Where's The New Suspension System In Train Sim World 4?

Yeah, if the Suspension wasn't 100% sure it was coming, it shouldn't have been sold as a feature of TSW4. Simple.

 

I don't understand - if you purchased "solely" TSW 4 for the suspension, but knew in advance that the feature isn't properly implemented, yet - why did you not wait with the purchase?

 

No sweetheart. I purchased it upon release as it was advertised as a on release feature

 

Please don't call me Sweetheart. Thanks
Also: "Suspension Improvements will be available for the the Class 323 on Train Sim World 4's launch, which is available to everyone via the Training Centre, with additional trains to recieve the improvements in a future update." (source)

That was clearly stated before release of TSW 4. It was also talked about in various streams.

 

Hi, thanks for responding. The roadmap sessions are all fair enough, I like a roadmap, but:

a) they're only monthly - it still leaves a lot of time inbetween
b) they're not as interactive as dialogue on a forum. There's little back and forth, though I absolutely accept people can ask questions in the chat
c) they don't seem to be addressing the detail that people are interested in

In my experience, in software development, few things go as expected, but what I have learned is that communications are key - even if the news isn't what some people want to hear. It shuts down the rumour mill, it allows you to explain the challenges, it show people that the work can be complex but it builds trust.

I'm not suggesting you don't know how to do community stuff, I'd like to see these forums full of positivity and assistance, so just offering opinion in case it helps shape future comms thoughts

 

If you got a broken 710 that's bad.
If you have no 710 there is no Goblin.

If you get an iPhone with a broken screen, that's bad.
If you get an iPhone with no screen, that's bad.

If you get TSW with a broken suspension system, that's *really* bad.
If you have TSW with a working suspension system (which we have), that's good.

 

The suspension feature as advertised has yet to come. Sure they may want to get it right, but then in that case, why advertise something that was never gonna be ready in the time frame that was set forth? That is unacceptable and customers are rightly pointing that out. I don't see why you feel the need to defend them and call posts strange

 

Honestly, i really appreciate the concept of "one source of truth", but the problem is you guys break that rule ALL THE TIME.

You already mentioned "a response to a player in a forum/discord..." as not being ideal, but that's the only way we found out Steam was cancelled, or that US Freight was on hiatus...and now we find out about a further delay about the suspension system...from a charity stream.

It gives the impression that you'd rather the bad news gets leaked out and hopefully is missed by most of the community while good news is rightly trumpeted.

I won't speak for anyone else, but i'd rather just have more transparency in the official comms from DTG.

 

That's why I miss Sam- on streams he would ask those questions, and keep pushing even when Matt or whomever didn't really want to answer.

 

Well, one of those opportunities is right here, on the forum. The questions are being asked; you are here; so here is the opportunity to answer.

 

Personally I am happy to wait for the roadmap stream and see what they say about the suspension improvements. Personally I am not particularly interested in the technical details as to why we haven't got them yet. I acknowledge some probably are.

Then again the suspension improvements whilst exciting aren't stopping me playing TSW.

 

I don't believe in unreasonable calls, especially when the alternative is a literally game-breaker.

Had the suspension system came out with the 'broken' state Matt referred to, it could be the end of all things TSW. The game would be horrendously broken and, if not fixed rapidly, could stay as such for a while. TSW3 would be back in fashion.

If the suspension system - the core of the driving experience - was bust, we may as well pack it all in and call it a day.

Dovetail over-promise and sometimes I think over-estimate themselves. I agree with that much and they do need to be more cagey at times.
(Then again, people still complain about the radio silence... DIYD, DIYD.)

But people complaining about the absence of the suspension system, when it would ruin the experience on a devastating level, is utterly pointless and unfair criticism.

Why do I call it out and criticise the criticism? Well, that's because I like driving trains in a game that at least works, and know that the past is the past.

 

Pardon me, but I don't think anyone complaining here asked for a broken system. DTG just should not have announced it when it wasn't ready, it is that simple. From a certain perspective this seems to be also true for the Editor and the formation designer. But both are at least existing in some way.

 

On another thread I said it would be March before we saw Suspension and Formation designer released and was told it would be sooner than March. I hate to say I told you so but...I told you so.

I was looking forward to both with this release and it's still frustrating that Formation designer isn't available despite it being a staple for other train simulators for decades.

 

This isn't a binary option though, there's lots of options when it comes to showing, or indeed not showing your game. This would be like saying because there were people complaining about steam not being in TSW, and also people that complain about the quality once it came out that you can't please them.

 

I didn't ask for a broken suspension system. I just believe that it made no sense for DTG to announce something that was never gonna be ready to release in the time frame set forth. Frankly it shouldn't have been an advertised feature until it was fully complete. The criticisms raised in this thread are not unfair just because you disagree with them. DTG said this would be out in a few months and it is nowhere to be found 6 months after release and customers are rightly pointing that out.

 

On one side, yes there are complaints about this feature still not present as promised when the game launched. Perfectly understandable someone would complain.

However, these complaints shouldn't be here. Not because no one should complain as you have the right to, but because this feature shouldn't have been announced as a core feature when it was nowhere near ready.

 

I think it is odd when posters resort to "we have a right to complain" when no one has said otherwise.

The point is, it is done, you can't turn the clock back, the suspension improvements were announced, they aren't ready, they are being worked on so it seems. If they had been released them, it seems it would have made the situation much worse, which would have caused a total meltdown on the forums.

It isn't as if they have kept quiet about it, they have said there will be some news on the next roadmap.

I don't understand what some want, do they want grovelling apologies, someone to shed blood in some bitter retribution!

What is done is done, you can't change what has happened. I think at worse DTG have just been too ambitious or excited for the new feature, nothing sinister as some want to think.

I would not have purchased TSW4 on the back of the suspension improvements especially as from what I recall it wasn't going to be universal anyway. If someone did then that is on them, especially when it wouldn't be the first time that features haven't turned out as intended.

 

You think DTG didn't realize the suspension update wouldn't be ready in a "few months" when they announced it? Come on, bruh, they've been developing games for years and know exactly how long it takes to make a specific feature work. They knew it wouldn't be ready in "a few months," yet they decided to make an announcement before it was even done.

 

Well if you have evidence of that then post it. I wouldn't speculate on that as I don't like casting aspersions based on any bias I may or may not have. I would only post "facts" if I had some kind of evidence to back it up. It is easy to make sweeping statements. What does bruh mean anyway?

 

If it was a one off thing, I would agree with you.
DTG however have a habit of promising feature improvements in the future, then talking about them less and less, and then finally cancelling them.

Manual Firing, Steam Physics, Updates to previous versions of the game (TSW2), US freight.

What we want is promised features 100% delivered, not hoping the noise dies down so they can be canceled.

 

Manual firing and steam physics I agree with but that is something different, that is for something released and not working properly. I agreed with TSW2 fixes, but that is for something released and not working properly. I don't know what you mean by US freight that isn't a feature and as far as I know they haven't said there will be no more unless I have missed something?

The suspension improvements haven't been released so have not broken the sim. They are not releasing them yet for that reason, something you would think would be a positive point as they have released things in the past which have not worked properly. Yet it seems they are being chastised for not releasing something which isn't ready. It shows up the fickleness of these forums.

Maybe they shouldn't have announced them as a feature, but things go wrong when you are making things. I work in heavy manufacturing and it happens there too not just in computer programmes!

 

Are you a DTG employee in disguise, by any chance? You're defending the game as if your life depended on it. If you are pleased with everything in the game, I recommend that you quit this topic and go find something else to do.

 

As for me, I paid full price for the game and bought it when it was released, and yes, the suspension system was the main reason I bought it, otherwise, I was considering skipping it or waiting until it was available at a heavily discounted price, but instead I purchased the game on release because I assumed that if the suspension was coming "in a few months," it would be by Christmas, which seemed reasonable, and here we are 5 months later without an update. If misleading promises and fraudulent marketing are DTG's new business model, I'm not going to buy the next game, which it appears will be released every year. Companies like DTG are the reason why some individuals pirate games. It is not because they cannot afford it, but because of the horrible treatment they receive once they give their money.

 

I apologize if my statements offend anyone (including the developers), but I prefer to be honest rather than defending something indefensible, as some individuals in this community, both in and out of this thread, do in the hopes of being employed by DTG or something.

 

Hate to break it to you, but no one here is defending DTG in the hopes of being employed by them.

That's just a silly thing to say.

 

I would brush up on my comprehension skills frankly if I were you! If you look at my posts you will see I can be very critical.

I think in this case the ire is wrongly directed. Many posters on here regularly moan when something is released broken, vehemently moan and then lay into DTG. When they don't release something because it is not working properly then many of the same people are moaning still. A stance which lacks credibility.

And I have no interest in being employed by DTG just to answer your other fanciful notion.

I just feel some balance is required. Just my opinion, feel free to disagree.

 

DTG should have just not announced Suspension as a feature of TSW4 until it was ready. All of this could have been avoided basically.

 

Isn't that one or the things Sam tried to teach them when he was brought in to help improve relations with the community? They seem to have reverted back to past behaviour now, in his absence. And so back to the same old same old, over the issue of the day.

 

What do you mean by moaning? People paid for products that turned out to be broken or not working correctly as intended, therefore it is very normal for them to express their dissatisfaction. If you don't want people to "moan" about not releasing something, don't market it until it's ready to be released, let alone as a fundamental feature in an upcoming game. If people "moan" because something published is faulty, perhaps invest more effort into the product and make it operate properly rather than rushing to put it up for pre-order on Steam.

 

This is what it all boils down to. I think the problem is that without the new suspension, formation designer, and the PC editor, there wasn't much to sell a completely new version of the game, and they knew this. They thought they could have the other features ready "soon enough", ran into delays, and now here we are.

Personally, i think Free Roam was a great addition, and they should have focused the dev time and marketing around that. If FR and Formation designer were feature complete out of the box with TSW4, I think there would have been a lot less grumbling, and the announcement of a new suspension system in Spring '24 would have been met with widespread approval.

I also think they made a mistake by tying the PC editor to the release of TSW4. It should have been a standalone release with its own marketing IMO as it's only really usable for 1/3 of the playerbase.

 

Here's my opinion, which counts for squat admittedly. But the Suspension system shouldn't have been announced at all. It might be it's still months away or it's imminent we don't know, but it shouldn't have been announced and then on a road map it can be announced there as "coming within this roadmap time" when it's ready to be shipped out.

 

I agree, though I imagine at the time they needed to announce more justification than volumetric fog for a new iteration (TSW4) as nice as a fog upgrade is, it’s not unsurprisingly a great single only feature for a whole new iteration, I can understand this reasoning but it’s bad in that the suspension stuff is still absent.

 

??

 

These are the rounded arguments we are supposed to be listening too apparently! It is okay to Pirate games because nasty DTG has been horrible!

 

Pirating games is illegal.

So, yeah. If you really want to, break the law.

 

I just want what was advertised and I paid for basically, which isn't an unrealistic ask.

Saddens me to be honest, I've said it before I genuinely love the genre and if done correctly would have no issue purchasing all DLC that ever came, bullied Pacifics, standard BRs, intercity the list is endless with features galore and supporting them indefinitely, but once bitten twice shy and all that

 

My son plays (and shouts at) Fortnite a lot. After a release, there were some bugs and I did a search to see whether it was related, and it turns out that they have a trello board categorising some of the issues that players report https://trello.com/b/Bs7hgkma/fortnite-community-issues, which I quite liked. It's obviously not their live work board (as they seem to reference JIRA tickets), but allows people to see that things are logged.

Might this kind of thing be an option DTG JD to fill the gaps between roadmaps, and keep a "single source" of truth?

 

Nobody said that it is OK to pirate games. I'm not sure why you came up with a ridiculous statement.

 

I don't think DTG would like to expose the fact that there are many issues, a lot quite severe, that have been around for multiple years!

 

Well, these forums are sure a great compass to follow! For how long have we been objecting that DTG haven't been following their old policiy of "If it isn't on the roadmap, it isn't being worked on." So then they do put something on the roadmap they're working on, and we have people saying they shouldn't have brought it up!

 

cast your minds back to a "Rush hour" route that still doesn't have rush hour passengers. DTG have form with this type of smoke and mirror tricks. BML

 

'Rush hour' refers more to the number of services.

 

Strange that they keep a forum up going back years if that were the case.

 

How many times have DTG not fulfilled what they have set out to do? It isn't difficult to understand why there are some that don't trust DTG

 

Wow, you must be new to the forums for that comment. theorganist a spokesperson for DTG? Really? He is probably one of the more respected critics of the simulation. He provides reasoned responses based on facts as he see them and doesn’t participate in the lemming like activities of bashing the sim and company just since it seems to be the thing to do. He has NEVER stated everything in the simulation is perfect so I recommend you do a bit of research before you make such statements. It is only because of people like theorganist and a few others mature posters that I still participate in these forums.

 

Passengers were advertised also as a main selling point of Rush Hour and yet they didn't put it on BML. I do get why they couldn't due to performance issues

 

Things get buried in the noise in a forum. A Trello board would keep outstanding bugs at the front.