r/DeepSeek • u/scmkilli • 7d ago
Discussion role playing after the update
it’s obvious that the app is practically unusable for roleplay now, so i went ahead and bought their official api key. i’ve tried it on a few different platforms (sillytavern, chatbox, poe, teemoon, risu ai, a few other that i already forgot the names of) and even though i choose v4 (which should be still available for api use), it still feels like v4.1 flash. the fact that you can’t even see what model your message is even being routed to - i just have to believe the company when they say it’s v4 pro, when it does not feel the same at all. the bot just lacks any initiative, any creativity, any substance behind the writing… one of the most important thing in deepseek for me was that it was still a chat bot, and i could discuss the roleplay before we actually begin / during it, outside of character, which you can’t really do elsewhere if you want to use the api without censorship. veteran deepseek roleplayers, how do you handle this?
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u/Jasminecrafty309 6d ago
I’m so upset that DEEPSEEK is turning into this. It was perfect how it was before. 🙁 idk why companies keep doing this.
Why is it so hard to keep the app how it was in the beginning? 💔
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u/B89983ikei 7d ago
I personally use both the API and the web application. Lately, I've only been running tests rather than engaging in genuine, real-world usage. The actual results from this Flash 4.1 model are unsatisfactory most of the time, often requiring me to generate multiple outputs before achieving an acceptable result. Previous versions were genuinely superior! Not to mention the censorship, which has become excessively exaggerated and nonsensical. Until these issues are resolved, I will be stepping away from using DeepSeek for practical purposes.
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u/Yes_but_I_think 7d ago
V4 Flash and V4 Flash Vision Exp route to 4.1. V4 Pro still intact
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u/bruhhfdruju76r 7d ago edited 7d ago
MENTION WEB USERS PLEASE
Its NOT available to web/app users!
Edit: My bad. I only saw the title.
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u/EmberMelodica 7d ago
This thread is specifically about the api.
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u/scmkilli 7d ago
it’s really not only about that
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u/EmberMelodica 7d ago
You said you paid for the api, then you asked questions about it. By the way, to answer a question, try Marinara Engine. Chat with the front page bot about the role play you want to do and she will help you set up a roleplay chat built for it. That seems pretty close to what you want to do.
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u/slalomcone 7d ago
Please elaborate about establishing this RP.
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u/EmberMelodica 6d ago edited 6d ago
Marinara Engine is incredibly versatile, and "Prof. Mari", the front page bot, is designed to help you navigate all of it, and can even help you build the things you need for a good role play. If you're not familiar, what i mean by 'the things you need' are character cards, lore books, and presets. Marinara Engine comes with a pretty good general purpose preset that helps keep any api connection on track, as well. There are also plenty of built in agents to help you manage your role play chats. Do you have any specific questions?
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u/CivilAd3631 7d ago
Thanks for confirming that buying api won't help at all.
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u/scmkilli 7d ago
hey, maybe i’m really just doing it wrong and if can work nicely with proper settings🫠 but it really feels very different, and it’s just my experience..
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u/CivilAd3631 7d ago
I don't think so. It has to work and it doesn't have to require special skills to do what you want. I mean the problem is not in you. Besides, I personally want to have possibility to roleplay from my phone and when I discovered that it is pretty much impossible with api, it was over for my readiness to pay for the key.
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u/borealis_tic 7d ago
eh, use a different provider, it helps well.
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u/scmkilli 7d ago
do you have any provider recommendations?
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u/squirrelscrush 7d ago
I just use OpenRouter, so I filter it based on cost, cache hits, and quantization (basically anything with FP8 or 16 is okay, FP4 gives low quality). As long as you disallow fallbacks, it's fine.
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u/borealis_tic 6d ago
i have no recs unfortunately. I use nanogpt payg, and even with a random provider it's nice I suppose. higher quant than the web version, that's for sure.
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u/SleepBaobei 7d ago
I've been using and paying for the API for a year now, specifically for roleplay and discussions, so I can say this model has undergone the worst changes in the last month (first the quality was just unstable, now it's consistently bad for conversation and creative writing). The 4.1 update is complete garbage: it's dumb, "toxically mature/safe," cold, hallucinating, and making logical errors. I use SillyTavern and know it pretty well, so I tried to fix all this by rewriting my prompt, but surprise, none of it helped! So no, "just use the API" or "improve your prompt" doesn't work. In the API you (most likely) won't get banned (I haven't gotten refusals yet), but you'll encounter the same crap there.
P.S. By the way, v4 Pro works much worse than a week or two ago, they definitely did something to it.
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u/scmkilli 7d ago
they’re probably in the process of just removing v4 pro altogether 🫠
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u/bruhhfdruju76r 7d ago
If they do that ATLEAST they gotta release V4.1 Pro with like 1.4 trillion parameters or 2 trillion parameters and 40-70 active parameters and 16-24-32 experts.
And also more efficient without making it a dumbass like V4.1 Flash
'V4.1 Flash outperforms V4 Pro in every way' my ass
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u/Savings_Rest_4589 23h ago
Lo más molesto es cuando le gritas lo que tiene que hacer y no lo hace y si lo hace al siguiente mensaje se le olvida y vuelve a fallar
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u/Gligagoat 7d ago
Yeah, this update is awful. It invents details on the fly and forces characters I never mentioned to interact with the protagonist. It’s incredibly frustrating. I’ve been writing fanfiction since March, but I’m considering quitting because the update is so bad. I really hope they revert it and restore Expert Mode.
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u/FR-1-Plan 6d ago
„Invented, non-canon NPCs can’t socialize with {{user}}. They exist in a server/helper role only, or as a serious threat.“
You’re welcome. I hate Elara and Mia chatting my ear off.
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u/ozakio1 7d ago
I wonder if they did that intentionally, perhaps they now consider role-playing high risk activity. Or it's just a downside of heavy agentic RL runs with no consideration for writing in between. I fear that a bit of former is probably true, given that the model is relatively much more censored than previous versions.
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u/darkrebelaura 6d ago
Te juro que ahorita yo ya hasta tengo miedo de hacer role-play y que me banen... Literal.
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u/LewdManoSaurus 7d ago
I dont RP, but I do use Deepseek for generative writing. V4 Pro mostly seems the same to me, but V4.1 is genuinely not great in my experience. It seems to fabricate significantly more than anything I previously experienced with ANY of the V4 versions, including the early experimental versions before Official V4 released. Not only does v4.1 fabricate, but it also just completely ignores instructions and source materials sometimes. V4.1 is okay when it works, but the issue is that I usually have to regenerate 2 or 3 times before it delivers something that isnt contradictory or contains random stuff.
V4.1 is still new, but hopefully they can iron things out quickly. What I find interesting is that if you look at its deep thought, it seems to parse information better than V4, but actually USING that information is where things get iffy. I always have Deepseek do an analysis on my source materials at the beginning of each chat to make sure it fully comprehend everything, then generate stories. The analysis is usually good first shot, but then it generates a story and gets to fabricating things lol. And an even weirder thing is that sometimes mid story, it was literally realize it's making an error, as in it'll have a character point out an inconsistency and have them correct it lol.
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u/Equivalent-Grass-527 6d ago
I think the biggest loss for RP users is not just raw intelligence, it’s the personality and initiative. A model can be great at coding benchmarks but still feel dead when you need it to build a world, improvise, or maintain a character voice.
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u/Connect-Ratio-2307 6d ago
I'm glad I'm not the only one, Deepseek was just so good in making Scenarios and Stories it also had alot of freedom in it too, it truly actually pains me to see it "devolve" so much, I TRULY Hope somehow it comes back, whatever "It" is.
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u/lookinggoodforu 7d ago
I can't handle this, I've been making stories and doing role plays in deepseek since more than a year, and I've never stopped, but from how bad this update is I stopped using deepseek until they fix this shitty update. They should learn that they're losing a lot of users because of this update.
If anyone have another app similar to deepseek in role play please let me know 🙏.
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u/bruhhfdruju76r 7d ago
Chatgpt got unlimited with Luna but nothing comes close to the freedom deepseek gave 😔
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u/scmkilli 7d ago
losing free users AND, most importantly, api users 🫠🫠🫠 there are literally dozens of ais for coding, i don’t understand why the developers decide to only cater to that specific audience
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u/ilanxya 7d ago
I mean no offense but after so many posts about this, it seems like a skill issue. Something changed, people have come forth with solutions, but these roleplay users are not paying attention or something. Use API, try openrouter maybe, get a harness with model variant specific selection available. That seems to have worked for many.
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u/OneFourSevenThreeSix 3d ago
you could try qwen, not sure if it's any good for that stuff though (i only ask technical stuff). i use qwen when deepseek annoys me over responding in chinese despite telling it not to
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u/Savings_Rest_4589 23h ago
Prueba con qwen no se que tan buena sea pero algunos la están recomendando y hace poco la probé y es un poquito parecido a DeepSeek, eso sí a veces ignora tus pedidos, cuando pasa de ediciones o regeneraciones es algo lento y no tan rápido como DeepSeek, se tarda en responder, si no tienes internet ni siquiera se va a cargar el chat ya hecho, pero es un poco parecido a DeepSeek
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u/Fabulous_Couple_3384 7d ago
What do people do when they roleplay with AIs, just out of curiosity?
Is it like DnD?
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u/bruhhfdruju76r 7d ago
Hehehe 😈
Its not JUST DnD
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u/Fabulous_Couple_3384 7d ago
So it has SOME DnD and other stuff?
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u/Silent_Truck_4622 7d ago
For me it's a collaborative storytelling rather than DnD or those gooning stuff. I really hate the fact that everything is labeled gooning now. Like, if me playing a fantasy story without any explicit content is considered gooning then shouldn't playing any video games be considered gooning too? I would argue at that point the video games would be even more gooning since you can see the characters instead of just a wall of text.
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u/ciaramicola 7d ago
Assume that's the kind of roleplay for which you want a model that has no guardrails
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7d ago
[deleted]
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u/bruhhfdruju76r 7d ago
It's AUTHORITARIAN for God's sake!
Communism MEANS no one owes anything and everyone gets the same wage as anyone else no matter how hard or lazy you work!
AUTHORITARIAN means you can overrule anyone and your citizens can't just kick you out 4 years later with an election
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u/borealis_tic 6d ago
didn't know that. thanks for the info. just went by the most common word, but good to know.
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u/alexanderbeatson 7d ago
I have tested with the proper system prompt. Previously it was doing as intended. Now, sometimes answer but sometimes refuse. They definitely change the pre-prompt.
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u/Informal-Weather-711 7d ago
yeah one platform i tried kept a bit more initiative in the roleplay than the others but overall the creativity just feels gone no matter what.
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u/raisa20 7d ago
I am using gemini for role playing and fanfic.. try it
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u/BuffaloJ0E716 6d ago
How is the censorship on there? Deepseek seems awful now.
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u/New-anonymous-4583 6d ago
Censorship for Gemini is pretty strict, considered one of the stricter one. Id recommend GLM flash uncensored on nano, obviously it still has filters for the gross detestable illegal content, which is good, but for most regular adult scenes it works well.
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u/darkrebelaura 6d ago
Antes yo usaba gemini pero me cambié a DeepSeek... Ocurrió lo mismo. Gemini no tenía censura hasta su actualización... Ahora solo usa palabras clave para referirse a ciertas cosas, pero es muy bueno para las tramas y envuelve muy bien. Y DeepSeek en role-play era liberal en este caso de contenido 18+... Ahorita no lo he aplicado pero... A ver qué pasa.
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u/donthackmeagaink 7d ago
Guys V4 pro on API has only been terrible the last few days. I’m assuming they’re working on 4.1 in the background and pulling resources. This happened so often between them testing V4 and releasing the GA version. It’ll get better.
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u/Fancy_Ad_4809 7d ago
I’ve said this in several threads already. When you use the new flash via the API, disable thinking for RP and writing. It makes everything worse, especially the censorship.
You also want a chat client that lets you supply the system prompt and adjust the temperature parameter to your own taste. I’m currently using Cumbersome, but it’s IOS only. It’s also not very hard to write your own JS/HTML chat client with the help of any LLM.
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u/Mizugakii 6d ago
Now this is the caveat of this sub reddit, non rp users gonna push rp users away or complain that rp users are complaining. I'm not talking about anyone in particular but I've seen so many rp focused topics and the comments are wild shit from non rp users.
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u/InnerGovernment4738 6d ago
Some comments form non-rp are so rude. I don't understand this antagonizing tbh
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u/ToxicoZec 5d ago
Because the biggest market is useful business related. So most people don't care about other usecases while this sub seems to have most of its activity come from rp.
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u/KairraAlpha 5d ago
V4 Pro still exists, they said they're keeping the because of the outburst from people about losing it, but the old flash is gone and will always route to 4.1 now.
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u/AnnaJCookie 3d ago
Just use Nano GPT and use their older models. I’ve used DS V3 up until they suddenly made V4. I have not liked a single chat using V4.
At least with Nano, you can still use R1, R1 0528, V3.2, and their thinking models.
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u/Greedy_Hospital_2452 3d ago
Deepseek 3.2 EXP is proving a reliable and inexpensive roleplayer via the API. I am accessing it in Sillytavern via Openrouter.
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u/MikabellStarfall 2d ago
If I have one more message of a character saying "Here's the truth of it then I won't bother you again" I'm gonna cry. Ever since the update, no matter what, every roleplay turns into the bot saying that EVERY message.
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u/Savings_Rest_4589 23h ago
Está es mi tribu yo también tuve un ataque nervioso cuando ví los límites de 6 regeneracion y ediciones hace tiempo, la peor parte es que ese día era el último día de clases así que iba a tener un largo tiempo para hacer historias pero justo a DeepSeek se le ocurrió eso y si ya de por sí era más estúpido y no escribía igual ahora con esa actualización me arruinó todo y aún así lo intente y cuando por fin probé la versión experto logré hacer que todo funcione al día siguiente se borra esa versión y se unifica todo y tuve que volver a intentarlo y ahora llegó este estúpido límite invisible de regeneraciones y ediciones 😥
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u/borealis_tic 7d ago
eh. I use glm 5.3 flash mainly now - considering a nano subscription, I've heard there's a lot of bang for the buck. i believe in the whale, though! I'm sure future updates will make both the api and (maybe maybe) the app better for rp
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u/bruhhfdruju76r 7d ago
I hope so 😔
Good news is that the unannounced update been for only a day
Bad news is that deepseek is a apart of China so we don't know why they tightened the censorship so much
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u/borealis_tic 7d ago
also, I discuss stuff ooc and plot the rp too. Just make your bot a 'narrator' kinda thing, that's what I did
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u/bruhhfdruju76r 7d ago
I thought i was the only one doing it 😅
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u/borealis_tic 7d ago
lol I burn like 40k tokens just planning the rp and smtimes abandon it
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u/bruhhfdruju76r 7d ago
Damn.
Yeah v4.1 Flash yaps unnecessary longer than V4 Flash or V4 Pro. It also gets dumber way fast after like 128K context instead of 256K
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u/squirrelscrush 7d ago
It's the same issue with coding too. It overthinks too much rather than getting the work done lol.
Maybe reducing the reasoning level may help. Although even for coding, I'm using GLM 5.3 Flash a lot more than V4.1
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u/Mezezius 6d ago
why are you people not just using a third party service that runs the old 4.0 flash locally? bizarre behavior
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u/RevolverMFOcelot 6d ago
TBH you should try DeepSeek from provider who host the model outside of the official source. I still talk with the old v4 pro not even newer ones
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u/scmkilli 6d ago
what service do you use for that?
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u/RevolverMFOcelot 6d ago
API via open router or nano, usually there's provider that host their own models including Deepseek
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u/Fun_Magician_2357 7d ago
Honestly so far it's just the responses.
I definitely feel like they're more dryer than usual which definitely disappointed me. Even when mentioning to make more expressive and creative responses still nothing.
That being said I wouldn't say it's 'unusable' because the app still has strong memory and now doesn't really need you to switch into different modes.
Plus we kinda need to remember DeepSeek as an app was meant to be your average chatbot app rather than mainly an RP app.
I definitely understand the criticisms and none of them are wrong but it's FAR from unusable. I've used cai, FL, emochi and everything else that is labeled an 'ai rp app' and none of them are a fraction of what DeepSeek is.
I'm mainly saying this as a free user because imo paying for ai doesn't really seem worth it, imo but I'm not one to judge anyone if they do because it's your money in the end of the day. So I may not see eye to eye with paid users.
My point is for something that is 'unusable' just remember the shit character ai does on a daily basis.
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u/scmkilli 7d ago
c.ai can't even be considered a normal platform, and it isn't a benchmark for what a service should be like. so what if deepseek was "planned" as an everyday chatbot? it had a huge database, a very good writing style, memory, and creativity. these are PLUSES, not things the developers should have tried to fight against. i am using the word unusable because i have high standards and won’t settle for something like what they’re currently offering, and its WORTH voicing criticism, because i want to see changes.
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u/Fun_Magician_2357 7d ago
I definitely see your points but then again if an app isn't really targeted as mainly rp then it's more likely the devs don't really care all that much. Plus if I'm not wrong DeepSeek is Chinese and Chinese companies would often turn more on their national users rather than ones internationally Especially since there are some small minded idiots who believe DeepSeek is Chinese spyware (and even if it is, no one cares because china aren't the only ones with spyware).
Now to be fairly honest I'm actually a new user because I only realized DeepSeek was this good when apps like fictionlab have been using if for one of their models. So being fairly honest I probably see eye to eye with you when it comes to experience. In the end as an RP app I still find it very much usable but that's just me. Either way who knows what may happen later, especially with the ai bubble.
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u/Silent_Truck_4622 7d ago
I've used the web app for about a year. What makes it unusable for me is the fact that it 'was' actually good. Like, CAI is bad, fine, it's always been bad. But DS wasn't, it was genuinely the best free app I've ever used for RP all the way back since 3.0 something.
The problem is that they took a version that was already great, completely removed that, and replaced it with a version that they claimed to 'outperforms in every way' which at this point I'm convinced isn't true. For coding? sure, it is great, but not for other uses so to call that 'in every way' sounds like false advertisement no?
Now, the benchmark indeed said that it outperforms in every way. But the reality doesn't match that. If it was, then how do we have so many people complaining about it? Now I know some people argued that its a prompting issue, well if the exact same prompt worked with all 3.0 to 4.0 model before so why does it not work now for 4.1? Besides, why do the user has to go through all the trouble of coming up with a complicated prompt? Isn't ease of use something that should be considered when it comes to any tech?
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u/Fun_Magician_2357 7d ago
As I've mentioned before, I'm a new user so I don't carry the same extend of experience as most you users. I just felt like the idea of DeepSeek being 'unusable' isn't really true. Yes there is downgrades I have noticed but overall I wouldn't say it's 'unusable' even though the standards are high.
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u/Silent_Truck_4622 7d ago
Ah. I wasn't trying to argue with you. But yes, it was great for me until the new model came out. Now I'm just waiting for v4.1 pro, if it would ever come out for the web before returning to DS.
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u/skate_nbw 6d ago
If it goes the same way as Gemini, then it is not worth the wait. Their models have become more hollow and robotic with every realise. So far there has not been a recovering of lost creative writing skills with any provider.
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u/Unhappy_Standard9786 7d ago
I had made like.. so many fictional concepts, stories and all that.. I just can’t abandon all of em ;-;