Presumably because 5 points per 15 minutes is 480 points per day, and 500 is a nice, round approximate.
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That was my reasoning. Most people agreed in the previous discussion the cap should be close to 24 hours. Using 480 would be a strange choice, and users would be more likely to assume a bug caused their points to stop. Considering the small difference between 480 and 500, it made more sense to go with the latter.
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I agree with this, if you agree please reply here too so admin knows more people agrees
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No! Sometimes I want create some fast GA for some lucky ninjas. This is my right for what time to create ga.
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+1 I like quick GAs too ~ they give a bit of a gambling thrill
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This sounds a bit counter-intuitive to me. Does higher odds of winning give you more of a gambling thrill?
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now it will make people save points for said 1hour giveaway.
choices, choices
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Hmmm, you don't know you can leave any of the giveaways you are in? So you can get points at disposal for giveaways which end sooner.
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The dumb luck of stumbling across a short giveaway is fun. Is that weird?
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Not at all but you explained it quite differently earlier :)
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The gamble is deciding when to check for new giveaways. Technically that gamble goes away if you're on here 24/7, but that's probably not his case.
"Play... or check for giveaways? Since I'm short on time, I will just play something now."
by Random People Who Just Missed 1h GAs
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This is my right for what time to create ga.
It's not and I can't imagine why you would think it is. You have the options made available by the site owner whatever they might be
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Right, and this options is coincides with my opinion about my rights, instead of this opinion
1day in minimum ga time are verry good :)
P.S.
It's not and I can't imagine why you would think it is
Because I'm a free person who have own rights about giving games to people for free? ;)
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Ok, I guess I'm not able to understand your broken English correctly. I read your initial statement as you think it's your right to pick whatever giveaway duration you like.
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Well, it is. Whilst obviously you have yo act within the parameters of the site, it is my right to pick whatever duration I like within those parameters, or to alternatively not bother running a GA at all. I like the ability to clear a few keys quickly and probably wouldn't do half as many GAs if I was being told that I had to host them for longer periods. I appreciate that people will miss out on being able to enter, but alternatively just look at how many people enter GAs that last 1 week plus. If anything, you stand a worst chance of winning those than just getting lucky when a quicky pops up.
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Yep. Agreed. I mostly do 2-3 day GAs, but every once in a while I like to throw a 1-3 hour GA out there for people who spend a lot of time on the site. :)
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Gonna cry?
If i want to create a 1 Hours Giveaway, I do it, if i want a 1 week giveaway, i do it.
It's not about what YOU like.
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I'm guessing you replied to the wrong post by mistake but if not, how does this in any way relate to what I wrote other than in your imagination?
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if they don't want grubby bots they can just add levels. bots would normally spend all the points they have so these could maybe have less bots.
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I'm also for quick giveaways. Sometimes I just know I won't have time to get on the next day to check my winners and ensure they're not rule breakers, or that they've redeemed all previous wins and so on, so... In situations like that, I'd rather do a quick giveaway at a time I know I can do the work I have too.
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I don't like to make my winners wait, and I don't want to have to remember my GAs for a day or days. I think it should be up to the person who makes the giveaway, and 1hr minimum is fine.
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Yes please! I really hate to miss a wishlisted GA just because it lasted for only an hour.
I love this site, but I don't want it to be my life by checking it every hour.
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I brought this up in the other thread, but +1. It's not hitting the point cap that keeps me obsessively checking the site, it's the short giveaways.
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I don't like that limit. I love making 1h giveaways because it boosts chances for users which are around at that time, and also makes my life easier on sending the key, since I don't know where I'll be in 12h and I hate making people wait too long, as much as I hate waiting too long for a key myself.
The giver has to have all the freedom he wants for the stuff he/she gives away, and I think that's the direction this site is going because of all the options available as restrictions, to better suit a specific userbase, and making it minimum 12h would only remove freedom.
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+1 freedom for gifters! If you want to make a giveaway for lower levels that does provide a better chance than 1:2000 there is no way around the 1 hour giveaway.
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+1 Most of my GAs are 1-hour ones because I just want to put them up and send the keys right away.
That said, I think that changing the frequency of how often points are accumulated, but not changing the duration of GAs is going to make things unbalanced. I still don't want to be forced to make longer GAs, but I think there needs to be another look at this change.
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+1. Please don't make changes that will dissuade people from actually giving away games. I enjoy creating quickie giveaways sometimes when I know my near future plans are going to be hectic and I don't want to keep someone waiting for several days to receive their key.
If you feel that short-duration giveaways make you a "slave to the site," you should probably stop taking it so seriously.
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I'd say no to this.
I don't want a giveaway to be a must-be obligation. I want people to have the chance to just come to the site, spend time, make a giveaway, at the end of their free time give the key and then just leave.
If they have to keep checking way later, then they just won't be doing those giveaways.
Not to mention that... so what if you miss a giveaway? Like, seriously. I know that it's annoying for you, but what about those users that caught those giveaways and got a higher chance at winning the giveaway?
If the increased minimums happen, then you will have less giveaways. Simple as that.
While I will probably give as many games away, new users just simply won't. I've brought around 20 people onto this site. Literally all but one made their first giveaway to be 1 hours long. The reason's because they don't want to be obligated to come here. They don't want to forget and because of that ruin their possible future go-to site's account's standing.
So, yeah, you'll "miss out" on your favourite giveaways, but in return you'll actually have a lot of those wishlisted giveaways.
That's why I, when I wanted to win certain giveaways, spent around 1 minute per few hours to enter in all of the giveaways that I was interested in.
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Okay, so some of those entrants are script bots? Unless that generalization means that I'm a bot now too :D
As to your personal anecdote, I must ask... why not prioritize? Enter in the stuff that you want the most first, then spend the rest of the points on the less wanted giveaways.
I also must put serious doubt on the "mostly 1 hr giveaways" statement, considering that sometimes all giveaways that end in an hour don't even fill up the first page. Usually, it's 2-3 pages and up to 10 when there's a rush of huge and popular bundles.
But as to the "having to frequent the site less"... one, you don't have to frequent it often anyways. I used to frequent the site often, now I don't. There's not much of a difference. I just have won fewer games. Probably 2-3 in the last 3 months. That claim's backed up by the number of won games and doubling it because I'd be entering around 60% more giveaways with around 1/3 fewer entries.
But two, the way that this site makes money is through ads (now Patreon as well). Frequent visiting would help the site and give you better odds of winning. This is a win/win. Giving the user an incentive to visit but not a big enough to actually hinder anyone else.
Three, you don't have to frequent it often because this isn't an important thing. Now, don't get me wrong, winning games is awesome... but it's not that important. Meaning that the current situation doesn't impact you negatively. But turning it the other way around would negatively impact the site, which would impact the earnings and it'd bring more bad to the site (and CG if he takes a cut from the earnings). Also, it'd most definitely slow down the site's growth because of the required dedication from the newer users.
So, one could be bad for the site/the livelihood of a person, the other's a potential inconvenience to people who are busy.
I know that the situation isn't ideal for you (or me now), but I genuinely think that the current setup is for the greater good.
Hope you have an awesome day too. It's nice to actually discuss, not just throw certain points of view in a spastic battle of words.
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See, that's the issue. You for some reason think that most 1-hour flash giveaways are entered in mainly by bots. That is simply untrue. Especially if you don't make a lvl 0 or a lvl 1 giveaway.
Yes, you'll have bots. You'll also have people that will regift their win, people that won't activate the win, people that will activate it and just farm the win and so on. There's a good number of those people too, but does that make the giveaways worse all of a sudden?
"But I am also speaking about SGs goal to not have people frequent the site"... my question to that is... why wouldn't CG want us to visit his site? Why wouldn't he want the activity and the ad revenue necessary to keep this site running? I checked the last discussion and this one to see whether he made a statement like that. Where he'd mention that he doesn't like that people check in on this site more than once a day or something similar and there's nothing there. There's no goal that even is similar to this.
The second part of your sentence makes more sense, but if we'd continue down that path of logic, then your "So it's not all about bots and stuff." would be completely false because there's nothing else to address with a fix like that.
As to the addiction thing though... I've gotta be honest, it's not the site's fault. The site shouldn't try and fix those people. If someone actually is so much affected by this that they actually need so much help, then it's not an issue with the site anymore... it's their own mental state. At that point, it doesn't matter what it is. This site, any piece of media (social media, TV, movies, magazines, newspapers, books), gambling, hobbies... anything would hook them in. If we'd actually start catering around those people, then you'd have casinos that are open for 30 minutes at a time, TV stations that'd air shows only 1 hour per day, Steam would have obligatory gaming locks that'd allow you to play video games only an hour per day. If a few people get addicted, you shouldn't change the whole system. You should try and help that person instead. This would just help the symptom, not the cause.
I don't agree with the "we can try it this way and the other way" though. There are limits. This is a site that requires revenue. You can't just toy around with your userbase by yanking them back and forth. Every one of these major updates will reduce the userbase and overall happiness of the users. The average person seeks convinience, comfort and simplicity over anything else. You can't just throw everyone out of their comfort zone at a whim. These moves need to be calculated.
This isn't like a store where you can try different methods of selling things or adding some new stock that you don't know if it'll sell well. You're not just adding a few new ideas, you're changing the whole infrastructure of the site here. Remember the polls that CG added a while back to the bottom of the page? Well, as you can now see, they're not there any more. It was a small addition that didn't work out so he dropped it. It was small enough of a change that it never actually affected anyone. Those are the changes you can try and see how they'll do.
I believe this move was not just a whim by CG. I think it was most likely that he did think it through and found this to be the best course of action for SG.
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First of all, there's nothing to apologize for :D
Some people might be those pseudo-intellectuals that'd just glee at the sight of any hole in an argument. I probably have some myself.
Personally though, I'd again disagree with the comfort zone thing.
"Whether it be a job or going out to get groceries." - For jobs, there's a reason why most of us stay at a single job for longer periods of time and why the temp job as regular income fad hasn't caught on too much. People like the comfort of knowing where you work, what your pay will be and how to do their jobs. That is the comfort zone for them. Yes, it's inevitable that they'll have to step out of it for a moment to start their lives, but that's just inevitable. After the first few weeks, people start to feel more comfy and they just stay at their jobs. It's pretty easy to find people that have stayed at the same jobs for years.
And as to the groceries, again, it's made as a simple and easy experience. People usually know where to find certain stuff (thanks to marketing research which has determined where items are best kept and what type of a layout is best so that the customer would pass by as many products as possible). They also are aware of people that want to either have no human contact (self-checkout machines) or people that want everything done for them (the normal checkouts). Yeah, you might go to a new store, but that's not even a really new experience. No one goes to a new store feeling insecure there and worried about whether they did everything right. It's a universal system that makes it easy and comfortable.
"Kinda wish there was a "Smokers Anonymous" in my area. some things are just hard to break I guess." - Yup, you hit the nail on the head. You need to fix the habit, not fix the place where you feed that habit.
"There are limits to everything. I mean if there was a better idea, I'm all for that." - I think what you said previously is the better idea. There's only so far you can go with limiting things. The needs of the many tend to outweigh the needs of the few. The addicted people most definitely are the few.
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That's the goal of making 1hr giveaways, so less people see them and join them, allowing more winning chances
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Who cares if a bot enter? real people will enter too.
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In this case, most definitely not. There's a difference between 300/1 chances and 200/1 chances.
Bots enter everything. That's the whole issue with bots.
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Yes, but the topic has never been about exclusive giveaways.
With that logic, a 50-year long private giveaway can have better chances than a 10-minute whitelist giveaway because you don't share a link.
The whole topic has always been about public giveaways and not private/exclusive giveaways. One is a measurable and comparable thing, the other isn't. You can't make arguments on behalf of those types of giveaways because they're essentially moderated.
Someone could have a whitelist with around 1000 active users, while another person could have a whitelist with 20 users. Same goes with private giveaways. You might have a private giveaway which could literally be so private that you don't share the link and through that, you won't get any entries. On the other hand, you could have a giveaway which you spread around enough that a number of entries could go into thousands in a single day.
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I mean more winning chances for one person, it's just a "different" giveaway type, I've done them too, less people = more chances.
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This makes logical sense.
Extremely short giveaways benefit bots and people who check the site obsessively, both of which the point change was intended to fix; so it makes sense to get rid of super-short giveaways, too.
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no way i love the one hour giveaways. chances are on this site if you win something its thanks to the one hour GA's lol
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+1 12h/24h min time. I love Flash GAs very much. But it wouldnt make much sense to use autojoin any longer if GAs are 24h.
Dont know if cg will catch all autojoiners anyway :-) are there allready autojoin-suspensions? xD
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Just need a site poll then. I bet getting rid of short giveaways will win.
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I've gotta disagree with this one. One hour giveaways are fun and easier to get if you're one of the lucky ones. It's just part of the charm of the site. Plus giveaways pop up on the front screen when they're close to ending anyway, so it's not like you have to go digging for them.
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I am against it I like to make fast giveaways and I like to enter fast giveaways.
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No, I've done a short giveaway before. My point is to reward lucky users who constantly browse the site, especially now that auto-join extensions are banned.
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some people that make 1hour or alike giveaways ...myself included do it to give the fast people a chance ... also ive donne exacly the amount of hours so i knew id be back on the site to send the key and or gift
making giveaways last min 12-24hours would cause more limits , it cant be the purpose so that everyone can enter every giveaway
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I'm still confused with why change from 300 in the first place. Some people couldn't enter enough giveaways so they used scripts? Ban them, don't give them larger cap. Why do you "need" to enter a certain number of giveaways per day, enter for what you really want.
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The reason was lots of squeaky wheels. This is their grease. Mind you, the squeaky wheels were not using scripts just complaining about them or randomly accusing people of using them. In the end there is nothing wrong with trying something new.
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I guess. I don't enter many giveaways anyway so I don't really care about points.
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Now-a-days I don't either. But once in a while there's a bundle with a lot of games that were wishlisted (like the monthlies) where I have so much to enter for and just not enough points to spend.
Now, my reaction to that was to just visit more frequently. More giveaways being posted meant more points.
Entering in giveaways isn't a thing that we need, I agree, but sometimes you do want to actually win something and that should be encouraged on a site about giving and winning games.
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I don't get it either. I got like permanent 300 points which I cannot spend with the exception of the days when monthly bundle revealed, cause I'm entering only wishlist GAs. Now they just cut down my chances as an active user with this changes.
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FYI I see all over the thread suggestions to make giveaways have a 12 hour minimum. I believe this overlooks an important issue: The generous game gifter, for whatever reason, wanted it to be one hour, maybe to keep it spontaneous, to limit the number of people that would enter it. To make a pleasant surprise for anyone who happened to be on at the time. It's their game and they should not be limited in this way. I know many people who drop private giveaways in the chat, like to do 1 hour giveaways.
I'm strongly against enforcing some minimum giveaway time, and believe it would ultimately only appeal to the "farmers" as it were, people who just enter every giveaway they can.
If anyone has actually made this suggestion based on the belief it would create an even playing field against scripting, that is clearly misplaced. It would do nothing against scripters, and do everything to stifle and limit options of the gifters.
For the giveaways I want to be an hour, if cg raised it to 12 hour minimum, I just would probably keydrop them or use an RNG site instead.
So yeah, there's a reason people set some giveaways to an hour, it's their game and that's how they wanna give it away.
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+1 Exactly this, I like to do 1 hour giveaways too, especially for level 0/1 bundle game giveaways because if those last 12 hours or even a day then there's multiple thousand entries and the chance for those who entered is super low. Also the whole process is easier for me because I can already send the key to a winner after an hour. After 12 hours I'm most likely to be not at home anymore and the winner has to wait.
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Oh come on. It's obvious a person only wanted a shorter duration so they'd get CV faster.
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+1. I prefer making my giveaways 1 hour, because personally I like finding out giveaways that are for 1 hour.
When I see a giveaway for a game I want and it's too long, I'm less motivated to enter, I do enter but keep thinking that by the time it ends, there will be thousands of entries and I won't win (which is true). When I manage to "catch" short giveaways in time, I get excited cause my chance to win is higher since there are less entries.
It's also much easier for me to come back to send the keys when I make my giveaways short.
I think at the end of the day, we each prefer and enjoy different giveaway limits, and I see no reason to change it, I think the person who makes the giveaway should have the right to choose if they want to make it long or short, as they are the ones spending money on that specific giveaway.
And just because there are giveaways for a game from your wishlist, doesn't mean you should spend 24/7 checking the website in order to not miss a giveaway... Worst case if you are really poor and really can't live without that game, just try to win giveaways for cheap games with trading cards, sell them and slowly save money for the game you want.
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I actually think 480 with a 60p cap per giveaway makes more sense than a 500p and 50p cap, since most AAA new releases are $60. However, I'm still struggling to understand why $60 AAA releases, $100 game collections and a $50 game should all cost the same to enter.
I'm not sure I like the point cap on entries at all now, especially if you're convinced they'll get into the hands of people who want them more often. If someone really wants a $100 game collection, for instance, they should be prepared to fork over 100p for it IMHO.
And yeah, I know people will complain about that, but I really believe entry cost should always reflect the value of what's being given.
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tl,dr steamgifts is getting more and more weird with years passing and if not for a strong habit, we'd already moved elsewhere.
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I agree. Entry cost change makes no sense and go against the idea of the other 2 changes.
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I said people would complain and no one's complained.
I don't believe I've ever been quite so happy to be wrong on SG.
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Feel free to create a poll. If users want the list prices represented as points 1:1, I'll be more than happy to change it.
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https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/hvD0zhx
I don't feel like typing it all out twice, but I may take your suggestion anyway.
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Why not an official poll, on the main page? I mean when you already established polls there, why not use it?
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If you do create a poll, let me know. I want to vote. :)
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I don't like making threads.
I've made 9 in three years (and 3 were newbie questions when I joined).
Also, I fear it could possibly be severely skewed. I mean, I see a lot of people who would want to be able to enter $100+ giveaways with 50 points. People who've never made a giveaway could simply vote in their favor, and I've always been of the mind that giveaway creators are more important than the entrants (edit) in cases like this. In my mind (at least in this case), voting should be restricted to those who make giveaways, since they're the one's shelling out the dough.
I may do it later tonight anyway, just for shits & giggles.
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Yeah in this case if the game costs that amount then there should be no cap. There are already comments from people saying they wanted to do larger giveaways but not for the lower CV.
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Sounds like you have misunderstood. This cap involves only the points required to enter a giveaway. CV is not affected at all by this.
For example, if you giveaway non-bundle game/package costing $200, you get $200 CV exactly according to the Steam Store price. It's just the entering of the giveaway that costs 50P now.
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Then there's no reason for this. I bet that's why people were against the lower points in the first place since they thought it affected it.
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You should have stuck with 480 and drive people crazy.😈
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This is not nice... with the old system I could refill my 300 several times a day.. now only ONCE.
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That's some sound logic. Thanks a lot for keeping up with the site and community, I think this is a great change cg and Co.!
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Cause people have a life outside that site ... and maybe can check out once a day if lucky ... so thats pretty reasonable number if you use basic maths and calculate how much points that acumolate in a day :?
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don't you think give those whose level are high more points to encourage people to create more giveaways a good idea?
or the point is too little to use ?
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These changes sound good to me overall. Thanks for your work, cg, and for working with us!
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Bonus points for the giveaway was entirely removed?
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It seems that 5 points every 15 minutes, regardless of how many giveaways were created on the site. So no more points flood during humble bundle. :)
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well that was the whole point. A bundle comes w/ 1 game I'm interested in and I don't want to/don't have the money to spend at that time. So I could just go to sg, camp for an hour or two just dumping all my points into that one game I want so badly. Now I get one shot and have to sit here watching all the quick 1hr gibs (highest chance to win) pass me by while I wait for my pts to regen...
What will be next? $5 - instant 50pts? $15 - double point booster for 24hrs? Steamgifts the mobile game?!
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This was exactly my concern when this point system overhaul came up. When there's a bundle that I can't buy, it's almost guaranteed that there will be plenty of flash giveaways of the game I want and then I can try to gain the game like that. Now this can't be done any longer due to the points taking so long to come back. Only thing to hope for is that the increased overall amount of points will at least help a little bit.
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Less people will join giveaways since not only you but everyone has less points now. Basic math guys, come on...
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That's the BAD thing, as you're going to see much less people entering some giveaways. Especially when lost of games come in & people don't have points to enter, as points are not related to games giving in. Instead it's related to time.
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I like it. A larger buffer, but less points over all during the course of a day. So the person on only once or twice a day can still enter most/everything they want, and the people that are on 24/7 and totally not bots don't get to farm nearly as much.
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These changes sound awesome! In other words, points go from EMPTY to FULL in 25 hours! Fantastic!
(Now, if we increase the minimum GA time to 12h, I will not visit the site every hour anymore. :D :D :D)
Cheers, and once again, thank you!
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Yep, 12 hours would be nice minimum because then you can at least go to sleep peacefully knowing that after even 10 hours of sleep: there is still 2 hours left on GA that happened to be posted when you went to sleep.
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Yeah, minimum GA time of 12 hours would be awesome
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Point cap doesnt affect CV I assume? If I make a 60 dollar non bundle I still get 60CV but its 50P to enter?
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No, you get $ 50. Check your page on SGtools.info. I have now opened and all GA are more expensive than $ 50, now there are exactly 50$ . Minus $ 800 CV, as the cow licked his tongue.
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SGTools probably just needs an update then. Either way, whatever SGTools says, that doesn't impact your SG level.
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Like cbones said. Compare your 6,199.96 dollar on steamgifts with SGtools. If its more in steamgifts than compared to sgstools then it hasnt been updated. Same problem was when SG changed to not give CV on free games. SGTools gave CV to free games.
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Why people can't apprehend that steamgifts.com is not related to sgtools.info
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What about the value of the game? Will it also be reduced if it's over 50 dollars/Euros ?
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Entering once a day is enough for spending points, which makes everything more relaxed for me, so I like the update. :)
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My first impression is that it seems reasonable to me. Thanks. :)
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Sounds great to me! Here's hoping it works out like we're hoping it will.
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I expect it will be scheduled to happen as soon as I reach level 10. Hahaha :)
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How do you justify using your brother's steam account on another pc and raffle? He can play and your draw, is there something wrong to deal with? because I've seen a lot of people do it
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Will minimum giveaway time be changed too? One hour is not enough if you only can get 20P/hour.
It should be 24 hours to give everyone equal chance, which seems is what is wanted with this points change.
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What do you mean 1 hour is not enough. Flash giveaways is ment to be short so only the first users that see them will enter.
Of course users that is not online wont be able to enter them unless using scripts. And thats not allowed.
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Well, the points change was about giving more equal chance of winning with less need of checking the site constantly, or so I gathered.
So, if there is a landslide of some game you want on very short giveaway times when you are out of points (and those points are already on some other giveaways you want and can't really vacate them) how is it more equal that you are denied of the means to enter those sweet giveaways when you no longer get points based on giveaways created?
Or even if one is able to vacate points it might require more micromanaging and time spent on site, which is the opposite of less visiting needed.
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Its the same for everyone. You cant enter every giveaway no matter what, because there isnt enough points. With the current point cap there will most likely be fewer entries. As explained before by cg:
Yes, they would not be able to enter as many Clickteam Fusion giveaways, but the same would apply to other users, which will lower the entry counts. For example, instead of entering 30 Clickteam Fusion giveaways, each with 150 entries, they would be able to enter 10 Clickteam Fusion giveaways, each with 50 entries.
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Sure, but with this change there is the possibily you can't enter any giveaways, assuming they would all end before you had enough points to enter even one of them, without micromanaging your points and spending more time on the site, which is the opposite what these changes were aimed at.
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Im tired. Wrote a long message but wrote points instead of entries and mixed my sentences etc so my argument probably didnt make any sence :D
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Lets say you manage to enter 1 flash gib with 300 entries*. Its pretty common they have fewer entires. How would it help if minimum time was changed to 24 hours and you managed to enter 3 gibs instead that probably had more then 900 entires. Usually the longer a gib is running the more entries it get.
- Managed to write points again :)
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My point is: I could actually enter the X number of gibs, by checking the site once a day (instead of once an hour), because I would not miss them while sleeping/working etc. since they only lasted one hour. Any chance is better than no chance at all, right?
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I see what you mean by: "I will not be able to enter every giveaway for that game I really want." But still, it doesnt really make any sense to join 100 giveaways with 1000 entries each instead of 10 giveaways with 100 entires. Its the same chance of winning. Of course this is just an example and I cant say for sure that the entries will actually decrease to that amount so that its the same chance of winning the game even if you enter less gibs.
But when I think about it, it makes sense to me that I will have a bigger chance of winning games if they run shorter and have fewer entires, rather then a minimum time of 24 hours so more users can enter them.
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You keep missing my point, or don't want to understand, so I won't bother explaining it again.
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I understand what you mean by many gibs will end before you even see them. But my point was if you manage to enter more gibs instead that have more entries and less chance of winning. How will this increase your chances just by you entering more? I gave a few examples above in my replies that it will probably be the same chance.
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The problem is when 80 flash gibs are created within 3-4 hours after a bundle goes live. People who happen to be online at that time and have many points sitting in storage are at a major advantage.
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Yes, then they can enter 50 of them @10p if they have 500 points. And they will probably have a few hundred entires. How does it help anyones chances if they are running for 24 hours instead and will have a few thousands?
I see what everyone is saying about joining EVERY gib for a game they want. But it doesnt really seem to increase the chances just because you enter more gibs if they at the same time get more entries.
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Are you consciously trying to miss the point?
If a bunch of flash gibs are created and a few users have micromanaged their points and have enough to enter all of them, those users have a major advantage. Thus time consuming micromanagement is encouraged.
If all those giveaways have to last 12 or 24 hours minimum, there will be enough time for many interested people to get enough points to enter some of them, ensuring all the giveaways have a high number of entries. So micromanaging points in order to be able to enter all of those high-entries giveaways is not worth the effort.
Bottom line, people are not encouraged to waste time micromanaging points. Time they could be spending on, say, playing games. Maybe even the games they won here.
And this is before we even get to the incentive to use a bot while asleep or away to catch low-entry flash gibs. Or the incentive to stay late or set an alarm for the middle of the night to catch the low-entry flash gibs immediately after a bundle or monthly hits.
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This entire line of reasoning seems very odd to me (no offense, and please read on to understand). If you take it to the extreme, you'd have a site where you sign up, somehow specify what games you're interested in (either by manually entering them, or syncing your steam wishlist or something) and then any time some kind soul decides to giveaway a game, the site just checks for all users that want that game and picks one of them to win it. There's no need for entering, no need for worrying about points, start time, end time, etc. And as people above have stated, it would be...
giving more equal chance of winning with less need of checking the site constantly
I'm not saying that's even a bad thing, it just veers very far from what this site has always been.
It seems to me (and maybe I'm wrong) there's always been an implicit reward to putting in more time/money/effort on SG.
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You invest some time by checking the site more often, you get rewarded by maybe getting lucky and catching a flash GA.
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You invest some money by giving away more games and leveling up, you get rewarded with a higher level, and the chance at GAs with fewer entries, and therefor better odds.
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You invest some effort by digging through discussions for trains/puzzles/etc, you get rewarded with GAs that have fewer entries than they would have if they'd been purely open/public/non-puzzle.
Just because a PRNG chooses the winner of each pool of entries doesn't mean SG has ever been about providing equal chance to everyone to win...far from it.
I like the change to the points, and I'm curious to see how it'll work out. I think the biggest win here is that CG seems to actually have the time and interest in making some much needed changes, and trying to make SG "better". With ~1M registered accounts, any change is going to annoy some people, elate some people, and go unnoticed by many.
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I understand what you are saying but concentricity seemed to explain it alot better then me.
I dont get how anyone would want to increase the minimum amount of time. All giveaways will get more entries and it will decrease the overall chance of winning public giveaways. Now if you compare to just one game you want, it will most likely be the same chance of winning plus/minus a few hundred entires.
I would rather spend time to find 10 gibs with 100 entires than manage to enter 100 gibs with 1000 entries.
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I would rather spend time to find 10 gibs with 100 entires than manage to enter 100 gibs with 1000 entries.
Sounds good if you are lucky enough to live in a time zone where big bundles get released at a convenient time. If not you'd have to set your alarm to get up in the middle of the night to enter those elusive short duration giveaways. The purpose of the suggested increase in giveaway duration is to give everyone equal chances of winning a game they want regardless of factors outside the sites control.
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Flash giveaways is ment to be short so only the first users that see them will enter.
Isn't the point of this update, that you wouldn't need to check the site that often and not to give advantage to autojoin script users?
Still having 1h minimum giveaway time, doesn't solve that problem.
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I thought the point of the new system was so users wouldnt feel the need to use autojoin scripts because otherwise they would hit the 300 cap and loose future points.
CG explained that you cant enter as many giveaways for a game and that would be the same for everyone. So the entries would decrease but there would still be the same chance of winning. Example
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With autojoin scripts you can also enter those 1 hour giveaways with lower entries and higher chance of winning.
Those who enter those still have an advantage, so it isn't same for everyone.
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Flash giveaway of a game worth 50P, when you're out of points & it goes out in 1h. Yes, user is right, minimum should be 24h or at least a time in which you can gather those 50P. As you get 5P per 15min, so it's 10x15 = 150min = 2,5h as a minimum!
Add some 20%, so the people can actually yoin in, so that's roughly 3h minimum for a 50P game.
I'd like to see that minimum goes to 6 or 12h at least - preferably even 24h, so that everyone can enter the giveaway! ;)
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Many flash giveaways are private (right?). If they are made to be 24 hours minimum, the creator will wait 23 hours before announcing them, which will inconvenience the creator without benefiting the entrants.
While I agree that flash giveaways are inconvenient for some, I don't think it's necessary to remove that discomfort, because it's a feature that some creators want to use. I'd rather remove levels and CV first.
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Well. We will see how it plays out. I still think that taking away points flowing into our accounts is like stopping people for entering givaways. Almost like it is against the whole idea of SG but maybe i'm exaggerating a bit. From the nicer point of view maybe it will help to visit site a little less often and maybe i'll get a bit of my life back. So. Yes.
I hope that my worries are without foundation. Yes :)
Keep up with good work Cg. Yes.
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I liked the result of the last updates, the giveaways seems more humanized now.
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https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/7KSOC63
So we did a step back after all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hooray for promotion of points banking and closed giveaway groups. Let's encourage people to join giveaways ending in 4 weeks just in case they need points for tuesday's humble bundle, because obviously 1h giveaways won't wait for them.
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yeah, I agree with your (linked) comment. Change the rate, or don't generate points for free games. *shrug
edit: Seems like this will lead to less site traffic, which seems counter productive... Having people checking your site frequently should be a good thing...
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Yep, I'm in the same boat. However I wouldn't quite call it a step back, just not as big a step forwards as it could have been. I think the new implementation will be an improvement over the previous, but a cap increase and rate change would have been enough to significantly improve the previous system.
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Hey Archi, I don't think we'll see any changes regarding closed giveaway groups. I also imagine we'll have less point banking because users do not have the same excess of points now. I'll check the database in the coming weeks though, and see the results.
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I used too cryptic words, so let me explain.
I understand the problem of points generation and agree with cap increase, but imho fixed points generation is a huge step back, as points are no longer generated based on number of giveaway the user can join, which might lead to users "banking" their current points in long-ending giveaways just because otherwise they won't be able to enter 1h swarm of giveaways that will happen with upcoming Humble Bundle.
I don't think this is what you truly want, but this will be the case now. Previously user would have enough of points to join those giveaways as points were generated based on their amount, now user will need to bank his earlier points in later giveaways as otherwise he won't be able to earn as much as is needed to survive such "swarm" of game he truly wants to win.
I keep what I said a week ago - old system was good, increase cap, decrease amount of points generated, and don't fix what is not broken. Current solution is a step back to me, but that's only my opinion, you'll do what you consider best.
You can already see what I'm talking about below:
The monthly Humble bundle just released with some great games, so obviously there are a lot of giveaways made for them, but I have almost no points to enter them.
That is horribly frustrating.I still check the site at least hourly, to check if there are any hour long lvl6 giveaways.
The update didn't fix what it was supposed to fix, but made it just more frustrating.
It'll only get worse now.
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It will definitely be worse. I'm already having to bank points in longer running giveaways just to enter flash giveaways for stuff I really want. I also tried to get cg to see reason and disable the points generation of free games (almost two months ago now).
This is the end result. I feel like I am currently on board the Titanic as we head straight for the iceberg.
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increase cap, decrease amount of points generated, and don't fix what is not broken.
true and was my point too, a balanced decrease, with an added long-term flood protection
instead of a radical decrease with no flexibility..
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Yes, but they also suck for people when they turn into the image verification versions. It can't be controlled so eventually you will get those, even if you only get a captcha one every hour or so.
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I agree with deadmarsh. Captchas suck for people too. I could maybe deal with having ONE on login but it would be a huge pain in the ass if we had to complete a captcha for each and every GA. And TBH, even the login one would probably be a deal breaker for me... half the time I am accessing SG on my mobile which is a painful experience (FF on Android; and no I don't want to use Chrome thank you very much)... hiding games? I have to zoom way out because the stupid modal window goes offscreen if I use my normal zoom level, then try and click a tiny button. Entering a GA? When the page loads, half the time the z-index/selection is still on the image and when I try to click "Enter Giveaway" it registers as a click on the image and off to the Steam store page I go, cursing all the way. I dread to even imagine having to deal with a captcha on mobile (login/ga/otherwise).
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+1 This was what I also voiced the discussion before this change along with an increased minimum GA duration
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Users don't need to enter more giveaways during a Humble Bundle. If giveaways for a handful of Humble Bundle games flood the site, they'll all have lower entry counts now. Why should users receive more points on those days, and enter more giveaways? The entry counts would just increase accordingly, and it would only waste their time and give them no better chance of winning.
I mentioned to Mully below one of my reasons for fixed points. It applies here as well. If we have three times the giveaways tomorrow due to a Humble Bundle, I don't want users to hit the point cap 3x as fast, receive 3x the points, and need to enter 3x the giveaways (it's just temporarily reintroducing the problems this change is meant to solve). I want them to enter the same number of giveaways, but simply give them a 3x higher chance of winning.
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But if the giveaways are all finished before you have points your chances just dramatically decreased. Increase the minimum giveaway time to fix this. Current solution just increased time spent on managing points exponentially.
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And the only "people" that can take total advantage of points which fill the tank every 3 hours are bots anyway, so... yes, I totally understand what you are doing. Fantastic!
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I think the point is that people who store their points will still e able to enter all or most of those giveaways, while someone who doesn't store point will only be able to enter a few of those giveaways. So it would incentivize people to store points during off days so when there's a flood of games they're interested in they'll be able to enter those games.
Not everyone will bother with it so maybe entries will decrease but the ones with the biggest benefit will be people storing points.
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This looks good on paper, not in practice. I especially agree with Mully point below:
it's like the police telling people to stop going out at night to avoid getting mugged, then releasing a statement saying "we lowered the amount of thieves in the city!"
What happened is lower total number of entries on giveaways, correct, but that's not a solution to the inner problem. You wanted to solve problem of auto-joiners and people waking up in the middle of the night to spend points. Now role of auto-joiners will be even more important because as you pointed out yourself, there will be less entries, so bigger chance for auto-joiners to win, while at the same time people will wake up in the middle of the night even more often, as it'll be the highest chance to win something during that time, when everybody is sleeping and out of points anyway. Sure they won't need to "get rid" of massive amount of points anymore, but that could be adressed by just lower points generation, maybe even taking in account things like number of active users in last week or anything else.
In other words, this change is highly promoting banking, auto-joiners and hunting for flash giveaways, working against both problems you wanted to solve. Making people join less giveaways will not solve anything here, unless you're solving entirely different issue such as making people join what they truly want and not everything they can, but in this case this is not a proper way to do it either, so I'm very confused about this change.
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Wouldn't an easy solution to this be to just increase the cap? Make the cap 1500 points or something like that. You could even decrease the rate that points accumulate based on the points you have. 5 points every 15 min up to 500, then 4 for the next 250, 3 for the next 250, etc. Hell, if you want to punish the auto joiners you could do it the other way around :)
In other words, you let the system be the bank. Another way to stop banking is to only refund a portion of the points.
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Cap doesn't fix anything. You have the same amount of points generated regardless if there were 10 giveaways created across entire day, or 10 thousand. It helps with making people less likely to wake up in the middle of the night to spend everything, but that's the only thing it fixes. For swarm of tuesday HB giveaways you typically need your points stashed in long-running giveaways, assuming you want to maximize your chances for winning >that< game you want.
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Exactly. This change seriously incentivizes using bot accounts, because they now have a (potentally much) higher chance of winning. This will not be an improvement in the long run.
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I want them to enter the same number of giveaways, but simply give them a 3x higher chance of winning.
Or, in other words:
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BEFORE: more points when there was a flood of GAs, but same chances because of the faster point regeneration. More giveaways meant, essentially, more points.
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NOW: fixed points but better chances because there will be fewer entries in each GA when there's a flood (Humble Bundles). Also fewer clicks because we will have to enter to fewer giveaways.
Is that right?
You should explain it in the OP. I think most of the people does not understand probability and statistics (and it's normal because they're pretty hard in general :P). People think they will have lower chances because they'll join fewer giveaways but I think they don't realize all the probability involved.
Moreover, you're relieving from their addiction and OCD to lots of (non bot) users. I bet there was a lot of people here entering several times a day (and even in the middle of the night) because they didn't want to see their counter at 300P. You did a great social work with these changes :)
Thanks.
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most of the people does not understand probability and statistics
Things aren't 1-dimensional like that, there are many more factors. One is people will shift their priorities, entry counts won't decrease equally for all games but differ greatly.
In short, good stuff will be harder to win, crap far easier.
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You're probably right, but if most of the giveaways are cheap bundle games and most people here are card farmers and collectors, does it really matter? For a card farmer it's better to win more games in general because they'll get more cards this way, no matter if they're bundled or AAA. So, if the "crap" as you named it, will be far easier to win, card farmers and +1 collectors will be happier.
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hm, don't disagree with you there, but one reasoning for the change was supposed to be:
The change would also encourage users to focus their points on games they would like to play
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I consider that is wishful thinking. I mean, it depends on each member priorities; collectors will still try to win as many games as possible, and if they have to choose between a 50P GA with thousands of entries and 10 5P bundle giveaways with fewer entries I think they will choose the 2nd option.
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Surely and I said that multiple times too.
There still is a negative effect due to point floods that some enter other games that they otherwise would not and that's where I agree with a reasonably balanced reduction, while not quiet as much as was done now.
But I'm repeating myself with that since a week now and am losing motivation to keep discussion as it has little to no effect.
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I see it totally different - with old system everybody had points, so user would firstly join his wishlisted stuff, then AAA, then everything else.
I joined myself those 1k+ entires nice AAA giveaways just because I truly wanted to win them. Who knows, maybe luck will be on my side, I have points anyway, I can spare those 60P, even if I'm very unlikely to win and it's 99.9% chance to get wasted. There is nothing else interesting right now, so why not.
With current system I'm no longer going to join any giveaway like that, simply because that old 60P means 3 hours. Sure, not a lot in long-run compared to entire day, but since points are so rare now, I'd rather win bundle trash just so I can win "anything".
This is a typical user perspective, my perspective is entirely different with closed groups, invite-only giveaways and over 1k of whitelists on SG.
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Then you think those 1k+ entries AAA GAs will have more or less entries? Because not all members have the same priorities. A card farmer will now probably spend his points in cheaper giveaways (1-10P) instead, so the question is: what percentage of users are collectors/card farmers and how many members are people who want to win expensive games to play?
Now, you'll have to choose according to your priorities. Before, you had enough points to join all kinds of GAs (as you said).
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Everything will have less entries, that is by definition. But apart from less entries, those entries will also be diversified in the way we didn't see before.
I'm not sure how, because I don't have enough statistical data to make smart guesses after what most SG users are, but I'd say that people will be now more encouraged to join low-points bundle giveaways, such as 1-5P, and very unlikely to spend 30P+ on a single AAA giveaway. In other words, people will start joining trash more often just because it's cheaper.
(Above is made on assumption that most people want to win anything, not necessarily something specific)
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Everything will have less entries, that is by definition.
cg doesn't think like that: https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/m5RCTHM
I'm confused, it would be interesting to know what a card farmer and/or a collector will do in an scenario like that.
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There is nothing to think about, this is pure math. If user got 30 points in last 15 minutes, and now he's getting 15, then by definition he must join less giveaways. The only case when this would be not true is if he'd suddenly start joining 1P trash instead of joining 10+ giveaways, but that won't change that out of sudden.
cg is talking about probability of winning, and correct, probability of winning won't change, you won't win "less" giveaways, my major problem is fixed points generation and HB swarm. Although side effect of less amount of points will have to end up with people joining in different way, preferably more cheaper giveaways and far more rarily expensive ones.
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There is nothing to think about, this is pure math. If user got 30 points in last 15 minutes, and now he's getting 15, then by definition he must join less giveaways.
Assuming everyone is using all their points all the time which is far from true
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You can see the development at the moment. Watch the amount of entries for AAA titles in your wishlist. You`ll see that the ones created last week have 6000+ and now they are going to get less than 1000. That happens to all the trash titles too.
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My argument was against the premiss purposed by JustArchi
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Could you explain a scenario where good stuff will be harder to win now?
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As I understood Tristar's reasoning:
- Before: lots of points to spend, so people entered to win both good games (to play) and cheap games (for cards and +1).
- Now: fewer (fixed) points, "people will shift their priorities", and he thinks most members will join good giveaways more than bundle games GAs.
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I tried to answer that concern the other day.
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/kGtHd/point-distribution/search?page=2#zaymn0b
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I wrote some more about that topic here and here.
Basically, when a good/high-demand game gets for example a good sale or into a HB monthly and many giveaways for it appear.
When points regenerate slower than the amount of GAs, then people will shift their entries from other, less desirable, giveaways over to the good game. So far not a bad thing.
Those interested solely in that one game though, without that point reserve, end up entering for less giveaways, while the entry count doesn't drop proportionally as much, effectively lowering their chances to win.
At the same time collectors can take the opportunity of low-entry bottom-barrel games to amount even more wins.
Not to misunderstand, as I've mentioned several times too, I'm not in favor of a point-flood situation where people don't know what to do with them and just enter anything, but a more balanced reduction would have been much preferred.
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Its a GAs site, whats the problem if people enter a bunch of GAs? this change imo should be reverted.
- IF PEOPLE DOESNT WANT A RANDOM FARMING CARDS, THEN DONT MAKE A GAs FOR A SHITTY GAME NOBODY WANTS TO PLAY, do it for a game worth playing.
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Well (some) people want those, just not for playing but for collecting.
I'm only bringing it up as it is a contrary effect to what is being said as a reason for the change
The change would also encourage users to focus their points on games they would like to play,
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I had some concerns about current changes, but I really love this explanation of them! :)
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Most people have the same games wishlisted, so only the less popular garbage games will see fewer entries.
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Well, the you'll see the giveaway with less entries, as people just won't have enough points to enter into giveaways. & that is the problem!
Especially when you level up, 'cause when you're on Level 0 those 500P per day is for (example only) 100 games, but on Level 1 you get 150 games per day, on Level 2 you get 200 games per day. With the same cap of 500P per day.
Just doesn't sound so great to give in & level up, as you'll have more & more games in which you can't enter. ;)
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Not really. It may be frustrating for sure, but on the other hand you can spend all your points and then just leave site alone for an hour or two to generate points instead of checking for new GA's every 5 minutes, which is as much frustrating.
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I respectfully disagree with this argument... The way I see it, we will have less points floating around, so there will be less banking. I mean, people (bots?) could bank before anyway. The real difference is that you do not need to be on site every 2 hours to spend (or bank) your points, because now we do not fill 300 points every 2 hours, like it was happening during some big bundle releases.
Now, if you do not have any GA you want for some period of time, and you are looking forward to the new Humble Bundle, sure, bank away, there is no rule preventing that (well, at least not yet). I, for one, would rather have people bank their points to spend later in something they really want instead of having people spending their points in anything just because they have the resources.
In short, I fully support cg's idea right now. All we need now is to increase the minimum giveaway time, and I will finally feel like I do not have to visit the site every hour just in case that GA I really want was just offered, for 1 hour only! :D :D :D
Cheers!
P.S.: If we are really concerned about banking... what we need is a higher point cap (we just got this!), and NOT allowing people to backup from GAs they entered! This way, people can just wait before entering GAs (the higher cap helps with that), choose them carefully, and not bank ever again.
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Yes people could bank before, but even if you didn't bank you had enough points to enter most of those giveaways during those times as points generated fast enough, now if you don't spend time storing points you would miss on a lot more giveaways, while the person that stored their points will be able to enter more giveaways.
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But here is the thing: everybody can bank. Only bots could use the 300 points generated every 2 hours.
And if people do bank, that is not too bad, is it? I mean, if you are banking, you are prioritizing where you spend your points, and that means you are only entering for stuff you really want. While you are banking, you are NOT entering GAs, right?
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This. If you see enough good GAs constantly why whine afterwards that you don't have enough points once per month when monthly starts? And when you don't see good GAs don't enter in them, that way you won't be out of points when something you want appears.
Or just don't enter for +1/cards for 2 days before bundle monthly and store points. With 500p cap you will need to visit site once for few min to do so. And if there was no game from monthly you want and "you lost so much opportunities to win +1" well no risk no fun. Everyone has now the same amount of points (previously it was impossible to spend them if you don't have bot or ocd to visit site constantly) so I don't see here any problem.
It's like giving people the same amount of money and forbid to store them. So they can only afford to buy junk to spend their money constantly. As allowing someone to not buy junk for few days and then buy something nice would make compulsive buyers feel like the they have worse stuff.
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So, human visitors less often on the site, while the bots are still here 24/7 ...
sigh
I'm going to end up like Adam, talking to myself on the forums.
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I don't feel that people who joined discussion just to enter gas and say "bump" were big talkers. :P People who join discussions will do this no matter if they enter GAs at the same time, as time needed to read discussion and reply is way longer than time needed to enter GA. They did it before, they will do this again.
Joining GA doesn't take ages to complete, hence you don't join discussion while waiting for GA. Just like I don't join SG discord to hunt for GAs there, but to talk with people. And this wont change if they stop to post GA link from time to time.
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They did it before, they will do this again.
You have a lot more faith than I do.
I also think things were done a little backwards. CG said he was collecting data on bots to "do something about them." When I asked him what his plans were for dealing with bots, he reiterated that with the same thing - "I'll continue to collect data." With these new changes in place, he's going to have less data to collect. I would have dealt with the bots first, then implemented these new changes. I believe they'd be much better received if we had a stronger showing of something being done about the bot situation - outside of just changing the points system.
I realize that has little or nothing to do with what we're discussing, but it's something I've been thinking about.
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He's making a list,
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!
Yeah, I think people should be suspended based on activity before changes, not now when auto-join script creators already changed them so they don't run 24/7 entering into everything. Or I'd be for giving more serious punishment to people who were using scripts and do this even after notice topic in the forum, than people who stopped to use them. As a token of good faith. It's good that you stopped to do wrong, but this doesn't change that you were doing wrong things for past 2 years. Plus suspension should be given before change to points system. That way people would feel that changes are implemented to really fight bots plus they wouldn't be angry that they can't enter into GAs from current monthly.
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Data, the most destructive anti-bot weapon. /s
I would have dealt with the bots first
Agree so much there. I already saw a drop of entries in flash gibs as people were too scared to keep using bots since the announcement. Unfortunately I totally miss any actual action against them, as some still verifiably use them.
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I see exactly the same problem Archi does, but favor a different solution - increase the minimum duration of giveaways. With no 1h flash giveaways to bank points for or stay up at night for immediately after a monthly or bundle launches, you'll eliminate not only any incentive to use bots, but also the incentive to neglect real life stuff in favor of stalking the site. The "becoming a part-time job" problem that you've already correctly identified.
I think 12 hours is a good compromise, allowing people to visit the site twice a day without being disadvantaged.
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And what about a level bonus? Okay, 5 points per hour, but if you're level 3, you'll get 5+3 points per hour. You're level 10? you'll get 5+10 points per hour. It would encourage users to do more GAs.
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There can be an easy fix for "point banking":
- Just refund half of the points if the user joined a giveaway more than a day ago
- 1/4 of the points if he joined the giveaway more than 2 days ago.
- Return 1/4 of the points if the user joined the same giveaway more than once and tried to refund the points again.
- Limit the maximum points that can be refunded in a day to maybe 200 <-- This one alone can fix most of the problem :)
Just a modified version of my last suggestion:
- Limit the maximum points that can be used in a day to 600, you don't need to keep track of the refunds just limit the entry points we can use in 24 hours.
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This could be a good solution, there would be people still storing points but the advantage won't be as much.Another good one is increasing the minimum time.
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I like your creative solutions. Certainly less brutal than simply not returning points as I keep suggesting.
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Thanks. Yeah that was the first thing I was thinking about as well (it is also the simplest solution), but there are so many cases you can enter a giveaway by mistake or really need to remove your entry. (Like the game has recently been added to a bundle and you haven't noticed it while entering, the game has just gone on sale, you already got the game but hasn't synced your account and entered by mistake, or just entered without thinking then checked out the steam store and saw terrible reviews, enter for a bundle and see the gib description saying "Don't enter if you already own xxx.." etc...)
I think if you remove returning points from the remove entry feature, you can remove it altogether as well, no one will like it that way.
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You can also easily avoid point banking with a similar system you implemented on feedback abuse: if a certain time passes (let's say, 12 or 24 hours) after entering a giveaway, points are not returned when a user leaves the raffle.
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I don't get it. Bots will just use shorter duration giveaways for banking if this is implemented, won't they?
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Since the daily limit is 500, they would not get any additional points back, they would just shuffle around their daily stock. At worst, they'd get two days worth of points stored up at once, no more. Now, if you want, you can store up 500 points for a month ahead, unloading 15k at once if you get lucky with some Humble Bundle spam.
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I still imagine it would be able to script something to juggle higher amounts of points with shorter duration giveaways though. There's nothing stopping a script from leaving one giveaway, just before the time limit, and entering a new giveaway and thus resetting the grace period for refunding points. Having a very short duration grace period for refunds would possibly put an end to banking
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You mean hopping a few hundred points infinitely forward? Scripts would have to be really sophisticated to be able to manage it and just a few 50-point giveaways being deleted can ruin the concept fast.
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I have no real insight into how hard it would be to create but it just takes one successful script in the wild to ruin the concept. It will definitely make things more complicated though
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Scripts would have to be really sophisticated
not really, implementation would be rather easy
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+1. Saves me the trouble of figuring out how to say exactly the same thing.
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I like the old way but perhaps that's because of 3 years getting used to something. Now it will be more like SG à la carte.
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i'm not against the increased point cap or limiting entry costs, but the point-gen doesn't sounds like an improvement. not that i should even care since i barely join giveaways, but now you will get a lot of threads with complains and people wondering wth is going on.
if this was to balance point generation, it might work, but it's pretty flawed.
and if this was to stop or reduce autojoiners, well, it won't work at all.
next we will hear autojoiners won't get banned, just warned and suspended a few days so they have time to adjust their scripts.
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+1, on the other hand now I feel like I'll have to stoop to the autojoiner level just to enter giveaways I want.
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Hey Mully, my general thought process with fixed points is that users have a fixed amount of time, and their available time does not scale with the number of giveaways being created on the site. For example, if we have 5x the giveaways next month, I don't think we should give users 5x the points and ask them to enter 5x the giveaways. Instead, I think we should give them the same number of points, allow them to enter the same number of giveaways, but give them a 5x higher chance of winning those giveaways.
As for autojoiners, this change is going to instantly reduce their wins. That's a fact, I know the numbers, and they're going to win less games starting today. Also, when the average user can now visit the site a couple of times a day, and compete against a user running an autojoiner 24/7, there is less of an incentive to have such a script. This is going to help reduce their usage, and the suspensions will reduce them even further.
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So basically those of us who manually visited the site various times a day are being lumped with autojoiners? Cool.
Also, private giveaways are getting skewered here, as now users are more likely to be reluctant about entering them... which in turns will reduce the amount of private giveaways on the whole.
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Also, when the average user can now visit the site a couple of times a day, and compete against a user running an autojoiner 24/7
If you wanted normal users to compete against bots you would increase the minimum giveaway time. I check the site a lot while I'm at home to keep an eye out for flash giveaways.
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My GAs rarely are shorter than 24h and most go for a few days.
Though I don't do that due to bots, I do it so people from outside my timezone or working shifts also have a chance. So I would have no problem with an increased minimum time.
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the thing is users won't "work harder or longer" when they get x5 more points in a day, they will just click x5 more times to enter (and maybe spend a few minutes commenting in giveaways).
if 500 points mean they will stay on sg 30 minutes per day entering giveaways, it doesn't mean with 2500 points they will waste 3 hours.
yes, it will reduce autojoiners' wins, as much as everyone else, but instead of pruning them forever you're just stopping them from winning as much as they did before with minimal effort.
it's like the police telling people to stop going out at night to avoid getting mugged, then releasing a statement saying "we lowered the amount of thieves in the city!"
if you don't perma-suspend autojoiners they will tweak their scripts till there's no way to detect them, then we are back at the same point we were a week ago.
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it will reduce autojoiners' wins, as much as everyone else
Actually, less wins for auto-joiners automatically means more wins for eveyone else. Those games that will no longer be won by bots will still be won by someone.
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that's a one-sided way to view this... the same can be said about normal users which can't join more giveaways for the same reason (not enough points), so autojoiners will win more because of that.
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Not really. A lower total number of points are spent by all people and bots now, but a greater proportion of them (compared to before) are spent by people now. Before, a lot of people would lose points once they hit the cap whereas this was the main advantage of bots, not wasting points at cap. Since this change significantly reduces that advantage that existed before, it's a win for people over bots. It doesn't go both ways.
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ok, if you put it that way it makes sense, thanks. =3
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I thought the main advantage was 24/7 presence for those flashies. Which this change will only make them better at.
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Maybe it was, I'm not sure I guess. Why do you say the change will make them better able to deal with flash GAs?
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Because they are online 24/7, unlike regular users. Always were, always have been.
And now the odds of those are higher, which would benefit someone coding a bot to enter just one-hour entries.
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I think I see your point now but I'm not convinced it's a big jump in their advantage. So far I've personally found I can't enter all the 1-hour giveaways for games on my wishlist so I imagine a bot would need to be rather sophisticated if it's going to do a better job optimising odds than its owner when they're online.
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But have you entered the site 24x in a day to cover the entire day for all those flashes?
No, really the only way to stop bots and make it less required to "live on the site" is raise the minimum timelimit.
Especially with such nonsense as a 50P limit possible for a 1-hour giveaway that takes 2.5 hours to generate.
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No, but that's my point. While I'm online, I might be able to enter 12 GAs for the one 30P game I want, all in one-hour giveaways. The person using a bot will also enter the same number of GAs but delegate some of that decision process to the bot while he is asleep or away from the site. Both I and the bot user managed to enter 12 one-hour giveaways so there shouldn't be any drastic difference between our odds. And if the bot user finds out there's some better GAs available while he's online, now he has less points to spend (himself) than the honest user.
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You're thinking it different than me.
Instead of entering 12 30GP games he wants, the bot just enters ALL one-hour giveaways. Max profit.
His chances there have majorly increased due this change. And it's fairly unlikely to run out of points, or if it does, it has major chances compared to human "players".
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How on Earth are you making the assumption the bot can enter ALL one-hour giveaways and that it's unlikely to run out of points? They get the same number of points now as everyone else. They can run out of points just the same. This is the point I was making earlier. The new system pretty much completely eliminates the advantage that bots used to have in that they were able to never waste points. Now normal users and bot users alike will be on a level playing field when it comes to how many points they have available to spend over the course of a day. A users who visits the site even less often than once a day will still be at a disadvantage, but I don't think we've been talking about such a user.
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One-hour giveaways aren't exactly that common. Plus games already owned substract from entries + likely it'll be level 0 or 1 so all level 2+ isn't accounted either.
The single benefit being just the ability to be there for all of them, something no human EVER can, ever.
EDIT: We're really talking about 2 different things. You think their omnipresence helps for pointsspending. I'm more playing at their omni-presence allowing them to enter 1h high-possiblitiy to win giveaways, something a human can't do. And which checking each hour is also tiring and annoying, while a bot doesn't require someone to do so. They can log in just as same as you.
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Yes I see. I've been making a bit of a different assumption to you as well, and that is that there is usually heaps of stuff to spend points on, so there isn't any great need to try and snag all the 1-hour GAs. I thought a typical bot user might actually have levelled a bit and be in some whitelists or groups so there are plenty of GAs to enter that might have similar or even better odds than 1 hour flash GAs. If a typical bot user is actually level 0 or 1 though, your argument would hold more true. I'm not really sure what a typical bot user's profile would look like.
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a typical bot user
they are everywhere, from lvl 0 to 10
I know of several high level ones as it is easy to spot
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+1
Why doesn't the site ban some people for a month or two, for their auto-joiner scripts?
Or better yet, why don't site publicly list all auto-joiners? We've don it in my country for everyone who didn't pay taxes, public black list. So if you're willing to cheat, you get banned & your names goes on the wall! ;)
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A side effect of going after the autojoiners with this new point system could be that it also will have an impact on the SG events in the SG discussions, be they individual giveaways, giveaway lists or (large) trains, because with points being at a premium and users now who will go for the high(er) giveaway chances; the participation in those SG events will most probably drop.
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Why? It's harder to enter in ga after solving it quiz, which means higher chances for participants. Higher chance over public gas when points are limited -> people want to enter those GAs. IMO nothing will change, maybe excluding long trains with little to non value in them, People won't enter them. But at the same time it means bigger chance for card farmers, hence you will always gather 5 entries in chap GAs
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you will always gather 5 entries in chap GAs
not so sure about that ^^ (I'm told those were public lvl 5)
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7 wonders, created today, 1 hour, 6+, 9 entries. So if it's not from some private / group GAs they had to be really unlucky. Check here every GA for 5 - 6 lvl have at least 5 entries.
And people will get CV in public GAs even if they have 1 entry.
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people will get CV in public GAs even if they have 1 entry.
know that ^^
It was off-peak hours, point of lowest activity around 05:00 UTC
But I bet the 1-hour max-level challenge I did some time ago will not always find winners at level 10 anymore ;-)
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You're assuming that the number of auto-joiners is inelastic. It isn't. People will just use more bots, and people who didn't use bots before will consider it when they see lower entry counts and higher chances of winning.
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Well I'm considering it, as I've got a business trip & can't be on a web page for a few days. But no, not going to use it as it's WRONG. ;)
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I used to be able to join my Wishlist giveaways up to a day or more in advance. Now I can't even join all the giveaways in my Wishlist for the next hour... maybe two or three. Definitely not helpful to me... I'll never make it to 500 and am considering going back to Indie Gala... at least they give a reasonable amount of points to enter giveaways.
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I mostly like these changes, but I feel like 50p cap for a giveaway is a bit low. 75p or heck, even the old 100p would be nice, to make entering "big" giveaways a bit more costly, and something you would take a moment to consider, rather than just joining because it's there, and you've got points to spare. This is mostly relevant for relatively new releases, who cost more than 50p. It would punish things like the current RPG-maker giveaways, making entering such really costly, but it would also make it so that entering the latest AAA giveaway for card farming less attractive.
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I think 5 points every 15 minutes very little, I believe it will reduce the participation a lot by giveaway
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That's the whole point, to make it more likely that people will consider more where they spend their points and enter giveaways for games that they would actually want to play. Less entries = better chances.
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Well it's not the same when you have leveled up & get more games to choose from! ;)
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unfortunately you dont have better chances if you look at the math.
entering one giveaway with say 250 entries vs say 4 giveaways with 1000 entries you would have a relative chance of about 20% less to win. if you entered 8 with 1000 entries (assuming you had that many more points) you would have a substantially higher relative chance. thus you would only have a better chance if you only entered a close number of giveaways anyways, so it is that this system heavily favors those that didnt enter many giveaways in the first place.
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I would like to state my personal experience until now, but not in order to debate your math argument, just for the sake of sharing my opinion :) Yesterday I had the chance to try how this new point system works under a “rush” hour for the site - right after a Humble Bundle was released. As usual, a lot of giveaways were created for these games and unlike previous times, we weren’t flooded with points. I was entering all the giveaways that were created for a game from my wishlist, Guild of Dungeoneering. I noticed that all the flash giveaways had a very few entries compared to earlier, for example even less than 50. At that point I had less than 150 points and still I managed to enter all giveaways created for it. For the record, I traded that game shortly after and synced my SG account for the entries to get removed automatically.
Please note that I am not implying that every other user is having a similar experience as me, there are many different cases, needs, tastes, different examples that can be used for everyone according on many different factors. But at the end of the day, to me, it all boils down on putting higher priorities (this is the most important keyword for me here, priorities) to where you spend your points - at the expense of fewer choices, but better chances for many of them - as every other user would have to choose more wisely where to spend their points instead of entering almost everything, in many cases not interested really for the actual game - decreasing the chances of those who are. As you said “you would only have a better chance if you only entered a close number of giveaways” to me that’s the whole point of this new system :)
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I think that the reason the system changed is more philosophical/ideological than technical - its moving the whole thing to a different direction - and on we go :)
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Reducing the cap to 50p and reducing the X Points per giveaway should get the job done, but I do enjoy the cap, because you would lose points if you just won a game you entered many times because of that cap.
Anyway, not sure how I feel about this changes, but let's see in the coming weeks, but the last algorithm made sense as in (more giveaways = more points, less = less points), anyway hope it improves the general experience :)
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Besides the "price bugs" (when a game giveaway would require more points to enter than its actual price, like Daedalic games when their bundles are in sale), I don't think that the point system had a problem, but it's your call. ;P
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The monthly Humble bundle just released with some great games, so obviously there are a lot of giveaways made for them, but I have almost no points to enter them.
That is horribly frustrating.
I still check the site at least hourly, to check if there are any hour long lvl6 giveaways.
The update didn't fix what it was supposed to fix, but made it just more frustrating.
Also it would be really useful now, if we had GUI for those filters.
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Yes, I think in general people who were used to the old system are going to feel the new one is worse as they don't have as many points to enter as many giveaways as they used to. Only being able to enter 1 of 2 giveaways, even if the entries in each one are halved, will to most people feel worse.
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It's sad that there won't be "points rush adrenaline" anymore, especially when a new Monthly came out but then again, perhaps we can all reduce our time on the site (I'm talking about the addicts, me included ._.). Also, it's nice to see the points rise up above 300 today :)
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You have right. This additionally quickly appearing points was something beautiful. Like yesterday. New system is bad.
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I can finally delete the alarm on my phone to check SG 30 minutes after every Humble Bundle is released on Tuesdays.
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like myselfe....i'm watching points with my eyes wide open and maybe i say MAYBE they will start replenish faster....
p.s.maybe.... :)
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Hi SG,
After the recent discussion, updates to the point system are now live. They are as follows:
I think these adjustments will provide a number of improvements for the site. However, I'll keep an eye on user feedback, and try to make sure the changes are working as intended and meeting the needs of the community.
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