Spiral Knights - Some Black Kat Facts

Some Black Kat Facts

42 replies [Last post]

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 12:20

Toastnaut

With the help of some guildmates and a bit of trial and error, here are some things that are confirmed.

I've been hearing a lot of different information going around, so hopefully this will help people on their Kat/Page/Book hunting:

-The books drop rarely in addition to pages you will get from random Black Kat spawns (except for ones in the prestige mission that drop nothing.)

-When the book drops, everyone who is present when it drops, will be able to pick it up. (Same as SL and Seerus mats.)
This means that anyone who joins after it drops ,but before drops are picked up, will get pages (since they are tokens,) but no book (since it is an item drop.) The book comes unbound, like any mat.

-When you take the book to Moorcroft and activate the dark ritual, beating the boss awards everyone 6 Pages (Confirmed by guild mates, not personally.)
In addition to this, the person who activated the ritual with the book, gets the hat (unbound) that comes with that.

This means: If you find a kat with four people in your party, and it drops a book:
1) Everyone will get a book.
2) Everyone will get a hat, if you beat the boss.
3) You will be able to do the Moorcroft "boss fight" four times, with up to 16 different knights (for 6 tokens each.)

Hopefully this helps people clear up some misconceptions.

[People, don't go begging your friends for invites to fight the boss, thinking that their book will get you a hat. That's not how it works, you need your own book, to get the special hat.]

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 12:38

Numnut

Nice

Good information. Thanks for posting.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 12:51

Sir-Pandabear

So one book drop can only lead to four hats, not sixteen.

Thank you for this information.

Do you know whether or not books or hats are acquired bound?

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 12:56

Dragonuity

I want that Black Kat Crowl

I want that Black Kat Crowl Now! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 13:02

Icegill

@Sirpandabear

He said 16 different knights referring to you carrying others for tokens, not the hat.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 13:25

Hexzyle

@Icegill

That's what Sir-Pandabear just said...

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 13:45

Canine-Vladmir

I always thought...

I always thought the Kat Hat was a GM exclusive....
Any chance we get a Purple Transparent Proto Helm in Future? :)

But thanks for the post.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 14:26

Burq

A damn, the rest of the party

A damn, the rest of the party dont get the cowl if they weren't the one to give the book to the npc? Well crud, I wanted to get a friend of mine the cowl since he cant play much or at all during the event :c

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 14:32

Nick

Developer

The Book of Dark Rituals is

The Book of Dark Rituals is not intended to be granted to everyone in the party. It is a bug and will be fixed in a future update.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 14:36

Korakc

Kittens for you, Nick.

@Nick
So, will the person who picks it up get it? Or the person who kills the kat?
Please explain.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 14:49

#10

Moonsoon

-_-

That's really disappointing to hear Nick.
Soon enough your bath of tears is getting an expansion to swimming pool

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 14:52

#11

Nick

Developer

It's like any other material

It's like any other material drop- it goes to a random member of the party. They are free to trade it as they see fit.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 14:57

#12

Juances

Time to go solo again!

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 14:59

#13

Aumir

^About that

What should me and my friends do then? If it is a bug, then have we exploited this? Should all of us stop Kat hunting? I didn't know it was a bug o_o

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 15:36

#14

Byas

You know this will only cause people to go solo instead of parties in a game that is supposed to be Co-op, right?

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 15:44

#15

Dukeplatypus

No! Don't change it yet! The

No! Don't change it yet! The book's rare enough as it is! I spent so many hours today alone just grinding two mission to get tokens and for the faint hope of getting a book. Over 181 tokens ground so far and I've found nothing, and then you're going to punish me by QUARTERING my chances of getting the one item I truly want for costume because I have the courtesy of opening up my party to friends and guildies so they can get the tokens they want so they can spare their minds with the endless grinding?
It absolutely doesn't help that Black Kats are so damn rare on their own! I can only hope getting maybe one Kat in every fourth run of Candlestick keep, easily one of the most difficult and least rewarding zones in the entire clockworks.
And it's bad enough as it is that only one-fourth of a party gets the coveted helm for each boss kill, of which you are depriving players of viewing the most significant part of content, a brand-new boss! People have been pining for new content like this for months! And then you have the balls to make it only even viewable from a stupidly rare drop so that presumably, people go out and pay for elevator passes just to see something they've sometimes literally dreamed about for almost a year!

And possibly that could be forgivable, if I wasn't ACTIVELY BEING PUNISHED for being generous and helping out friends who want assistance! I'm sorry, OOO, I've put up with and backed you on so much bull this far, but this is close to the final straw from me. This is ridiculous and absolutely pitiful.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 15:59

#16

Likal

Stuff

@Toastnut
Thank you kindly for collecting all this information.

@Nick
Please reconsider the drop/distribution mechanics on single-item drops like this (particularly rare ones). It's always bothered me that the loot distribution method actively encourages solo play, since if a rare item drops your odds of actually getting the item goes down for every person in the party.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 16:02

#17

Generic-Bush

^I think the reason they don't wanna do that is because people could just loop it with alts and make mucho money, also it would decrease the rarity of the item.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 16:10

#18

Flowchart

You can still help out friends. Currently you want to invite them before killing the kat so they can get the book drop too.
But when they change it, kill the kat, collect the book if it drops and then invite your friends before picking up the pages. They can still get those.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 16:38

#19

Amanzi

So this means I'm not getting reimbursed a book. :T

Chaos set becoming buffed = Wonderful!
Three floor Prestige missions that are only worth the few tokens they give because Black Kats are so rare = Fine.
Thirteen days to make fivestar helmets requiring tokens gotten from a monster that constantly eludes me = Bothersome.
Learning that in a day or two, many more people are going to start soloing because being in a team hurts their chances at getting an already incredibly rare drop = Horrible.

I was so looking forward to this update but after the multiple failures at finding a Black Kat and wasting all of my mist THEN being the only one in my party to not get the book THEN finding out that the book's going to go to only one person thus making more people just do it all solo thus ending up with me having fewer people to help me find it thus making everything so much more frustrating, I'm feeling more and more miserable the
more this update goes on.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 17:05

#20

Doctorspacebar

This is a bug, and it will be "fixed" in an upcoming patch.

Reminds me of a few things like it.

The Black Kat Cowl is overpowered enough, don't make the lucky few that will be winning LD games with it a lucky fewer.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 17:24

#21

Quakeman

one question .. some people

one question .. some people are lucky and get it right now .. how about the ones who will grind 200 more hours to get one and wont have one .. you realy need to reduce the amount of book drop even more?

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 18:19

#22

Canine-Vladmir

Sorry Guildies but im
Ridin Solo

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 18:26

#23

Addy

I am asking nicely to please

I am asking nicely to please reconsider the decision on the book drop, as everybody else has mentioned, it's so rare as it is, and punishing people for traveling in parties is ruining any chance of working together. :(

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 19:01

#24

Ivanic

Please don't change it

I agree with Addy. I've been having a hard enough time finding the black cats, I don't want it to be even tougher for me to get the Black Cat Cowl. If it does change I can guarantee I'll be going solo just so i have a hope of getting the book.

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 19:38

#25

Autofire

You are experiencing a PICNIC ERROR!

I have a better idea: any party member who joins in the middle of a run can NEVER obtain any materials or tokens that had dropped before he joined. And this rare book should be treated like a token: one person gets one, and everyone gets one. Don't penalize, PLEASE. I have to go solo for rare mats already. :(

@Doctorspacebar

You know, both of those came to mind when I saw that this was a "glitch." Those "glitches" seem fairly easy to spot when you pass things through quality control. :\

The pepperbox was a vacuum gun during the beta. This glitch was around during the release AND after for a while afterward, and they waited till everyone got to buy/use the guns/bombs to fix it. RSS was a more understandable thing to miss, but they could have just nerfed the range if they wanted it to be a smaller AoE bomb. Don't get me wrong, the new RSS is fine (Ok, the damage should be upped, but that's not the point), but it was sorta a jarring change to the bombing community.

My point is, even understanding that glitches can be hard to find, I'm surprised OOO let the game go into the full release with both weapons being used in ways they didn't want them to be used. Both results were a dissatisfied community. Idk how to fix this. Have the testing server open more?

(Sorry if I come off as looking down on OOO or anything. Just stating my opinions. Also note I have NO CLUE of how the underlying code works, so this is pretty much all guesses.)

Thu, 01/31/2013 - 21:30

#26

Hexzyle

@Autofire

The pepperbox was a vacuum gun during the beta
I thought this bug would be kinda obvious that it's a bug.

but they could have just nerfed the range if they wanted it to be a smaller AoE bomb
The range wasn't the issue with the RSS.

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 06:17

#27

Kickthebucket

quick question do black cats

quick question

do black cats spawn in the lvls leading up to the "nest" in the prestige mision? and if they do, do they drop pages/books?

*edit*

never mind, just found out they do spawn and they do drop pages in the mision ;) (so you can do the mision, go back and repeat. but you won't get the prestige though hehe)

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 06:34

#28

Mtax

@Addy

+1
Maybe petiton?! ;_;

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 07:05

#29

Toastnaut

Really kind of sad to hear that it's changing.

I honestly thought that not being able to pick it up if you arrive after it dropped was to keep people from soloing and abusing a rare drop.
Part of my reason for posting this info was to warn people who might get scammed into paying for an invite to pick up a book that they can't even get because they weren't present when it dropped.
It's rare enough, that one book per find is pretty brutal. :(

To answer more questions about how it works, since I got more info after the first post... (I'll also edit them into the top post for future readers.)

The book drops UNBOUND (yay) and the hat you get for fighting the Moorcroft mini-boss also comes UNBOUND (yay again.)

It's fun stuff. ^_^

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 08:00

#30

President-Trump

Great idea to grant a valued over 25k CE material to only one person in the party.
The others who didn't obtain the material will be eternally graceful and full of joy.

---Kills Black Kat then invites friends---

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 08:52

#31

Autofire

@Hexzyle

Actually, it seemed like perfectly fine behavior for the pepperbox. It was like that for ages and a lot of people were saying "Well, the pulling in effect makes it better then the piercing variant" and that's why some people got pepperboxes. Then they changed it all of a sudden and without warning. No one saw it coming AT ALL.

Oh...the range wasn't the issue? Well, it could have been changed so the shards have a hit limit, just like they do now. Actually I think that's what the hit limit came from: to keep instant killing with enemies standing on the bomb as it blows. Then they changed it altogether, but kept the hit limit. (Maybe?)

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 09:06

#32

Dragonuity

No! Nick. I really wanna hunt

No! Nick. I really wanna hunt dem black kats with fellow hamsters. I don't want to solo just to get the dark ritual book.

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 09:13

#33

Eltia

Cooperstown, ND

As some have already mentioned, making Book of Ritual to follow normal loot distribution simply encourage people to solo BK, grab the Book (if any) and then invite friends / relatives / significant others / guildies to share the tokens. So yes, the rareness of the BK Cowl is preserved somewhat, but at the expense of more hassle to the users.

As a suggestion. How about just make BK Cowl obtainable by redeemable code only? Would not it allow you to control exactly how many BK Cowls would be in circulation, without going through all the probabilistic modeling and creating hassles to your users? Just trying to help you save time so you can spend your time on more urgent business, like Mad Bomber Set...

Sat, 02/02/2013 - 09:41

#34

Goofio

I've heard that Three Rings has patched the bug where every party member receives the Book of Dark Rituals.

Can anybody confirm?

Sat, 02/02/2013 - 10:45

#35

Klipik

yes.

Sat, 02/02/2013 - 11:13

#36

Wodanct

The fact that I would have to find TWO books now just so my friend and I can get the black cat cowl.. and how stupidly rare Black Kats are.. I am no longer motivated to play Spiral Knights again.

Sat, 02/02/2013 - 12:13

#37

Wuvvums

Sadly the black kat hats

Sadly the black kat hats don't seem to match with much of anything aside from the poison lizard armor that's 5-star. Fighting the boss is a fun novelty but I do agree it's nicer when the book drops for everyone.

Sat, 02/02/2013 - 13:17

#38

Ryukusu-Luminarius

thanks for tips. well, i

thanks for tips.
well, i didn't go solo. when i read this i will do.
i found about 50 tokens for two days. and seem black kats only in candlesticks.
Also i found that i found more kats at night than at day time or at specific time(at XX:YY o' clock where YY is about 10-15 min). maybe thats how works randomize.
kats can show up in any position.
And there more kats at arcade, than at mission leves.

That's all.

Sat, 02/02/2013 - 13:36

#39

Byas

> And there more kats at arcade, than at mission leves.

Is there any proof to that? Because I have found none at the arcade while I have found a handful of black kats at missions... It really seems like the rates are equal, if not lower at the arcade

Sat, 02/02/2013 - 14:31

#40

Sweet-Hope

Well i dont know if that its true but i got my 4 books on Arcade. on Missions i have some friends that never drop the book there. but once they start running arcade they got their books. maybe its a coincedence but i always do arcade on events like this.

Sun, 02/03/2013 - 04:19

#41

Knight-Of-India

Well i have a question i

Well i have a question i asked this with toast when i met him in ah but still i need to confirm it with a developer so i decided to post it here.

@Nick you said that the token pages won't expire but will the book do? and if it won't can i still do the boss mission after feb 13th?

Sun, 02/03/2013 - 04:52

#42

Hexzyle

Items will NEVER expire

Items will NEVER expire unless they say so on the description. That's a given for anything in an online game. Stuff that you've worked hard for doesn't just get taken away from you. Replaced, maybe (Shard Bomb), but never taken away.

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Some Black Kat Facts