Game Mechanics I think that the new luck stat mechanic is flawed

[Derunih]

Having found out about this BY ACCIDENT while reading the wiki, after placing over 200 normal torches in the Jungle... Either bad luck should give you a visible debuff to raise awareness, or plain torches should be neutral. Increasing RNG grind will never go down well with any community, after all.
I do find the good luck a great addition though, if you are willing to invest int it. Extra grinding through an invisible, never mentioned in game mechanic is harsh though, it would be so easy to add Luck tips to the Guide.

 

[maxmanatarms]

I give up, you're seeing what you want to see, I tried my hardest to help you.

Actually you did nothing but go "its okay learn to deal with it" not hey yes this seems to be a very hidden and "secret" set up but it can help. Sure i can agree with that sentencing. you didn't.

and i qoute " theres other things never explined but your not qqing about it . This is a boon really it is"
"Everyone is complaining about the one thing but not the other things" you added nothing sir/madam. Nothing.

 

[Yvori]

Agreed wholely. The Luck mechanic needs to GO.
At the very least, the torch mechanic needs to be gone, we shouldn't be forced to use certain types or torch or have terrible RNG affecting nearly every single aspect of the game.

 

[Schrödinger's psycho]

Luck should stay. But only as buff - all the negatives shouldn't be there in the first place, especially a negative torch impact. What if one just likes how ice torches looks like and love to use them everywhere? Players shouldn't be punished for their aesthetics choises, only rewarded.
Terraria's grind is already bad enough, no need make it even worse over some visual things that are matter of opinion.

 

[Heroman3003]

Imo, even negative luck existing as a debuff is not a bad game design aspect. Ladybugs and NPCs dying makes sense, one encourages not to kill critters for lulz, another encourages to protect your people. But placing a wrong color of a torch is definitely not something that should be a negative luck impact. Have it be a debuff some rare enemies apply or something. Move the luck buffs AND debuffs from wrong firetype to campfires (which were specifically added these update in such variety! Make it matter!). Have some other items add changes to your luck (Lucky Horseshoe/Lucky Accesory modifier). Its just the limited state its in right now that makes completely no sense, but overall as manipulatable mechanic and proper stat that is applied where sensible, its a good thing. Although, I do think that item drops shouldn't be affected by iy at all: positively or negatively. It completely invalidates information provided by bestiary.

 

[The Owler]

I give up, you're seeing what you want to see, I tried my hardest to help you.

You aren't really helping.

 

[MasterworkStone]

You aren't really helping.

That's why I said I tried my hardest to help, but clearly I can't convince anyone that this mechanic isn't the bad thing they think it is.
I'm not going to argue about this anymore, I know how the feature works and what it does, I know how extremely easy it is to just make a biome torch, I'm just kind of upset that I can't get this through to anyone.
There are now 15 people who have voted in this thread's poll that don't understand how the mechanic actually works.

The only thing I agree on is that it should at the very least have buffs and debuffs that give you a hint at what your luck is, have the wizard give you more detail about it.
It does need some redesign, make it more clear to the player what's going on.

 

[Metoot]

I completely agree that this is bad design. This would be a good mechanic if it rewarded players for knowing when and what to do. Instead, the game silently punishes you for a completely meaningless thing, being what type of torch you are using, and it's highly possible that you don't even know it's a thing. The torch types affect the following things:

• Damage output (the game rolls twice and takes the lowest roll)
• Item drops, including coins
• Rare enemies spawning

This doesn't seem to matter for any other light sources as well, of which this game has many.

This could be improved by either only letting torch luck give positive buffs, or removing it altogether and punishing/rewarding the player for correct light source usage in some other way, for instance, letting it take a toll on NPC happiness.

 

[Chry]

I like the idea of the Luck mechanic. I feel it wasn't fully fleshed out though.

By all means, keep the biome specific torches and their benefit to Luck, but the default torch has got to be neutral. Literally everyone see's the torch at the start and whacks it down every which way and every biome. Punishing players for using the torch is a bit much. HOWEVER, I am down to learn how the new mechanic works, especially for grinding drops, but I do feel there needs to be some sort of information regarding the luck mechanic in-game earlier than the wizard. Maybe add some kind of leprechaun NPC, or add 4 leaf clover plants to display luck percentage for the day. Or something similar. The luck mechanic has some awesome potential... but needs to really be thought about a bit more. I don't think it should be removed though.

 

[Derunih]

That's why I said I tried my hardest to help, but clearly I can't convince anyone that this mechanic isn't the bad thing they think it is.
I'm not going to argue about this anymore, I know how the feature works and what it does, I know how extremely easy it is to just make a biome torch, I'm just kind of upset that I can't get this through to anyone.
There are now 15 people who have voted in this thread's poll that don't understand how the mechanic actually works.

The only thing I agree on is that it should at the very least have buffs and debuffs that give you a hint at what your luck is, have the wizard give you more detail about it.

That is the crux of maybe half these people's frustrations: People don't know this is a thing. Half a million people played on launch day. Maybe a few dozen thousand have read the luck page on the wiki.
Statistically, less than 10% of players probably even know luck is a mechanic, and are feeling frustration over worse RNG over using normal torches, not knowing there IS a cause. Luck wasn't in any of the prerelease notes, it's not a visible buff, and the Wizard does NOT comment on luck yet as far as I can see... Expecting players to read every wiki article to avoid a debuff is a bad mechanic design.

Also, telling people they should just accommodate a new inconvenience most people don't even know about yet does not count as helping. You have not given a single argument as to why normal torches should have a penalty, thus you have convinced nobody it is a good mechanic.

 

[hawalas]

Everyone in this thread is choosing to react to a new mechanic instead of learning a new mechanic, in a way this is no different from all the buffs to moonlord.
Now I don't mean to be rude, but you're upset because something you're used to doing has been changed in a way you don't like, and so you're throwing a fit about it instead of adapting to it like you have every other change in the past.

Luck is a reward for effort system, you can't have the reward without the effort, to remove the negative effects would be to remove any requirement of effort.

but we dont WANT to adapt to this mechanic, it's stupid and authoritarian : who wants to design its bases and villages for this stupid statistic ? Why force people to use specific torches, ruining their design ?
This is NOT a good design, it's not a question of wanting to adapt to it or not, it's a question of good design vs bad design.

So what next, game is going to force you to use biome-specific wood in your builds or else you're going to be punished somehow, by negative luck or something else ? This torch business is completely stupid

Imo, even negative luck existing as a debuff is not a bad game design aspect. Ladybugs and NPCs dying makes sense, one encourages not to kill critters for lulz, another encourages to protect your people. But placing a wrong color of a torch is definitely not something that should be a negative luck impact. Have it be a debuff some rare enemies apply or something. Move the luck buffs AND debuffs from wrong firetype to campfires (which were specifically added these update in such variety! Make it matter!). Have some other items add changes to your luck (Lucky Horseshoe/Lucky Accesory modifier). Its just the limited state its in right now that makes completely no sense, but overall as manipulatable mechanic and proper stat that is applied where sensible, its a good thing. Although, I do think that item drops shouldn't be affected by iy at all: positively or negatively. It completely invalidates information provided by bestiary.

Negative luck can be a good gameplay mechanic is some instances, yes, but for example what's going to happen if in your eye of Cthulhu arena there are some random ladybugs and you accidentally kill some while shooting at the boss ? Are you going to get punished with bad RNG for loot and damage because of that ? That would be really stupid

If anyone knows of a way to set a fixed "chance" value with cheat engine, I'm all for it

 

[Schrödinger's psycho]

Negative luck can be a good gameplay mechanic is some instances, yes, but for example what's going to happen if in your eye of Cthulhu arena there are some random ladybugs and you accidentally kill some while shooting at the boss ? Are you going to get punished with bad RNG for loot and damage because of that ? That would be really stupid

Also a summon can kill a ladybug by accident - and you simple can NOT prevent this.

So my point stands - remove penaltyes, leave just buff to luck. That way, your "penalty" will be just not getting any buff to default stats and reward will be, well, a better RNG.
Punishing players for their aesthetic choices or accidents they can't prevent is just unnesessary cruel.

 

[MatAndHisHat]

I made an account to comment on this, as I have strong feelings about this mechanic. Let's see if I can eloquently explain the nuances of my thoughts...

I actually really, really like the Luck system! It allows minmaxers/farmers to push their game experience to the limit, as long as they do their due diligence! While "the Luck system hurts casual players" is technically true, I don't necessarily consider it as highly impactful criticism, considering how you don't really need to minmax to progress in the game, especially if you're playing in Normal/Journey.

An observation: Based on the Wiki page alone, it would indicate that the slightest negative value for net luck (for example, just a teeny weeny -0.1 net luck due to a single misplaced Torch, and no other luck modifiers) would slash your critical hit chance dramatically. If calculations are correct, it would mean that a 10% critical hit chance effectively becomes 1% chance to crit, due to how you need to proc the crit twice for every attack frame. I imagine such a huge overarching impact is why many people are complaining about it but for me, I like how you can turn it around if you really want to put in the effort.

My main gripe with the system is simply that unless you peeked at the wiki page, a newcomer would not even guess that things like torches could even affect Luck. And from a design perspective, a game mechanic that you can only learn from a wiki is not ideal IMO, and is counter to many of the other game mechanics already in the game.

Let me give a few examples of good design:
- Progression: it should be possible to progress in a blind playthrough by listening to the Guide's hints without checking the wiki. He already has lots of quotes for various stages in the game. And for optional bosses/invasions, the Guide allows you to check crafting trees for materials you've gotten, and this allows you to slowly build up your knowledge about what things you can do to progress or encounter optional bosses/invasions.
- Fishing: the fishing power stat is a bit of a "hidden" mechanic but the Fisherman's Pocket Guide is a way to display raw numbers. More obscure things like the effect of Moon Phases or the size of your fishing spot can then be subsequently observed through the use of this accessory.

I cannot verify whether the Wizard hints at your current Luck as I have not yet gotten to Hardmode in my current run, but I feel that such quotes from the Wizard might not be enough for a player to learn the game; you really can't bring him around with you and actually learn about the effects of Torches in respective biomes.

So a suggestion I would make is the following:
Make a Mood Ring accessory which shows a changing buff/debuff icon based on the current Luck. The Mood Ring doesn't even necessarily need to indicate specific values, but as long as it responds to the current Luck value, it would potentially nudge the player to investigate what kind of game mechanic is involved. This way, the game provides an entrypoint to a learning opportunity which can help them in future runs. It may not an accessory with an incredible utility, but then again, so are many other accessories.

 

[PotatoPoro]

Dude, I actually stopped playing the game after I was done reading this. Like, what am I going to do now? I used normal torches everywhere obviously! I am more of an explorer, I explored tons of underground ever since the update dropped, my world is pelted with mini hellevators that explore the caves fully. I am on Mastermode, didn't get to WoF since I was just having fun exploring every nook and cranny of the world.

Can I "force" my luck? Like, can I go to the jungle and put say, 500+ jungle torches to force the luck back to positive? Is that how it works? It's not feasible to re-light my explored areas, just waaaay to much to go around. Why am I being punished for using normal torches, would not have found out about this system if I weren't looking on Reddit.

 

[MasterworkStone]

You have not given a single argument as to why normal torches should have a penalty, thus you have convinced nobody it is a good mechanic.

Now that is something I hadn't thought about because of people like the poster above me, PotatoPoro.
He said he quit the game because he had normal torches everywhere, which means he doesn't actually understand how the mechanic works, and that's 90% of people who hate this Torch Luck thing.

People keep misinterpreting this so badly that it became hard for me to see the actual flaws in this.

Dude, I actually stopped playing the game after I was done reading this. Like, what am I going to do now? I used normal torches everywhere obviously! I am more of an explorer, I explored tons of underground ever since the update dropped, my world is pelted with mini hellevators that explore the caves fully. I am on Mastermode, didn't get to WoF since I was just having fun exploring every nook and cranny of the world.

Can I "force" my luck? Like, can I go to the jungle and put say, 500+ jungle torches to force the luck back to positive? Is that how it works? It's not feasible to re-light my explored areas, just waaaay to much to go around. Why am I being punished for using normal torches, would not have found out about this system if I weren't looking on Reddit.

Having torches everywhere won't do anything negative to you, it's having those torches near you when you're hoping for a drop that's the problem, if you just remove a few torches in your intimidate vicinity the bad luck completely goes away.

It's not a bad mechanic, it's just not explained properly and has a dumb idea in it.
Two things need to happen, normal torches need to have no affect on luck, and luck as a whole needs to be explained far better and made more obvious in-game.

So my point stands - remove penaltyes, leave just buff to luck. That way, your "penalty" will be just not getting any buff to default stats and reward will be, well, a better RNG.

That is a really bad idea, you can't have such a massive reward without any sort of trade-off.
Having luck without bad luck would be essentially re-logic just doubling the drop rates of everything in the game by default, it would make everything extremely easy and unrewarding.

 

[The Storm]

Two things need to happen, normal torches need to have no affect on luck, and luck as a whole needs to be explained far better and made more obvious in-game.

I completly agree with this, I had no idea luck even existed until I saw threads about it on here, and you shouldn't be penalised for using regular torches.

 

[hawalas]

(...)
People keep misinterpreting this so badly that it became hard for me to see the actual flaws in this.

Having torches everywhere won't do anything negative to you, (...)

Actually it's you who don't understand. Yes, it's true it "won't" do anything negative to have already explored all those areas and looted all those chests with normal "malus" torches.

The negative is ALREADY done ! That means everything he has explored, every loot he took, every death he had, he could have very probably had much better loot, and maybe not die as much from bad luck, missed crits, and dual damage rolls that crippled his dps because game decides to take the lowest of the 2 since he had "bad luck"

The damage is already done, and he, as most of us so far, knew nothing about it !

We all got blind-sided by this, and actually nothing in the games even plans to tell you anything about "luck" until after hardmode when you get the wizard ...

So it concerns every body, not only those who "misinterpret" the mechanic : everyone get bad luck without knowing it, get worse loot, worse damage, worse RNG in everything they do, actually, and they have NO WAY of even knowing it until after hardmode, which for beginners will maybe never even happen if they quit the game before that.

I know in my case, it took me years before I played a single world far enough to discover there was a hardmode.

Also I have to reply to your last bit, because it makes absolutely no sense

(...)
That is a really bad idea, you can't have such a massive reward without any sort of trade-off.
Having luck without bad luck would be essentially re-logic just doubling the drop rates of everything in the game by default, it would make everything extremely easy and unrewarding.

I mean, what are you smoking ?
First, the reward wouldn't be super duper awesome as you make it sound, since it would be like 20% improvements on the drop rates max.
Second, it's a reward for something, since you would have to actively work on your luck stat by doing everything right, so it's really not at all "by default" and not "extremely easy and unrewarding"
It would be a small reward for learning how to max your luck in specific occasions.

Actually, your comment is even more nonsensical than it looks at first glance, since it would change NOTHING to the positive aspects of current luck mechanic as it works RIGHT NOW and which you are defending.

I don't know, do you just like the average player to unknowingly suffer bad RNG without even knowing why, while only you and a select few who will know about and exploit this luck mechanic enjoy the benefits ? Because in the end so far it seems to be your only "argument" if we can call it that.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

One of my friends was hunting Rod of Discord yesterday afternoon. His farming area was full of regular torches. Fortunately, I knew about Luck and helped fix it only like 20 minutes in instead of 20 hours in.

Luck penalties should not be tied to torches. I'm fine with there being luck penalties for being a sociopath and murdering innocents, but not because I put a generic torch down.

It has not encouraged me to use other types of torches while exploring. It has encouraged me to use other light sources instead, such as Tiki Torches and Flares.


The thing is that the intention behind this seems to be lining your farming area up with a biome-related torch to make it look nicer, and to reward you for doing so - but this negatively impacts exploration as well as impacting invasion events. Not to mention some of these torches are a little obtuse. My damage gets slightly penalized in the Jungle until I have a large supply of Jungle Spores to work with?

normal torches need to have no affect on luck, and luck as a whole needs to be explained far better and made more obvious in-game

I'd be content with this. My entire problem is that just.. we can't learn about it. We wouldn't even know about this if it wasn't on the wiki. I don't even know how the wiki got its values.

Imagine going for months without any idea torches affected Luck.

Can I "force" my luck? Like, can I go to the jungle and put say, 500+ jungle torches to force the luck back to positive? Is that how it works? It's not feasible to re-light my explored areas, just waaaay to much to go around. Why am I being punished for using normal torches, would not have found out about this system if I weren't looking on Reddit.

If you place more of a "correct" torch in the area you're farming in than you have for the "wrong" torch, you'll eventually have positive torch luck.

 

[PotatoPoro]

Actually it's you who don't understand. Yes, it's true it "won't" do anything negative to have already explored all those areas and looted all those chests with normal "malus" torches.

The negative is ALREADY done ! That means everything he has explored, every loot he took, every death he had, he could have very probably had much better loot, and maybe not die as much from bad luck, missed crits, and dual damage rolls that crippled his dps because game decides to take the lowest of the 2 since he had "bad luck"

The damage is already done, and he, as most of us so far, knew nothing about it !

We all got blind-sided by this, and actually nothing in the games even plans to tell you anything about "luck" until after hardmode when you get the wizard ...

Hmm, I actually got calmed down after I heard that it's only in an area around me, but now that I think about it, I guess that's true, I may have missed some
stuff because my luck was simply worsened by my torch usage. Well, with the amount of exploring I did I got pretty much all the items attainable pre-hardmode, which was my goal actually, so that's decent I guess?

 

[MatAndHisHat]

First, the reward wouldn't be super duper awesome as you make it sound, since it would be like 20% improvements on the drop rates max.

Based on the wiki, 1.0 luck (the max) means drop rates are doubled. Just trying to prevent misinformation (assuming wiki is accurate).
EDIT: the line from wiki is "If the player's luck is greater than 0, then there is a (100 * luck)% chance that the chance is doubled. "