Contradictory results?
Summarize this comment "Hey, I've got a few tips for merging that might help you with your 4.0 rendition of Stroganoff. Some researched, some I've found on my own.
Set 'normalize=false' so you have more control with the weights. By default, mergekit has 'normalize=true' and it makes it measure the weights of relative to each other to one. So with what you have it set to now, the weights are computed closer to '0.9, 0.3, 0.9' then '0.3, 0.1, 0.3'.
DARE TIES is great, but I've found that TIES anything loses a lot of the characteristics of the added models into the base model. It has its uses and technically produces a better model. However, it's likely why Spellbound Instruct is breaking your merge since it's retaining a lot of the instructs story heavy capabilities. Try setting one of the other models as base with DARE Linear, then place Spellbound at the bottom of the stack. Should produce a more vibrant model.
If you want to retain as much of a model as possible into a merge, passthrough/frankenmerging is the best route, though it takes the longest to find the right recipe. Manually taking a slice out of one model and putting it into another sometimes works better than most merge methods. Just keep in mind layer theory where the first layers primarily control formatting and instruct following, the mids are where most of the detailed information sits, and the ends have the most influence on the style of the output.
I'm by no means an expert, but hopefully some of that helps and I'm open to any questions if you have any."
Output:
The commenter provides tips for merging recipes in Stroganoff. They suggest setting 'normalize=false' to get more control over the weights and to avoid the default 'normalize=true' which makes the weights closer to '0.9, 0.3, 0.9'. They recommend using DARE TIES as a base model but setting Spellbound Instruct as the bottom layer to avoid losing story heavy capabilities. They also recommend manually taking a slice out of one model and putting it into another, as this works better than most merge methods. They mention that layer theory is important, with formatting and instructions on the first layers, detailed information on the mids, and style influences on the ends.