Questions about Luck system (Lady bugs, alchemy and grab bags)

[glider521al (Rogue Worlds dev)]

Hi,

With regards to Lady Bugs:

• The wiki says touching a naturally spawned one increases your luck by 0.2 (0.4 golden). Does this carry over when you leave the world. It's not listead a buff, so how do you know if you have it?
  
• Killing a lady bug decreases your luck. Though what happens if it's a random monster that does it? Does brewing the potions with them count as a kill that decreases your luck?

With regards to treasure bags, does luck affect the chances of rare items to?

We thought it would be a good idea to move most luck buffs and furniture on to a spare character and have them open all the grab bags. The Wiki says they're unaffected, though I've had a couple of friends tell me otherwise.
It would seems odd that luck won't affect the loot of most bosses on expert/master (besides a few pets), but would do so on normal difficulty.

One final question, does it affect the alchemy table's...preservation of potion ingredients?

Thanks in advance!

[Duplicity]

Haven't tested with treasure bags much but it says luck effects boss drops so we can assume? Anyone else know more about luck on treasure bags I'd appreciate it too!

For Lady Bugs - No it won't carry over if you leave the world. I'm not even sure if the luck stacks if there are say 8 lady bugs on screen.
Yes seems like you'll get the bad luck stat if enemy kills them or you use them in potions or even as bait for fishing.

[wcc]

You can buy an item from the Zoologist which prevents you from accidentally killing critters. According to the wiki, fishing with Ladybug as bait does affect once luck, but there's nothing said about potion brewing. You can check by asking the wizard about your luck before and after brewing some luck potions.
The wiki does not say anything about the consumption of ingredients, so I guess they didn't implement a luck mechanic there.
Regarding the drops: there's a lengthy list of boss drops which won't be affected by luck at all: https://terraria.gamepedia.com/Luck#Items_affected_by_luck
I figure it's the same for grab bags, but I'm not sure.

[glider521al (Rogue Worlds dev)]

Hi Duplicity and wcc, thanks for your quick responses.

I did some tests and found that you're right...

Lady bug luck does not carry over between worlds tested by talking to a wizard multiple times.

Luck does not affect Alchemy.

I did some testing to make 1 stack of crate potions, 3 stacks of wormhole potions and 14 teleport potions.

In my tests for the 134 potions, I found that the ingredients preservation was actually worse than average (106 fish consumed, expected 67 fish as ingredients can be conserved multiple times).


The last point is disappointing, it renders the potions having no noticeable impact on gameplay.
According to the wiki 1.0 luck = up to a relative 49% increase in drops and rare encounter (i.e. 10% chance becomes 14.9%)
Luck potions only increase luck by 0.1 to 0.3.

When should you use luck potions?

Thanks again

[wcc]

Thanks for science. ;) Seems like the effect of a luck potion is too marginal to be significant with n=137 or does not exist at all, telling us that we really shouldn't care about it too much.
Regarding the question: When should you use it? I'ld say it's just something in case you farm for a Biome Key or another really rare item. If you have a luck potion and want to farm an item, use it. If you don't have such a potion, don't mind - it's not worth the time and effort to get one. In general for farming: Water Candle + Battle Potion + Blood Moon (or a similar event) + Garden Gnomes + fitting torches are quite easy to set up, everything else is a neglectable bonus. But if you've got a Luck Potion at hand, why not use it as well? ;)

[glider521al (Rogue Worlds dev)]

I'm hoping they update Luck potions to be more useful (or at least work with Alchemy), given their rarity and how much time it takes to get them.

Good point that it's useful for increasing farm chances for~ upto 15% (perhaps to find the elusive sand elemental whose preventing the bestiary from being completed in HardMode XD).

That said, I generally find it more economical to start a server and leave the player AFK for an hour, while minions chew up the mobs for you.

Originally posted by wcc:

Thanks for science. ;) Seems like the effect of a luck potion is too marginal to be significant with n=137 or does not exist at all, telling us that we really shouldn't care about it too much.
Regarding the question: When should you use it? I'ld say it's just something in case you farm for a Biome Key or another really rare item. If you have a luck potion and want to farm an item, use it. If you don't have such a potion, don't mind - it's not worth the time and effort to get one. In general for farming: Water Candle + Battle Potion + Blood Moon (or a similar event) + Garden Gnomes + fitting torches quite easy to set up, everything else is a neglectable bonus. But if you've got a Luck Potion at hand, why not use it as well? ;)

Thanks again for your thoughts