Original Post — Direct link

(Proviso: I have seen the recent post about loot changes incoming on 27th Feb and will aim to repeat this test when the patch drops if possible https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGame/comments/av7s12/the_man_has_spoken/)

Test: Kill 100 Ursix using 3 different luck % setups:

  1. Not over 100%
  2. Way above 100%
  3. 0%

I wanted to test out a few of the theories about luck, namely - "You don't wanna go over 100%", "Luck has no affect at all" and "You should use as much as possible!!!!". So I put together a test based on 100 kills of the same enemy at GM1, here are the results.

Not over 100%

https://i.redd.it/3hlo8uzrj3j21.jpg

Way above 100%

https://i.redd.it/hf4wupirg3j21.jpg

0%

https://i.redd.it/bbklur27h3j21.jpg

Data pool isn't huge but some indications from these results:

  • Luck% seems to affect the number of lower tiered items that drop (white, green, blue, purple) and the total amount of higher tiered items that drop (orange, yellow)
  • Using way over 100% luck had a lower total yield of higher tiered items than results from using below 100%
  • Luck is not required to have a chance at dropping Legendaries
  • Below 100% had the most lucrative results

Hope these results help in our mission to figure out wtf luck actually does and look forward to reading your thoughts.

External link →
over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Some basic details about luck and how it currently works:

  • It's threshold based
  • The last threshold is once you get over 190
  • It affects drop rate and rarity

I think some of the results might be a bit skewed because you're using Ursix - which have an inflated chance to drop items (a few high-tier enemies do)... for future tests it's probably best to use other more basic enemies if you want to isolate the effects of luck on drop rate 😊.

For drop rates, the modifier is added into a formula for computing the drop chance (there are a whole mess of factors that can further modify the value based on enemy type, etc).

For rarity, the modifier is also added into a formula... but the final computed modifier (based on difficulty, luck and the difficulty of the thing that was killed) is only applied to the highest rarity of thing that you can get for your level (and masterwork/legendary if it's available at your level).

Hopefully that helps! 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by gst800

Can you clarify if we have to hit a monster for our luck stat to work, or it works even if we don't touch a monster and other people kill it ?. Also interested if gear score has anything to do with quality of drop ?.

No, drops are currently based off proximity... if you're "nearby" we count you as participating. You don't need to damage an enemy to get a roll. 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by MAKExITxBLEED

Good info! Would be awesome if we knew what the thresholds were though and how much of a diminishing return there is as thresholds increase

Sorry, didn't have the values offhand - I remembered the top level one though.

I went and looked them up - the specific thresholds are:

0-100 (Edit: Base luck is 100)

101-109

110-119

120-129

130-139

140-149

150-159

160-169

170-179

180-189

190+

(Edit: Blaaaah, formatting! 😊)

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by GuitarCFD

No, drops are currently based off proximity

that's a pretty big radius too because i've gotten drops from things across areas recently.

Yeah, it's a fairly large radius. 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by worker11

I take it luck won't change what level of rarity is possible in any activity. Just skews you in favor of whatever the highest possible for you is.

Yeah basically, if you're level 30 (eligible for MW's and Leg's) this will factor into your odds of getting those. 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by Baelek

Luck as a stat should not be a thing.

I should be gearing my character to do more damage, kill stuff faster. Not gearing to get more/better drops, doing crap damage and being a carried by my team to more drops.

I feel like i'm cheating myself when i put on that better DPS gear because i just lost 30% luck. That isnt how this should work....

I don't disagree with what you're saying... I think it's something we'll want to have more discussion about going forward.

I'll make sure to kick this along to the systems guys. 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by vehementi

If you can answer some follow ups:

  • does supply drop % factor into ITEM drop rate?

  • can you super duper confirm that all of this is currently functional? Like double check the luck affix is taking effect, etc.?

  • is luck a group stat?

I'm not sure I understand the first question... it is definitely in and working. It is not a group stat.

Hope that helps! 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by vehementi

Sorry I meant, the "+supply drop %" stat. What does it do? Does it factor into item drop rate alongside luck, or does it do something else?

And thanks for your replies :D

Oh! That affects your odds of getting health and ammo drops (it's unrelated). 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by Arahor

So just to make sure I understand, If i have in total Support: +190% Luck across my all my equipped gear together, that should give me the highest possible % chance of achieving higher rarity loot from both kills and chests? (without considering GM difficulties loot % modifer)

Edit: Or does it effect only loot that can drop when you kill an enemy?

If you're looking at luck in isolation, yes... there are a lot of other factors though which can completely mask its effects.

For example if you kill an Ursix (as above) you have an inflated chance to get a drop regardless of whether you have luck or not... the contribution from that will mask any substantive bonuses you get from luck. 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by travisanolesfan

Not sure if I'm too late to the party for this, had an issue last night where I got downed fighting an Titan on Hard and had to respawn. My friend and the two other randoms in our instance managed to kill the Titan as I was flying back to the battle. Was a little dismayed to see no loot on the ground for me. Any chance participation can overwrite proximity in the future?

Otherwise, having an absolute BLAST with this game. Kudos to you and everyone else on the team.

That sounds like a bug, I believe we have a fix for that... but I'm not sure when it's coming. 😶

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by Karenius

Does luck or difficulty even affect masterwork Ember droprates from freeplay chests and material nodes?

No, I don't think so - those work differently from "loot". 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by MrSiippyfist

Hi Brenon - thanks a lot for taking the time to post on this. I thought Ursix would be a good study as I knew my ability to a log a significant pool of results would be difficult (full time dad and stuff) so something with an inflated drop chance would hopefully paint a better picture with less runs.

As a side note I also tested a few vague stats that sounded like they may also influence drop rates, namely - support: drop rate % and support: harvest %The theory going around the community was that both of these would affect the amount of items dropped. However after testing 100% harvest I was unable to get more than the default 2 items, is this as intended?

With drop rate I could only get my build to 40% but also didn't notice a change. To me, harvest sounds like it applies to plants and minerals etc only but support: drop rate has me stumped. If you could clarify the stat that would be great.

Also, just wanted to say a big thank you to you and the rest of the team for an amazing game. Despite the bloated negative press you guys are getting, please rest assured there's an army of us who are loving the game. We know there are faults but we also see the potential for this game and responses like this and the willingness to engage with the community only affirms that we will reach that potential.

Thanks!

I don't have the user-facing strings in front of me right now... so I'd have to double check (I'll come back when I get a bit of time and look it up to be certain).

+Harvest affects plants, minerals, junk piles, abandoned exos, etc.

+Supply is for health and ammo drops (I think)

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by fanny_bandito

But if luck affects both quantity and quality, wouldn't killing an Ursix nullify the quantity aspect of luck, but not the quality aspect?

In my experience, an Ursix always drops 2 items. I'm certainly not expecting to get 3 items to drop when running with 190% luck, but shouldn't repeatedly killing an Ursix with 190% luck result in a greater proportion of rare items as compared to repeatedly killing an Ursix with 0% luck?

You're technically correct (which is the best kind really!)... if you could isolate just those things your luck will factor into the final rarity that you get.

However, there are a whole bunch of other factors... like if the Ursix is the mini-boss for an encounter it might have been scripted to have slightly better rewards.

Basically, everything being equal it should help you get slightly better stuff - but it's complicated because stuff is rarely the same situationally. 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by Tkwan777

Since you're willing to give us numbers, maybe you can enlighten us how cooldown works? I did some testing yesterday and came up with these numbers.

Binary Star 20 seconds

  • 0% gear = 20 seconds

  • 10% gear = 18 seconds

  • 20% gear = 16.6 seconds

  • 30% gear = 15.4 seconds

  • 40% gear = 14.3 seconds

  • 50% gear = 13.3 seconds

  • 60% gear = 12.5 seconds

  • 70% gear = 11.6 seconds

  • 80% gear = 11.0 seconds

  • 90% gear = 10.5 seconds

  • 100% gear = 10.0 seconds

  • 200% = 6.5 seconds

  • 220% = 5.9 seconds

  • 270% = 5.4 seconds

  • 290% = 4.6 seconds

How are percentages applied (diminishing returns?), or is there threshold limits like with luck?

I don't believe cooldown is threshold based, it should just reduce the cooldown (probably to a cap). I'd have to go and dig into it to see specifically how it's working there (and unfortunately, I do need to get back to work! 😊)

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by Azureliske

Speaking of credit for kills, any insight into why we aren't getting credit for "There Be Giants" kills if we're downed when the Giant dies?

Probably the same bug (I mentioned in a different thread on this topic) 😶.

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by D_Banner

Hi Brenon, thanks for the breakdown. Anecdotally something seems off since the last loot patch with this stat. I have a 241% luck build and I consistently get less MW when running it than a 35% build. This has been on every difficulty from easy to GM1. I have played 6 hours each day this week and something seems quite off. Not sure if you can check with the systems team or programmers that something is off with implementation.

Additionally as a side note i get rarer items in easy mode than i do in GM1 running tyrant mine. I would assume this is not the intended design. Confirmed this with 10 runs on easy and 10 runs on GM1 with the same 241 luck javelin

Hmm, I'll poke some folks and we'll take a look. 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by TheEmpireWasRight

The way you describe other factors masking the effects makes it sound like diminishing returns are involved in the rate and rarity formulas.

In which case, luck is actually less effective on higher difficulties, against tougher mobs, etc... Is this the case, or are you just saying that the drop rate bonus from the mob type is more significant than the luck bonus?

Also, you mentioned that it only applies to the maximum potential rarity for your difficulty. However, if drop X has a higher probability of rolling Masterwork due to luck, should we not inherently see a smaller % of Common-Epic drops?

Specifically for drop rate, some of the modifiers that are applied based on enemy type are more significant than the luck bonus.

Yes, as your odds increase of getting your top rarities - the others shrink. So at level 30, you get an increased chance of MW/Leg and a decreased chance of Common-Epic. 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by JerryDaJoker

Not necessarily. Keep in mind that these seem to be directly pulled from code, so the 0-100 bracket is more than likely something to prevent the code from breaking if somehow it is reduced to below 100, rather than saying luck below 100 is supposed to exist in game.

Yeah, this is correct - I spent a bit more time digging into it. Everyone has 100 luck by default (I'll go and edit the post above).

The highest threshold will be reached once you have 90 bonus luck. 😊 (Good guess, and sorry it took a bit to get back to you!)

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by HappyLittleRadishes

w-wait

So luck has no effect whatsoever on loot rarity until it's OVER 100%?

Many (I presume ALL) players reasonably assumed that [Support +60% Luck] meant "you are 60% more likely to get rare gear", or "your odds of finding MW's is multiplied by 1.6x".

But you are telling me that it actually means "you are 0% more likely to get rare gear UNTIL you get more than 100%, THEN AND ONLY THEN it starts affecting your gear rarity drops"?

  1. What, then is the point of expressing it as a percentage, if rare loot probability isn't being affected proportional to the % luck? Why would you purposefully express the statistic as a percentage when it does not behave like one?

  2. Why does Luck fail to affect rare loot probability until it reaches an arbitrary threshold?

  3. Do other statistics expressed in percentages work on a similarly tier system? Does [Ammo Drop +50%] not increase the rate of ammo crystal appearance by 50%? If so, once again, why?

  4. (EDIT) By how much on each "tier" of the luck stat is rare-loot-find improved? If 0-100 is, let's say, 5%, is 101-110 15%? 10%? 5.1%?

The combination of the statistic not being revealed, not working intuitively (i.e. how anyone who understands mathematics would expect it to) and a lack of an explanation from the get go gives the impression that these systems were designed with the intention to mislead players, to be intentionally unreliable.

I updated the post after doing a bit more digging - Base luck is 100 for everyone.

You're probably right that Luck should not be represented as a percentage... because it's not really one. We can probably look at changing that so it's more clear. It's really a "Luck value" not a %. 😊

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by Geksinforce

Can you guys make it so whites and greens don't drop when you're above level 25 they're completely useless and feel like a wasted space

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by Ryctre

What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of *neutrality*?

All I know is that my gut says... Maybe...

over 5 years ago - /u/BrenonHolmes - Direct link

Originally posted by Y_Shocky

Do I need to have +91 Luck overall across my Loadout to get the max. threshold or do I need to get +191 Luck across my Loadout to reach it?

Just to clarify this.

+90 😊