Spiral Knights - Kat Cowl Pluckers / The current kat cowl complications

Kat Cowl Pluckers / The current kat cowl complications

55 replies [Last post]

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 13:21

Fangel

In light of recent events, we will soon have an influx of either hate or some other sad things rushing into the forums. In order to create a more fair system to players who play this event, I suggest the following:

Allow players to craft a black kat cowl into two to four wicked whiskers. This removes the black kat cowl from a player's inventory, and also reduces the need for players to attempt to farm an event for a book that rarely drops. This also pulls black kat cowls out of the market and makes the books more valuable (A book of dark rituals is worth three or more whiskers if you already have a black kat cowl). This makes it so, for every time margel is fought, one new bit of kat armor is potentially brought into spiral knights.

This also gives incentive for other players to farm for more books instead of just tag along with people who find them 6 times.

A few other ideas would be:

Letting players trade 100-300 ancient pages for a book of dark rituals. Maybe there's some black kat in hiding on the train station area that would be willing to trade books for pages.
Increasing chances to find a book of dark rituals
Increasing chances to find a book of dark rituals while wearing a kat cowl of any kind.

Hopefully these suggestions can be taken into effect before the crowds with pitchforks come a'charging. :)

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 13:40

Holy-Nightmare

+1 to other ideas

It is a bit annoying to see nothing but LD team composed of BKC/Chaos Cloaks.

I don't mind the massive spark burn of Tortodrones or the horrors that await on the Grasping plateau but running around praying for a drop isn't what I do. I like to have more control over whether I earn something or not, that way I can only blame myself and not a RNG.

I'm fairly certain most people would not craft their UVed BKC into some kind of token item.

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 13:48

Glacies

I'd be perfectly fine if there was an "Ripped Book of Dark Rituals" for 100 Tokens that grants a boss to an incomplete Margrel that drops the Whiskers but no Black Kat Cowl.

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 14:12

Fehzor

I was about to make a thread about improving the event, but you beat me to it. I like your idea, but would also like to voice my ideas and really would just like SEGA to make the event a bit less grindy etc. using any idea. Perhaps we could change the title to something like Ideas to make the kataclyzm more enjoyable, and incorporate my idea as well as others ideas-

What I Would Propose

Black kat cowl becomes a craftable item, same cost as armor. Black kat cowl given 3/4* lines, like armor.
All armors become craftable with pages.
Allow the conjuring kat to take a huge number of pages and use those in place of a book of dark rituals, or make the material craftable.
Party leader receives 3 whiskers; all others receive 1.

Black kat cowl/armor's ice resistance is removed, and made negated like other stats + stripped of some of its normal/shadow defense, for balance reasons.

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 14:27

Eltrooper

I noticed several people make this mistake:

In the announcement it says that the BKC can now be crafted with Whiskers.
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/104627 (near the bottom)
This may change people's opinions or not. Either way, there are the facts.
~Elt

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 17:00

Fangel

I'm all for these.

I'd much rather have margel drop only a few new tokens and use those to buy whiskers, but be able to fight him indefinitely (maybe make that a prestige mission that's repeatable? I mean, who wouldn't want to fight a tier 3 margel. Technically that could be a new tier 3 boss) than have to rely on the RNG of yourself and others. Skill is great, but RNG doesn't rely on skill - just time.

However, I'm bound to invest a lot of time into this event, and it would be bad to take away what is already in place - we should add or modify it.

The idea for a sub-standard book for tokens is a good idea, especially if the crafting recipes remain with needing whiskers for armors.

Lastly, making the BKC a craftable item would be great, especially if you, as the host, got all the whiskers you need to make the cowl if you already had the 4* version.

But um, taking away the ice resistance would be cool for balance, and it might surprise you but I use that as a way to gain wisp immunity in heart of ice. Honestly, the BKC just needs higher penalties on other things like shock, and maybe have a stun vulnerability too.

EDIT: You ninja'd me.
In the announcement it says that the BKC can now be crafted with Whiskers.
The black kat cowl is still only dropped by Margel.

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 14:53

Eltrooper

That's my job :)

@Fangel *Eltrooper bows respectfully before Fangel*
I am a recon in Lockdown normally and it is my duty to ninja people 24/7.
Whatever happens to the event and whether or not I get my hands on at least one of those armors,
Happy Hunting and enjoy yourselves.
~Elt

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 16:22

Fehzor

I KNOW that you use that as a way to gain whisp immunity, and I don't think you should be able to do that with a glass cannony armor piece like that. But I don't care about that, you can use it for whatever, cuz I just felt like I saw the light on this, and came up with the best solution to this, and thought of a sort of ultimate solution to the entire event.

Step One

The black kats now spawn at an even lower rate, with a very high chance to just straight up drop the fetish material and the same rate for the book.

They will appear even outside of the event.

Step Two

Revamp the actual event to include more fighting of black kats, probably via an arena like mini-game or a set of levels made for fighting black kats on. These black kats drop tokens instead of whole materials, with no chance of a book. The grinding times etc. will be about the same, but finding black kats won't be an issue, as they will be very present and ready to go. Ergo, no boring grinding of candlestick keep but roughly the same amount of time spent on the event.

Step Three

The non-black kat armors will be made available to craft in the same manner as the cowls. Black kat hat will no longer be craftable in the same manner.

Step Four
Black kat cowl will be given to players that defeat margrel on their first time, as a 3* item. Having and wearing the 3* item will make black kats much much much more likely to spawn in the wild. Black kats spawned this way will drop nothing, even for non-black kat wearers.... until 10 of them are killed, where the 4* recipe will drop for the player w/ the black kat hat on.

The spawn rate remains the same, and when the 4* item is crafted, killing 30 black kats will trigger a 5* cowl recipe to drop. These recipes will NOT require further grinding and destroying of margrel.

The same goes for the armor, which will be given out by Margrel on a second visit. Subsequent visists will grant the player additional 3* black kat items, randomly. The player's friends all get a kat tribe fetish as well.

The "extra spawn rate" effect does not stack with itself (or at least does so poorly), and remains on the 5* item set, making the item innately more dangerous to wear when fighting kats.

Step Five

Balance the black kat items as I mentioned in my first post. Negative ice resistance + less defenses.

Upgrading black kat items increases damage by one each time; the item starts with +1 damage and +1 MSI.

Step Six

A scenario room is added to candlestick keep that contains a room full of mewkats. If the knight has a large number of pages, the mewkats will act interested, and open a dialog with the player, offering to trade all of the player's pages for one shot at fighting margrel, then and there.

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 16:31

Fangel

Ooo, sounds nice.

I've edited the title to reflect what this thread is more about. Saying it here so people don't have to look at the timestamps and be all confused.

I like your ideas on the situation. Making all the other kat items based on fetishes are much better of a system anyways, and I don't know why the whiskered were added to them anyways - it's not like the grind for pages is any less.

The nerf to BKC is okay with me when done correctly. Perhaps simply reduce the status resistance to freeze to a maximum of +3? Then put all other negatives at -3 as well, but have curse be -4. These status +/- can increase from +1 on the 3*, and increase by 1 each time, with the curse starting at -2. Simply saying "no, no resistances" seems rather mean. Making it not automatically have minor immunity when paired with snarby or its other half is a plus. This would also make BKC + Kat claw raiment be effective for strikers who want minor freeze resistance.

More margel fights is always good in my book - they're such a fun boss to fight!

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 16:53

Fehzor

Great! We've got to get whimsicality in on it too. And I woudln't mind a teeny bit of ice resistance, as long as other items are usable for it and black kat isn't.

Whimsicality-
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/104772

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 17:25

#10

Whimsicality

Ohhh boy, fuel up them tankers and fill up the load, because I am saltier than a weather service vehicle on a snowy morning. Don't get me wrong, I love this game to bits. I'm sure most of us do. I'm one of the more optimistic kinds when it comes to this game, perhaps to a fault. But let's get this salt shaker spilling.

I think it's a safe thing to assume that this entire event is a disaster. From its concept to its execution, it's flat out boring. A friend of mine brought this to my attention while I was talking about Spiral Knights on my personal blog. "I thought I would have never seen an MMO with grinding worse than Maplestory". Now, that really says something, right? Especially about a game that was initially advertised to have minimal grinding.

Let's put aside the Raiment issue for a quick moment, I'll get to that in a second. But, consider what this event does wrong that other events do right. Apocrea and Winterfest are designed in such a way that you have control over your grinding. Sure, you may need to obtain a lot of Macguffins to obtain the shiny thing you want, but that's based on your dedication, time, and effort. Skilled players are rewarded more bountifully for pressuring their abilities to handle further challenges, especially in Grinchlin assault. This is an example of good game design. The player has motive to delve into these levels and push themselves to obtain the rewards. Rewards, which were flashy bragging rights tools, as opposed to means of accessing all-powerful gear.

But that's an example of controlled, slow grinding. What about RNG luck based grinding? After all, that's what the Black Kat event is! Well, Tortodrones happens to do that right. The Tortodrone event, although daunting and slow in its process, does have a glint of RNG to its nature. But, here's the thing. The RNG lies in the drop table of common fiend monsters. Black Kats however, have, what, a 1% chance of replacing a regular Kat? And that's if you're lucky. Now I may not be the brightest person in the world, but isn't having an entire monster family having a good chance of dropping event exclusive loot much more respectable than a specific monster having a very slim chance of spawning the event exclusive monster, which in turn has an even SLIMMER chance of dropping the event exclusive material you need for accessing the event exclusive miniboss which gives you access to the event exclusive items? Items, which in fact, are horridly unbalanced. The difference between Tortodrones and Black Kats is that you have better odds at winning the lotto while handstanding half naked on the freeway than finding a Book of Dark Rituals, but it's as easy as a walk in the park to slap some Devilites and hope you snag some of the materials. Oh, and an even better thing; the Fiendish materials are tradable, creating a player-run mini-economy for the duration of the event, unlike the Black Kats.

But this time the event comes around? It's like pouring molten steel into the gaping wound. Not only is the slim chance of finding a book necessary to get a Whisker, you need six whiskers in total to get a single 5* armor. That's a buttload of Books of Dark Rituals. Now I don't know about you, but I've seen people offer up to 10k CE for a spot to fight Margrel. Desperate much? Desperate, because that's how flawed the design is. Instead of being accessible to all players who put in the time and effort, this event is exclusive to the people who are willing to spend 666,000,000 CE on the armor, or the people so lucky that said luck could have gone to something much more helpful for humanity, like curing cancer.

Now, how can we balance this already dreadful event? Make Black Kats drop more pages, make Whiskers and/or Books purchasable with said pages, increase the drop rates, increase the spawn rates, allow the Black Kats spawn even when the event isn't going on, make Black Kats have a chance of dropping the materials instead of another Vogdamned Barrier that I don't need please stop doing that, make players who fought Margrel in the past have compensation for this, or, I like this idea the most:

SCRAP THE EVENT ENTIRELY AND REMAKE IT FROM THE GROUND UP BY LISTENING TO THE PLAYERS.

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 20:30

#11

Melonfish

Ideally, make the event a permanent integration into the Arcade.

@Whimsicality: "Now, how can we balance this already dreadful event?"
I have my ideas.

-Black Kats are now able to appear in Tier 1 of the Clockworks (Depth 1 through Depth 7), if merely to increase the accessibility of the event to new players. They can fire projectiles and inflict Curse, but lack the ability to spawn a mob of undead. They drop one Ancient Page upon defeat.

-Increase the chances for the Book of Dark Rituals dropping from Black Kats significantly:
-1% for Tier 1.
-3% for Tier 2.
-5% for Tier 3.

-The Kat Cloaks can now be obtained in exchange for 50 Ancient Pages.

-Kat Tribe Fetish material can be obtain in exchange for 20 Ancient Pages.

-Wicked Whisker material is now available from Montague. Can be obtained for 20 Ancient Pages.

-The use of the special materials for the alchemy table for the following gears will be modified to the extent suggested:
-Kat Mask (4*): Now requires 1x Kat Tribe Fetish and 2x Wicked Whisker.
-Kat Mail (4*): Now requires 2x Kat Tribe Fetish and 1x Wicked Whisker.
-Kat Cowl (5*): Now requires 2x Kat Tribe Fetishes and 3x Wicked Whiskers.
-Kat Raiment (5*): Now requires 3x Kat Tribe Fetishes and 2x Wicked Whiskers.

-Nerf the following gears' bonuses to the extent suggested:
-Black Kat Hood (3*): Damage Bonus Low
-Black Kat Cloak (3*): Damage Bonus Low
-Black Kat Mask (4*): Damage Bonus Medium
-Black Kat Mail (4*): Damage Bonus Medium
-Additionally, Freeze now shares the same penalty range as Poison, Fire and Shock across all variations of the Black Kat gears. A Stun weakness of the same effect is also added for good measure.

I leave those ideas open to debate.

@Fangel: "Letting players trade 100-300 ancient pages for a book of dark rituals."
Irrelevant. The book is as much an item to retrieve for Moocroft Manor as the pages themselves. It would be contradictory to the nature of the event for them to give it as a reward.

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 18:22

#12

Avihr

not what you wanted to hear.

i want to say that these seem all like good suggestions but as much as i'd like them to happen i have no real hopes for that, why? well lets see hmm...

first, devs would need time and effort into redisigning the kataclysm event... so... that was it? well you didn't let me finish. What does this mean? simple, if they do change the way that whiskers or books are obtained it will surely be for the next time the event shows up(because honestly they won't be able rework the event in one day), so when people see that their super rare and expensive items that they paid lots of money and/or time to obtain have been drastically devaluated, these players will rage ,and rightfully so, and this leads me to question "why would OOO waste money and time developing a fix for an event that will only bring even more hurt to the already hurt playerbase?"

as far as i see it theres only 2 ways that this could go:

1: they reduce the rarity of the whiskers on the next kataclysm event and kat armor owners get hurt.

2: Nothing is done and the event remains the same.

it's a lose-lose situation for them already so i will go with option 2.

sorry if you find this to be negative but i honestly see no other way around it.

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 19:46

#13

Fehzor

The kat hat owners just got burned a lot more than any kat armor owners would be. All those Margrel fights? Books used? You just lost that many whiskers.

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 20:21

#14

Ainogommon

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 22:19

#15

Skepticraven

↓

What about purchasing recipes with the whiskers instead of materials for crafting? (recipes would still require books)

1 whisker for 3* recipes, 2 for 4*, 3 for 5*.

Thu, 09/18/2014 - 00:41

#16

Fangel

The book is as much an item to retrieve for Moocroft Manor as the pages themselves. It would be contradictory to the nature of the event for them to give it as a reward.

Well I only assume these pages come from a book, so if we bind enough of them together in between some leather you should have yourself a book. Besides, you don't really return the book. You give it to a mewkat who, in turn, summons the eater of worlds(at least the Owlite/Kat tribe world).

Also, the players who grind for the "rare" gear usually do get overthrown eventually. Why? Because that gear is desirable. Same reason merchants get up-in-arms about flash sales: The market demands are being met. As a consumer, that makes me happy. As a player and a collector (of angelic costumes. Why must these be reskins of raiments... shakes fist) having these items be at least accessible to the common players creates an even playing field.

I mean, if you argue that a kat claw raiment is more desirable for clockworks use than, say, snarbolax... Then something's up with your argument that isn't falling on my head correctly. I'd love to have that raiment primarily because it's something that will match the raging avenger helm I have sitting idle in my arsenal. I also have over 600 ancient pages from the previous event(s). If I could trade for a two books, and my BKC-scrapping idea were to also be implemented, I could very well make multiple costumes and usable gear. Selling fetishes isn't making me try new playstyles and try out gear. It's playing a market, not playing this game.

Thu, 09/18/2014 - 05:24

#17

Arilys

OOO will react like this to all of your suggestions. Whimsicality's "SCRAP THE EVENT ENTIRELY AND REMAKE IT FROM THE GROUND UP BY LISTENING TO THE PLAYERS." suggestion might actually be greeted with something like this instead.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love it if OOO actually made some of the changes that you guys suggest, it would certainly make this stupidly grind-heavy "fun" event more bearable to participate in. But OOO has already proven time and again that they very rarely go on to do stuff suggested by the players.

I was actually excited when I saw that we'd have new gear to craft but after seeing how many Whiskers we need and what we need to even get that many Whiskers... I think I'll just end up grinding for Radiants halfway through the event. At least those are more guaranteed than a Black Kat that drops a Book.

Thu, 09/18/2014 - 05:51

#18

Thunder-The-Bright

gods ain't gonna help you, son.

OOO is trying to convince guys that have the book to take other guys with them while they fight magrel.
and they are failing tremendously.
the chances of finding a book are still slim, and so players are encouraged to kill magrel in a group anyway, since it's easier if you are in a party of 4. and it's not like everyone has fought magrel twice in the past anyway, there are plenty of people that will find themselves cut off from the BKR because they know nobody that has found a book. even if they do, there is a chance that they won't be able to access the fight anyway due to the book owner having better friends.
if anything adding whiskers to the fight encouraged to bring the same people to the fight, since they will need those whiskers and they will be of almost no use to someone who's going to fight magrel only once. which means that richer people with rich friends will get their 2-3 BKC and a BKR, and everyone else will be cut off.
nice work OOO, always missing the target on these events. this game is becoming more infamus every promo or event that passes.

now a bash to the head to return normal, brb.

Thu, 09/18/2014 - 07:32

#19

Parasthesia

+1 Kat Eye/Claw/Hiss armors

Kat Eye/Claw/Hiss armors should be acquired using the already established system like their respective cowls.

Having the armors require 50 pages to acquire fits into this existing system.

Making the black Kat armors require whiskers seems fairly balanced to me, but only for the 4* and 5*, and only one apiece. The 3* and 4* variants of the black Kat helm and armor need to be rebalanced, like how EVERY ARMOR/HELM IN THE GAME doesn't acquire it's maximum potential until fully upgraded. You want your tier system to mean something.

Thu, 09/18/2014 - 11:41

#20

Melonfish

We need lore and backstory endangerment prevention.

@Skepticraven: "What about purchasing recipes with the whiskers instead of materials for crafting? (recipes would still require books)"

The Moorcroft Manor residents have no interest for remains of their less civilized brethrens, only those of the manuscripts they seek to preserve. Materials should remain as components for crafting, tokens as artifacts that serve as trade items. Let's not warp functions simply for the sake of player convenience.

@Fangel: "Well I only assume these pages come from a book, so if we bind enough of them together in between some leather you should have yourself a book. Besides, you don't really return the book. You give it to a mewkat who, in turn, summons the eater of worlds(at least the Owlite/Kat tribe world). [..] If I could trade for a two books, and my BKC-scrapping idea were to also be implemented [...]."

It is still dubious as to why Montague would trade such a book under this pretext (no pun intended). Increasing the droprate of the book to a significant yet sufficient extent remains the most sensible alternative in my eyes.

Thu, 09/18/2014 - 12:34

#21

Holy-Nightmare

Easy fix: Make daily mission

Easy fix:

Make daily mission repeatable, buff the book drop rate to 5%

Make miniboss magrel only drop whiskers.

Allow BKC to be crafted up.

Thu, 09/18/2014 - 12:47

#22

Fangel

Well let's see

Increasing the droprate of the book to a significant yet sufficient extent remains the most sensible alternative in my eyes.
Honestly, the issue remains as follows:
We get a Black Kat Cowl for every book we use.
In order to get the armor set, we need to use 6 books.
We now have 6 black kat cowls and 1 armor.

The issue with the armors is that it inflates the total amount of black kat cowls in the game. By creating an efficient sink for Black Kat Cowls, it reduces grinding and increases the number of armors that exist in the game. It would also effectively double the price of black kat cowls, because now they are worth two whiskers. Bonus points to everyone if these whiskers are unbound.

However, there are many other wonderful ideas in this thread. I don't think simply increasing the book drop rates is the best answer, but it is an answer.

Tue, 09/23/2014 - 12:51

#23

Cheshireccat

What will soon be the longest thread in the Suggestion subforum

CHESHIRECCAT'S COMMENTS: 😸

My data shows the BK-per-kat rate is ~1%. It also shows the book drop rate is ~1% (SS claims it is 0.5%). It also shows (given a random T3 Candlestick Keep) a BK appears on 25% to 33% of your runs which average 20 Spookats per run.
1. You must kill 10,000 Kats to get (on average) one book.
2. Four players killing 2,500 Kats will (on average) get one book between them.
3. Four players killing 15,000 Kats will (on average) get the 6 books required to craft ONE piece of gear.
4. FOUR PLAYERS will have to RUN THROUGH CANDLESTICK KEEP 750 TIMES TO CRAFT ONE PIECE OF GEAR. Possibly 1500 times if SpiralSpy is right about his numbers.
Really, OOO? Have you given this new whisker system any thought at all?

REPLIES TO EARLIER POSTS:
Fangel:
Over the past few Kataclysms there have been MANY proponents of the "craft pages into books" idea. It may be the single most popular idea about this event aside from raising the BK/book rates.
+10,000 points to this idea. It has great support from the player community (the majority of which) think they will never be able to craft ONE of the new kat armors, let alone four.

Glacies:
The sub-idea "craft pages into inferior books that just drop whiskers" has a LOT of merit! It keeps the BKC rare but lets us craft (via a reasonable amount of work) the new armors.
IT ALSO LETS MORE PEOPLE FIGHT MARGREL. It's a fun and interesting fight, and the last thing OOO should be doing is preventing players from enjoying content. >_>

Whimsicality:
LOL
Also: YES. To everything.
A well thought out, well described argument justifying the changes that we all wish to see in this event.
+100 points to you.

Thunder-the-Bright:
"whiskers will be of no use to someone who's going to fight magrel only once."
"richer people with rich friends will get their BKR"
/agree Very well phrased.
Upside: OOO has clearly put a lot of thought into making this redesign a social grind instead of a solo grind.
Downside: Just like BKC, the rich get ALL the new toys and the rest of us are standing outside the restaurant. In the snow. Arms crossed. Huddled against the cold. Staring longingly through the window wishing that could be us....
Time to start "Occupy Moorcroft". "We! Are! The 99%! We! Are! The 99%! We! Are! The 99%!"

--Cheshireccat

Edit: updated for math errors

Thu, 09/18/2014 - 13:37

#24

Melonfish

A pain in the neko.

The matter of the situation is that fighting and beating Margrel HAS to reward ther player somehow, a reward that justifies the scarcity of the book. The cowl seems fair enough, though creating a whole line for it added problems to ponder about as well.

Should the Black Kat Cowl remain as an exclusive reward for fighting Margrel? Should it become an upgrade to the Black Kat Mask? And if so, what should replace it to retain the value and incentive of hunting down the book?

The armor being part of it also adds more questions. The Claw/Eye/Hiss lines should be put on the same, even means of access as the helms, which leaves two options: remove the Wicked Whisker materials out of their alchemy table, or make them available to the same extent as Kat Tribe Fetish materials.

In the case of the latter, then it lessens the added bonus from defeating Margrel, leaving only the Black Kat Cloak, Mail and Raiment for Wicked Whiskers to have a use for, since the Black Kat Cowl being detached from the Hood and Mask is necessary to provide a valuable and sustaining reward for those who own and use up a Book of Dark Rituals. As a results, it inevitably renders the Black Kat Hood and Black Kat Mask obsolete. And even then, is it worth working harder for the raiment, which functions just the same as the cowl?

This is a very odd case of the inclusion of more items creating problems to players, where the armors for Claw/Eye/Hiss alone (without new Black Kat lines or the Wicked Whisker material) would have been just sufficient enough to benefit everyone. Separating the two into different event updates would have been simpler for both players to digest through and OOO to manage their inclusion into the game more appropriately. But now that both are now already accessible and generated by the players, a compromise has to be made.

Fri, 09/19/2014 - 03:39

#25

Parasthesia

Easy fix would be to remove

Easy fix would be to remove whiskers from base mix Kat rainment and leave them for the black Kat version. It's supposed to be similar rarity to BKC, and I think the whisker system works fine for THAT one set. Damage max shouldn't be so quickly acquirable.

Fri, 09/19/2014 - 08:41

#26

Zethalan

Like everyone here i find this event absurd the way it is now, the grindfest is absurd even for a overpowered piece of 5* gear. I have an idea on how to make the Black Kat Cloak more acessible to the players: A new NPC
The new NPC would be a mewkat who came to Moorcroft to see what happened. The mewkat would sell Wicked Whiskers for 100-200 ancient pages only to those who defeated Margrel after performing the ritual (the mewkat was able to get the whiskers from Margrel after the boss fight) . Or he could sell the whiskers during the event only, he would go back to wherever he came from after the confrontation. The whiskers would also be bound upon purchase.
Reasons:
- If the players only have to find one book there won't be so many BKC's out there.
- The idea still encourages players to do the boss fight together since they need to do it in order to get acess to the whiskers.
- If the the NPC is only available during the event the new players won't be able to get the Cloak so easily.
- If the whiskers are bound players won't be able to make profit out of them without having to craft the armor and pay the unbinding fee.
- It still requires a bit of effort to achieve the whole gear.

Sun, 09/21/2014 - 14:57

#27

Round-Shinigami-Jr

I have to say I agree that

I have to say I agree that this grindfest is absurt to the core. Book drop rate, black kat spawn rate are both too low.

Aviri
I believe you weren't with us when they introduced Shadow Keys and Shadow Lairs in 2011, right?
Originally, keys could be only obtained by opening Iron Lockbox, requiring silver keys (750 energy each). They cost anywhere between 8k ce and 20k ce, depending on how rich the buyer was. And armors from shadow lairs were also extremely expensive, with plain Snarbolax set costing more than 20k energy.

And then they just made a sale with Shadow keys for 1300 energy each. Yeah, those who bought exclusive items (be it keys or armors) were extremely frustrated. Now, I believe, everyone agrees shadow keys are best distributed this way.

I'm not saying Supply Depot should offer Book of Dark Rituals right away. No. I'm saying there should be a guaranteed way to receive that book, be it paid DLC or grinding a certain amount of tokens.

Some suggestions of my own can be found here:
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/104898

Sun, 09/21/2014 - 22:53

#28

Avihr

Mohawk

I indeed was present at the time shadow lairs were first brought up, and thanks for reminding me of that, though at that time I didn't think of the people that did purchase keys for such high ammounts of energy, I was way too distracted with the ongoing protest from the players, wich was certainly more massive and passionate than what we got now, heck, players actually gathered up in haven's garden as a form of protest against it.

Anyway, this is sad wether or not they change the whole book and whiskers mechanics, it shows that OOO has yet not learned anything from these past events, after all the complains and the SL fiasco that everyone was so upset about, they had to go again and place special content behind an enormous grind/pay wall through the worst mechanic possible: the RNG (aka gamble) our good ol buddy that takes away any possibility of progress, making you try again and again throwing money and time into the void.

Pherhaps people should start "rioting" again, who knows... seeing that they just remain completely silent about the topic, one would guess that they are not thinking about changing it, either that or they chose to go silent about it and change it later because "we get annoyed when they talk about what they're doing" honestly, if they're not trying to make people upset why don't they just say "hey, we have decided to rework this that about the event, so expect changes in the future" preventing at least some of the damage or frustration that the change could bring?.

One would just think that they are deliberately trying to screw with their players instead of trying not to anger them, but from a logical point of view, you could think that OOO is not THAT stupid and they are just bad at making decisions. However, seeing that this is not the first time it happens, it raises a doubt... and doubt is a very powerful feeling. (high five if you watched that movie)

Getting on topic, I think zethalan's idea is the best way to go, just one book and you can get a lot of whiskers from one run, and even 200 pages for one whisker would still make about 1000 pages for the 5 remaining whiskers, wich is still very hard to get, not to mention that we also have to throw the kat fetishes into the equation... but definitely better than what we have now, at least, also removing the whisker requirement for the kat claw, kat hiss and kat eye armors, that is just unfair.

Wed, 09/24/2014 - 10:10

#29

Cheshireccat

Making a case for one tiny change

TL;DR:
OOO, with one change of making the Kat Hiss/Eye/Cowl armors craftable with fetishes you will resolve many of your player complaints. This will require no extra dev time. This change will remove much ill-will from the player base. There are other benefits as well and only a few small downsides.

==================================================

Proposal:_________________
Alter the requirements for the Kat Hiss/Eye/Claw armors. Instead of 1/2/3 whiskers they require 2/2/4 (or 2/4/8) fetishes. That's 400 (or 700) Page tokens for a 5* armor--it's high but doable for all the non-farmers (a.k.a. most people who play SK).

This is a suggestion others have already made. It a simple patch for OOO to make, would reduce player complaints, and increase player satisfaction with the event.

I'm not sure what OOO's workflow is like but this proposal uses existing mechanisms and only requires ONE CHANGE, but will not disrupt or destabilize the event's balance.
OOO cannot change this event in other ways because most proposed solutions (the "inferior book" fight, new drop tables, new consumables, etc) require dev time already alotted for the next event.

Downsides:_______________

No, this doesn't remove the grind-tastic nature of this event.
No, this doesn't give more players access to the super fun Margrel fight.
No, this doesn't add more BK sets into circulation (IMO a good thing: the BK set *should* be a rare, end-game player set with a reasonable but high difficulty to obtain).
Some people will complain "I wasted 6 whiskers on this armor and now I don't need them!?! I should have waited a week, give me back my whiskers!" My reply: oh well, you got your armor in three days and got to show off. Also you are probably a very well-off end-game player who owns a Gatecrasher Helm.

Benefits:_________________

This DOES gives players something to work towards that is achievable. Most importantly IT IS A GUARANTEED REWARD. Praying for a miracle to happen four times or paying 30kE per item is not fun for players. Doing it once or twice: players will save up or work hard and feel accomplished once they do it. Three times or more: you get this forum thread.
This DOES bring the Kataclysm event in line with things like the Tortodrone and Apocrean events--reasonably high requirements of time and resources for obtainable but guaranteed rewards.
This will not cause an Apocrea 1.0 rush--remember when everyone earned all three items in 24 hours? If there is a crafting rush it is *only* by players with token stockpiles. That is no different from Apocrea 2.0 with the new aura--players on their second event have extras. That's life.
I am someone who has farmed HARD in the past week. I have killed 147 BKs so far. I am not your average player. Speaking to my Vet guildmates many are struggling to find the 200 for one helmet--400 tokens is an achievable but high goal for most high veteran/end-game players. It may be too high for your average knight but still doable. I believe your average veteran could reasonably earn 300 tokens in the two weeks of the event and can buy a couple fetishes to finish up their gear.

Economic Impact:_________

Fetishes are already part of the player economy.
At current rates 8 fetishes cost 8kE (14 fetishes cost about 14kE if you choose the expensive option), 1/4 to 1/2 the cost of 6 Margrel runs. Players will earn their own tokens reducing that number to an even more agreeable level.
Fetish prices will rise but there are SO MANY players with 1000 Ancient Pages sitting in their inventory that the rise won't be drastic.
After this change fetishes will flood the AH. The 10% commission on all of these popular materials is good for OOO.

Followup Suggestions:_____

You *could* increase the Hiss/Eye/Claw helms but I wouldn't recommend it. The 1/1/2 fetish requirement gives newer players something obtainable. Now the event rewards provide something for players of all levels: Knights get helms, Vanguards get armors, end-game players get BK sets!

Thoughts?
--Cheshireccat

PS: I know this is a reversal of my previous stance. I still think that the Book drop is too rare--I've killed 147 BKs in the past week and haven't found one. I can't afford 30kE for invites but might be able to manage one or two invites after I find one book. OOO changing that isn't likely to happen; fixing the other Kat armors is possible. It would certainly remove most of my negativity about the event.

Tue, 09/23/2014 - 11:21

#30

Fangel

Woo woo

The most reasonable stance is as you said, Cheshireccat. If costing double for the armors is what we need, that's great The class armors aren't that great honestly, and most other sets outclass them in terms of bonuses.

But one thing I'd recommend is is players already have the claw/eye/hiss armors, give them a 2 or 3 UV ticket for the time they spent farming for each eye/claw/hiss armor.
Because seriously, if anyone is getting the not black kat armor with the whiskers, then either it's for costume purposes or they know something that I don't know.

Tue, 10/07/2014 - 18:05

#31

Horseclaw

Or maybe you could trade 100 pages for a book to... umm... Monatouge I think his name is. The idea being he re-creates a book with the pages you give him. Also, the Black Cat Cowl should be craftable from a Black Kat Mask.

Wed, 10/08/2014 - 04:29

#32

Vohtarak-Forum

im vohtarak, call me by that name

100 pages is definitely too cheap, it needs to be expensive to compare to the (.5%?) drop rate of the current book

and the point of the black kat cowl is to be very rare, making it craftable is definitely not a good idea

Wed, 06/03/2015 - 14:54

#33

Fangel

They're back!

With black kats back, and nothing changed, I'm gonna bump this back into the discussion so we all can see what other ideas can make the event less of a grindfest and more of a funfest.

Wed, 06/03/2015 - 16:01

#34

Fehzor

So I had an idea for this event lately. What if they made it to where the lower you went, the more kats spawned, up to about... 50% being black kats. The event currently feels more like panning for gold than it does challenging, so perhaps the best solution would be to let us, you know.. actually fight the black kats and get what we want, as opposed to holding it over our head unless we pay up in terms of time/money. I'm sure they could adjust the rates a little bit to where kats only gave one token and half as many books maybe if they did this..

I'm thinking-

Stratum 3: 5% black kats
Stratum 4: 10% black kats
D19-21: 15% black kats
D22-24: 25% black kats
D25-27: 40% black kats
D28-30: 50% black kats (Post D28 = shadow lair territory, I believe)

That way, T2/early players won't have to deal with them as often especially if they're going through the mission during the event. Another thought would be to remove them from missions altoghether and then go with the above, to enforce more playing of the game and less forever Alone in the Dark.

Wed, 06/03/2015 - 17:55

#35

Fangel

Hmm.

That's not a terrible way to go about it, but I'd still think it'd be good if we had them rare. Perhaps each strata has an additional 1% chance of kats spawning? If you wanted to get freaky, make the book also increase by 0.5% per strata. 4% black kats with between 2% and 4% of a book spawning is already 4 to 16 times the books we have now, which means prices and fun increase but quite a bit more.

Still disappointed we can't trade tokens for books, and that the armors still take whiskers, but we can remodel the event many times over to find the most valuable and viable solution.

Thu, 06/04/2015 - 03:06

#36

Fehzor

That would be more reasonable from a rewards standpoint lol.

I really just hate that I can't even fight the black kats as often as I'd like to- they're fun to kill and see, but once every 4-5 levels just isn't enough. Imagine the challenge, killing an entire candlestick keep full of black kats.

EDIT- to illustrate, I've been going for about 2 hours now and haven't seen any black kats. "Just unlucky" isn't a feeling that I think we should be trying to instill in players. Nor is it even that unheard of, to go without seeing any sign of the big event for that long.

Thu, 06/04/2015 - 05:52

#37

Dracora-Speaking

This event is horribly designed, gameplay wise. The art is great! Anyway, other events have grind walls, but on-the-side rewards (radiant arenas in apocrea) and challenges in sufficiently "new" areas (grinchlin assault for winterfest, etc.) set them aside from the Kataclysmic Confrontation. Would you constantly play candlestick keeps if BKs weren't possible? No. Would you play decently designed areas/areas that have sweet loot even if an event weren't around? Yes, and probably for a good while at least. But there's so much more wrong with this event than that - and this thread already talks about these issues in detail. It really boils down to the high % chance you encounter total disappointment. Not good for a game! But my biggest personal peeve with this event is how lonely it makes my friends and me feel.

Above comments offer good solutions - some brilliant/simple, and most would work. But here the event is again, and it remains as horrible in play mechanics as the intent of the creatures it brings. That and the new box contains mostly recolors. These two things point to dev focus elsewhere. I would be more upset if we hadn't had amazing new missions released recently, with obvious cliffhangers in the dialogues of these missions indicating yet more adventures to come. That being said, OOO could easily improve this event by changing a few numbers around - mentioned in this thread frequently. This sort of improvement doesn't take a lot of dev time (this point also mentioned in this thread).

My two cents for improving the event:
- +1 for: Allowing us to invite each other when we encounter kats and have the loot drop nice and proper. OR let us find nests in the arcade (most other events have specialized danger room areas/nests and blahblahblah) and let us invite each other to those. This promotes people playing together. Many of us are Alone in the Dark. And I'd love to see the scarlet fortress tileset involved in all this in some way too - lots of kats in there.

- Enrich the lore and increase playability by implementing a mechanic that increases the chance of a black kat spawning per run/floor based on how many undead non-black kitties you've killed during that session. I made a thread here in May 2014. If it's per floor, that's restrictive, if it's per session, this encourages the arcade over Alone in the Dark. Fehzor's depth ability is similar and tbh I like it better than mine there. Point being, increase the BK spawn if certain conditions are met, instead of this drought of BKs during a BK event.

Thu, 06/04/2015 - 12:33

#38

Fangel

Yup.

The event is definitely a grindy one, and there's no reward for grinding it either, unlike other events that require a "collection" of items.

Encouraging us to grind with others would be a good way to make the game more bearable. Grinding solo is fine for people like myself, but I'll happily grind just about anything. Inviting others for extra chances would definitely make events more bearable in general.

Thu, 06/04/2015 - 13:26

#39

Enfeebler

It's even worse with Whiskers being bound and given to each player. It encourages scamming, people are selling invitations to Margel runs, anyone paying is giving away few kE for risk of being scammed. If they were unbound and given only to book owner we could invite our friends again without having to worry about losing tons of Energy (selling party spots). We'd simply sell Whiskers - much safer method, because both sides would have to put something into trading box. I've been a part of that kind of scam, 18kE lost in total, the host showed us the book, we paid and he/she ran away.

And really, all the Raiments beside Black Kat one - I don't see any point in them requiring Whiskers to craft, from player standpoint at least. I can clearly see that it was supposed to increase both time and money that has to be invested to obtain all armors, similar to gunner update sets.

//EDIT: It happened during last event, all 3 of us reported the player, we obviously didn't expect a refund but we didn't get a mail or any other information about the status of the case, so I don't even know how it ended actually. Nothing has been changed to Whiskers so I'd guess OOO didn't find it as a major threat or simply it was a rare occurrence, which is what I hope. I'd still like to see Three Rings changing something about it, just in case.

Thu, 06/04/2015 - 13:15

#40

Fangel

Oh that's a great point.

I didn't even consider the scam efforts. That's something Three Rings for sure should look into.

Too many players see this event as a profit maker instead of a community get-together. It honestly feels like this event is designed to be not-fun because all the "fun" parts come from saying "it's over" instead of "let's go do this!"

Fri, 06/05/2015 - 04:05

#41

Whimsicality

Three days of Black Kat hunting thus far... I've yet to find a single Black Kat.

EDIT: After making this post, first run I do, guess what I find?

Fri, 06/05/2015 - 09:13

#42

Qwez

Black Kats feel like mini-boss monsters. If you want them to be more common as Fehzor proposed, it'd spike the difficulty of the level too high.
Instead maybe OOO should add a "Dark Kat"; a reskinned Kat that deals curse status. These would be maybe replace 25% of the Kats in a level and have the chance to drop an Ancient Page (chance modified by Tier).
And it would make sooo more sense for Black Kats to spawn these Dark Kats instead of Curse Skellingtons (ofc summoned Kats would have no chance of dropping pages).

This would make the event less of a chore/bore to get the regular Kat helms, and give more tangible farming progress. iono... whiskers though.

Fri, 06/05/2015 - 17:58

#43

Fehzor

Another idea- let books drop from the kats found in the daily mission. Maybe even add more black kats to that.. and make that mission start-able (not just play-able) only once per day. Since the book is basically the only desirable part of the event, it would make sense to make it more central to the event.

Fri, 07/03/2015 - 02:08

#44

Ed-Efnek

Nice idea like it. Please loook my idea too for a better gameing http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/110755

Wed, 02/03/2016 - 17:00

#45

Fangel

aaaand bump

Figure I'll bring this back up to the surface again before we get another 16 black kat rebalancing threads.

Thu, 02/04/2016 - 15:40

#46

Fehzor

Yes. A good idea to bring this back. I really don't have much to add to it besides "please".

Thu, 02/04/2016 - 16:51

#47

Fangel

Pretty much a compilation

We have a lot of good ideas in the thread so it's not bad to have them around.

For anyone new to this thread, here's a quick rundown of ideas:

Increase book drop rate
Allow trading ancient pages for a book, or alternatively, just the margrel fight without the BKC reward
Make BKC craftable with the rest of its line
Make whiskers purchasable with pages
Remove whisker cost from kat armors
Modify black kat spawn rate depending on depth
Modify black kat spawn rate depending on spookats killed per run

There are a few other ideas scattered about in this thread, but that's just a quick summary of the multitude of ideas being thrown around.

Sat, 02/06/2016 - 20:31

#48

Fangel

Well here's another idea

So as I've been farming, I've been thinking as to what we can do to help with the whole, you know, problem.

While this isn't a permanent solution to the whole issue with the event as it stands, allowing black kats to drop wicked whiskers at about 4% or so on death would make the whole "need a book" issue a lot less of an issue. Makes the new armors more of a 5% thing rather than a 1% or a fortune thing.

If these ones are unbound, bonus points all around.

Fri, 07/08/2016 - 12:43

#49

Fangel

obligatory kataclysm bump

Looks like the event is back, so I'm bringing this thread back up into view again.

Fri, 07/08/2016 - 13:01

#50

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

Bumping the thread again since it's still relevant.

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