"Keep in mind that changes to the list of bundle games will apply retroactively,"
Unfortunate that this wasn't fixed or had a formula change from SGv1.
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Not sure what you mean.
It just means that bundle status will be applied in the calculations from the date the bundle started, regardless of when the list actually gets updated.
Giveaways that ENDED before the bundle start date are unaffected
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What about the giveaways that STARTED before the bundle start?
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I think those will still count as bundled, otherwise the creator could buy the bundle and give it to the winner and receive full value
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I'm pretty sure that's just bad luck. : (
But staff could tell you for sure.
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It's based on the date the giveaway is created. If you create a giveaway today, ending in three weeks, but the game is added to a bundle tomorrow, you'll still receive full value.
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cg, do you remember instances (and complaints of CV dropping?)
http://www.google.com/search?q=my+cv+dropped+site%3ASteamgifts.com&client=opera
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That would be due to Steam price changes, or games being added to the bundle list and retroactively being applied to giveaways. For example, if Skyrim was in a bundle today, but it took us a week to add it to the bundle list, then giveaways during this week might temporarily receive full value until the list is updated, and the CV is appropriately lowered.
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Thank you, it was the Steam pricing that was most likely the cause which I recall can't be tracked easily.
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In SGv1, if you gave a game that was $100 and not bundled at the time, you got $100 CV; then if it ended up in a bundle days/weeks/months/years later, your CV would drop as well.
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No it wouldn't. If your giveaway finished before the bundle started you kept your CV.
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There have been reports of it dropping, I remember mine dropping as well. http://www.google.com/search?q=my+cv+dropped+site%3ASteamgifts.com&client=opera
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That's not correct. On V1 (still applies to V2), you get full CV if the giveaway was made before the day the bundle started.
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There have been reports of it dropping, I remember mine dropping as well. http://www.google.com/search?q=my+cv+dropped+site%3ASteamgifts.com&client=opera
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There is only a single person who was managing the bundle list - many times it would take a couple of days before the list was updated. If the bundle were released last Thursday and only added to the list today, any giveaway made in the last week would have their values adjusted downwards accordingly. In addition, CV is tied to Steam prices, so if the price drops in the Steam store, your CV drops as well.
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As CG stated http://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/SiqKwLU , it was the Steam pricing change
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As already mentioned, one person maintaining the list. Also, he is only human, and sometimes misses them. Today it was sent in one he missed from months ago.
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As CG stated http://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/SiqKwLU , it was the Steam pricing change
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Nice to have some info on how this level thing works, I guess it's time to make a giveaway and see how much impact it has over the decimal numbers.
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you need to add a better(aka ANY) indicator that games are bundled before a giveaway is made, and bundle value shouldn't apply to the steamgift form since they give keys and the site can tell the difference now.
while I like that you fixed bundles(no more free 30) and partially treated price glitches(diminishing returns) why didn't groups get altered a bit too?(like group counts at 75% or something) its just as easy to shenagans the cv up with a closed group's mandatory contribution rules as it is with a group of 4
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The site can't tell the difference. A bundle game is always a bundle game, no matter where you get it.
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The site doesn't check whether you actually give a key or gift. If bundled game gifts got full value and keys got bundle value, then everyone would just claim they have a gift and then just email the bundle key later.
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the vagueness is nice and all...but what are the actual numbers so levels can start to mean anything?
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http://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/vcDDbFF
but don't confuse the number on "gifts sent" (which is the Steam store value) with the value based on whether or not the game was in a bundle (this number is not displayed, but used for the level)
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Thanks for the explanation - I would have thought the matter relevant enough to be FAQ material from day 0, though.
The new leveling system looks even more complicated, less transparent and more punitive than CV and I've read in another thread that you're even planning to possibly make levels steeper in the future which makes all of this even more arbitrary and punitive in my eyes.
Thanks for keeping this site running, even though I disapprove of this change.
And thanks to all the users who will keep posting giveaways here regardless.
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It wasn't posted earlier because the formula was still being tweaked.
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I think the 5 enteries for ' invite only, or for a whitelist or Steam group' is still too low. I mean waaay low.
I can't see how this is not so easily exploitable. Until this is fixed, I have no faith on levels and my giveaways will have no level restrictions.
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It's still much better than the old 2 entries requirement.
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You see, if this limit would be higher - this would kill puzzle giveaways.
But, if you don't want to set level restrictions - it's up to you. After all, many users would be happy because of that)
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It still puts the legitimacy of 'leveling' into big a question mark. Which destroys the whole purpose of having levels.
I think that is far more important than accommodating puzzle giveaways. Which seems exploitable to me as well but I never participated in them so can't comment.
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I don't agree with you.
With a minimum of 5 entries there are already lots of valid giveaways being excluded. To punish everyone just to stop some <0.01% from exploiting does not sound like a good and fair idea.
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I'm not really fond of the five entries limit before earning CV, due to the fact that I have seen many puzzle giveaways or hidden giveaways ending with two to four entries. Then again, I assume these giveaway creator won't wind, possibly...
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Thanks for the info, even though I still think it's unnecessarily complicated.
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It surprises me how few people are above level zero. Even I, who can't access a Credit Card or such and can't buy games - literally indeed - somehow managed to giveaway Frozen Synapse years ago.
None the less, I don't see why this system exists, and would be massively in favour of removing all CV equivalents.
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Removing all forms of CV would remove giveaways. Low level donators seem to think that all the great games done with high CV / levels would suddenly be something they could enter, but instead it would just all go to private groups. Its why many users were against the complete removal of the system, despite the flaws.
Given they suffer dealing with the flaws, the Support team are more towards the removal. :P
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Not true at all. People said the same thing about TF2R, but TF2R and scrap.tf have more raffles than they did when requirements were a real thing. And yes, including a lot of very valuable ones (Unusual hats and such).
A few private groups did pop up - I was part of a lot of them - but they died after the first month or so.
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I don't know what TF2R is, but here is the thing. Big gifters, the ones responsible for those giveaways you and so many others want to enter, have said they would go to private groups. Many of them already use them a fair bit.
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You have that wrong; I have never experienced a moment where I thought 'curses, I want to enter this, but my level / CV is too low'. I just dislike the whole principle of elitism. So, really, let them move away if they so desire.
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Perhaps, but I would say most are young and / or simply don't have the money to buy games. I myself might be an extreme case; the last thing I've bought was Far Cry 1, for Euro, seven to eight years ago, and since then I've been saving up for a PC which I'll buy soon (approximately 1300 Euros). But even I have given away Frozen Synapse here, because I dislike leeching, as you say.
I do not hold the position I do simply because I want more giveaways. It's the principle of the thing, for me, and I don't particularly care whether I have access to a dozen more giveaways or not. It's entirely understandable that the vast majority of users literally can't afford to raise their levels, and I dislike that out of principle.
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There are probably tens of thousands of users who signed into the site, then forgot about it forever 10 minutes later.
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Bummer. I had actually had a number of small entry giveaways for non-bundled (at the time) games from group giveaways. At least lowering it from 10 to 5 helped a lot, though. And now I have a reason to give away more of those bundled keys I have sitting around.
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The most important needles optimization numbers are missing (hope I did my math right).
if a bundled game has a steam price of X, to get at least X to value toward your SG level you have to giveaway that (same) game 7 times. To get twice the X value you will have to give it away 30 times, and you can never reach three times the value (with same game).
For non-bundled games, if you give same game multiple times, with 26 copies you will have 13 times the single game value. Now in theory 14 times original value is at infinite copies given, but if we have two decimal precision seen in profiles it only takes 70-92 giveaways (depending how infernal rounding function is used 77 being most likely value). If there is no rounding, there still is limit from floating point numbers, for single precision you can reach 14 times value with 178, and for double precision with 347 giveaways.
Remember this when you decide to giveaway 10 000 copies of fortix :)
EDIT: my original numbers had off-by-one error, I have corrected the (hopefully now) right answers above
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Someone should do the math and tell me how much my Fortix giveaways earn me. :P
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You're at $13,998 at the moment ^^. Your next Fortix giveaway will earn you a small $0.00018 CV =p.
Edit: although I just read cg's comment about it being added to a bundle at Dec 13th, 2014, which I didn't take into consideration.
Edit 2: this would only apply to your last three fortix giveaways, so this would mean $13,997 CV.
Edit 3: Gah! Damnit. Cg's comment was just an example. It's been bundled since 16 months ago >.<
Edit 4: Okey, that bundle probably started at september 11th 2013, so... your 26 last Fortix giveaways should be counted as bundle games, resulting in $13.9765 CV.
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Oh you are right it indeed converges towards 14 instead of 15 like I originally wrote. Better update my post
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Few questions if you don't mind.
So it's stated, ''Keep in mind that changes to the list of bundle games will apply retroactively, so if a bundle begins today, attempting to gift the game before it's added to the list will offer no advantage.''
How much of going in the past is considered retroactively? Only one day, week, month?
And most people here including me are not familiar with contents of the future bundles.
Also why don't we have full price for gift games, SG1 didn't have it and i think it's a mistake. For me it's not the same if someone gifts you a key or steam gift. Steam gifts should not be considered as bundle games.
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It depends on the bundle date we specify. For example, if we realize Fortix was in a bundle Dec 13th, 2014, and we happened to overlook it and add it to the list today, then all giveaways for Fortix created after Dec 13th, 2014 will receive the bundle value. If a game is featured in a bundle today, and we add it to the list today, then only giveaways from this point forward would be affected.
As for the second question, we can't reliably determine if a game is either a gift or key. Winners could wrongly specify what they receive, giveaway creators could have a gift in their inventory, but send a key, etc. We're not going to middleman gifts either, and shuffle thousands of gifts between accounts on a daily basis.
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Ok, thank you for clarification of first question, I also understand the second, it's not easy for you to track all those games.
I really appreciate you taking time out of your probably very busy schedule to answer me. Cheers!
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Heh, any chance I can talk you into 4? I know, I know....if you go to 4, then someone will want 3 and pretty soon you'll be inundated to go back to 2. I fully understand your decision and I'm very glad you at least decided to go to 5 entries because that put 10 giveaways into play for me. I have 5 more at 4 entries and then another 5-6 at 2 or 3 entries. It would be nice to get credit for all of those as they were in legit private groups and not trying to circumvent anything.
I can definitely see the pluses and minuses of this system. Again, thanks for going down to 5. It was slightly bothersome yesterday to see people higher level than me with much lower CV, taking a term from the previous system. And I've seen a few profiles who have more CV than me but a lower level so its not like I'm thinking I'm being victimized here as that is completely not what I'm saying. Its just one of those things that is different from CV and works in another way. But like with any one system, there are pros and cons of it for everyone.
One additional thing though, any chance we can also filter giveaways by ones that have closed, in addition to seeing the open and new ones?
Oh, and can we please add more than 25 giveaways per page? That would be really really nice. Thanks!
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I bought copies of Dead Island before they were exploited, and on SGv1 those keys would have had zero value. Is there a change in the value that they could receive now?
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On SGv1 you got 100% values for bundle/exploited games if they represented no more than 20% of your total giveaways.
Under the current system, you should get 15% of it's value as CV.
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Oh, okay. I wasn't sure if the rules were the same for previously exploited games as they are for bundles. I'd actually be much happier doing these Dead Island copies under the new system if that's the case.
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Ah, so we're penalised for the trolls/near-scammers who don't mark games as received but redeem the key anyway/sell it. Nice.
edit: I guess this isn't any different to the previous system, but the wording in the OP makes it fee llike these situations have negative rather than neutral impact now.
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I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you send a key out and they don't mark as received, you can send proof in a support ticket and the giveaway will be manually marked as received. The only instance I can think of that may be more confusing is if you supply a key, provide proof, but then the scammer winner says that the key was a dupe.
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Nice to see the change to the bundled games so now they always give you a little bit of CV
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i hope can see which giveaway is count for bundle game see at profile @ SG
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I have a question about this limit of 5 users in a giveaway... If I giveaway multiple copies of a game in one giveaway, how much entries should I have so that giveaway was counted?
For example, if I giveaway 2 copies - I should have not less then 5 users? or 6? or maybe 10?
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As far as I understand it, it's a minimum of 5 entries for all giveaways. No matter how many copies are given.
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It's probably number of copies + 4, otherwise it wouldn't make sense. Otherwise someone can just buy a 4 pack + 1 and split with friends.
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I don't think that's how it works. As far as I know it's only determined by the number of entries.
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SG1 worked like jatan described. It was always number of copies +1 in order to get CV. Having the same formula, but +4 now only makes sense.
EDIT: But it seems it's indeed not the case.
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The idea is to prevent a small group of friends to purchase games they were already planning to buy from boosting CV. This happened quite a lot on V1 and there was someone who had over $5000CV infamous for (most likely) doing this.
Say for some $50 multiplayer game, there is a group of 10 friends who buy copies of the game. You list an 8 copy giveaway, 9 friends join the giveaway - tada! There's no need to gift the game to people because they bought the game for themselves. That's $400 CV free.
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This site is still more and more hostile to the contributors... i am not suprised there are just bad games who nobody actually wants and enters giveaway just to waste points. And if any game here is good it is probably fake giveaway made by someone with 10 games on steam acc. :D
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I'm not sure what site you're talking about but your comment makes not sense on this one.
How is the site being hostile toward contributors? They're getting rewarded with higher levels so they can enter giveaways with better odds. And considering you won the Metro Redux Bundle I don't understand why you claim there are just bad games. I have won a ton of great games (and didn't win even more) so your comment seems more like trolling.
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Hey everyone, I'll try to demystify the contributor levels you see on the site.
To get started, the levels range from 0 - 10, with level 0 being the default after registration, and level 10 being the highest level attainable. Users increase through these levels by creating giveaways that are marked received. If you mouseover your level in the navigation bar, or the level on profiles, you'll see a tooltip with the level rounded to 2 decimal places, giving you a better idea of small increments in level, and when you're about to level up.
Levels increase almost exponentially, meaning each level requires double the contributions of the previous level. For example, level 4 would require double the contributions of level 3, and level 3 would require double the contributions of level 2.
How much a giveaway increases your level is based on the gifts price, so a $20 game would add twice as much value to your level as a $10 game. There are three other factors that may influence the value of a gift...
After you give away a game 5 times (whether in the same giveaway, or in multiple giveaways), it will begin decreasing in value. The value is decreased by 10% for each additional copy. This means if you decide to give away 8 copies of a $10 game, it would add $74.39 (10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 9 + 8.10 + 7.29) in value towards your level. This has little effect on the majority of users, but prevents individuals from receiving a high level from gifting a large number of promotional gifts, games obtained through pricing errors, or keys from contacting game developers.
If a giveaway is invite only, or for a whitelist or Steam group, it will only add value towards your level if it receives 5 or more entries. We made this change to combat small groups of friends from attempting to cheat the contributor system, and to encourage users to expand the reach of their giveaways. The new whitelist feature offers an easy way to target a larger audience, and you can combine it with small Steam groups to receive a greater number of giveaway entries if needed.
Giveaways for bundle games created after the bundle date will always receive 15% of their value. For example, if you gift 2 copies of a $20 bundle game, you would receive $6 (3 + 3) in value towards your level. In the previous site, you could potentially receive no value for bundle games, but this way users will always receive some value for contributing to the site. Keep in mind that changes to the list of bundle games will apply retroactively, so if a bundle begins today, attempting to gift the game before it's added to the list will offer no advantage.
We hope you like the new contributor system. It's similar to the previous one in a number of ways, but addresses a few holes and possible exploits, allows all bundle games to receive some value (even if small), and it's a little easier to use and understand when creating and viewing giveaways. We'll be testing it out for now, seeing the feedback from the community, and deciding whether any adjustments or tweaks need to be developed.
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