Guild Wars 2

Greetings!
In advance forgive me my clumsy english. I’m doing best I can.

So
Reasons
It’s no secret that it is no more than 3-5 people on the island at the same time now. And even they are usually just run for rare resources only. The whole location is serves only for five nodes. Ofc, devs have attempted to fix it. However, as a result, even more people have disappeared from the island. After all, even “karka farming trains” on the beach have disappeared. Let us look at the reasons and suggest possible solutions.

Let’s start with what developers design this island as a most difficult location in game. Many players have outgrown the evil risens in Orr and began to complain about the lack of challenge. Developers were quick to give them the this challenge. Did they managed it? Definitely yes. And as time has shown: do players need this challenge?

Well. Probably. However all knows that “challenge must be rewardable” ©.

Responsible for the unpopularity of this island are only two mobs. This is karka and reef drakes.
For the beginning of drake: for example a pair of reef drakes destroys with its insta stun+confusion pull most of player’s hp bar. Even durable character. Sometimes it looks like 1-shot. To feel normal in a fight with them, you need to have tons of cond-removal and stunbreaks. Otherwise, you just have to run around and shoot each of them in distance. Not every class can achieve the first option. Not every player likes the second.
I think the main problem here is the “instantaneous” of most powerful mechanics. It is necessary to avoid a random factors in the fight. And to rely on players reaction. It is necessary to make this mechanics more visible, allowing them to avoid it, but not to adjust builds for it.

But drakes are nothing compared to the karkas. It seems that the developers have decided to gather all the meddlesomeness, all the boredom, and all the most perverse abilityes within a single creature. Thus karka was born.
I would not say that it is difficult. But it seems that they have been created especially to not want to kill them. 2x huge HP pools. Permanent reflect. More than half of abilities accompanied with avoid that stretches the time of fight for 50%+ more. Condition transfers. Chance to be forever stuned in melee (cd for theyirs jumping seem non-existent). Not every class just simply able to kill them without any special preparation.
Well…
Everything would be fine
BUT! ! ! !
A smooth transition to the problem number two => enormous, huge arrgo range!
Even if you are able to kill one, you are almost certainly will aggro another which, apparently, was a mile away from you. Most likely not alone. 5 min of fight for nothing, just for run away.
W h y i s i t f o r?

The mobs are many and trashes the space. Some attacked on 2000 range and stealing boons. All this makes it impossible for a normal soloing island. Events hard to do even with 3 people. After a LS on the island and the emergence of the angry mobs which could hit you 5 times for 5000 by 3k armor situation does not become better. And the addition’s events with 1-shot mechanics (such as worms) somehow does not contribute inclination to explore this island.

It looks like it was supposed to groups of five. But why? No benefits. A lot of risk to die. Neither are particularly valuable rewards which would be impossible to get anywhere else.

The developers have tried to draw player’s attention by meta-event with a boss which gives 2 rare things instead of one… Quite a pity, isn’kitten As we can see, it’s failed.

Solutions

Well… Knowing the needs of the average player, I think the following should work:

1) – Make karkas to guaranteed drop.. donno… unique meat, which could be sold to vendors for ~ 8c. This is already guarantee that people will go there. Make them champions without increasing difficulty, and let them drop out champ bags. Even better.
(Another option is simply to make them easier/reduce HP)
2) – Nerf mobs at events that they all could be completed solo.
3) – Turn down the aggro radius.
4) – Add renown hearts to the island, which would not took only 5 minutes to do, but longer and would sell, for example, the unique appearance clothes of weapons. Or recipes.
5) – Make the island part of the progress of world completionist.
6) – Remove the account binding from blooming passiflora. Make the drop rate of flowers higher (OMG, you need 70 pieces on 1 jewelry!)
7) – Add more recipes with fruits (and more useful).
8) – More options for the use of all resources of the island (shells, flowers and fruits).

I think it’s a simpliest option to implement that will work effectively.

Does anyone have any more ideas on how to resurrect this huge piece of content?

The problem Southsun has is that there is no incentive to go there. The area is as you mention a pain in the bottom to traverse and there are just no rewarding activities. At the very least they should add a few more Orichalcum and some Ancient wood nodes. It would also help tremendously to have a native resource that actually is wanted. Hardly anyone is waiting for Settler stats ¬¬
Introduce Assassin gear in this zone, that would help a bit.

And if all else fails, press ‘F’ to revive.

I feel as if they added some permanent content such as a dungeon or more attention grabbing events, it would pull more people there.

and it’s a level 80 zone, if they increased the base drop rate just a smidge you know not enough to break the game but enough that people would bother to go there that would be great.

That zone is the epitome of anti-fun.

High mob density, high mob hp, cripple, reflect, confusion, they couldn’t give me enough loot to go to that hellhole.

Adding nodes to inflate the population of Southsun doesnt really solve the issue.

Well lets ask ourselves what they ‘promised’ Southsun would deliver. It was challenging content that would require a team to complete, that gave exciting rewards that were above average. Now im not saying thay ANET arent planning something already but something could easily be done to increase population.

Keep the difficulty high but add some group events to the place that spawn Champions. I personally think Champions are ruining the game but it seems to get people to places they otherwise wouldnt go. Also re-make the Karka Queen fight (in time of course) using Tequatl as a reference. Id love to see a ramped up Karka Queen terrorising the place plus the camp clearing events would get done each and every time!

The area has so much potential but it needs to be utilised much better than it currently is and we can all agree with that I think.

What i dont like about SC is the part of the Karka Queen event, where outposts are overrun with foes. Becos on my server the event is rarely done and these outposts stay overrun. And with overrun i mean 10-20 foes, not able to kill that amount solo.

Another thing i dont like is that the boat with the Bank and TP NPC is to far away from the start outpost.

With the first and second SC Living Story content its like only things were added that were temp needed for SC Living Story.
And then Anet didnt (wanna) spend time making it a proper area/zone.

I love southsun. Probably my favorite zone in the game. It is one of those places that gets really easy once you learn the tricks and get familiar with the local wildlife (reef drake tail raise = look out) Karka Queen gets done on my server (TC) most days. I think they got the coordination/individual vs. team contribution/timer/loot balance just right with this one. One person can’t ruin it (like a fail turret operator on Teq), but if too few throw eggs then you won’t make it in time.

It has probably the easiest JP in the game right when you land from LA = free chest. Another free chest on the boat right behind. More chests in the water and broodmother cave. t6 nodes. Lots of t5 wood nodes, a fixed location rich mithril node. The monsters rain t5 and t6 fine mats so there are plenty of places to farm, kill some time and earn 6g+/hr.

Vet karka aggro range could be toned down a bit. As it is now it is very difficult to find a spot to fight one where another one won’t come running over halfway through.

Thereon.3495:

Keep the difficulty high but add some group events to the place that spawn Champions. I personally think Champions are ruining the game but it seems to get people to places they otherwise wouldnt go. Also re-make the Karka Queen fight (in time of course) using Tequatl as a reference. Id love to see a ramped up Karka Queen terrorising the place plus the camp clearing events would get done each and every time!

I think it will only scare away players more. There will be unfinished events and oneshoting champions all around. People who farm boss chests, looking for the maximum benefit in the shortest amount of time. Champions in island will be too hard and thick for geting profit. Stimulation of solo content should guarantee a sufficient number of players. If there will be many player – they will gather in groups and go to the party content. Should start with soloing parts of game.

Everyone is busy looking at their achievement check lists for every weak living story update…and everyone is busy zerging in the new GW2 content.

pull karka, wait 1 second… dodge his predictable first range attack. Auto-attack to death…

pull red lizard,… remove confusion… burn to death…

pull?

what else is there? is like a huge map for just this 2 or 3 mobs (oh yeah 3, another clone of wind riders).

Events reset 2 minutes after… there isn’t really a point on going there.

Mesket.5728:

pull karka, wait 1 second… dodge his predictable first range attack. Auto-attack to death…

pull red lizard,… remove confusion… burn to death…

pull?

Events reset 2 minutes after… there isn’t really a point on going there.

Try it by thief or ele. Try to kill constantly transferind conditions karka by cond necro or engi.

As someone earlier mentioned, with some servers Southsun isn’t dead at all.

It sounds like the problem is that large swaths of players play this game ONLY for the loot and drops. That’s a PLAYER-side problem, and I’m not sure trying to entice those players is the best way for the state of the game to maintain interest.

These loot-driven players have plenty of areas in which to drive their goals. Leave Southsun as it is.

I used to roam there a bit. The karka queen thing killed it for me. All the outposts are permanently overrun on my server, which means those areas are permanently closed off. And even if a group were to clear the event, the outposts close again within a minute. So there is little to no chance to see these outposts. There aren’t any mats there you cant get elsewhere without less annoyance. Most people go there now for ori and ancient wood runs only. Just a quick run through and leave.

At the very least, the outposts should scale so they are soloable. I tried to clear one once. I tried pulling one mob at the edge but attracted the attention of several, including a couple of veterans and had to run off. And when the outposts do clear, they should stay cleared for several hours not several seconds.

The only way to pull more player there in my opinion is simply to tone down the mobs to a “normal” level. More like mobs in Frostgorge, so that people can also go there as an alternate zone for farming T6 blood for example without needing a zerg for it.

They are revamping karka queen ala tequatl next. I suspect that will help

Only time I ever go there is after the zerg does (insert Orr Temple name here) and I spam map chat “lets do the karka queen next!!! they buffed the lootz!!!”. Works everytime.

Southsun isn’t far off where it needs to be. I don’t think it is a problem if Southsun has a low population most of the time as Cursed Shore is meant to be the high population end game zone and the numbers are needed there. The Karka queen does need to be more viable but the first step to that is fixing the event timers on the settlements.

The mobs are fine actually. They just don’t fit into balance with the rest of the game and they’re not trivial fodder. With a bit of work I can solo the vets on all my characters (warrior, ele, thief, ranger) and a bit of work killing big mobs is ok surely? If you learn to play you can deal straightforwardly with the regular mobs so gathering isn’t actually any harder on Southsun than anywhere else. I can solo at least 3 group events there and I’m not a super elite player. A lot of players are unnecessarily annoyed by Southsun mobs just because they’ve never taken time to work them out.

The Southsun vets are tougher than the veterans found in the open world so do they need more rewards than the karka shells? I don’t think they need much more since we don’t want zerg trains going round Sousthsun killing the vets for purses. Do mobs need to be toned down? Not really, they’re fun even if they take more time to kill than veterans elsewhere and you can avoid the vets if you don’t like fighting them. Do the events need tuning down? Yes a few need rebalancing but the same can be said of the other level 80 zones too.

Maps die out when the reward:time ratio is off. Doesn’t matter what map, Southsun is just one example.

Southsun Cove is a monument to remind us that farming doesn’t exist in Gw2. We’re unique and we don’t like farming so we decide that we nerf every farming method until you realize that the only way to get what you need is to learn to play the TP. You want 250 T6 mats? Go and kill some high level mobs, after many hours (5ish+) you might be lucky to end up with 7-9 of them.

Here’s my angle on it:

Open world is really meant for fun, casual play. Raid level coordination is not fun for casual players. If people want to run raid caliber content, it’s best to form an organized group (i.e. from a raid guild) and then run it.

So… players don’t go to south sun island because in general it’s not fun for casual players.

The same applies to the new Tequatl (and to some extent the revamped bosses). Most players in our guild (i.e. more than half) simply avoid tequatl because it’s not fun to them.

imho the tequatl should have been something like a raid dungeon — with a team of 25.

juno.1840:

Here’s my angle on it:

Open world is really meant for fun, casual play. Raid level coordination is not fun for casual players. If people want to run raid caliber content, it’s best to form an organized group (i.e. from a raid guild) and then run it.

So… players don’t go to south sun island because in general it’s not fun for casual players.

The same applies to the new Tequatl (and to some extent the revamped bosses). Most players in our guild (i.e. more than half) simply avoid tequatl because it’s not fun to them.

imho the tequatl should have been something like a raid dungeon — with a team of 25.

Your comment is SO on the money. Someone needs to inject it into anet’s veins.

Teq event specifically should be a Guild Raid. The loot table adjusted and the event should be weekly, not every few hours. Failure does not count towards the weekly being completed, and each loot threshold is awarded only once per week.

Southsun is the answer to “omg open world is too easy”. But the problem here is that it was designed towards zergplay, and thus the zone is very annoying to do alone. The other thing is that the outposts get overrun so easily even after you win that it feels futile and let’s not forget being able to waypoint in areas that are already swarmed with enemies.

While it can be appreciated that Southsun has many difficult types of enemies, the problem is when you design an area around “oh, let’s give players a ton of mf and hope they swarm to it.” Once the mf buff disappeared… crap.

This is not to mention that the Southsun event itself was pretty poorly done— no good skins, settler gear is crap, and you don’t really get any good experiences from it, much less want to come back to a worse version of it. The resort area was ok at least.

Pretty sure Zephyr Sanctum should have been the way to stay.

Imo the Karka Queen event cycles way to fast. The speed in which it reappears is way higher than the interest in it, in other words, supply exceeds demand. Maybe if the event only showed up 2 or 3 times a week on a set schedule and if its done the settlements stay clear until a half hour to an hour before it starts. This would bing the area closer in line, in terms of difficulty, to the other areas and there would still be a consequence to failing it as the settlements would be contested.

NO

southsun is the worst place in the game. i hate it with a passion.

And I’m afraid that everything will come to the fact that 100500 people will stand AFK for hours at the place of spawn, and five sweaty tired enthusiasts will frantically trying to hold camps. Need a solution that will make the whole island demanded, not just one only event.

1/ The karka pre-events have to be nerfed to solo content, and 45 minutes before a town becomes contested again. This makes it possible to spawn the boss and lure the zerg
2/ A list of Southsun achievements would be nice. Karka Slayer anyone? Karka Queen boss achievements.
3/ Some more events involving less demanding mobs.
4/ Treasure chests.
5/ Southsun fishing. If WoW did one thing right, it must have been fishing.
6/ Have the consortium set up shop with something big and useful: a material sink like the Zephyrite traders or an alternative to the Mystic forge. Think GW1 style crafters or collectors.
7/ The mists have shifted. The Asura Gate to Fractals of the Mists is now at the Karka Hive.

Southsun is the most beautiful area in the game. I want to go there, but there’s absolutely no reason.

Maybe even a permanent, non-Karka Queen world boss event that spans multiple regions including South Sun would bring more people there. I know it isn’t a solution for the overall emptiness of Southsun, but it wouldn’t hurt. It might also help with some other lightly populated places.

Make southsun foes drop a guaranteed 3-5 t6 fine materials. All of them, which one you get is random. There wouldn’t be a foe left standing….

You seem to be under the impression that there are classes or strategy in Guild Wars 2.
I have never heard of such things.

There is but one skill, but one class, but one strategy, but one tactic – the zerg.
And all content is developed for that and that alone.

The issue with reef drakes is more or less true. On top of that, even if you figure out how to deal with them you’ll run into something like an opposite problem. There are simply not enough of them around to be worth doing much with them.

The issues with the karkas on the other hand I don’t really see it. So far I’ve only fought them with thief, engineer, warrior and guardian. I also know someone who farmed them with a ranger so that is 5/8 of the classes covered. Even if I try it with the other three it would not tell me much since I don’t play them enough to know how to make effective use of those classes.

On the other hand OP seems to be describing the Veteran Karkas. Those already have a guaranteed drop of a Karka Shell which has a higher value than what is suggested

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Make southsun foes drop a guaranteed 3-5 t6 fine materials. All of them, which one you get is random. There wouldn’t be a foe left standing….

I assume you are only joking since the result would be catastrophic(maybe exaggerating a bit :P). t6 would effectively turn into Silk Scraps and Thick Leather Sections.

I would like to see marnick’s 7th suggestion implemented simply because that will likely make LA load faster.

Peetee.9406:

That zone is the epitome of anti-fun.

High mob density, high mob hp, cripple, reflect, confusion, they couldn’t give me enough loot to go to that hellhole.

This ^ actually explains what most feel about southsun, there really isn’t anything fun in that hellhole, its not even pretty to look at.

I agree with OP in most points, Southsun cove would be great place with more ppl around. Things I would suggest:

1)as OP stated, make this area zone needed for exploration, some more PoI, some more vistas, skill challnages, you know how it goes.
2) make more direct connection with other areas. Not portal in LA, its not so obvious for new players, how to get there by their own.
3) dont make it non-instanced dungeon without nice rewards (except karka queen, she has some nice drops) – as OP said, decrease diffficulty of mobs around.

Cursed shore was also desolated after the penitent/shelter/plinx nerf and before the champ trains.

never liked this zone

Karkas everwhere and all are clones – boring

I must admit that I only go to Southsun to do that ridiculously easy JP and to do the daily dodger (Young Karka are AWESOME for that daily achievement).

Just like OP said, the mobs there do not lend themselves to casual solo play. Even when people who have never been there ask about it I always tell them that they will definitely want another person with them while they explore, otherwise you spend the whole time avoiding mobs or looking over your shoulder to make sure you didn’t aggro a veteran karka somehow while fighting those kittened confusion drakes.

There really is no incentive to go there. Like none at all. Unless I’m farming nodes, or happen to stumble upon a KQ group, why would I step foot on that island? I don’t even care that the monsters are tough, I actually like tough monsters, it’s the density of the monsters that becomes a pain sometimes. That and those drakes, god if there’s any monster in the entire game that I hate, it’s those drakes. You happen to pull two, or even three, lol good luck, and I have tons of condiremoval!

The zone looks nice, I love the concept, but poor execution. If loot was significantly better it would warrant the clear increase in effort needed to wander around farming, but as it stands there’s nothing in that zone that I need enough to deal with that frustration.

Khisanth.2948:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Make southsun foes drop a guaranteed 3-5 t6 fine materials. All of them, which one you get is random. There wouldn’t be a foe left standing….

I assume you are only joking since the result would be catastrophic(maybe exaggerating a bit :P). t6 would effectively turn into Silk Scraps and Thick Leather Sections.

lol yes I was mostly joking I have no desire to tank the economy quite that badly, although it would stabilize some after the initial flood of materials.

Still, anyone that knows me knows that I don’t really agree with ‘guaranteed drops of x’ of any kind. All games use rng to determine loot drops, otherwise you end up with exactly what you were talking about… a terrible economy, with no sale value on anything.

At this point there is no point in fixing Southsun. I believe it should be left as is and exist as an object lesson in game design for future designers. All designers, and especially new hires, should be forced to spend a week there and then write a paper on what is wrong with it. With any luck, over time, a new design vision will emerge and there will never need to be another Southsun or Teq rising. The first rule of a living, expanding world should be that it be vibrant and populated.

Raine.1394:

All designers, and especially new hires, should be forced to spend a week there and then write a paper on what is wrong with it.

Please, I don’t think the suicide statistic needs to be any higher than it already is.

Yesterday, a rather large group of people went to Southsun and the karka queen was successfully summoned. It didn’t take very long, actually. However, for the players, including myself, who showed up either when she spawned or shortly before, dozens of people starting talking about not making it to the queen because of the karka hatchling mobs. Those things are simply ridiculous and why I don’t go to Southsun.

Anet’s 2-week updates keep players moving from one update to the next, which means new permanent content often gets rapidly depopulated once it’s no longer the new thing.

Other than that glaring overarching problem, I think your analysis and ideas are good. I like Southsun Cove, but I have no real reason to go there on my own as it’s pretty hostile for solo players, even if I love the actual map.