Reverse Engineering with 20% Chance of Success

Lisa Clark reverse engineering

Here we have an interesting chart that attempts to explain the 20% chance of success from reverse engineering, something that many players seem to have a hard time understanding. The chance of success is per each RE. It technically does not change or grow with how many times you attempt. Some people think that a 20% chance of success means that by the time they do 5 REs, they should have a success.

That’s not exactly how it works. What it actually means is that there is a 33% chance you’d get 5 consecutive failures and aa 21% chance you’d get 7 consecutive failures. Your chances for success do not increase with each time you RE, which most players agree is bogus. It even makes logical sense that you were learn from your mistakes and your chances would increase. But nope… RNG is either on your side, or you better start stroking your rabbit’s foot.

Using the binomial distribution he presented the chances of a bad “streak”of rng

Lisa Clark

Lisa has been an avid gamer since she was old enough to hold her first controller and a game writer for more than a decade. A child of the Nintendo generation, she believes they just don’t make games like they used to but sometimes, they make them even better! While consoles will always be her first love, Lisa spends most of her gaming time on the PC these days- on MMOs and first-person shooters in particular.