Guild Wars 2

I am not often an advocate for removing content; in fact, I am usually for putting content back in. However, Southsun has many structural issues that may not be solvable and are getting worse, and the game may be better off without it.

• The entire map is HIGHLY dependent on large group content. From the camp capture to the karka queen, there is very little you can do on your own or even with smaller groups. Unfortunately, there is also little incentive to do anything on Southsun, leading to a downward spiral where these days none of the events get done.

• Even moving around the map in general needs groups. The enemies and enemy distributions are tuned for large groups, meaning that single players, if they can survive at all, can’t actually engage or farm, but just have to run past everything.

• Karka in particular are enemies that are designed for group engagements; a single person cannot in general reasonably engage a full-size Karka in a reasonable amount of time, and the density of them easily leads to inadvertently aggroing multiples. We even see this on Ember Bay, where the Karka beach is avoided completely except for events.

• The map is perpetually contested, because no one is doing the events, meaning you can only reliably access 1 or 2 of the waypoints.

• The guild content on the map, particularly the race, is considered so onerous (again, due to the lack of the map being populated and cleared) that most guilds won’t bother doing it, instead opting to forego the guild credit for that week. Not helped by all transportation being rerouted to the main encampment due, again, to the constant state of contestation of most of the waypoints.

• The jumping puzzle is generally considered the worst in the game, and is often intentionally avoided, even when it is a daily.

• There is absolutely no story connection to any other part of the game. No active story content has anything to do with it, nor will any likely have anything to do with it in the future, and none of the content on the island creates any compelling reason to visit or return.

• The map has insufficient rewards for the level of effort it demands. Even karka trains, once a thing, have mostly fallen apart as the one reward that could attract people, Karka Shells, is just not sufficient.

• Southsun is not needed for world completion or Legendaries, and doesn’t even provide the possibility of a Black Lion Key, since it is the only map, other than cities, guaranteed to give a Transmutation Charge, and unlike cities you don’t need it for something else.

The only reason to go at this point is that a few of the collections need items, primarily from the Karka Queen event, but even that is only just barely managing to get people onto the map for one or two runs at that event IN A WEEK. At most other times the map is just abandoned in favor of any other map in the game.

Given all these issues, and the low chance that anything will or can be done to revitalize the population of the map, it may be in the interest of the game to just remove it and redirect attention elsewhere, both to avoid annoying players who are forced to go there and unable to finish events and to allow for a more meaningful redirection of resources elsewhere. As it stands, Southsun is and will likely continue to be the least visited, least completed, most underpopulated, most uninteresting, and most unfun map in the game.

Only Karka Queen is large group content. Everything else from the outposts events, to the champions to the solo events (including 2 escort events, the Asura event and the omelette event) do not require large groups. It also has a JP which whilst challenging, is has never been under consensus as the worst in the game. It’s actually a well designed JP.

Removing it is the worst possible solution since it is a beautiful area and would make no sense from a lore pov. If ppl don’t go there, then they can just ignore it. It’s hardly destroying their life or annoying them. It would actually take resources to remove it and redirect achievements and legendary collections elsewhere.

It certainly needs revitalising and hopefully they will give it a few more events or steer a story chapter there, but to remove it entirely from the game seems like a baffling suggestion, especially when there are plenty of people who enjoy the island.

No thanks. I like soloing karkas… it’s a great way to test a build, and they’re a fun fight. Even if I’ll wind up being the only person on the map, so be it. The zerg kills them too fast for them to be fun, and it’s annoying when they come up from behind and kill the one (or more) I’m fighting.

~EW

Perhaps, you might consider changing your build. I often go to Southsun, and solo most of the content. It’s a great place to farm. And, for the record, I have no build, nor care. Just use whatever drops or otherwise is obtained. But, I understand that players who have trouble with content are often given that advice.

Good luck.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• The entire map is HIGHLY dependent on large group content. From the camp capture to the karka queen, there is very little you can do on your own or even with smaller groups. Unfortunately, there is also little incentive to do anything on Southsun, leading to a downward spiral where these days none of the events get done.

This just isn’t true. Yes, I’ve yet to see someone solo the queen, but otherwise everything is completely doable alone. There is plenty of incentive. Its fun, its different, its more challenging than the average encounter. Unless of course you mean some sort of monetary gain? The karka shells from killing stuff are worth a pretty penny.

• Even moving around the map in general needs groups. The enemies and enemy distributions are tuned for large groups, meaning that single players, if they can survive at all, can’t actually engage or farm, but just have to run past everything.

What? Some sections with multiple vets can be tricky and you have to watch your agro but everything is so spread out that you can really pick your fights here.

• Karka in particular are enemies that are designed for group engagements; a single person cannot in general reasonably engage a full-size Karka in a reasonable amount of time, and the density of them easily leads to inadvertently aggroing multiples. We even see this on Ember Bay, where the Karka beach is avoided completely except for events.

See above.

• The jumping puzzle is generally considered the worst in the game, and is often intentionally avoided, even when it is a daily.

One of the best in the game.

• There is absolutely no story connection to any other part of the game. No active story content has anything to do with it, nor will any likely have anything to do with it in the future, and none of the content on the island creates any compelling reason to visit or return.

The consortium.

• The map has insufficient rewards for the level of effort it demands. Even karka trains, once a thing, have mostly fallen apart as the one reward that could attract people, Karka Shells, is just not sufficient.

One of the best maps in terms of scenery, interesting enemies that cater to a different skillset…. these are more than enough reward. The shells, scales, and blood are just icing.

Your argument seems to be based in large part that the map doesn’t offer you enough opportunities to make money. You miss all the good things it has to offer.

I admit I don’t go to Southsun often but when I do there’s always at least 1 group there, either farming karka or completing the events. Sometimes there’s 2 groups – one doing events and one farming. Any more than that doesn’t really work, it gets too crowded.

And obviously it’s busier when the karka queen is due. There’s often multiple organised maps then.

This is all on EU servers of course, I’m not sure what the NA servers are like.

I can do solo Southsun Cove as a Daredevil on full exotics + Ascended Trinkets.

It’s way, way easier to solo than any Maguuma content, and tho I agree Anet should stop envisioning zerg dependant maps (imagine how people won’t even be able to complete Maguuma without zergs after nex expac), I am sure you can clear this one, and it’s not worth it anyways.

There are regular zergs clearing the map for Karka Queen. Ask for help before and after that for mapping.

Southsun is easy to solo if you build for it and respect the effort needed on Veterans.

Farm Karka shells, passiflora blossoms, and T6 armor scales while you are at it, or relax on the beach.

I can’t agree with the OP. Most of the map can be managed alone. Most of the events can be managed in tiny groups. As someone else stated, only the Karka Queen requires a map-wide effort and even then, it can (and has been done) by 10-15 people.

I am not against maps getting revamped. However, there’s no need to do so for Southsun, so I’d much prefer ANet focused their resources elsewhere.

If I were to make any changes to Southsun I’d like to see the little beach resort expanded a bit to more of a social zone and meeting point to start group runs.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

No thanks. I like soloing karkas… it’s a great way to test a build, and they’re a fun fight. Even if I’ll wind up being the only person on the map, so be it. The zerg kills them too fast for them to be fun, and it’s annoying when they come up from behind and kill the one (or more) I’m fighting.

~EW

^^^This.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

Karka in particular are enemies that are designed for group engagements; a single person cannot in general reasonably engage a full-size Karka in a reasonable amount of time…

I was watching a friend on the Karka beach in Ember Bay fight a Vet Karka solo. Two other Vet Karka also aggroed, as well as one or two regular ones. My friend took them all down. As “reasonable” is a subjective term, I’m not sure if the time it took would be reasonable to you, nor did I time the fight.

As to the topic, while SSC is not as utilized as other zones might be, it does see some use. Also, redirecting the few things that players might go there for to other zones would require dev time whereas leaving things as is would not. It sounds to me as if the OP’s proposal is more about the good of players who don’t want to go to SSC for collections, etc., than it is about the good of the game.

It is a waste of time to have people work on removing it, the players would not be happy even if it isn’t used much and lastly if they do that with one area who is to say they won’t do it with others like it later on because they did it once.

I love Soutshun from the day it was introduced. It was the first kick in the teeth of the Berserk Meta as a quick takedown of a karka veteran is not possible and you get your damage dealt back to you quickly. Combine that with low HP and you already got a recipe for people dying from their own damage.^^

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• The entire map is HIGHLY dependent on large group content. From the camp capture to the karka queen, there is very little you can do on your own or even with smaller groups. Unfortunately, there is also little incentive to do anything on Southsun, leading to a downward spiral where these days none of the events get done.

You can solo all the events, unless they spawn a champ. Maybe you should consider changing your build and / or learn the basics of this game (dodging, using combo fields, crowd controlling, etc).

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Even moving around the map in general needs groups. The enemies and enemy distributions are tuned for large groups, meaning that single players, if they can survive at all, can’t actually engage or farm, but just have to run past everything.

You can pull ennemies. Or fight several of them at once (see the advice above). Or, indeed, run past them, just like in any other map.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Karka in particular are enemies that are designed for group engagements; a single person cannot in general reasonably engage a full-size Karka in a reasonable amount of time, and the density of them easily leads to inadvertently aggroing multiples. We even see this on Ember Bay, where the Karka beach is avoided completely except for events.

Indeed, the Karka vets are tough, but that’s what’s good about them. That being said, over-aggroing seems to be a recuring issue there – maybe you should work on that and start paying extra attention to the positionning of your character.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• The map is perpetually contested, because no one is doing the events, meaning you can only reliably access 1 or 2 of the waypoints.

There are at least 3 WP that are never contested. 3 out of 6. 50%.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• The guild content on the map, particularly the race, is considered so onerous (again, due to the lack of the map being populated and cleared) that most guilds won’t bother doing it, instead opting to forego the guild credit for that week. Not helped by all transportation being rerouted to the main encampment due, again, to the constant state of contestation of most of the waypoints.

Again, wrong. It doesn’t take long at all to go from Pearl Islet to the race starting point. Or you can also start from Lion Point (never contested either). And yes, this race is harder. That’s why the reward is larger.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• The jumping puzzle is generally considered the worst in the game, and is often intentionally avoided, even when it is a daily.

That’s the only JP I used to do every day when I was still farming Blooming Parsifloras. Once you know it, it’s a really easy one (there’s even a big shortcut). Several times I have offered in chat to show people how to do it, no one took my offer except once. And I’m pretty sure I can teach anyone. It’s like your other critics – I’m pretty sure the main issue isn’t IG but between the keyboard and the chair.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• There is absolutely no story connection to any other part of the game. No active story content has anything to do with it, nor will any likely have anything to do with it in the future, and none of the content on the island creates any compelling reason to visit or return.

Actually, at least one current event takes place in SC. And the consortium having an important role in the current story, maybe we will see more action there in the future.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• The map has insufficient rewards for the level of effort it demands. Even karka trains, once a thing, have mostly fallen apart as the one reward that could attract people, Karka Shells, is just not sufficient.

Karka shells are required for legendary collections. That alone makes them good enough as a reward.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Southsun is not needed for world completion or Legendaries, and doesn’t even provide the possibility of a Black Lion Key, since it is the only map, other than cities, guaranteed to give a Transmutation Charge, and unlike cities you don’t need it for something else.

Southsun IS needed for legendaries. All the collections require 100 Karka shells, and several scavenger hunts take place in Southsun (Chuka and Champawat for instance).

If you don’t like South Sun, then don’t go — play the parts of GW2 that you like.

Don’t ask the content to be removed simply because you don’t like it. Other people still play it.

It shouldn’t be considered a coincidence that the Apothecary stat was introduced with Southsun.

While Im no fan of Southsun, I disagree with most of what yoiu have said.

I used to have such trouble there , and after complaining to a guild mate about it, they simply said …." beef up and suck it up" …. literally.

Karka Queen is not soloable, and whomever claims to have solo’d her is full of kitten imo but there are a lot of good points here from the community about Karka being awesome for testing builds and that Southsun is a great map for farming. I have never completed the JP … but its still fun to try

I hope Southsun stays its beautiful … so I guess Ill just pass on … Beef up and suck it up.

I hate the map and go there as rarely as I can, but I can’t agree with removing it. Changing it? Sure. I wouldn’t mind seeing more uncontestable WP placed on the map and a few other changes to it, but I don’t want to see it removed

But….Karka Queen!!!!!!

I’ve completed South Sun at least once on all 9 classes, and have obtained the items I need from there. Almost all of it done solo, yet I am currently only skilled enough to take down vet Karka solo on 2 of those classes (Ranger, mesmer).

The jumping puzzle is rare in that it involves timing, yet I don’t recall the last time I saw someone raging in map chat about committing acts of violence against the devs that designed it (something I have seen in Gendarren Fields). Skipping Stones, like the rest of the zone, is not designed to be easy. It is one of my least favorite jumping puzzles, and, until Ember Bay, the only one I’ve never done without using a mesmer.

But no, the zone does not need to be removed. In fact, I don’t see anywhere in the OP’s post that provides any sort of benefit to the content being completely gone. Should there be tweaks? Absolutely. The guild race is horrendous due to mobs, but that can be adjusted.

I think story/lore wise it’s a grey area. It’s not pertinent (now anyways) but could be if the storyline warrants it? I agree some content needs to comeback (Zepheryte Festival) but won’t because of the storyline. So … the LS was/is to blame for creating deadzones. It’s too linear. There is a beginning, middle and end. Even though players can revisit it, no one wants to.

I just want to have beach parties there.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• There is absolutely no story connection to any other part of the game. No active story content has anything to do with it, nor will any likely have anything to do with it in the future, and none of the content on the island creates any compelling reason to visit or return.

.

no no no no no. A lot of important characters originated from the Southsun cove release and are still relevant to this day.

Consortium: started the Southsun story and are currently playing a major role in the Current Events story.

Canach: a sylvari who brew up trouble in the island with the Consortium prompting us to stop him and jail him. Joined our party during Season 2 and HoT. Is currently a member of the shining blade

Job-o-tron: an unlucky former Consortium golem who went through many names. Is currently in LA named Hero-tron after helping save said city

Ellen Kiel: Originally an investigator who arrested Mai Trin and won in an election to be in the Captain’s Council. Magnus is her mentor and was also introduced in the Southsun cove release. Both are in LA

Karka: creatures from the island that attacked LA after being disturbed by the Consortium. Can also be found in Ember Bay.

i have mixed feelings about the op’s coments i kinda agree and i kinda dont but one thing i can agree on is that it is dead content and un-rewarding
i dont have any isues with the JP personaly but then im one of those players whose made alot of money selling it and can do it with ease first time every time prety much
as a full zerk tempest i can solo stuff and many of the events there but why would anyone want to as the only thing worth a kitten is the bloods and the drop rate is not good enough for the time investment i could do some tarir multi loot and just buy the bloods and get more faster
as to guild events i stoped doing those like 2 years ago bit prior to that my guild never shy’d away from the mission and we used to get everyone through with a minimum of fuss
as to the karka queen she gets killed all the time prety much i dont see a problem there unless you arive late and get in a dead map
yes the wp’s are usualy allways contested but i dont find that to be a big deal tbh just takes me an extra minute to get some place
yes there is no conection to story rewaly except old irelevant dead storyline and sry Crysto but the consortium dosent mean squat to most players anyone ariveing around season 2 or there after probobly dosent even know who they are, hell ive played the game from launch and fail to see there significance on the storyline
as far as map comp is concerned it certainly dosent help map population when players have allmost no reason to go there anymore

shuting down the content is not a good idea coz clearly some players do still think theres some reasons to go there i fail to see why tho other than killing the karka queen witch if i remeber right you needed for at least one of the HoT legendarys
personaly like you i have no love for this map beyond selling the ocasional jp so if you feel the same way just dont do it theres no reason it should bother you if you just put it out your mind
p.s plz excuse my poor spelling/grammer

eduardo.1436:

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• There is absolutely no story connection to any other part of the game. No active story content has anything to do with it, nor will any likely have anything to do with it in the future, and none of the content on the island creates any compelling reason to visit or return.

.

no no no no no. A lot of important characters originated from the Southsun cove release and are still relevant to this day.

Consortium: started the Southsun story and are currently playing a major role in the Current Events story.

Canach: a sylvari who brew up trouble in the island with the Consortium prompting us to stop him and jail him. Joined our party during Season 2 and HoT. Is currently a member of the shining blade

Job-o-tron: an unlucky former Consortium golem who went through many names. Is currently in LA named Hero-tron after helping save said city

Ellen Kiel: Originally an investigator who arrested Mai Trin and won in an election to be in the Captain’s Council. Magnus is her mentor and was also introduced in the Southsun cove release. Both are in LA

Karka: creatures from the island that attacked LA after being disturbed by the Consortium. Can also be found in Ember Bay.

Considering that there is an ever growing population in this game of players who weren’t around for the release, this doesn’t mean jack kitten to us. We didn’t get this lore and we can’t get this lore. Lorewise, there is nothing tying SSC to the rest of the game for us, absolutely nothing. And lorewise we would lose nothing if it was removed (not that I agree with removing it). The consortium, Canach, Ellen Kiel are all faces in this game that were here since before we started playing, we can’t tie them back to Southsun Cove. Likewise I don’t see how Job-o-Tron is important to us at all. I don’t think this is a good argument for keeping the map in the game.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• The jumping puzzle is generally considered the worst in the game, and is often intentionally avoided, even when it is a daily.

If Skipping Stones is a daily, mesmers are available almost the entire day to get you to the end chest with almost no jumping involved!

I don’t think we should keep any map in the game just for the sake of ‘lore’. If the gameplay is bad, then fix it or take it out and put in something that’s worth the maintenance costs, for devs and players.

Southsun remains one of my favorite maps — there’s just enough stuff to do to keep it interesting, the pre-events are fun (mostly, without the zerg), and the Karka are awesome practice subjects for new builds, group or solo. I’m sorry that the OP doesn’t like it, but that’s not reason enough to drop it.

tl;dr the OP hasn’t established a strong-enough reason for removal, which makes further discussion moot, in my opinion.

OriOri.8724:

eduardo.1436:

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• There is absolutely no story connection to any other part of the game. No active story content has anything to do with it, nor will any likely have anything to do with it in the future, and none of the content on the island creates any compelling reason to visit or return.

.

no no no no no. A lot of important characters originated from the Southsun cove release and are still relevant to this day.

Consortium: started the Southsun story and are currently playing a major role in the Current Events story.

Canach: a sylvari who brew up trouble in the island with the Consortium prompting us to stop him and jail him. Joined our party during Season 2 and HoT. Is currently a member of the shining blade

Job-o-tron: an unlucky former Consortium golem who went through many names. Is currently in LA named Hero-tron after helping save said city

Ellen Kiel: Originally an investigator who arrested Mai Trin and won in an election to be in the Captain’s Council. Magnus is her mentor and was also introduced in the Southsun cove release. Both are in LA

Karka: creatures from the island that attacked LA after being disturbed by the Consortium. Can also be found in Ember Bay.

Considering that there is an ever growing population in this game of players who weren’t around for the release, this doesn’t mean jack kitten to us. We didn’t get this lore and we can’t get this lore.

I don’t think this is a good argument for keeping the map in the game.

My main point was to show how SSC is relevant to parts of the story (LW S1 and your comment is another reason why Anet needs to make S1 replayable. When? who knows!). And these characters that were introduced with the island are relevant to LW S2, HoT, LW S3 and the future. As for the main topic of keeping the island…….really? We get a free zone and OP wants it removed? If you cant play it find a group. There’s always people farming karka sheels.

eduardo.1436:

OriOri.8724:

eduardo.1436:

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• There is absolutely no story connection to any other part of the game. No active story content has anything to do with it, nor will any likely have anything to do with it in the future, and none of the content on the island creates any compelling reason to visit or return.

.

no no no no no. A lot of important characters originated from the Southsun cove release and are still relevant to this day.

Consortium: started the Southsun story and are currently playing a major role in the Current Events story.

Canach: a sylvari who brew up trouble in the island with the Consortium prompting us to stop him and jail him. Joined our party during Season 2 and HoT. Is currently a member of the shining blade

Job-o-tron: an unlucky former Consortium golem who went through many names. Is currently in LA named Hero-tron after helping save said city

Ellen Kiel: Originally an investigator who arrested Mai Trin and won in an election to be in the Captain’s Council. Magnus is her mentor and was also introduced in the Southsun cove release. Both are in LA

Karka: creatures from the island that attacked LA after being disturbed by the Consortium. Can also be found in Ember Bay.

Considering that there is an ever growing population in this game of players who weren’t around for the release, this doesn’t mean jack kitten to us. We didn’t get this lore and we can’t get this lore.

I don’t think this is a good argument for keeping the map in the game.

My main point was to show how SSC is relevant to parts of the story (LW S1 and your comment is another reason why Anet needs to make S1 replayable. When? who knows!). And these characters that were introduced with the island are relevant to LW S2, HoT, LW S3 and the future. As for the main topic of keeping the island…….really? We get a free zone and OP wants it removed? If you cant play it find a group. There’s always people farming karka sheels.

Like I said earlier I don’t agree with removing the map, I just don’t consider the argument thakittens characters into the lore to be a good one to keep it, because for an ever growing number of players it fails to do that. I realize that these characters (only Canach really though) are relevant to LWS2, HoT story and hopefully to LWS3. But that doesn’t mean that new players can connect these players to SSC, because we can’t. For us these characters remain as ones that just exist, the exact same as the members of DW. We can’t tie them back to SSC, as is evident in OPs post.

You might say “But muh consortium!”. Again though, there is absolutely zero lore around the consortium for new players. We don’t know who they are, where they come from, why they are important, or why they want ley line energy.

There just isn’t any lore tying SSC into the game for newer players. Absolutely none.

Pretty sure the Consortium are part of the recent Current Events.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Pretty sure the Consortium are part of the recent Current Events.

Correct. There’s also NPC’s in LA for the Consortium (who built new LA) plus ofc there are the Fractals, which was set up by the Consortium. SO there is lore available for newer players.

They may not directly link into the story yet (well not since S1), but they clearly play a part in the side stories. This is a good use of any faction in my opinion and perhaps shows more how the Living World is meant to work.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Pretty sure the Consortium are part of the recent Current Events.

They are, but with zero lore tie in for players who weren’t around when SSC was released. We don’t even know what the consortium is, what they want. All we know is that they showed up along with the priory and the inquest to gather ley line energy. That is literally all we know of them, we have zero connection to SSC. Zero. Lore connections is just no longer a good argument in favor of keeping that map. A better argument is that there isn’t any reason to get rid of it

Aramil Amakiir.8502:

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• The jumping puzzle is generally considered the worst in the game, and is often intentionally avoided, even when it is a daily.

If Skipping Stones is a daily, mesmers are available almost the entire day to get you to the end chest with almost no jumping involved!

LOL Well said

There is no reason to remove this map. The OP may not like it and may believe that other also dislike it but that’s hardly a compelling reason to remove anything.

Maybe it can be attacked by the Charr and then they can have a large seafood dinner. Then it can be rebuilt as an Asuran island getaway! But seriously nuke the Karka.. annoying little ….