Guild Wars 2

Southsun is a visual delight, yet is only populated a few times for the karka queen event and then becomes a barren wasteland again. All that work almost for naught. It is a shame for people to not want to go there due to the lack of events and the very few current events that do happen there.

I feel that Southsun has incredible untapped potential if redone along the lines of the current Living Story zones of Dry Top and Silverwastes.

• Add better loot to Southsun via Island themed skins for all weapons like the few when it was first released.
• Put the tribal light armor on the light armor from the zone events and create 2 similar themed armors for medium and heavy. e.g. more wooden/hide covered areas for heavy and somewhere inbetween for medium.
• Better and bigger tribal masks, the dinky one from release us weak. Go look at GW1 and see a a good mask.
• Dynamic events with the karka nest to keep the population down instead of constant “oh every town iz beseeged!1!!1 wut will w3 du?!”
• Add a waypoint to the central town, it IS the central town so why there isn’t one is baffling.
• Create some new events that are like drytop/silverwastes in areas that aren’t right on top of every town with a slightly longer delay between them. Have them cover areas of the island that rarely get seen and make the rewards worth it….southsun vouchers to spend on the merchants that scale up like in drytop/southsun….and add them to the wallet for crying out loud!

Event Ideas: (with various outcomes for most of them on success/failure)

• Push back karka (cull karka) from main nest/hive.
• Stop Young Karka Queens from resurrecting the Karka Queen…of course people are going to want to fail this so make a success still resurrect the queen but in a 20% weakend state and a failure in a 110% stronger state.
• Salvage goods from the sunken ships and thin the hostile sea life in the area. Random rare chests spawning on various ships that are sunken just south and west of the consortium island with the gate.
• Crab toss all the time.
• Hunt the X boss mobs on the island and bring back X trophies. X being however many there are, 2 drakes? 1 shark? Add 1 giant floaty tentacle that spawns from the pools / rocky area by the main town during this quest.
• Capture baby karka for breeding experiments / pet sales for the consortium using their patented KarkaCapture NetFlinger 6000. Then Drag the Karkaling back to pre-set cages.
• Search the Drake caves for the lost Samoflange. Add a few more cave areas to the island, including an underwater one with surface that is above water inside the cave.
• Help the quaggins try to set up underwater housing in the area. Various outcomes on success/failure
• Protect the quaggins new housing from assault.
• Clean up Canach’s left over Crazy Spore plants across the island.
• Escort pack beast from egg lady to asura gate with egg-shipment. Ambushes by poachers.
• BURN ALL THE NESTS!
• Quest chain Living Story style: Investigate what the consortium is really all about.

That’s just off the top of my head

Oh and have southsun actually get developed more and more, or at least the “resort” areas as time goes on. so that they look better built but still “island themed”, few more guards, tourists around etc….

Revive this wonderful map and the incredible potential in this polynesian-tiki-esque type area.

Not sure, haven’t been back there myself. It came out around the time I took a break from GW2. All I remember is how hard those karka mobs (not the bosses or vets) hit, and how quickly I went down if I wasn’t in a zerg train.

So, I’ve never been back. Have they nerfed the mobs to allow some sort of solo play?

misterman.1530:

So, I’ve never been back. Have they nerfed the mobs to allow some sort of solo play?

Nope .. they are still a pita .. also those reef drakes with their confusion.

But if they ever get neferd i see already all those people that haven’t been there for
years beside maybe a Queens zerg, crying out loud that the only “challenging” mobs
are nerfed.

In the end those mobs were a direct result of people that were posting in the forums
all the time that they want more challenge if we ever get new maps.

And yes, i think its sad that that beautiful zone is more or less a wasteland because of that.

Southsun was rushed and never really connected to anything.
The revisit we had was rushed and hardly connected it to anything.

Let the zone rest in peace, it never really had a place in the game anyway…

Beldin.5498:

In the end those mobs were a direct result of people that were posting in the forums
all the time that they want more challenge if we ever get new maps.

And yes, i think its sad that that beautiful zone is more or less a wasteland because of that.

It’s not deserted because of the difficult mobs. It’s deserted because there’s nothing to do there. Outside of the Karka queen, the entire map has six events. Six.

It was created as a place for high level characters to go as an alternative to Orr. While nice, it can be annoying as a solo player to run it. I usually go out there to gather and solo the outskirts. I don’t bother with the events though.

Giving it some sort of life outside of it being a section where a big event took place would be nice.

I’d imagine that Southsun will be revisited by the Living Story and get another update when that happens. Remember however that Southsun is meant to be a quiet deserted island and not a war zone like the new zones. It currently could do with a story lined sequence of events for single player or a couple of casuals, taking people round the island a few times, but nothing so gold laden that it would attract the farmers.

Stooperdale has a point, though I found myself excited by the OP’s ideas.

The thing is … normally I cringe at replies to suggestions that go, in essence, “I hate your idea because it would mean the devs doing your thing instead of this other thing I find much more personally important.” Like somehow suggestions shouldn’t be made in the first place because they aren’t in line with the responder’s interests.

Yet here, I’m going to be one of those people. Not because I think your suggestions are bad, quite the contrary, I love them (the tribal armor tie in is wonderful). Because right now it feels like we’re going to new places and getting new things and your suggestions would be near as much work as making a new zone, without actually giving us a new zone.

So I would love these to happen some day. Just not, y’know, now.

misterman.1530:

Not sure, haven’t been back there myself. It came out around the time I took a break from GW2. All I remember is how hard those karka mobs (not the bosses or vets) hit, and how quickly I went down if I wasn’t in a zerg train.

So, I’ve never been back. Have they nerfed the mobs to allow some sort of solo play?

No they are the same but still solo-able. Reflects, blocks and dodging work fine against karkas. Reefdrakes have an aoe pull that stability should work against along with dodging.

dekou.6012:

Beldin.5498:

In the end those mobs were a direct result of people that were posting in the forums
all the time that they want more challenge if we ever get new maps.

And yes, i think its sad that that beautiful zone is more or less a wasteland because of that.

It’s not deserted because of the difficult mobs. It’s deserted because there’s nothing to do there. Outside of the Karka queen, the entire map has six events. Six.

Yes and this is a huge problem. 6 events on the area that’s roughly as big as drytop and siverwastes. The whole karaka take over the towns one is the most annoying of them all and really keeps people away from southsun too.

Stooperdale.3560:

I’d imagine that Southsun will be revisited by the Living Story and get another update when that happens. Remember however that Southsun is meant to be a quiet deserted island and not a war zone like the new zones. It currently could do with a story lined sequence of events for single player or a couple of casuals, taking people round the island a few times, but nothing so gold laden that it would attract the farmers.

Yes it is a deserted island that was found by the consortium but that doesn’t mean it can’t have some activity. While I wouldn’t want it quite as active as siverwastes, something more dry top-ish should be fine.

We have tons of broken ships, some cave networks and this can lead to treasure hunts, laying ghosts to rest, helping settlers well, settle, and a variety of other events going on around the map not centered on the towns. It would need decent rewards to entice people to be there and armor skins/weapon skins would help to do that.

Donari.5237:

Stooperdale has a point, though I found myself excited by the OP’s ideas.

The thing is … normally I cringe at replies to suggestions that go, in essence, “I hate your idea because it would mean the devs doing your thing instead of this other thing I find much more personally important.” Like somehow suggestions shouldn’t be made in the first place because they aren’t in line with the responder’s interests.

Yet here, I’m going to be one of those people. Not because I think your suggestions are bad, quite the contrary, I love them (the tribal armor tie in is wonderful). Because right now it feels like we’re going to new places and getting new things and your suggestions would be near as much work as making a new zone, without actually giving us a new zone.

So I would love these to happen some day. Just not, y’know, now.

Oddly I agree I wouldn’t want them to do this now, as they’ve got the current story going but if they have the team, I’d like to see something like this in the near future. I feel it’s a waste of development time to make a zone that’s been almost totally abandoned and now that they seem to be on the right track with the last two zones they should fix this one.

Here’s my ideas to make people interested in re-visiting Southsun Cove:

1. Sclerite weapons can now be crafted via new recipes that use Karka Shells. The recipes themselves are bought from the Consortium merchants for coin + Passionfruit.

2. The Champ Karka in the Karka Hive now gives a daily bonus chest. The various rare Southsun skins, such as the Consortium breathers and the Tiki mask, have a rare chance of dropping from this bonus chest. (These items also have a rare chance of dropping from the Champ Hive Defender at Camp Karka and the Karka Queen herself.)

3. The mini Karka and mini Karka Hatchlings are now very rare drops from killing Veteran or Champion Karkas.

Zaxares.5419:

Here’s my ideas to make people interested in re-visiting Southsun Cove:

1. Sclerite weapons can now be crafted via new recipes that use Karka Shells. The recipes themselves are bought from the Consortium merchants for coin + Passionfruit.

2. The Champ Karka in the Karka Hive now gives a daily bonus chest. The various rare Southsun skins, such as the Consortium breathers and the Tiki mask, have a rare chance of dropping from this bonus chest. (These items also have a rare chance of dropping from the Champ Hive Defender at Camp Karka and the Karka Queen herself.)

3. The mini Karka and mini Karka Hatchlings are now very rare drops from killing Veteran or Champion Karkas.

They could put the rich ori vein back by the champ too. Love those ideas. Craftibles are always a good thing and it’s a shame you can’t get those skins anymore.

I’d like them to take the current island themed skins they have and rework the other weapons along the same line so there is a full set and not just like 5. Would take less work modifying the current weapons then building from scratch I’d think (having done 3d modelling decade or two ago).

I wrote this on reddit last week.

• Fix the map bugs

• Map changes: It’s an island risen from the depths – where is the grottoes with their underwater entrances and really weird plant life? I’d also add a waypoint to the center camp, and to the Crab Toss arena.

• Southsun-specific items:
  • Crab meat as a cooking ingredient. A whack of seafood recipes. I really want to see “Karka Roll”.
  • Crustacean armor and/or weapon skins that look (the sclerite ones sadly didn’t look like they were made out of karka at all – more like the karka shoulders)

• Vistas in some of the amazing key places; remember where we collected the plant samples during Southsun II?

• Hearts: I know many people are not fans, but I personally like them. Especially the non-combat activities add a lot of flair to any map. Here’s a few suggestions -
  • Sand pit heart: Assist Advisor Zakk. Find golem parts, kill mosquitos
  • Research camp heart: Assist Researcher Levvi. Ping local flora (additional flowers can be added to the area for this), Protect the area around the camp from karka
  • Owain’s refuge heart: Assist Owain. Kill karka, gather karka eggs (when quest is up), collect some spice from local bushes
  • Non-combat activity at Captain’s Retreat. The tourist beach needs some sort of activity (I imagine Faren and Kasmeer leaving) – maybe serving drinks to tourists, as a change from the “kill this, gather that” type of heart activities.

• Permanent access to Crab Toss by walking (err, swimming) up to the actual arena, like access to Keg Brawl used to be.

• Permanent access to Southsun Survival, but in my opinion, Survival should be moved to a separate island (only available as activity instance) as it makes absolutely no sense to have that and regular Southsun exist in the same location and the same time in the same universe. Please. This separate island would be much smaller and more hostile (Southsun Survival only uses half the map now anyway).

• Bosses – I get what they tried with the karka queen / liberating the camps; but I think it should be changed. The camps, or some of them anyway should be inhabited by NPCs so if they’re under siege it actually means something. And I think we could do with more bosses than just the three mean karkas (two champs and the queen). A legendary reefrider boss would be pretty mean (I imagine the fight to be similar to the big jellyfish in the underwater fractal).

• Interesting NPCs: Priory explorers, OOW and vigil members, the Consortium, pirates, settlers, shady merchants, vacationers, treasure hunters, Job-o-tron…

• Etc. etc. etc.: PvP reward track, random Southsun items collection, a collection of just Southsun-related minis

• Southsun dungeon:

Southsun dungeon, partly under water but partly not. Including all the known Southsun elements as well as new ones (DSD tentacle stuff! Krakens! Etc.) I imagine that while you explore the dungeon, the waterlevel rises, so a specific boss fight might be above or below water level, depending which path you go/which order you do the boss rooms in.

Story-wise, one of the paths could be Priory/DSD investigation related; another one OOW/Consortium... I never bought the story that the consortium just wanted to make Southsun a vacation place – they must have been looking for some sort of treasure! A third path could be Vigil vs. pirates.

• Map mechanics

Now after Dry Top and Silverwastes, I think the Southsun map could be subject to the tides or currents or monsoon-like rain or a different natural force similar to the sandstorm. Maybe the meta could be required to open the entrance to the dungeon.

There is a lot of visual beauty in Southsun and it is an absolute shame that the map isn’t chock-full of awesomeness and interesting NPCs. If ANet can make a desert one of the most interesting places to be, then certainly an almost tropical island can’t be that hard to make appealing.

All I can think of is a new Dungeon. Perhaps some explorers/vigil soldiers came across it after some time? Honestly though, I was present at the time the map was released and rushed through it and left.. Only to return whenever KQ spawns. It’s sad to see all that effort into map design go to waste with such little events.. But I agree SS is OP. Those reef drakes.. Cray cray I tell you.

I like Southsun the way it is; it’s like the GW2 version of an abandoned amusement park…

there should be more super rare skins that can be obtained there from collecting karka parts and such. just random chances of things happening there, besides karka queen

I would love to see them revisit southsun. It’s sort of a waste of space at the moment…

It would also be nice as mentioned earlier to have hearts and a couple more points of interest and give a map completion reward, though dry top and silverwastes don’t give map completions either…course no hearts there either.