May 28th patch - Last Stand at Southsun

[Karizee]

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-ga...s/may-28-2013/

May 28, 2013

The culprit behind the recent wildlife attacks on Southsun Cove has been revealed: the sylvari renegade Canach.
In a fatally misguided attempt to free the new settlers from exploitation by The Consortium, Canach has turned the creatures of the island into tools of destruction. Can you and Inspector Kiel of the Lionguard stop Canach’s plot before the shores of Southsun Cove run red with blood?

New Features

Hunt Down Canach
Join Kiel for a mission to capture the deadly, desperate Canach! In this all-new story dungeon, you’ll enter Canch’s [sic] Lair on a subterranean solo mission under the island. If you defeat the elusive sylvari you’ll unlock a challenging all-new group adventure!

A Monstrous Threat
Even if you manage to capture Canach, can you also foil his master plan? Defend the new settlers on Southsun Cove from a massive final onslaught of rampaging wildlife or die trying! And beginning June 5, a hulking monstrosity joins the fray—without your help, it will destroy the settlers and everything they’ve built!

New Improved World XP
We’re improving the way we award World XP to World vs. World players! Now you’ll gain rewards for a much wider range of activities in the Mists – everything from destroying siege weapons, repairing walls, escort missions, and more.

Greater Variety and More Rewards in WvW
We’re adding new WvW daily achievements to the list you can choose from so you can earn World XP for playing the way you want. And every time you gain a new World rank, you’ll earn a bonus chest packed with useful WvW loot!

Dangerous New WvW Abilities
Become even deadlier in The Mists with new World vs. World abilities like Burning Oil Mastery or new ranks in Defense Against Guards!

Introducing Infusions and Ascended Gear in WvW
Now you can purchase Ascended rings and amulets and upgrade your WvW abilities with six new Infusions that give your character special WvW bonuses! Just speak to the new Laurel and Badge Merchants on each map.

WvW Matchup Changes!
World vs. World matches are about to get an injection of variety! With these changes you can look forward to facing new opponents in new matchups and testing your world’s skill against more foes!

Update: Custom PvP Arenas and Spectator Mode Beta
We’ve had some great feedback from beta players that have enabled us to fix bugs and further improve these new features. We’re adding Custom Arena Time Tokens to the Gem Store so beta players can extend the time of their favorite custom arenas!

New Southsun Cove Rewards
Find your very own limited-edition Mini Reef Rider – a loyal floating friend available only until June 11! Dedicated defenders of the Southsun settlers can also earn the Settler’s Amulet, Keepsake, and Ring! Earn these rare new rewards from creatures and chests in Southsun Cove, and by playing Crab Toss!

Exclusive Southsun Items: Fervid Censer and Sclerite Karka Shell
The risks are great on Southsun Cove, but so are the rewards! Players who help keep the peace during the Secret of Southsun can earn two exclusive new back items, the floral Fervid Censer and the writhing Sclerite Karka Shell! Learn how you can earn these back items at the Fervid Censer and Sclerite Karka Shell pages on the Official Guild Wars 2 Wiki.

[Valeron]

Looks good. I wish the culling pve fix was in this patch though.

[Exroyal]

So, killing Canach will be a solo dungeon and then a group event will be unlocked?

[Karizee]

So, killing Canach will be a solo dungeon and then a group event will be unlocked?

Lol, I have no idea.

Can't be a meta event because it would just be running continually & overlapping itself everywhere on all the overflow servers.
Could be the solo dungeon unlocks a group dungeon....
Or maybe the solo dungeon unlocks an instanced Southsun zone??

[Harnace]

Sounds like a solo dungeon that you complete then unlock a harder mode of that dungeon... Maybe?

[zito]

Sounds like a solo dungeon that you complete then unlock a harder mode of that dungeon... Maybe?

Sounds like it.

Or it's a 5 man story that unlocks a group challenge. Doesn't matter either way really.

---------- Post added 2013-05-20 at 09:27 PM ----------

I'm more surprised that this is coming out next week. A nice change of pace compared to last time where everything was released soooooo slow

I also suspected it would be a sylvari doing this. If you pay attention you notice weird plants growing near the champion karka.

---------- Post added 2013-05-20 at 09:32 PM ----------

confirmed: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru.../6#post2063086

It won’t end in a dungeon. We have however included an instance that will open up that has a single player version, and a more difficult multiplayer version.
The ending is different

[carnifex2005]

Sounds like a good update. Do find it interesting that Canach is wearing Molten Alliance gloves...



I wonder if he's the one who sweet talked the Dredge and Flame Legion together. Of course, I don't see how that would make much sense story wise.

[zito]

Sounds like a good update. Do find it interesting that Canach is wearing Molten Alliance gloves...



I wonder if he's the one who sweet talked the Dredge and Flame Legion together. Of course, I don't see how that would make much sense story wise.

You get those gloves by being against the molten alliance...

and the sweet talker is confirmed to be female from divinity's reach. I don't know the human storyline so not sure if there is anyone of importance in there.

[Razael]

Glad they didn't hide the ending of the story behind group content this time. At least partially. I'm ok with that. Looking good overall.

[Deleted]

i dont like the idea behind the ascended stuff and i like it even less that there will be special infusions for wvw

[Scyth]

A solo dungeon sounds pretty good to me and I hope it really is solo. Can't wait to try it out!

[Maarius]

and the sweet talker is confirmed to be female from divinity's reach. I don't know the human storyline so not sure if there is anyone of importance in there.

where did you hear that? I only know that the woman is from the "city", could be any city...

[Lazuli]

I was wondering about the Canach achievements under the southsun panel, so those can't be completed until this new update happens right?

It's a shame this will probably only be another days worth of content... but meh, look forward to burning it away anywho.

[Maarius]

I was wondering about the Canach achievements under the southsun panel, so those can't be completed until this new update happens right?

It's a shame this will probably only be another days worth of content... but meh, look forward to burning it away anywho.

If I would play GW2 only for loot and achievements (correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like that) then I would be "burned through" in a short time too, yeah. I once tried playing it more as an exploring kind of game and had much more fun from then on. What can the NPCs tell me about the island? Where can I find clues/chatter which explains what's going on on this island? Is there an event which I haven't seen before? Can I find and beat all the champions on the island?

Yesterday I helped my friend farming on SSC because he wanted the consortium-chest. I can't say I like farming in any game at all. I won't stay in a place and hit mobs for one hour again, people who do this just ruin their experience and I see why they are burned out fast. This game is way more fun if you enjoy exploring everything... just saying.

[Karizee]

They put up a blog explaining how the wvw matchup changes are going to work - looks good.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/b...-wvw-matchups/

[Lane]

If I would play GW2 only for loot and achievements (correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like that) then I would be "burned through" in a short time too, yeah. I once tried playing it more as an exploring kind of game and had much more fun from then on.

Exploring/map completion is the only time I truly enjoy playing GW2. Unfortunately, it's also one of the least tangibly rewarding ways to play.

The only exception being the higher level zones (like Orr, which isn't any fun anyway) that have a chance to reward valuable exotics for map completion, but that's also luck of the draw. Last character I completed Orr on I didn't get a single exotic that sold for much more than 1g, which isn't equitable to the amount of time/effort you spend in that gods forsaken place completing it. /mini-rant :P

I can't say I like farming in any game at all. I won't stay in a place and hit mobs for one hour again, people who do this just ruin their experience and I see why they are burned out fast.

I used to love farming, but GW2 is so punishing about it with DR that after about 30 minutes of it you're shooting yourself in the foot. I actually really hate that about GW2.

[Maarius]

I used to love farming, but GW2 is so punishing about it with DR that after about 30 minutes of it you're shooting yourself in the foot. I actually really hate that about GW2.

funny, this is the part I really love about farming: you can't stay in one place and need to get a bit of variety. I farmed a while on the beach, then moved on to the center of Southsun Cove and in the end I farmed sharks underwater (which proved to be the best way to farm, because they come in packs of 3-5 and aren't as strong as karka (+ respawn fast) - I got a chest in 5min.

+ they gave 800 bonus xp each (normal kill about 200)

Still won't do it again.

[Lane]

funny, this is the part I really love about farming: you can't stay in one place and need to get a bit of variety.

It's too extreme, though. A lot of times DR kicks in before you can even finish an event chain. Not to mention zones like Orr where everything is undead and (depending on where you are) it's almost impossible to find anything that's not to help remove it.

I loved running the centaur chains in Harathi Hinterlands until I realized that after doing the Ulgoth chain once I was damning myself to virtually no drops from that point forward. Hell, if you start from the very beginning with the Forward Camp DR will kick in before you ever even get to Ulgoth because the full event chain is 45+ minutes straight of killing nothing but centaurs and rock dogs as you go from camp to camp claiming it for the Seraph.

It also irritates the Hell out of me how DR is saved, seemingly indefinitely. I was keeping an alt parked at Shadow Behemoth until I quit getting chests. I finally discovered it's because the only thing I kill on that alt is SB every ~24 hours, but that's enough for DR. There ought to at least be some sort of reasonable time decay on it, that's just ridiculous.

I farmed a while on the beach, then moved on to the center of Southsun Cove and in the end I farmed sharks underwater (which proved to be the best way to farm, because they come in packs of 3-5 and aren't as strong as karka (+ respawn fast) - I got a chest in 5min.

I get a chest every other day if I'm lucky. I think I've gotten 3 or 4 now, but no tickets (not that I really expected one). I usually spend an hour or two out there running events, I can't stomach solo farming that place. Unfortunately, people are more interested in the instigators than the camp assaults to the point they'll leave camps to be overrun/events to fail as soon as they see an instigator pop. Makes no sense to me.

Another part of GW2's problem (IMO) is that there's nothing worth farming than T6 mats and I've yet to find a fun or even particularly interesting place to do that. SSC probably wouldn't be too bad if players didn't care more about the instigators than anything else. Much like Orr, most (all?) of the events there are not reasonably soloable.

[Maarius]

It's too extreme, though. A lot of times DR kicks in before you can even finish an event chain.

How do you know I farmed quite a while (an hour) in an area and still got about the same drops. Can we see the "kick in" other than in loot, which is RNG.... rng is rng, you can't predict it. One gets a precursor from 5 kills, another one never gets one at all. This is why people, me included, hate rng.

an interesting article from Colin about RNG:
http://eggbaron.blogspot.co.at/2013/...loot-drop.html

What a player might be observing is a form of the confirmation bias. A good example of this is that many people believe that there are more emergency room visits during a full moon then on any other day. The only evidence for this comes anecdotally from nurses and doctors. They are more likely to remember and report a surge in patients on a night with a full moon than any other night. Thus, it may seem like the full moon causes people to go a little crazy. Statistics do not lie and it can be shown that there is no increase in emergency room traffic on nights with a full moon. This equates to the situation in Guild Wars 2 where you have, firstly, players only noticing when they are not getting good loot, and secondly, only players getting bad loot are reporting their problems. Thus, it may seems like there is a problem when in fact one does not exist.


The other thing that may be a factor here is that people are terrible judges of true randomness. As an example take the following two images. Which do you think was generated by the most random process?



It turns out that the image on the left was generated by simply placing 100 random stars with in the fixed area using a random number generator. The image on the right was generated by first dividing the entire area into 100 squares and then randomly placing a star inside each of those squares. See for yourself in the image below. No two stars are in the same box.



It is hard for a lot of people to accept that the image with the black stars is in fact generated by a more random process than the image with the blue stars. This has a lot to do with how the human brain is constantly looking for patterns. When the brain sees these patterns it attempts to correlate them to a cause even if a cause does not exist. Essentially, this is the illusion of luck. It is why people can believe that they are on a "hot streak" or why they might believe an object gives them an increased chance at success. Some call this the Gambler's fallacy. In the end it is all the same thing. People are terrible judges of randomness. That is why we invented statistics.


So, what does this have to do with Guild Wars 2? Imagine your character is walking around in the image with the black stars above. Each time it encounters a star you can equate that to "getting good loot". Now if your character was in an area of that image with a clump of stars before the November patch then afterwards you managed to find yourself in a void you might say to yourself, "Hey, I am getting less loot after then November patch then I was before. The patch must have changed something." This is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, especially if you think the world looks like the image with the blue stars. This hypothesis has been shot down by Arena Net who have looked at the bigger picture. They can see the entire image and use statistical techniques to determine the randomness of the spread of stars. Unfortunately, as players all we can see is what is around us. Thus, in the end I am going to trust Arena Net when they say that there is no difference pre and post patch.

Another part of GW2's problem (IMO) is that there's nothing worth farming than T6 mats and I've yet to find a fun or even particularly interesting place to do that. SSC probably wouldn't be too bad if players didn't care more about the instigators than anything else. Much like Orr, most (all?) of the events there are not reasonably soloable.

I'm happy that there isn't anything worth farming, because farming is just boring and I don't want to have the feeling that I have to do something boring. The daily achievement is Anets way to give people a reason to do different things other than farming, I just wished that there would be more different kinds of rewards for laurels (e.g. Armor Skins, more cosmetic rewards)

[Drakhar]

It also irritates the Hell out of me how DR is saved, seemingly indefinitely. I was keeping an alt parked at Shadow Behemoth until I quit getting chests. I finally discovered it's because the only thing I kill on that alt is SB every ~24 hours, but that's enough for DR. There ought to at least be some sort of reasonable time decay on it, that's just ridiculous.

I have all professions at 80, so I keep 7 of them camped at various meta chest event spawns... recently I noticed that some characters stopped earning both the daily and boss chests despite having gold level event completion. An internet search turns up dozens of players with the same problem, pleading ANet for at least an explanation going back MONTHS. Nope, can't even give an answer. Apparently logging out does absolutely nothing to prevent DR, way to go ANet. Oh it also affects mob drops and event completion, so gray items, 5 copper and 10 karma.

So yeah, guess you have to cycle your alts to prevent this retarded shit, even if its days between playtime...