I love the game and barely see any bugs that annoy me or get in the way. I guess I am less picky, or looking for something different than a lot of people here? I see so many complaints about bugs, people dropping the game because they’re fed up, and it makes me feel like I’m playing a different game. For the record, I play with no HUD on London Commuter, GWR, Southeastern Express, and just started in the Semmeringbahn.
Hope you all don't mind if I resurrect this thread but I had some more thoughts Preston to Carlisle is boring: I LOVE the route for it's attention to detail and rolling stock, but if i'm being honest with myself I don't enjoy driving it that much. I usually find myself doing the Morecambe services.
My hot takes: 1. New York-Trenton is a good route, and defenitely the best American route in-game. 2. BCC is good even without the modded timetable. 3. Island Line isn't the best like people say. 4. Peninsula Corridor wasn't worth a buy before it went off-sale. 5. Having a yearly iteration of the game isn't bad if they keep up the free starter pack, but having to download 300GB every year sucks. 6. The 390 shouldn't have been included with the WCML, having it as a separate DLC is fine. 7. The Expert 101 full pricing is reasonable. 8. The Flixtrain Vectron Addon is worth it. 9. The Flying Scotsman is better than the horrible Spirit of Steam and mediocre Peak Forest routes, and it's the best steam addon.
WCML may have been the worst route of the three base routes at release, after all the patches it's the best of them.
Hot take: steam content would be in the top ten highest selling addons if they added a new loco and route + fixed the physics. (I dont even know why people doubt this would happen) EMUs are all the same and boring, they should make the next uk core route a that mostly uses loco hauled trains
As I touched on in the ATS route - Cardiff isn't as bad as people make it to be (though i'm not from the area and can't comment on accuracy, but it looks like Cardiff from my one visit about ten years ago). Just done 2P20 Coryton - Penarth in the 153 and quite enjoyed it - it's not perfect, far from it, there were some glaring issues I noticed (mainly passenger spawn points). The 153 was nice to drive (brake lever could be a bit more sensitive IMO). Not sure if it was coincidence but passenger flows seemed accurate to what I'd expect - lots of people getting on between Coryton and Queen Street (couple of seats but not many), by the time I left Grangetown it was nearly empty. I drive cross-city bus services (different city) and it's not uncommon in the peak hours to be busy entering the city centre, and leaving as me the only one on the bus.
Funny enough, I’ve got back into TSC the past week, and the difference between that a TSW is a million miles and I mean that in a positive way for TSW. There’s some very nice DLC courtesy of ATS (so looking forward to Manchester Airport commuter on that basis) but it just looks completely different, it’s showing its age, even when I have the enhancement packs installed from AP too. The only thing TSC has over TSW, is the ease to create your own services (scenarios) in the scenario editor. I find the prospect of the editor in TSW quite daunting. Jumping into service mode is great in TSW and by far the best thing about TSW, but more variety and the ability to quickly add your own services or add more AI to have adverse signals is lacking. This is why scenario planner is just a waste of time for me, until you can create proper services with a timetable.
Maybe it is just the hot weather affecting my brain but I feel convinced that recent updates (TSW5 on PS5) have produced noticeable improvements to performance in the several routes I have played recently. Frame rate drops and stuttering seem to have been reduced and the routes drive a lot smoother now. Whilst there still are the occasional stutters they seem a lot less in number and also less jarring in nature. As I said, I may be wrong and imagining all this but I honestly feel that there are improvements and the result is a greatly increased enjoyment factor, much deeper immersion and a novel sense of contentment that things are going in the right direction! Of course DTG could still snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory by choosing to force long time loyal customers like myself to PAY for TSW6 instead of offering the free starter pack (like TSW5) to people who have already bought the core product a number of times.
TSW is bad and TSC is better. (with how TSW is starting to cost with overall DLC, its starting to catch up with the spending you spend on TSC).
Mr Ludwig. I have been comparing loco for loco - TSW v TSC. Curious if you have noticed any loco performance between the two. PM me and we can compare notes.
due to the lack of time on my hand atm (cuz i am getting a flight soon). But, in terms of when i am playing in a rail scene that has a lot of train, its somewhat similar compared to TSW and TSC, cant recall the framerates however.
Here's My Hot Take. TSW5 has actually been the best release of the TSW franchise since TSW2020, and despite it's issues, it was really successful, and gained a lot of new and returning players.
Still better than TSW 4. That bundle (ECML, Antelope Valley, Vorarlberg) was probably the least impressive of all TSW's base bundles.
ECML is one of my guilty pleasures. Very zen bowling along in the Azuma particularly in twilight and I normally try and rotate it into my monthly Mastery repertoire. AVL with hindsight is better than SBO apart from very little challenge with the F125 on 4 coaches. Though I certainly agree with Vorarlberg, like the proverbial hot date with a beautiful woman who at the end of the evening bids you goodnight! They should have done the Arlberg Pass to hit the LAMPOIL factor.
Game has way too much modern era content and needs to balance out the time periods routes are set in, including a return of the steam era. Variety is only a good thing Also, DTG needs to do a lot better with their own UK content. Stop outsourcing UK routes to the worst third party and make them in house. The remasters should be the current standard, WCML South and Cardiff don’t come close to that. Meanwhile, JT went above and beyond with WCML Shap and the ATS Manchester route looks to be of high quality too.
6 is one hell of a hot take. I just think in general the choice of what locos they let you use vs the ones you need to obtain separately isn’t good
Hot take: if you think steam won’t do well “because of the younger generations don’t like it”, then you are the problem with lack of steam content. Like so many kids show up when a steam rail is announced and you somehow think this wouldn’t make steam DLCs sell? add more steam locomotives and see what happens, they would probably make 10x the money than what they are getting at the moment. down with the one handle EMUs! Down with the modern! give us old stuff! Remastered the old routes!
Alright, hot take then... The forum is not representative of the whole playerbase, only a slice of the more dedicated and invested playerbase, therefore what is popular or with us or irks us most, is not necessarily reflected community wide. As milder take, I am perfectly happy with shorter routes, I have too many hobbies and I like to do a full run in a play session. But I want to feel like I've done a meaningful run - going from a major station and ending my run and a random intermediary station is unsatisfying. A fairly self contained branchline with some interesting stock, is far more enjoyable to me than a main line route to nowhere. Smaller scope but 'complete' routes would be absolutely fine by me! Oh, and aside from anything else, a time table does not need several hundred services to be interesting, most runs are pretty identical to each other and the only difference is the clock in the corner.
Alright, one last one: The 'worth' of a route is what you and you alone decide to pay for it - complaining routes are too expensive while buying them at full price is shooting yourself in the foot. You and you alone decided that the product was worth spending that much on.
In no particular order 1. Bernina Linie is Rivet's only good DLC 2. The Expert 101 is a waste 3. Valid criticism for Mildmay Line is too often discarded because "one guy made it" 4. Conductor mode is boring 5. Gameplay packs like the MBTA pack for Boston should be free 6. TSW 6 should focus on core optimization rather than new gameplay modes 7. It is 100% DTG's fault Steam failed because their strategy wasn't good enough 8. Shorter routes are fine if the end points are logical 9. Unlicensed content is fine if obtaining a license isn't possible. 10. Safety Systems should have an option to be on by default
Mostly agree except for the first one because I Fife circle is a good route and well I also just love the bernina line
I agree with most except for 2. and 3. and 10. The Expert 101 DLC with the cab car was/is one of the best loco DLCs this game ever had. And TSG is still caring about it, releasing every now and then new expert timetables and repaints for free. And the new gameplay pack will open up new opportunities because gameplay-wise there are completely new elements in this DLC (written orders for example). And about Mildmay - i don't think it's valid and constructive criticism that is shouted down wiith "it's a one-man job". It's more about the lesser constructive posts or the one's where people should also think about their own expectation management before comparing him to a big studio. But Johannes himself has always been very open to constructive feedback. And about 10: At least in germany that wouldn't be realistic for example if you start a train in a depot. Or do shunting work. Just pressing ctrl+enter isn't a big hurdle tho. Either way - the only loco that has a realistic proccedure of how to turn on safety systems again is the 101 expert.
I say the Expert 101 is wasted because the original 101 from HRR still gets used more and something about paying to use the 101 on KWG doesn't quite sit well with me. I think it's great the detail they put into it but the one thing preventing me from buying it is the fact it doesn't layer in on more routes. Also from what I've heard raildriver doesn't work properly on it which given the price tag should be a priority. I have absolutely seen valid criticism about Mildmay be disregarded both on here and on Discord so that's not true. Ctrl + Enter doesn't exist on a controller so it would nice if there was an option for safety systems
