Guild Wars 2

Seriously Arenanet, Southsun survival has got to be one of the worst experiences I have seen in my long time as an MMORPG player. The thing is just not fun, you run around for a bit and get oneshotted by someone who was just a bit more lucky than you because you didn’t find any bloody arrows or weapons at all. Makes you a helpless victim – I could just as well go back to World of Warcraft and duel rogues all day. Stunlock to zero in 0.7 seconds. Fun. Not.

And then there’s the moronic ghost phase; the point of a “hunger games” knockoff is that you eliminate people – if they just come back as ghosts, then why not just let them respawn in the first place and make it a rush to a certain point number? Nevermind that it’s just too annoying to bother to find the last few survivors on that map just so you can harass them a bit.

I understand of course that – without the ghost phase – people would just drop out early due to boredom, but perhaps this should have given you some sort of clue that the game mode was not suitable?

Yes, I know. If you don’t like it, don’t play it, but hey, it’s not like there is THAT much you can do for the Evon mini, now is there?

And Southsun Survival brings me to the second part of my complaint: STOP WITH THE MINIGAMES ALREADY. Yes, some of them are fun for a round or two, but this is an MMORPG if you haven’t noticed. We need dungeons, new areas, factions, storylines, quests, some new gear (and even if it’s just cool and pretty, I am all for avoiding power creep). We need to find out what happened to the rest of Tyria. We need to make progress fighting the dragons. We really have NO TIME to throw barrels at each other, drink each other under the table or – for that matter – hunt each other for sport.

Don’t get me wrong, festivals are fine and well now and then, but GW2 needs some REAL content upgrades. If you won’t invest in actual expansions, you need the “Living World” updates to provide that. Right now what you are doing is give us a fancier version of stuff that is more suited to Facebook flash games. The recent announcement of giving your teams more time to finish content gives me some hope, but the Queen’s Jubilee sounds like just more of the same trite that I have seen since my return to GW2. Sigh.

Enter the Crown Pavilion – Begins August 6
Test yourself in an entirely new mini-zone featuring mighty representations of humanity’s enemies. By representing various cities of Tyria, you can be named champion of a nation and gain access to unique reward vendors.

Fight in the Queen’s Gauntlet – Begins August 6
In the special Queen’s Gauntlet, you will face increasingly difficult challenges of single-combat against unique bosses. Cheer on your friends or show off your skills to the world. Take a risk with special gambit conditions to earn even more prestigious rewards!

Account Wallet for Currency
Keep all of your currencies in one easy-to-find location! This Wallet holds dungeon tokens, coins, karma, laurels, Guild Commendations, Fractal Relics, Badges of Honor, gems, and glory and makes them accessible to any character on your account. Upon logging in with each unique character for the first time after the Wallet has gone live, that character will have all of their currencies deposited into the account-wide collection.

PvP Solo Queue
Solo Arena matches allow you to get right into the action of PvP matches in a competitive environment without gathering a full team or finding yourself fighting against a pre-formed group. Solo Arena has its own leaderboard so players can earn rank without affecting their Team Arena standings.
Bonus Rewards for Dungeons
Each day when you finish a unique path for any explorable or story dungeon, you’ll receive a bonus reward for completion—1 to 3 gold for explorable dungeons depending on their length and difficulty, 50 silver for story dungeons. Guaranteed coin rewards that previously dropped from bosses in dungeons have been removed in lieu of these new rewards for dungeon completion; all other drops off of bosses have not been changed. Now you have even more incentive for braving the hazards of the dungeons of Tyria!

Champion Loot Updates
All of the champions in the game will now award a new bonus loot bag upon their death if you qualify for loot rewards on that boss when it is killed. These bags have a chance to contain rare crafting materials, items that award skill points, and more!

Frankly speaking this is one of the more enjoyable mini-games I’ve played yet. Love the “Hunger Games” theme and it is one I was getting into rather well. I am not all that great (best I’ve done is 3rd so far), but I must admit to enjoying it.

More minigames, please.

I hate this kitten game being forced to play it for several hours to get an achievement is completely unfair. You can get the aspect achievement’s in less than an hour but i have to play this game upto 2500 points WTF if you are lucky you win and get mbe 85 points im averaging about 25-40 a game thats like 60-100 games i have to play to get the achievement all taking upwards of 5 minutes due to camper’s this is ridiculous 500 minutes to get an achievment in a minigame i hate more than crabtoss atleast in crabtoss you didnt have to waste time chasing people round as a stupid ghost trying to get points. Can you please reduce this down to 500 points so the time is atleast closer to what aspect arena is.

And why, pray tell, do you have to do the achievement?

If you are averaging 25-40, you are clearly doing something wrong. As much as I found this achievement to be long, and as much as I hope that they stop going crazy with numbers, I had fun in there.

And I never bothered to win once.

@esplen i am a completionist i like to do thing’s 100% i guess its my ocd it just really sucks when i have to play things i dont enjoy.

I am on a not so great system and also when i dont enjoy something i dont really focus that hard :P

I have won a game but i spent more than an hour and a half to get like 19% towards 2500 points. Aspect arena took me 15 games to get the achievement’s 1:15 total time and i really enjoyed doing so. i just dont udnerstand why im for ed to grind southsun for 3-4 times longer ?

Ohhh correction i am on 9% not 19% ^^

Invictus.1503:

Frankly speaking this is one of the more enjoyable mini-games I’ve played yet. Love the “Hunger Games” theme and it is one I was getting into rather well. I am not all that great (best I’ve done is 3rd so far), but I must admit to enjoying it.

What the hell is “Hunger Games”? Is it what feeders play?

I completely disagree with the OP. Southsun Survival was GREAT, perfect no, but GREAT.

Usually these mini games for me are just ‘smash face’ with a difference.

What I <3 about Southsun is that while there’s a smash face component it’s completely feasible to win and not to have killed anyone! This is the best mini game yet!

Additionally, with it being more strategic in it’s overall approach (not just smash face). I felt I was wasn’t being punished for being an oceanic with poor ping. I HATED the sanctum races for that very reason, getting beaten by people with less ability but better ping.

Thank You ANet. good job.

The worst part is being constantly 1-shotted from full health.

How about giving us some decent combat instead, instead of whomever hits their keyboard fastest?

but there is combat linked to it. you can’t spam arrows – sure ways to make sure you get spots, use camo kit, get in a spot where no one suspects and “snipe”, hunt those who are hunting others or picking up rations.

and you HAVE to be extremely aware of your surroundings – non stop camera panning and looking behind me for one.

i didn’t think i’d enjoy this game, but it’s pretty darn fun and i usually don’t enjoy the mini-games.

and regarding content updates – do remember, there is no official subscription fee. i know there is a trend heading towards it, but we are still playing a B2P game and ANet’s been delivering a LOT from my perspective. : )) come August 6 i’m sure you’ll find plenty that you’ll enjoy.

Lily Miranda.5407:

The worst part is being constantly 1-shotted from full health.

How about giving us some decent combat instead, instead of whomever hits their keyboard fastest?

If you’re getting 1-shot that’s ENTIRELY your own fault.

Head Shot (the attack that 1-shots from full health) takes 2.75 seconds to cast, can’t be used while moving, and is interrupted upon taking damage.

- Kill the other person attacking you before they can cast it
- Deal damage to the person attacking you to interrupt it
- Hide behind a wall/object to block it
- Dodge it

Just because you don’t know how to play that doesn’t mean the combat is bad.

Try doing Southsun Survival from Australia. Or anywhere else that isn’t continental North America.

Pretty much everyone is on pings of less than 50 while we’re hobbled with, at best, 190 (but normally around 250). When we try to pick stuff up, it’s already gone. When we try to dodge the headshot, we’re already dead while the server takes it’s merry time to put this fact on our screens. It is as frustrating as the little fluffy kitties that turn up to censor innocent words on the forums.

I endured, yes, endured, 50 torturous rounds of that dreck and hated every second of it. I was probably the one dancing next to the bonfire, because the rest was a waste of time.

I understand that AN wants to be inclusionist and give all facets of the game a place in the fortnightly content, and that “achievements are optional!”, but it’s getting really really old, very very fast.

Angully.7495:

@esplen i am a completionist i like to do thing’s 100% i guess its my ocd it just really sucks when i have to play things i dont enjoy.

I am on a not so great system and also when i dont enjoy something i dont really focus that hard :P

I have won a game but i spent more than an hour and a half to get like 19% towards 2500 points. Aspect arena took me 15 games to get the achievement’s 1:15 total time and i really enjoyed doing so. i just dont udnerstand why im for ed to grind southsun for 3-4 times longer ?

I get 24 fps at my stablest. I average 14 fps with a high chance of spiking during crucial moments.

I am a completionist.

I have not missed any Living Story achievement (or limited achievement).

I do not complain about it because it is my choice to complete everything, both with and without my hardware limitations.

I finished Southsun Survival: High Scorer in 4 sessions. The first session was to familiarize myself and I got 300 points. The second session was to get as high as I could. Near the end, everyone left the zone except one other person and I. We started to farm wins off each other to maximum our efforts (at the rate that we were going, it would have taken ~2 hours to get both of us the achievement). When our instance merged with another group, I left. I left at ~1250. From there, I got to 2000 in my next session, then was tired (I could have continued, but I was burnt out) and in my last session, I powered through.

In some games, I would finish with 13 points. In other sessions I would finish with 90+ points. I would change my strategy based on what happened in the beginning. If I started with a Pistol, I would charge someone with a lot of goods and steal their stuff. If I started with the Sword, I would use it to get myself 8+ rations, then camp out in Owain’s Refuge. I also made sure to eat a ration at the last conceivable moment (which is why I would sometimes end with 13 points, if I did a mistime on the eating). I lied about how many rations I would have to give other players a false sense of security. I would stalk a player when dead, not to kill them, but to farm points off of them by running in front of them and pressing 1.

I did not complain about the achievement being difficult, because it really wasn’t, it just required time. There is a difference, please keep that in mind.

just putting this out there again, there are people who’ve written up mini-guides on how to maximize points. if you’re playing to last the longest, most likely you won’t be top scorer, though it happens.

if you’re just trying to get max points each game… you want to kill as many in the grace period, and then one that’s up, i usually try to die right away in the camp that we all start al – most revenge motes! if i feel i can manage another kill or two then i’ll do that and then die. then find players who tend to outlast the others the most, though at times if they’ve a ton of rations, they won’t risk scavenging much so you don’t get more motes. but get as many as you can and i stalk and only use #1. some ahve said if you see a player low on health without rations, drop a 3 and kill them to get more points but i just keep using 1 regardless.

i’ve never won a game, sadly, but i am chugging along with my points.

i will add though, if ANet’s intentions are to get people to play these mini-games and enjoy them, best leave achievement points out of them. at least, if they’re time-gated. like how many people here are concerned abuot getting all the APs related to keg brawl? when you take sometime with a time constraint, tie AP tasks to them that CAN take a while, people won’t be happy and again and again, will play the game for APs, moan and groan the entire time and never play it again once they get done.

this is actually a really fun game and i’ve never felt the grind was too long (still 75% and hopefully i can finish before the event ends). i have fun most games, as though i am still competitive so when i don’t do as well, lol, i get a little fired up. ; )) it helps to NOT track your progress and do your best. been averaging 70-80 points most games with the method above. and if you find yourself in a tought group, take a break, and join another instance. it helps.

Of course they’re pushing their minigames. There are more meta APs out of the minigames than anything else. 3 for Survival, 2 for dungeons, 2 for open world, 2 for Candidate Trials, and 1 for a gimmie (use a token). It may not be a major leaning, but there are a LOT of people that don’t like one or both of these minigames, and for many/most people, they take quite a bit of time to do. If someone doesn’t like dungeons, and/or can’t complete Candidate Trials 3/4, they’re obligated to play the minigame in order to complete the meta (if they don’t opt to do dungeons they aren’t fond of).

If they’re going to add stuff under the guise of storyline (i.e. Living World) they should put most of their time into making new event/activity content that would actually have some relevance to the storyline. Preferably out in the open world where the vast majority of players are comfortable. Instead, we get irrelevant minigames and simplistic tasks such as “defend the gold” and “find the crystals.” In fact, except for the minigames, there appears to be virtually no development time spent on the rest of the things you need to do to get the meta achievement.

I like the mini-game. Only thing that sucks about it is torment and how someones ghost spawns on top of you once you kill them.

Best I’ve done so far was 101 points; during a 4x win in a row streak. Which completed my High Scorer finally.

If this is Arena Net’s idea of getting people to play their game (releasing time intensive content in a limited time event), they really have another thing coming when their players either ignore their content altogether or quit the game. My friends don’t even bother with Arena Nets events anymore and I’m the only one attempting to finish achievements while enjoying the new content and old (wvw etc.) at the same time.

The minigame is indeed fun but for those of us who also enjoy completing achievements, all the fun stops right there.

bartmoss.5107:

We really have NO TIME to throw barrels at each other, drink each other under the table or – for that matter – hunt each other for sport.

That line made me lol.