After finishing I felt I needed to add this to preface the absolute WALL of text. This was obviously a word salad that may be much longer than it needed to be but since you said you didnt understand the problems that some posters are having with the system other than vague complaints I felt I'd at least tell you my experience to the best of my ability.
Cant speak for others but when I first started to play I did what I usually did when I played years ago. Get clothes ready for the job they were probably going to get trained for unless training led to a special trait for another (wouldnt let them wear it till they would do simple tasks though), get a collar that didnt negatively affect a major stat like the steel one, may or may not brand on day 1, then go home and explain their situation. Then depending on their personality and the trainers stats it really felt like it was difficulty appropriate. A high level trainer, or maxed like in my tests, would usually be able to get at least a neutral or 1 positive result on something as simple as basic household chores barring maybe the more proudful slaves. If not then with a single punishment or two they would then produce the same low, but still visible, results and the more prideful ones would be the potentially even week's worth of a challenge as they had to be and the punishments reflected it. But I never once was able to recreate the same thing in the over 4 hour tests I did when I started playing again, even with the most docile slaves (unless they were already mindbroken with "Sanity" to begin with), and it just really shouldnt be that difficult for literally every single person as people are typically pretty obedient especially when thrust into a society that isnt shy about its cannibalism (namely of slave meat) staring you in the face when you head to the local market or the beings that are presented in front of you at your auction and knowing what they would have done with you as they are not shy with shouting it out.
When I eventually moved on into trying different techniques that werent overly "spoiling" (not the game mechanic but in a immersive character decision way) like undeserved comfortable clothes on day 1 or repetitive tedious exclamations like using threaten or encourage every single day things would go into a Sanity spiral. Slaves that didnt have at least 4+ hearts would fail, need to get punished, fail again, leading to more punishment, and since theyre certainly not doing any chores whatsoever the player must make food, clean, and bathe themselves so youre likely out of hearts or getting close to it by then so you have to end. This would continue until either Sanity pops up or they finally begin to complete tasks in a positive way but hardly at all and at that point pride/nature/temperament are likely close to being near Sanity levels as the repeated decision on refusing to sweep a floor or be thrown on the street in a world that clearly thinks less of them than dirt is just too hard of a concession to make apparently. So then theres an attempt to send them to the hot spring or other rewards to raise stats to get out of or away from Sanity. But then they would become spoiled as they didnt deserve these rewards for subpar results making them once again refuse completing tasks leading to more punishments and back into mind broken status. I honestly had no idea that the rape options even worked as punishments in the game as I had never had to result to trying it out of frustration in prior versions.
After another poster had told me they could do it on day 1, I then finally dropped any and all attempts to play as I felt was realistic in the situation and treated it as a numbers game. Immediate branding, comfy clothes, repetitive but apparently now necessary daily threaten and encourage lines, and daily aura strengthening spells even though my stats are maxed so this really shouldnt be necessary, and they would now complete basic tasks within a day or two as long as I never went away from that formula for a week or two for obedience to grow and finally allowing for nonregimented play. But thats boring for me and far to "meta" as I was told to adapt to in relation to the inarguably more abusable yet still (as I believe it to be) more realistic older versions to have been. Now again this isnt an attempt to rag on the people working on it, in my previous posts Ive said you can tell that theres a real attempt at trying to get around older cheesy strats and and to coax people into the magic and alchemy side of things by having to look at a slaves aura during training but before I never needed to put a single level in magician in my normal custom games as the interaction with the slave felt real enough to gauge what was needed as you played. Now it feels artificial and not reflective of the stats shown to the player as they look at the trainers stats and to make a training plan appropriate to their level, but instead just a simple numbers game thats just as abusable if you choose the "correct" meta choices. But thats just how it feels like to me.
It didn't use to clear guilt.
