taken fromThread Luck found in UO.UHall


Comment

I am a bit confused on some things concerning wearing luck. I have heard rumors that no matter who kills or damages a creature, if someone with high luck opens the corpse, that persons luck is all that matters? This means no loot spawns on any creature before it is opened? Also, when partied the luck of the entire party is averaged correct? This means adding in players doing damage with 0 luck averages the 0s in too. I am not concerned with artie or mini artie drops.

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Leurocian Ultima Online Designer

Luck comes into play the moment loot is generated on the corpse, and that would be upon death of the creature by the top attacker.
QQ Sometimes when a monster spawns, if you watch closely, you can see the Gold appear at the ground before it goes into the monsters "pack"..I"m fairly certain the items that will spawn are already in a "holding pattern"..until the monster drops....who's Luck effects the properties; is still beyond me...
Some items such as gold, paragon chests, and other exceptions spawn at the time the creature spawns in the world. However, magic items spawn on death of the creature.

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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator

Oh, here's where I admit openly that the website is a mess. Let me break this down:

Design docs for a particular publish are not, to my knowledge, ever updated. So a pub 28 design doc may very well have inaccurate info - it was accurate for pub 28, but we're on pub 43. The site design does not make that at all clear, particularly when you pull up design docs by searching for keywords, and I apologize for that. I'm trying to figure out a way to make it more obvious that those are historical documents.

The theoretically accurate document would be here, and if it's not accurate, it should be changed. The design doc won't be changed, either way, because that's not its purpose.

Then we have the Knowledge Base, which is sometimes more correct than the playguide - in this specific case here, the KB article describes what the original design doc says, which is different from what the playguide says. This should match the playguide, but... it doesn't.

As I found all these conflicting reports, I was running them by Leurocian to figure out which one was true, and he ended up actually going back to the code and checking. And... they're all wrong. As was his answer in this thread - it was true at one point, but a relatively recent change made it untrue. Here is the actual story on whose luck is applied:

Each player's own luck will play a role in determining the loot that is received, even in the case of a party.

This change occurred with the "instanced corpses" feature - so you get an instanced corpse with loot rolled based on your own personal luck, no matter what the luck of the other group members or of the highest attacker.

I hope that's actually clear, and I am going to a) turn this into a FoF question, because it's actually a really good one, and b) beat the website until it makes sense. B) might take a little while

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Leurocian Ultima Online Designer


Silly me didn't actually look at the code before responding. I completely forgot about luck and loot being adjusted to account for instanced corpses. Sorry about the misinformation everyone. I actually looked at the code today and provided Jeremy with the actual information.

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From Leurocian:

"Always an instance per person... Not only did I look at the code, I also pinged the original dev again who worked on it - EvilMantis was his call name"

Once burned, twice shy

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Perfection: (again from Leurocian)


"This is in the Stratics samurai profession faq - "Furthermore, the level of perfection increases the samurais luck trait value by 100 for each step of perfection he holds, thus a samurai who has achieved perfection is getting in essence 1,000 luck against his current opponent for determination of loot. " and is consistent with what I just saw in the code"


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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator

OK, so, we have firmly established what the luck is actually doing. Now we're trying to make sure the corpse instancing is doing what we think it's doing. More to come...


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I can tell you from experience playing the game and killing many many many peerlesses that if you're in a party when the monster dies, there is one corpse that's shared by the whole party. That's why it's become standard practice for a peerless group to split the party shortly before the monster dies, for division of loot. If the code says there should be an instance for each member in the party then something has gone haywire, because it's not working like that in game.

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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator

Casey, if that's the case, then it seems like it's bugged. Which would be handy to know

Gildar, no kidding.

..............I will concur that we're all now thoroughly confused. I've sent the issue over to QA to clarify - Mesanna is great at figuring out what we all think we're talking about.

I am perplexed by the absolutely lousy luck my guilded tamer has when his pet is soloing the sphynxes/ice fiends. Even when wearing 1480 luck, there are multiple times he has only 2 bottom of the trash barrel items besides the mandatory gold and 2 scrolls on the corpse. Are tamers considered partied, and thus the zero luck pet being the top attacker results in loot one wouldn't dare donate to goodwill? My tamer's luck is awful, and whether he's wearing 1400+ or 0 luck... it makes no difference!

I too have never had any kind of good "luck" while wearing high end luck suits. Most people say that you would need huge amounts of data from drops to see if it is truly working or not basing it on the percentages of highend vs lowend items...

My son-in-law says it does work. I would wear the luck suit. Have pets kill the bloods and he would loot. Over time he noticed that it was definitely better loot.

Vepl

Thank to Dip, I will see if I can prove if it works since I have 1300 luck now but !!!!ty resist, hehe

Good luck Ben, my personal experience brought me to the conclusion that there is a "right" amount of luck to wear. But that's based off a small time hunting while wearing luck.

I can't believe they are discussing removing the ability for parties to receive an instance corpse instead of individual players. That is almost the only reason to be in a party anymore.

UPDATED posts & Dev. replies

After a bit of thinking...
As far as the instanced corpses go, it was my understanding that a party is supposed share an instance. This allows for parties to still just have one looter for the group (which is part of what parties were originally added for).

As far as how luck is applied in party situations... what seems to make the most sense to me for what should happen is each individual person in a party gets their own instance generated as if they weren't in a party, and then all the individual instances for each person in the party get combined into one big party instance. I do not know what actually does happen though... but something in the back of my head seems to be poking me to say highest luck in the party or luck of the highest damage dealer in the party... but I have no clue where that poking thing is coming from.

I think something that would be nice to add on to parties (particularly to solve the peerless 'drop party at last second' situation that has been mentioned in this thread already) is the option to prevent your personal instance from being added to the party instance (and as a result also prevent you from digging through the party instance).

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As for luck, it seems that luck of perfection doesn't work: cf.here

This is the post that luners posted more than a half years ago. If devs look into luck, please look into this too. Wilki said that he would look into this, but I don't hear that this was fixed.

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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator



OK, we have determined the following:

- You are all totally right, and if you're in a group the corpse does not instance. This may be a bug, it may not, we're still discussing that.

- However, it appears that if you break party and all do get instanced corpses, it generates the same amount of loot, just split up.

We're still plugging away at this one, and it appears that this is more a whole system that needs to be looked at/documented, so it'll take a while, but hopefully by this evening I'll at least have something coherent for the FoF.

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No no no no no no no no no. Don't change this! Sometimes we party just so the loot does not get split up into instances.

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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator


Well, I think - and it's possible I'm wrong, which is why we're still discussing it - the issue is that if it doesn't instance when you're in a party, the luck is being applied incorrectly, or not at all, or something wonky, because Leurocian was convinced from looking at the code that even in a party it should apply each person's luck to the loot they get.

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oh that would be quite awesome lol, then again those who do 5 peerless in a row and each person gets a whole corpse would be upset hehe



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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator


OK, we were all wrong, repeatedly. FoF to be posted soon, but the short answer is this:

"So, basically, loot is created once, using the luck of the top attacker. It's then divided in a number of interesting ways, but no other luck value ever touches it. It doesn't matter if the top attacker is in a party, or if any other attackers are in a party - it's solely the luck value of the top attacker. "

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So, now Leurocian's first repsonse, which he say sorry to provide that wrong information before checking the code, is indeed the correct one.......... Interesting

Ok, if thats true, that probably means there is no point to wear high luck armor for a group hunt, unless the high luck armor also give you enough offensive/defensive power to make you as the top attacker.....

I would like to ask another question.... How the looting right determined for a party? Is that all members in the party have the looting right if anyone in the party due 1/16 damage (I'm not sure the no., kind of remember somewhere mentioned 1/16)? How about the party break before the monster die?

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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator

Check out today's Five on Friday for the complete breakdown of how looting works.

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I vaguely remember a publish note that said party luck was supposed to be changed to use the highest luck of all the people in the party.

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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator

That's the problem - there are several notes in several places that all say different things. Until I can get to them all to squish them, consider this FoF the definitive looting guide.

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How could you know this?

As a result, this was the right answer.

But Leurocian didn't answer at this time yet.

And, as I pointed out in my later post, there was no official statement that explains this content. At that time, the latest official description how luck works was:


How could you know this right answer in this situation?

note:I have edited my post, because I used wrong tense.

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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator

That is NOT the latest official statement anymore. This is how it works:

"So, basically, loot is created once, using the luck of the top attacker. It's then divided in a number of interesting ways, but no other luck value ever touches it. It doesn't matter if the top attacker is in a party, or if any other attackers are in a party - it's solely the luck value of the top attacker. "

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This is what happens when people open their mouths... err, let their fingers roam wild?

I'm sure 90% of what people think is supposed to be, is reported by players and not straight from devs.

This is intertesting.....

I agree Dip

That does absolutely nothing unless you do so little damage that you fail to get even 1/16th of his. You still get loot rights. And if the "dufus" is wearing a high luck suit, then his good luck will be used to determine what kind of loot you will get, if I'm reading Jeremy and Leurocian's responses right.

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Could you please tell us more about the "separate code"?

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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator

That's another question entirely - I may do it for this Friday, though.

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A, B, C & D are in a party. They go to peerless. A is the top attacker until about 1/8 life then the party breaks. Then B is the top attacker with A remaining the overall top attacker. Since the party is ended we al get our own instanced corpses but who's luck is then applied. It the damage coalculator reset when a party disbands? Would B's luck then work for everyone, or since A was the overall attacker does only his luck count. Then by chance how does luck affect rare drops such as crimson? Is it totally random of all players or does an individual's luck determine whether or not only 1 drops if he gets it or its totally random between the 4.

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Obviously I'm not the dev and I may be wrong on my own intepretation, but what I understanded form FoF is the top attacker list is always determined by each individual, no matter he is in a party or not. So, the break of party doesn't affect the list (i.e. there is no such thing like "A is overall top attacker" and "B is top attacker"). In your example, let said A still the Top Attacker when the boss dead, A's luck will be applied when loot is generated. Whether break or not break the party affects whether everyone's instants corpse merged into one party corpse (and lootable by all party's members) or not.
The special loot distribution (minor/major arti) is however not mentioned in the FoF, unless I missed something.

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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator


OK, man, this is an issue sorely in need of documentation.

Looting rights: The second half of the Item #1 is in fact incorrect (which is entirely my fault, not Wilki's.) Here is more info on how looting rights are determined:

- If the max hp of the creature is:
less than 300 hp: you have to do at least 1/2 of the damage to get looting rights.
between 300 and 1000 hp: you have to do at least 1/4 of the damage to get looting rights.
1000 and 3000 hp: you have to do at least 1/8 of the damage to get looting rights.
3000 or more hp: you have to do at least 1/16 of the damage to get looting rights.

- The person who does the first blow gets their damage multiplied by 25% for the purposes of calculating looting rights

- First and last blows are also used in calculating a tiebreaker, but as you'd have to do EXACTLY the same amount of damage, ties would be rare.

Now, this (and the rest of the FoF) is only about loot found on corpses. It does NOT apply to arties, power scrolls, Treasures of Tokuno, or any other loot that appears in your backpack rather than on the corpse. Those items are governed by totally separate code.

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