Fangel had a good suggestion to make the event much more enjoyable, and I had another revelation that I shared in the same thread, which is here-
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/104765
If yous guys would like to read about it.
Fangel had a good suggestion to make the event much more enjoyable, and I had another revelation that I shared in the same thread, which is here-
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/104765
If yous guys would like to read about it.
about this whole whiskers thing... just no... it sucks and everyone hates it, so if this event was made to decimate the player's love for the game once again, GJ, you did it .
Aviri: I don't know what the problem is with the whiskers? Can you tell why the whiskers are bad?
you need whiskers to make the armors, you can only get whiskers from a party invite that defeat margrel, so if you want whiskers, either you need book of dark rituals or get invited by someone else.
Well for starters the black kat cowl wasn't even originally mentioned or brought up... it was an extra super special secret awesome super item from an extra secret super special secret special boss. Hence, the rarity of the drop. You weren't supposed to get it in one event, if at all.
Now however, they've just thrown the whiskers on top like "whatever we just need to give the braindead MMO players something to grind for they like that pfft they'll come back and buy our promotions again". No effort to improve the game, no updates, no respect for things players have already accomplished. You can even see it in how Eurydice announces the update:
Despite rigorous precautionary measures, black kats are reappearing en masse and consuming the treasures held in the Moorcroft Manor Archives!
"If you happen to perform (accidentally, we assume) a Dark Ritual (yes, THAT dark ritual) and survive the encounter, you may find yourself in possession of a Black Kat Cowl or a Wicked Whisker.
"For miraculous, unexplainable science reasons, we are able to predict that the Kataclysmic Confrontation will run through September 29, 2014. Thank you for your assistance in this important mission!"
There is no excitement, no news to announce, nothing interesting to say. Just hey guys, we're doing this song and dance again, new armors or whatever, go grind it for a while.
THAT, MISTER ANDERSON is why the whiskers are going to be seen in a negative light.
as much as i would agree or not on what you said fehzor, there's no need to answer anderson, the guy already has a reputation to be a OOO cheerleader (zomg midnight-dj copyright infringement) who will always blindly stay on their side no matter what they do, so feel free to save your words the next time, for they will surely fall on deaf ears ;)
I still can't believe it'll take 24 whiskers to complete all the armors in this event. It doesn't even make sense to make the non-BK armors that rare in comparison to the other kat cowls. I remember how long it took to get just one freaking book during the first time the event happened. And that happened when I knew a lot more active players too.
EDIT: If I were incredibly lucky, I'd need to be in 2 Margrel fights for 12 nights in a row to get enough whiskers to complete the armors for this event. I'll be lucky if I'll see *ONE* Margrel this entire event even if I was clocking in 20-30 hours a week of playtime. That is absolutely ridiculous.
For those wondering, Wicked Whiskers are bound. You get 1 Whisker per Margrel fight (along with 6 Ancient Pages, plus BKC if you are the book owner).
Wicked Whiskers: http://i.imgur.com/5ohrjTG.jpg
What OOO really needs to do is re-patch and change the other mails so that they use fetishes instead of whiskers.
But anyways, besides from BK mail, isn't it just better off getting other armours? Like, i might as well get 1/2 snarby 1/2 vog cub instead of both Kat claw pieces...
Er..Can I have all kat armor alchemy line pic?I'm in school right now :c
Alchemy line is
Helmet - hood, mask, cowl
Armour - cloak, mail, raiment
The hoods are 50 pages from moor craft manor
The masks are 1 fetish crafting (50 pages again)
The cowls are 2 fetsihes crafting (another 100 pages)
Cloaks are 1 whisker crafting
Mail is 2
and raiment is 3
The fetishes are required for the armors as well.
So... to make just one set, you'd need [EDIT]350 pages and 6 whiskers. And that's not even counting all the mats, cr, and orbs you'd need on top of those.
What was the point of the event again?
Thks for alchemy line
Does cloak used samr texture as hood?
Or can you post picture? Maybe spiral spy
And I think why armor at t3 got nice texture that does not match with its helemt
And why normal line(not bk) used ultra rare mat like bk too? Come on OOO this is bad idea to put armor that weaker that black one at same cost
The armours and hoods pretty much use the same texture.
Spiral Spy doesn't work on Mac :(
* Oh and i forgot. The armours use fetishes as well as whiskers.
3 star = 1 fetish , 1 whisker
4 star = 2 fetsish, 2 whisker
5 star = 3 fetish, 3 whisker
Maybe I might get 3* as well since 4* 5* got better texture that hat and make hat look ugly.
well its seems "margrel" party invite worth 20k Energy, people wouldnt invite you unless you pay 20k Energy for your slot.
or at least that how i got one invite since 5k or even 10K energy dont worty your entry fee.
You do realise that you have to beat Margrel before you can get one, plus you have to get 50 pages.
Do you know how rare those damn books are...
Actually...
Cloak (3*) - 1 Wicked Whisker
Mail (4*) - 1 Kat Tribe Fetish, 2 Wicked Whiskers
Raiment (5*) - 2 Kat Tribe Fetishes, 3 Wicked Whiskers
And for anyone curious, here's a picture showing all of the armors with their respective helmets.
Also note that it cost 70 pages to buy a 3* black kat hat.
And it consumes 1 single whisker to upgrade it to 4*.. all the armors need 2 to upgrade.
Seriously, if you can't upgrade an item to 5* in a sensible period of time, then why bother adopting the 3* version at all (thats a lesson for all you 3* tortogun sellers out there too).
Fair chance of a damage control patch tomorrow to rework the material crafting costs.
Just gonna put this out there, I don't understand something. Why raiments?
Yeah, this is horse crap. This is the 4th Black Kat event right? I've ground the three others and only ever found 1 book. I have a lot of friends. I've only ever fought Magrel twice. If you wanted experienced players to be exited instead of dreadful about your official announcement maybe you could have included some information about how it would actually be realistic to find a book now instead of a fantasy.
This is horse crap? um well each book costs 1.5m crowns and considering you can now find whiskers with them they should raise in price. That's a lot of crowns. Never in my SK life have I had over 1m crowns. You should be proud you found one!
Question to players with books on their pockets:
How much do you want to get paid to just invite someone in your party? right now i offer someone 20k Ce for the party invite and they gladly accepted to invited me while 5-6 or even 10k Ce never made me to get an invite.
So how this event its "nice" if we even have to pay insane amount of energy just to get an invite?
Lol i have no idea wen i saw that.
It would have been better if they had like coats or something.
Like who wants raiments...
Hope they patch to change cost soon, seerusly I just want shock negative bomber armor that cost 10ke? Or total 60ke for fully 5* heck NO!
I left the previous MMO I used to play due to design decisions to make the majority of players "happy" by making repetitive tasks a requirement for progress on desirable (although admittedly not required) aspects of the game.
Prior to this event, I can pick out two items that are hidden behind event-based rare drops. These are the BKC and the grand solstice ring. The BKC is significantly more desirable to players and according to player analysis of rarity - actually slightly rarer than the trinket.
Now, there are entire sets of desirable items that take significantly more time to obtain than the BKC.
Optimal usage of books dictates that a group of 4 players can obtain 6 books and each will be able to craft 1 5* kat armor. That is a ratio of 1.5 BKC to each kat armor. The expectancy of a book is fairly rare running from an average somewhere between 200 and 600 black kat encounters. Black kat encounters occur around twice an hour on average. If the 4 players play all at the same time in parallel, they will find a total of 6 books after approximately 300 hours. It would take approximately 1200 hours of 4 players to craft all 4 armor sets. For reference, this event runs for less than 300 hours total (~260hrs left at the time of this post and a total of ~270, depending upon when they disappear).
It is fairly obvious that no one in the game should be able to craft all these armor sets, let alone even craft one during the duration of this event (without purchasing books from other players solely for collecting the whiskers). In fact, I recall a GM stating somewhere that all the items are not intended to be obtained during a single event. That is all fine and dandy until each event progressively has rarer and rarer items introduced that require additional time to be obtained.
Another good comparison would be other desirable items in the game, such as the PvP recipe rewards.
Lets run the math on those. 1 recipe line = 300 krogmo coins. There are currently 5 recipe lines, making a total of 1,500 coins. Each LD game lasts about 30 minutes (couldn't find the times of games on the wiki, so went with a high estimate of almost double what I recall it being). Worst case scenario, you lose every single match and end up having to spend 150 hours to collect one recipe line or 750 hours to collect them all. This worst case scenario is less than half the time of obtaining one of the new kat armors. This also does not take into account that these are recipes and you can craft multiple one unlocked (if you wish to sell them). Furthermore, this doesn't take into account that there are built-in methods for expediting the rate at which this can be accomplished, from buying coin boosters to bribing every game.
I do not think the rarity of this new armor is being handled correctly.
*Anyone that reads this post take note that my numbers are estimates based on comments made by other players and may or may not be accurate for the exact rates.
i've easily killed over 1000 pages worth of kats since the first kataclysm and the only book i ever saw went to someone else (back when drops were random and not individual, the first event). And with the many hours i've bled into it (obtaining all 3 5* hats, a black serphynx, and over a dozen fetish's which i've sold), none of it has paid off with a bkb. In which i can easily walk into haven almost any time of day and see people running around with them or people who have gotten several books. And while i understand it's all by chance, it is beyond insane to expect anyone to get 6 of them, when all i've ever wanted is just the one that got away from me. Expecting me to become the benefactor of extreme luck that many times will probably mean i'll have to grind this event every day it shows up till the core opens and still have none. I believe either the odds or the crafting should be made fairer so that at least 1 set of armor could be achievable in a lifetime
Why would people say LD is dying even more? Its like this all the time, nothing new and OP has been introduced.
T2 is about to get rekt by the 3* bk thing though. Now those brainless dusker clones get to eat dirt cause rich gunners and swordies with the new hat would dominate. Woot.
But overall, cool update. Perfect, since people with time to burn can farm all day and try to get a BODR, while people with better things to do don't have to worry about something insanely OP.
Looks extremely unfair indeed. 6 encounters with Margrel now that I never even saw the guy for the previous two Black Kat events, and that all just to get a match for my hiss cowl?
Maybe it's really a mistake, and only Black Kat armours were supposed to require whiskers?
UPDATE: Well, at least Black Kats appear more frequently now.
Its because if they are easier to find most of the players will have access to those op sets (and that would be annoying )so its quite balanced actually even if its quite a pain to find 6 books ¬_¬
I was initially extremely happy for events. For Halloween, you didn't have to put in that much effort to get the permanent masks, but OOO removed some tricks that people used to make it easier. Then Winterfest didn't have permanent masks and I was a little miffed. When Black Kats came, I didn't bother with rng, and only got a 3* hood for aesthetics. When Cakeatastrophe came a long, it was pretty much all I wanted in an event: get some permanent item and it's not too big of a grind. Then after Apocrea and Tortodrones, I was getting fed up with how OOO was implementing the events. Especially given the reduced souls in Apocrea and the lagfest in the Tortodrone fights. I stopped paying attention to subsequent events and have barely participated in any of them.
I have since only participated in the other Apocrean event on another character because I wanted the Obsidian Carbine. I'm happy I decided to take a break halfway through the grind and get it whenever the next time the event comes around, because I realized I liked my Blackhawk the way it is at level 10 (aside from lesser range).
Digression aside...
The biggest problem with OOO making events increasingly grindy is that these events don't occur often nor predictably enough to merit the increased length of grinding. For this event, a player who is doing a decent job of grinding may take a few iterations of this event to get enough to make a raiment or two, but each iteration may have several months of downtime. Yeah... nope.
Also, the reward isn't that much of an incentive for players to diligently grind for. A piece of armor or two isn't worth a several weeks of hefty grind... No armor in SK will be that powerful to warrant such effort.
I mean, I'm someone who will happily grind pretty much every event that comes my way because I'm boring like that. However, that's me being boring and the game being boring matching up - and most people play this game to have fun. At the same time, goals are laid out, and items are desired, and players sacrifice "fun" for "an item that could make them have more fun".
Except the item is behind a timewall. And time on this event is limited.
Now, these new gears would not be an issue IF black kats and ancient pages were not on a limited timer. Now if Margel was a boss we could fight on command, and we purchased whiskers with tokens Margel dropped, I can see this working. People would farm Margel is the only change. Maybe even make Margel drop ancient page pieces that can be traded for ancient pages, and the pages are traded for whiskers? If we're on a time restraint, we need to have an alternative to RNG to work with.
I understand exactly what you mean about the not predictable or often enough events, and i'm faced with the same problem.
In Australia, we're on school holidays right now, and my entire intention was to grind to be able to earn enough crowns to be able to purchase Kat Fetishes when the Kataclysm came, because knowing my luck it would be when i was having exams (late november).
Last year Halloween, Apocrea and cataclysm were all around the same time when i was busy studying, and Tortos and apocrea were around the time i had exams earlier this year.
This means me, and players like me, need to try and guess when these events will happen in the future, and in some cases leave us completely unable to get the new gear (which are already hard enough to get as they are).
No joke, before Kataclysm was announced, i was going to look today on the AH for Kat Fetishes...
Quite sad to see OOO take another step into the realm of pay to win. Now now, Chaos is still about as OP as Black Kat stuff for PvE, so that doesn't concern me too much. What really bothers me is how excessively pay to win LD is now. No doubt, BKC+Black Kat Raiment will be considered to be one of the best sets around. With it, you can effortlessly get max damage on everything, optimal MSI. Yeah sure, other sets can compete with this. However, you can't match defences and get as high bonuses since Chaos is Elemental and BKC/Raiment are Shadow.
To get this optimal set, you'll need an excessive amount of Black Kat farming for the fetishes, and then what's equivalent to 2.5 Margrel battles. Assuming books are rising in value now that there's new OP stuff to get, let's guess the price is 25k E per book. That means the set will cost at least 62,5k E, and we haven't even counted the value of fetishes or other materials. With 45k E costing $100, the entire set would cost about $140.
Sure, you could make that amount of energy in-game, but unless you are a merchant, that'll take you 469 hours of Firestorm Citadel, assuming one run gives you exactly 100 E and takes 45 minutes to complete.
I think the new stuff is really nice, if somebody want to quit SK send me a message. I'll buy your items before. :)
While the 5* armors are only for the most industrious, let's think about this logically for a second.
3* black Kat hood gives damage bonus high asi low for a mere 70 pages. It has a +3 health bonus when fully heated. Since base Defence exists in Lockdown , tbe 3* helm is viable in t3 as well as t2. I might have similar amounts of Defence with 5* armor heated to lvl 5 for the health boost. Pair 3* BKHood with ancient plate and you're playing on similar ground health wise to other t3 players.
pair BKHood with chaos and you're one damage bonus away from max. Defense is overrated, and with health trinkets, so is health bonus.
This is the thrifty man's BKC. 2 health pips isn't a lot.
Clockworks? Everyone runs glass cannon anyway.
I fully intend to get one 3* black Kat armor at least, and won't sweat it if I can't pay my way to 5*
OMG, two events happening across two different MMOs that I play?! Nuu, screw BKs and OOO P2W, I want to train up my sailors for my German battleship!
Good bye Haven! I need to go back to the high sea, Germany needs me!!!
parasthesia, you'd be surpirsed on how much those two pips help, especially if you don't use health trinkets. the only reason to heat 5* armor to level 5 is the health bonus, and it's quite an important one. having one more pip of health help a lot in loads of situations.
Why keep feeding into it if they don't want to update this game properly then it's our job as players to walk away
There's other games out there but sadly I've been here over three years I love the game but when have we gotten something really new
where we didn't have to spend 40 bucks on boxes to get a scarf what happened to combining Energy and boxes "DUH" they make more money and
That is the point here money its not like it used to be I dont think they really care as long as they get money until they develop a new game
one that will make money when this one finally starts to play out then Sk will shut down right now they are stalling about content why put more into it
because of cost like a Carnival get them in show all the flashing pretty colors then send them home broke and empty
I agree with Thunder. With the correct gear choices, you can make the difference between death in x hits and death in y hits. That could seem insignficant but in the end, being able to take one more hit from a sword can be worth tree fiddy.
theres a difference between an item being rare or hard to get and having an item with a tremendous paywall (because either purchase the book or buy the invite to find a single whisker), now people might say that OOO didn't set that paywall, certainly they didn't, but they are the ones who made it so you can only find a book or get invited and given the rarity of this book of rituals it was bound to happen, and how many are the people who will invite a friend for free rather than getting the 20k CE that the next random desperate guy is willing to pay for an entrance to the margrel fight? only the extremely lucky guys who find the books and the big buck spenders have a real chance at those armors.
So IMO it is OOO's fault for handling this event the way they did instead of making it at least a tad bit fair for everyone.
Why do the non-black cloaks cost whiskers? I almost cared about crafting the hiss line until I noticed they actually needed a rare resource.
Finally got a Black Kat Seraphynx ;w;
Now I have to level up this unsightly thing.
I leave this game for like, a month or so, and come back to find MORE horrid grind and ungodly amounts of time wasted?
Sweet baby jesus.
I'm just gonna set my opinion right here.
Is that ok?
Ok.
So, looking into the game once again from a decent absence had me sort of exited. More things to see, maybe something to actually do. But what i return to is.. um. I dunno. Basically triple the grind of last Kataclysm? And boxes that when opened, just give you various varient tickets? What? Is this a joke? am i being trolled right now. No, really. Where's Ashton Kutcher? I expect him to explode out of my computer screaming i just got punked. But i don't see him.
In all seriousness. I know they did this last time around with some prize box i don't remember, But... The community was in an entire uproar about it.. so they did it again? Wtf? But i can't forget to address the Kataclysm, Holy Vog. Not only do you have to grind a limited time event for just one Kowl. You have to do it for about 3 more 5* armor sets. As said. If you could fight Margrel at any time, cool! I would be okay with this. But as of right now, i'm completely against this notion. It was fine the first time around since it was literally just one item and nothing else. But it's now 10 items you can get from a limited time event that's entirely based around RNG.
Do you see where the problem is with that? I do. Not only are these items impossible to get without friends that have ungodly luck, you being a leprechaun or paying for Margrel runs, but the chance of you even getting an armor before the event ends is slim, but still very slightly doable. Slightly enough to where OOO thinks that's okay. To me, that's not at all okay. Why would you even comprehend doing this OOO. This is the STUPIDEST way you could have handled this. You took a previously dull and pretty boring grind-fest and made it into an ungodly mind nullifying, drool fest of WASD and crushed dreams to all of us that can't afford the cr to buy it, and don't have the time to run a level in hopes that RNGeesus will smile in our favor for one of the armors.
In short, i hate this. I hate every second of this. This is my opinion. What i'm saying is not fact. Personally, i think this sucks to the highest degree, but maybe to you, this is fun! That's okay. I just want to put my level of anger and discontent out there and into the eyes of the public to agree or disagree with.
Welp. I'm gonna go take a nap.
@Welux
I know how you feel so well. I didn't play SK for about a month too, aside from logging in to check on energy prices, but I started getting into it again last week. I was actually pleasantly surprised when I saw the new gear that was available and thought about giving the grind-fest a try to at least try to get one of the armours... Until I saw how many Whiskers we need and what we need to do to even get them.
I think I'm leaving for another month now. I'm growing more and more tired of OOO's silly decisions when it comes to events and I don't see any update with actual new content to play arriving any time soon to keep me that interested.
P.S: Yes, I'm aware that some people have been claiming that Black Kats are more common now; they might just be lucky. In the previous events there were times where I found 3 or 4 Black Kats in one level. So until someone from OOO confirms that Black Kat spawns and/or Book of Dark Ritual drops were made more common, I won't be believing it.
i wonder if this event its a desesperate attempt to attract the lost playerbase and "retain" them a little bit longer until 29 september. because the amount of grinding of this event its insane just to get a raiment. trying to find an invite to fight margrel its impossilbe unless you pay 20,000 Energy.
i wonder how OOO expected their players enjoy this event even more with those walls they set ?
This is the Kataclysm I've taken part in, and I just cannot take anything seriously.
Even better: make the materials purchasable just like the fetish materials are with tokens.