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Everything you never wanted to know about Infinity Lock Boxes - 2019 Edition
dukedom01
Member Posts: 462 Arc User
Sample size: 10,000 in stacks of 500
Testing Environment: Tribble Test Server
Results:
- 54,168 Lobi Crystals
- Na'kuhl Warfare Specialist (Duty Officer) - 29 ~0.29%
- Krenim Temporal Specialist (Duty Officer) - 36 ~0.36%
- Ferengi Privateer Cadre - 36 ~0.36%
- Gamma Quadrant Elite Duty Officer - 38 ~0.38%
- Hirogen Predator Duty Officer Requisition - 38 ~0.38%
- Infinity Prize Pack: T6 Ship - 40 ~0.40%
- Kelvin Timeline Officer (Duty Officer) - 41 ~0.41%
- Temporal Duty Officer - 41 ~0.41%
- Elachi Survivor Officers - 45 ~0.45%
- Xindi Duty Officer (Duty Officer) - 47 ~0.47%
- Dominion Duty Officer - 47 ~0.47%
- Voth Separatist Officers - 48 ~0.48%
- Special Equipment Pack – DS9 Bridge Officers - 49 ~0.49%
- Kobali Engineering Corps Veterans - 50 ~0.5%
- Ba'ku Duty Officer Cadre - 55 ~0.55%
- Xindi Strategic Specialist (Duty Officer) - 55 ~0.55%
- Tholian Warfare Specialist - 55 ~0.55%
- Salvaged Technology - 67 ~0.67%
- Research Assignment – Tzenkethi Intelligence Briefings - 80 ~0.8%
- Mirror Incursion Research Assignment – (Unspecified) - 92 ~0.92%
- Holonovel Storage Device - 93 ~0.93 %
- Research Assignment – Terran Empire Research - 98 ~0.98%
- Research Assignment (c. 23rd Century) – (Unspecified) - 99 ~0.99%
- Research Assignment – Hur'q Research - 103 ~1.03%
- Temporal Beacon Storage Device - 104 ~1.04%
- Tal Shiar Command Code - 107 ~1.07%
- Research Assignment – Gamma Quadrant Research - 109 ~1.09%
- Duty Officer Cadre - 116 ~1.16%
- Temporal Research Assignment – (Unspecified) - 117 ~1.17%
- Reinforcements Duty Officer Pack - 131 ~1.31%
- Gamma Quadrant Duty Officer Cadre - 149 ~1.49%
- Romulan Survivor Duty Officer Pack - 153 ~1.53%
- Fleet Support Duty Officer Pack - 166 ~1.66%
- Dilithium Mining Claim – Extra-Special VIP Customer - 170 ~1.7%
- 750 Reputation Mark Bonus Pool - 183 ~1.83%
- Infinity Prize Pack: T5 Ship - 185 ~1.85%
- 35,000 Fleet Credit Bonus Pool - 187 ~1.87%
- Special Equipment Pack – Herald Kits - 194 ~1.94%
- 150 Fleet Mark Bonus Pool - 199 ~1.99%
- Special Equipment Pack – Terran Empire Kits - 211 ~2.11%
- Special Equipment Pack – Delta Expedition Kits - 218 ~2.18%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Starship Trait - 222 ~2.22%
- Special Equipment Pack – Xindi Experimental Kits - 232 ~2.32%
- 500 Reputation Mark Bonus Pool - 233 ~2.33%
- Special Equipment Pack – Fluidic Kits - 234 ~2.34%
- 25,000 Fleet Credit Bonus Pool - 247 ~2.47%
- Dilithium Mining Claim – VIP Customer - 250 ~2.5%
- 100 Fleet Mark Bonus Pool - 251 ~2.51%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Cross-Faction Console or Salvaged Console - 313 ~3.13%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Personal Trait (Space) - 347 ~3.47%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Personal Trait (Ground) - 353 ~3.53%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Bridge Officer Training Manual - 513 ~5.13%
- Research & Development Pack - 647 ~6.47%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Kit Module - 895 ~8.95%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Weapon Pack - 1,182 ~11.82%
----adding up a few of the single items----
- 'Regular' duty officer packs - 715 ~7.15%
- 'Special' duty officers - 661 ~6.61%
- Duty Officers total - 1,376 ~13,76%
- Bonus Pools - 1,300 ~13%
- Duty officer assignments - 895 ~8.95%
- Kits - 1089 ~10.89%
----snip----
Some observations:
As you can see the 'prize dilution' on items outside of infinity choice packs has increased to a point they have become rarer than the ship jackpot prize.
Maybe it's time to consolidate some of them into new infinity prize packs? And with prize packs I mean 'choice' packs not that horrible gamble again for the kit module nobody wants option.
And why are the infinity prize packs still bound to character and not account? Penalizing players who were careless enough to open infinity boxes on the wrong faction/profession character? NAUGHTY NAUGHTY NAUGHTY!
Not to forget the infinity weapon pack. Which is a carpal tunnel inducing PITA to convert into something useful.
Here is a little challenge for the various systems designers: Grab yourself a few infinity weapon packs and then open them until you end up with either a sensor-linked omni beam or wide arc cannon. After you are done icing your wrist joints please come up with a better solution.
Brainfart on the side: NPC who 'recycles' various unpacked stuff for a fee. i.e. 'Don't want that pesky voth antiproton ground weapon? For the small fee of 50k EC I'll take it back and hand you a new infinity weapon pack.'
----snap----
enjoy
Testing Environment: Tribble Test Server
Results:
- 54,168 Lobi Crystals
- Na'kuhl Warfare Specialist (Duty Officer) - 29 ~0.29%
- Krenim Temporal Specialist (Duty Officer) - 36 ~0.36%
- Ferengi Privateer Cadre - 36 ~0.36%
- Gamma Quadrant Elite Duty Officer - 38 ~0.38%
- Hirogen Predator Duty Officer Requisition - 38 ~0.38%
- Infinity Prize Pack: T6 Ship - 40 ~0.40%
- Kelvin Timeline Officer (Duty Officer) - 41 ~0.41%
- Temporal Duty Officer - 41 ~0.41%
- Elachi Survivor Officers - 45 ~0.45%
- Xindi Duty Officer (Duty Officer) - 47 ~0.47%
- Dominion Duty Officer - 47 ~0.47%
- Voth Separatist Officers - 48 ~0.48%
- Special Equipment Pack – DS9 Bridge Officers - 49 ~0.49%
- Kobali Engineering Corps Veterans - 50 ~0.5%
- Ba'ku Duty Officer Cadre - 55 ~0.55%
- Xindi Strategic Specialist (Duty Officer) - 55 ~0.55%
- Tholian Warfare Specialist - 55 ~0.55%
- Salvaged Technology - 67 ~0.67%
- Research Assignment – Tzenkethi Intelligence Briefings - 80 ~0.8%
- Mirror Incursion Research Assignment – (Unspecified) - 92 ~0.92%
- Holonovel Storage Device - 93 ~0.93 %
- Research Assignment – Terran Empire Research - 98 ~0.98%
- Research Assignment (c. 23rd Century) – (Unspecified) - 99 ~0.99%
- Research Assignment – Hur'q Research - 103 ~1.03%
- Temporal Beacon Storage Device - 104 ~1.04%
- Tal Shiar Command Code - 107 ~1.07%
- Research Assignment – Gamma Quadrant Research - 109 ~1.09%
- Duty Officer Cadre - 116 ~1.16%
- Temporal Research Assignment – (Unspecified) - 117 ~1.17%
- Reinforcements Duty Officer Pack - 131 ~1.31%
- Gamma Quadrant Duty Officer Cadre - 149 ~1.49%
- Romulan Survivor Duty Officer Pack - 153 ~1.53%
- Fleet Support Duty Officer Pack - 166 ~1.66%
- Dilithium Mining Claim – Extra-Special VIP Customer - 170 ~1.7%
- 750 Reputation Mark Bonus Pool - 183 ~1.83%
- Infinity Prize Pack: T5 Ship - 185 ~1.85%
- 35,000 Fleet Credit Bonus Pool - 187 ~1.87%
- Special Equipment Pack – Herald Kits - 194 ~1.94%
- 150 Fleet Mark Bonus Pool - 199 ~1.99%
- Special Equipment Pack – Terran Empire Kits - 211 ~2.11%
- Special Equipment Pack – Delta Expedition Kits - 218 ~2.18%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Starship Trait - 222 ~2.22%
- Special Equipment Pack – Xindi Experimental Kits - 232 ~2.32%
- 500 Reputation Mark Bonus Pool - 233 ~2.33%
- Special Equipment Pack – Fluidic Kits - 234 ~2.34%
- 25,000 Fleet Credit Bonus Pool - 247 ~2.47%
- Dilithium Mining Claim – VIP Customer - 250 ~2.5%
- 100 Fleet Mark Bonus Pool - 251 ~2.51%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Cross-Faction Console or Salvaged Console - 313 ~3.13%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Personal Trait (Space) - 347 ~3.47%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Personal Trait (Ground) - 353 ~3.53%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Bridge Officer Training Manual - 513 ~5.13%
- Research & Development Pack - 647 ~6.47%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Kit Module - 895 ~8.95%
- Infinity Prize Pack: Weapon Pack - 1,182 ~11.82%
----adding up a few of the single items----
- 'Regular' duty officer packs - 715 ~7.15%
- 'Special' duty officers - 661 ~6.61%
- Duty Officers total - 1,376 ~13,76%
- Bonus Pools - 1,300 ~13%
- Duty officer assignments - 895 ~8.95%
- Kits - 1089 ~10.89%
----snip----
Some observations:
As you can see the 'prize dilution' on items outside of infinity choice packs has increased to a point they have become rarer than the ship jackpot prize.
Maybe it's time to consolidate some of them into new infinity prize packs? And with prize packs I mean 'choice' packs not that horrible gamble again for the kit module nobody wants option.
And why are the infinity prize packs still bound to character and not account? Penalizing players who were careless enough to open infinity boxes on the wrong faction/profession character? NAUGHTY NAUGHTY NAUGHTY!
Not to forget the infinity weapon pack. Which is a carpal tunnel inducing PITA to convert into something useful.
Here is a little challenge for the various systems designers: Grab yourself a few infinity weapon packs and then open them until you end up with either a sensor-linked omni beam or wide arc cannon. After you are done icing your wrist joints please come up with a better solution.
Brainfart on the side: NPC who 'recycles' various unpacked stuff for a fee. i.e. 'Don't want that pesky voth antiproton ground weapon? For the small fee of 50k EC I'll take it back and hand you a new infinity weapon pack.'
----snap----
enjoy
Ceterum censeo Otha supplendum in praemiis.
Post edited by dukedom01 on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
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it confirms what a lot of us suspected
The Law of Large Numbers says the observed results will become closer to the expected results (in this case the lock box odds) as the number of tests performed increases.
We've had similar large-opening experiments performed in the past, that have given the same 1:250 odds for getting the T6 ship choice. By now it's safe to say that number is correct, or more formally the chance that the odds are not 1:250 is very remote.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Faction locked are:
T5 ships, console packs, starship traits.
Profession locked are:
Personal traits.
And for the sake of completion obviously some of the older duty officer requisitions roll into allready factionized versions.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
It's specifically for repeating an experiment a LARGE number of times. 2, 3, or 4 times IS NOT a large number. There is no principle that a small number of observations will coincide with the expected value or that a streak of one value will immediately be "balanced" by the others either. I've bought 80 Boxes and won 3 T6's....a very lucky occasion.
It's also interesting to note that people are ignoring that there are 6 items of lesser value in the box that have lower odds in the OP's list, and that in itself helps disprove the 'observed odds as indicator of programmed odds'. The OP will get different results everytime he repeats it. It's is almost improbable that the actual odds for a T6 ship are 0.40% (I never use the 1 in 250 argument, because it is the wrong 'argument' to express chance in this case as that implies 1 in 250 WILL be a ship.). It is more probable that the actual odds are 1%.
The fact that you write "price" in place of "prize" is probably going to drive me to murder, but that aside, I think there's a flaw in your logic. Each of the prizes you're referring to are, as you report later, part of a prize "type" rather than a specific prize themselves. No prize type is more rare in your outcomes than the T6 ship pack... they all fall under the duty officer packs which, as you did later report, are far more common as a type, but have a wide number of possible subtypes.
Large number of samples, not large number of datapoints. This doesn't count as 10,000 this counts as 1 in that regard. If one wanted to get a good bead on the probabilities they'd be better off opening 100-200 boxes, recording the results, and repeating the process again 30 or so times (Central Limit Theorem's fairly arbitrary floor) then reporting the aggregate probability with confidence intervals.
The issue being, of course, that with such small expected probabilities getting a tight bead on those numbers might be tough... so.. more repetitions would be better.
It's likely that performing these mass-opening tests could be, at least to a great degree, automated.. with the opening being done by a program, and the outcomes being tabulated from the log text. I suspect Cryptic would pretty quickly get in front of people trying to do so, though.. It is not in their best interests for us to know the numbers.
I am vewwy sowwy about that pwice/pwize thing.
Very opportunistic of you. Sure, lets make-believe that this was actually an experiment in which we opened boxes simply to see if we got a T6 ship or not.. with 10,000 individual attempts you'll have determined with 95% confidence that the drop rate for T6 ships in infinity lockboxes is between 1:183 and 1:344.
Also, if you considered it an "unfair die" then the data would be meaningless. You're considering this to be a completely consistent probability and thus, a very fair roll.
Sorry, by "unfair" I meant "unevenly weighted" or "unequal probabilities for each side" but still fixed probabilities for each side. A "fair" die has exactly equal chances for rolling 1,2, ... n while obviously that is not correct for the loot box die.
Also, extend the individual attempts to at least 50,000 since this experiment has been repeated by others over the years with the same approximate result for T6 ships.
Can call it a Ferengi Rigged Dice too, for fun, lol
At least Quark's dabo tables are "no longer" rigged
The T6 odds are very very likely to be .04% or 1:250. It's science!
this is not fair or unfair, it is just a basic economic system. In french we call that " le bâton et la carotte", carrot and stick tactics (not sure to be an accurate translation).
if you accept this tactic, then you open boxes (lockboxes, r&d, phoenix), with a biased hope of having something important. But if all the players were winners all the time, this game could shut all these servres and close the door. all the mmos have the same system, you create frustation and you exploit the frustation to your own profit.
when you have accepted that this game and many other games like this one are not created for your pleasure, but for profits; you stop to be pissed off, and you can have an other point of view.
when i open a lockbox, i know that i'm not going to have a T6 ship, I just hope of having something useful: starship trait, training manuals, the stuff for the dill mining (ferengi mining); that's all.
I also know, that 85% of the time, i'm just going to have a heap of TRIBBLE (kit, salvaged TRIBBLE), but nobody forced me.
I also know that all this TRIBBLE in the lockbox has a purpose, decrease our chance of having something valuable, but I still open boxes, because 15% of having something useful is still more interesting that buying this valuable stuff at a ridiculous price in the exchange, + there are also the lobis that i use for costumes.
thx, for the job done, but there is nothing that I already know. A mmo is a mmo, nothing more nothing less. players should accept that. Even if in STO the chance of getting someting interesting is very low. In an other game, for the first time that I opened lootboxes (10 boxes), I had a premium vehicle, the second time a second premium vehicle (5 boxes) etc etc.
The problem isnt that - the problem is transparency. Its best to release the odds or they run the risk to be classified as a gambling service in the future. That doesnt mean that goverments care if lockboxes exploit people - goverments just want the taxes since taxing for gambling is a lot higher.
And other people do what you do(support the game) without buying necessarily the lockboxes. For example I often buy ship bundles that got just 1 or 2 ships I want just to support too. A recent example was the recent Temporal Warship pack where I bought the full pack but really what interested me was the Chargh. My point is as long as we all understand a game needs money to sustain, there are ways other than lockboxes too, to finance them
Ok, well, if you want to discuss probabilities then its probably best to stop thinking in terms of little cubes... and trying to extend little cubes (or increasingly complex geometric shapes) to fit your scenarios. Even within that paradigm you're limiting yourself by assuming each potential outcome can be assigned to only one side of a die.
You're inventing your own terminology here. An unweighted dice has an equal chance of landing on any given side... You should always avoid the term "fair" as people will never agree on what it really means. What you're really talking about is a uniformly distributed set of outcomes. Nobody imagines that's what lockboxes are.
I haven't seen any such data.
Generally speaking, I don't trust other people's data in the first place... but in this thread's case I'm pretty confident that the OP did not just make up all those entries. When people simply say "I did it 1000 times and it gave me 5 T6 ships" it's not very trustworthy, in my opinion.
Mathematics is not a science and based on the data present on or liked to on this thread, the T6 odds are about 95% likely to be between 1:183 and 1:344. Saying anything more concrete is belief-based not based on presented facts.
How very kind of you.
Just for the giggles here is how the 40 t6 packs spread through my various 500 batch copies.
1+2+2+2+1+2+1+1+2+3+3+3+2+1+3+3+2+3+1+2
Pretty much a great explanation this.
The main factor we do not know is how the game's probability tables are formatted. It would be pretty easy to fit all the infinity prizes in a basic 1-100 table which would then exclude the possibility of the odds of getting a T6 being lower than 1%. Yes it could be 1-1000 but (assuming a 0.4% chance) that would in theory improve the chances of getting a T6 as the number range is greater than a 1-100 table. As I mentioned earlier, the fact that has been claimed a couple of 'draws' gave approx 0.40% only backs up a 1% chance, it does not disprove it. A programmed 0.40% chance would invariably and reliably produce a lower draw rate.
Another factor that people who have never done any programming before will not know is that if there is one thing a computer does badly, it's producing a truly random number. Back in my early days of programming the venerable Spectrum and Commodore, programming them to produce 'random' often ended up them being 'pseudorandom' to the point of being predictable, and it's typically the same this day and age. Anyone that's actively doff'ed and done Admiralty will see the higher occurrence of failures than would be expected when success rates are between 95 and 99%.
An important aspect of pseudo-random generators is that they are not stateless. On the one hand, if you can figure out what their current state is, you know exactly what the next number they'll spew out.
Even if you don't have the seed, figuring out that state might be time-consuming sometimes, but it is fundamentally easy if you can observe every random number the generator produces. BUT: This is not necessarily a scenario we are in with Star Trek Online.
For example, if there is a central random number generator for all random numbers that need to be generated on, say, the Holodeck Server(s), then we could definitely not observe all the numbers the generator produces, because some random numbers will be generated for other players. Maybe every map has its own generator, or maybe every map instance. Or every logged in player has his own RNG assigned. But the latter is unlikely.
Also something that could complicate things is: What are one's random number generators numbers used for. If one RNG is used both for critical hits and lockbox results, phoenix prize tokens, Terran Empire Tribble wisdoms, Rules of Aquisitions and item drops then we don't actually get to see the number, but the number interpreted on the specific table used for this.
Overall, there is really a ton of potential "noise" in the RNG that predictability and exploit-ability is going to be very low - which also means that there is very little interest to "tune" these numbers in some way by Cryptic, because they couldn't even predict the results themselves - at least not the RNG. They could still be manipulating the drop tables themselves dynamically, of course.
Pretty much correct here too. I just didn't want to 'wall of text' the finer details.
One of the things missing in the OP's results is the Standard Deviation which the scientific method demands. With this sort of testing on the RNG statistics, SD is required, as are multiple samples of the same 10000. From the couple of times I've seen this test done, all that can be indicated is there is a 'minimum' chance of 0.4%, which, as I said disproves the 0.4% claim. In numerous drawings I've received say 3 T6's in 80 boxes to 1 in 13 boxes. I hate using the 1 in 250 claim as it is scientifically dishonest to a point, because it intimates that 'you will get one ship in 250 boxes', which is untrue. The simple fact is the odds NEVER change, so it is more appropriate to use the percentage chance or to express a 1:250 chance PER roll (which is often missed out in other's claims). As it has been said many a time, you could get 10 ships from 10 boxes or none in a million.
Now, will Cryptic publishing the odds affect their sales, most likely not. It's already been let slip by one of the Dev's what the percentage chance was a couple of years ago, and I don't see any reason why they would've changed it, apart from what their sales-figure were telling them.
Those algorithms are still not as random as a good old shake of the dice!
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
People will still buy and sell ships as it has happened before.
"All this firepower deserves a target."