[Suggestion] - Text/Auto Speed and Monika's Graduation Speech

[Justformas]

First, this isn't my main idea but in general about Text Speed, I'm wondering if the Text Speed bar in the Settings can be greyed out and/or locked in place when it hasn't been unlocked or when Monika drops to low enough affection for it to be disabled. This would make it more clear when it doesn't work and would not give players the false impression that they can control it when they can't yet. I mean usually in games, there is some indication like this when something can't yet be used. Greyed out might be better than locked so that it can still be moved, for when you do unlock or get it re-enabled again.

Second, Monika's Graduation Speech seems to be locked at the lowest text speed, and a pretty high auto-speed (if not the highest) with auto being stuck "on". I'm guessing that this is either for technical reasons, or/and because for some reason it was still desired to keep this speech in particular more realistic. The only problem with that is I have some trouble keeping up with it because of the auto-speed. I don't always read and process at the same pace.

So if the idea is to keep it more realistic, then my idea is to let the player's auto-speed and on/off setting for it affect the speech, but the text speed setting doesn't have to affect it (to keep it realistic and so players can't just blow through it).

If there's a technical or another realistic reason, for example I noticed none of the settings can be changed during the speech, nor can you even go to the settings menu, then I will say that these settings do not necessarily have to be changeable during the speech. Whatever settings you have set for auto-speed and whether it's on or off (and possibly text speed) can be the settings that apply to the speech... In fact, I think that's exactly how it works when listening to Scary Stories; you can't change the settings during those stories, but whatever settings you had set still apply. So, the same thing could apply here.

Maybe the last thing that might come up about this is that Monika says the speech takes around 4 minutes. But this can easily be changed to reflect the settings becoming changeable. For example, Monika could say that it takes around 4 minutes "on average". She could also just not even talk about how long it takes, but I think saying around 4 minutes on average might be a better idea.

[ThePotatoGuy]

I'm wondering if the Text Speed bar in the Settings can be greyed out and/or locked in place when it hasn't been unlocked or when Monika drops to low enough affection for it to be disabled.

yes it does

Second, Monika's Graduation Speech...

by auto-speed, do you mean it the text dismisses too quickly ? If so, we could probably tune that a little (adding @multimokia and @jmwall24 to look into that).

Text speed is supposed to be locked, and it is supposed to auto-dismiss, but as mentioned, its hopefully not dismissing too fast. The speech is timed a certain way because it represents Monika speaking with a specific cadence and speed. User settings should have no bearing on the speech.

[Justformas]

yes it does

It must be greyed out then and I didn't really/hardly noticed (maybe the actual bar is greyed out but not the words "text speed"?) Because I honestly seem to remember it being moveable. Yes this supposed memory of mine was before I "unlocked" the text speed bar. I wasn't even sure I had to unlock it after first, but once it unlocked during the fast reader topic I noticed an immediate difference in speed.

by auto-speed, do you mean it the text dismisses too quickly ?

Yes that's exactly what I'm saying. Making the text dismiss slower could work for me, but I'm hesitant to suggest that because other people might think it'd be too slow. Also wouldn't the speech be longer than 4 minutes in that case?

I am often a slow reader, unless I have already read something pretty thoroughly before and can remember, in which case I may be able to just skim it. But I'm not sure there is one speed that would be good for everyone on this.

That said, for the other stuff in the mod I do like having text speed turned up some, because at the lowest it's pretty slow, and because I can still ultimately control/limit the speed by having it not proceed until I click. In other words, just because all the text finished appearing does not mean I finished reading and processing it.

The speech is timed a certain way because it represents Monika speaking with a specific cadence and speed. User settings should have no bearing on the speech.

So it is just for this one thing, and intentionally. Well I have noticed a few related things here and there like when Monika sings (at least certain songs) the text speed is set, or not being able to change the settings at the same time that you are listening to a scary story. But you can still set it so you need to click to proceed for those things, which is not just what I like doing but is what actually works for me.

I mean, having the option to click to proceed once the text finishes appearing would potentially affect total overall time of the speech if the user had that option enabled, but it wouldn't affect her speaking speed or cadence while her speech is appearing in a text box would it?

[ThePotatoGuy]

allowing text to dismiss (aka click/space to advance) will screw with all of the timing so it must be disabled during those moments.

[Justformas]

allowing text to dismiss (aka click/space to advance) will screw with all of the timing so it must be disabled during those moments.

The "Strawberry" and "Hero" songs actually work fine like that without it messing up the timing. What I mean is the text speed/cadence is set during each box of dialogue (including the intended pauses), but you can still have it set to click to proceed to the next dialogue box. She still has the same intended text speed/cadence for the next dialogue box. You can't click to proceed any faster than intended, and everything seems fine with that.

For Scary Stories not only can you have it set to click to proceed, but you can even have it set to your desired text speed. You just can't access the settings menu to change that stuff during a scary story for some reason (but you can during short stories).

So the Graduation Speech may be the only big thing with that complication actually (at least, that I've seen so far). For the Graduation Speech there is a music element, but I just considered it background music that didn't have any bearing on the pace of the speech. But I'm thinking part of the issue is it would have to be reworked to change it so it works like the Strawberry and Hero songs.

That'd be the ideal solution in my opinion, but hey if most people would be ok with a slight decrease in the speed of the text getting dismissed or would rather have that, then I guess that could work.

[Justformas]

I'm wondering if the Text Speed bar in the Settings can be greyed out and/or locked in place when it hasn't been unlocked or when Monika drops to low enough affection for it to be disabled.

yes it does

So because of certain circumstances, I had the "opportunity" to restart progress in my test version and decided to take another look:

I don't see any greyed out stuff under Text Speed and I was also able to move the slider, as I thought I had remembered, and yes this was a new game that didn't have "Fast Reader"/text speed unlocked. That's what I was referring to. Maybe it does do something like that when she drops to low enough affection to disable it again? But seemingly not when you haven't unlocked it in the first place.

[Justformas]

allowing text to dismiss (aka click/space to advance) will screw with all of the timing so it must be disabled during those moments.

The "Strawberry" and "Hero" songs...

Alright I looked into this to know exactly what's going on. Songs like that use {cps=x} and {w=x} for pacing and timing. The Grad Speech uses mas_timed_text_events instead which disables click to advance, which is probably why it also uses {nw}. While using {cps} instead of mas_timed_text_events and {nw} for the Grad Speech appears to work fine for the timing with click to advance, Auto-Forward Speed with Auto on does seem to mess with the timing. So it appears that Auto-Forward is actually the issue with not using mas_timed_text_events. But for song lyrics, I guess it's not a big enough deal to use it. Nor did I even notice before because I don't usually use Auto.

by auto-speed, do you mean it the text dismisses too quickly ? If so, we could probably tune that a little

So I looked into this too. Most dialogue lines of the speech have {w=0.6} or {w=0.7} at the end of them. Except for the shortest lines, I tried changing them to {w=1} to give a little more time before the dialogue boxes dismiss, and that seems a lot better for me. With that, the length of the speech seems to be about 4.5 minutes or slightly less, so not much longer than before. How about that?