Card drops occur randomly during play time, and idling stlll counts as play time. Also, there are only a few card drops, a number equalling about half of the game's total cards, so going to such excessive lengths wouldn't benefit you much.

Wrong, but close.

1. Idle or active, generally cards are dropped every 30minutes of SESSION gameplay. If you open the game and alt tab out, you will still get card drops every 30mins (it's a messed up system).

2. Card drop types (which card you get) is random, and foil cards are super rare compared to others. You get only as many card drops as you've earned. How do you earn them?..

3. You earn card drops by buying a game. Card drops are how many cards can be dropped by playing/idling a game. Card drops are limited to half of the total cards rounded up.
x = droppable cards
y = total cards
x = roundUp(y/2)
5 total cards means 3 droppable cards
4 total, 2 droppable
8 total, 4 droppable
9 total, 5 droppable
And so on..

4. After completing a set of cards, badges may be formed, giving bonuses (exp, items, etc). Since you only get half of a total badge in cards, you are forced to trade or get lucky with booster packs. What are booster packs?...

5. Booster packs are available once you earn all your droppable cards. Booster packs are awarded to random members once a steam user forms a badge, providing 3 cards to a lucky steam user.

6. Booster pack chance is increased (in your favor) by 20% per 10 levels you gain.
lvl10 = 20%
lvl20 = 40%
lvl 50 = 100% (twice the chance of gaining a card.

I really do hope this helped! Please feel free to add me or ask any further questions here (:

-Chris

Originally posted by Gamechamp:

Card drops occur randomly during play time, and idling stlll counts as play time. Also, there are only a few card drops, a number equalling about half of the game's total cards, so going to such excessive lengths wouldn't benefit you much.

Yeah, I know that. My question is that are they limiting how many cards you can get or is it just random. If I get 1 card in 40 minutes that should mean I get 7 times more with 7 games running in background (But I have noticed that you do not ...)

Oh and to answer your questions bluntly...
1. Opening several games decreases cards earned, based on what I've /heard/, but I cannot confirm this 100%.
2. Where did you notice this? You may have closed at 25mins and re-opened, then 5-10mins later gained a card lol.

-Chris

Originally posted by Calx|Chris|Perception:

Wrong, but close.
Idle or active, generally cards are dropped every 30minutes of SESSION gameplay. If you open the game and alt tab out, you will still get card drops every 30mins (it's a messed up system).

Everything else is clear except this. So you do not get cards if you play for example 28 minutes. Do you always get a card after 30 minutes session? Does this mean I get 2 cards in 1 hours session? Also the thing I wrote above this ... Which you answered before I edited this message.

Actually I am not 100% certain yet, and am going to test it later. I have not been able to conclude yet whether closing/re-opening a game gives you a lapsed time. For example 25mins, close game, 5mins, do you get a card? I don't know... it might be more like 25mins and then 10mins (5min dock) but I don't know yet, sorry ): I'll generally play a game till I get all cards then go to a next game. I've been trying out a lot of games and finding a lot I've loved that I'm revisiting later :D

Are you referring to the how many cards are affected by how many open games you're running? I haven't tested this either, BUT, I've heard it decreases exponentially with multiple games up. A part of me wants to test this but I'd need to setup my faster PC (and been lazy). Sorry about the unclear answers ): Hopefully I still helped a little though!

-Chris

Originally posted by Calx|Chris|Perception:

Are you referring to the how many cards are affected by how many open games you're running? I haven't tested this either, BUT, I've heard it decreases exponentially with multiple games up.

Obviously my sample size of one is nowhere near 100%, but myself and my partner were doing the mult-game thing (for both of us, a lot of the games with cards we'd already completed, so open and alt-tab is cheesey but works).

He had two games open, and after the first card, was roughly 40mins to the next, then another 20mins to the third, three cards spread over the two games.

Me, I've had four games open, with first card being five minutes in, and then just under an hour later, two at once (again spread over the open games).

So, limited sampling, but it does seem to fit with an average of one-per-half-hour, being unaffected by how many games you have open. Honestly, it's not worth it if you're hanging on at the PC (may as well utterly complete one set then move on), but if you were heading out to work and opened all your relevant games before leaving, then coming home that night you'd probably have a fair few more completed than if you'd let one run, fill, and stop checking for drops. But, no noticeable 'penalty' for multi-windows other than that your card gain is spread over many sets (thus increasing time before you're eligible for a booster for any).

Im not completly sure on this but the drops refresh every week right? since you got a limited amount of drops

Originally posted by Spooky Hobo Man:

Im not completly sure on this but the drops refresh every week right? since you got a limited amount of drops

No, that initial batch of cards is all Valve gives you. If you want to finish the first level (or attain levels 2-5) you have 3 options, Trade with other players, Purchase the cards from the market, Wait for booster packs.

TL;DR: Seems to be many factors with card drops, I'm not too certain but doing certain things got drops for me.

I've been led to believe that some games have cards dropping at certain points in the game. By doing melon races in servers (gmod) I received 2 melon cards. By having a missing texture, I got the card for it.

In Polarity, I seemed to get cards correlating to things i had done (while my friend recieved different cards for doing things I hadn't).

In Postal 2, I recieved a card when I killed Gary Coleman and Champ as well as when I met the family, I got the cards correlating to the events.

Hasn't been very many times I simply left the game open but even when I wouldn't play very long and achieve these things I would get drops..

As a Steamworks Dev with one game on Steam, I can confirm that the trading card drops are set on the game management page. I set my game to drop the cards every 10 minutes, because it's a very short game. The maximum interval at the time of my release (about a year ago) was 2 hours per card. Also, the amount of cards you get from purchasing a game is based on the total amount of cards that the game has.

Originally posted by Nodzi:

As a Steamworks Dev with one game on Steam, I can confirm that the trading card drops are set on the game management page. I set my game to drop the cards every 10 minutes, because it's a very short game. The maximum interval at the time of my release (about a year ago) was 2 hours per card. Also, the amount of cards you get from purchasing a game is based on the total amount of cards that the game has.

i m a little bit late but what is your game name ?

@Calx_ could you please explain your point 5 and 6 to me?

"5. Booster packs are awarded to random members once a steam user forms a badge, providing 3 cards to a lucky steam user.
6. Booster pack chance is increased by 20% per 10 levels you gain.
lvl10 = 20%
lvl20 = 40%
lvl 50 = 100%"

So does this mean sometime soon I could get a booster pack just for opening a game or Steam?

Originally posted by pepperberry0712:

@Calx_ could you please explain your point 5 and 6 to me?

"5. Booster packs are awarded to random members once a steam user forms a badge, providing 3 cards to a lucky steam user.
6. Booster pack chance is increased by 20% per 10 levels you gain.
lvl10 = 20%
lvl20 = 40%
lvl 50 = 100%"

So does this mean sometime soon I could get a booster pack just for opening a game or Steam?

Booster pack awards are based on a lottery system with the following rules:

1. ) To be eligible for a booster pack draw, you need to have received all the card drops for that game and signed into Steam at least once in the past week or two.

2.) When another user crafts a badge for that game, one of the eligible people is randomly given a booster pack.

3. ) Regarding level bonus, think of it this way: Every eligible person automatically gets 5 tickets for the booster pack lottery. For every 10 Steam levels you have, you get one bonus ticket. So a level 1-9 account gets 5 tickets, a level 10-19 account gets 6 tickets, a level 50-59 account gets 10 tickets, and so on.

The odds are still very slim, but the more eligible games you own and the higher your Steam level, the better chance you have of signing in one day and seeing that "new item" alert. :P

Thank you! I wasn't aware of that ever happening, I thought I could only make booster packs with diamonds :D
I also didn't know you could get cards past your card drop limit after forming a badge like GojuSuzi explained. That never happened to me before, although I played Raft long hours after I formed my badge.