@ Wavinator

What I meant by that is luck is like giving the player control yet not giving him control. Its the illusion of control.

I'm playing somes games at the moment where you have a luck stat. Digital Devil Saga\Nocturne. You have the luck stat but you have no idea what it does, even the forums, no one except the Developer knows exactly what it does and how it effects things.

These games are pretty hard compared to the majority of RPGs and you really have to be astute with how you place your limited stats. Ignoring the fact its really hard to make informed decision in RPGs anyway. How do you decide on something that you have no information and no feedback from. Whats the difference between one additional point or one less. How much is too much, how much is too little.

There really isnt a way of deciding.

As it goes I'm just going to have to use the other characters as frames of references. Say a bit less than one character and a bit more than another. I dont know why its what you do. The other game I'm just going to put as much as possible, because they like to randomnly kill or severly debilite you at any point and as often as possible, but then I dont even know if it will help.

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Original post by Wavinator Quote: Original post by Diodor It could work as a resource rather than a stat: rub the space rabit paw on Klaxoon 5 and you stock up luck - it then wears off in time and when "used" avoiding harmful encounters or finding better treasure. The same, insult some deity to get enough bad luck to encounter some alien monster you hunt - suffer the side effects for a good while after. Haha. That'd be unusual, which is good. But it then places the onus on the player to have activated luck before encounters. In some cases they'll be screwed because they didn't activate it before something major, and in others it'll be like some rote ritual before they open any chest, which while maybe realistic is a bit awkward. Worse yet I think they'll feel compelled to do it all the time, which reminds me of running through a level compulsively pushing the same button looking for secret areas (Doom, Wolfenstein).

Resource inflation is a problem but easy to solve in any number of ways e.g. by restricting spawn locations, times.

If you want luck to be interesting, you need to give the lucky/unlucky characters distinctive personalities. Playing these builds should have unique challenges compared to other builds.

A good archetype to use for luck would be the action hero of movies: Constantly outnumbered 100 to 1 in shootouts, jumping off exploding buildings into helicopters, deactivating explosives as the timer blinks 1. In more gameplay oriented terms, I'd say the bonuses luck gives you should scale with the audacity of the situation. 2 enemies will attack normally, 50 suddenly become inept. To make it interesting I'd also suggest luck bonuses that decrease with time: The warrior archetype should be the one wading through seas of opponents, killing them all one by one. The lucky character should be constantly extricating themselves from impossible to win situations.

By extension, the unlucky character needs to play at a plodding pace: A coin will come up against them 2 times out of 3, so they need to also have a probabilistic advantage in all encounters. An unlucky build could play regularly in 1 on 1 encounters, but be doomed when outnumbered. To mirror the lucky character, they'd lose these penalties as an event plays out: The lucky character swings through a window to rescue the princess and fights his way out the front door. The unlucky character lays siege to the fortress using their other advantages to make up for their poor luck.

In a procedurally generated game you can change the flavor of events to match the personality as well: lucky characters should be pushed towards the audacious, unlucky characters should be kept away from no-win scenarios. This can either be explicit, or you can give both characters access to both sorts of storylines, and expect the player to identify the appropriate quest for their character.

Another thought, along the lines of Han Solo's "Never tell me the odds":

Luck could only apply to facts not known ahead of time. If an unlucky character swings into the maiden's window to rescue her, he'll find she isn't in right now. If he instead first climbed a nearby hill and peered into her window with his telescope, he'd find her there. A lucky character would experience the opposite. Thus an unlucky character who gathers intelligence, sends scouting parties ahead and otherwise operates with good knowledge can use this foresight to 1)avoid some unluckiness penalties and 2) develop appropriate strategies for dealing with the challenges.

A lucky character, to contrast, would maximize their bonuses by always operating under the minimum information available. This prevents them from ever being able to explicitly prepare for a quest, but they'll generally find that whatever equipment they brought was the right things to bring, and the challenges lack of preparation do cause are balanced by the general good luck.

I personally hate luck in games (generally, not just as a stat) which means I ignore this stat when it occurs in RPGs...

If you're trying to optimize your character, it's quite easy: If the estimated increase in "value" by improving the luck attribute is larger than the corresponding increase in value by the second best alternative stat, improve luck, otherwise improve the second best stat. The problem usually comes from the fact the game actually won't tell you what the "luck" does and how the probability distribution looks. That makes it a black box and useless unless you like playing lottery where you aren't even assured that the arrangers have to put a certain part of the revenue into winnings.

Not a big fan of the luck stat (read: allows for player to manipulate), though I can imagine the luck feature itself being an interesting gameplay element (read: does not allow for player to manipulate). Maybe tie luck in to the difficulty setting, where "easy" characters are lucky and "hard" characters are unlucky, and where the luck factor has a small percentage chance of making all sorts of gameplay elements slightly easier or harder. Or make it so that saving a game reduces a characters luck to 0, and have the luck factor grow back up to 100% (behind the scene) as the character accumulates experience points. I guess the latter allows the player to manipulate the luck factor, but I think less so than as a hard stat.

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Quote: Original post by kseh What if luck was more of a fluctuating thing? If events are generated for the player every so often then depending on where the player's "luck biorythm" is that entrepreneur is either going to become your best friend, worst nightmare, or somewhere in between. Hmmm... wouldn't this mean that if you wanted less variation you'd want less luck? Because wouldn't the pool of luck fluctuate to more pronounced extremes the more you have?

I don't think of hitting the highs and lows quickly would really be having more luck it'd just be that your luck changes rapidly. Since I'm thinking it'd look like a sine wave, if you want a character to be particularily (un)lucky then offset the wave on the y-axis. In the end, it's probably where you are on the y-axis most of the time that will give the perception of how much luck you have.

Although, yeah, now that I think about it, I guess if you wanted less variation you'd want a lower frequency wave with lower amplitude.

Mostly I'm just thinking that if luck stays static, it gets boring. You loose appreciation for always getting a large haul of stuff or you get frustrated by your weapon always malfunctioning.

If Luck as a stat adds to your game's enjoyability, then sure. Although, as with any other game mechanic or feature, including it will add more lines of code.

Why does Luck exist?
Is the game experience enjoyable without Luck? Can the same outcomes be realized without Luck? Do game mechanics work properly without Luck? Is Luck a unique game mechanic which improves the game experience?

What does Luck do?
Can players hope to realize extraordinary outcomes with Luck? Does that equate to harm (a less enjoyable game experience) for all other players in the same scene?
Alternately, does Luck serve as a saving grace for near-death experiences and the like? For example: Nemesis attacks the player with Ultimate Doom, but the player's Luck takes effect through some deus ex and the player survives.

How is Luck activated?
Is the player or the player's representation in any manner able to manipulate the timing or degree of Luck; in other words: can the player choose when and how to gamble? Example 1: while placing a single number bet on a d10 roll, can the player elect to use some Luck and hope to get a payout closer to 10 to 1 (with more Luck) than 9 to 1? Example 2: can the player take more time to aim for a called shot, trying to hit a sub-target for one-shot-kill or disabling? With Luck, the player could have more chance of still hitting the target instead of missing entirely.

Implementing Luck as a stat is very difficult and I am not sure if there is a way to do it in a way I would like it.

The most important factor is balancing and that can be very difficult with a stat like luck.

Luck can be very effective or important for a special task. i.e. Diablo2 had a stat, raising the chance to find magic items. This stat was so effective that it reduced effective strategies for item hunting to a minimum.

The opposite way would be, making luck that unimportant that no one would miss it.

So the really hard part would be to balance it in a way that it is useful, but not the only right way.

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Original post by TaggM Why does Luck exist? Is the game experience enjoyable without Luck? Can the same outcomes be realized without Luck? Do game mechanics work properly without Luck? Is Luck a unique game mechanic which improves the game experience?

I've not really resolved this over the last many weeks (been banging my head against an entirely different wall) but I think if I do include luck it's going to relate to encounter content, with bad luck being interesting "trouble." So in theory a character with really rotten luck but high skills may experience less of the game world being in their control-- they'll be more likely to be shanghaied by a press gang, or mistaken as someone else-- but once in the situation they'll be able to either handle it or get themselves out. OTOH a high luck, low skill character will get more golden opportunities but be less likely to be able to capitalize on them, settling instead for some default advantage which hopefully encourages them to skill up.

Another, completely different way of doing this without luck would be to somehow give the player a notion of "fates" akin to character class perks as you level. As you're supposed to play through multiple times in a persistent universe this actually may work better than a luck stat, which logically should only go up.

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Alternately, does Luck serve as a saving grace for near-death experiences and the like? For example: Nemesis attacks the player with Ultimate Doom, but the player's Luck takes effect through some deus ex and the player survives.

This sounds cool but I'm looking for something else besides luck to pull you out of the fire in deadly situations. Luck shouldn't be so compelling that it's a no-brainer, it should really affect how you play whatever role you've adopted.

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How is Luck activated?

Despite good advice to the contrary if I use luck I really feel it should be passive. I don't want some "use by lucky charms for today" mechanic because it really throws the sense of playing a game in your face.

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Example 1: while placing a single number bet on a d10 roll, can the player elect to use some Luck and hope to get a payout closer to 10 to 1 (with more Luck) than 9 to 1? Example 2: can the player take more time to aim for a called shot, trying to hit a sub-target for one-shot-kill or disabling? With Luck, the player could have more chance of still hitting the target instead of missing entirely.

I think I want these to be determined by skill points as my mechanic for resolving everything already uses some element of chance by comparing skills with the level of challenge / threat. Being extremely lucky but a poorly skilled gambler or gunner won't let you win more often or grant the ability to kill a tank with a revolver. Rather you should be more likely to be invited to a secret, high stakes game just because you know someone, or spy a lucky escape when that tank is bearing down on you.

Thanks for the very challenging questions, by the way!