Ren'Py Four Elements Trainer [v1.1.6b] [Mity]

[Balrog]

Why is the concept of diminishing returns when hiring new people on a small project that hard to understand?

Let me explain with an analogy: How many people does it take to change a lightbulb (in an average day-to-day situation)? One. The second person doesn't add much, but can be of some assistance at least. The third (and needless to say, beyond) is just standing around, being of no use at all.

There are problems that can't be fixed by throwing more people at them. I explained something like this 70 pages or so ago. If it's a writing issue, a new coder won't help much, as it isn't the bottleneck.

Everybody is free to express their opinions, but keep in mind that's also true for everyone else. Also, consider not parroting the same stuff that's been said a million times, this ,,debate" has been going for dozens of pages, with basically nothing new being said, burying official updates and other useful info in the process. (yes, i've considered taking my own advice and not posting, but I believe most of this hasn't been said)

Your explaination suck ass because when you have to change a whole building's worth of lightbulb every month (making 1 build) and you take a 4 month break after every 5 buildings because changing lightbulb all day for months kill your soul, a second person to switch a part of the workload WILL help.

Your exemple sucked 70 pages ago and it suck now.

 

[RebelliousKnightMordred]

the coder is the main writer. it was specifically said by the artist it is writers' block affecting - creative. As a coder and amateur writer myself, I can understand him making, then adding, minigames as a way to relax his head to be able to work on the story better later. In fact, I can almost bet that is the reason for all the minigames, thinking more about it.

you are purposefully making no sense. you are trying to break down my argument by focusing on something you think is a fault you can base yours on, while it could be counter-argued by just looking a few pages ago on this thread. also putting it all in one paragraph so I would get too tired to actually read it, so you can pretend you "won"

"burnout" can come from anything. And as the coder is also the writer, something that was not always clear, that means two different reasons it could be so.
especially as he was not an experienced coder at the start, as the artist himself is working on refactoring (bettering) the old code on the side. meaning most of his old code was copied from public ones with some edits, or as I said before made to relax his mind, so most of the burnout on his side should be from the writing.

also, many of the old ones were on the artist's side too. and you can't expect a second artist to mesh well with the old one, just look at the mess of Corrupted /Hearts' Wonderland with three different artists for many reasons.

It seems to me the new people complained are just people who recently arrived and just want more and to complain, and not really into the reasons for the delay or even if they are reasonable, as it would get in the ways of the complaining.

if we stopped just complaining about there being a delay, and talked about... anything else related to the game, I doubt this would have gotten to page 1000 yet. And we are already on page 1014

Riddle me this then, if the coder is the main writer then how does my point about them hiring new help not make sense? Surely if they delegate coding responsibility to a new hire that frees up the current coder to write and takes off some of the pressure.

 

[RebelliousKnightMordred]

Why is the concept of diminishing returns when hiring new people on a small project that hard to understand?

Let me explain with an analogy: How many people does it take to change a lightbulb (in an average day-to-day situation)? One. The second person doesn't add much, but can be of some assistance at least. The third (and needless to say, beyond) is just standing around, being of no use at all.

There are problems that can't be fixed by throwing more people at them. I explained something like this 70 pages or so ago. If it's a writing issue, a new coder won't help much, as it isn't the bottleneck.

Everybody is free to express their opinions, but keep in mind that's also true for everyone else. Also, consider not parroting the same stuff that's been said a million times, this ,,debate" has been going for dozens of pages, with basically nothing new being said, burying official updates and other useful info in the process. (yes, i've considered taking my own advice and not posting, but I believe most of this hasn't been said)

Your analogy doesn't really track because you're comparing game dev to a mundane task. Changing a light bulb is a one man task but game dev is a whole different ball park. Current they have an artist who sometimes codes side releases like the Halloween specials and a coder who is also the main writer, correct? In the past they've said the coder has suffered serious burnout presumably from the load of having to code everything by themselves and coming up with the main story. However if they hire at least one new person to help with the coding doesn't that free up the load for the coder to then focus on the writing and relieve some of the stress thus preventing this constant burnout? This problem has started ever since that 4 month delay and I'm not saying they're purposefully trying to milk patrons but they have started to get sloppier with releases and take the whole thing for granted. I'm not going to stop bringing this up because every status update of theirs reeks of bullshit to me, I simply don't trust them. Either way I don't care much when they release but I'm always going to talk out against bullshit.

 

[Deleted member 59977]

Honestly, wanting to compare a delay of a few months with a robbery, what an exaggeration lol.

The devs said the game was coming out last month since I liked the game I became a high tier patreon and nothing happened. If I wanted to throw away money I would have thrown it elsewhere.

Its not a big amount and I really dont mind delays I understand that shit happens and I am fine with that. But what I saw here was incompetence, a lack of coordination among the creators and several excuses - even one of the creators did not know what was up with the other creator based on the patreon comments. I personally am never again going to support them for this reason.

And this is one of the reasons I dont mind the complaining in the forums - it at least gives people a warning before they decide to support. If people are fine with inconsistent updates and like the project enough to overlook the above then thats great but for people who are not familiar with the devs and their track record, all this complaining is a very good thing.

 

[RebelliousKnightMordred]

People always say "these forums are for discussing the game stop whining". Not realising that for starters they're also whining but also if there was actually something to discuss people would but when all they wake up to is delays its only natural they would be dissatisfied and want to vent about it. We'll discuss the game when there's actual new content to discuss but what we have has already been talked about.

 

[FriendlyBear12]

This is not a professional book he is writing, this is porn game ffs. 95% of the reason this game is good is the art. For me, the writing is only there to tie things together and explain how I progress. I am frustrated because the thing holding back progress, is low importance filler.

If the artist left, the future of this game would instantly die. The coder/writer can be replaced. The artist made 2 halloween games all by himself and I enjoyed both mainly because of the art. His partner is nothing but a ball and chain at this point.

 

[RebelliousKnightMordred]

This is not a professional book he is writing, this is porn game ffs. 95% of the reason this game is good is the art. For me, the writing is only there to tie things together and explain how I progress. I am frustrated because the thing holding back progress, is low importance filler.

If the artist left, the future of this game would instantly die. The coder/writer can be replaced. The artist made 2 halloween games all by himself and I enjoyed both mainly because of the art. His partner is nothing but a ball and chain at this point.

I wouldn't go that far, the writing is all right what actually holds back the game is the slow progress which seems to come from when the coder decides they want to add some minigame which has no relevance to the game and ends up breaking it. What they need is at least one more person to help with the load.

 

[FriendlyBear12]

I wouldn't go that far, the writing is all right what actually holds back the game is the slow progress which seems to come from when the coder decides they want to add some minigame which has no relevance to the game and ends up breaking it. What they need is at least one more person to help with the load.

It used to be minigames but this time the excuse is writer's block. Cbob has no self-control, he is his own worst enemy.

 

[strenif]

It used to be minigames but this time the excuse is writer's block. Cbob has no self-control, he is his own worst enemy.

Hey. Writers block is not a joke. Sometime you spend all day with a blank page on your screen and can't get past it. Everything looks like shit and all you want to do is anything else but sit in front of the computer with no ideas.

 

[FriendlyBear12]

Hey. Writers block is not a joke. Sometime you spend all day with a blank page on your screen and can't get past it. Everything looks like shit and all you want to do is anything else but sit in front of the computer with no ideas.

Cbob is the only one setting the standard. He has plenty of time, his problem is clearly meeting "quality" standards imposed by himself. Nothing will ever get done with that mindset and it's unreasonable for him to put such pressure on himself. Again, I want to point out this a random porn game and the art is pulling the heavy load anyway. There exist porn novels for txt horny individuals.

 

[RebelliousKnightMordred]

Hey. Writers block is not a joke. Sometime you spend all day with a blank page on your screen and can't get past it. Everything looks like shit and all you want to do is anything else but sit in front of the computer with no ideas.

No one is saying it's a joke but obviously we have to factor in the fact that coding is also their responsibility and if they had someone to help them with that it'd help things along. This idea has been suggested for years and it gets shot down or ignored. Why? I mean they make 20k a month for gods sake it's not like it'd bleed them dry. Do you not see how this looks? Ever since that long delay of 4 months a while back they've been taking their patrons patience and support for granted and whenever they know they won't make a deadline they themselves set they make some post about burnout to play the sympathy card and secure yet another month of payment.

 

[Barkin 10]

Yep. I told you this would happen.

https://f95zone.to/threads/four-elements-trainer-v0-9-0c-mity.730/page-1003#post-4561671

 

[YoraeRasante]

Riddle me this then, if the coder is the main writer then how does my point about them hiring new help not make sense? Surely if they delegate coding responsibility to a new hire that frees up the current coder to write and takes off some of the pressure.

because the problem is not the coding. they would be hiring a new person just to stand around while the real problem is still stuck.
actual coding problems seem to have been minimal, as far as I am aware. we just assumed they are minigames because for a while it was not made clear cbob was also the main writer, so for some reason we took when he was mentioned as causing a delay that it was a code/minigame issue.

People always say "these forums are for discussing the game stop whining". Not realising that for starters they're also whining but also if there was actually something to discuss people would

I tried. It got burried by delay complaints. after we were given a new release date, that has not been reached yet.

The devs said the game was coming out last month since I liked the game I became a high tier patreon and nothing happened. If I wanted to throw away money I would have thrown it elsewhere.

But to be fair, they also said "hey, we fucked up with the time here, so if you want you can undo your patreon for now and give it elsewhere for a while, you'll still get the new stuff right away as if you still were".

This is not a professional book he is writing, this is porn game ffs. 95% of the reason this game is good is the art. For me, the writing is only there to tie things together and explain how I progress. I am frustrated because the thing holding back progress, is low importance filler.

If the artist left, the future of this game would instantly die. The coder/writer can be replaced. The artist made 2 halloween games all by himself and I enjoyed both mainly because of the art. His partner is nothing but a ball and chain at this point.

actually, it is the other way around at this point.
this is not just a training simulator like akabur's princess trainer or witch trainer. there are plenty of those around.
it is mostly a visual novel, at least on the love routes past book 1 (with some of it on the slave routes too). the writing is as important as the art, if not more - many visual novels get known with bad art and get a visual update later, this one just already starts with good art.

 

[Jack95K]

anyone know when new update is going to release ?

 

[YoraeRasante]

the developers said either the end of the month, or they should be just wrapping it up so the start of next. so either way expect a message about it around monday at most.

FriendlyBear12 I'm serious.
As just a trainer Book 1 was good enough, but afterwards, see how many people favor much more the later books, especially the love routes where the sex scenes are less in number but where story development is clearly the focus.
while everyone still loves the porn, marty's art is top notch (knotch? not a native english speaker), it is clear the interest of most playersis going more and more towards the story.
It slowly went from an excuse plot for the porn to a plot with porn spread out like a fine seasoning.

 

[naoligopraisso]

anyone know when new update is going to release ?

No

 

[lolchito]

anyone know when new update is going to release ?

ironically, the artist said that cbob said another 2 weeks, now i think is not out in this 2 weeks

 

[YoraeRasante]

cbob himself said he is sending it back to marty really soon last time and should expect either at the end of the month or very early in december

by the way, don't really expect much content, but hope to be surprised in this.
the big hurdle here is cbob getting past the block. if he did it properly, just like in any breakthrough things should go much smoother afterwards on his front.

 

[naoligopraisso]

Cbob said at the beginning of October that the game was 80% ready, said at the end of October that the game would come out in the middle of November and is now saying that the game is coming out in 2 weeks?
Fool me that I like lol.

 

[duffbeer]

We saw Belle Delphine's uncensored tits before a new release of this game. Who woulda thought.