Well, I've stated my reservations about this system to you in our conversation, but yeah, I feel like placing them here as well.
- Yep, lower points generation. Cool.
- Yep raise the cap. Cool.
Setting the cap to enter giveaways at 50p -- you're equating $60 (and more) giveaways with $50 giveaways. I don't like that. I still think it should be 60p and a 600p per day. (In reality, I think it should still be dynamic, but no points payout for free games and only 15% of the % payout for bundled games, but we can't have our cake and eat it).
Bots are still going to target the high priced items and enter them as much as ever. Nothing will change there. They may be able to enter fewer, but so will everyone else. The ratio of bots to humans won't change much in those giveaways, if at all. It's really only going to stop bots entering the low-ticket items - because they won't have the points.
So yeah, maybe people will win a bit more than they used to - if they enter the less wanted games - but they're still going to be fighting with the bots for the big games they'd like. You said yourself we won't see much difference in the number of entries for popular games like PUBG.
The ultimate solution is to be rid of the bots altogether. You can adjust the points system all you like, but not much is going to change until they're gone.
EDIT: One last thing - with everyone, including bots, able to enter fewer giveaways, it's going to be harder than ever for users to distinguish the difference between bots and humans entering their giveaways. I rather enjoyed making 50 giveaways and catching someone entering 20 of them in the space of 5 seconds.
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Bots used to have more points than people to spend each day. For example, if 1500 points were being generated in a day, a typical user might have been spending 300 points twice a day for a total of 600 points, whereas the bot was spending all 1500.
Yes, if a user was able to spend points so frequently during the day that they could avoid losing points like bots were able to, then they will lose out slightly vs. the more casual users that were frequently wasting points each day. The reduction in wins by really high frequency visitors and bots will be made up by the less frequent visitors though.
In a way, the shift in wins is overall from bots to humans. However the change is greatest for the people who were frequently hitting the cap before rather than for people who were able to persistently avoid the cap
For example, it could look something like (maybe per month, or per 30 giveaways)
Old system:
Bot 13 wins
High-frequency visitor 11 wins
Low-frequency visitor 6 wins
New system:
Bot 11 wins
High-frequency visitor 10 wins
Low-frequency visitor 9 wins
The question is whether the reduction in wins by bots is enough to make up for the fact that wins will also shift from high-frequency visitors to low-frequency visitors.
In other words there are two ways the wins are shifting, between bots and real users, and between high-freq users and low-freq users.
High-frequency visitors would be expected to be less positive about the change than low-frequency visitors.
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Bots used to have more points than people to spend each day
Not entirely accurate. Bots used to have more points than people who only visit the site once or twice a day. People who didn't spend many points before still won't spend many points now, but this will affect the people who visit more frequently and put them on even ground (more or less) as once a day visitors. I'm still not sure how I feel about equating the two groups. I do lean toward the belief that a dynamic point system, (with points reductions in place) still encourages people to visit the site more often and take part in the community. I have nothing to back that up outside of personal experience and observation - it's pretty clear that the community is more active on days that (for instance) Humble Monthly is released. IMHO they come for the giveaways, and stay for the community.
I'm not arguing the fact that there will be a shift from bots to human winners across the board. I'm saying bots are still going to enter the better games first and compete with humans for those games. They'll simply enter fewer of the "less wanted" games due to a lack of points. Assuming the bots are programmed (if that's the correct term) to enter wish-list giveaways the same as humans, the ratio of entries on those more wanted games won't change as much as people think, in my opinion.
Only time will tell. I'm all for drastic points reduction (and detailed several ways this could be accomplished), but I believe the dynamic system was the better solution overall.
EDIT: edited to add my other thoughts on the proposed changes to give context to what I've said here
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Yes, I knew as soon as I re-read that sentence its inaccuracy would be picked up. I should have clarified as "most people", or really "the entire group of bots vs. the entire group of people". For instance I would say I'm a pretty high-frequency visitor but my timezone means that I am asleep during the peaks hours of each day, so for the purposes of this discussion I would sit somewhere between the definition of a low-frequency and high-frequency visitor if it was defined more by how many points I'm able to spend each day rather than how many times I literally visit.
I agree there may be some distribution changes in terms of what giveaways do and don't get entered from now on, and I think I agree that a points rate reduction would have been a better option rather than a fixed point generation system (as I have advocated in other posts on the issue). However I'm overall still optimistic about the fact that bots will be winning fewer GAs.
It may very well be that for popular games there is basically no change in the proportion of bots vs humans winning them, and instead all the loss to bots is in the trash-game giveaways. In a way, I'd still consider that a plus as I'd still rather a real person win a trash GA than a bot. Even if the real person is only entering these trash-GAs for card-farming or +1 to their library, it's still better that they win (and it's up to them how much they wish to clog their Steam account with trash) than someone consciously breaking the rules of the site in order to gain a material advantage.
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Let's be honest - when we talk about trash games, do we really care who wins them? Bot or human? Or, at the very least, do we care who wins them as much as we do when we shell out full price for a nice, new game that's high on the community's wishlist?
Personally speaking, those are the games I'd like to see fall into human hands more often. I don't believe these new changes are going to have as much affect for those nicer giveaways as people think. Again, I'm just speculating, and assuming bots are set to enter games the same way humans do - to try and win the ones they want most.
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Of course the more valuable games we'd rather see people win, compared to trash games. That said, I guess there's still a person who might play that game if it's a bot that wins, and as you said it might be entering wishlist games as a priority. If it's a full-on card farming account though that'd be pretty shitty.
I think as you said though, the auto-join scripters just need to get that suspension already. Nothing else will stop them from diluting the legit entrants in GAs for highly sought after games.
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I still don't like the static points per 15 minutes.
If people were receiving too many points per 15 minutes, then decrease the % of points given by giveaways created.
I still fail to see the "number of improvements for the site" that a static 5p / 15 min will bring. If the answer is bots, then yeah they will not have points to enter giveaways, but the rest will not have it either. So it ends up punishing real users in order to punish bots, instead of only punishing bots.
Also the FAQ is now no longer up to date.
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And... ¿how will be the situation with GA with less than 5 entries? Until now I delivered all GA with less than 5 entries because there are few, but this new change increase the risk. ¿Flood of tickets asking to delete a GA?
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Why would you delete the GA if it has a winner? If you care about CV, delete it before it ends. If it has a winner you have to deliver the gift if the winner wants it.
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Honestly if people really want the game they should just move entries from low level public giveaways to the private ones. As 1/5-1/10 is much better than 1/1000...
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Exacto. Ya he tenido que dar juegos con menos de 5 participantes un poco a regañadientes perdiendo CV, ahora ya ni te cuento. Supuestamente este cambio es para priorizar tus puntos. Pues eso mismo, al priorizar dejas de entrar en sorteos, y por lo tanto, habrá muchos que acaben con menos de 5 participantes, o incluso 0. Alrededor de 50 sorteos míos han acabado sin entradas, y ahora ese número se va a incrementar más aun. Y es una lata sobre todo cuando hay que cubrir y cumplir con cierto ratio en muchos grupos. Además con este cambio, al haber menos participantes, empezará a haber más sorteos de nivel 0, 1, 2... y menos de niveles altos. Al fin de cuentas, este cambio puede venir bien a gente nueva o leechers, y a los que damos bastantes juegos, nos perjudicará. yo ya he dejado de entrar a unos 15 sorteos con pocos participantes porque no tengo puntos, ya que encima el nuevo sistema empezó teniendo yo 0 puntos, y esta noche solo he subido 150 puntos. Y teniendo sorteos de 20, 30, 50 puntos dado que ha habido humble bundle cercano... como para entrar en esos sorteos. Y más aun con sorteos que duran 1 hora.
Un ejemplo muy fácil para enterder los cambios: Para entrar a un sorteo de Rise of the Tomb Raider - Standard Edition necesitas esperar 2 horas y media, que es lo que tardas en reacaudar 50 puntos. Y luego otras 2 horas y media para entrar a otro de ese juego. Vamos, que para dos sorteos de ese juego necesitas 5 horas (y después quedarías a 0 para entrar a ningún otro)
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When do you want to change the punishments for users who are not activating the won gifts? I have opened tickets since months without giving them a suspension.
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This is kind of sad to look at, but I like it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Now it will be even harder to get 5 entries in group GAs because people have less points, and more and more GAs are being posted to SG every month.
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I feel like no one really considered this aspect of the change.
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A lot of us did, and we mentioned it in the previous post but for some reason it was not noticed by cg..
Not only group GAs but flash GAs as well now have a problem if you ask me
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At least for public GAs, they don't need 5 entries anyway. Only invite-only or group/whitelist GAs have that need.
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Quite the opposite: since people will have to be more careful with points, the allure of small-group giveaways with double-digit percentage of chance will be higher than ever. Don't be surprised if you see a ton more group-only giveaways in the Archive.
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I don't think this will change that much as there a limited number of points now. People will tend to prioritise group giveaways over public due to the odds anyway. They will just not enter the public giveaways at all now due to limited points. The fact that you need five entrants to get cv will stop people just flooding the group giveaways cause they will get zero cv if they don't get 5 entrants. You probably will see more group giveaways with the larger groups though. I don't think this will stop people coming on SG as much as people will have to check and manage their entries a lot more cause they now wont want to waste points on giveaways with higher number of entrants to maximise their chances of winning. Being a moderator in a exclusive group where games quite often may not get 5 entries, this is going to be a concern as people will be more careful with their entries but if what you say is true then we may get more people entering. I suppose time will tell.
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not sure i like it... getting a lot less points now :(
A lot more GAs i can't enter due to not enough points...
oh well
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this new points system is terrible, pls remove this fixed point generation, and all will be fine 😎
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oh yes. I like the new system. No wonder I'm seeing 200 people max in 4+ GAs when it used to be 3000
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When a giveaway is deleted, do points get reimbursed to those that have entered the giveaway already?
If not, with so few points being given, entering a giveaway and it being deleted can be quite punishing for the user that did nothing wrong.
A user than enters a max point giveaway (50P) and then has that giveaway deleted loses 2h30m worth of points and can't enter anything else.
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So many people complaining. Looks like a ton of users never had to do a proper budget on a limited income in their life if they cannot choose where to spend 500 dollars worth of entries daily.
Speaking of which considering new games still tend to aim for the 60-dollar starting price, wouldn't it be more sensible to cap the entry at 60 to reflect this? Not like most people can see 8 giveaways a day for an AAA game, and if they do thanks to their little groups or for living in one of certain two countries, then they at least think more about where to put them.
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Not the same thing, you cannot predict what the giveaways will be in the next 24h. Imagine you buy case of beer, come home, and then find out that the price suddenly dropped in half (equivalent to shorter or higher level giveaways). Maybe they just get better beer for the same price, but too bad, you cannot return your old one (flash giveaway already ended).
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This is a risk anyone has to take with a raffle event.
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Oh, I know budgeting.
"Point storage" for 'rush hour' (bundles) is more important than ever. You need to have a "buffer" since if there's a one-hour giveaway of a 50P game you can't legitly enter it within that hour unless you got storage.
Better to storage for the bundles you cannot predict than spend on what you don't want, haggling and pointshifting is the new way to use SG as "proper budget".
Which isn't the most fun task, is made easier by bots like everything so they get an advantage again.
Which I'm not sure is exactly the intention. If it was, the cap would just be raised to a week, not a day. Unless we can predict all bundles now.
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So did wartime United Kingdom and United States. It is not a particularly uncommon system.
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I'm from Romania, back in the golden era everyone had to have a whole room, just to store shit, because you never knew when will you need more sugar, flour, meat or whatnot. It's not a reasonable solution for anything. Now I need to store my points like I'm in a communist sg.
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New system reminds me gameminer (somebody remember that dead site?)
Don't like it 🙅
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oh, gameminer is dead? I remember this site :)
me 2, Don't like this new points system
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Agreed with all who said that fixed point generation is bad. And the change comes just when new monthly arrives... Hopefully it will be reverted back and point generation could be smaller. Official poll from cg about changes would be nice.
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Good change, people need to think about where to enter, where to not. With old system i was enter to every interesting GAs. All public GAs was counts more than 1k entries, that was to low chances. Lets see how it be now.
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Flash GAs is the only area where I see risk with the new system, but it probably won't affect me. On March 25 the GAs I entered that were created on the same were worth 150 points altogether. This means that unless I started the day without points (and I'm pretty that wasn't the case), it would have been fine.
I'm looking forward to see the improved chances of humans with this system! :-)
Edit: It just occurred to me that one way to encourage participation in the forum would be to reduce the point-cost of any GA that people arrived to through the forum. For example, make a 50P invite-only GA that's linked from the forum cost only 40P. It would be a bit of a challenge though to identify that people arrived through the forum if the creator obfuscated the URL, but nothing that a simple captcha can't solve ;-)
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After a couple of hours I really like the change.
Less competitionentries in GAs I enter. Restraining myself from entering a game I might play in a couple of month.
Thanks cg!
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Boooring & demotivating..
I might have not win any GAs i have entered before, but now i cant even enter 1/2 of GAs i wish to win, where's the fun in this?(
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Would like to have a timer to tell when the next 5 point refill.
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To be honest, of course I will adopt but I feel this change as change for worse.
I would still prefer dynamic points. And quantify of points in the middle between previous points and current ones. Of course points had to be lowered but I would like in different way as it was made.
And no, I never ever used and autojoin scripts. But i entered site frequently (to participate in flash GA too). Now will adopt and will be entering site 1 or 2 per day only and it will feel for me like indiegala (with better interference,better GA an community). It means that if this change was made and can not be reverted then I also opt for at last 12h long giveaways... Now system is not coherent and if you made one change it is not good if you dont increase GA time. To be honest, paradoxically, I see more use for autojoin script now. As you can enter site only 1 or 2 per day you could use autojoin scripts to check for short giveaway with very good chances of win (less entering + very short).
And i also like freedom for making GA time, but current change dont have sense with second one and at last 12h GA... But still prefer to change current one to previous one with points generating on average between precious situation and current one.
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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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