How much does the Fortune Teller affect your daily plans?

Most days I remember to check the television before I leave the house. If I do check it, I watch the Weather Report and Livin' Off the Land or The Queen of Sauce, but I rarely check out the Fortune Teller. I tend to have a list of goals to do for the day and I go about and do them, regardless of my luck that day. Some people say not to mine or not to fish on bad luck days but what does it really affect? The likelihood of treasure chests, geodes, monster drops, or coal?

This has been bugging me so I went back and downloaded old savegames (I upload any given farm every single game day onto upload.farm) where I saw I'd gone down 15-20 levels in the Mines in a day or fished a ridiculous amount and I don't really see any obvious correlation between bad mining/fishing days and good or bad luck. Is it broken like silver- and gold-quality crops in farming until level 10? Is it that important at all? I'm very curious for other people's views on this.

 

None. I pay no attention to the fortune teller when deciding what to do with my day, and never have. In the first place, it's a Role Play decision with me. As my farmer Lillian is supposed to be a scientific, modern witch, she would not accept that spirits control probability like that. Also, I don't much like the television, and aside from watching Queen of Sauce to collect all the recipes, the TV stays locked in a trunk the rest of the week and out of sight-- and I dump it entirely once I've gotten all the QoS recipes down. In addition, I simply don't care much about the odds. ('Never tell me the odds!') I make my decisions on what I plan to do with my day based on many other things, but 'lucky' or 'unlucky' doesn't enter into it-- and the influence of luck boosting foods actually dwarfs anything the random fortune teller shifts give or take. (The largest bonus or penalty from random luck is one-tenth of a percentage point, whereas a dish like fried eel or spicy eel grants a full point, and a lucky lunch three!)

Now, with that said, the game mechanics do set up some principles for the luck stat, as detailed here: http://stardewvalleywiki.com/Luck

Included are the following:

Amount of wood dropped from trees
Chance of getting coal from rocks
Chance to discover ladders while Mining.
Quality of ore from Panning.
Geode drop chance.
Drop chance of Duck Feather and Rabbit's Foot.
Chance of getting items from Garbage Cans and the chance the item is not trash.
Chance your spouse will be jealous after giving a gift to another marriage candidate.
Chance of treasure appearing while Fishing.
Chance of getting Neptune's Glaive from Fishing Treasure Chests.
Results of playing slots at the Casino.
Amount of lightning during a storm.
Number of extra crops yielded at harvest, for crops that allow extra harvests.

These are, according to people sifting through the game code, part of the mechanics of the Stardew engine. So, yes, in theory, a 'lucky' or 'unlucky' day will influence the behaviours of all of these facets of the game.

 

I would recommend avoiding any asteroid fields, regardless of what any fortune teller or droid may tell you.

Silly me. It never dawned on me, for whatever daft reason, to look on the wiki for what luck influences. The trash cans wouldn't have been apparent to me because I rarely sift through them, but the ladders in the mine somewhat surprise me because I have seemed to have some of my better descending days on bad luck days. And Neptune's Glaive is a legend the fickle Roman god bestows only upon those who have already conquered the mine and who are contemplating retirement from the farm. Certainly not to those who have yet to delve deeply into the mountain... And I can't say I have much knowledge on witchcraft: modern, historical, scientific, or ascient; but I wholly agree with not allowing the spirits to control my in-game agency.

 

It's a character thing. I play my farmer as a character, as explained in this thread: http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/your-farmers-backstory.114359/#post-2933599

While I know some people who are neo-pagans or Wicca, this is /not/ how I portray Lillian-- her 'witchcraft' is a hybrid blend of alchemy, quantum physics, and folklore. It's quite fictional.

 

When I was struggling in the lower levels of the mines and then in the Skull Cavern, I checked fortune teller to decide whether or not to go mining that day. Once I got two prismatic shards and my Galaxy Sword, and reached level 25 of the cavern (for the associated quest), I pretty much ignored it.

 

In the first seasons I check the fortune teller, but I don't act after his predictions because I do all things when I have time and energy for them. Later I use him to determine if it is a good day for farming coal or metal ore. Aside from that I harvest crops when they are ready and open every trashcan on my way through the village each day.

 

Not much at all. I was playing through an old save (testing some dialogue edits) and actually got a Dwarf Scroll IV as a monster drop on an "unhappy spirits" day, so... yeah. I mostly use it to know when I should crack geodes now.

 

It usually doesn't affect my decision at all with two exceptions. I only go to the scull cavern or fish for treasure on very lucky days.
Other than that I just ignore Welwick. I check the channel out of habit every day anyway though.

 

Well that sucks. Lol I have been using it as a definite yes or no for mining.

 

By all means, if you want to. But here's the thing, the bonus or penalty from the random fortune is so tiny that you're better off just buffing on a Lucky Lunch or Fried Eel if you want to go mining that day, and that alone will always put you into positive luck territory no matter how bad Welwick's fortune for the day is.

 

In a couple saves I used her for deciding when to go mining so it was a lot then, now I want the surprises so not at all in fact I don't even check the channel anymore.

 

Well it's not that I want to. I felt it was necessary for the optimal outcome during mining. In the early stages before maxed out tools, I felt it helped me attain the best ores/geodes to get money and upgrades. But now that it's, more or less, a very small buff... I can pretty much ignore it. Now it's all about Queen Of Sauce and the weather channel!

 

I don't look at the fortune on the tv ever. I forget to look at the tv most days anyways. It probably does have an affect ubt I think its probably something we don't notice. Hey Lilian does the wiki page mean if its a bad luck day you're luck is -.1 but if you eat the lucky lunch you're luck is now 2.9? If that's how it works then it really doesn't seem like luck does much to me.

 

That's what it looked like to me. It doesn't go off of a while lot. Usually in the 0.0 region. No whole number. Just less than 1 point. So I guess that does show how little it affects us.

 

That's how the math works out, yes. The bonuses and penalties are only fractions of a point (anywhere from 0.02 to 0.1, plus or minus, depending), whereas food buffs range from +1.0 to +3.0, making them the clear winner. Keep in mind, I'm only pointing out what the wiki says-- I've never gone into the game code myself to confirm if any of this information is accurate!

 

I am so bad with names and spelling. Sorry Liliput. I think I combined you're name and Luthian's name.

 

No worries-- I just chalked it up to you using my farmer's name (which is Lillian) as mentioned up-thread.

 

I was using the fortune teller to know what days would be best to crack open geodes but someone recently told me that isn't affected by luck or spirit mood so...I probably won't bother with it at all now. I tend to just play and do whatever I need/want to do, and let things go as they may.

 

Pretty much how I'm throwing the dice now too.

 

After I read the page on the wiki that Liliput linked, I think that someone is correct because the wiki page also says, "(Luck does not increase the chance to receive rare gems and artifacts from geodes.)" But you can get more geodes with better luck apparently. It seems I read somewhere the geode results for each kind of geode is fixed at the beginning of every day, but I don't know this for certain. The only time I've used luck food buffs are the Spicy Eel, but I only ate it for the speed buff to stack with the Coffee speed buff.

This makes me wish I knew how to read the code because I'd like to know if 0.02 means 2%, 0.02%, or how this particular formula works, and if the +1 to +3 adds 1-3% or how it affects the formula, in question. I hope I didn't ruin anybody's approach to the game because I asked this . . .