User:Konig Des Todes/Southsun Cove

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General[edit]

It's pretty easy to agree that Southsun Cove is one of the most desolate areas in the game. It is also one of the smallest zones, on par in size to Dry Top and The Silverwastes. The difficulty of the mobs are probably highest in Southsun Cove than any other open world map, as easily seen by the fact that most of the mobs are veterans. As best as I can tell, there are only two reasons to be in Southsun Cove: Karka Queen and farming karka shells/passion flowers/passion fruits. That's all well and good, but it's a bit too punishing and because of that, too barren.

The purpose of this suggestion is to put it on par to Dry Top and The Silverwastes both in reward and difficulty - making the zone easier for roamers and not requiring groups to get things done around here. On top of that, the Karka Queen, despite being put in the "hardcore" group of world bosses, is arguably easier than some of the "standard" timer world bosses, thus I'm putting some simple changes that can improve the Karka Queen's difficulty.

Map completion

While perhaps not giving rewards, like Dry Top and The Silverwastes, Southsun Cove can - or rather, should - see a series of skill challenges and vistas added. There are plenty of locations for both, such as the ancient karka's corpse for a skill challenge.

The Mobs

The mobs in Southsun are, as said, amongst the toughest. For the most part, that's not too bad - Cursed Shore can be just as annoying. However, the heavy number of veterans tips those scales. I am putting forth "simple" suggestions to even the playing field.

(Note: I put simple in quotations because while this may seem simple to players, it may not be in programming, etc.)

  • Young Karka, Veteran Young Karka, Karka Hatchlings, Reef Rider, Young Reef Rider, Veteran Reef Rider: No changes.
  • "Crazed" mobs: No changes.
  • Reef Drake and Veteran Reef Drake: For some reason, the standard Reef Drakes are greatly tougher than the Veteran Reef Drake. The veterans only have a fire breath attack, while the standard has a pull breath attack (which has little to no tell) and a direct applying confusion attack, and an AoE confusion gas attack.
    • Remove the AoE confusion gas from the regular Reef Drake
    • Give the veteran all three attacks that the regular Reef Drake currently has.
    • Finally, give the direct confusion apply attack (which is also used by the Reef Drake Broodmother) a better tell than just opening the mouth.
  • Adult Karka: Divide the adult Karkas into more ranks. Add some standard adult karka, but also include some elites (mainly for upscaling, just 1-4 normally).
    • Normal Karka: Reduce the range for the jumping knockdown attack. It's range seems to be ~800, reduce it to 500. Also remove the knockdown from the Shockwave attack. Alter the double health bar to a single health bar with 5 stages: Lose a piece of armor at 85%, 70%, 55%, and 40% health (last 40% of health will be armorless). No guaranteed Karka Shell drop.
    • Veteran Karka: Reduce the range of the jumping knockdown attack like above. No other changes (shockwave should retain knockdown effect). 1 guaranteed Karka Shell drop.
    • Veteran Karka Egg Layer: This guy is part of an event; unlike normal adult karka, it doesn't drop a guaranteed Karka Shell like most Veteran Karka. Fix this by giving it 1 guaranteed Karka Shell drop or reduce rank to standard.
    • Elite Karka: Give Elite Karka 3 health bars: first two health bars lose armor at 50% and 0%, third is armorless. 1 guaranteed Karka Shell drop.
    • Champion Karka/Champion Karka Hive Defender: Same health bars as elites. 2 guaranteed Karka Shell drops.

Non-Meta Events[edit]

There are currently 5 non-group events in the entire zone. There were more in the past, however those were removed either at the end of The Lost Shores or after Last Stand at Southsun.

The current non-Mata/Queen events are:

This is a very small amount. And even then, the reef drake broodmother event is difficult enough that with only a minor tweak it can be counted as a group event. If you were to go to Dry Top or The Silverwastes, there would be a *lot* of events throughout.

As such, I'd like a return of the following events:

However, to replace Nattus, Laelia, Mkila, and Skeggi with generic "Settler" NPCs. This would increase the number of events by 4. If narrative would allow it (depends mainly on dialogue which the wiki doesn't document and I missed experiencing personally):

These events rely on upstart settlers; there are still settlers on Southsun, so it wouldn't be impossible for a continuation of the earlier issues but on a far smaller scale than before/different reasons to occur.

Island Control[edit]

The real crux of the roamer's issue lies in Island Control - and in turn, accessibility to the Southsun Economists. But I'll get to the economists in a bit. Right now, I wanna focus on the meta event.

Currently, Island Control consists of 8 events. Four defense and four retake events. Very similar to the Silverwastes forts, except that they're all group events with a lot of mobs - even a small group will have troubles.

Solutions?

Take the current versions and keep them for pre-events for the Karka Queen only. Instead, the events at the four settlements that happen all day round will be standard dynamic events, made a bit easier by fewer mobs (and no champion hive defender) so that they can actually be done by roamers - though still difficult. Similar to the Silverwastes fort defenses, it should be possible but tough to do alone, and simple enough with even 3-4 players.

Beyond this, which is basically creating 8 new events, there's no change needed.

Southsun Economists[edit]

This is the crux of the suggestion, really, which is simply: Player Motivation. While writing this up I was idling in Southsun and I saw asked in map chat, verbatim: "So, uh... For lack of a better question, what does one do here exactly?"

In the Economists lies the answer, once updated. The suggestion I have for the Economists is a two-fold change:

First off, Southsun events now reward a pop-up chest, like Dry Top and Silverwastes, which reward 1,3, or 5 Pristine Karka Shells. Pristine Karka Shells will be Southsun's new currency (replacing Karka Shells/Money/Karma). Ideally, Pristine Karka Shells (as well as Geodes and Bandit Crests) would get a slot in the wallet thus allowing no inventory space taken.

  • Standard events reward 1-3 Pristine Karka Shells
  • Group events reward 3-5 Pristine Karka Shells
  • Karka Queen events reward 5 (pre-event) and 8 (Queen herself) Pristine Karka Shells

On top of Pristine Karka Shells, events may reward Passion Fruits, Passion Flowers, Karka Shells, or Bags of Masterwork Gear.

The second part is to alter how you access the exonomist merchants:

  • Change Lionscout Tynuli into using the same merchandise as Economists.
  • Change Lionguard Valtt into using the same merchandise as Economists, and move him to replace a Southsun Economist at Lion Point (or elsewhere).
  • Economists should get a new icon over their head which shows up on the map marking their locations for all to see (akin to Bandit Crest merchants and Zephyrite merchants)
  • Economists charge their stuff for Pristine Karka Shells and money
  • Economists function in tiers for what they sell. Each tier replaces the last adding previous items ontop of new items (or instead of in cases of improved items such as Karka Slaying/Karka Toughness potions or Karka Shells/Passion Fruits/Passion Flowers):
    • Tier 1: Always available, offers:
      • Potion of Young Karka Transformation
      • Bag of Masterwork Gear
    • Tier 2: Available with 1 secured settlement, offers:
      • Lionguard Assault Badge
      • Potion of Karka Slaying
      • Potion of Karka Toughness
      • 5 Karka Shells
      • 10 Passion Fruits
    • Tier 3: Available with 2 secured settlement, offers:
      • Rare Settler's weapons
      • Rare Settler's armors
      • Powerful Potion of Karka Slaying
      • Powerful Potion of Karka Toughness
      • 10 Karka Shells
      • Passion Flower
    • Tier 4: Available with 3 secured settlement, offers:
      • Ancient Karka Shell
      • Recipe: Settler's Intricate Gossamer Insignia
      • Recipe: Settler's Orichalcum Imbued Inscription
      • 10 Passion Flowers
    • Tier 5: Available with 4 secured settlement, offers:
      • Exotic Settler's weapons
      • Exotic Settler's armors
      • Recipe: Ebonmane's Apothecary Inscription
      • Recipe: Veldrunner Apothecary Insignia
      • Recipe: Leftpaw's Settler Inscription
      • Recipe: Leftpaw's Settler Insignia

Ideally, the rates for old items (which is most) should be the same as before with a 1 Pristine Karka Shell + 5 silver = 5 Karka Shells rate.

Karka Queen[edit]

The Karka Queen is considered a "hardcore" boss. On par to Tequatl the Sunless and the Triple Trouble wurm. As experience for anyone who's done it will tell: it is not. Rather than removing it from the trifecta, my suggestion is to buff it in such a way that not much work is needed to do the buffing - or so I would hope.

The purpose of the rework is to put it a bit weaker than Tequatl, with rewards (hopefully) equating such difficulty, while bringing back once-temporary skins (those found in Consortium Chests an Southsun Supply Crates) which effectively work like Tequatl's Hoard and the Benthic breathers.

Pre-events

Currently, you need to clear the four settlements which always have group events going on in order to spawn the Karka Queen. As mentioned above, the common meta events should - by this suggestion - be changed to non-group events allowing roamers to have an easier time at completing them (but not an easy one); when the Karka Queen is about to spawn, those four events if active will fail and be replaced by the four current defense events, should they fail the current retake event takes place.

Clearing all four is required to spawn the queen - they *will* retrigger if you take too long at one event.

In addition, each event will gain a Champion Karka Hive Defender similar to Camp Karka's event. Two will spawn at Steampipe Steading (one on north end, one on south end).

The Karka Queen

Ideally, I'd love to say "replicate the Ancient Karka fight!" because it was awesome (sans the lag) and without it being a one-time event it _would_ without a doubt put it on par to Tequatl and Triple Trouble. But I'll presume that such isn't possible even with alterations.

As such, my suggestions is:

  • The Karka Queen now spawns at the entrance to the hive.
  • The Karka Queen gets 5 health bars; one health bar equates to each "level" of armor she gets taken off. Each health bar functions differently, giving her different weakenesses and strengths.
  • At the end of each health bar, she becomes invulnerable while the nearby lasers and catapults fire on the area, destroying her armor a little bit. During such time, the timer to kill her pauses.
  • Health Bar 1: She has full armor, thus giving her high toughness. This health bar functions similar to currently, but instead of only 50 stacks she has 100 stacks of Armored which needs to be taken off by Karka Eggs. Karka Eggs must be grabbed from nearby nests instead of being dropps by her.
  • Health Bar 2: Her armor has dulled, but it is still too tough for simply bashing away. In this stage, she gains up to/loses down to 50 stacks of Armored and can only take damage from critical hits.
  • Health Bar 3: The Queen's armor is much weaker now, leaving her vulnerable only to condition damage, but takes double damage from conditions. She gains a skill which purges all conditions but at the cost of dazing her 1 second for each condition (this daze goes through Defiant/Unshakeable).
  • Health Bar 4: Now the armor is nearly through. In this health bar, she's immune to all but standard direct damage (critical and condition damage hold no effect). She gains up to/loses down to 25 stacks of Armored.
  • Health Bar 5: She has no armor, Unshakeable gets removed, and she becomes enraged. Her health can drop very fast, as she is vulnerable to all types of damage, including crowd control, but does five times the damage. The goal for this is a fast burn where the boss will fight back with all she has. If you take too long, a large wipe is near certain.
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