Guild Wars 2

This swarm of karkas magically materialized right on top of me with no warning, there was no chance to even run. I and several others were unable to get to the event after releasing and running back, got no credit after clearing towns/waiting an hour.

Extremely frustrating and poorly executed event, feels like a rush job.

The karka materialization needs to have some kind of warning, and the density of mobs is way too much for the amount of people trying to get to the event. I killed a bunch of karkas in the town there trying to get to the queen but still got no event credit.

EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING RUSH JOB.

Please slow down Anet. Polish polish polish.

Yeah that’s extremely silly, no idea why they thought it’d be a great idea to block access to even fight the Queen.

The idea of Karka mystically appearing out of thin air is ludicrous. Not to mention the tremendous lag it produces having max players/partical effects going off then suddenly add an unknown number of spawns. I say unknown because the culling doesn’t even render most of the Karka, I only see masses of suddenly downed players.

Another thing Anet needs to do is test these events on average machines that most of their player base are using. Not everyone can lay down ten grand for a gaming machine. I don’t mind a difficult fight if I can at least see the rendered opponent and react without slide show effect.

Come at it from the other side. The western waypoint where you do the collect eggs and buy omellete event. That waypoint is usually not contested – and all you have to do is run through the open field from there to the queen with enough time to get credit before she’s downed or despawns.

The field fills with some patting Karka, but its not as bad as the town where hundreds will spawn to the point of them being culled from view while still able to kill you…

As long as you don’t have zerker gear, the field is easy to survive. If you have decent armor the town can also be survived if you don’t happen to be in it when it spawns, and come with at least 3 people, then skirt the edge. You’ll only take a half dozen hits and can then dodge through the final door out to the field with the queen. But the western approach is easier.

When I did it last night all of the wp’s on the western side of the map were contested, I had to spawn at Kiel’s. There’s no edge to skirt in the town, at least not the time I tried it, it was literally full side to side with karka.

In the town is one spot where you can pick a passiflora. There are some trees there along the wall. Between the trees and wall – can pass through there.

If worse comes to worse… you can take that WP to the north one would use to go to Null, or even the starting WP with the gate to LA, and then run on the ground all the way to the western side where you can walk up some boats at the omelet area, and then run to the queen. Probably a 4 minute walk, but the queen lasts 8.

I agree the town should not be designed to fill up like that… It really screws up anyone who stayed over on the east side to make sure those settlements stayed clear so the queen could be spawned.
I would NOT stay over there now, unless I was on a character with a perma-speed buff like a ranger or necromancer, just in case I had to do that ridiculous walk I describe above…

It is pretty ridiculous it auto-fails the Steampipe Steading when the Queen pops (and then you have to retake it when the event is done regardless). People coming from Kiel’s, Pride Point, or even the Asura gate have little chance of actually getting through there without getting wiped. Luckily Captain’s Retreat usually doesn’t recontest that quickly (at least with how we were doing it) so I’ve been able to use that waypoint, but it shouldn’t be a matter of “don’t’ help the North settlements or waypoint because you died/to avoid dying in Steampipe”.

You sure they came out of nowhere or was it just severe culling due to how many it was?

Also its easy to get through them, at least i had no issue doing so.. but maybe some classes do better at that than others.

Imo, severe cullling and the insane amount of karka that do “spawn” in the middle of the settlement will just destroy everyone there. I remember dying and then watching on my map, one down player, then 8, then the whole settlement was filled with blue skull marks. This was design was horrible. It could have been better with the swarm if they were not lvl 84s with veterans and champions. It also hindered the queen since it turned out, around 15 players were able to make it and start fighting the queen. All other WPs were contested except Pearl.

When I ran Karka Queen (the one, only and last time) a lot of karkas and at least one veteran Karka got into the fight. At least 10 players went down. “Luckily” the zerg was so big that it mattered little at the end (all karkas and the vet where down in a minute or so).

You can guess the lag.

Yeah, getting to the queen was harder than the queen herself…

It was ridiculous. Not only were the adds more difficult to take down as a whole, the wind riders decided to enter the contest as well. All of a sudden one spawned right beside me and decided I was fair game and ignored everyone else…you can guess the out come.

Fortunately, because I was way off to the side some warrior took pity on me, killed the wind rider and rezzed me so that I could actually add my dps to the fight.

Does not make sense that so many adds show up to the party and trash the place even before we can reach the Karka Queen.

The Steamside protection event is bunk. The first wave is at the gates, but subsequent waves spawns directly inside the settlement. And no, it was not culling, they spawn, then it takes a second or two before they start attacking everything in sight.

Given that your mission is to protect some building in the center, the event insta-fails and you then have to attempt to retake it by destroying a nest while a mass of karka is spamming you with heavy hitting projectiles.

All in all it seems to be reusing the event from earlier that happened in between instigators. I just wonder who it was that had the brilliant idea of putting spawn points inside the settlement. What is that supposed to simulate? Some kind of tunneling karka?

Or could it be that the instant the defend mission fails, the retake mission winds up, and the mass spawns for that? It just seemed that i got the “event failed” message after the mass spawn, and the defense was barely beginning its second wave.

The main issue here is the event near queen happening at the same time.
The solution is very simple.
When Queen is up all the events related to her (4 camps) should lock down.
Since queen need the 4 camps free to spawn, it will not interrupt any ongoing event.

I have to concur with the OP. This is just a tad bit ridiculous how they can spawn on top of you and your literally dead in less than a second. Yes I even tested this out with a gear set I had mixed with toughness/vitality/healing, and it was no different; down in 2 seconds, with not even enough time to get a healing spell off.

Contested waypoints, and your lucky if you get back in time. If your lucky enough to get there, good luck getting through the karka farm in your way.

It’s one thing to make an actual boss harder so as for a player to work for the rewards, it’s a whole other story make hoards of mobs blocking access to an actual event.

I am still wondering why we still have to throw it’s own eggs at it? That just doesn’t make sense, nor is intuitive at all. Took Gunnar’s Hold 3 attempts to eventually down one queen when I was on, with having to get all the outposts again in between.

While I’m on the topic of weird stuff, why do those reef riders not kill the partying visitors in the dance hut? They don’t hesitate to attack me.

Don’t feel bad with culling leaving the event I didn’t even see the karka. I was running to meet up with some friends when BAM!, one shot without seeing any mobs.

For a second I felt like I was back in Orr and risen chicken had come to get me.

I can’t count how many times I could not get to the queen because I just had done an event on the other side of the central settlement, and NOBODY does the central event, because they are all doing the queen, but the event scales to EVERYONE in the queen event as it is right next to it, which means that you can only get there running from the other side, but ALL the events trigger when the queen appears EVERY FREAKING TIME, so you can’t use the waypoints on the other side. And the karka in Camp Karka are too many to rush past them with certain professions, as they spam their surekill crippling spits and immobilizes and you simply can dodge enough to go past that. You’ll need something like an elementalist with Obsidian Flesh and Mist Form.
So if you don’t have Owain’s refuge unlocked or a certain profession and build, you have to walk all the way to Pearl Islet to there, and then walk all the way back to the queen event. By the time you get there, she may be dead already.

This means that leeches that just stand there waiting for others to do the events will have more chances to get the rewards than those who go to the outposts and do the actual job.

The events that block the waypoints and the central one MUST be frozen when the queen appears so they won’t trigger again until her event ends, and a waypoint must be added to the central outpost.
There’s simply no fair and sane reason against that.

I agree, its poorly executed. You don’t stand a chance against the other mobs, and don’t even get a chance to fight the queen.

Then non of the waypoints are open except one a zillion miles away. You then run all the way back only to not be able to get into the camp because of a zillion mobs standing around guarding it.

That is NOT fun.

I would bet the loot would be bad also.

This is a truly, truly, poorly, designed encounter. Always killed when the queen spawns, never get back in time to get credit. Got the achievement yesterday in an overflow. Never going back.

P.S. Great job having all the flame throwers spawn 3 respawning layers deep in karka.

I have yet to see the queen spawn and that “defend” event not happen. It’s either “defend” then queen or (worse) queen then “defend”.

The defense events happen way too soon after capturing. If the queen event is up, none of the points should be attacked.

I don’t know if it’s bad scaling or what, but there are way too many mobs that attack and if even one gets past, you fail nearly instantly. On top of that, all the mobs for the events are 84. Then the “defend” event’s mobs just stand around with the mobs that spawn with the karka owning it. Other events it’s either new mobs or the ones that took control, not both.

Just did the queen event at the 1st try. And I’m on a EU server, in the morning, so surely not reached the max population.
Once all the camps are secured there are many ways to get to the queen without passing inside the Karka poppers mass.
We had nearly 4 mins to kill the queen and we made it

two problems, the pve culling can really hurt here and the scaling is ridiculous. seriously champ reef riders that chain lightning and champ poppers??? wtf does a suicidal karka scale up at all, the normal ones are bad enough. the smaller vet karkas that use that steamroll move can wipe tonnes of ppl at once ontop of the normal karka using their opening volleys and reef riders using chain lighting attacks, just smash ppl who arent hiding behind feedbacks/walls of reflection.

Had the same problem as OP. I was doing the pre-event and didn’t know I needed to be outside the town. Was at the doorway killing when suddenly a large number of them spawned all around me, and yes I saw them spawn and not run in. I dodged but there were way too many and too close for that to help. Was killed almost instantly and had to run back. It’s one thing to have waves of them run in. It’s another to have a large number of them spawn on top of you inside the area the group is defending.

Well, got the achievement at least. Now I don’t ever have to do it again.

Tim.9850:

I would bet the loot would be bad also.

You are honestly better off just going to regular zones, unless you’re one of those people who will grind their nose off for a one in a million chance at something decent. Mostly you get a couple of rares I think, which is good for one encounter but when the prep-time, inconvenience of reaching the fight and the time limit is taken into consideration it’s hard to say it’s worth it.

I’m getting a very high degree of sound lag (all over Southsun) ever since karka queen event started. Also they should have left the instigators alone, I know it’s grind but it’s also cash as well.

Past time to fix this event chain especially if it is going to be permanent content.

What happened to “I free a town it stays free?” The camp right behind the Queen should never suddenly fail and be overrun with a mob zerg when the Queen spawns if this is still Anet’s Manifesto.

That manifesto was clearly written on toilet paper.

Tim.9850:

I agree, its poorly executed. You don’t stand a chance against the other mobs, and don’t even get a chance to fight the queen.

Then non of the waypoints are open except one a zillion miles away. You then run all the way back only to not be able to get into the camp because of a zillion mobs standing around guarding it.

That is NOT fun.

This…..
Im sorry but the event is created by a bunch of idiots, they do not play the game and have no idea what fun is. This is by far the most frustrating event I have ever played in any game without a doubt. There is not even a small change I could get to the queen with around 50 mobs in the camp next to her. All waypoing but the fartest are contested so before I could even get back around the camp it was over.
Way to fail.
( edit also very fun is to finally get to the waypoint closer only to be run over by a group of karkas killing you yet again…..)

Tim.9850:

I agree, its poorly executed. You don’t stand a chance against the other mobs, and don’t even get a chance to fight the queen.

Then non of the waypoints are open except one a zillion miles away. You then run all the way back only to not be able to get into the camp because of a zillion mobs standing around guarding it.

That is NOT fun.

Yep. The first time I tried it, 2 guildies told me it was up. So I wp to Southsun and run in. I get to the town by where the Queen is and it’s full of Karkas. Impossible to get through before the event ended. Iirc the only way to get there without going thru the town required another wp, which was contested and unusable. So, there was no way to reach the Queen.

What they should do, is add a warning to that zone before all the karka’s spawn. Have the earth tremble, and the screen shake, with npc’s running for their lives. This would give players a fair chance to flee the outpost.

Yeah tried it again last night…got into Southsun while the Queen was spawned. All the WP’s except for Kiel’s were contested. I ran over to Driftglass, saw the mob of Karka in the camp and ported back to AC to do whatever other meta was spawning soon. LAME.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

What they should do, is add a warning to that zone before all the karka’s spawn. Have the earth tremble, and the screen shake, with npc’s running for their lives. This would give players a fair chance to flee the outpost.

No, they should never make an event that can completely stop the passage from the eastern to western part of the isle and require you to run around the whole shoreline. Especially since both western waypoints can be blocked (especially the closer one).

What needs to be done (at least one, preferably all four, in the decreasing order of importance):
1. stop the camp devense events when the queen spawns.
2. Add a waypoint to the Scoured Plains camp – without any event that would block it.
3. Add a way around the camp – either to the south (beyond camp walls, on the edge of the cliff) or north (up the geysers)
4. do not make karkas spawn inside the camps. They should spawn outside and run in, as any decent attackers would.

queen event was fun, not too hard, jut the right challenge

gettign to the queen was no challenge – ran from left ide of map.

pls dont make the events too easy. pretty sure most players feel the same.

Shezu Tsukai.8291:

The idea of Karka mystically appearing out of thin air is ludicrous. Not to mention the tremendous lag it produces having max players/partical effects going off then suddenly add an unknown number of spawns. I say unknown because the culling doesn’t even render most of the Karka, I only see masses of suddenly downed players.

Another thing Anet needs to do is test these events on average machines that most of their player base are using. Not everyone can lay down ten grand for a gaming machine. I don’t mind a difficult fight if I can at least see the rendered opponent and react without slide show effect.

Karka are like crabs so they should be able to burrow out of the ground like dredge. And it is their homeland we invaded so they should be able to ambush us. also stealth in GW2 is not entirely unheard of.

I’ve only ever seen the Queen Karka once (got wiped from all the karka spawns at the camp), yet received credit + chests for it each day.
The first time I wiped at the camp, I logged out then came back a few hours later and found that the big chest near her spawnpoint was visible + openable for me.

It seems that so long as you are in the area, fighting, you get credit.

Forgive me for not reading the entire thread, but isnt culling a feature concerning player models? Do npcs get culled (i.e. not displayed intentionally), or is that just a result of the server/pc/internet failing to deal with the high data bursts?

Mastruq.2463:

Forgive me for not reading the entire thread, but isnt culling a feature concerning player models? Do npcs get culled (i.e. not displayed intentionally), or is that just a result of the server/pc/internet failing to deal with the high data bursts?

Yes, npc’s also get culled. There is also the matter with latency, i guess – both of those can make ninja stealth assassins out of any mob.

Yet again an addition to the Southsun Cove which is not fun. With large groups the events are not too bad, but the scaling (for small group sizes) is terrible and now that so few people are running around there (can you blame them) the events are very frustrating. In particular when you have too many armor stacks to remove than the group can deal with, the Karka Queen event is a problem.

I’d like to ad that the event is bugged on Desolation server, the one where you have to clear the settlement from karka eggs, it won’t let you do that.

You guys were actually expecting something like common sense from Failnet? The one thing that Failnet has been able to consistently prove is that they don’t have a kittening clue what they’re doing with this game or how to make it enjoyable or even playable at times. I knew this Karka Queen event was gonna suck before it ever came out. Stop expecting competent game design from Failnet, and you guys won’t be disappointed so much.

Bring back Instigators please. Making Karka island the old version of Orr only worse is a horrible idea.

LiberAzerate.4827:

Bring back Instigators please. Making Karka island the old version of Orr only worse is a horrible idea.

Also, if you could just remove grey items altogether from loot tables and shift blues and greens down to take their place that’d be great. Honestly they’re just as useful. Since we’re on the subject of Southsun mobs. I’ve noticed with my nearly 400% MF on the island now I get considerably more greys than I did before Ole Karka Queen event kicked in.

Mastruq.2463:

Forgive me for not reading the entire thread, but isnt culling a feature concerning player models? Do npcs get culled (i.e. not displayed intentionally), or is that just a result of the server/pc/internet failing to deal with the high data bursts?

It is a combination of factors. All models gets culled, with an attempt to cull things far away and that are not threats primarily.

But it seems the engine can get bogged down when there is a whole lot of new stuff loading, if it is network related or client related i am not sure. One example is when i travel to LA via the gates. It takes the game several seconds to load up the engineer kit pack models, even tho the effects themselves kick in instantly. Also, all sounds are silent for this period.

Meaning that all this talk about culling may hide a inefficiency regarding graphics and sound handling in the game client, that turns culling from a virtual non-issue into a killer.

The only way to get to the queen fast is not to participate in the pre events that unlock her. That sounds kinda stupid imo.

aspirine.6852:

The only way to get to the queen fast is not to participate in the pre events that unlock her. That sounds kinda stupid imo.

You can participate in them, just don’t be locked on the wrong side of where she spawns. If you’re at the camp karka waypoint clearing that camp and the karka queen spawns, you’ll have plenty of time to get to her and get the full reward.

I always participate in the pre-events, followed by fighting the karka queen.

Meaning that at present it favors camping Camp Karka and Steampipe, and igoring Kiel and Point Pride.

After the third time trying to get to the Queen Karka fight, I’ve given up, rage-quit, and come onto the forums to complain. I actually don’t know what the Queen Karka fight is like, because I’ve never been able to get past the OUTRAGEOUS hordes of karkas camping the only way to get there since Anet put that new area in with the wall. Only way through. So many karka that as soon as I aggro I am insta-downed and then insta-killed. And this is how it’s intended to be?

Bravo on your awesome troll, whoever designed that.

Had a bit of luck the other day, and was able to study a “retake Steampipe” event up close while it was idle.

I was counting multiple groups of 6-7 L83-84 young karka, alongside a mix of hatchlings, poppers and the odd veteran young karka.

And i have seen a projectile burst of a single such karka eat through 19000-20000 health.

Meaning that getting the aggro of a single such group, could see damage in around 114000 or more. Yes, there is dodge. But as far as i can tell, dodge do not allow you to avoid the whole projectile burst. And with multiple karka firing at once, you are going to get hit no matter what.

Strang thing is that i have also seen the event barely sporting any karka at all, and at level 80 at that.

I wonder if culling is what is tripping us up here, in that both the area inside the camp and outside (perhaps as far as the veteran karka in by the waterfall) are taken into account for scaling.

Also, i have actually seen on more quiet repetitions a smoke/dust plume before karka appear inside the camp. So i suspect that the designers tried to put in a kind of “burrowing” element, but the culling (or what i wonder is some kind of inefficiency in loading game elements) causes the karka to appear as if they instantly spawn. And the warning that the plume is supposed to give before the karka attack do not happen, resulting in people being insta-downed form barely appearing mobs.

Meaning that the event designers seems unable to deal with the limitations of the game engine, or there is some kind of unknown issue with the loading of game elements (models, sounds, particle effects) that interact with culling to cause the game to be harder than it should during larger events.