Patreon changes, 2022 edition (Patreon)

Hello everyone,

Back in february I asked for your feedbacks about the current state of my Patreon. A few issues were raised, and since then a couple of other issues have been brought to my attention. It took me a long time to come with a decent solution as these issues couldn't simply be solved without rethinking the whole schedule, but I believe that it should be satisfactory for most. This post will describe what I'll change, and why I'll do it. As usual with this kind of long post, you can skip to the TL;DR to the bottom if you're only interested in the changes. And of course, if you need me to clarify certain points, feel free to comment, I'll reply as soon as possible.

I'll go through the following points:

• 1. Adding flexibility to the schedule
• 2. Dominance of OCs in polls
• 3. Character polls nearing Patreon's limits
• 4. Adjusting character polls to the new schedule
• 5. Adjusting sequences polls to the new schedule
• 6. Experiments departing, themed polls arriving

Before going into the details, here is what schedule was looking like until now:

And here is the new schedule:

1. Adding flexibility to the schedule

I'm starting with this point because it influenced many of the changes. This issue hasn't been raised by anyone... But me.

Having a fixed schedule has greatly helped me to keep everything released on time. Over the past year, I haven't postponed content more than a handful of times (on a total of roughly 170 uploads), and I've never delayed it for more than a couple days at worse. Behind the scene however, it's been sometimes very hard to keep up with the schedule, which has been exhausting both for the hands and the mind. There are two main reasons for it, and it's certainly nobody's fault! The first one is simply that life happens: sometimes I can't work as much as I'd like because I have appointments, obligations, etc. The second one is that the complexity of the content I create varies greatly from week to week: drawing a sequence obviously takes more time than a single character drawing with no nude version. Sometimes Log Myu pages only have two panels, and sometimes I have four panels to work on, three times a week. Sometimes character designs are simple and come with many references, and sometimes they're overdesigned and lacking any form of character sheet. Add to this that I'm taking more time now to create content than I used to (as I try to improve the quality of what I create) and overall I'm rarely ahead of the schedule.

The lack of flexibility of the current schedule is tied to the nature of suggestions and polls: content can't be anticipated by more than a couple weeks, votes have to be made first. When I have more time than expected, I can't get ahead of the schedule by much, and when I have a limited amount of time, I can't balance my workload with something simpler or quicker to create. Of course, I could cut corners and release lower quality art, but it's something I really want to avoid for reasons everyone can guess, and I believe that by supporting my work you can and should expect me to actively try to improve the quality of said work, not just produce content.

The change: I've set in the schedule new content slots that won't go through the usual pipeline of suggestions and polls: the two flexible content slots and the OC sequence slot. Because they won't need votes, they'll help me to balance my workload, and ensure that I can reliably maintain the quality of my work. I'll describe below how these content slots will be used.

2. Dominance of OCs in polls

As many of you have noticed, OCs are currently dominating in polls, whether they're mine or those of other artists. Reminder of the numbers: whenever suggested, my characters have a 45% win rate, and those of other artists a 17% win rate, which in both case is above any other kind of suggestion (even Genshin Impact ones if you wonder ;p).

To get some extra feedbacks from you, I created a poll early in March asking you whether or not I should allow OC suggestions in sequence and character polls. The results went in favor of not changing anything, but the takeaway here is (I believe) that a majority of you still want to see OCs in drawings and sequences, which is what I'll stick to. My position about OC suggestions was - at least until recently - that they should be allowed like any other kind of character, one way or another. It has changed, primarily due to your feedbacks and a couple of undeniable facts:

• OCs are more prone to positive/negative feedback loops than mainstream characters,
• OCs sometimes receive 2-3 drawings in a month, which can be boring,
• Because OCs are likely to come back again and again, mainstream characters have more value as suggestions,
• OCs could be drawn without the need of going through a poll.

The change: to avoid interfering with other suggestions, and to space them throughout the year, OCs won't be allowed anymore in character and sequence suggestions. Instead, I'll draw them using the two new flexible content slots and OC sequence slot evoked previously, without going through suggestions and polls. Please note that while the OC sequence slot will be dedicated to OCs and that the flexible content slot will be primarily focused on OC content, the latter may also features mainstream characters from time to time.

3. Character polls nearing Patreon's limits

If you've been around for some time, you may remember that last year the amount of suggestions for the character poll reached Patreon's limit (25 options). At that time there was a single poll for all sizes, and reaching the limit is what pushed me to create four separate polls, one for each size. The issue is that we're now once again nearing that hard limit of 25 options.

There are different ways to solve this issue, none satisfying: bumping up a tier the suggestion benefit to artifically decrease the amount of suggestions, cherry-picking some suggestions and discarding the others, picking suggestions at random, simply discarding suggestions past the 25th...

I won't turn around it any longer, I've opted to bump the character suggestion benefit up a tier, making any kind of suggestion an exclusive benefit of the Super Size Tier. I'm certain that some patrons will be disappointed by this choice, what I completely understand. I made it knowing that I'll probably lose some support and that there may be thoughts about how it's a cynical move made to push some people up a tier. But I believe that it's needed. I want patrons to be able to use their suggestion benefits, and the reality is that we're slowly getting into a situation in which, for no acceptable reason (Patreon's arbitrary limits), some patrons would be denied the benefit they supported me for. That an overwhelming majority of Plus Size Tier never suggest characters (only 3% do) is what finished to convince me that it was the least evil option.

The change: character suggestions will now be exclusive to the Super Size Tier.

4. Adjusting character polls to the new schedule

Last year, out of 34 published drawings, 25 were of mainstream characters, 9 were OCs. These numbers are what determined the new place of character suggestions, polls and drawings in the new schedule. The idea being to roughly remain around 25. This, and that one issue of character polls remains to be solved: the difficulty of picking a size category in which suggest a character. What are we talking about here? The "tactical" aspect of suggesting a character, i.e. having to choose between a less preferred smaller size more likely to win, or a preferred bigger size less likely to win (for example).

The change: If you've looked at the new schedule, you've probably already seen that there are now two character suggestions: one for the Plus Size and Free Size character polls, and the other for the Chubby and Super Size character polls. Instead of a single character poll suggestion, there will now be two, occuring every 5 weeks instead of every 6 weeks. It should simplify the choosing of a size category (by having two possibilities), and reduce the amount of time between two character poll suggestions posts. This spacing will result in 21 drawings per year (versus 25 last year), the difference between the two will be made up in a new poll category.

5. Adjusting sequence polls to the new schedule

There's not much to say about sequences that hasn't already been said before, the main issue with them being that OCs were dominating in sequence polls. I'll just remind everyone of the numbers: last year, on a total of 8 sequences, 5 featured OCs. I used these numbers to help me determine how to put the sequences into the new schedule, and rebalance them.

The change: as you can see in the new schedule, there are now two slots for sequences: one for an OC sequence and one for a voted sequence. As explained before, the OC sequence won't be voted, while the voted sequence, will... well, be voted. The total amount of sequences per year will increase as a result (8 before, 10 now). Thanks to this rebalance, there will be 5 of each sequence type per year. The sequence suggestions will now happen once every 10 weeks instead of once every 6 weeks. On first sight, it may look like a decrease in suggestion power, but if you take into account that OCs won every other sequence poll last year, the time between effective suggestions actually decreases from 12 weeks to 10 weeks.

6. Experiments departing, themed polls arriving

Since I first introduced them, experiments have been sort of an oddball category. Some people really appreciate them while others don't care. Their rules have needed clarifications multiple times. Suggestions for this category have always been on the low side compared to those made for other type of contents. There has also been clear biases, that the most conservative options were often the most picked, what defeats the purpose of going for something "experimental". I've came to the conclusion that I'm more likely to produce experimental content using the flexible content slots (and I'll be all ears open in future posts if you have ideas for these!).

The change: For all the reasons explained above, I've decided to remove experiments. They'll be replaced by themed polls, that will have a roughly similar intent, with a much tighter scope. On the first week, patrons will suggest themes, then vote for the winning theme. For example: monster girls, unpopular characters, furry characters, unusual poses, etc. On the second week, patrons will make suggestions matching this theme, then vote for the winning suggestion. For example, if on the first week the winning theme is "monster girls", then any kind of monster girl character could fit. The core idea here is to give a way for patrons to suggest and vote for content that would hardly win in other polls, and make the suggestions more focused than experiments. I'm still debating whether or not to allow OCs in this category, feel free to comment if you have an opinion about it!

TL;DR - What changes?

The good news is that if you're not interested in the "why", then "what" is pretty simple to enumerate:

• OCs won't be allowed anymore in character and sequence polls. Instead, I'll now pick OCs myself, and regularly publish OC content on dedicated weeks, what will add some flexibility and avoid months with many OC contents at once.
• Character poll suggestions will now happen every 5 weeks instead of one every 6 weeks, by couple of size (Plus Size and Free Size, Chubby and Super Size).
• There will be more sequences per year, one every 5 weeks: one every 10 weeks featuring a character voted through polls, and one every 10 weeks featuring an OC.
• Themed polls will replace experiment polls. The themes will be suggested and voted, and won't focus on OCs anymore.
• Character poll suggestions will move up a tier, and become a Super Size Tier exclusive in order to lower the amount of suggestions.

Conclusion

Overall, not much will change in terms of content. I had to make choices, that I hope will be seen as positive in most case, but I'll certainly understand if there's some disappointment. Either way, you can be sure that I made these choices to improve the Patreon on the long run, and I hope it will show in due time!

If you have any question about the changes, don't hesitate to ask them. I purposefully left some details untold to avoid creating a more massive post than it already is, but it's likely that I already have an answer to most questions.

And as usual, thank you a lot for your support!