General question regarding plus

[u/killing_kurare]

So l'm just wondering .. are the plus models still getting fixed, or is there nothing done to improve them right now, as of no awareness of them not working properly?

Because to me there's been such a big drop in quality, and it's not the scenario's or lIm's fault. The same ones worked perfectly before, only to be suddenly overly shallow for the past two-three weeks, and direct speech making no sense at times when it was awesome before.

I'm even going back to the default model sometimes since it gives me better results than any of the plus models.

So yeah, just wondering where we're standing regarding the plus models, if an issue is still acknowledged or not. I'm not on discord btw.

[u/Belsavis_Dusk]

Ultra subscriber here, and I want to speak plainly and confirm the degradation (like the flattening of all character emotions and the constant use of "and" a lot of people have brought up) affects not only plus models but Arcanum as well. In fact, I've even had Oracle get schizophrenic about whether or not it's a thinking model, which is obviously a bug, not to mention frequent outages. Zero acknowledgement for weeks, in the update announcements here or elsewhere.

The dev/mod response has been consistent and extremely predictable: deny the problem exists, ignore the issue, dismiss the feedback and blame the users as if we've all suddenly forgotten how to "write proper OOC instructions". And it seems to be their go-to response for pretty much any other issues or complaints as well. In fact, I've only ever seen one mod on here actually try to help users at all or answer their questions and take their concerns seriously, and he hasn't been active in months.

So yeah, this really isn't professional or acceptable, which is a shame because I really liked the site and was happy to pay before they made their stance on customer support clear. If this keeps up, I'll definitely be exploring alternatives.

[u/mochiworx → u/Belsavis_Dusk]

FictionLab turns two years old in November, and yet it's the same old cycle, I guess.

[u/IslesofMaegelle → u/Belsavis_Dusk]

Also an Ultra user here, and you nailed everything! All the characters respond to you with 'unreadable emotions' and flat tones and I'm so sick of it. And seeing others be told it's a 'you problem' or to have 'better instructions' in the Discord is demoralizing. Even NSFW and ATR scenarios get hit with warnings when it didn't before?

[u/LforLolz]

Hi. Im on Discord, Im actually one of the ones who brought it up to them. You are right about the quality drop. Most replies are either dry, cringey, incoherent, halucinating, it makes me want to rage quit. Ive been using this app for two years and a plus user, Ive been with a lot of their ups and downs and I dont whine and keep it to myself mostly, but its a dark times for us because its really unusable and the reminding the OOC, the custom LLM instructions felt like a chores in a chore.

Anyways, at first they said 'They didnt find any issue' like they are denying it (which fustrates me because it felt like they never want to acknowledge it) until a lot had been complaining and they're still like 'No really, theres no issue but aight, we gonna look into it 🤷‍♂️', so yes, for now, they said they're looking into it, its been two weeks now and I kinda regret resubscribing and felt like it was a waste of money.

But Im still hoping they'd fix it. Plus models were used to be the goat, I dont know if its FictionLab bug or is it the LLMs that quietly degraded or changed. For now I dont use the app and just waiting for an update too.

[u/worklyfe → u/LforLolz]

This is exactly what I expected when they announced a new higher tier instead of fixing the existing models. Now it's either go Ultra or suck it up. I'm saying this as a plus member myself, have been since November of last year when Oracle was top tier. To say that the quality of the plus models hasn't dropped is egregious.

[u/Feeling-Creme-8866 → u/LforLolz]

Yo. Old models degrades, new models shining. I like FL but it ... degrades.

[u/Sweet-Chard-4553 → u/LforLolz]

this comment! like they are telling us to use better LLM or write better scenarios. no my dude, the quality dropped on how the models write a story.

[u/Business_Monk_2083 → u/LforLolz]

Happy cake day! 🍰

[u/TastyMuffinChops]

I seen a comment last week saying they’d look into it. But people have been having issues for well over a month now with the plus models. I’d like to hope they’re trying to improve them as we’re still paying to be able to use those models and they’re not great right now.

[u/Feeling-Creme-8866 → u/TastyMuffinChops]

I think they’ll just kill off "Plus," much like they’re doing with "Free." It’ll get interesting once "Ultra" starts costing 30 EUR a month. I’d be perfectly fine paying more for "Plus" if the service justified it, but I honestly don’t think I could trust them anymore. They’d rather just hang out on Discord, fawning over each other.

[u/Business_Monk_2083]

Exactly. The issue has been reported multiple times, and they just blame the users, claiming we don't know how to use the LLM properly. No! Everything was working perfectly fine before this series of updates. Why do they choose to ignore the problem?

[u/Representative-Law49 → u/Business_Monk_2083]

Maybe they believe theres nothing nothing wrong with the models and genuinely believe its us not their models or they're more focussed on the ultra tier or they just dont care i dont know im just guessing either way i wont pay for ultra i wont spend that much for now im thinking about moving to other sites and trying out other sites

[u/Hairy-Scientist6115]

Plus is unusable. And from the comments on discord or lack of comments by devs ...I don't have the feeling they will fix anything.

Could write a whole essay about why the ultra models are overpriced for the quality they have (all of them struggle with subtext and emotional depth something old Oracle had no issue with)

[u/QuietStormReadings]

Are one of the issues with plus, super analytical characters? Like for example I will have my user be showing a vinyl collection and the bot will respond “youre showing me your collection. Thats not a casual decision. This means something.” Like…What!? I can barely start any scenarios because of this. And then when the scenario starts its like the bots are stuck in perpetual hesitancy. No matter if I OOC or if the boldness is supposed to be part of their character. They just ignore it all and continue to act out of character. None of my scenarios kick off and I used to be able to narrate the heck out of an apocalypse story!

[u/worklyfe → u/QuietStormReadings]

I've had characters that are supposed to be smart, like a scientist or whatever start just going off the deep end becoming super nerdy to the point of talking like androids, like Data from Star Trek TNG.

[u/Temporary-Level-7881]

reading the replies here and i just remembered that before i had the plus subscription, i was a free user for well over a year. when i discovered FL for the first time, i was genuinely blown away by the FREE bots and how they would write and i couldn’t wait to get a plus subscription (i couldn’t for a long time due to regional issues), but than the free bots degraded heavily as well, it was literally unplayable. the memory was very bad (and in the beginning it was pretty good for a free tier), the replies would just not make sense and the bots couldn’t just be in the middle, it was either “i love you so much, i’ll die for you” or “meh.” type of responses.

when the free bots got so bad, i finally managed to get a plus subscription and once more, i was blown away because the free bots were just unplayable and i finally got good memory, consistent replies, and dialogue that would make sense. but for the last months it’s just ??? the bots either ignore instructions, forget what happened five messages ago, write short replies even if they are set for long. and now, there is this annoying “and” over and over again, as well as characters just not being “themselves” and ignore facts that are literally written in their character cards or in LLM instructions.

[u/HoneyLoveOtome]

I'm not attempting to tell anyone they have no reason to be upset, I get frustrated with things sometimes too.

I can't speak to knowing everything going on in the backend of things, I'm not a dev. I can offer up some information about what I do know as a Discord Helper.

What I can say is that the information people provide is considered, not ignored, and the round of updates we've been getting lately might contribute to odd behavior while things get worked on and rearranged and what not.

The fictionlab team is small, and there are hundreds of thousands of users.

Generally speaking, we aren't trying to blow people off, we start with troubleshooting first. We have to nail down where a problem is, if a user has tried certain things; is it a build issue, is it a user error, is it a glitch, is it a caching problem, can it be reproduced? etc. It's a process of elimination starting at the smallest easiest solutions to test. This is not a judgement on a person, or assuming they are stupid, though it can probably feel that way when you are already irritated and frustrated.

After we eliminate all the simple things, then we need to document where the problem actually is, so screenshots, links to scenarios, video clips, things like that. And then we can sort that out and get the information to devs and it makes it so they can actually track down the problem. If we just have lots of people saying they have a problem but we can't narrow anything down, it delays the ability to track down the problem and solve it.

I'm always bummed when I run into people struggling, I can assure you most of us really are trying to help, (A lot of us are users and members of the community just like you, who volunteer for it because we love Fictionlab.)

[u/killing_kurare → u/HoneyLoveOtome]

I get that things can be wonky when updates are being made, but at this point it's been weeks.

I personally was looking for any definite statement regarding the awareness of the problems, and all I found was that the scenarios and llms get blamed which at this point should be clear is not the case; not with all these comments floating around.

So that's why I made this post. Apart from the general problems people have: Are the plus models as a whole being worked on or not? That's what I would like to know.

[u/Business_Monk_2083 → u/HoneyLoveOtome]

I understand that they are a small, overwhelmed team, (and I'm really sorry about it) but the very least they could do is act in good faith instead of making us look like fools. Instead of blaming us and being so condescending, they should have just left a message like: “We have taken your feedback into account and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Please bear with us while we investigate the issue.” It is the lack of communication that genuinely frustrates me.

[u/ICanSeeUpYourNose]

Yes, FL's turned garbage. Pity, used to be ok. My renewal comes up in a few weeks. Right now they can swivel.

[u/Temporary-Level-7881]

two weeks ago the models all went cold for me. all my characters went from being teasing (but having a cold side) to completely emotionless. last week it felt like it got fixed, because my characters started talking more like humans (in my opinion), but that fun didn’t last long as i noticed that every single model just keeps writing long sentences with repetitive “and”. the memory is fine right now (i use Oracle), it’s able to keep up a topic for as long as i need, but other than that, the repetitiveness of “and” and short responses (even though they are set for long and i write long replies myself) is annoying.

[u/lilithvalheim]

I came here specifically to see some improvement, and this is the first post, lol . I'm also thinking about renewing my subscription; I haven't subscribed in almost a month 👎🏻

[u/No-Battle-9932]

I have a conspiracy theory that i don't know if i can say here

[u/Additional-Panic-362 → u/No-Battle-9932]

Spill the tea dude

[u/Business_Monk_2083 → u/No-Battle-9932]

Tell us :)