There comes a point where any of these interactions, even if successful don't improve OP. Like I said, I have even just messaged someone to say I was thinking about them and their OP went down, even though they replied. It seems to happen somewhere in 2026, almost any interaction reduces OP. It's like they're bored with me doing the same thing over and over again and want me to learn some new tricks. I assume there is a decay in the benefit interactions give, because it always seems to start high and then the more times you repeat the same interaction the benefit reduces. What appears to be happening is that the decay goes from a positive down to zero and then eventually a negative, whereas it seems like it should stop a 1, so you are at least still getting a small benefit.
This should not be. I just tried it with my most advanced saved (sometime in mid-2027). I found a character that I've known almost since day one and was able to sway them easily. And was able to do it via 2 different approaches (compliment one and gifting, a third one resulted in no benefit, which is normal). There's nothing in the code that prevents this from working if you do it too often (it should though!). But there's a caveat... if they already have a very high opinion of you (say > 50), then impact of those changes are less, so it may not appear to have changed. It could have gone from 50.1 to 50.3 and it wouldn't appear to have worked.
The other thing that could be happening is that sometimes the opinion shown is a bit out of date, specially if you haven't interacted with them in a while. So it could be 25, but showing 28 and then your interaction changes it from 25 to 27 and it appears as if it went down from 28 to 27. (I thought I had fixed this before but maybe not).
My next question is regarding changing opinions. Is it not possible to change every opinion of every character? There seems to be some characters that no matter how many attempt I make on a specific subject, I can't change their mind, even when they have 100 OP and are attracted to me, etc. I would make sense that certain characters or archetypes wouldn't budge on specific subjects, I just wanted to confirm that that is the case or maybe just a very low chance of success.
In theory you can change anyone's opinion to anything. The chances of the attempt succeeding can be so small as to be highly unlikely. The following are all factors involved in how easy is to change an opinion:
* Your sociability trait (higher is easier)
* Their willpower trait (lower is easier)
* How much they like you (the more the better), but note attraction is not a factor.
* How common is the opinion (liking something mundane like partying is a lot easier than liking something rare like public nudity)
* Your own opinion (it's easier to change it if you have that same opinion)
* Some "addiction" opinions (like drinking/smoking/drugs/etc. are harder to change)
* Their other conflicting opinions (eg. if they like conservative clothing, it's going to be harder for them to like revealing clothing)
I realize that how common an opinion is or which opinions are conflicting is not readily available. Get to know them as much as possible. Don't underestimate the importance of the "Talk To" > "Say Hi, idle chat" interaction, at least early on. That's a good way to build up your list of opinions (plus get to know others). Also never turn down an interview request from someone you don't care about. Use them to help you set your own opinions until they get fed up with you and leave.
But the issue may be running into may be someone that's just to set in their ways (strong will) and that's going to be hard to overcome. Strong will and/or low lewdness are the people you just need to ignore.
The next thing is just an observation. I found it quite amusing that one of the mobsters that I had been fighting all year and hadn't paid a penny to, took the time to send me a birthday message.
Ha! Hey he's just a softie deep down. (But thanks for the heads up, it means that not paying him is not making him hate you enough, need to make that modifier more impactful)
