I'd be interested to know the answer as well but I've read several other threads about luck and they never seem to go into specifics.
Since the question of how luck and artifact drops works/worked on production servers is always brought up in these discussions, I did a little reading to find the answers myself. Ultimately nothing really matters except how luck actually works right here on Excelsior but I'll share the historical stuff I read if it'll put anyone's questions to rest.
http://www.uoguide.com/Doom#Boss_Artifacts says the following:
Under the heading
"Previous Drop Systems":
[The drop system has gone through two previous iterations. When first introduced, the artifacts simply dropped on the boss corpse. This was long before Corpse Instancing was implemented. So just anyone who got looting rights could grab the artifact. Illegal script looting was a huge concern. Lesser Bosses had a .1% chance of spawning an artifact. The Dark Fathers had about a 1% chance to do so. If the individual or party doing the most damage to the creature is wearing high luck, chances can increase to 1% and 3% respectively.
During Publish 48 the system was changed so if an artifact was awarded, it would be randomly dropped in the backpack of one of the 16 top damagers. This solved the scripting issues and helped more evenly distribute artifacts to all attackers.]
Under the heading
"Boss Artifacts":
[All bosses located in the Gauntlet area have the chance to drop artifacts as loot. These are known as the Doom Boss Artifacts. They all have rarity 11 and some are considered to be the best equipment in all of Britannia. For example, the Ornament of the Magician is unrivaled with its 2 Faster Casting property.
Publish 48 has the most recent changes for this drop system. Players now accumulate points the same way they did during the Treasures of Tokuno event.]
Publish 48 went live November 27, 2007. Excelsior went live more than a year before that.
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From Ultima Online Storm Chat, February 2003, when Luck first rolled out with the Age of Shadows expansion:
http://www.uoguide.com/Ultima_Online_Storm_Chat_6
[Kehleyr - *Coop* With the changes in AoS, Luck being the main factor here for increased chance of better items, kill stealing has become an even greater problem. Are looting rights up for some changes to prevent people from casting a single fireball and looting your loot?
MrTact - OK, so let's be clear on the whole Luck deal
MrTact - Luck gives you a % chance to get one additional item per "loot list" on a creature
MrTact - Higher level creatures (e.g. the Dark Fathers) have 3 or 4 loot lists.
MrTact - Then each item has the same % chance to get one additonal property, and have the property bumped up in its intensity" by a small amount.
MrTact - I've seen some theories flying around about how luck works that were . . . humorous, to say the least
MrTact - But that's EXACTLY what it does
MrTact - As far as looting rights go . . .
MrTact - We see a lot of players that are unhappy with the current situation, so there's a good chance we'd revisit that in an upcoming publish.
MrTact - Can't say exactly when, though
Vex - I think MrTact meant to say that Luck increases the quality of the magic items you get, but not the chance of getting one in the first place. ]
Regarding the actual formula itself, several sites quote a post from MrTact on the Stratics forums in 2003. Those threads can't be seen any longer but the quote is identical on at least five different sites I was able to find. Here's one:
http://www.thehonorempire.org/forums/to ... e-on-luck/ (Posted 16 April 2003 - 05:55 PM)
[Mr Tact posted on the stratics forums the exact luck formula:
Luck translates directly into a % chance to get a bump in number of items, number of item props and property intensity. The % is calculated very simply: it's luck ^ ( 1/1.8 ), which ends up being slightly better than the square root. As you know, luck maxes out at 1200, which gives you roughly a 51% chance of getting the bump.
MrTact]
An archived version of guide.uo.com's page on Luck from April 5, 2003 confirms all above statements regarding how Luck worked at the time:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030405080 ... ies_4.html
I was able to find several posts on the RunUO forums clearly stating that they had a working Luck system going back to at least 2004. And there you have it. That's how Luck worked on OSI from the beginning, it's supposed to have worked the same in RunUO shortly afterwards, and all that may have absolutely nothing to do with how luck works on Excelsior.
Mazel Tov!
