Grand Prix - What we know about how it works

[Miraglyth]

So the event is a mess and the explanation given is terrible. I know! I've done a bunch of research, and here's what we know so far:

The main part of the event is the Driver Dash. It is on the event page immediately beneath the team position chart.

Update for Day 2: You can now mouse over parts of the Driver Dash to get more information about how it works!

Update for Day 3: The structure of the Driver Dash and the points involved have been overhauled, eliminating the old "odometer" and "capacity" metrics that confused so many people. Now there are 3 main parts:

Update 2 for Day 3: The display for "Max Points" at the start of day 3 was bugged. It has now been fixed. I've updated the explanation.

Available Points
"Points you'll contribute to your team's distance when you boost - Max 1k/Boost"

This is a direct replacement for odometer, which even has the same mouseover text. So long as you have more than 0 points, you can boost which decreases up to 1000 points (or however many you have).

If (and only if) you have more Max Points than Points Boosted, boosting also increases the tokens you have in the pit stop by that amount. The pit stop page says how many points you will receive from your next boost below your token count, if you will receive any at all.

To earn points, you need to complete quests or claim achievements. This is only possible if you have fewer Available Points than the difference between Points Boosted and Max Points (described below).

Points Boosted
"Points you've already boosted that have been converted to tokens you can spend in the Pit Stop"

This is now self-explanatory. It's the score of how many points you have spent on boosts you've made during the event, with equals the number of tokens you've earned by doing so.

Max Points
"This is the number of points you've earned through purchases on Steam since the Lunar New Year Sale, including any unspent Lunar New Year tokens, plus any points granted for participating in the Grand Prix every day."

Again they have tried to focus on providing a simple explanation. This the limiting mechanic that replaces capacity from day 1 and 2. It is increased by 100 points per 1 USD spent (or a converted equivalent for other currencies).

Some players received Max Points for unspent coins in the Lunar New Year event earlier this year. The amount of Lunar New Years tokens earned was shown on the Pit Stop page but this did not include the amount spent during Lunar New Year itself, consequently players actually received less than it said. As mentioned, purchases on Steam after that event also provided some additional Max Points.

Generally within 1-2 hours of each new race day, players' Max Points are increased by 100 if and only if they used a boost on the previous race day. Shortly after day 3 started, players who boosted in days 1 or 2 also received 1,000 more Max Points for each of those days they boosted in.

Day 4 introduced Qualifier Tasks that allow players to gain 2,000 Max Points by performing four activities.

So long as Max Points is greater than Points Boosted, you can earn Available Points by doing quests or claiming achievements. If you have Available Points, you can also boost, which will bring Points Boosted up to Max Points.

To be clear, capacity is gone.
Steam have gone to great lengths to eliminate all references of capacity from the event, because it confused so many people. The Max Points mechanic replaces it, but it does not work in the same way. Lots of people are still talking about capacity - especially with reference to its former use - and they are giving you outdated information.

[-Juice-]

Ok but i dont get my rewards from the quests
restarted my steam and everything to see if that helps nothing

[Miraglyth]

So as an interesting development, day 2 has added mouseover text to the Driver Dash. This has clarified a few things and as such I have completely rewritten the OP.

[Elder_Moloch]

Thank you very much for clarifying, but I still have few questions:

1. Does this mean that, if Steam User doesn't buy games during event, he/she won't be able to get Race discount naturally (15 days x 100 Points = 1500 Points = 1500 Coins)

2. Does this mean that each game Steam User have played on Event list would be excluded for rest of the Event as soon as Points from this game would be spend once?

3. Could Steam User play games with achievements which are not on the Event list to get points?

[Garou]

Messaggio originale di Elder_Harlequin:

Thank you very much for clarifying, but I still have few questions:

1. Does this mean that, if Steam User doesn't buy games during event, he/she won't be able to get Race discount naturally (15 days x 100 Points = 1500 Points = 1500 Coins)

2. Does this mean that each game Steam User have played on Event list would be excluded for rest of the Event as soon as Points from this game would be spend once?

3. Could Steam User play games with achievements which are not on the Event list to get points?

Yes, the discount isn't worth spending for. You'll end up losing way more money than you save.
You can play any of your games for 30 minutes and you will get points that you can add to your car tank. But only up to capacity (red text) so any extra points will be lost and you will need to play a different game for your next filling up.

[Miraglyth]

1. Yes, correct. Unless that user was lucky to randomly be given a crazy amount of odometer points at the start of the event, the natural 1500 points will not come close to allowing the $5 discount reward from the pit stop.

2. Quests are infinitely redeemable. They keep a counter of how many times you have done each task. Achievements seem to be redeemable once per game; if your vacant capacity is less than the point value of that game's achievements, the remaining points are just lost.

3. If a user plays a game with achievements for 30 minutes, that game is added to the achievement games section (the bottom of the three rows of games). If the user has unclaimed achievements in that game, they can then claim against it.

[Elder_Moloch]

Messaggio originale di Spooky:

Yes, the discount isn't worth spending for. You'll end up losing way more money than you save.
You can play any of your games for 30 minutes and you will get points that you can add to your car tank. But only up to capacity (red text) so any extra points will be lost and you will need to play a different game for your next filling up.

Messaggio originale di Miraglyth:

1. Yes, correct. Unless that user was lucky to randomly be given a crazy amount of odometer points at the start of the event, the natural 1500 points will not come close to allowing the $5 discount reward from the pit stop.

2. Quests are infinitely redeemable. They keep a counter of how many times you have done each task. Achievements seem to be redeemable once per game; if your vacant capacity is less than the point value of that game's achievements, the remaining points are just lost.

3. If a user plays a game with achievements for 30 minutes, that game is added to the achievement games section (the bottom of the three rows of games). If the user has unclaimed achievements in that game, they can then claim against it.

@Miraglyth; @Spooky
Thank you very much for clarifying everything regarding this Event for me.

As far as I understand this Event is somehow nice for getting XP Points for Badge/Steam Level, but not as friendly as Lunar Sale or even Cards related Events in terms of actually purchasing something and getting extra discount.
And random prizes are random with 300 (?) prizes per day (?) among million Users.

[Miraglyth]

Messaggio originale di Elder_Harlequin:

As far as I understand this Event is somehow nice for getting XP Points for Badge/Steam Level

If and only if you're given a generous amount of points at the start. Otherwise I'm not so sure it's that much better. You need to spend $10 to get 1000 odometer to get 1000 tokens to get 10 badge levels for 1000 XP. In previous events with card sets you could generally get a full set for less than $1 so getting 10 levels was cheaper. But of course Valve are getting the full amount of your spend now instead of a portion of marketplace card purchases.

[CZBGR Icepick]

So, I have been perusing some threads and it seems that your advantage of maximizing boost, regardless of team size, is affected by increasing the capacity of said boost.

Turns out, you actually have to spend money to increase it, so regardless of which, the points you have earned in achievements may be a throwaway should you exceed the 100 points maximum given to you by default without playing said games. That being said, it's an entire waste if you've playing a game you might have already completed that you didn't exactly buy or spend money in personally for it (like in my case), and such achievements earned through it are worth nothing unless there exists a paywall for you to waste. So, otherwise, worthless for the time you already put in it just to burn cash.

That looks like a p2w scenario here. It doesn't have to be because Corgi may have more players, the real advantage is who has the most money to spend.

[Consudo]

Still never got my 4k boost that I should've had yesterday. Not like it matters since it seems to reset each day but still I should have 4k points in reserve.

[The-Devils-Son™]

So why the heck has my achievement points halved in the last 3 hours. Had 22K earlier and now 11K. And my Dad had 18K and its gone down to 8K. WTF steam. This is nowhere near a fair competition. Example my Dad could redeem 22K points on day 1 and got himself £5 good for him, However i tried and only could redeem 5K even though i had 30K+ points. Why is it some people are classed as "higher" than everyone else.

[Miraglyth]

Messaggio originale di The-Devils-Son™:

So why the heck has my achievement points halved in the last 3 hours. Had 22K earlier and now 11K. And my Dad had 18K and its gone down to 8K. WTF steam. This is nowhere near a fair competition. Example my Dad could redeem 22K points on day 1 and got himself £5 good for him, However i tried and only could redeem 5K even though i had 30K+ points. Why is it some people are classed as "higher" than everyone else.

You can only redeem that much if you have the capacity to do so. And if you can't redeem them it really doesn't matter how much they give. So your dad must have had over 22k capacity (the red number) prior to redeeming a game. But if you only have 5k capacity then trying to redeem a game that has more will still only give 5k

From the games I have listed, it does look like the amount of points you can claim from historic achievements has been halved. Honestly that's probably a good thing. The amount they gave beforehand (not that most of us have the capacity for it) was obscene and made quests totally pointless to do. Even now they're way higher than most players have capacity for haha.

[Fry]

Good to know I'm not the only one confused.

So is there a way to increase your number of Boosts and Distance per Boost?
Or are they limited to 15 Boosts and 1000 Distance per Boost?

[Pendy]

Is Valve gonna roll back the people whose steam levels are at 2000 and over? I don't think anyone could get those levels legitimately, and I blame the badges.

[The-Devils-Son™]

Miraglyth: "You can only redeem that much if you have the capacity to do so. And if you can't redeem them it really doesn't matter how much they give. So your dad must have had over 22k capacity (the red number) prior to redeeming a game. But if you only have 5k capacity then trying to redeem a game that has more will still only give 5k"

So has is that fair in any possible way? How come he can get 22K+ capacity on day 1 yet i'm only 5K? A competition is meant to be fair across all parties not just a random few.

[Miraglyth]

Messaggio originale di The-Devils-Son™:

So has is that fair in any possible way? How come he can get 22K+ capacity on day 1 yet i'm only 5K? A competition is meant to be fair across all parties not just a random few.

It's not a fair competition and they haven't designed it to be. Also the implementation seems to be broken because some of us have been told we should have got way more capacity than we were actually given.