Oblivion talk:Luck

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Quote: In fact, nothing can: the engine caps the effectiveness of all skills at 100. Does this count for magical boosting too? If you have Blade at level 100 and a ring that fortifies Blade by 10 pts, does it make no difference at all to just leaving it at level 100?

Contents 1 Source of information? 2 What about Athletics and Acrobatics? 3 Equation 4 Hidden Bonus? 5 Luck effect on loot 6 Mehrunes Razor 7 Raising Luck

[edit] Source of information?

It would be nice to know where this info is taken from, since it would mean that luck is completly useless once you got all skills maxed out, which would be a nice flaw in the concept i guess...

This information was uncovered through rigorous testing. Yes, foritfy blade 10 if you have blade 100 will get you nothing, just as luck 55 and luck 50 makes no difference once you hit blade 100. Luck is only completely useless if you are playing the game to max out everything. Certainly it is worth rethinking such things as the +5/+5/+1 leveling scheme in light of the 100 cap, but it isn't completely worthless. --Thehankerchief 15:13, 16 May 2006 (EDT)

Does Luck influence stuff like quality of loot found in crates or successful harvest chance?

I don't know, and it is difficult to test. I'd guess no on the loot, and a pessimistic maybe on harvesting. --Thehankerchief 16:58, 16 May 2006 (EDT)

Luck had a major impact on random loot in Morrowind, so I'd be pretty surprised if it didn't have some impact on it in Oblivion, too. --Dev akm 17:27, 22 January 2007 (EST)

I did some testing with leveled loot lists and luck in Oblivion, and found no effect on quality or quantity of loot. Used a leveled list with 50% chance to find a leveled light helmet. At level higher than 20 you get mithril, elven or glass with equal chance, if you use preview select a level higher than 20 and select a count of 1000 you would get around 166 of each. I created a mod with a barrel with 1000 of this leveled list. I found around 145-190 helmets of each type with no visible difference if my luck was 0 or 100. Reloaded and looked around 20 times, the numbers was always different but you did not get better items or more totally at high luck.

I have not tested with plants, but it should be pretty easy with the vineyards outside Skingrad and a autoharvest mod. ^{—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.90.234.108 (talk • contribs).}

Perhaps this had more to do with the way the leveled list was structured? For example, the iLevItemLevelDifferenceMax setting may have prevented you from getting anything other than the equal-chance distribution you described. Might be worth rechecking it with a lower-level character or a list where the items have different level-spots.--Dev akm 13:32, 14 February 2007 (EST)

I was pretty curious about this result, too, so I did some more testing last week using the same idea, and my tests showed the same result: no effect on leveled loot from increasing luck. And iLevItemLevelDifferenceMax definitely wouldn't explain this result: that would just truncate the lowest level item(s) on the list and make them never appear, it wouldn't otherwise skew the likelihood of lower level items showing up.

Just to cover more bases, I did tests using 5%, 10%, and 50% probability lists (each with leather (lvl 3), chainmail (lvl 6), or mithril (lvl 10) helmets). I did the tests with a level 15 character, but because iLevItemLevelDifferenceMax takes the minimum of the character level and the highest level item on the list, anything from level 2 to level 10 is equally likely for a list that tops out at level 10, no matter what level your character is. As in the example above, I added 1000 of these to containers. I also added in some leveled gold, just to check what happens with one of the game's default lists. I added both LL0GoldLeveled50 and LL0GoldChange50 to each container. I revamped the WarehouseContainer testing area so all the containers in there were filled with 1000 instances of one leveled list, and one instance of each of the gold lists.

Another thing that I did differently was I tested for Luck=1, Luck=99, and Luck=200 (all set using "player.setav luck", so these were the base values of the attributes, not modified values). I chose 1 and 99 just in case there was something quirky about 0 or 100 (I've seen one luck-related script where 100 got dropped from the script). And then 200 was just to pick an even larger value.

The bottom line is I could not see any effect from luck on any of the lists. In case anyone is curious, here are the numbers for the 10% list and the leveled gold list:

Luck	% with any helmet	Of helmets, % with leather	Of helmets, % with chain	Of helmets, % with mithril	% with leveled gold	average leveled gold
1	10.175%	32.38%	34.15%	33.46%	55%	280
99	10.2%	33.87%	33.63%	32.50 %	50%	273.75
200	9.885%	32.27%	33.84%	33.89 %	55%	293.86

This is for a sample size of 20,000 with the helmets and a sample size of 40 for the gold (i.e., the statistics for the gold are definitely worse). If anyone cares about the other cases, I'd be happy to share them, but there is really no evidence of a pattern. The number of items found does not get better with higher luck and the value of the items found does not get better. --Nephele 17:59, 14 February 2007 (EST)

Well, that's a pretty comprehensive test, so I imagine that settles the question once and for all. Good work, man!--Dev akm 16:55, 7 March 2007 (EST)

I disagree. My test has (as this test confirmes) that luck has no effect on non-enchanted items quiality (mine found on baddies, his i a barrel) but I did find an significant increase in random/generic loot. One might speculate if this is because only some leveled lists are affected by luck (Enchanted items seems to benifit and in my "static test" the increase was most significant in the generic chests, where first run gave no goodies other then gold and potions, whereas my 411-luck run 3 pcs of jewlry (one enchanted) and significantly increase in gold and potions. I will of cause test further, but I only have Xbox360 availble, so testing is teadious and testing with mods is not possible. --SeekerDK 09:52, 28 March 2007 (EDT) (Please refere to last entry in the luck-talk section for my refrence).

It's hard to see how the game would differentiate between the different leveled lists. All that the game basically sees is (a) a list saying x% chance of finding an item, and (b) these are the possible items at each level. There isn't any obvious flag that says "this list should have luck applied". And the tests I did confirmed that not only is the quality of the item unaffected, but also the chance of finding any item. As I said, I did tests using lists that only give a 5% chance of the item appearing (which is basically the same as the lists that give you jewelry from generic chests), and there was no increase in the number of items. I also did tests using the standard gold leveled lists, i.e., the exact same leveled lists that you suggest gave you more gold when you increased your luck.

I'm also reluctant to place too much faith in one test, because it's likely that there are five other people who did the same test you just tried, got negative results, and therefore didn't bother to post them. I realize that using standard game play it's really tedious to do more than one test, but really something like 5-10 tests are needed to give any type of meaningful statistics (with multiple low luck and multiple high luck tests). If you are able to do more tests and continue to get consistent results, please report back, and I'd be happy to discuss in more detail what might be different between your tests and my tests. --Nephele 23:27, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

I'll see what i can do. Thou i would expect to much from me at this point. I'm still on my first char and hav not yet reached 100h or anything near completion of either main nor guild quests. I would how ever suggest that try some other lists then equipment/gold adding stuff like repair hammers, jewelry and enchantments. I had some debate on the forum on this topic as well ( http://www.uesp.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=3362 ) and the only thing conclusive I've been able to come up with for now, is that equipment amount and quality is not affected, thou I still believe that quite a few lists are still affected by luck. Things I would like an inside to, could also include generic loot lists like "minor loot" off baddies and in generic chests. --SeekerDK 07:59, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

I did a couple more tests set up to be more like your conditions: level 22 character, 2 tests at base luck (75) and 2 tests with fortified luck (441, spells+potions). I looked at four standard leveled lists: LL0LootRepairHammer25, LL0LootLockPick25, LL0LootJewelry10, and LL2LootPotionsCombat10. These are lists used to fill the generic chests found in Fort Nikel. Bottom line is there was no difference between the low luck and high luck cases. For example, repair hammers: 241 and 249 with low luck, 246 and 247 with high luck. Lockpicks: 268 and 244 with low luck, 239 and 255 with high luck. --Nephele 01:58, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Just a question on Nephele's methods: when you changed the player's Luck value during your tests, did you reload the area in any way? As an XBox/XBox 360 user, just now starting to play around with Morrowind on the PC, I was under the impression that a chest's contents were determined the moment you entered a cell. If you entered the cell with, for example, Luck 50, then changed your Luck via the console but didn't reload the cell, the chests may have already been affected by this Luck value (and may have already been loaded with loot the moment you entered the area).

The only reason I ask is because you didn't talk about the specific testing method, just the environment (using the Warehouse), and I recall Luck making a huge difference in the contents of chests in Daggerfall; in the very beginning of that game, I'd raised my Luck to something significantly high via the console, and received vast amounts of quality loot and gold from chests that had previously contained scant, very low-quality items. Unless they changed the Luck mechanics significantly since Daggerfall, and even Morrowind (where using two amulets of +50 Luck before entering bandit caves seemed to net me Grand Soul Gems in most barrels), I'm wondering why Luck has so little effect on loot in Oblivion.

Of course, I could just be entirely confused as to how Oblivion (and Morrowind, and Daggerfall) generate container contents. Could you clarify the way you tested, and where my confusion lies in the way Oblivion decides loot in general? --TheRayven 15:44, 14 July 2007 (EDT)

Yes, the content of a container is generated when you first enter an area (that's one of the things that the CPU is busy processing while you watch the load screen). In all of my tests, my character's luck was changed as soon as I loaded the save game, which in this case meant that my character was standing outside in the streets of Anvil. I then coc'd to the test warehouse. So the contents were all generated based upon the revised value of luck, not my character's original value. I also did tests in which I visited the test warehouse multiple times without making any other changes, and confirmed that the container contents only became fixed once I had entered the warehouse. If the contents were not being freshly generated, I would have seen the exact same items in the containers every single time, and I wasn't.

Oblivion was basically written from scratch, and there are many examples of substantial differences in the mechanics between Oblivion and Morrowind. So Morrowind can't really be used to figure out how Oblivion works. --Nephele^Talk 16:27, 14 July 2007 (EDT)

Thank you for the clarification! I assumed you'd done the testing "correctly", I just wanted to verify. It's disappointing that Luck has no impact on loot... oh well! --TheRayven 16:35, 14 July 2007 (EDT)

[edit] What about Athletics and Acrobatics?

Your general argument is correct, but from my reading and testing, all skills effectively cap at 100 except Athletics and Acrobatics. So there is a (small) benefit to maxing out Luck, as you gain slightly higher running speed and jumping height.

Ha! You're right! I missed those two, so I double checked them and it seems that Luck does not even affect those two skills. I've updated the article to reflect this. I double check alchemy as well - it is capped and affected by luck. Security, Sneak, and Speechcraft are also candidates for exception, but are rather difficult to test. --Thehankerchief 22:41, 16 May 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Equation

Following comment by Helpdesk moved here from main page:

PROBLEM: on the weapons demage formulas page, this formula is shown as .04 * (luck - 50). is it 0.4 or .04??

The equation is 0.4: a 5 point boost in luck is equivalent to a 2 point boost in all your skills --Nephele 20:06, 24 September 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Hidden Bonus?

It is rumored that raising your luck skill to 100 will provide the player character with a hidden +10 bonus to all of his other attributes. --This note (made by Vartan) was moved from the main page as it needs to be confirmed. --Werdnanoslen^Talk 14:49, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

False. It is most likely derived from the fact that luck has a direct (but not shown) effect on all skills at the facter 5luck = 2skills. --SeekerDK 07:16, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Luck effect on loot

I seriously think there is something gained by luck in leveled loot.

I did a quick run of Fort Nikel with a Luck of 101 at lvl21. This gave a couple of lockpicks and R-hammers, about 300 gold, couple of potions and the normal loot of unenchanted gear from the baad guys. Loaded the game just before i entered and gave my self a severe luck boost with 4 X 30pts luck potions and 2x95pts spell (2 diffrent spells @ 100pts x 95% effectiveness) landing me a at wooping 411. This run provided me with a magic amulet, 8 arrows of flames, 2 unenchanted pcs of jewlry and a severe increase in potions (both number and quality), lockpicks, R-hammers and gold (around 600). BUT the it did not seem to have and effect on the battle equipment carried by the bad guys (execpt for M-arrows). Niether quality nor amount.

In a ealier, less controlled test, a 120pts luck boost at Rockmilk Cave proved quite beneficial for the magical eq carryed by the ring leaders, both in terms of enchanment quality and number of magical items carried.

Please try it and se for your self.

First of all, please start adding signatures. Second, I must note that Luck has almost no effect on the loot. When I got my Luck down to 0 with a custom potion, the loot was the same as it would have been if I was 100 Luck. It only makes a difference in that it increases the chances of a rare item appearing very slightly. It also has no effect on the auto-lock picking. --69.85.153.182 00:45, 28 March 2008 (EDT) A.K.A. Eiyuu Kou

I would like to see a test done on the effects of Luck on chests that have a chance of generating a "major" magical item (such as Bladeturn Hood, Amulet of Axes, etc.). Obviously Luck does not affect the chance of getting a mithril helm, but... so what? I want to know if it affects my chance of getting the good stuff. Reason being: I have never gotten Amulet of Axes on my 360 save, and I'm at a loss as to why, since I've done bajillions of boss chests in 550+ hours of gameplay. The other thing I wonder is, if luck is over 255, does it start counter-acting your odds of anything? Does making your luck be 32,000+ make a big difference vs. 200+ in regards to drops? I wonder what the luck levels that people used in these tests were. Did anyone try very high (16-bit type) numbers? Thanks. - DarkGoob

Umm, lets see. Perhaps you haven't found an Amulet of Axes because there's no chance of finding one until you're at level 20? Or perhaps because even once you're level 20, the chance of finding one even in boss chests is only about 1 in 700? Or perhaps because you've been checking Bandit Dungeon boss chests, which even at level 50 have 0% chance of ever containing any piece of jewelry? Trying to translate "bajillions" into reality here: you've probably really only checked maybe 100 boss chests (of 550 hours of gameplay, maybe 300 at level 20+, perhaps 3 hours to explore a dungeon containing one boss chest). So the odds say that you're actually very unlikely to have found an Amulet of Axes. Perhaps when you're up to 10,000 hours of game play (or can prove that you've checked thousands of boss chests) you could have a legitimate expectation to have found an Amulet of Axes.

Or, here's a deal. You tell me how you'll get your luck to 32000 (especially on the Xbox!!), then I'll do a test to see what happens your luck is at 32000. Given that 400 luck is about the largest value that you're ever likely to reach with your character, why is there any reason to test what happens at luck greater than 400? Tests have already been done (as described on this page) at 200 luck and at 441 luck, covering both the below-255 and above-255 ranges, and covering what would seem to me to be the range of what's realistically possible. If I said that getting your luck to 32000 would guarantee that you'd find an Amulet of Axes, how would that help you?

Finally, for the most radical idea yet: if you don't agree with the tests, why don't you find a way to set up some tests yourself that prove the tests that have been done so far are inadequate? Given that I already think that the existing tests are more than comprehensive, I have very little interest in redoing what I've already done dozens of times. If you think that work needs to be done, the best way to make sure it happens is if you do the work yourself. --Nephele^Talk 01:44, 8 June 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Mehrunes Razor

based on the formula for mehrunes razor, DeathChance = PlayerLuck * 0.05, if you boost your luck to 2000, can you get 100% chance of daedric banishing?

No, because as stated at Mehrunes Razor (where that equation comes from): DeathChance is at least 1 and at most 10. So boosting your luck past 200 has absolutely no effect on daedric banishing. --Nephele^Talk 00:52, 21 August 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Raising Luck

How is luck raised? I can't find this information anywhere. 71.231.143.65 14:34, 8 May 2008 (EDT)

It's raised the exact same way as every other attribute: by selecting it when you level up. The information is provided at the same places where you can find it for the other attributes. For example, on the Attributes article or on the Increasing Attributes article (which includes a subsection specifically on Luck). --Nephele^Talk 15:02, 8 May 2008 (EDT)

Ah. I didn't realize that you could raise an attribute that didn't have a +X indicator to the right. I was waiting for "+1" to show up. 71.231.143.65 20:43, 8 May 2008 (EDT)