Luck stat is a placebo effect: Change my mind

ckx00000 · December 22, 2019, 2:50pm

The luck stat has absolutely zero effect in this game. It is a useless stat that does exactly nothing to effect drop rate of gear and has no effect on any other aspect of the game.

Luck is simply there as a filler stat to artificially inflate the Guardian Rank tree and does nothing but waste you points. Any change you think you experience from Luck is merely a placebo effect in your mind because the stat actually does exactly nothing.

*Also the drop rate on Mayhem 4 is way jacked up (especially in Maliwan Takedown) but also everywhere in general.

highvolts42 · December 22, 2019, 4:27pm

These aren’t the luck stats your looking for.

davidmorganbray · December 22, 2019, 5:03pm

This is where a reliable gun pickup stat counting mechanism would be just great. Then we could scientifically find out the most unlucky and lucky boarderlands players in the world

And if you had something like Cortana, it could read you the stats back…Something along the lines of:

“You have received 10000 legendaries in total, 1000 were variants of the Woodblocker…, and lucky you 300 of them were anointed. …You have received 125 with improved accuracy, and handling, 125 with a 30% increase in ‘x’ while sliding, etc…”

DocStrangelove · December 22, 2019, 5:03pm

During my Killavolt farming I’m pretty sure equipping a +luck artifact has had some effect. I seem to get a few more legendaries, and most importantly more anointed ones.

Of course I can’t back this up with actual stats. Maybe I was just lucky. But if you say that it definitely has no effect, certainly you can back that up with facts?

ckx00000 · December 22, 2019, 11:35pm

Feels.

And the fact about feels is that feels ain’t fact. However, the point is, I agree but I disagree, and I agree to disagree so long as we agree about the things we disagree on.

stray1 · December 22, 2019, 11:43pm

The difference I saw in drops doing Jabbermowgai runs when I changed to a loaded dice with +12 luck was significant. It was still 90% sprinklers and magnificent but there are more of them lol.

jgartenbenz · December 23, 2019, 12:04am

For it to be a placebo effect, it would have to be at least slightly effective while being intended to have no actual effect. In short, by calling Luck a placebo effect you’re saying it actually works.

dorian.odet · December 23, 2019, 12:10am

Luck, like all game, is likely additive (they all do the same), meaning it make some minor impact in M0, but as you raise the level of Mayhem is become a speck of dust

Traveller · December 23, 2019, 8:16am

I disagree to agree. but you already knew that we cant agree. so that means you disagree too right?

Calliphoridae · December 23, 2019, 8:45am

There was already a reddit experiment where they tested the loaded dice, luck relic roll, the combination of the two, and “vanilla” drops. 1000 GW kills each.

Findings concluded about a 3-5% extra legendary drop rate on average. So it’s probably statistically significant, but functionally not worth it.

Like almost any other loot based RPG, kill speed >>> increased drop rate. Crank the mayhem up as high as you can still efficiently farm on, and that’s about as good as you can hope for.

Steeveyb · December 23, 2019, 8:56am

Im curious if it’ll have more of an effect with guns such as the lucky 7

mourning6lory · December 23, 2019, 9:00am

Steeveyb

2m

Im curious if it’ll have more of an effect with guns such as the lucky 7

Doubtful. The luck on the Lucky 7 is in the reload and which effects you roll for that mag.

Steeveyb · December 23, 2019, 9:06am

I know, but its still something to ponder as it could have other purposes other than just loot

olivier_shady · December 23, 2019, 9:32am

well if you can feel the difference between a 1% droprate and a 2 % you have superpowers, and yet it s double! Same principle here

greyhald · December 23, 2019, 10:06am

Don’t believe everything you read. That’s back when it was assumed that it was all RNG just because that’s how BL2 and TPS did things.

It’s increasingly becoming quite possible that there’s other controls in place and that Luck quite possibly controls improved chances at rarer components so that even though only a few more drop, they are all more likely to have multiple desirable rolls.

Of course it all may prove to be true or it might all be hoke and bunkum. Time will tell if we ever get enough data for someone to work it out.

DocStrangelove · December 23, 2019, 5:53pm

Since I’m farming Killavolt anyway, I thought why not note some stats so I can see if luck actually works? So I’ve kept track of legendary drops. Note that I’ve only kept track of legendary drops in Mayhem 4, I didn’t test anything on lower levels, nor did I care about white/green/blue/purple drops because at this point they don’t matter anyway, do they?

Spoiler: I think I’ll have to agree with ckx00000, at least when it comes to legendary drops from Killavolt.

I’ve kept stats with three different artifacts: one gives “+12.67 luck”, the second one is a Loaded Dice that “substantially increases luck”, and the third one doesn’t have any luck bonus at all. I’ve killed 120 Killavolts and 480 bandits, and opened 120 white chests.

I’ve done 40 runs with each, half on normal M4 and half on TVHM M4. This doesn’t qualify for scientific proof, but it certainly gives a direction. Results:

KillavoltLuckBonusComparison

All results are in the +/-10% range so there’s no significant statistical difference that can’t be attributed to chance. Interestingly, the Loaded Dice which “substantially increases luck” performed worst.

One thing worth noting is that during all of that, I’ve had bandits drop a legendary 4 times, and all of them were when using the +12.67 luck artifact. This may be chance, but it may also hint at the luck stat increasing drops from regular enemies, something that may deserve further observation.

I’ve also addressed the normal Mayhem vs. TVHM Mayhem thing. Result:

KillavoltMayhemNormalVsTVHM

This actually didn’t surprise me because I always upheld that there’s probably no difference between normal Mayhem and TVHM Mayhem whatsoever. This video came to a similar conclusion. The fight always felt exactly the same and the XP gained from killing Killavolt was always the same too. It reinforces me in my belief that there’s no difference at all: Mayhem is TVHM + modifiers, no matter where you launch it.

Takeaway: I probably won’t bother with the +XY luck stat anymore and certainly not with the Loaded Dice.

moustangman · December 23, 2019, 7:12pm

May I ask what Guardian Rank luck modifier you had? That applies to all characters all of the time.

Boardtodeath_TV · December 23, 2019, 7:58pm

Yea, luck does nothing so far all tests have proven it useless… I used the shield that drops LUCK booster and picked up like 10 in a row and then opened a Chest and got crap. Unless they add something that will tell you “this happened because of LUCK!” when you open a chest or something…don’t waste time on Luck.

DocStrangelove · December 23, 2019, 8:34pm

Luck guardian rank is +8.43%

moustangman · December 23, 2019, 9:11pm

And that is a main issue here.

Before you say “Luck makes no difference” you must first determine how much difference “luck” should actually be making.

Let’s say you’re trying to farm a dedicated loot drop. With no modifiers your odds of getting the specific item to drop are about 2.66%. Your odds of that item being anointed are just 25% of that, or a total of 0.665%.

So your odds of getting a specific loot item to drop with an anointment are 0.665%. Now, let’s say you have an item that boosts your “Luck” by 14%. That brings your chances up to a whopping 0.7581% chance. Still less than 1 in 100. Think you’ll notice that difference with just 40 runs? Or even 100 runs? You MIGHT notice it with 1,000 runs.

Next question you need to determine is what exactly does Luck influence? The number of items dropped? The rarity of the items dropped? Anointments? How about which types of items dropped? All of these, or a combination of two of them? Do you even know?

I haven’t tested Luck specifically, but I do know this. With a 14.56% Guardian Rank luck settings, I get Hex Grenades all of the time and more rare legendaries as world drops like the Hex, Maggie, and Lyuda where my friends with less than 5% luck are getting Woodblockers, The Lob, and Malek’s Bane every third drop. Rather than counting drops you may want to take a closer look at what is being dropped.