Castrum Queue and the overflow lottery

[Puremallace]

I really wish we had a DR style queue for Castrum.

Far too much common sense for this to actually happen.

[ICountFrom0]

It looks like it might happen, but it's too big a fix to hotfix, going to take a major patch and testing.

[Iscah]

It looks like it might happen, but it's too big a fix to hotfix, going to take a major patch and testing.

That's what I expect, or at least hope. The current fix just edited some numbers; setting up a queue from Gangos would, at least, involve some alterations to the script and adding an NPC to sign up with. They'd need to spend time on that.

If they do split it out, it might even get a dedicated pocket instance for the initial queue, like when you first access Delubrum by speaking to Mikoto in the underground ruins that aren't part of the main Bozja zone. Perhaps you'd move to a spot just outside the castrum gates as you prepare for the mission.

[Dhayze]

It looks like it might happen, but it's too big a fix to hotfix, going to take a major patch and testing.

I don't believe they ever changed Baldesion Arsenal's requirements so I honestly don't see anything changing with Castrum.

[MsMisato]

Leaving things like this up to RNGesus is insanely dumb on Squeenix's part, just one of many reasons BSF needs a complete overhaul.

its not true. I have gotten in every time solo. you queue up, wait for it allow you to enter the instance and just go. I won't stick around for a fate or anything because it sure feels like tis first come first serve with CE. I mean next time you are in look at /say, /yell with the shear number of people lfg

[TalithaSolarien]

I don't believe they ever changed Baldesion Arsenal's requirements so I honestly don't see anything changing with Castrum.

Yeah, but BA is completely optional content which clearing Castrum is required to continue the relic (quest line). The hotfix surely has helped the current situation but it needs to be changed in the next expansion to keep it possible for newcomers to clear it.

[Packetdancer]

It looks like it might happen, but it's too big a fix to hotfix, going to take a major patch and testing.

Yeah, definitely.

Leaving aside the weird way in which some of the Bozja stuff seems to be actually implemented under the hood, there's the fact that Delubrum's easier to handle the queue for because you need only 24. (And Delubrum savage has 48 people but doesn't have a queue; you must pre-assemble your group and then go in, as there's no matching.)

So how do you handle Castrum queues? Do you wait for 48 people to be ready, thus a full run? But as it is, you often have runs with only 24 or 28 or whatever people, which are still perfectly viable; down the road when Bozja dies down a bit, this could be a problem, since if you wait for 48 people you could have 47 in queue for an hour waiting for that last person. So you probably end up needing to do something like pop an instance immediately if there are 48 players, but have alternative logic where if there've been 24+ people in queue for more than 10 minutes, you pop an instance with just whoever is in the queue rather than still waiting for 48 total. Or something like that.

Which is logic wildly unlike any other queue/matching and duty instanciation code in the game, so far as I know. On a wild guess, the headache entailed in figuring out how to make that part work is probably the sticking point.

What I honestly wish they'd do in the meantime is a) add a viewable timer on the Southern Front showing how long until Castrum is up (so you don't have an endless stream of people joining and asking "Anyone know how long until Castrum?" every 30 seconds), and b) every time you queue for Castrum and don't get in, you should get an item like 'Castrum siege plans' or something. And if you have 3 of the siege plans (I.e., have queued but not been picked three times), you can trade in those three siege plans for a Marching-Orders-type buff specific to Castrum that guarantees you entrance on the next one you queue for.

That way people can tell how long they'll need to wait for a Castrum instance to pop, and if they get bounced three times they can get a consolation prize of guaranteed entrance on the fourth time. It'd help smooth things over until carving out CLL and making it something you can queue for individually is feasible.

I don't believe they ever changed Baldesion Arsenal's requirements so I honestly don't see anything changing with Castrum.

While the Arsenal is technically a step of the Eureka relics (i.e., the final step), it's also at the very end of a grind that most people weren't going to go through, so there's presumably far less demand for it to be able to be queued into separately.

The Castrum as it stands is is the equivalent of putting the Arsenal at the end of Anemos, and demanding you finish it before being able to move on to Pagos; while that might have spared some people the pain and suffering that was Pagos' map design, it would probably have produced far more outcry.

[Themarvin]

Think requireing having done things inside the Bozja instance should make one qualify or get first seats regardless if am grouped or not, just promoting the AFK game is not a good thing.

[KatenKyokotsu]

Make CLL as a dr or make bozja instance as an event where skirmishes leads up to CLL from starting of map for all 72 players. Increase the rewards a little bit for the skirmishes leading up to CLL. Then maybe add a reset timer for the whole event to restart again. Running around the whole map doing fates is just ughhh.

[ICountFrom0]

So how do you handle Castrum queues? Do you wait for 48 people to be ready, thus a full run? But as it is, you often have runs with only 24 or 28 or whatever people, which are still perfectly viable; down the road when Bozja dies down a bit, this could be a problem, since if you wait for 48 people you could have 47 in queue for an hour waiting for that last person. So you probably end up needing to do something like pop an instance immediately if there are 48 players, but have alternative logic where if there've been 24+ people in queue for more than 10 minutes, you pop an instance with just whoever is in the queue rather than still waiting for 48 total. Or something like that.

Which is logic wildly unlike any other queue/matching and duty instanciation code in the game, so far as I know. On a wild guess, the headache entailed in figuring out how to make that part work is probably the sticking point.

You don't play triple triad do you?

Open tournaments do exactly what you are asking for. The que ends after 3 minutes, and whomever is in, gets in, then NPC's fill the other slots. This could just as easily be a timer that triggers once 24 people are qued, and any more people who show up in a 5 minute timer get in, anybody else dosen't and it launches. Trick will be to let people KNOW that it hits 24, and then goes timer.