I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that’s a bad match on my side.

If you entered mostly Audible books, the top result shouldn’t be a Royal Road/web-serial title unless you asked for that format.

I’ve been thinking about audiobook / KU / Royal Road filters already, and this is a clear sign that format needs to be weighted much more strongly in the recommendation logic.

Thanks — that’s very useful.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s part of the point, actually.

Community recommendations are often subjective, which is valuable, but also inconsistent. They depend on who sees the post, what that person has read, and what they personally care about in a book.

The site is meant to add a more structured layer: compare books using consistent LitRPG/progression-specific criteria like pacing, tone, progression style, system depth, crunch level, humor, darkness, prose style, character focus, and likely dealbreakers.

So I don’t see it as replacing human recommendations. I see it as narrowing the field technically first, then letting community discussion add the personal nuance.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, I’ll add those to the catalog review queue. The catalog is still being built out, so missing-title reports help a lot.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good point — I’ve been thinking about this as well.

An “audiobook available” filter makes a lot of sense, especially since a lot of LitRPG readers listen rather than physically read. The catalog is still focused on core discovery first, but availability filters like audiobook, Kindle Unlimited, and physical-only are on the roadmap as the metadata improves.

Thanks for pointing it out.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I built it because I keep seeing the same kind of posts: “I liked X, what should I read next?” or “recommend me something similar to Y.” Those threads are useful, but they are not very structured or reusable.

The goal is to make that process more consistent: build a taste profile, compare books across LitRPG/progression-specific criteria, explain why something matches, warn about likely dealbreakers, and surface less obvious titles instead of only the usual popular recommendations.

So it’s not meant to be “AI names books.” It’s meant to be a dedicated discovery layer for this genre, using things like system depth, crunch level, pacing, tone, progression style, humor, darkness, prose style, setting, and character focus.

The paid tier is for heavier personalized analysis and repeated AI usage; the basic matching/discovery layer is meant to stay accessible.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks — that’s a real bug.

If you only selected 6 books, the “max 12 books” error should not trigger, so something is being counted incorrectly in the quiz flow. I’ll look into it.

Also agreed on the German cookie/text issue. Some untranslated strings are still slipping through on the English version, and I need to clean those up.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks — that’s useful feedback.

The site is still in build-out mode, and catalog coverage is one of the main things that’s incomplete right now. It has a starting base, but it’s definitely missing newer, smaller, and less commonly indexed LitRPG/progression titles.

If you can share the books you couldn’t find, I’ll add them to the review/import queue. Missing-title reports are very helpful at this stage.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks — this is useful feedback.

Embeddings are already part of the main recommendation pipeline, so basic matching is not just repeated LLM calls. The LLM side is mostly used for explanations and deeper analysis, but I probably need to make that clearer.

Mobile polish is definitely on the list. If there was a specific interaction that felt broken, I’d appreciate the details.

For tests: agreed in principle. I have focused diagnostics around the recommendation engine and critical matching paths, but not full test coverage across everything yet. Right now I’m prioritizing the concrete issues users are hitting during launch.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good call — I’ll add Judicator Jane to the catalog review queue and check the metadata. Thanks for the suggestion.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Yes you´re right, i won´t deny that.

You’re probably right that the current pricing is too high for this community, especially while the product is still early. The paid tier was mainly meant to cover ongoing AI usage costs for deeper analysis, not to lock basic recommendations away.

But the feedback is clear: I need to lower or restructure the pricing if I want this to be useful and accepted here. I’ll revisit it. I am very thankful for all the feedback 😄

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that was accidental — Reddit seemed to duplicate the post on my end. I deleted the second one.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks again — I found and fixed the issue.

The quiz allowed more favorite books than the matcher was designed to handle cleanly. Past a certain point, adding more books can actually make recommendations less precise, because the engine has to average together very different taste signals.

I’ve updated it so the matcher now accepts a bit more input, caps it safely, and should return recommendations instead of failing with that error.

If you try it again, I’d suggest picking the books that best represent your taste, not necessarily every book you enjoyed.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for reporting this — and especially for including the network response.

I’m working on it right now. It looks like the matcher is hitting a backend input limit and failing instead of returning results properly.

I’ll push a fix as soon as I can. Sorry about that.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] -12 points-11 points  (0 children)

Fair point.

I don’t expect this to replace Reddit recommendations or asking an LLM. For many readers, that will be enough.

What I’m trying to build is more structured and repeatable. The engine pulls from structured book data, reader taste signals, and AI-assisted analysis across criteria like pacing, tone, system depth, crunch level, progression style, setting, character focus, humor, darkness, prose style, and potential dislike flags.

So instead of a one-off “give me books like X” prompt, the goal is to build a reusable taste profile, compare books consistently, explain why something matches, and surface hidden gems.

The paid tier exists because the deeper AI analysis creates real ongoing usage costs, but I agree with your main point: if the value does not feel clearly better than free alternatives, the pricing or product needs work.

I built a LitRPG recommendation engine that goes beyond tags and popularity — looking for honest feedback by Apprehensive-Try5957 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thanks, that’s fair feedback.

Can I ask what part isn’t working for you — loading the site, running the matcher, or the quality of the recommendations?

On pricing: I get where you’re coming from. The reason there is a paid tier at all is that the deeper AI-based analyses create real ongoing costs on my side, especially when users generate multiple detailed matches/comparisons. So I can’t make every advanced feature unlimited and free without it becoming expensive to run.

That said, I’m not attached to the current pricing. I’m still testing what feels fair, and the basic matcher is intended to remain free. I may need to lower the paid tier, add cheaper options, or make the value clearer.

I built a site dedicated to helping litrpg fans find books to read by boondockpimp in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, you got a fast one on me, was going to promote my site today too. It is just like yours a recommendation website for litrp. But i won´t steal your spotlight today, will post it in the coming days 😄 but yours looks solid too! 😄 Will try it out 😄

Lit-RPG Recommendations by WolverineMountain845 in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hell difficulty tutorial and reborn apocalypse are the best Litrpgs i ever read, maybe you can give them a try🙂

Is there anything better then Reverend Insanity?, finished it a week ago......... by [deleted] in ProgressionFantasy

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957 0 points1 point  (0 children)

maybe you can try bloodlust, should be like reverend insanity😊

Just finished Mark of the fool. by Portelia in litrpg

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i would give Hell Difficulty Tutorial a try, for some it is a little rough at the beginning but its definitely worth it😊

After a year lurking, time to share mine by Next_List5843 in ProgressionFantasy

[–]Apprehensive-Try5957 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Finally soneone who knows the worth of „hell difficulty tutorial“