Bring Back the Ability to Earn Cards in the Discovery Queue

[A Salty Lapras]

The new Steam Discovery Queue appears to be a significant improvement over its predecessor in terms of earning rewards. Unlike the old version, which required slow page loads and constant "next" clicks, the new queue offers a smoother experience with a pop-up interface that allows for faster navigation, eliminating the need for full-page refreshes.

However, there is a downside. Valve has decided to remove the ability to earn Steam Sale trading cards through both the old and new Discovery Queue. I had hoped that the new system would streamline this process, but instead, they’ve eliminated it altogether. The new methods for acquiring cards now primarily involve some form of payment.

Earning Steam Sale trading cards and crafting the seasonal badges was once an enjoyable activity for me, but now that it’s behind a paywall, I no longer plan to participate.

Edit: This post was originally written during the 2024 Steam Autumn Sale. At the time, I was hopeful that the new Discovery Queue would enhance the card-earning process. I’ve updated the post to reflect my disappointment.

[miakisfan]

Postat inițial de A Salty Lapras:

The new Steam Discovery Queue is a huge improvement over the old version. Instead of constantly loading pages and clicking "next," you're now able to navigate through a "pop-up" Discovery Queue, making multiple passes without the slow, full-page refreshes. It's fantastic!

Also, a while ago, I posted in the Suggestions/Ideas forum asking for separate "Free" and "Paid" item groupings in the Point Shop after clicking the "FREE POINT SHOP ITEMS!" banner, then rapidly going through the mostly free items. With the new Discovery Queue, this issue is completely resolved. Even better, you can now go through the queue multiple times to earn all the items, rather than just one per day, which I think would be asking a bit much.

I really hope they consider keeping this going, especially for earning trading cards during the major Summer/Winter sales.

As I was reading down I noticed it didn't take long for the complainers to come out. I thought it went nice and fast myself. Could it have been more informative? Yes, but there is always a trade-off if you want things streamlined.

The problem is there will never be a queue that everyone likes. No middle ground to keep everyone happy.

The next problem is most everyone is only going to be happy if it fits their proper definition of how the queue should be.

The answer? Don't use the queue unless you have to like I do. Less aggravation in my life. If anything feeling that way makes me want it more streamlined and if I really liked a game that much that I wanted more information on it I could write the name down and do my own research on it OR just go to the Steam page by typing it in the Search bar.

Those few keystrokes might be too much for some, though. All that hard work typing a handful of words at most! Sigh ...

[IFIYGD]

Luckily the "old laggy queue" still is easy to go to and use by clicking Store > Discovery Queue from the top left of the page, instead of scrolling down to the Discovery Queue on the Store home page.
It still exists. I will still use it for as long as it does. I don't want silly chat stickers- I don't use chat often, and when I do, I don't use chat stickers more than once every few years. Yes, I mean once every few years.
I don't want ugly animate stickers I can't remove from my inventory.
I do want full store pages I can look at, ignore games I don't have interest in, screenshots I can look at instead of only a single cinematic video that may or may not show actual gameplay footage, pages where I can scroll down and look at system specs and reviews, read full dev/publisher game descriptions and information on- without having to figure out how to click out of the pop-up window to get to.

Nope. I've disliked this new Discovery Queue nonsense every time Valve has tried to get me to "like" it by making me click through it during an event for useless freebies I will never use that I can never get rid of if I am foolish enough to go through the process. This isn't the first time they have tried to convince us that this new abomination was "the newest latest and greatest". If they switch to only this pop-up nonsense, I will never use the Discovery Queue again, even if it's the only way to get trading card drops during the Summer and Winter sales. I'll skip getting those badges and just craft badges from games.

[Takohashi]

Postat inițial de miakisfan:

As I was reading down I noticed it didn't take long for the complainers to come out. I thought it went nice and fast myself. Could it have been more informative? Yes, but there is always a trade-off if you want things streamlined.

And I noticed that everyone is always complaining about something. If you search old forum posts, you'll find tons of posts where everyone says "The Discovery Queue is absolutely useless. It shows games I'm not interested in. I only open the Discovery Queue during sales to get cards." etc.

[garukno]

there's too many cons with the new discovery queue for me, so yeah it's bad, bring back the old queue

[garbagefangirl]

I don't like it. Now if I actually want to add an item to my wish list or ignore it (what the queue is supposedly for), it's way more inconvenient.

CephalopodDarius's suggestion doesn't work on mobile.

If this is because people don't like going through the discovery queue for stickers, find a different way to hand out stickers. For the first time in years, I just sped through the queue to get the stickers because it was otherwise useless.

Please bring back the old style or let us choose.

[rolex94]

Its' ♥♥♥♥ dude

[Lambros]

New discovery queue. I prefer the old discovery queue prefer the screen shots, and seeing what company made the game. Now I have to click through and thats just more work for me, if my eyes dont glaze over it first.

[Ash]

Just to add my 2 cents about this new steaming pile of crap...

While I have seen previous crappy versions of the "new" discovery queue for seasonal sales during my 15,000 plus ignores of trash games that are not relevant to me, this is the first time I have seen this newer and crappier big screen video-only turd-burger. Kudos to the User Experience team for such an amazing failure in their job, clearly they designed this one without trying to use it (like a normal person does), and a shout out to Quality Assurance team for not noticing the broken ignore indicator.

[chaosandcoffee]

Crazy take. It's so much worse. Now I have to click into almost every game to actually see anything about it, I doubt I'll ever use this feature now, used to use the old one a fair bit

Not to mention it just doesn't seem to work properly, ignoring titles directly from the queue doesn't usually work

[Yhtill]

I don't normally post in these forums but I dislike the new queue intensely. I thought it was something for the current sale until this AM. After a quick Google search, the realization that this was 'the new thing' had me moderately annoyed. Thank you for the posters above that offered:

1. Go to Store, then Discovery Queue
2. If you are in the new queue, go to the store page of a game then use the old 'standard'

I was planning on not using the discovery queue again had there not been a workaround. Utterly atrocious. I'm glad some folks out there like it but there should be a setting in preferences to stay with the old style.

I'll use option #1 above going forward.

[LowResCactus]

Absolutely hate the update. Thank you for everyone explaining how to get to the old version.

[Ghost1B]

I hate it so much. I have to open each individually to mark them as ignore and I'm supposed to guess based on a single clip/ thumbnail if I like something? I think it's horrible.

[js51472]

The new queue doesn't load for me at all, either in firefox or the steam client. I hope they go back to the old, working one for future sales, or I won't be able to get free cards etc.

[imag2OOO]

they do it every year its not replaceing the regular que guys

[🔥]

The first video is always the most useless part of a store page, half of them don't even have gameplay footage in them. They're more often than not ad campaigns that hide what the game is actually like.