After finishing the second leg of the All Change scenario this morning, I can't help but notice the quality of scenarios has continued to plummet for some time, and Linke Rheinstrecke is a prime example of this trend. The scenarios are being advertised as something special, notable... right? Unfortunately, the most notable thing about them is... the bugs. The History of Scenarios: Looking back at Sand Patch Grade, we got 7 scenarios that were voice-acted and most of them had an interesting premise. Train rescues, shunting, refueling, and towing locomotives for repair. GWE had a scenario where you could pick between 3 different services, HST rescue, wagon unloading (and looking at the Scenario list, another "All Change" scenario). Some more scenarios that I remember as being interesting are Heavy Metal and Storm Trail on RSN, Limited Power on CLR, and Lonely Road and ICE Breaker on SKW. When I look at the rest of the routes in the selection menu, I draw a big fat blank. "What were the scenarios on this route?" "..." Where are we now? At the current state, with new releases, I look forward to the timetable mode and see Scenarios more as a chore. The creativity has boiled down to a "timetable-like scenario, scenario with different train, heavy rain/snow scenario, diversion". A lot of the scenarios feel like a worse timetable service. Timings "Push it to the limit, walk along the razor's edge..." Most of the scenarios are designed for the Grip it and Rip it gameplay, where you can only manage to arrive on time if you go with 100% power and 100% braking. Forget about passenger comfort and safety systems, it's time to push it to the limit. Quality control If someone from the DTG team visits this thread, I have a question for them - how are the scenarios tested after their creation? Does the creator or the QA team complete the scenario or are they only tested with the automated tools? Case study - Linke Rheinstrecke This is the most recent DTG release, so it should be taken as the current representative of the DTG quality. There are six scenarios - I've only completed 4 of them, so Red Rhine and Castle Tour are not on this list. Jump Around - Drive this passenger service while sharing the line with an increased number of freight trains. I haven't noticed any issues with this one, but it's exactly the type of scenario that feels like a regular timetable service. I can only remember seeing more freight trains around sidings and stopping at a different platform at Bingen Hbf. Cold Steel - Pick up freight train from Bingen (Rhein) Hbf before travelling to Koblenz. This is the infamous scenario with missing catenary in THE FIRST MINUTE OF THE SCENARIO. How hasn't this been flagged immediately by quality control? Apart from this, it's a regular freight run with an extended stop in Bacharach to let an IC train pass and it's the only service so far I've seen ending in Koblenz Mosel yard rather than in the Hbf. Single Line Rider - Tunnel Renovations between St. Goar and Oberwesel has moved the line to single track running. I think the description is not grammatically correct, but that's not why I'm here. This scenario features the 103 on a stopping train, with IC coaches. This is irregular, but an interesting idea. I've been on a train that had to finish the last 15 kilometers as a stopping train because there was an accident with the previous train (suicide). The service was ok, with the timetable being tight but manageable. Apart from the last station. The scenario wants you to do 8,6 km between Rhens and Koblenz in 150 seconds. That's an average speed of 206 km/h. Not even the 103 can do this when the track limit is 140 km/h. All Change - Drive this BR 110 before swapping for a BR 103 for the return journey. This is the last scenario I've done and the straw that broke the Cael's back, so to speak. You start at Bingen Hbf (or Bingerbruck, the naming is not consistent), taking a stopping train to Koblenz. This is the king of scenario with VERY tight timing, where you absolutely need to be on top of your game to be on time. You arrive into Mainz Hbf at 10:30, where you unload the passengers and switch into the Karlsruher kopf. But uh-oh, the brakes are not releasing. The scenario then tasks you to boot everyone out of the train, SPRINT to the BR 103 on the opposite side of the station, load passengers in 30 seconds and drive it as a stopping train back to Bingen. Any passenger who didn't manage to change from one train to the other in ~100 seconds this took can be damned and wait for another train, I have an impossibly tight schedule to keep. At Ingelheim, an IC train stops next to you and graciously lets you go first, because a stopping train obviously has a higher priority than an intercity train (or is it Interregio? can't tell). At Bingen Stadt (or Bingen, the route has an identity crisis), I overshot the stopping marker by a whooping 122 metres as I stopped incorrectly at the end of the platform, not at the disused grassy bit that I was supposed to. Silly me. At Bingen Hbf/Bingerbruck, the stopping marker is also all the way back at the stop signal, but that at least seemed more plausible than stopping at the beginning of the platform with half of your train still outside of the platform. Conclusion I would like to ask others - what do you think of the Scenarios? Do you enjoy the majority of them or do you see them as a chore? What could be done to make scenarios more interesting and engaging? And for DTG - the scenarios are advertised as the best of the best, handcrafted situations that should be more interesting than timetable mode services. Are the scenarios above the best of the best you were going for? Thank you for your time reading this and I apologize for any grammatical mistakes, English is not my first language.
Thank you for this: I started my day with a good chuckle. I've said this many times, while complaining that the so-called "Scenario Editor" is nothing but a glorious limited timetable service creation tool. You can't even create a scenario where you change ends in an EMU/DMU, or a switching scenario for a freight loco. And the consist options are limited! As of right now, I only complete scenarios if there's an achievement to unlock, or when there's a positive review. You write with the kind of grammatical accuracy that is specific to people who speak English as a foreign language. Chapeau!
Quality levels are various. Some scenarios are really good, but in many cases I agree, they are just timetable drives and nothing special. I really do not need audio comments, but a scenario should either offer things you cannot do in a timetable drive or it should have a tutorial character to demonstrate undocumented features. If they are not doing that, save the expenses to create them. A comment on QA: the effect of QA and beta testers is far overrated. I firmly believe the dev teams must be fully responsible for testing what they deliver and demonstrate it is tested sufficiently. QA needs to do just a global check if at least testing was done properly and if the the overall gameplay is working. Relying on QA or beta testing to find all bugs and issues is a very bad practice and into my opinion one of the main causes of the quality issues DTG experiences. If you find bugs so late in the development process, fixing them is expensive, because yu ned to redo a large part of the development cycle.
Totally agree, the quality of scenarios have seemed to decline a bit, hence why I turn to Scenario Planner to make scenarios, I feel one of my upcoming scenarios (Coswig Divert on Dresden-Riesa) should've been an extra scenario for the base route by how testing has been going (more info in a week or so) but yeah, scenarios included in the routes have seemed to decline, but that's just my opinion
For me, the scenarios on the Niddertalbahn were fantastic and also a look into what is possible in this game scenario wise
Yes it frustrates me, 90% of scenarios now are just stuff that can be done in timetable mode. I thought the whole point was they were something different.
I think this is what's going on. Some routes have strong scenarios, others don't. I disagree that scenario quality has decreased overall. Take a look at Rapid Transit, one of the earliest routes, and find me one scenario that's not terrible. Also, looking too closely at SPG (or CSX:HH back then) won't do us any favours. As the first route, it was a special case that saw years of development time - that's just not realistic for every route.
I have always found scenarios to be the worst aspect of the playable content. I have usually completed most of a timetable before I even bother with them these days. They aren’t all bad but the quality is poor overall. Occasionally there is a gem in there but that’s not that often in my experience. I did a scenario last night via the quick play feature, which unfortunately always seems to choose a scenario rather than a timetable service, and it was a fairly good one. It was “three become two” in TVL. The only real issue with that is that the instructions inform you that there are manual junctions that need to be checked after you have already had to change some of them for previous moves. That instruction should have been before the very first move, which would make perfect sense, but it isn’t. That is a typical issue and missing instructions are present in nearly every scenario. And that’s in one of the better ones. The other issue in that scenario is that it is set in poor weather with heavy rain and limited visibility so you can’t see much around you and it really doesn’t need to be as the weather has no bearing on the scenario and is just there because they seem to love making it rain in scenarios. Speaking of poor weather, Sand Patch has a scenario where it talks of worsening weather, with all the voice acting to match, but the weather was taken out of the scenario when the adhesion physics were added in TSW2 and (I’m assuming) the original weather conditions made that scenario, and others, impossible. This is the only version of that scenario console players have ever seen. A poor weather scenario with no poor weather in it and a perplexed look on your face when the chap recaps what a challenge the simple run was in that nonexistent poor weather. That’s obviously a core change that spoilt a scenario rather than a poorly made scenario though. I’ve posted before about the scenario where you are supposed to be delayed by another train on Diesel Legends on GWE. The delays are then actually programmed into the stop times you are given so you find yourself sat waiting at stations with a green signal until the next instruction pops up and the train that you were told was going to be holding you up is two or three stations ahead of you after a couple of such waits. Utterly pointless and an absolutely terrible player experience. This is closer to my experience with scenarios in general and often feel annoyed by them rather than disappointed. London Commuter has a scenario that is brilliant with loads of AI traffic like the timetable and then another which has virtually no AI traffic and it feels like you are driving on a closed route. Inconsistency is very much what I see in the way scenarios are being made. It also seems to me that it has always been that way and not a recent decline.
Very interesting summery. And this is the kind of constructive criticism, that really can improve the game!
This route should be held up to the spotlight as the benchmark DTG need to aim for. It should be the other way around, with DTG leading the pack – on scenario creativity, and overall quality.
DTG's DLC quality is really all over the place right now. It's now stuck in a cycle: looking forward to the DLC -> finding various issues during the live stream -> forum post, JD/Alex says it's fed back to the team -> problems persist after release -> waiting 1 month to get the patch, only partially solved. I can't believe the QA team didn't spot these issues and flag them, but are there really some particularly obvious issues that can't be fixed before launch?
The simple answer is, the developers are not given the time to do it. And I can assure you QA sees the problems, it’s just nobody has the chance to fix them. And once a DLC is released, it’s just time to move on to the next it seems…
I don't play scenarios at all anymore as they seem a bit pointless, can feel rather unengaging and, most importantly, after completing them once, there's zero replayability without it being exactly the same objective with exactly the same time and weather. Therefore, I only focus on timetable mode (which 99% of the time I'd also never replay the same service which I've already completed) which at least feels has a purpose and is immersive. While I'd like to see the timetable be just the main focus for any new TSW route instead of wasting time with scenarios, however I respect that wouldn't be fair to those who actually enjoy scenarios.
Aren't most timetables the same services, over and over, only at different times? This might be a little extreme, but LIRR timetable has only 4 services: an all-stops NY Penn to Ronkonkoma, and a limited stops on the same route, plus the corresponding return services. It's like there are only two consists going back and forth. I've played one service each way, got bored and never returned to this route. By comparison, Harlem is way better, with more traffic and a (mostly) working ATC. I admit that some of the German routes have great timetables, as you encounter a lot of AI traffic on the route and the rolling stock is incredibly varied. But, at the end of the day, all timetable services are point A to point B through some traffic. Well made scenarios should be like movies, whereas timetable services are like soap operas.
Yes and no I'd argue. For any route which has a decent, very busy timetable, it always feels that every service is slightly different, especially if there are extra AI traffic such less-frequent freight or rail tours etc. For some of the more quieter routes, while I agree with you that many of these services may feel repetitive, at least there's variation thanks to the choice of different meteorological conditions, rain and snow is certainly a different experience to a nice sunny day. Moreover, for morning and evening timetable services, quite a few of these will also be completely different depending on which season, as some may become day, twilight or night depending on the season, so that's another experience of the same service.
To improve the variety on CJP, I opted for the BNSF SD70ACe, especially since mods make it look the way IT SHOULD. I went in to test the scenarios and it's an absolute bottom-of-the-barrel - extremely empty route, pretty much non-existent AI traffic, nonsensical moves through sidings, mistakes, and wrong duration estimates. This was never tested. In one scenario, you wait almost half an hour for the opposite train to clear track 3 instead of taking any of the remaining completely empty tracks. Later you take a train down to San Bernardino and make some shunting there, stabling the locos at the end. Someone making this correctly identified the number of locos, but not that one of them is a DPU... so you end up stabling two locos and one centerbeam, because, hey... the train had three locos, so the last formation should be 3 units long... right? If scenarios look like this going forward, just ditch them, they're useless. It's supposed to be unusual stuff and curated content. I don't expect you to test every service in the timetable (though you probably should), but EVERY SCENARIO SHOULD BE TESTED.
I stopped point one about five years ago. No point "looking forward" when you know that the first stream is going to show up the flaws, and be too close to release for anyone to fix anything They do spot them, but because the test cycle is also too close for many things to be ironed out (even simple things like changing track speeds a-la the 15mph sign when they'd spent five minutes talking about a 10mph junction on the last stream) Isn't this how public transport in general works? There's a timetable, if things go as planned they run smoothly and similarly every hour so unless things go wrong (or there's a deliberate addition which upsets things) you want the same service every time running properly? I know it can make for boring repetitiveness for a game, but that's what you want IRL
So I think DTG needs to adjust its current project schedule. The QA session is too close to the release to fix some obvious problems before it is released. I'm not sure that 1 or 2 day delay would have much impact, but from a software quality point of view, it's a good choice.
It is, indeed, and I wasn't criticizing this, but rather point out that someone playing timetable mode is still repeating the same thing, over and over. Yes, the traffic will be different, the light and weather may change, but essentially it is the same thing, point A to point B. Right now, I am grinding the timetable for Harlem, trying to get the achievement for level 20, and it's very boring: start at North White Plains, drive all stops service to Grand Central Terminal, earn 20k APs, lather, rinse, repeat. It is what it is, and I'm not saying it's wrong in any way. However, we were talking about scenarios, which should be anything but ordinary. Some scenarios are truly special, but many of them are quite ordinary, nothing but a timetable-like service.
"Push it to the limit, walk along the razor's edge..." What scenario is this from? Can someone at DTG confirm whether the naming of this is a nod towards Scarface/GTA III?
Yeah, it's a railway. That's what they do Oh agreed, and for me many of the scenarios are unlikely to be passenger services which is likely why they're fairly predictable in the UK routes (where freight is an acknowledged afterthought for DTG) They do seem to fall back on their usual trope of "make it interesting, add weather")
It's been this way for years so I don't think it's going to change no matter how they reorganise their middle and lower management
Nah, the song came to my mind as I was writing the post. Most of the scenarios require you to push it to the limit, so it was fitting. Same with the TES4: Oblivion joke in one of the screenshots, where the stop marker was in the overgrown part of the platform, with passengers waiting at the opposite end.
Oh I'm sure you do have to push it to the limit, but "push it to the limit, walk along the razors edge", that's literally the first lines of the song.
I just imagine the personnel shrugging and looking at each other. "The paper said THREE, so we're going to shunt three!" I'm glad I didn't get the loco, this is exactly the kind of mistake that drives me up the wall. That's 3 scenarios per route, right? Was it once again the usual "longer run, shorter run, bad weather" combo? Or was at least one of them somewhat interesting?
I saw a video of part one of the scenarios for that loco and it was driving on the wrong track all the way (until the video ended). It was part of that rush to market DLC package so probably authored by someone who doesn’t know about trains. It’s all well and good having scenarios made by trainees but only for internal evaluation and not for release to the players. That DLC has made me a little angry and I haven’t bought it even though it should have been a guaranteed purchase for my favourite route.
Surprise, surprise --> I'm going to complain about the near dearth of switching/shunting activities in both scenarios and timetable sessions. Surely I cannot be alone in maintaining this opinion?
I wish they would just scrap scenarios altogether and use the budget savings to improve timetable mode, better scenery, additional liveries, etc.
People who make timetables won't necessarily be graphic designers to make scenic assets or reskins...
Well on one hand: it's a railroad, so what can DTG do besides the usual stuff we've seen a 1000 times? I don't see a list of countless options for interesting and innovative scenarios. On the other hand this is exactly one of the reasons I do not like scenarios. They are very repetitive. And don't get me started on bad weather! To my understanding, the DTG team is british, so that might explain it. Hey DTG guys, try travelling abroad sometimes. You'll find out that there's no lousy weather 365 days a year in the rest of the world. The other problem with scenarios is that they usually come very early in the journey mode. I buy myself a new route, do the mandatory tutorials to learn to apply a small amount of brake force to achieve a smooth and comfortable stop (which I like even less than scenarios). And now instead of doing a bunch of regular timetables first to get to know the route, I'm thrown into a scenario, bossed around (do this, do that), finish it and that's it. What was I supposed to appreciate? Oh yeah, this was a diversion scenario with me using different tracks than I would normally do? Well duh, how was I supposed to appreciate that, when I barely ran any regular service to know that the usual tracks is in the first place? Next reason is the aforementioned "push it to the limit" stuff. Or rather "turn of safety systems and break all the rules." I prefer to play as realistically as I can, I sure don't wanna play Fortnite on rails. When DTG finally come up with something that might come close to interesting, of course they LOVE it up. There's a scenario with the NJT gallery car in the NY - Trenton route, that wants you to get some football fans to Secaucus junction in time, otherwise they miss their bus to the stadium. Keeping aside that in my country, buses usually wait a couple of minutes for the train to arrive, pretty neat idea. Someone even trips the emergency brake on the way. But! We're talking DTG here. So first of all, there is no way you can make it to Secaucus in time with safety systems on. (no idea if yesterday's patch fixed this) Seriously: I dare you! I wanna see it. The second problem is that it is (or was?) impossible to obtain gold medal. There is an 7 100 AP requirement for gold and I believe the obtainable maximum was around 6 500 AP? Not sure how much exactly. So being a perfectionist who wants his "completed to gold" accolade, I did the usual: drove back and forth between two lights for a substantial amount a time to accumulate the necessary AP using the 30 AP for driving under speed limit every 400 meters. In the end I arrived to Secaucus like 40 minutes late for the game to tell me "good jobs, the fans made it in time and caught their bus." And bam: I got 8 500 AP. Where did I get that many? I was expecting a bit under 7 500 AP. Made no sense to me. Btw somebody above me mentioned the Three becomes two scenario on Tees Valley route. Yes, that's a pretty good scenario, but also bugged so that it cannot be completed to gold unless you drive back and forth for like half an hour. Same thing in the I just cleaned here scenario with the Acela: first drive 5 mph around the loop for like 20 minutes (I had sooo much fun doing so.... not!), then drive a regular service to Providence and get a silver medal as gold is yet again unobtainable. In all fairness not to just bash DTG for their non-existent testing and very poor bugfixing, the scenario on Sherman hill in which a bunch of criminals are trying to stop your train by throwing obstacles at the rails - that was pretty cool.
These two statements are incongruous If you want to drive realistically then fine, but train drivers don't get gold stars and points, they keep their job and get paid If you want to earn gold medals then drive how the game wants you to to get that medal, that's how you play games Bugs aside you haven't really explained why scenarios are an issue, only that DTG use weather and passenger misbehaviour to try to make something fairly boring a bit more interesting
Well I don't see how that two statements contradict each other. How expecting to achieve a certain score limit is in direct contradiction with driving the train reastically. Could you please elaborate? The only non-realistic thing I see is driving the train back and forth between lights to achieve that in certain sceranarios, when the required AP limit is set incorectly. Is that my fault? Am I a DTG employee directly responsible for setting those AP limits right? No, I'm not. This bug makes me drive the trains in an unrealistic way and therefore (because I prefer to play as realistically as I can) this is one the reasons I do not like scenarios. Sorry for leading you to believe that scenarios are an issue. I didn't say that. I literally said: "I do not like scenarios" and then I think I wrote kind of a long post trying to explain why I personally don't like them.
Expecting... that's the issue here. If you approach the game in mind to get a certain score then you do what's needed to get that score. That may be different to driving how one would in real life, so it depends on your objective. Do you want to drive realistically or get the medal. Of course the best option would be that driving realistically gets the medal (or in my opinion do away with scores, medals and all that paraphernalia entirely) but that's not the case. No, points are unrealistic. Driving back and forth on a mainline would get you fired Your post was mainly about how the points system isn't set correctly (which it isn't of course) rather than about scenarios specifically. I believe many timetable runs which are shunting moves or short ECS moves also have the same problem because it's about scoring rather than scenarios
Please ... not. I consider myself a scenario lover but OP is correct, the creativity is a bit lacking recently (except TSG). On the oldest routes, the scenarios were some kind of journey-replacement (since there was no journey mode) where the scenarios show you the different aspects of the route you can do. If you did them after the loco tutorials it was a nice way of repeating what you've just learned (since in scenarios, every step* to prepare the loco is shown again) and bring it to use in a "real situation" now. Then scenarios became a little bit more creative and there was at least one (per route) that did something total unusual, like a tree lying on the track, fire on a train, door errors [...] all the dynamic we still dream of for timetable mode *except everything regarding security systems of course - oh and this is were most of the "unplayable" errors/bugs regarding scenarios are to be found IMHO (left out instructions, wrong instructions) Still today with those loco bundles I consider getting them just for the scenarios ... but I have to admit, I recently only got the RHTT because for the other loco packs there was a "scenarios suck"-warning by steam reviews and forum members
An extra problem, which to some might be a detail, but the scenarios when seriously trying to stick to max speed still take 40-60 minutes longer than the estimate given in the selection, so the timing was probably also made by AI.
I agree with cloudy here, I’m not sure where the scenarios lost their magic for me, but I don’t recall playing any after TSW2020 (apart from the odd rescue run, or taking a freight/express train down a commuter line. I get what Yardem is saying in that the timetable feels ‘samey’, but then in timetable I can remain there for as long as I want. Also the timetable feels more real. It’s not just that the scenarios have become less engaging, it’s how fake they feel, PIS screens are all showing trains going from 1 stop ahead of you to 1 stop behind you, instead of a real destination (or at least the end of the route). Often the scenarios lack a lot of traffic that the timetable has too. I do think scenarios need to avoid a standard run that can be found in the timetable, but with an added adverse signal. They should be more focused on doing things that you’d never see, such as weird consists & unique operations. At this point the scenarios are obviously a selling point so they’re here to stay, but in their current state I do think they’re a waste of dev time.
Some scenarios also serve as a further education tool. The introduction for a train usually shows how to start it and maybe a few things extra, like passenger operations for a passenger train, or switching/shunting for a freight loco. However, a simple scenario, which can be played immediately after that, can also walk the player through some more advanced operations, like reversing cabs, banking, etc. One that comes to mind is a scenario on CCL route, where you go out, do a loop, then switch ends and do another loop. It's a bit too long to be another training mission, but it does walk you through the motions required to switch cabs. At the end of the day, the scenarios might not be for the veteran driver, but more for the new player, learning the ropes.
While this is, I think very attractive, it is definitely limited by the way the game treats rolling stock. Many interesting scenarios could be made, but they're limited by the fact they need to use base route stock. You'd at least need the wagons to be shared, so you could make a mess behind the loco pulling it.
Just about ALL scenarios in TSW that require a cab change give you a ridiculously narrow window - indeed, impossible if you can't use keyboard teleporting - and that is, again, a dire consequence of AI timing, since AI trains execute commands instantly. You would think that scenarios, at least, would be handmade with actual human timeframes!
Again though we just run into the issues where scenarios are trying to be something they aren’t. Cab shutdowns and startups should be covered in training, there’s no need to have a full line run, switch & run back to cover that.
I get the feeling that weightless AI trains run up that mountain at line limit, whereas player trains are lucky to keep it above 20 in the steeper parts.
I´ve caught some AI tanker freight trains going 160km/h on the high speed sections on DRA. I don´t believe this is legal. But for sure they´re fast as hell.
It's not just a cab change, it's a train change. If you're on time, you have 7 minutes to shut down the 110, get inside your cab car, set it up, do a brake check, shut it down, get to the 103 on the other side of the Hauptbahnhof and set that one up as well.
It's not only DRA, I remember doing 140 km/h on SKA and getting overtaken by a container train. I don't want to hazard a guess how fast that thing was going.
