Leveling up on steam, tutorial, guide and tips

So leveling up is hard and takes a lot of time and cash out of your wallet, this is a list of things i use to level up without spending too much cash

If you have a limited account, you cant level up, (you need to purchase of 5$ or more to activate your account, for example 5$ wallet + a cheap game)

Activate the steam mobile guard, dont forget to write down the recovery code, during a sale

Steam Official Pages are here:
- Trading Cards
- Trading Cards FAQ
- Steam Levels and XP
- Trading Cards Group
- Your Badges
- Your Steam Inventory

Non Steam Resources for trading cards:
- Steam Tools
- Steam Trade Matcher
- Steam Card Exchange
- Steam Trading Cards Wikia
- Steam Inventory Helper - Chrome Extension
- Enhanced Steam - Chrome Extension
- St4ck - Highest level on steam

Basics
- Leveling is used for bragging some see it as a game, others as a status (rank)
- You are leveling up by earning XP (experience points)

How to Earn XP for leveling up
- Each year on steam gives you 50XP
- Each game that you own gives you a little XP (just own more games for more XP)
- Crafting Game badges (using trading cards) 100XP
- Earn Badges by doing something give you XP (example Community Leader Badge)
- Sometimes there are promotions that give you Badges and XP ( beta tests... )
- Steam Winter or Summer Sales usually have some promotions that give you XP

Why should i level up?
- Leveling up gives you more steam features (profile customization, more friend slots)
- You can display the game that you love, screenshots, badges, achievements, info...
- Higher level = higher chance for getting a random booster pack (3 cards in a pack)
- Some people dont accept low level profiles as friends (scammers use low level profiles)

What do you get by leveling
- Each Level gives you + 5 friend slots (there is a limit of friend you can have)
- Level 5 (you need to be at least level 5 to get free stuff during a sale)
- Each 10 Levels give you a showcase to decorate your profile
- People trust you more if you have a higher level
- if you plan to be a trader (trade games, items) you need to have a higher level
- Each 10 levels Increased chance of booster pack drops

When to Level up
- Level up during a sale, when crafting a badge you will get a new sale trading card
- You can use that trading card to craft even more badges

Trading Cards Info
- Some Games on steam have trading cards
- You need to own the game to get card drops
- You get card drops by playing that game (they start to randomly drop after 2 hours)
- Check your badges page for the list of games with card drops
- Check that page to see how many drops you have left, and how many do you need
- Games have different number of cards 5 to 15 (csgo 5, tf2 9, brutal legend 15)
- You need to collect all the different cards from a single game (a complete/full set)
- By playing you will only get about half of the cards that you need for the full set
- In order to complete the set, you need to buy or trade to get the rest of the cards
- After you complete a full set (all the cards from a single game) you can craft a badge
- Crafting a badge gives you: 100xp, a background, emoticon, and a coupon
- Crafting a badge removes the trading cards from your inventory
- Crafting a badge during a steam sale gives you a sale trading card instead of a coupon
- You can use those sale cards to craft unique sale badges (that wont repeat)
- You can craft each badge 5 Times (sale badges can be crafted more then that)
- Free games like dota2/tf2 get 1 card drop when you purchase 9$ of in game items
- Booster packs are 3 cards wrapped in a package
- Booster packs are random steam drops (they drop randomly when you login on steam)
- You need to login on steam each week to be able to get the booster packs
- You have to finish all the drops by playing to get a chance for a booster pack
- Your chance increases when your level is higher (also finish all the drops by playing)
- You can make a booster pack using gems (i dont recommend it, more on that later)
- Foil Cards are special cards that craft a special badge for that game
- They are usually more expensive (depends on the game) and rarely drop
- You can craft foil badge only once (normal badge 5 times)

XP Needed for leveling up
- Every 10 Levels you need more XP to get 1 level
- From 1-10 levels you need 100 XP for each level
- From 11-20 levels you need 200XP for each level
- From 21-30 levels you need 300XP for each level
...
- From 111-120 levels you need 1200XP for each level
- NOTE: 1 Crafted Badge (1 full set of cards) gives you 100XP
- 1 Level Examples:
- Example: To level up from 5 to 6 you need to craft 1 badge (1set)
- Example: To level up from 36 to 37 you need to craft 4 badges (4sets)
- Example: To level up from 114 to 115 you need to craft 12 badges (12sets)

How to level up with little or no cash
- Community Leader badge - 500XP
- Gem Maker Badge - 100 XP (just turn any cheap item to gems, only once dont repeat)
- Wait for time to pass each year gives you 50XP
- Set a buy order on cards and booster packs to buy them at their lowest
- Get every game that you can (even free games count - check GrabFreeGames)
- Even the games that dont have cards will give you xp, they may add cards in the future
- Every game that you have that has cards, collect the cards as soon as you can
- When you collect the cards, there is a chance that you will get a booster pack
- Buy cheap games in bundles on sites like BundleStars HumbleBundle or IndieGala
- Level up during a steam sale to get sale cards instead of coupons, use them to level up
- Trade cards with other people to get the cards that you need
- Most traders accept 1:1 card trades from the same game
- Try to get card sets with lower number of cards (but that also depends on the value)

Sale Info
- Steam has big sales during Summer and Winter
- When those sales start, you can get steam Sale trading cards for free!
- Craft all your badges during a sale so that you get a Sale cards instead of a coupon
- Doing something during a sale will get you more cards (dont know what until it starts)
- You will get cards if you buy games (a card per 10$)
- Coupons cant be stacked (you cant apply 2 coupons to a single game at once)
- Coupons cant be used with sale discounts (again because they dont stack)
- There are special coupons, that can be stacked, steam doesnt give out those
- You can get special coupons on some promotional websites like AlienwareArena
- Those special coupons are activated like cd keys on steam

Gems
- They are used for recycling items (i dont recommend doing this)
- You can delete any steam community item that you have and you will get some gems
- You can see how many gems is an item worth (from 2-100gems)
- Backgrounds and Emoticons from valve games and the sale are worth 100 gems
- I think it doesnt pay off, because most stuff is worth like 10-30gems
- You need a 1000 Gems to create a Gem Sack, and you can sell this sack on the market
- Usually 10 backgrounds (that cost 100gems) are worth more then 1000 gems
- Gem sacks can be used for trading (because of their market value)
- You can use gems to make booster packs
- But i think its cheaper to buy the booster pack on the market, or trade gems for cards
- 1 Gem Sack ~ 1$ | Block & Load Booster pack ~ 0.40$
- Valve is asking for 1000 to make that booster pack (you can buy 2 for the gem sack)

Farming Cards
- Farming cards means that you leave a game open (not playing) and it will drop cards
- I personally minimize the game and do something else while the cards drop
- There are programs that use some workarounds to tell steam that the game is running
- I dont like or support the programs ( steam idle master & Archis Steam Farm )
- Some people will give other people games to farm cards for them (and give them back)

What can you do with the cards?
- You can use them to level up
- You can sell them on the market for steam wallet
- You can trade them for other cards that you need
- You can trade them for items or games (check the trading sites)
- Do not convert them to gems

What to do when selling cards
- Dont sell cards that are cheaper then 5 cents, that is because of the steam fee
- Steam fee is a little cash that steam takes when you sell something on the market
- Its usually 15%, but because the cards are cheap, fees start at 2 cents
- That means if you sell a card that is 10cents, you will get 8 cents
- If you sell a card that is 5 cents you will get 3 cents (fee is 20%)
- If you sell a card that is 4 cents you will get 2 cents (fee is 0.50%)
- if you sell a card that is 3 cents you will get 1 cent (fee is 0.66%)
- A you can see, the cheaper the item/card, the bigger the fee
- When selling, i usually check the history graph AND the market page
- The graph will tell you for how much is the card selling lately
- The market page will tell you how many people want that card and how many are selling it
- If you want to sell fast, check the "sale starting at" price, and put that price, or 1 cent lower
- If you are patient, you can check the demand and add value to "sale starting at" price

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Credits: Tutorial made by IgorDotNinja as seen in his Steam Guide.

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Teamspeak IP: ts.thedragon.club


Rules:

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It's just a small side project that after it's 1st release i always enjoy to keep it alive. Atm it's is just a sellection of house music tracks and live sets from the best DJ's around the world, music i like to listen too while i play. It may change in the future (playlists and wtv) if you guys want it to change.

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If, for any reason, you wich to contact me you can do so at: dragon@thedragon.club

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General Infos about my server:

Requirements:

In order to play on my server you must be a member of my Private Steam Group. If you are looking for an invite take a look at this thread.

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How to connect:

There are a few methods you can use to connect to my private server. Here are a couple of examples:

Method #1 - Using the ingame Console
PS: You need to enable the console in the game Settings

• Open the console and type:

steam://connect/213.32.7.69:28115

Method #2 - Using a Workshop mod

• I'm using this Workshop mod witch enables the "Server Browser" tab in the main menu. From there you can easily save my server to your Favorites tab.

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Server Rules:

✔ Expert only!

• The server is running Expert Realism by default. While i don't mind turning Realism off (perhaps you and the people playing just want to enjoy a normal campaign game) please keep the server running at least in Expert mode.
  
• If you want to play in lower difficulties just leave and find a new server.
  
• Watch for friendly fire! FF is still enabled on the server for immersion reasons so you need to watch your fire. Constantly breaking this rule might get you banned from the server.

✔ Be friendly

• If you are tilted or you think the people playing at the moment aren't really playing your style (rushing and/or holding a lot) just leave.
  
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