Some musings regarding the preferences poll

[Foreman]

Hello!

I have followed the development of Flexible Survival for quite a while now, and I recently stumbled upon the blog posts regarding the gender preferences poll and its results. Disclaimer: I personally strongly favor F/F interactions and have voted as such in the poll, so I have a bias regarding in this topic. Nonetheless I will try to remain objective. The blog post detailing the results of the poll notes that the amount of people who voted for F/F interactions was interestingly and surprisingly low when compared to other gender interaction preferences. The results of the poll were indeed interesting, but to me at least, not actually very surprising. I will try to explain why.

Over the course of the Flexible Survival development, I think it is fair to say that when it comes to content updates and additions, Herm and Male interaction additions have been more prevalent than Female on Female interactions. From the preferences poll we can see that this is actually a good thing for the majority of the people who voted in the poll. However, it is important to keep in mind that this can lead to a positive feedback loop (for better or worse).

For example, the developers and writers might look at the poll results and conclude that F/F interactions are not popular for the general player base, and they might instead shift their focus towards producing other types of content. Indeed, the December of 2017 update featured almost exclusively Male and Herm content, either as player or as NPC updates. This can lead to overall fewer F/F scenes and updates being added to the game, which in turn (and crucially) can cause fewer people who primarily enjoy F/F content to be drawn towards the game, relative to the rest of the player base. In the next preferences poll, the amount of people who are mainly interested in F/F will be relatively smaller, and so on and so on. Anecdotally, I find myself only infrequently checking up on the content updates, even though I greatly enjoy the game (and I almost missed out on voting in the poll in the first place, because of this).

This is just something that popped up in my mind when reading the blog post reaction towards the poll results. Obviously, at the end of the day it is up to the developers and writers to determine what content will be added, and especially in the case of Patreon polls and such, it only makes sense to choose the options that receive the most votes. I am just trying to warn of the possibility of this leading to something akin to a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the player base might over time lean more and more towards a narrower set of preferences.

Thank you for your time!

tl;dr: please do not neglect your F/F fanbase

[dark]

I appreciate the point here, and it's something I've wondered about myself if the project is preference driven, I certainly have seen occasions where patrion poles have several great options and it'd be a shame if only one or two get included (I think several ideas in the current patrion pole sound great).

My problem is that while I don't mind one off donations, I can't commit to a monthly patrion for the project unfortunately, indeed the preferences questionnaire was one of the first occasions where I got to say something concrete about the game which was nice.

On your specific point about liking f/f content, I confess while I put m/f content down in the questionnaire as my preferred interaction, f/f probably would've come second on the list, I like the idea of more of this in the game too.

the problem however looking at the writers for hire topic seems to be that most of the writers aren't as keen in doing f/f content, indeed I've noticed that losing to female monsters in the game which should lead to an f/f scene doesn't, e.g the harpies or ewes, andI believe Sandra is the only female npc I've seen with an f/f sex option.

perhaps it would be good if there was a writer on the project who could add these scenes and balance things a little?

[Wahn]

Well, the basis of this imbalance in content is a two things coming together:

Writer Preferences:
A number of the writers we have do prefer gay scenes, others are bi, and I only have one or two who have a professed interest in doing F/F on their own. In the end, people write in their spare time, so they mosly focus on their own preferences.

Player-Guided Content:
For quite a while, those commissions that came in were overwhelmingly on the gay side of the spectrum. This is an observation, not a complaint - I for one can do anything in writing, as do a number of the newer writers. Vote for it or commission it, and we will build it.
The time available among all of the writers is limited though by people's lives, so those who do commission can pretty much book out what openings there are. Over the years, I did more than once encounter the combination of "straight person whines about gay stuff and demands straight scenes" + "multiple gay persons commission new content".

Conclusion
Overall, I can say that there certainly is no plan or anything not to include F/F - give me interested new writers, or commissions, and we can make it happen. As things stand right now with the polls, I do my best to plan it out so that roughly every second one at least has female options.


@dark: The patreon is not the only way you can make your voice heard in FS. If you want to support the game and see your wishes come true, a once off direct commission can do that too. You'll get the private attention of a writer who endeavours to match your wishes as best as they can
The going rate is 15$ an hour of writing, and projects do not have to be done in one block either - you can come back half a year later and just ask for further expansion, etc. Many things were built like that (Brutus, Amy, Sonya, ...).

[dark]

Hi.

I have looked at the commissions topic and depending upon the results of the patrion pole I might well see about donating a bit of something to get options added, since I thought that the origin tapes, bunker expansions and! personality matrix ideas all sounded like amazingly nice editions to the game, though I'm not overly endowed in the money department at the moment so couldn't comition too much at once.

One thing I wouldn't mind doing is trying to add some of my own content to the game, indeed I might be able to address the concerns mentioned here since I would probably be more comfortable myself writing f/f and m/f content than m/m content, but coding is something I don't know much about.

I've checked the wiki and forum and had a look at some of the template links for monsters, but I'm afraid I'm finding all the various properties, if statements etc a trifle confusing.

Any potential help much appreciated.

[Wahn]

Coding Questions.

Oh, that's not an issue at all - do join us on the Discord server and you can join the community, with some help and tutoring about coding

Here's the link, just come on there and give me a poke:
-> https://discordapp.com/invite/gZG2nw6