Thoughts on further point system changes

I like the new system and this change looks good. I would like to see some statistics after a few months. For example, average entries per giveaway before and after the changes .

I slightly prefer the new point system, there are pros and cons but for my personal taste the pros are a bit more than the cons.

About the new changes that you proposed:

1. The switch from 5 to 6 points is quite irrelevant for me but I vote yes.
2. Completely agree to lower the point cap to 400. 500 points are too many
3. I also agree to raise the maximum number of points to enter a single giveaway to 100P. Actually I don't understand what is the purpose of this limit, I would remove it completely.

Why is it always one step forward with (at least) one step back.

Increasing the point cap to the daily influx amount was the only fully-positive part. Reducing that again is bad for numerous reasons.
One of the main "selling-points" of the last change was to combat bot-usage. In that regard solely the cap is the relevant factor, if set right, point-influx hardly matters. Filling up once per day is optimal so normal people who sleep 8h and work/school another 8h at least don't have to worry about losing out on any (now valuable) points.
I still see some using bots and lowering the cap will only increase that again, negating the whole reasoning of the first change. Also I dearly miss any real action against botters.

Also the argument of favoring active users with that is a crabwise effect.
Not the active users get an actual advantage (they still have the same points whether checking every 1h or 12th hour) but instead average, regular users get penalized.
Users visiting more often still have the benefit of catching low-entry flash GAs.

Anything below 24h is too low for a cap. New 576p amount filling a 500p cap at 20,8 hours is just about ok enough.

Thus resulting in: Do _not_ lower the cap again

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Increasing the point-influx constitutes the step forward then. For determining the right amount it never made sense to look at how it was in 2013/4 being 4 ancient years ago. The situation has changed significantly in terms of bundles, user numbers and made giveaways.
As a proponent of balanced solutions the time-frame of the past 2 years is a lot more apt to be taken as a basis, also almost fully encompassing SGv2's lifetime, which introduction has altered many areas, making previous references unsuitable.
Point amount ranged between 20-30k per month with a few "flood"-months (due to cheap high-cv bundles) of 35-45k. These "flood"-months were the problem, the average otherwise was not.
It could have been easily solved with an upper-limit at 30-32k, or reducing the dynamic generation value to some degree.
Now with the static system the balanced optimal choice would be the average of those 2 years at roughly 26k per month = 864 per day = 9p per 15 minutes.
That composes a compromise for more active users to spend on forum events, puzzles and long trains while still accommodating the less spending ones compared to previous spikes of 1500-3000p per day.

What the radical 70% reduction has led to instead is that many users now micromanage points and entries, making it more work than fun (except for those few liking optimization task)

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About polls:

last user poll on the forum seemed slightly in favor of the new point system.

Not the one I saw.. but the issue is that the change had a mixed effect because it contained good and bad parts.
Cap increase was received well, heavy point reduction far less. Also lowering bot-advantage is obviously seen positively.
Again: lowering somewhat was good and needed, but instead of a balanced approach of around 30-40% reduction, it went immediately into an extreme of 70%.
Doesn't need a fortune-teller to know this will cause heavy negative reactions.
Also a small step by step lowering (like 20% per month) would have allowed to slowly get used to the new conditions instead.
Either option would have resulted in a significantly more favorable response over-all.

Also it's very weird to read that a poll of 52% for reverting max-cost back to 100P instead of 50P is supposedly "enough" to take action while the other poll being at considerably higher rates negative towards the overall changes is getting ignored. Applying the same logic for both everything would need to be reversed. (Note: With that I'm not saying to fully return everything to how it was before, instead that should show that #3 isn't actually in need of any further changes atm)

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Why listen to me at all?

All of my 5 previous predictions for the initial change came true.
E.g. High demand games didn't become easier to win, some of the people frolicking about better chances for themselves aren't even in an actually better position then before.
Those who now (following the stated goal of being more selective) focus on high-tier games like HB-monthlies end up even worse as entry counts there didn't drop enough compared to fewer possible GA joins.
Most notably however low-demand/bad games got easier to win. Farmers and collectors are happy, but that is the opposite of the formulated goals of the change.

I'm not just taking a stance for myself with any of that. Many or few points, I can 'work' with both. It's not about me but a balanced result over-all intending to benefit most, hurt the least, the majority of users.

I agree on #3:). I thought it was strange to lower it to 50.
I have no opinion on 1 and 2 - I always have points.

Can you please start putting high priority towards fixing point refunding upon giveaways deleted prior to ending. A lot of people agree that this is a major issue now that points are scarce, and as I understand it shouldn't be that hard to implement, right? Also, it was promised ~2 years ago by now.

I disagree with 2. as I really don't understand why people should be rewarded for checking more often than 24 hours. 24 hours seemed very reasonable to begin with. People who frequent the site still get rewarded as there are many flash giveaways and events they will catch anyway.

I like the recent change. I think it's good that participants have to be more selective in spending their points.

1. (No) I don't see any need to backtrack on this.
2. (No) Personally I'm fine with this, because I'm able to visit the site regularly throughout the day. But I am sympathetic to those who are not able to visit regularly and think the disadvantage should be minimized as much as possible.
3. (Yes) Points value should be relative to gift value, I don't see any reason to cap this.

I still maintain the points system itself isn't the problem people view it as much as is the one-hour giveaways. No matter how many or how few points I get, having to check the site once an hour to make sure I'm not 'missing out' is a much larger hassle than point management. I'd really like to see a 6 to 12 hour minimum set for giveaway length.

How about to increase points per 15 minutes depends on your CV lvl ?
By the way thank you any way for your new idea, realy nice

View attached image.

My biggest issue with lowering the cap is the weekly rush when a new humble bundle or humble monthly gets released. If it's got more than 2 or 3 attractive games, with all the flash giveaways in the first hour you can run through those 500 points pretty quickly.

bump for pinned 📌

What about trying to fix steamtrades and stop trying to fix something that is already ok? I don't really care about the points, since I have 500 points most of the time, so don't think I'm complaining about the new point system. The thing is that steamtrades is kinda abandoned by support - and don't tell me that I can't talk about steamtrades here, since there's no other place to talk about it. There are so many changes that need to be implemented on steamtrades, but I haven't seen the slightest change so far. Instead, you keep caring about.....points?! You made the steamtrades site, is that correct? Then try to put some changes for the steamtrades site on the to-do list.

I think the recent changes are fine and your proposed changes will improve things further. Good thinking! :)

I like the new point system and think it should stay this way. Good that the cap was decreased again. Not sure if a higher point regeneration was really necessary. A slightly dynamic system would have been nice maybe but it is fine the way it is. And it is easier manageable.

Maybe do something against point banking a long lasting giveaways? You could block the ability to remove an entry after the initial 24 hours. This would make some people think more before entering giveaways they are only interested half-heartedly. And 24 hours is enough time to reconsider an entry. While there still might arose some problems they will be a minority and can completely be covered by the support.

Other than that use the data available at your hands. And give the system enough time to get a hold. Much of the unneeded backslash at the moment will die out with the time.

1. Fixed point generation is very incompatible with the fact the GAs aren't created at fixed rate, and also the durations of GAs differ greatly, as well as the "entry value gap" of 1P...50P is still too great. Should go back to the dynamic system, but add limits to it instead trying to find optimal fixed rate because there isn't one.
   -Maybe 5P/15minutes is actually good minimum at all times. But when there is higher than average creation of new giveaways occurring, the point generation system should react by generating little bit more entry points temporarily, but not without limit like before. For example, the rate could go up to 15P/15minutes, but not higher so it doesn't go over the top like before.
   -Temporary higher point generation should only apply when higher than average number of GAs get created that have short duration. With short I mean something like 1...36 hour long GAs. GAs that are going to be open for longer time shouldn't trigger accelerated point generation because the points fill up many times during that time anyway.

2. If my suggestions in 1 and 3 would be realized, I think the point cap could then be reverted back to 300P as it was before.

3. What should really be done is to allow GA creators modify the entry point value so it's not forced to be the Steam Store price. I have posted about this idea before so instead retyping or copypasting again, all the details of the idea (+ great follow-up idea by Shindo) are here: https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/DcQ9GUu

For proposing changes all the time why is it you never make any polls?
1 & 2 are fine as they currently are while 3 should have always stayed at 100.

I think a lot of the backlash over the change was because it happened on Humble Monthly day, so people went from getting 200 points in 15 minutes to 5 points in 15 minutes. I say give it some more time during slower periods so people have time to get used to it before deciding that 480 a day is too few.

As for the point cap change: Wasn't one of the major reasons for the new system to make it so you didn't have to visit multiple times a day? Why go back to encouraging multiple visits a day (and bots)?

I only enter giveaways for games I want, so I had plenty of points with the previous system as I do with this system, therefore I have no complaints about either the old or new system. But, I have a suggestion which I bet won't be popular, but I think it would be beneficial:

If you want to do 6p every 15 minutes, which is 24 points per hour, give everyone a months worth of points at the beginning of the month, then let the budget how to spend those points over a month. People will quickly need to learn how to plan a budget. If they blow all of their points at the beginning of the month, they lose out on giveaways later that month. Bots would be easier to spot if they blow all of their points in one day, and smart giveaway creators would plan their giveaways to start at the middle to end of the month to avoid bots and weed out people that didn't budget their points properly.

Not using the max anyway. There might be a point where I could be at 0p but meh. They could go to 300 daily and I would still be ok with It.

I think 500P is too high for the point cap, and it evens the odds a little too much for the once a day casual visitor compared to users that visit two or three times a day. I want to lower this to 400P.

No problem, however, if willing to incentivize user visits without feeding too many bots and other enter-whatever-is-in-sight types, IMO the system should be designed in such a way to encourage somewhat hard choices about what to enter: IOW pick the games you want the most, rather than spend the points as they come. OTOH if users run out of points too often, it becomes kind of a grind and micromanagement.

Lowering the point buffer and tweaking the supply, while providing some official form of long-term point storage, could be the best compromise, as it gives the incentive to visit the site to store points (when nothing particularly appealing is being given away), while the reduced point supply would limit whatever-in-sight entries. The point storage is already possible (just use long GAs), so it's nothing that hasn't been already happening for years.

Just my 2 cents.

I'm pretty happy because I don't enter much these days due to backlog ^^
I won 2 game I really want last week ^^

You're missing #4.

4. Increase the minimum giveaway limit time from 1 hour to something longer (maybe 6 hours)

I personally am not in favor of #3.

500 points is over 9000!!!!

Agree on all counts.

I just hope that you could further increase the Point Restoring Rate. Certainly I agree that it should not as fast as before the recent changes, but I have to say, the rate after last change falls too hard, 5 Points per Quater is toooooooooo slow. There is not enough points for me to join at all! Steamgifts is the most important everyday website for me to visit. I could assure you I log on SG almost every an half hour to see if there is any new game roll I could join. I appreciate your encourgement of the frequent visitors with another 176P, but I would say I hope you could give a little bit more to encoure us frequent users. Thank you very much!