just 24 people assembled in-instance (good progress on Lyon), the mechanics aren't all that unforgiving, but having two parties on each side definitely makes it easier to survive through accidents and mistakes. I'm sure a trained and coordinated group can manage with less than that.

My wife got lucky and managed to get in with 38 people on her first venture inside, and cleared on first try. I tried and tried and tried to join and re-join and hope I land in the same instance as her, but to no avail, she ended up going in without me. I'm glad she got lucky, but I'll be damned if this ever happens again, I've been burning my eyes for a whole day, seeing the duty pop up a dozen times with jack squat joining in.

It really only boils down to getting people to care. That means:

- No more Mettle loss on failure for that particular engagement
- Triple (at least) coins obtained, especially now that coins can be earned easily for everyone who's already finished it
- Rewards for helping out people who haven't cleared it yet

Anything that would make players go "OH! Castrum is up! Hurray!". The only way this is ever going to work is if people are excited about it and want to join above anything else. I've seen people literally skip over it to keept farming trash mobs for fragments to sell on the market board.

FARMING TRASH MOBS IS MORE REWARDING

That's where the problem lies.

[Seraphor]

Castrum just needs to give every kind of reward available through Bozja.
On top of the coins and gear drop at the end it needs to give:

First Boss: 10-20 Bozjan Clusters. 1000-2000 Mettle

Lockboxes from saving prisoners.
Guaranteed Memory drop from the prisoner guards + Albeleo if the quests are active. (so you'd get 2 minimum, more if you take out multiple guards)
Plus regular loot drops from all the mobs in the Castrum, so you could get extra memories, clusters or fragments.

Adrammelech: One of each of the three Memories guaranteed if the quest is active. 3000-5000 Mettle.

Final Boss: Bitter Memory for fighting Dawon/Lyon each, so if you're in the party that goes up top, you get 2. 6000-8000 Mettle.

[Novae]

Castrum doesn't give XP either iirc. So basicaly, if you're there to level an alt job, you have no incentive at all to help other players getting their clear.