Original Draft vs Finished chapter

I don't draft or really outline tooooo much for my novels. It just doesn't work for me. But after editing, some things can be very different. Chapter 1 of NTN for example was so different after editing, that I don't even think my original version exists online anymore and it's just in my files... Generally I don't delete stuff or attempt to change my writing style, but I will clarify things and add, and fix things that have a problem with tenses.
I do keep files that are "not" versions of chapters where I've cut out entire scenes, sentences, or paragraphs - while in the initial creation period. This helps me that if I ever want a specific thing, I can go back and find it. I recall one point in NTN where the two MCs are bickering and their conversation escalates very quickly into a heated argument and one says he's being bullied and starts crying. I ended up slicing out at least two-thirds of that argument out and patched the beginning to the end so it wasn't so... volatile. The nature of that argument wasn't something those two characters would have at that point in their relationship.

On another note, I've been muddling around with another story for a few years now and I can't seem to pin down it's plot direction. I have the antagonist set up, and the world, and the problem, and the two MC's, and several scenes written, but the actual.... writing of the story that has them moving from point A to B just hasn't worked. It involved religious radicals and stuff being not okay and having to travel around the world and purify at springs and... well it was just too much like Skyward Sword honestly and I just went "nevermind" and I've been out of ideas for a while. I still want to write the story because the core of it isn't so much of a Zelda-ripoff, but I have to figure out a better method than springs and purification and such. I'm tempted to tackle it for NaNo this year but there's another story I want to rewrite as a whole since when I did it for NaNo, the later half of the story just went all "ANCIENT RUINSSS" suddenly lol NaNo does really trippy things to your mind around Nov19th.

I have the original text for my comics which is actually a role play game. This text is edited a lot. The main plot is the same but I add many scenes to introduce and explain the characters to my readers.

Then this text is split into chapters which are almost close to the final results. Sometimes I change the speech because something else might fit better into the speech bubbles. The meaning stays the same though

Then I draw very, very rough sketches to understand my future layout. And then I draw the pages themselves. Sometimes I have cut scenes, most of the time there are jokes, which I'd love to tell, but I remove them because they need additional pages and take too much time of the main plot. But I draw them later as bonus materials and post on my Patreon.

Sometimes I have to change the frames a bit, because I can change my mind about the perspective or something else. And once I've decided to turn two pages into one because they had too few information on them. But most of the time the result and the draft are very close in layout

Once I did an awful mistake. I had my original script, but took my reader's critique too hard and tried to change the further pages considering their critique. The difference was huge and now I see that I failed the scene completely. That's why since then I use my original script only and prefer to follow it

I've actually tried to draw chapters in three different ways: with very detailed script, with simple script (just dialogues and basic descriptions) and with no script at all. Simple script works the best for me, though it differs slightly from the final result. However, this result is always better than the original, because text and sketches allow to see most of my bad decisions and change them

My outlines are so rough that I sometimes describe one volume with just a paragraph or one sentence Then there are some, where I jot done notes on specific scenes I want to have in there but most of the actual outline just stays in my head and will be revised as I go along. Because of that, it's hard to say how close even the first draft and my original idea are, not to talk about any finished chapters.
It's a little more obvious with whole volumes though. The first ones still stayed rather close to the outline but the further I got with the series (thinking of my main series here where I'm currently at the beginning of volume 7), the more it went down another path. Volume 6 ended up being nothing like what I described in my written outline with entire plot points missing and new plot points being taken in. Then again, that might just be because I seldom revise the outline that I wrote down.

I am also revising the series right now (so I probably can't even call everything I do in volume 7 right now 'finished') and while I don't change anything big in regard to the plot, I'm filling in some time skips that I think could have been used better, add details, and just tidy everything up a bit so I feel that the difference is still very big. For the first volume alone, I think I added 40-50 chapters that way? And it's even more in volume 2 even though I haven't even finished revising that one yet.

Hmm my one shot so far has remained pretty true to its storyboard (since i had already gone through 2 or 3 written drafts before sketching it out ) buuuuut the big exception is the chunk that I'm working on right now, actually. When starting this project i was wanting to aim for a 50 page soft limit, and so when my story board started approaching 60 pages I began cutting corners and rushing the ending. Now that I'm at the end though, I feel it doesn't deserve to be rushed so I'm expanding what used to be like 2 or 3 pages into like 6 lol and as a result improvising most of these panels on the fly.

Other than that though, I do change up panel sizing and which ones go on which pages pretty frequently even if the content is mostly the same, and like 80% of my dialogue is written on the fly. Like my story board has full dialogue written into it, but a lot of it wasn't very good so rewording/taking away/adding new dialogue happens all the time xD

That very same reason you mention is why I DO NOT do storyboard. I don't want to spend hours and days working on a storyboard only to begin the comic and end up taking a whole different path. this happens almost all the time and its nerve wrecking for me and most times puts me in a depressed state because i think of all the times wasted i could have used to invest in actually starting the story. so yes dont feel bad.

when i see people talk about storyboard i cringe. maybe they actually finish it and go through with it. but as for me its not an option. I like to write out scenarios and scenes. I don't follow the original steps when writing. it takes too long. I like to dive into things because I believe the longer you wait the harder it becomes to actually "Start".
so writing it out like a story is much fun and as i draw i can imagine the rest and fill in the blanks. Again, this works for me i cant speak for anyone else.

well sort of.
this is how my mind works. I come up with an idea then I brainstorm on it. I think about the story, create scenarios in my head. I also work on an ending because if you don't have one, that could be the downfall of your comic. so with all that being put in place, I write out the first scene and it looks this;

SCENE ONE: James is in his living room watching television. his cat is right beside him. all of a sudden his phone rings and he picks up. its his friend Jaden on the other line who wants him to come out and party. then he gets up and gets dressed and heads out."

I will continue this way with all the scenes. however, when i draw the first scene, i draw it sometimes exactly how i wrote it and sometimes I may change a thing or two and this is the reason why i don't spend time on a storyboard. ideas and story can change at any time so I like to keep my options open.
this technique does not work for everyone but it works very well for me because i believe it saves me lots of time.

I am the artist and writer so i cant spend too much time on writing because drawing the comic alone on its own is a WHOLE lot of work.

Here's a visual representation:

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I had to edit my first chapter a lot but the main points are still the same as what I originally planned. Most chapters will be the same as originally planned, but some later chapters at the end I had to scrap almost all of it and I'm still working on redoing them.

Here's a photo of the original draft I wrote for anyone brave/bored enough to read my terrible handwriting.

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I wrote out 26 pages of outline by hand. I don't know why.

SOOOOO different

same as you OP, i find more efficient and effective ways of doing things on the redraft. for the last few chapters, ive also had the help of a tutor at college who usually hears my first draft, says 'why dont they do x y and z instead?' and then... thats an infinitely better idea and i do it

I normally start with an idea of the beginning, the conflict, and the ending. Then I do rough guidelines as to the events of each chapter (or arcs, depending on how long the series is).

I agree that it's typical to deviate from what I've initially written! Normally, when I reach the midpoint or the ending, I find that there's something I missed when I started plotting. And sometimes, the characters decide that my plan for them is not entirely accurate either. So yeah, my storyboarding is not a strict plan for me to follow but it gives the story structure and you can always go back to it in order to understand the main idea of your story.