Request For De To Post Probabilities Along With Drop Locations

[se05239]

Actually, funny story... actually random systems will likely have lots of repeats. In fact we, as humans, fail to grasp the concept of randomness. 

 

My car stereo has pure random song picking when I plug in my MP3 player.

Once, I got the same song 7 times in a row. Its not even funny anymore.

Pure random sucks.

[Dresden_]

There is no such thing as pure randomness in programming.  It's all pseudo-random, and implementing a layer of logic over the current generator which prevents or lowers the likelihood of getting too many repeats in a row isn't a particularly difficult task nor does it detract from the pseudo-randomness.  What it does do, however, is improve the player's experience.  

 

The cynic in me always feels like this is a futile sentiment as if they ever were to implement something like this, I would expect the loot pool to just be saturated with additional junk items to alternate between.

[Ishki88]

Start writing down what you get for doing void missions. The only way we'll have any kind of useful information is from gathering statistics.

 

If that's the case.

 

51 T1 EXT runs.

 

>19 T2 Key Rewards

>23 T1 Keys

>8 Prime parts other than Wyrm

>1 Wyrm Cerebrum

 

:l

[Yorinar]

If that's the case.

 

51 T1 EXT runs.

 

>19 T2 Key Rewards

>23 T1 Keys

>8 Prime parts other than Wyrm

>1 Wyrm Cerebrum

 

:l

 

thanks for the numbers.  I'm 15-0 so far for the wyrm cerebrum.

[RipperBravo3]

This reminds me of Ember Prime and doing 136 Capture missions to get one part........... cmon... RNG is absolute crap. Surely there could be a method where if you have done enough consecutive runs the item must drop......... unless of course you have alterior motives like wanting players to purchase Prime access in which case dont hide behind RNG. I understand Prime parts are suppose to be harder but 51 attempts as stated by the previous poster is ridicuous. Just another reason for the Vets to move on and the newer players to get Jaded....... good move DE.

[BizarreFetalChimpanzee]

As much as I would love to see official percentages stated, I'd be extremely suspicious of said numbers, considering the drop tables are encrypted and thus can not be confirmed or denied by anyone outside of DE.

[Yorinar]

As much as I would love to see official percentages stated, I'd be extremely suspicious of said numbers, considering the drop tables are encrypted and thus can not be confirmed or denied by anyone outside of DE.

 

This is why transparency is important.  A good track record of it improves community trust.  Failing to deliver it breeds distrust.

[shut]

Someone was able to pull actual numbers off the drop tables a while back. You know what DE did instead of fix it? They encrypted the drop tables to make it that much harder for anyone to find those numbers again.

 

The devs also said (before the Codex was released) that some of the Codex's new functionalities would include things like drop locations and rates of Prime parts.

 

Wonder where that went.

[BizarreFetalChimpanzee]

This is why transparency is important.  A good track record of it improves community trust.  Failing to deliver it breeds distrust.

Indeed. I find it really hard to trust DE with drop percentages because of their encryption of the drop tables shortly after the whole blunder of the forma scandal.

[Dogoframe]

They encrypted a lot more than the drop tables. The reason for this was because it was made apparent that people were managing to reverse engineer the game's code. It's really bad for business if people manage to reverse engineer the game's engine; it's tantamount to theft/piracy. DE responded by encrypting the game's data.

 

That being said, I would like DE to release the % chances, or at least have a way for the players to uncover the % chances (like having a codex entry for specific keys, and the entry would contain the % chances for certain drops; the more times you run that mission the more the %'s get revealed or something).

 

Letter13 I respect your devotion to the game and the time you donate to the forums, but I will have to call kubrowcrap on the reverse engineering. There was never a single proof or even evidence shown to the community to that regard, while the fact that the drop table atomic rotten egg was a really, really low move from DE.

 

If there is evidence, weak as it could be, I would love to see it. Before that, the obfuscation of drop tables served one purpose and one purpose only to me: remove all the need for accountability for a company that shows little of it.

[weirdee]

I still remember when DE only fixed the previous massive flaw in how drops were generated after the community's previous reverse engineering, which is bad???, discovered that the generator was getting locked into a pattern. I can't really imagine how long it would have taken if we hadn't actually discovered it, or what might even be going wrong now...

Edited June 17, 2014 by weirdee

[Tulzscha]

Moved to the proper section.

[rangeless]

I really do think these percentages should be disclosed because of the following reasons:

 

1. Sheldon tampered with the forma drop rate once so that t3 keys would have a 2% chance at forma bp, which is like getting a premade forma now, pretty much impossible. This issue wasn't addressed till someone data-mined the actual percentages. This led to Sheldon responding by giving an apology and everyone affected was given 50 plat.

 

2. Wyrm Systems was nearly impossible to get in T4 interception because before hotfix u13.7.2, T4 interception keys would not yield the Wyrm systems reward. It was forma, forma, and even more forma.

 

3. The community, as a whole, has a better judgment of how to deal with the dilution problem in Warframe. The devs have no idea the grindwalls we have to go through every time the drop tables get diluted to obviously favor the prime access content as opposed to the older content. Like seriously. I can understand if DE wants to make money but if a player was forced to spend 5+ hours to farm for one prime piece, that's nearly impossible to get, that'd be insane (and I not exaggerating. I have done over 10 40 minute t1 survivals this weekend and I STILL don't have a loki prime chassis! There's a reason the street price is 80+ plat)

Edited June 17, 2014 by rangeless

[Tr1ples1xer]

De does not feel comfortable posting stats like 0.03% chance for a drop and I understand them, if people really knew the odds they would stop playing :D

[Dreykan]

Here. Maybe this will help to understand your enemy. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generation

[BizarreFetalChimpanzee]

De does not feel comfortable posting stats like 0.03% chance for a drop and I understand them, if people really knew the odds they would stop playing :D

Which would be the follower of a previous scenario of the community raising its torches and pitch forks.

[Letter13]

Letter13 I respect your devotion to the game and the time you donate to the forums, but I will have to call kubrowcrap on the reverse engineering. There was never a single proof or even evidence shown to the community to that regard, while the fact that the drop table atomic rotten egg was a really, really low move from DE.

 

If there is evidence, weak as it could be, I would love to see it. Before that, the obfuscation of drop tables served one purpose and one purpose only to me: remove all the need for accountability for a company that shows little of it.

You are aware how companies operate, especially in regards to protecting their intellectual product and proprietary systems, yes?

 

I mean, what you're asking, this evidence, is like asking Microsoft to divulge the exact methods that a hacker may have used to reverse engineer the source code of Windows.

 

Or asking Apple explaining exactly how the first folks who hacked the iphone were able to jailbreak the iphone.

 

What it comes down to is the fact that a person or group of players were able to access parts of the game data that could only be accessed through reverse engineering and decompiling of the game's code. Because they were able to reverse engineer the game's data/code and turn it into a human-readable form of information is a breach of the EULA. 

 

DE realized this, and took steps to better encrypt the data so that it couldn't be reverse-engineered in the same fashion again.

 

DE's encrypting of the data isn't suspicious at all, it's a perfectly normal response for any company looking to protect their assets when it's discovered that said assets are vulnerable. In this case it's the game and the engine's code.

[Dogoframe]

You are aware how companies operate, especially in regards to protecting their intellectual product and proprietary systems, yes?

 

I mean, what you're asking, this evidence, is like asking Microsoft to divulge the exact methods that a hacker may have used to reverse engineer the source code of Windows.

 

Or asking Apple explaining exactly how the first folks who hacked the iphone were able to jailbreak the iphone.

 

What it comes down to is the fact that a person or group of players were able to access parts of the game data that could only be accessed through reverse engineering and decompiling of the game's code. Because they were able to reverse engineer the game's data/code and turn it into a human-readable form of information is a breach of the EULA. 

 

DE realized this, and took steps to better encrypt the data so that it couldn't be reverse-engineered in the same fashion again.

 

DE's encrypting of the data isn't suspicious at all, it's a perfectly normal response for any company looking to protect their assets when it's discovered that said assets are vulnerable. In this case it's the game and the engine's code.

 

No, that is not really what I was asking at all. I said evidence, not method, of reverse engineering. For example, NCSoft and Lineage 2. It is very clear their game was reverse engineered, because anyone can see the private servers. Silkroad Online, and others too, had their data reverse engineered and the absolute proof of that is that there are unofficial servers for those games. Those are thefts of intellectual property.

 

It was not in fact too hard to find out how the datamining (and I say datamining because I still havent seen ANY evidence of reverse engineering whatsoever), you only needed to approach one of the dataminers. From experience, dataminers are very proud of what they do to their communities, as they should. In the case of DE dataminers caught the company with their pants down not once, but twice.

 

So double apologies before I finish. Firstly, as much as I called the idea of reverse engineering kubrowcrap, I have absolutely nothing but respect for you, my interactions with you in the forums were always nice. Secondly, apologies if my own post was not that clear. I do not need or want any information on HOW to break into DE's closet to find skeletons. But before I am shown ANY evidence of reverse engineering of Evolution or any other intellectual properties, and because DE has an undeniable history of false statements, I will chose not to believe in it at all.

[Letter13]

I will chose not to believe in it at all.

That's your prerogative.

 

As for evidence that Warframe was reverse engineered, there may not be any because those who reverse engineered the game's code to get the drop tables may not have had the chance to reverse engineer much more than that. It may be the case of nipping the issue in the bud--the vulnerability was patched before anything critical was reverse engineered.

 

But the fact that the drop tables had been extracted by players is proof that part of the game had been reverse engineered into a human-readable format. It may not be a complete reverse engineering, but it was partial. And any form of reverse engineering puts DE's proprietary code at risk.

[Dogoframe]

That's your prerogative.

 

As for evidence that Warframe was reverse engineered, there may not be any because those who reverse engineered the game's code to get the drop tables may not have had the chance to reverse engineer much more than that. It may be the case of nipping the issue in the bud--the vulnerability was patched before anything critical was reverse engineered.

 

But the fact that the drop tables had been extracted by players is proof that part of the game had been reverse engineered into a human-readable format. It may not be a complete reverse engineering, but it was partial. And any form of reverse engineering puts DE's proprietary code at risk.

 

Semantics argument then, I suppose. When I say reverse engineering I mean reaching, breaking, understanding and being able to reproduce a system (as per its definition). Datamining is NOT reverse engineering and that is yet another false statement from DE. Dataminers look for patterns and when/if they find them they make them understandable, readable. If datamining was so similar to reverse engineering (and because yes, I do have an idea of how people and companies, including me as an artist, protect intellectual property) all games would have obfuscated data all through their engines and systems, and that is really not the case. In fact, not all data from Warframe is secure, not everything is given the same obfuscation treatment.

 

So I will go one further in my prerogative of not believing in it, and ask people not to believe as well, not because I think it is untrue, but because there is zero evidence to the contrary, and enough evidence that DE needs the obfuscation to cover up for their lack of accountability, and desire to provide such.

 

Edit: And another point, the obfuscation did not come because the data was vulnerable, if that was the case, the nipping of the bud could have come when DE found about people datamining their game. It only came when whoever was datamining, not reverse engineering, the game could prove that not only the droptables were nowhere close to what DE claimed them to be, but after DE told the community they had been fixed, they were again caught lying.

Edited June 17, 2014 by Dogoframe

[DoomFruit]

You are aware how companies operate, especially in regards to protecting their intellectual product and proprietary systems, yes?

 

I mean, what you're asking, this evidence, is like asking Microsoft to divulge the exact methods that a hacker may have used to reverse engineer the source code of Windows.

 

Or asking Apple explaining exactly how the first folks who hacked the iphone were able to jailbreak the iphone.

 

What it comes down to is the fact that a person or group of players were able to access parts of the game data that could only be accessed through reverse engineering and decompiling of the game's code. Because they were able to reverse engineer the game's data/code and turn it into a human-readable form of information is a breach of the EULA. 

 

DE realized this, and took steps to better encrypt the data so that it couldn't be reverse-engineered in the same fashion again.

 

DE's encrypting of the data isn't suspicious at all, it's a perfectly normal response for any company looking to protect their assets when it's discovered that said assets are vulnerable. In this case it's the game and the engine's code.

Well, I'll save you the speculation and tell you right now how the data was accessed. There's a program which can extract the individual files from Warframe/Dark Sector engine packages. The drop tables were stored in there as human-readable text files - so once extracted, the dreadful hacker tool known as Notepad made everything plain as day. And DE's changes didn't alter structure of the package files at all - you could still read the file system accurately and get the files, it's just that some files were made unreadable. See http://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/1o3jzr/1030_rewarddrop_tables_where_are_they/ for before and after.

 

And the game itself was never reverse-engineered into human readable format. The plain text configuration files were always there, but I have never heard anything about someone *decompiling* the actually important bits and getting the source code. I don't have access to the extraction program (it's behind a paywall on some other site), but I'd wager that only the drop tables were encrypted and not the audio files, or textures, etc.

 

No, this is just DE getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar and then responding by taking the jar away and hiding it somewhere ("You can't prove that I've eaten cookies!" "Explain those crumbs."). Also, if you consider looking directly at the raw drop tables as evil reverse-engineering, what's your perspective on writing down all our rewards and getting statistics out of the accumulated data? Because it gives the same result in the end, only with more suffering.

[Dogoframe]

And the game itself was never reverse-engineered into human readable format. The plain text configuration files were always there, but I have never heard anything about someone *decompiling* the actually important bits and getting the source code. I don't have access to the extraction program (it's behind a paywall on some other site), but I'd wager that only the drop tables were encrypted and not the audio files, or textures, etc.

 

 Nowadays audio files, textures, etc still use the same encryption. ONLY drop tables were obfuscated to my knowledge.

[Nkomo-Sama]

O_O 

[Letter13]

Well, I'll save you the speculation and tell you right now how the data was accessed. There's a program which can extract the individual files from Warframe/Dark Sector engine packages. The drop tables were stored in there as human-readable text files - so once extracted, the dreadful hacker tool known as Notepad made everything plain as day. And DE's changes didn't alter structure of the package files at all - you could still read the file system accurately and get the files, it's just that some files were made unreadable. See http://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/1o3jzr/1030_rewarddrop_tables_where_are_they/ for before and after.

 

And the game itself was never reverse-engineered into human readable format. The plain text configuration files were always there, but I have never heard anything about someone *decompiling* the actually important bits and getting the source code. I don't have access to the extraction program (it's behind a paywall on some other site), but I'd wager that only the drop tables were encrypted and not the audio files, or textures, etc.

 

No, this is just DE getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar and then responding by taking the jar away and hiding it somewhere ("You can't prove that I've eaten cookies!" "Explain those crumbs."). Also, if you consider looking directly at the raw drop tables as evil reverse-engineering, what's your perspective on writing down all our rewards and getting statistics out of the accumulated data? Because it gives the same result in the end, only with more suffering.

I see what you and Dogo are getting at now. To this point I assumed that all of the game data had been encrypted and that the structure for storing game data had changed to be more secure following the datamining/grabbing of the drop tables.

[Dogoframe]

 See http://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/1o3jzr/1030_rewarddrop_tables_where_are_they/ for before and after.

 

 

 

Almost forgot, thank you so much for this link DoomFruit. Much easier for folks to read about it here on the forums. DE_Steve replied to that thread a few times as well. His last comment was about bringing the issues mentioned to the team in the following morning, eight months ago.