Currently, the fastest means of getting pages is just soloing alone in the dark or some other level several hundred times.
I'd like to point out the important word in that sentence. ALONE. ALONE IN THE DARK.
The mission was WAY more fun when you could invite people to your party every time you found one. It kept you talking to people, and made you collude to get what you wanted...
What do you guys, especially the ones of you who were there when this thing came out the first time, think?
Its not about getting tokens, its about interacting with people and having fun. Or is there some way of cheesing it with alts (other than the obvious one where they sit there and then collect tokens) that I'm missing?
What about soloing together? Why can't you do it as a group?
As Rothni says...
Also I thought you could invite people to your party. When has this changed?
The idea was that you are four people who run separately and when someone finds a Kat, they invite others. Now, that's not possible. Yes, you can just run in a group but it limits the speedrunning aspect of it due to loading times and whatnot. It also yields four times less Kats so it's a lot slower.
Why not? Can't I invite four friends? Are they ALL expected to go solo?
Wait so we can't do runs with a party?
Exactly! Before, there was a huge incentive to collaborate, and you'd constantly be talking to people about it. Now, you can run with friends and be slow or get things done. Typically, I prefer to get things done and move on in my life.
Wait...? So you're telling me that you can't run around, encounter a Black Kat, invite three people, kill the Kat to get the tokens, and then rinse and repeat.
Why not? With three other online guild members (or friends) anyone could do that.
The issue is not that you can't invite friends but that if a player joins after a black kat is found, they receive no tokens after it's killed. OOO put this in place to stop players from inviting 3 alts after they found a BK for 4x tokens. Unfortunately, this also has the side effect of making this event quite solitary as opposed to Cake Dens or Punkin King, for reason's other's have stated.
Oh darn. That's a bummer.
(At least you can still speedrun with multiple people.)
It takes so long... When I was on earlier - 1.5 hours and I only found 3 Kats. This is going to be a very painstaking process.
So this grind has basically become lengthier than Appocrea, eh? At least it shouldn't use as many SoLs.
I remember this from last year, too.
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/87481#comment-774166
I was using SpiralSpy, and managed to see an aggro mewkat. It's terrifying.
I didn't participate in the last Kataclysm because I already had all the items and thus had no incentive to participate.
This time around there's the Black Kat Seraphynx, which I am quite interested in. So here I am.
... Only to find that the one thing that made this grindfest of an event bearable has been removed.
Welp, time to be asocial both in real-life and in-game.
On the other hand, I've run into quite a number of Black Kats already. Did they increase the spawn ratio? If so then it would be a reasonable compromise to eliminating the invitational co-operation aspect of the event. If I was just lucky and the spawn ratio remains the same, then this is going to be absurd.
Is anyone else having an extremely hard time finding these things? Seriously, 2.5 hours in and only found 4 Black Kats ;~; I dont remember this being so time consuming last year.
I'm gonna redo the calculations I did last year because I'm stupid and forgot to save them somewhere.
About 15-20% chance to get a Burger King per Candlestick, assuming you get around 18 Spookats. Let's round it up to 20%.
It takes about 6 minutes per depth, unless you're masochistic and ignore every enemy and all the loot.
Let's assume the drop rate of the book is about 3%. Somehow, I think even that is too generous.
.2 x .03 = .006, or 0.6% chance per depth you'll get a book.
There are about 165 "0.6%" 's in 100%.
165 x 6 / 60 = 16.5 hours of grinding. And this is just an average!
What if you were rushing, and only took 4 minutes per depth, though, saving as much time as possible and resetting at backtracking sections like key gates where the key is halfway across the map?
Still 11 hours.
Of nothing but grinding.
Keep in mind this is all probably even worse. The book drop rate might even be 1%, or even lower! Too bad there's no way to check because OOO has the transparency of a steel block.
Also consider that it's all RNG. You could get it by 50 pages, or you could get it at 700, or 1000+..
Spiral Knights: hours upon hours of endgame fun*
(*Some content not available in all areas.)
first thing when people says reading the title: Alts.... how sad really.
i used to love this event because we always made the tipical: everyone do a run alone and once found a cat... invite!. but then OOO removed that due alts. i made good friends due that.
the second event, you can still do this if everyone who would help you to find a cat was in the lobby and then "go solo" so the next floor everyone can join if someone find a cat, and yes this way when someone found a cat you get tokens, this dont work anymore.
now its better to run alone because, you dont have to wait someone to press the party button, enemies have less health, and you can rush everything without trouble, but there is an incentive to do this event with a full party? No.
then i though, how about just that a full party get more chances to find a black kat. example, if 1 player have a 5% chance to find a black kat, then a full party would have 20% chance to find one due their chances get added. so there would be an incentive to play as party!... but then people will say: alts...
then i wonder, well why not to make the event like apocrea but instead running trough a cementery why not a abandoned library of the owlites? being chased by a uber version of the grimlankin... but then people will complain: ITS damn HARD (seriously people apocrea wasnt that hard, just let a dude be the bait running left right in a part of the cementery while your friends gather the tokens. was that hard??? i got like 9655 sigils just doing that!)
so sadly... there isnt a way to win this situation, either because people will complain because alts, or because people will complain because they dont want to play as team.
this is the only event that its better to do solo rather to play as team.
I literally spent over four hours without seeing a single Kat earlier today.
On the flipside, the one that broke the drought also had a Book, so I'm not all that mad anymore.
Additionally it does seem to go faster running with friends, even if you're just speeding through the level, playing with people is a bit less monotonous than playing by yourself. ;w; (And I seemed to have a lot better luck with friends than without, but that's probably just coincidence.)
Unless it's Ceecee, who brings their magic luck and timing whenever they join my party (How do you do that?), I have terrible luck finding Black Kats, and even worse luck finding that darned book.
But I know for sure I'd love to be able to invite other people into the parties. If anything, make it so players who join after a Black Kat spawn get the tokens OR the book, but not have chances for both at the same time.
Either that, or make it really get ugly, and make the book of dark rituals bound to the player who picked it up. That would be a pain for alts (and players who plan to sell the book because they either don't want it or already have a black kat cowl), but nothing different for players that are book hunting. I don't want to see this happen, but I would accept it if it were to.
OR, to make it the best of both worlds, if a book were dropped to a player who joined after a black kat spawned, the book would be bound. However, if the player was already in the party when the kat spawned, the book dropped would be unbound. It's a strange game we need to play in order to make alts suffer while regular players celebrate.
Also possibly a coding nightmare.
I have such terrible luck they try to "sympathize" with my suffering by zerg rushing me with tons of Carnavons.
If I find a book from one I'd probably make another thread asking for people to join me because I haven't fought Margrel and could use some advice. :x
I haven't fought Margrel and could use some advice. :x
My only advice is to not step on either of the elevators by accident.
I've played approx. about 10 hours. And i have 48 pages i think?
So, yeah. No book for me this year.
Welux Cries Uncontrollably
The problem is that those 16 hours aren't fun. It isn't fun to play the same levels over and over and over when your goal isn't even to complete the level and keep going. It isn't fun to be relying on chance to get what you're looking for. It isn't fun to have to do it alone. The most frustrating part about this artificially lengthy event is that the boss fight you get for your trouble is actually fun- I say this every year, it's like it's just wasted content for 90% of the players. The ones that aren't obsessive min-maxers or masochistic, and then the ones with terrible luck.
Also, in the event that the drop rate IS much worse and it's 1% or something, it's triple the pain at 48 hours.
Nooobooody knoooows.
My favorite part is I've found more 5* orbs of alchemy than anything. : P
I've only seen 2 kats in the last 24 hours.
Why should OOO increase the spawn rate?
People are still playing the game, and that's exactly what they want.
Spoiler alert.
The event is much more fun if you ignore that it is happening and just play normally with the off chance that you encounter a black kat.
No, no it's not.
The main idea is to farm.
Farming it's not "fun".
You're playing the game wrong. Games are designed to be fun, not work.
Let's see how fun it is after 5 hours of farming and 4 BKs xD..
Not even to mention the Katastrophic drop rate for the book.
No one is forcing you to search for black kats alone. No one is even forcing you to search for black kats at all.
OOO removed the solo and invite tricks because people abused it (with alts, as suggested in my first post).
If anything, the changes force lonely people to play alone and social people to party up and run around with their party.
I find it easier and faster to have more than one party member because you can do the keys and candles slightly faster. Additionally, if you spam missions only one person has to go to the lobby (everyone else join on first depth).
What I really don't get is how people complain that there is nothing to do until there is an event. Then when the event comes, they complain that it takes too long. The drop rate is low. The rare item isn't really that powerful compared to other things in the game. Complainers just gonna complain.
I had fun hunting down cake danger rooms (and yes getting and giving tons of invites), this is not fun this is boring.
You can't form guild/friend groups to hunt them like in the Caketastrophe, heck I would join my friends for these rooms and eventually made new friends.
You can't invite friends when a black kat shows up. (not very socially conductive)
Yep. You're right. No one's forcing me to search them, but you know...that's the main idea of the event.
Partys? Candles lvls are really really narrowed if you add 4 ppl + 4 spam spawn grimalkins + zambies/cats with buttload of health it can get ugly quick.
Of course i'm complaining i've benn waiting for this event for 8 months. Last time i've farmed 8 hours/day killed hundreds of BKs not even a book. Now i can't farm that much since in few weeks i'll have my finals.
Well...at least the name actually lives up to itself now :p
Probably because there isn't any content to write home about until you're lucky.
Same levels, same enemies, with one new room and one modified enemy. The Margrel fight, though, that's great.
There should have been a boss stratum in place of this RNG with a promotion tied to it.
Or at least a guaranteed Kat spawn hiding somewhere in every level, with the option to trade tokens for a bound book.
You can still play together, and it is actually much better to do so.
I made this thread explaining what to do to get many tokens:
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/100335
I played my first Candlestick run since the event just now (joined someone doing prestige mission) and got 3 Black Kats by the end of the stage.
Play with friends!
At the very least, you can split up and get past silly level devices quicker.
You're playing the game wrong. Games are designed to be fun, not work.
Without realizing itself, this is probably the best point in this thread.
I really don't know that we can "play the game wrong"- if this is happening, then perhaps the event needs reworking significantly more than just saying "Well you guys can't join and sneak into parties!" Perhaps we need something like danger rooms, or guaranteed kats on levels. Or maybe I just play the game wrong.
@Hexzyle
:P My (IRL) friends spent the past few days talking about Spiral Knights. I just had to log on again XD
I got one word for you.
Alts.