What is Awesome Level?
Awesome Level (AL) is an internal game variable. Its values are numerical, and range in level from 0 – 77 (max found so far). The number itself is not an indicator of an item’s quality or rarity, but a property of the entity that generated the item. The AL comes from the chest, vendor, or enemy that generated it.
In general, chests, vendors, and enemies with a higher awesome level should produce better gear than lower AL sources over time. That doesn’t mean a chest with an AL of 14 can’t generate a better gun than a chest with an AL of 42. It just means that the AL 42 chest has a higher probability of generating a better gun. So far, this correlation is observational only. Testing and proving that relationship is one of the goals of this thread.
What Does Awesome Level Do?
This is the part that is least clear. We know from the editor that the game uses it in loot generation. We don’t know exactly how it affects part or weapon selection. Hopefully, testing will reveal a statistical correlation between higher average rarity and higher relative awesome levels.
There is also a theory that the AL of the weapon you are holding might affect the loot generated by chests opened or enemies killed. For now, this is speculation only, and much more testing is needed. But hey, it can’t hurt, right?
Vendor Awesome Levels
PT 2.5
Vanilla
All vendors tested have an AL of 29 for the Item of the Day, AL of 4 for the other weapons.
DLC1, DLC2, DLC4
Same as above, with 3 exceptions:
- The special Jakobs vendor has an AL of 28, and does not scale correctly to endgame levels
- The vendor in the Hyperion gift shop is AL 30 for the Item of the Day
- DLC3 – All vendors have an AL of 30 for the Item of the Day, AL of 5 for the other weapons, with one exception:
- The vendor in Crawmerax’s Lair has an AL of 31 for the Item of the Day. This is the highest vendor AL in the game.
Enemy Awesome Levels
For the most part, enemies in vanilla, DLC1, 2, and 4 are AL 4. Enemies in DLC3 are AL 5. Notable enemy AL’s are listed below. If an enemy is not listed, assume that they have a normal AL for the area.
- Crawmerax – AwesomeLevel 67
- Badass Lance can have an AL of 5, 7, or 8
- Mini Steve and Truxican Wrestler have an AL of 18
- Crimson Shorty – AL 21
Special note: Regardless of the AL of an enemy, if Mordecai’s Ransack skill causes a weapon to be generated, the Awesome Level of the weapon will be 69. This has been confirmed for vanilla and all 4 DLC in PT2.5
Update: It appears that Ransack, in PTs 2 and 2.5 produces Awesome Level weapons equal to your character’s level. i.e. if you’re level 45, the AL will be 45. Still testing on PT1.
Chest Awesome Levels
PT2.5
Vanilla – Most red chests are AL 14. Most white chests are AL 4.
Some chests in vanilla are harder to find or reach. These chests are often AL 42. Below is a list of the known AL 42 chests.
- Fyrestone / Arid Badlands – none found
- Skag Gully – Red chest hidden at the north (during the “Seed of Your Pants” mission)
- Arid Hills – none found
- Sledge’s Safe House – Red chest in the room unlocked by the rescued claptrap
- Lost Cave – none found, 1 chest left to test
- Headstone Mine
- Dahl Headlands – “X” marks the spot bandit treasure chest
- New Haven
- Rust Commons West – The “Dev Chest” off the cliff in the northern part of the map
- Crazy Earl’s Scrapyard
- Treacher’s Landing
- Rust Commons East
- Tetanus Warrens
- Krom’s Canyon
- Trash Coast
- Old Haven
- Salt Flats
- The Backdoor – The red chest on top of the room where you see Steele in the last room where you fight Master McCloud
- Crimson Fastness – There are two red chests in the room unlocked by the rescued claptrap. The bottom chest is AL 42
- Crimson Enclave
- The Descent
- Eridian Promontory – Dev chest up on the left cliff at the end is AL 42
DLC1
- Red chests are AL 14 like vanilla
- Loot Goons chests – AL 19
DLC4
Most red chests in DLC4 are AL 14. Most white chests are AL 4.
Some DLC4 red chests are AL42. They are listed below:
- Hyperion Dump
- Red chest on the roof of the building near the beginning (down the hill from the vendors and to the left)
- Red chest in the NE corner, under the awning
- Red chest in the skag pit
- Red chest up on the catwalks where you have to hop over to the shed roof
- Red chest on the eastern side of the map that you can only get to by jumping roof to roof (or crane to roof)
- Sanders Gorge
- 2 red chests after Knoxx-trap
- Lockers after Knoxx trap appear to be mostly AL 14
- Red chest up on the platform where the bridge is lowered after you clear the mission
- Hyperion Dump
DLC3
Just posting what we have in the other thread at this point. DLC3 has by far the most variation of awesome levels.
- T-Bone Junction:
- 2 white chests are AL 5
- 2 red chests are AL 18
- Sunken Sea: (from ense7en, thanks)
- *if not noted, whites are AL 5, reds are AL 18*
- If you take the road up toward CoD there’s the huge sign.
- Hidden red chest beside sign: 54
- Midget encampment area below the road on the way to CoD
- Hidden Lance chest you jump to get onto in that midget area = 65
- Red chest you have to jump across all the platforms to get to = 54
- If you head left toward the Bullet area there’s a road you can take up & at the end is the bus over the edge with the red chest = 54
- Red chest in other midget area basically in the middle of nowhere = 54
- Lockdown Palace: (after it’s been cleared)
- Most red chests – AL 18
- White chests and lockers – AL 5
- Red chest in the room claptrap unlocks – AL 54
- Red chest up in the pipes – AL 54
- Red chest behind door that opens on the way out – AL 54
- Lance chest 1 – AL 21
- Lance chest 2 – AL 65
- All regular enemies, Badasses, Chaz, Shank – AL 5
- Road’s End:
- Lost Lewts Chests: AL 21 – lowest lance chests found
- Red Chest at the top of the gondola, under the stairs – AL 54
- Lance chest reachable by jumping off the cliff from the top of the gondola – AL 65
- Red Chest at roadblock before the Armory: AL 54
- Lance Chest w/ Crimson Shorty – AL 27
- Other Lance Chest on Armory approach – 65
- Final white chest right before the Armory entrance – AL 18
- Inside the Armory:
- White chests are either AL 5 or 18
- Red Chests can be AL 18, 41 (42?), or 54
- Lance chests are either AL 51 or AL 65
- T-Bone Junction:
Lance chests that are AL 51:
- Inside the wall alcoves with the moving platform – at least one AL 51 per alcove. If there are two lance chests, one is AL 51, the other is AL 65
- All 5 lance chests on the top floor are AL 51
- All remaining lance chests in the Armory are AL 65. 4 on the main floor, and 2 in the maze.
If you’re interested in speed runs through the Armory, and want to skip all the red chests with an AL of 18, ense7en made a kickass video opening all the chests with an AL of 42 or higher:
Other Items of Interest
CoD Rewards:
- Private Level reward (Gearbox Machine Pistol) – AL 50
- Sergeant Level reward – AL 68
- Medal of Duty reward (Gearbox class specific) – AL 77
The items TK pukes up from the Braaaaains missions are all AL 4.
The weapons dropped at the end of a round in The Underdome appear to all be AL 10.
Testing
Testing Results
Huge thanks to:
- Scottes – for running analysis on the save files and discussing them with me
- Apple-Guy – for helping me with the maps
- Uzkniso – for letting me use his chest map
Part 1
The goal of this portion of the testing is to determine whether the Awesome Level that we can now see attached to a weapon can actually affect future loot generation. i.e. Is the loot different when you’re holding an AL 0 weapon versus an AL 65 weapon?
One of the pet theories that I and others have speculated about is that holding a high AL weapon might positively influence the loot generation mechanic, thus producing better loot from chests and enemies.
To put the chest part of that theory to the test, I ran the following scenarios:
Scenario 1:
Using a custom map filled with AL 51 lance chests, open and loot roughly 1080 of these chests during two tests. For the first test, hold a weapon from my inventory with an AL of 0. For the second test, equip a weapon from the first chest I open (AL 51), then open the rest of the chests.
Normalization Techniques Used:
Both tests were conducted using the same character and same save file with an empty backpack, aside from equipped items. Equipped items were discarded before analysis. This should negate any possible effects of character loot weighting, manufacturer preference, etc.
Both tests opened the exact same number of chests, from the same map.
Unfortunately, I left items in the bank (360) for this test, before knowing that they could not be excluded from the analysis program. As a result, the average rarity might be slightly higher than it should be, but the same increase will affect both tests equally.
Scenario 2:
Using a custom map filled with AL 65 lance chests, open and loot roughly 1440 of these chests during two tests. For the first test, hold a weapon from my inventory with an AL of 0. For the second test, equip a weapon from the first chest I open (AL 65), then open the rest of the chests.
Normalization Techniques Used:
Both tests were conducted using the same character and same save file with an empty backpack, aside from equipped items. Equipped items were discarded before analysis. This should negate any possible effects of character loot weighting, manufacturer preference, etc.
Both tests were conducted over 2 game sessions, to try and better average normal “waves” of loot quality.
For the test holding an AL 65 weapon, I tried to fill my equipped slots with roughly the same rarity weapons as the AL 0 test.
Both tests opened the exact same number of chests, from the same map
Bank Items were removed
Observations:
In both scenarios, the average rarity increased slightly, but well within the possible normal variation of a test this size. Even with 5,000 items per backpack, this test was still subject to the game’s normal ebbs and flows. Still, during scenario 2, there was an increase in average rarity from 18.2 to 18.7
In both scenarios, there were more elemental weapons in the second test, and an over 20% increase in weapons with an x4 elemental multiplier. That could be a trend, but with sample sizes this small, I would hesitate to attach any significance to it.
Some of the possible trends from scenario 1 were refuted (or better normalized) during scenario 2, which was the better test, imho.
Pearls are so friggin random it’s ridiculous. You can open 1000 chests and get one crappy stalker (scenario 1, test 2) or you can get 2 jackals right next to each other (scenario 2, test 1).
Conclusion:
Overall, in both scenarios, the numbers came back as close to each other as you can hope for in a test of this size, in a game this random. My conclusion at this point is that holding a weapon with a high awesome level does not affect loot generated by chests.
FAQs
Is there any way to change the Awesome Level of a chest, enemy, or vendor?
Not that we’ve found, without actually editing the AL of a chest in a user-created map.
Does a COM with a +2 Find Rare Items affect the Awesome Level?
Not with an effect that can be measured using our current methods.
