Think I said a while ago that insulting patrons for supporting a developer financially isn't okay, as without them, barely any VN would exist. The thing is, some developers are not very deserving of that money, and stoper has become one of them over the last ~3 years.
You might not have expectations and see it as a simple donation, but you should atleast have expectations about the developer's honesty. He is lying to you guys in various ways, and that does not deserve your financial support. He keeps missing deadlines, he keeps getting slower while making ridiculous excuses as to why that is, he's telling you that he's gonna do something about it, but never does. Quite the opposite. He's taking more and more of every single patron's money while providing less and less content for it in return. You are at a point where you're basically giving money to a random guy for almost nothing. I guess one could consider it a noble thing if it was a homeless person, but stoper is a game developer who is milking the living hell out of this.
If you think this game is truly free, you are gravely mistaken. It's nothing but an illusion. He would abandon this project in a blink of an eye if he didn't get the money out of it, there's no doubt about that. Stoper, time and time again, is trying to make himself look like the good guy with these..."tactics", when in reality it's a really scummy way to portrait himself in a way that he simply isn't.
Your and other patrons behavior and naivety is only enabling him to continue this way. He has literally zero reason to work for his money because you pay him anyway, no matter what. It just isn't okay to take the same amount of money from people when he's putting only a fraction of the effort into this project like he used to several years ago. Releasing 250 renders in 1 year is complete and utter scam, and that goes hand in hand with his scummy statements, which just isn't okay considering he's still taking the same amount of money from you guys. It doesn't have to be like that, but you are actually helping him to go through with it.
A developer should receive money for the work he's putting in. A developer who is responsible. A developer who cares about his patrons. Stoper is going the complete opposite direction, and you reward him with money for it. That's an issue, and part of why this project is going this way.
Cheers