Topic: 168 runs with Castlevania Harmony of Despair and still no Sonic Boots!!!!

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

Luck has alot to do with drops, especially gold chest drops.
If you wander in with low luck, you have an extremely low chance of getting that item.
Chapter 9 is gold since its so quick to finish, best get a friend to farm for you on that one.
Chapter 10 is the easiest since you can change your gear to luck gear before opening the chest.

trust me, you best be having luck gear if you wanna get those rares.

like I said before,

Luck hasn't helped at all.

I've went in using Royal Crown,Benten Raiment, 3 777s shirt, and the rest of my luck gear and I have yet to receive anything close to rare.

I'm now up to 225 runs and 50 of those I did with my "luck gear" and still haven't received a thing.

I also heard that "no hit" runs also helps your chances.

wana know how many of those I have had now?

Just around 100.

And still nothing.

I just have to face the fact that the guys who made this game are total jerks who went WAY overboard on the rare item drops.

[JR]

Luck or not, the drop rates for a lot of items are ridiculous. ( I always wear luck gear on this game and the Metroidvanias, btw. )

[KaZudra]

Just put on 2 thief Rings and you'll be fine.

but I did say luck Improves your chances, not guarantees the item.

I got mine at the 100 mark, that's 100 solid luck runs.

But.... The miser ring only took me 30 for both.

It just best to keep going at it, This game kinda sucks only because it's replay value is solely based on getting boss drops.

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

Just put on 2 thief Rings and you'll be fine.

but I did say luck Improves your chances, not guarantees the item.

I got mine at the 100 mark, that's 100 solid luck runs.

But.... The miser ring only took me 30 for both.

It just best to keep going at it, This game kinda sucks only because it's replay value is solely based on getting boss drops.

I know that it does not "gurantee" that I will get it obviously.

I'm not one of those naive guys who think that it should be handed to me only a couple runs after boosting my luck.

but at the same time the drop rate with the luck items is purely ridiculous on a ridiculous scale.

How can a guy with 225 runs and 0 rare items not think that luck=crap when it comes to getting rare items?

And what was your luck set at?

With all my current luck gear on mine only goes up to 27.

[KaZudra]

I know that it does not "gurantee" that I will get it obviously.

I'm not one of those naive guys who think that it should be handed to me only a couple runs after boosting my luck.

but at the same time the drop rate with the luck items is purely ridiculous on a ridiculous scale.

How can a guy with 225 runs and 0 rare items not think that luck=crap when it comes to getting rare items?

And what was your luck set at?

With all my current luck gear on mine only goes up to 27.

I use Soma for luck and I can get a 50 to 65 depending if you eat food that increases luck

[Esco]

Luck has alot to do with drops, especially gold chest drops.
If you wander in with low luck, you have an extremely low chance of getting that item.
Chapter 9 is gold since its so quick to finish, best get a friend to farm for you on that one.
Chapter 10 is the easiest since you can change your gear to luck gear before opening the chest.

trust me, you best be having luck gear if you wanna get those rares.

Each point of luck increases the chance of a drop or soul appearing by 0.1%. This means that at 30 luck, your chance has increased by 3%. HOWEVER, the thief ring has a MASSIVE effect on this. With 4.1% chance of a item drop due to luck (YES that takes the lck points given from the thief ring into account), the % skyrocketed to 6.9% for ONE ring. I have yet to get two thief rings but I am working on this now. If anyone has doubts, put on the gambler glasses and see for yourselves. Soul ring does the same for souls, 2 increases it even more.

This all sounds like good news........... BUT, the problem with this is that luck brings up the % appearance rate of ALL items and ALL souls in game. Which obviously if applied to ALL the chests drops does NOT work, since the % would then be over 100%. So one might assume that they did something akin to this:

//PSEUDO CODE:
GENERATE RANDOM REAL NUM FROM 0-100
If (Num < (1 * % chance)) {drop rare}
else if (num < (5 * % chance)) {drop soul}
else if (num < (15 * % chance)) {drop semi rare}
else {FUCK YOU! TRASH DROP!}
//end

So while it increases your chances of NOT getting trash... your chance of getting a rare drop, relative to other non purple chest drops (what I call TRASH) is still about the same as before. UNLESS they apply some kind of internal multiplier to rare drops to increase it with a thief ring on.

..................My point in all that babbling above? This is ALL anecdotal, and maybe, sort of, kind of, guessing on our parts. Without a look at the source, we will never know. But so far, most tests done by players on the net have all shown the same results: that luck has a VERY minor effect on rare chest item drops. And while we would all like to say "logically the programmer would make it so luck would increase the chance of getting a good chest drop" keep in mind that people are not always logical in their actions.

On that note, I should also state that I have 9 ryukotsuki souls from 108 kills with no soul eater rings for 7 of them. And I generally just use my best gear attack and defense wise, ignoring luck. So my % at that time would be only about 1.5% for each to get them. Yet I have a ton of them. I have also gotten a valmanway*2, sonic boots *2, winged boots *6, claimh solais, valmanway+1, kaiser knuckle+1, thief ring, r. count soul, 6 dracula souls, death scythe, yusutsuna+1, and berserker mail, in this same manner.

Yet with luck equips, I NEVER get SQUAT. O_o So I have little faith in them.

[Charlotte-nyo:3]

And thus did the demonic Luck vs Noluck argument penetrate its way even into the heart of the Castlevania Dungeon forums.

[Mcchiggen]

Luck does help; but like someone else stated: it doesn't guarantee that you'll be getting the rare item.


Whether it's anecdotal or not, putting on luck will help for certain things.


For example, for my Sonic Boots it took me about 255 runs and I finally got them. I was also using Charlotte, for a better chance at getting them with no luck.


Now that I have Charlotte, Simon, and Shanoa maxed out, I have started using Alucard.

Putting on full luck has helped me get all the spells much quickly.
I was trying to get dual miser ring from chapter 7 with full luck and I ended up getting 1 miser ring, and 3 Valmanways in like 50 runs.


I have beaten chapter 9 like 35 times with Alucard and I have gotten a pair of Sonic Boots and 2 Kaiser Knuckles +1.



When I got my Ancient Armor, I was using Shanoa with full luck and got it on the first run with her on Chapter 5.

I am still trying to get the Retro cloak(or cape whatever it's called) with a full luck Simon and I have gotten 4 Berserker Mails from R.The Creature and 7 Death's Robes from R.Grim Reaper, yet no Retro Cloak.

I have gotten Fuma's greaves and Fuma's Armor only once with full luck, with Simon.
I have yet to get the helm.


With all my luck runs, I run it consistently: what I mean is that I don't take my luck off in 1 run and leave it on for 3 others. I have it on all the time, since the level loads. I have heard, but can't confirm, that when the person that has the most luck hits the final blow on the boss, the chances of getting a rare item are much better. Anecdotal wise, I can confirm this; Statistics wise, I can't.



This isn't my video, but it does show that luck does help.


Castlevania: Harmony of Despair - Pure Luck Run x25 (No Thief Rings/Ebisu), Chapter 5 (Hard)

[Sonic_Reaper]

There have been tests (in the thousands, even) done with Luck gear vs. non-Luck gear and the verdict was that it did didly squat!  Unless you've done 1000+ runs running both Luck and non-Luck gear, you can't really comment on that fact.  As it stands, the evidence points heavily to Luck not doing anything for rare drops. 

All it does is increase your chance at receiving enemy drops and better regular chest items in some cases, as well as spell acquisition with Charlotte.  But that is NOT what is under discussion here, as this has been known for awhile now.

[Nagumo]

I believe this is roughly how the item drop mechanic works in all the metroidvanias:

The screen on whatever handheld or console your playing refreshes like 40-60 times a second. Each frame can contain an item drop or nothing at all. Common items have lot of frames and very rare items only a few. The trick is to kill the monster during the right frame in order to get the item. This is pretty much impossible to consistently exploit.         

[Mcchiggen]

I believe this is roughly how the item drop mechanic works in all the metroidvanias:

The screen on whatever handheld or console your playing refreshes like 40-60 times a second. Each frame can contain an item drop or nothing at all. Common items have lot of frames and very rare items only a few. The trick is to kill the monster during the right frame in order to get the item. This is pretty much impossible to consistently exploit.         

That's actually a pretty good theory imo.
Never heard of it.


I would once again give anecdotal evidence that luck does help.
I had full luck with my Simon(royal crown, three 7's, fumas greaves, bishamon rainment, thief ring 2x) and in 5 runs of chapter 10 on normal, i got my first retro cloak.


after that, i joined a lobby on chapter 7 hard to get my 2nd miser ring. first run i didn't get anything. on the second run, i got my miser ring. it only took me 2 runs with full luck to get a miser ring.

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

This is sooooooo ridiculous...

I staid up for 6 house last night and now i'm up to 316 runs and STILL nothing.

I wish I could find iga, hold him down, and force him to play this game for some sonic boots to let him know firsthand how hard him and his team made this rare item to get.

[Sonic_Reaper]

That's actually a pretty good theory imo.
Never heard of it.


I would once again give anecdotal evidence that luck does help.
I had full luck with my Simon(royal crown, three 7's, fumas greaves, bishamon rainment, thief ring 2x) and in 5 runs of chapter 10 on normal, i got my first retro cloak.


after that, i joined a lobby on chapter 7 hard to get my 2nd miser ring. first run i didn't get anything. on the second run, i got my miser ring. it only took me 2 runs with full luck to get a miser ring.

See this is the problem with "anecdotal" evidence.  I was able to get 2 miser rings within 50 runs WITHOUT Luck gear.  Actually, I also got all the rare drops in Chapter 6 (Scythe, Berserker and Ancient) under 60 runs.  No Luck gear.  There are other examples (I've stopped playing the game, however).

If you really believe Luck helps, power to you.  You certainly don't LOSE anything running Luck gear runs.  You're just making it more difficult for yourself, and statistically, at least from the research done on the gamefaqs forums, it doesn't help, but if you believe it does, all the more power to you.

[Crissaegrim]

Hmmm, weird. Last night I got a second thief ring, and decided to equip both. After about 30+ runs I was able to get 3 miser rings, 2 valmanways, and ancient armour. My luck was 35 with the 2 thief rings. Now when I got the valmanway+1's all back to back, luck was 19. So I'm not sure...

[Mcchiggen]

See this is the problem with "anecdotal" evidence.  I was able to get 2 miser rings within 50 runs WITHOUT Luck gear.  Actually, I also got all the rare drops in Chapter 6 (Scythe, Berserker and Ancient) under 60 runs.  No Luck gear.  There are other examples (I've stopped playing the game, however).

If you really believe Luck helps, power to you.  You certainly don't LOSE anything running Luck gear runs.  You're just making it more difficult for yourself, and statistically, at least from the research done on the gamefaqs forums, it doesn't help, but if you believe it does, all the more power to you.

That video I posted pretty much shows that putting on full luck does help, to an extent.

Now it might sound like I'm contradicting myself on the following part, but bare with me:

Some don't understand is that it's luck; it will never be guaranteed.
Just like anything to do with luck in pretty much any other game, it's out of your jurisdiction.

In any game that has luck, you can have 99 % luck and yet you won't get what you want because of that 1%.
You can have the shittiest luck, but by a stroke of chance(lol), you get what you were('nt) looking for.

Whether you feel it helps you out or not, that's up to you.
Running full luck obviously increases your luck.
That's what it's about. But increasing your luck isn't going to guarantee you that item.


And honestly, you can't say use statistics with luck because, once again, it's luck; it's completely out of the players jurisdiction. Even trying to manipulate luck won't guarantee anything.

Just because that guy ran that level 25 times and got good drops doesn't mean that every 25 runs you'll be getting a rare item. It obviously helped having luck because he got good items, but were never guaranteed.

Running full luck helped me get my 2nd miser ring in 2 runs.
That doesn't mean I can say "we'll i got my miser rings, so statistically..."

That's why, with anything luck based, it will always be anecdotal.