Judging By Achievements, Tsw Not Very New-player Friendly?

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by Purno, Jul 12, 2022.

  1. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1282590/achievements

    upload_2022-7-12_9-17-30.png

    So, 9% never did a training module. I guess people might never have booted up the game, or just skipped the tutorial.

    However, apparently 20% never drove a mile. So there's at least 11% of people who has completed a tutorial, but never got further than driving a mile...

    38% never reached level 5, which TBH, doesn't really require a lot of driving.

    40% never earned a gold medal, which should be relativey easy in the tutorials.

    42% never completed any scenario. (And no matter how bad you do it, even if you gain no score or medal, 'completing' a scenario only means you get to finish all objectives)

    I may be jumping to incorrect conclusions here, but it does give me the impression that many people that give TSW2 a try, quit very very early. Do they get stuck? Is the game too difficult? Or do the discover it just isn't the right game for them? Did they expect another type of game?

    What do you think?
     
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  2. vyncwr

    vyncwr Member

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    To be honest as someone who playes train simulator games since MSTS, never bothered with scoring and achievement systems like this.
    It's a simulator, if it scores like how you drive, using PZB and real things like that, now i still couldn't bother with it. Someone who would like to use it as a simulator, should keep in mind and learn how to drive a train (as far as the simulator allows it of course).
    It's my totally own opinion, but achievements and scoring like this is absolutely unnecessary in a simulator. It's for arcade games...

    BTW, there's plenty of useful information about pzb and others online, DTG could develop in game tutorials, but as train fan I never missed it, and never had a problem learning new things. That's something makes a real simulator fun.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2022
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  3. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    That's not the point. These top few achievements are so easy, you'd get them pretty quickly even when not trying to.

    Not getting these achievements is almost harder than getting them. So why does a substantial part of the people who own TSW2 not have earned these achievements?
     
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  4. byeo

    byeo Well-Known Member

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    Not the answer you'll want but I don't really care, everyone plays games how they see fit and that's the most important bit. Maybe a lot of people get the game, realize it's not for them and uninstall/refund it..?

    I play TSW quite a lot but there are plenty of achievements which I don't have due to not caring about them, if they pop up, great, if not, I won't lose any sleep.
     
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  5. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Not sure if the steam statistics account only for the people who boot the game up, or account for all steam accounts which have a TSW license. I'm sure there are accounts out there which buy loads of games, but then only play ones which really pique their interest when it comes to choosing which games to play.

    also, Steam achievements may not be the best value of comparrison:
    Look at two "very popular" games on steam Street Fighter and Grand Theft auto and the "just start the game up" stats are similar to TSW, but the "take the first steps" are actually LOWER than TSW, which to me would say that TSW is either slightly easier or more interactive (or at least less of a put off) than some other really popular titles.

    Pics below taken at 08:50 12/07/22

    upload_2022-7-12_8-51-22.png

    upload_2022-7-12_8-51-47.png
     
  6. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    This is not about caring about achievements. These top few achievements are pretty much gained automatically by just playing the game. No matter how you play the game, wether you care about achievements or not, driving 1 mile with any train is something that pretty much everyone will be 'achieving', no matter how you approach this game or wether you care about the achievement or not.

    This isn't about people not having the achievements for driving 1 mile, it's about people not having driven 1 mile in any train. Why didn't they do that?

    It's possible that they expected a different type of game, but still, realizing that before having driven even a mile? It's a possibility. Another theory would be the game is too difficult for a large portion of the (potential) audience.
     
  7. Lamplight

    Lamplight Well-Known Member

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    Exactly what I was going to say. Looking at any trophy collection on Playstation, the trophy for completing the first mission (or something equivalent) is often only achieved by 50% or less.
     
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  8. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Perhaps they turned off Steam achievements?
     
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  9. Callum B.

    Callum B. Well-Known Member

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    This is not atypical for player progression in games. As ARuscoe demonstrated, that is just how player retention generally works: it falls off a cliff after the first impressions of gameplay. Given that prior knowledge, I am actually impressed by how high TSW's player retention is (if the achievements are anything to follow).

    Cheers
     
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  10. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    This is an interesting one...
    Red dead redemption 2, back in the mud is for completing the first "proper" mission, Just a scratch is for completing the 2nd, so by this ranking (again taken this morning) more completed the second than the first, even though to get to the second you have to complete the first...

    Maybe something's broken in the records...
    upload_2022-7-12_9-1-24.png
     
  11. byeo

    byeo Well-Known Member

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    Exactly what I said..

    "Maybe a lot of people get the game, realize it's not for them and uninstall/refund it..?"
     
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  12. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Also, recollecting a conversation with Sam (either on a stream or at one of their gameplay test sessions) TSW, and sims in general have a few types of players:
    • Those that load it up, click a few buttons and never load it again
    • Those that play it for a short while, decide it's not as fun as they expected and never load it again
    • Those that play for hundreds of hours because they find it fun / relaxing / engaging etc
    There's very few in between those apparently
     
  13. paul.pavlinovich

    paul.pavlinovich Well-Known Member

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    I expect its probably a simple maths/programming error on the part of Steam that does not account for hidden achievements. If you hide your achievements on Steam you're still turning up in the total count of players but your achievements are not turning up in the counts of achievements.

    Paul
     
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  14. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    I know that on XBox, every time there is a free weekend for a game, or it's included in Games with Gold, the percentages on the achievements skew a fair bit. Loads of people download a game because it's free/has a demo, and never play it. And they are all counted in the total when it comes to the percentage of players who have each achievement. with sims of all stripes it's often a much lower number because people try it and decide it's not for them. Elite Dangerous over on XBox is a good example, as the average player has 4% of the total available achievements( heavily influenced by the sheer number of "players" who have zero).
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2022
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  15. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    I am firmly in the ranks of those who couldn't give a hoot about scores, medals and achievements. I don't look for " collectables ", empty virtual garbage cans and I don't spend time searching for donkeys or other irrelevancies. I couldn't tell you where I am on the scorecard or what " level " I'm at off the top of my head. And I'm not " virtue signalling ". I just don't care. I drive trains.

    If you want to treat TSW2 as an arcade game, go right ahead.

    Clearly, lots of people lose interest in the game very quickly, nothing unusual about that. I've done the same thing with a number of games I've downloaded, free or paid for.

    In any case, aren't these statistics just from Steam? That means PC only. What about Epic and the console platforms?
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2022
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  16. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    I tend to stick to getting the posters and maps populated when I see them, saves having blanks on the walls, other than that a gold medal is nice, but don't care much either way unless I get an abject fail (usually because I'm running around collecting posters)
     
  17. rennekton#1349

    rennekton#1349 Well-Known Member

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    Some achievements do not track. It's happened to me many times. I would do a scenario that is in the achievements list and it does not track. And then replaying it doesn't do anything.
     
  18. My kid never did any training. He hardly ever finishes a scenario or service mode run. Sometimes he will spend a day wandering around looking for glitches or trying to crash trains.

    He's 9 years old and I'd imagine he's not the only 9 year old that plays tsw this way.
     
  19. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    So he would get the 1 mile walked achievement then...? Takes dedication
     
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  20. He's probably got that achievement and probably walked a lot more miles.
     
  21. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Was quite surprised to see I've driven nearly 4500 miles!

    But then it's a spurious achievement, going to get it much faster doing HST's from Paddington to Reading or ICE's in Germany than trundling along TVL or WSR.
     
  22. DTG Protagonist

    DTG Protagonist Has left the building Staff Member

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    Anecdote:
    After the release of Half Life 2, Valve opted to move to an episodic approach to continue the story as they found a significant number of people didn't complete the previous game. Their thinking was based on the assumption that players only had the patience for shorter games. After releasing the first episode to continue the story they discovered near identical completion rates.

    For whatever reason the majority of gamers on Steam invest very little time in the games they buy (and that's before considering the "pile of shame" phenomenon - titles that have been bought and then never touched.)
     
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  23. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Perhaps achievements would be more worthwhile if you got something tangible as a reward? With the tablet games such as Rival Kingdoms you normally get a small amount of in game currency, diamonds/rings whatever. Maybe a 50p or £1 Steam voucher for the principal ones would serve here?
     
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  24. redrev1917

    redrev1917 Well-Known Member

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    Wouldn't even need to be monetised, just special liveries awarded for competing milestone achievements akin to the ACS64 DTG livery
     
  25. hyperlord

    hyperlord Well-Known Member

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    AFAIK Ubisoft is doing that in their "Uplay" universe. You unlock achievments, accumulate "gold points" and with 100 points you can generate yourself a -20% voucher for the shop, and I think it stacks or at least did that in the past :)
    Haven't been there for a long time to be honest so obviously it's not enough to motivate everyone
     
  26. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, during the big "trend" for "Episodic" games of the 2010s, the reason it died off completely outside of a few hardcore studios committed to it in markets where it wasn't a complete failure such as Japan, was down to the fact that the sales data showed a massive dropoff in sales from episode to episode, to the point where in many cases the studios were making a loss on the latter half of their releases, resulting in a bunch of closures, selloffs, and even in the case of Hitman studio Io Interactive and their at the time owner Square Enix, a management buyout taking the company private.

    When you make your narrative focused game episodic, you often shoot yourself in the foot, because lots of gamers have too much real life going on, and just don't get around to playing the stuff they buy, and that business model gives them a reason to postpone buying the rest of the game indefinitely.

    Imagine if TV was something you paid for by the episode, now imagine how much money HBO would have stood to lose on the later seasons of Game of Thrones.
     
  27. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    On XBox this is exactly what happens with Microsoft Rewards. Every day you can claim 50 reward points just for getting an achievement, every week there are weekly goals like accumulating a certain number of achievements, every month there is a bonus of 2000 points (a little under £2 in store credit) for doing various things, one of which is usually achievement related. And there's the monthly top ten goal for 500 points for getting an achievement in one of the top ten games in whichever category they picked this month. I find I tend to have about £10 in store credit a month out of it. A good chunk of which is just from achievements.
     
  28. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Do you need to pay a subscription to get those rewards? I've seen similar things in a fair few games, but normally they're restricted to people who pay a monthly fee or sub...
     
  29. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    Nope. MS rewards works for everyone.
    You can even double down by having a second XBox account that you gradually build up reward points on, and then use the store credit to buy your main account games as gifts.

    Steam's main alternative to this kind of thing I guess is the trading cards, which you can sell for more store credit to buy more games. I have definitely never made a comparable amount off it though, to what I get on XBox.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2022
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  30. gazz292

    gazz292 Well-Known Member

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    the only 'prize' i'd want is one that turns the awards thing off so i can get on with pretending to drive a train.
     
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  31. davidh0501

    davidh0501 Well-Known Member

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    Love how every aspect of the game comes under extreme scrutiny.

    I'm another in the don't care camp. It's part of the packaging that goes straight in the bin.
     
  32. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I personally don't give a hoot about medals or scenarios. The scenarios in tsw are quite boring and feel like they can be replicated in the timetable mode. I wish there was an option to turn off the points and medals system. There is no incentive to earn a gold medal or points in this game making them useless in my opinion
     
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