I still think ratio should be factored in somehow. You can't be level 6 or more and have a 1:10 give:take ratio.
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Nice approach there. I once heard someone say "Life is like a fridge, you can only take out what you have put in first".
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Also excluding the free games from that ratio would make sense.
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I should be able to take the fridge away with me by now then :D
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if it would be "Life is like a fridge, you can only take out what you have put in first", than I guess the site should be called steamexchange not steamgifts :P
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Life is like a sewer, you get out of it what you put into it.
-Tom Lehrer (check out his music, too!)
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I never understood the use of ratio in measuring the...errr...validity of someone's entry to a giveaway. If someone has given away $100 worth of games, are they suddenly somehow less generous because they've won $500 worth of games? Or is someone who has a gifted/won ratio of 2:1 (with $10 gifted) more generous than someone who has a ratio of 0.1:1 (with $100 gifted)?
I guess perhaps it irks me because it boils giveaways down to "I am owed something for giving something away" or "That user owes sg something for winning that game", which seems to be opposite to the concept of gifting games. I understand wanting to do something against pure leechers, but ratio doesn't seem to do that. My giveaways, which I think combat that, are usually private (hidden in the forums), and at least level 2 (I think I do 4 usually). Doing public giveaways are just way too much of a hassle for me.
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I'm not saying ratio is the one criterion to determine a user's value and worthiness. Clearly one GA of GTA V is more valuable than one, three or even five GAs of shovelware games from an Indiegala bundle. I'm also not saying a 1:1 ratio should be required, even though I personally aim at staying around that. On the other hand, I do think a decent ratio should be a factor in leveling up, considering it's an easy thing to mantain - just buy a couple of those Indiegala bundles for a dollar each and give them all away.
I don't think in terms of "SG owes me" or "that user owes SG something", but I do like to think and aim at a general fairness for SG. And I'm not the only one, otherwise there would be no levels, no SGTools, no private/group GAs and so on. It's not about owing, but yeah, about not giving blindly.
You wrote yourself that you want to do something against leeches and that you do mostly private (but accessible) GAs... Isn't that a sign that there is indeed a problem? SG is designed to showcase public GAs and people hide many of the best ones. Why is that? And may I ask why you consider doing public GAs "too much of a hassle"?
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"Leechers" was probably the wrong word to use. I meant that at level 0/lower levels there's a MUCH higher chance that the person who won your giveaway has multiple wins of the same game, or has unactivated wins. It's too much of a hassle to deal with that.
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Understood - and it makes sense. Personally I consider such noobs a lesser problem than "professional", leveled-up leechers. :)
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sounds like a awesome idea. why did they changed it?
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There was little motivation for many users to go over 31$ CV since that was the "sweet spot" for giveaways and it created a big divide between under 30 CV and over 30 CV users.
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And while it did encourage you to make non-bundled giveaways, it also kinda discouraged you from making bundled giveaways. I do prefer the current system, as it encourages you to make giveaways in general, but I would not mind seeing some tweaking to avoid cases like the Viva bundle, or the really expensive game maker things on Humble
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There've been plenty of suggestions for correcting it (the simplest stopgap solution that has been offered being that 95% of 95% [eg, $400+ retail for $1] automatically counts as free), the issue seems to primarily come down to cg not taking the time to address the matter.
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As I said, it doesn't cut it. The people who used it are from various levels, some guy that's on lvl 6 for example wouldn't even be there if it wasn't for the viva bundle. I have no option to filter out "has given away 2 or more copies of game XY".
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No, that's not what I'm up to because for me there's an difference between 29 games for 1$ given away multiple times for 62 CV, or one game that's reduced in value multiple times. You will never reach 62 CV for 1$ with a single game I guess.
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In one of my latest GAs, the winner is level 6 and has a ratio below 0.1, with exactly one public GA made. And it's not just about having exploited a certain game/bundle to farm CV. It's about levels being meaningless in describing a user's contribution or... fairness.
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The non-public nature of giveaways is an interesting question. As someone who hangs out mostly on the Puzzles subboard, most of the giveaways that I create, and most of the giveaways that I enter are non-public. But there isn't an easy way to distinguish between a non-public giveaway that is open to all members of the SG community who can solve a puzzle, and a non-public giveaway that is restricted to a small group of predefined friends.
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While I'm less involved with non-public GAs than you, I agree with what you wrote. My problem is with the unreliability of levels, certainly not non-public GAs.
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I checked your GAs list, as see what you're talking about. In this particular case, the user used 2 methods:
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Giving away non-bundled full-price, but region restricted games (which are about X8 times cheaper because of the region).
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Giving away in privately shared GAs.
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Yep, private and region-restricted, which probably means a GA for your buddies. But I didn't want to single out a specific user, my point is the meaninglessness of levels and the need to take the ratio into account.
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It's been brought up before a few times, with (I think) no real consensus on a solution or if there is even a need for solution.
Personally I think a second 'bundled' list giving a tiny fraction of CV would be a good idea, maybe between about 1% and 5% I'm not sure, then giving games from bundles like the viva bundle would still be recognised as some contribution but not very much, and it would take a lot of them to level up.
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Since it's coming back in waves I guess there is still an issue with it. Looking over at talgaby's post that's a dude who will be on my whitelist forever. But I can't shut out everyone else because there are some people with potato cv spamming.
Interesting fact about the tiny CV idea, sounds like a good starting point to me.
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Mega cool, Toast, danke. :) Ich hab am Wochenende mal wieder die DVD Sammlung angefangen zu schauen. :D
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Gerne, gerne :)
Ich habe die Serie leider seit Jahren nicht mehr gesehen, aber das Intro ist frisch wie eh und je in meinem Kopf ♥
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The Clickteam Fusion bundle was another bundle that was given away by the truckload.
Full value\unbundled giveaway ratio\CV could be the other filter and criteria you're looking for.
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Yea, I spotted a few of those with 3 or more copies of Clickteam. I'm not even saying they shouldn't be giving it away, but they shouldn't be rewarded by maxing out the CV thing - as level is main a filter criteria here.
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Farming CV with these type of bundles is so easy but what's not that easy to farm and that are a way much better indicator\filter\criteria are unbundled games and their ratio\CV. In part because when an unbundled game get's a sale that makes it bundled then it's only a matter of time that this game gets added to the SG bundled list and for those that tried to make fast CV of those games will get a CV drop.
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But what about actually decent bundled games? Humble April monthly as a recent example. The entire monthly got reduced CV, so people should just stop giving reduced value (yet great) games like those?
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I was giving one possibility to Wieme about his question:
We could keep the level system as it is, but I would need another filter / criteria to weed out the people who boosted their cvs massively.
There's nothing wrong with both bundled and unbundled games used as giveaways. I've used them both in my giveaways and I had plenty of entries for both.
The funny thing about bundled giveaways and so called trash games is that some people mock those games and giveaways but at the very same time are entering and giving away loads of those, themselves. ^^
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Yeah I getcha about nothing wrong giving away whatever, but I'm mostly just concerned about people giving away reduced CV (but decent quality and not really all that cheap) games not qualifying for criterias that only looks at Full CV value and ignore reduced CV ones
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I understand your concern but In the end it's up to the individual giveaway creator how he or she wants to setup their giveaways and giveaway rules.
Though I have made 4K SGTools giveaways to date, it never occurred to me to ask for unbundled giveaway ratio and\or unbundled CV ratio but still this is one of the possibilities for the question Wieme has asked.
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To be honest I've taken out some games from my giveaways because there were bundled before but I would have paid a higher price for reduced CV. So that holds me back from giving away games that were bundled before.
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Your games, your giveaways, your rules. :-)
Speaking for myself: I did and do use a lot of bundled games because I regularly buy a lot of bundles and have got a lot of spares. Since I'm retired on SteamTrades I make SGTools trains with them seasoned with unbundled games.
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That is what differentiates you from a lot of the others. You don't buy 5 copies of bundlespam just to boost your CV.
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For a long while now I don't have CV issues anymore because there's no chance that I will drop a level soon. However when I keep making giveaways the CV does tally up more.
Also when I have several copies of the same bundled games to giveaway that's because I bought two bundles or that the games were bundled in several different bundles .
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I think only SGtools would be the best solution until something else gets done. And people's decency of course (yeah haha... )
I admit I started out giving mostly crap games because I don't really win anything and I just want to get to a level high enough to enter better giveaways but when I started winning said great games, I try to be respectful to the community by giving back decent games too when I can afford them. (At least... I think they are decent... idk... )
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They are decent, I added you to my whitelist lately.
Not anyone can give away triple A titles like crazy, I know that, and I don't expect it. But buying multiple copies of bundles which give a crapload of CV just to give them away is a bit suspicious to me. Spare keys - okay. Bundle one time? Alright. But multiple times? For what? Everyone would have been able to buy it for a Dolly.
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Yeah, it is clear what their goal is. Changing it that maybe if a very cheap (nearly free $1) bundle has a bunch of games worth a certain amount in it, it will be considered granting 0 CV? I don't really know if that might be fair or unfair or if it will be a lot of work to balance out but that could be an option.
Also oh wow I didn't realize nor expected you would! Thank you <3
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The only thing I think is kinda sad, with this CV thing, it's that one time bundle games, or even one time free games that are awesome, and maybe worth of full price CVs, are giving the same as not so good, or even awful games. Maybe wishlist rank on SG could impact on CV.
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I have to admit, I wanted to give away Hover here from the Multiplayer bundle but when I saw it grants literally 0 CV, I just activated it for myself :(
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At least now I know the reason why I don't see many copies of Hover being given away.
It really sucks that all bundled games are valued equally. It's just unfair to the gifters that they get more CV for giving away some 1$ bundle games than giving away a discounted game (Witcher 2 for example)
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100% this. In no way you be able to reach 62 CV with 1$ spent. And I personally shy away from buying games to giveaway when they are reduced in CV.
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It's definitely affecting the choice of games which are given away. If I am buying a game to give it away I will likely check if I will get all the CV.
And I am sure that I am not the only one doing that.
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I recently made a WL giveaway for the Gothic trilogy, because it was cheap and good games matter more than CV at higher levels, at least for me. I gain close to nothing if I get level 8 instead of 7 :)
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But people on the lower side of the level spectrum are affected a lot by it. As there is a lot of competition that shouldn't even be there in the first place. And the level system is the main criteria to differentiate as a filter I guess.
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Cool, but I just said that I prefer quality over CV, and it was always like that. Others can do what they want, I don't care about it.
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Nice insert popo! That's another good point here, maybe there should be a complete rework of the "is added to bundled list". I know it would be a lot of work for the team here, but hey, we're a community and I wouldn't shy away helping out.
For me, it's about the community and those contributing a buuuunch of good stuff to it being happy. So I like this discussion so far. :)
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Wouldn't a distinction between bundled games get a bit too subjective? Also there's no way of knowing from which bundle a key comes and there's plenty of games that have been bundled at a pretty varied range of prices. If a game appears in a bundle with 10 games for 5 bucks and then in another bundle that's 3 for $5 then two people making a GA for the same game have paid different amounts for the same CV, now take that to its logical extreme.
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But that is what happens right now if you buy a single game that has been bundled before. You do get punished as well if you want to give that away.
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I'm curious: Why do you set levels for entering your giveaways then?
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Okay, fine - I mean, you have given away other stuff too, I'm almost sure you were not using it to boost cv. But there are other people who did, and that's what bothers me.
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Tiered CV is a hassle to handle. Just drop the bundled value globally and retroactively to something around the 10% range and start the CV reduction at the third copy instead of the fifth. It would suddenly make a few million dollars worth of CV disappear from the database, but after the initial 2-week shitstorm, everyone would calm down and go on their business.
Then again, as much as it is nice that cg reads the forum suggestions, I doubt there is a single system that would please everybody. I know for sure that adding more and more rules or dividing existing data to other parts would just lead to needlessly convoluted rules. (Like the Formula 1 rules, which got refined and expanded to the point where they are by now thicker than a German law book.)
Or, you know, my old idea still stands, destroy the entire CV system, so people will give only because they want to.
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destroy the entire CV system, so people will give only because they want to.
I think the ideal would be an incentive to create the first few giveaways, then keep giving only if they want to
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While nuking the CV system would be an elegant solution I'm curious of what impact that'd have on the number of GAs being created.
Right now it's possible that the notion that the CV system can be "gamed" to climb levels fast is driving many people to make GAs that they wouldn't have madeotherwise thus keeping the site constantly active and motivating even more people to make GAs. Or maybe I'm just speculating too hard.
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The CV system can be gamed easily. I should know, this is how I got to level 10 originally. Getting 5000 dollars of contribution value did not even cost 8-900 USD even before bundles got really out of hand. Now it should be possible under 500 bucks for most.
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I checked how the site looks like after logging in. Holy fuck, it is like looking through the selection of some super shady low-price random Russian asset flip store.
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Granted, there's a lot of "trash" being given away (I hesitate to pass a defined judgement due to diverging opinions).
But I'm more concerned with how this site has a tendency towards mob mentality and how frequent it is for people to bandwagon and create giveaways because other people are also doing it. For example during events people collaborate with GAs but it's easy to see that a large number of these are "filler" of less perceived value, however these lesser GAs invoque the feeling that the thread is alive and push people to raise the bar sometimes. What I'm trying to say is that when nothing is perceived as a worthless collaboration more people are willing to participate.
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Too bad removing CV entirely is a pipe dream for those of us that want nothing to do with it. :(
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destroy the entire CV system
And then watch public giveaways vanish overnight.
Not like there's any point to suffering that cesspool without some kind of return.
You're talking about a fundamentally different site and, since SG already caters to groups/SGT specialized around such concepts, it's a completely counterproductive thing to request. The primary SG structure is designed to be as open as possible (sometimes, as per its actively catering to rulebreakers, too much so), with the option to customize it to suit an individual or organization's needs. That's really the ideal framework, even if the nuances of the structure may need work.
We all have our different perspectives on the site, and we have the tools available to us to pursue those perspectives freely. The issue with the site is purely one of exploitation, not of whatever abstract rank-tiering system the site may implement (as there are no inherent bonuses granted by the site for such rank gains; they act solely as flags that may freely be utilized or ignored by site users).
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"destroy the entire CV system"
Yeah, there's a reason I do my giveaways level 2+ minimal. Do you really want to condemn all to deal with the pain of lvl 0 giveaways? You know what I'm talking about.
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Funny thing: this year, I had around 7-8 issues with winners, and I am pretty much sending a game each day. The amount of rule-breaking has dropped a lot, even if bots are still around (just had to message the owner of one last weekend). I used to send that many tickets in 1-2 weeks a good while ago.
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When I gave away one copy of this dicussed bundle I did it to level 1's to see how bad the results where.
It was pretty rare to not find double-wins or non-activations though most of them where too old to mention to support. Only one permanent suspension, so yeah, it wasn't as bad.
Still feels bad seeing all those activations and multiple-wins of times old on pretty much every winner though.
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Good thoughts, with easy to make changes.
Nuke the complete CV system would lead to lesser GA's and i can't see that it would lead to better GA's.
I think raising in levels is a motivation to give stuff.
and when others exploit the raising levels system too much it is worthless and demotivates the ones that climb up with "good" games
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I recently checked out the dollar bundles because I'm desperate to reach the next level and I was genuinely shocked by how much CV the Viva
bundle gives, it's an insane amount for as little money as you have to spend. Reaching level 5 out of 10 this easily is also insane. You could give cheap bundles less CV, but this kind of thing really isn't a problem unless the bundle start giving way too much CV, so with that you'd just punish people for making an effort. Maybe you could only receive CV once from a bundle, at least once a year?
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Yea it is insane under the circumstances that you can't really filter a lot more without using external tools.
As stated above I understand people who gave away spare keys or the bundle like one time completly. But not more than that, because this bundle was on sale for a long time for a dollar.
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I was shocked. As a newb, I absolutely had to take it to up my CV. I wouldn't give away something multiple times though...but at the same time I can't blame people. Being in a tough financial situation myself, I want to give stuff away, but don't have a lot left over...
I try and intersperse my bundle giveaways with slightly more interesting ones, but I also need to up my CV and prioritise things like eating, so I feel it's a tough situation.
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the issue you brought up is one major irk to me too. i see those dev keys 'boosted' users who in my opinion, are worse than those who farm cv by buying cheap bundles because they didnt even put in a single cent while the latter at least contributed a dollar. and they are gaining much more cv than bundle-farmers since those dev keys are usually unbundled and given out in masses = major cv farm.
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Maybe that just means that the lower levels are too trivial to reach and should cost more.
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Nope, I don't think so. If you never use bundle games and only full value titles this would be a slap in your face.
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As someone who gives away games primarily to share good games with others, doesn't follow how much CV a bundle gives, and doesn't buy bundles to farm CV, reaching level 4 felt like a milestone. It took me 36 giveaways, and I felt like I had really accomplished something. I wouldn't want that climb to be any harder than it currently is.
At the same time, it's shocking that two copies of a $1 bundle can get you there. It seems like an issue specific to the $1 bundles.
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Seems like it took me 19-23 and didn't feel like that much even back then, just a by-product of having extra copies and being too lazy to try to trade them. Level 4 seems to be $100+, even with regular bundle/sale ratio of $0.10 per 1 CV that's just $10. That's what people should compare the $2 to, so it's just a 80% discount.
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80% is a significant discount. So maybe add another tier of 3% CV for $1 bundles to bring it in line with other bundles.
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I honestly don't know how to fix the cv system or indeed if it really needs fixing. I've tried not to focus on where my games go other than hoping that those who enter for them are doing so because they really want to play that game. Ultimately all I can say is go with whatever works best for you because there is no way to reach a system that really works for everyone.
Level 7 frostpunk giveaway makes me sad though. Damn my lack of 1 level :)
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Same for me Stuart. I have no solution, that's why I made this an open discussion and want to hear thoughts from you guys. Even from the "I bought the bundle 10 times to spam it" guys. I mean they are no criminals - I just think there should be option to filter those guys out - if possible.
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What about all those people on lvl 4-5 that spent maybe hundreds of bucks for that level and now share the same chance of winning a >giveaway for lvl 4-5 with those peeps who invested 5 bucks to climb the ladder?
I understand your point of view, but if somebody wants to level up then bundles would be for more efficient.
If your going to spend hundreds on AAA games to giveaway it's more of a generosity thing rather than trying to get CV to level up. If they are doing it to only get CV then that would be like using a spoon instead of the shovel that's right besides you to dig a hole.
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I agree - this is how I feel, too. There's going to be tension and conflict no matter what in this situation because both of these things are true: giving on SG should be for the charity of giving, and the more you give means maybe a higher chance of you getting something in return. Whether you change CV rules or not, the tension will always be there.
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Except, bundles are fundamentally different from what they were a few years ago. We've gone from a range of $60-$80 retail per $1 spent to over $400 retail per $1 spent. Junk bundles and bulk bundles are the new norm, and the site hasn't yet made any attempt to factor the change into its functioning.
The site's current system simply wasn't designed to be balanced around such extremes- so, while it's true that there are certain imperfections regardless of which system the site uses, it also remains true that the current one is radically imbalanced at the moment, in a way that goes well beyond those basic imperfections.
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I was unaware of that so thanks, this thread makes a bit more seines now.. I only got really stuck into bundles when I started card farming 1-2 years ago and found steamgifts in the process.
So you makes seines if they wanted to "fix" how it is now compared to before the massive bundles they should have done something about it by now.
Then again times changin, maybe their just going with the flow, they could have easily decreased CV from big bundled games but they havn't.
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cg is rather notorious for his "hands off" approach to the site, so intent can never be assumed.
And the problem is less one of matching to a particular concept, and more one of the fact that the CV system SG uses is based on a certain price range, and that price range has now exponentially increased. We've gone from bundles that break 95% off retail value, to ones that break 95% off OF 95% off. The site used the 95% cutoff point for the bundle list so as to create some sort of parity with non-bundled games. Now, we've got games that provide the same difference to bundled games as they used to do to unbundled games, but receive full [bundled] value.
When users are getting 20x the value of anything else in the system, off of bundles that are predominantly filled with either trashware or mass-spammed gamemaker programs, it creates a significant contrast against anything else on the site. Instead of being a consideration of "do I want to lose a bit of CV to give away something nice", it ends up feeling more like users who give away actual games are being punished for doing so.
It has nothing to do with being fair to users, or to matching changing times, or even to discouraging exploitation. It has to do with keeping a healthy CV system- because, as with most things, when such a system loses reliability and distinctiveness, then it stops holding any value at all.
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Thank you for offering the game.
Lv7? I can not apply.(ﾉΘ`)
The most worrisome is ....
Whether the winner played the game happily?
I feel that it is better to reflect that part in Lv.
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Hey level 7+ doesn't shut unfriendly people out. Almost 1.1k entries and not even 50 people commented it. ;)
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Is Lv being abused by Bot ...? that's sad. ;-(
Of course, some people keep silent.
Of course, some people do not have time.
But if it is everyday it is sad.
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I think a few of them might be botusing, the majority just doesn't thank you for a chance even on a highrequested game I guess. :)
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Majority is being friendly and not spamming meaningless copy&pasted thanks to every GA they enter. That's actually how you spot the bot users, same message on same minute everywhere. And who really wants that? 1000s and 1000s of "thanks for the 0.1% chance to win a game!!!" and for what purpose? To hide all actually relevant messages like re-roll requests, forum replies and such in the flood?
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Aww wiemeeee, no more hearts for me I guess, but it’s okaii I understands
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The door is never closed szx, WL will always be dynamic, but as stated in the celebration thread I needed a starting point. Sorry!
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It’s okaii no worriess, I’ll probably properly boost my CV with da cakeday went soon, maybe then I’ll get back in hahaxDD
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This is something that also bugs me quite a lot, and with the current system it's really just about spotting people who have abused CV heavy bundles/price glitches in the past to boost CV.
Doubt we'll get any kind of solution, even though the people using these exploits are clearly doing it to gain a benefit over other users instead of them being generous.
Another option is... you could create a group and make a post here with a rough estimate of your preferred stats, then instead of you having to spot people they'd be coming to you and you could keep adding people over time
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That group thing is a nice approach, I may get back in touch with you soon. :)
But on the other side, you will lock a lot of people out of your giveaways, that's what's too bad.
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Well, that reminds me about one system I suggested on some other site.. The one that encourages giving away good games over pricey games. It's rather simple - add an coefficient based on quantity of users who have game in wishlist. We may limit it to wishlists of users of 1+ level (or even higher) to prevent abuse, we may also want to consider only users who was active last month. For example, I give away a game worth 10$. If none of SG users got it in wishlist - I get only, let's say, 10% of CV (=1), if 100% of users want it - I got 500% CV (=50), or even 1000%(=100), and somewhere in the middle I got simple 100% (=10). This way, if many people want this game = game is really good = CV reward is bigger, and if it get to some bundle - many giveaways created, many people win the game, it's removed from their whishlists, reward decreases fast. Of course, all numbers are just for example, real values needs to be evaluated. Main disadvantage - we can't retrospectively re-calculate CV for existing users.
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I don't know about this... I usually just wishlist games I'd buy on Steam on a sale and most of the games I found here are actually decent and ended up in my wishlist even if I didn't get to win those I entered. I'd never have known about half of them if not for this site and if wishlist is the basis on how much CV you'd get, we'll most likely be seeing a bunch of actually good but not well-known indie games never seeing the light of day. (As if that wasn't already bad enough for them in Steam itself)
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Good suggestion but big pricey AAA games everyone knows about will the most given away.
I'd spice it up with something else, Steam reviews for example. If the game is appreciated, if many of the game owners wrote a review, you get more CV.
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It sounds good in theory, but in reality, the community wishlist is full of games which had a high marketing budget, but hardly good.
Additionally, I just encouraged a ton of people recently to take part in a community event that pushed an almost totally obscure upcoming indie game to the #2 spot. Yes, it is a good game, for the most part (assuming you have a controller), but the system was gamed rather easily. Who says you cannot put a random one-dollar asset flip shitfest on the same spot with enough freebie key promises?
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+1 to your idea, interesting point you make. You could argue economic conditions of people, or that giving is giving anyway you look at it. But in this case I think you are right. From what I have seen there are leeches level 0-10. Only difference, there are less of them at level 10 and they have a higher CV.
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First off, I don't have THE ONE solution, but I want to give you my two cents.
Let me start with saying: I feel you.
In the nearly five years I am here, I tried to find the best way to give away my spare keys so that the winners are people who deserve to win. I failed.
This is the reason why, in the end, I gave up and I am only doing whitelist only giveaways now and in the future.
Considering ratio:
The ratio that is mentioned here at SG doesn't mean s**t. What does give a more accurate account of what a user really gave away and won is the idea of "real CV", that you see via SGTools. Granted, even that doesn't give you the correct numbers of how much money a user really invested in this site, but it does give you a way better way to look at someones ratio.
Considering the problem with CV:
When I started here (SG V1) there were a lot of giveaways only for higher levels. And most of them were really good games, non-bundled even. It was a huge incentive to climb the ranks and finally being able to enter those giveaways.
In the last two years, not only did the amount of high(er) level giveaways decline drastically, the overall quality of the games given away also decreased and the total number of giveaways done increased. Many, many bundles and bundle sites are readily available nowadays which was not the case nearly five years ago (at least it feels that way).
So my personal solution is: Get rid of CV completely. Keep everything else, like Black-/Whitelists, groups, private giveaways etc. I have no idea if it will change the site to the better, but it would stop any tries to game the system, when there is no more system to be gamed.
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And most of them were really good games, non-bundled even. It was a huge incentive to climb the ranks and finally being able to enter those giveaways.
Only when people convinced themselves. If you had the money to reach the required 200-2000 CV entry margins, you could have easily bought the game yourself a dozen times over instead of trying to win it on a blind lottery.
Same reason I never understood any giveaways over level 3 in the past. If they had the money to throw at random people, they could afford the game themselves. This is sure as fuck what I do, I now buy the games I want to play instead of waiting when I win them.
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Back then I only had the money to give a few small games in a month, so it was hard to earn levels. Today this is much easier, see the mentioned bundle by Wieme. For me, earning levels to than maybe be able to win a AAA game I had no money to buy (because I could not pay that much in a month and had to stretch it over some months) was a big motivator. But before I even reached higher levels, there was SGV2, I got my exam and a job and since then, everything changed (read that as: ~11k games bought since January 2015).
Nowadays, I am more of a collector than a gamer. Sure, with the job came money, but it took away a lot of my spare time that, before that, went into gaming. Today, if I am Level 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 doesn't make a difference. If I really want a game, i buy it. But since I know the other side when money is scarce, i know what it means to have a carrot dangled in front of your face :)
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Should be my way too. I could buy 'em but I like sharing with the right people..
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Sorry for the late reply Amano, I lost count of all the replies in here.
I'm on the same page as you, trying to find good takers for the keys. WL is an option, as you may know I'm doing them quite often too. But it just feels like I'm locking out so many people that are "discredited" (don't know if the term describes it well) by some of those bundlespammers. If I take out all levels below - say 5 - there are a lot of guiltless people involved.
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I know your feelings. As I said, I tried to find the optimal solution for me to do public giveaways and make sure that the winner is a deserving one. I tried many different methods. None were really working.
It sucks so much when you do a 30-50P unbundled giveaway, have several hundred entries, very nice comments from people who really want the game and in the end, the winner has several non-activated wins, maybe even multiple, has a sent:won ration of 1:8, doesn't even say thank you and insults me as a retard on my steam profile when I don't send the key within six hours.
This is why I stopped doing public giveaways, although I really wanted to do public giveaways and make people/winners happy. For me, it was impossible to do so.
P.S.: Levels don't mean a thing. There are rule breakers on every levels. Believe me, I tried ;) I did giveaways from Level 0 to Level 10 and everywhere I found cheaters. With setting up giveaways for higher levels only, you might minimize the chance of "wrong" winners, but you certainly don't eliminate them.
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I think a 2-tiered bundle-system would be at least a partial fix. 15% for regular bundled, 2-5% value for those games that are stupidly cheap (like the Viva bundle). You don't want to discourage giveaways, but you want to discourage CV-abuse.
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Yeah, there should be distinction between bundles that give 10CV per $1, and 50CV per $1.
It's 99,7% discount in viva bundles and so like. So it's basically free at that point.
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If we try to match it to more typical bundle price ranges, the second tier would start at 99% off (ie, $100 retail per $1). That'd also be a guideline point that'd be easy for users to recall. Though it feels as though we're to the point where a third tier for $400 to $1 would be needed as well. Then again, not sure that there's any real benefit in not just making anything past that point count as free.
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This one sounds good as a suggestion, maybe cg will read it. :)
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The problem is there are 2 SGs now. One that includes people who just want to give good playable games to one another because sharing actually feels good, and the other (sadly, much larger) contingent of people who don't seem to have discovered that yet, and use the site to take advantage of the first group. I'm afraid that any rule that you institute, a way around it will be found, but I share your disappointment with high CV giveaways. When I first tried to make some I found that all it achieved was to expand my blacklist for the most part. Now I restrict public GAs to short term level 3 because it forces all the higher levels to compete with a much larger pool and still manages to keep out most of the bots. I've had much better luck with these and found that in spite of the time restriction, people from all over the world win my giveaways. My other solution is to join as many nice groups as I can in order to do multi-group giveaways. That being my way of locating that first SG and making sure giveaways reach them.
All that being said, I still wouldn't mind if all dollar bundles were designated 0 CV - even in a broken system, still got to take out the trash once in a while.
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I think there is truth in your statement. This only proves to me, that the levelsystem needs rework.
I like your approach on lvl 3+ gibs but in total I think that shouldn't be the "salvation" rule. If levels are a main criteria, then give us another stat to filter for or something. I don't want to lock out all the random people with WL only / group GAs.
But I may consider opening a new group up some day. For now I whitelisted you! ;)
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cv can be as unbalanced as you want it to be, and to be honest, the $1 bundles is the issue that has less effect on cv in the long run.
- use $1 bundles than give you 50+ cv.
- price glitches (clickfarm fusion).
- spam normal bundles nonstop.
- buy HB monthly to give away.
- use 90% off coupons on steam to give away unbundled games.
- make a group to curate and get free keys to farm cv.
there's no solution for this, unless you get rid of levels. not that this is ever going to happen, cg knows what valve knows. people love progression systems, so levels won't ever be removed. ^^
i suppose he also knows that removing one of these "cv-farming features" will reduce the amount of giveaways created per month, so it's also a bad decision.
anyway, people should stop obsessing so much about how others level up. after all, it's not that you get $60 games on higher levels.
look at the current giveaways. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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it's not that you get $60 games on higher levels.
You're right, we should get a free game from CG when levelling up, in 6$/level worth :D
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I partly disagree Mully, it does effect levels massively in the lower spectrum of SG and that is where the masses are.
Though I agree with you on the other points on the list, but I myself am guilty of giving away the monthly games I don't find interesting / have time for myself. But here's the thing - monthlies can't be purchased after they got revealed. The $ bundle could have been bought for weeks and the giveaways were firing in despite it.
Question is: Is it really a bad decision if all the $ shoveltrash gets removes? Sure, less giveaways but as talgaby stated somewhere in the thread - if you visit this site unfiltered all you see is 1-2-3 point giveaways. Would that encourage anyone to "invest" in gibs?
Well, at least you had a much lower competition on lvl 9+, which also means leechers would probably love to be lvl 10 as fast as they could.
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i don't know if it's good or bad to give 0cv for all those games. if it was up to me i would lower cv to 1-2% for all bundles instead of 15% and put HBM in the bundle list.
but just like comments in this thread, this isn't a solution, it's just an opinion from some users that dislike how others level up.
like i said before, i find way more disgusting how some high level users reached the top by spending almost no money and using keys they got for free. but no one dares to complain about that, because it's always easier to target the low level "peasantry". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I'd actually complain about it now you brought it in. :X :D
Have seen a lot of giveaways for Clash of Cards e.g.
Considering autojoiners are banned from the site, but CV abuse is absolutely legal (what a phrase).. Phew, hard to handle.
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i don't think they are truly gone, they only stopped using the most simple scripts to autojoin and now cg can't detect them (or he doesn't want to).
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Okay, lets state "some autojoiners were banned". I don't see much of a difference between abusing the levelsystem and autojoining to be honest. But, only my point of view.
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i don't know if it's good or bad to give 0cv for all those games. if it was up to me i would lower cv to 1-2% for all bundles instead of 15% and put HBM in the bundle list.
While it would help for today's bundled shovelware, it would even do more harm to those games which where only bundled once a few years ago (I noticed many games which were bundled until 2015 by Groupees or even now closed bundle sites like Indie Royale, which are barely given away due to the 15 % CV rule).
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Question is: Is it really a bad decision if all the $ shoveltrash gets removes? Sure, less giveaways but as talgaby stated somewhere in the thread
Since 0 CV games are still being given away - not only by new users who haven't understand the CV rules yet - I wouldn't call that a bad decision. The numbers might be lower as if they were when CV was granted, but some people like myself were just glad about the change to have a system controlled sort of giving them away (instead of simple key drops).
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I think the best thing that could be done, but isn't currently possible via SGTools, is check the users total real CV minus games that were sold for more then a certain % off (like say 97%). Alternatively, one thing you can do atm in SGTools is check that the users average giveaway value is over a certain value like such: (real_sent_cv/num_sent >= 5)
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Sounds like a good criteria jigga. Maybe someone does read it. :)
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I tried average real CV for one train (with a backdoor for high level users) and there were plenty of people who got rather angry with it. You really can't please everyone here at SG.
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Anytime someone uses SGTools people get mad. Almost all the blacklists I'm on are from people getting mad at not being able to pass SGTools for giveaways I made :p
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Hey SG community,
This topic has bothering me since my 10 years on steam celebration thread, so here we go.
I recently cleared my whitelist off of people that used the "Viva Dollar Bundle" (1$ spent = 62 CV) more than one time.
The main reason I have for this is this:
If you only gave the bundle away two times, you'd already be on SG level 4.
This completely destroys the economic of the levelsystem on SG, since the levels 1,2 and 3 (3 = 50 CV) are basically useless.
I mean, you could even get to level 5 with only spending five bucks if you'd carry it to extremes.
Speaking for myself, with my giveaways I'd always like to give something to the active, giving members of SG.
This users are making this site what it is. A nice place to win games, talk about games and share games with people (if you want to of course).
Nobody is forced to giveaway, I understand that. But are we really willing to live with a levelsystem as a criteria like this?
What about all those people on lvl 4-5 that spent maybe hundreds of bucks for that level and now share the same chance of winning a giveaway for lvl 4-5 with those peeps who invested 5 bucks to climb the ladder?
This isn't a problem for the "mid levels" only though, as you find tons of people on higher levels (like mine, 7+) that spammed the bundle aswell.
I decided to make Frostpunk a lvl 7+ giveaway - what for I wonder, it just doesn't reach the right recipients IMO.
I'm down for whitelist giveaways but to be honest I'd like to be able to give away to unknown users (outside of closed groups) aswell, such as invite only gibs in the discussions.
But the level criteria is completly useless as a standalone filter as of now. I could use the blacklist also, but that's not what I want to do, as it is a lot of spotting to do.
I know about tools like SGtools and stuff to set rules by myself, but is this really the way it should be handled? With an extension?
Also, the lovely talgaby stated in this thread that the won / sent ratio doesn't really cut it. You could have sent 500 games with a crapload of $bundled stuff and received only 50 AAA titles. Seems impressive - it is not.
We could keep the level system as it is, but I would need another filter / criteria to weed out the people who boosted their cvs massively.
Reduce the CV for $bundles after 1 time given away maybe? Maybe an "full / reduced / no value" given ratio?
Open discussion for everyone I guess, as I got no real "this is the way to go" solution atm.
TL;DR:
The levelsystem as it is now is, mostly on the lower ranks completly unbalanced and not a criteria you can use sensible.
Update 29th June: You can buy yourself to lvl 6 if you spent 10$ as of now. GG.
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