They were probably testing which was more balanced when they changed it, and ended up with 9 malus as the base.
Oh I see, so it wasn't an usual thing uh? That explains why they aren't doing it anymore.
You can remove it entirely when its 9 malus by:
- Older account (-2 seconds);
- Join Steam Group (-1 seconds);
- Positive Feedback on giveaway (-2 seconds);
- Store purchase (-2 seconds);
- Bundle purchase (-2 seconds).
Both
store purchase and
bundle purchase give -2 malus for a total of -4 malus if you get both.
I already knew that, but since I don't get many galacredits because I only do one cycle of challenges everyday (7 challenges are enough for me to get 4/5 games with just 7/8 minutes of my time) buying a bundle isn't something that I can do whenever since I only got 5$ in 8 months of playing, I would have prefered more to just do a store purchase to reach the 0 malus multiplayer so I waited for that possibility

guess it won't come tho
I also wanted to do it when the really good bundle with "to the moon" came out, but it gave me payment error for the whole time and they jacked up the price so I couldn't get it anymore. Probably no other bundle will reach that quality, I suppose.
Also since we're in the theme of using galacredits...
Sometimes I wonder if it's better to just buy cheap games whenever possible, or to wait for another good bundle and purchase to reach 0, or to just spend it on a real good game when the times comes. I don't think many people talk about it since who finds the "best way" to play the challenges will keep it to oneself (and it's fair enough), but I would like to talk about it too.
- Buying cheap games to reach a -2 malus multiplayer multiple times seems the best way to get more games as possible from the challenge, but if you don't find anything new or good or rare you will end up with only a lot of cheap (and probably bad) games you probably won't play. And it's pretty likely, especially for players who got most of the games except some evasive ones.
- People who wait for a bundle and do a purchase to reach a 0 malus multiplayer will probably be in the same boat above even if less games, but since theoretically the more games you win in the day the more the chance the games are of a higher tier, you should be able to get some quality games? If the bundle it's good it should even out, if it isn't then random games are better I suppose. ( Does anyone have any experience with this, like finding it a waste of galacredits or the best way to spend it? ).
- And for last, using galacredits just to buy a really good game or bundle once seems like the best thing you can do, but you will probably only get a couple more cheap games from the challenge so in regard of getting mistery games it's not that useful. ( for people like me that don't even get 1$ every month it's not that useful tho ).
Then there are people who already found everything and they either stopped playing or they just grind for galacredits, which I don't find so time efficient, but I won't count those since they theoretically don't play to win.