Spiral Knights - Black kat math

Black kat math

22 replies [Last post]

Wed, 02/17/2016 - 20:38

Fangel

With the black kat event now at a close, I figure I might as well share some numbers from my own experience this event.

Since I have pretty much have no life, the past two weeks have been spent almost exclusively farming for black kats. As such, here are the numbers that I've worked up.

Estimated pages at event start: 1248 (I didn't pay attention to this number very early on, but it's one I remember seeing within the first day)
Pages upon event completion: 2413
Pages spent on kat tribe fetishes: 50
Pages not picked up due to user error: 4*
Pages lost due to game glitches: 12
Pages earned through prestige missions: 56

First off let's figure out how many pages were acquired this event:
2413 + 50 - 1248 = 1215 pages

Whew, that's a lot of pages. Now, let's figure out how many potential pages were farmed this event:
1215 + 4 + 12 = 1231 pages

Alright, now of these pages, let's see how many were related to randomly spawned black kats:
(1231 - 56) / 3 = 391.66 kats
This number is not a whole number due to the whole not-sure-where-I-started thing, but that's a good estimate of how many kats I have fought this event.

Geez, that's a lot of kats in one event. What you all probably want to know though is how many kats did it take to find a book of dark rituals?
Well I found a book of dark rituals on my 1116th page this event. Estimation wise, it took roughly 370 black kats before a book of dark rituals was dropped. This was on the last day of the event too, after hope was lost. Go figure.

But now let's do some math based on assumptions. Looking back on Cheshireccat's last kataclysm data, let's say that on average, every 4th run spawns a black kat.
391.66 * 4 = 1566.66 runs

Now this is based on older statistical data and is not ensured to be how many runs that were done, however, after how I feel about candlesticks, it wouldn't surprise me if I ran more than these.

Now on top of all this, I can easily speedrun through a candlestick keep solo in about 3 minutes on average - faster if there are no ensured arenas, slower if there are several. Let's assume the 3 minute average and see about how long I was farming for kats.
1566.66 * 3 = 4700 minutes
4700 / 60 = 78.33 hours
78.33 / 24 = 3.26 days

Over 3 days of farming. 3 days of running through candlestick keep. It's okay to want your players to play your game, but making them play for 3 days during a 14 day period is asking a lot from even your dedicated players.

That all said and done, I hope one of your people out there who loves numbers can put these numbers to use in calculations and whatnot. I know I had several people tell me to stop farming because it wasn't worth it, but I found a book in the end so that's that. However these numbers do go to show how ridiculous the kat event can be for each user.
Potential fixes to this event have been discussed in depth in various ways in threads such as this one. If for some reason reading over numbers makes you get ideas don't feel shy in bumping that post with a new idea.

*3 of these pages were due to being sleep deprived and speedrunning. Started a new party, current party went forwards to the one last potential dual kat spawns, and a black kat spawned. The other 1 page was speedrunning and doing the go-solo-return-to-party trick, and upon returning I realized I only grabbed 2 pages.

Wed, 02/17/2016 - 21:25

Bopp

great, but not much

Thank you for sharing your experience. I don't mean to be rude, but I don't see any statistics that can be performed.

One question would be: What are the chances of a kat spawning as a black kat? But you didn't count kat spawns, so we can't do that.

Another question would be: What are the chances of a black kat dropping a book? You gave us valuable data on that. We can estimate one book per 392 black kats (ignoring the slop in your records). But with only one book, we can't quantify the uncertainty in that estimate of 1/392. This is the curse of trying to understand rare events.

Perhaps your data could be combined with other, similar data sets. Anyway, thanks again for sharing. Data are great.

Wed, 02/17/2016 - 22:10

Fehzor

You don't even need books, whiskers or any of that. Why put yourself through this? Even if you enjoy it a bit 3 days is like awful I'm so sorry for you you poor thing.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 00:24

Fangel

Yeah

Was thinking it could be pooled together with others data sets. Alone this doesn't do much but it's always worthwhile to have more data.

Some people like numbers so I figure sharing my numbers will let people who want to do anything extra do their thing. It also goes for game balances, as it showcases the attempts at getting the one item in the game that's worthwhile in this event.

I'm always one for being able to say my thoughts on the design of something and this is one of those times.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 01:28

Neometal

Which keep were you doing? The d19 poison or the d24 shock? Or is that irrelevant for the test?

Years ago it was commonly known that the deeper you are, the more chance you have of getting a 5* material. But release 2013-07-30 changed the material drop tables, and I'm not certain if that is still the case.

Fri, 02/19/2016 - 05:56

Avenger-Of-Troy

Fehzor, assuming that the

Fehzor, assuming that the book drop chance is .5%, the chance of getting a book that late is 0.14087196468 (according to the google calculator).
So, unfortunately... you're not that unlucky.

Edit:

Derp this is meant for fangel

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:27

Fangel

Well...

Which keep were you doing? The d19 poison or the d24 shock?

Depended on what I felt like doing. I preferred D24 shock simply because the forced arenas would net me more loot, but if I ever became fed up with RNG I would run the D19 candlestick keep. On days we had the "purr terror" prestige mission, it wasn't uncommon for me to run the first floor of that mission on repeat, as it is a D24 poison candlestick.

Only thing I can't really take into consideration sadly with the math is I don't know how many black kats I ran into last event, thus seeing how many black kats I ran into between books is kind of hard. In this case it took 370 kats to find a book, but considering the impressive amount of farming I did last event too, the number between books is well over 400.
For my own personal reference, after finding a book I ran into 33 black kats. If I remember to math next event too, I figure having this on public record somewhere will be helpful for that.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:52

Uberer-Alt

had about 800 kats killed before the event, no book.
got my first book on my 940th(ish) kat.
ended the event at about 1100 kats killed, still only 1 book found.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 12:03

Bopp

Uberer-Alt

had about 800 kats killed before the event, no book. got my first book on my 940th(ish) kat. ended the event at about 1100 kats killed, still only 1 book found.

When you say "kat", do you mean "black kat"? The distinction is extremely important here.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 12:30

Fangel

Probably black kats

Typically when talking about the black kat event "kat" means "black kat".

Because of the nature of the event, I don't think people would be keeping track of every single kat they kill. Only reason I can track my black kat spawns is because of the tokens.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 13:09

#10

Bopp

on the contrary

In my experience, many people talk about kats that aren't black kats. For example, see my post #1. For example, see Cheshireccat's data set that you cited in the original post. He can't make claims about the spawning rate of black kats, unless he keeps track of all kat spawns, right? 20.94 kats per run.

But, yes, it's tedious. Serious data collection often is.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 13:21

#11

Flowchart

It seems pretty obvious what he meant. I think it's more the lack of precise wording that annoys you rather than any real ambiguity.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 13:36

#12

Mouzzie

Here is my data (for T3 Candlestick Keeps only).
Seems like Black Kat spawn chance is around 1%.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 13:44

#13

Bopp

no, I was sincere

No, I was not just nitpicking. My question was sincere.

I don't know how active Uberer-Alt is. Depending on whether he plays occasionally or super-grinds, he could have seen either 1,100 kats or 1,100 black kats. I can't tell which he means.

I don't know how lucky Uberer-Alt got. For example, in the first Kataclysm I got a Book very early --- around my fifth black kat, and probably within a couple hundred kats. So I can't tell which he means.

A player could reasonably report how many kats were needed to find a book, or how many black kats. I can't tell which he prefers, although black kats are certainly more convenient to record.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 14:02

#14

Fangel

Well...

In context they were talking about "killing kats and not getting a book", and since non-black kats cannot drop books of dark rituals, I assumed they were meaning black kats.

I know what you were getting at but throughout my posts I refer to "black kats" as "kats" as well, I just mentioned "black kat" at some point earlier. Uber doesn't mention "black kat" at all so the subject is a bit more on uneven ground.

I guess a similar statement would be saying something like "I've killed 100 puppies and still haven't gotten a true love locket". In the context of the sentence, we can assume they're talking about love puppies, due to the fact no other enemy referred to under the "puppy" title can drop the trinket, and that most knights have killed well over 100 puppy enemies in their lifetime, rendering any complaint about not getting a drop from a non-love puppy something most players would shrug off.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 14:52

#15

Bopp

not worth arguing about

I'm sorry if my lack of guessing ability irritated anyone. I prize these threads because they serve as collection points, where many players offer up their data (even if those data are imprecise or anecdotal). So I just wanted to be sure that I knew exactly which data were being reported. After all, unusual results will occasionally arise. That's the point of collecting lots of data: to ascertain the variability.

Meanwhile, Mouzzie has offered up a detailed data set measuring kats vs. black kats. Thanks, Mouzzie.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 15:19

#16

Fangel

I was trying to play clarification

Not irritated over here in the slightest, I just wanted to throw out why they likely meant black kats rather than regular kats. Only time I have seen spookats mentioned in these sorts of situations is for comparisons to black kats, and with no mentions of specifics I assume they mean black kats.

That plus going through 1,100 spookats and only getting one book isn't nearly as impressively depressing as 1,100 black kats.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 16:23

#17

Fehzor

@Avenger of Troy

I wasn't lucky at all, as I found no book. Then again I didn't look because I already have the raiment and bringing more whiskers into existence isn't something I'm interested in. My time and soul are worth something to me, and I'm not selling them a second time to this event for no reason like Fangel did.

Fangel was hardly lucky up until the end either. They grinded (ground?) up until that last day, so to have them find one then from their perspective was lucky (as they'd already passed up the bulk of their chances) but from the perspective of someone starting the grind (the important perspective) it took them quite a few kats, and that's hardly lucky at all.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 17:13

#18

Fangel

3 days of grinding and finding nearly 400 kats isn't too bad in my book, but I wouldn't wish my unbelievable patience and persistence upon anyone, especially someone with an end-goal in mind.

Finding ~400 kats in one event is somewhat lucky the way I view it. Finding 400 black kats and zero books was the unlucky part. It got to the point where I was dreaming about finding a book of dark rituals and kept waking myself up because there's no way I could have found one. After giving up I found one and fell over onto the floor to verify that I wasn't dreaming.

Thu, 02/18/2016 - 22:59

#19

Fehzor

But 3 days of solid play. For me that's like multiple months.

Fri, 02/19/2016 - 05:50

#20

Uberer-Alt

I mean black kat when I say kat yeah. Why would I track how many normal kats I kill? (did kill a mewkat, no special drop)

I also saw 2 love puppies, one of them dropped a locket. I found my first locket during the 2nd bk event I think.

Fri, 02/19/2016 - 06:01

#21

Bopp

thanks

Thanks for clarifying.

Why would I track how many normal kats I kill?

You would track that if you wanted to tease out the rate of black kats among kats. Especially if you were testing the idea that black kat spawning depends not just on kats spawned but on kats killed. Yes, I have actually tried to gather such data in the past. What sounded like nitpicking in post #8 was just an honest question from someone who's pondered slightly different problems than you have. Anyway, happy travels. :)

Fri, 02/19/2016 - 11:31

#22

Fangel

Huh.

Just out of curiosity I decided to see how much more time I would have spent if I ran each level in 4 minutes on average. Number comes out to 4.35 days.

Regardless it's too much time spent. 1/4th or 1/3rd of the event shouldn't have to be spent constantly farming, including times spent working/schooling, hobby work, eating, sleeping, etc.

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Black kat math