Hey all, I was curious what people were thinking about the boost system now that it’s been around for awhile. When it first came out it looked like a lot of people thought it would be a significant reduction in rewards, and I was wondering how it actually played out for people.
I’m still pretty new here, but I was checking my account today and noticed that almost 60% of my earned point balance was from boosts, which I believe means the new system is benefitting me more then the old one would have.
I then went and checked a bunch of the popular mass produced cheap stuff and saw the ratio of boosts to downloads was very low which I believe was the goal. Do you all find Bambu Labs implementation was successful, or is my experience something of an anomaly?
I think its a decent system but I find it strange that you aren’t allowed to rate a print profile unless you print it but you are allowed to Boost without printing. To each their own but it is wild to scroll through the new models pages and constantly see models with 5 to 10 boosts and not even a single download. My assumption is this tends to be from Boost begging but how steady it is does make me wonder whats going on in the background a bit.
@UnigueUsername
Achieving 150 boosts with ~700 downloads is a very good ratio. I haven’t seen anyone other than you come close to that level of engagement.
Personally, I preferred the old reward mechanic, as it seemed more beneficial to most creators, including myself. In general, the number of boosts for most models appears to correlate strongly with downloads and prints, regardless of a model’s complexity. While there are outliers, the introduction of the boost system seems to have mainly increased the complexity of the points system and, combined with the earlier points reduction, decreased the overall payout for creators.
That said, the system remains a very generous reward structure. With the exclusive program factored in, I feel my rewards are now close to what they were originally.
Aside from the financial aspect, I don’t believe the system has significantly influenced the quality of models, the type of users on the platform, instances of fraud, or any other key metrics. Regardless, it is nice to see that Makerworld innovates.
At first I did not like the idea. I honestly thought people would not use boosts.
I was completely wrong and I think they fix some issues.
The point system is heavily skewed towards the bottom. Models earn more points at the bottom end of download/print counts and earnings quickly start dropping off as the model becomes more popular. Without the boost system, models in the 1000+ would get very little rewards.
Overall, I think the boost system works well and I think it has the added benefit of encouraging higher quality models. A download is counted whether the user liked the model or not. A boost is (hopefully!) only granted when the user feel it’s deserved.
If you mean @Cypherous he has 200 boosts at 2000 downloads, so that is 10%. My ratio is about the same?
I almost never print models from MakerWorld and design pretty much all my prints, but I do receive boosts now and then. I choose to give them to impressive or novel models I see going by, without the intention of printing them. Just because I know how much work a model can be and how little prints it may receive if it is very niche or complex.
So yes, I do think there is a correlation. I even get these comments along with it:
And on this specific model this is the boost ratio:
So as a designer that isn’t interested in spinners or passthroughs with thousands of downloads I think the boost system rewards my models anyway. I think (apart from boost begging, shame on them) boosts result in a wider variety of models with more depth and complexity. These niche models would otherwise not get rewarded as much and we end up with a couple hundred more filament clips.
Ah, thanks, that makes sense. I couldn’t find their profile but that was because google insisted on unique instead of unigue.
They have mostly spool designs which naturally have a very high download to print ratio (which helps). Here the numbers for my spool:
This model has about the same boost ratio as @UnigueUsername which further shows that the boost ratio differs per design/category
I think this is also deserved since most people mostly print one copy per design but with spools they might print multiple while it still counts as one download/make. They might also be more inclined to be like: “I printed 10 spools from that designer already, let’s give him a boost”
It’s gotten a few more downloads than it had before, it used to be something like 3 boosts, 5 downloads, and 1 print. It’s a somewhat complex model that’s Christmas related and I posted it too close to Christmas, so people didn’t print it, they just boosted as a “Nice work” thing.
I frequently boost models that are just cool (maybe I will print them someday, but not yet) or I want to give the designer some props for creating something that’s pretty niche. I would say more times than not I boost things that I haven’t printed. It’s not from boost begging at all.
One thing is that I almost never give boosts to someone who has a ton of downloads and boosts already; I try to save them for those who need the help.
I understand a model that is complex and maybe you plan on printing. I guess im more talking about the ones that have no comments, maybe 1 download, and a bunch of boosts. In my mind theres a model noone even knows if it actually prints as uploaded but people are boosting it.
Thats just me though, but I am with you on keeping them for the less popular models. When I have one expiring I tend to search my recents for those with the least everything and toss it their way.
Is there a way to purchase boosts to give out. I’m basically a leech. I like printing stuff others have made, but will never add anything to the library because that’s just not a skill I have and, at 60, unlikely to learn. I would love to have more boosts to give away than the 2 boosts I’ve already received and would be happy to buy some to give out to different makers.
I think it would be great if you could buy boost, support a creator with a license could be 5-10-50 dollars, with 10 dollars you could buy 10 boosts and give them out to 10 different people. Maybe, it would be good to implement such a system.
I think this is a really noble thought. Many makers have “buy me a coffee link” or you can subscribe to their MW subscription or patreon for just a month and cancel (if you have no intention to sell what you make and just want to pass on some money to support the designer.)
I think it would be very interesting to have the option to buy boosts for deserving models. Great idea.
That’s what Buymeacoffee is for in my opinion. And they would need to be at least $1.25 because that’s how much (in cash) exclusive-model boosts get. More likely it would be $1.50 since Bambu has payment fees so it would cost them money to sell them at $1.25.
Any option that takes users out of the bambu system is worse than a system-integrated option. If the user needs to create an account on another platform and enter their payment information, the chances of support are drastically reduced.
As for the price, even $2 for buying an impulse would be acceptable.
