I’ve had this discussion before in another thread, however I feel the need to ask this question because sometimes I feel like I need to do them to feel the sense of progression, but there is days when all I want is to drive that specific route or train. Other point that I would like to bring to the table, is that the Journey Chapters are getting smaller in the newer routes, let’s see what TSW5 brings us! What’s your opinion in all of this?
I always do the journeys, but there is nothing to stop you going off and playing a different train if that's what you want to do, it's your game afterall.
I found that I liked journeys when I owned fewer routes. Because you play the same few routes over and over, so journeys were a nice way to play what’s basically a mixtape of services/scenarios/etc. It kept things interesting. Now I own so many routes I pretty much just pick a timetable service for whatever route I want to play. I used to run into bugs a lot with scenarios, and there’s often no way to know in-game if a scenario is bugged until you play it, so I stopped messing with them altogether. I wish there was a list of currently bugged/uncompletable scenarios
Journey mode for me is nice method to experience most that the route offers without needing to dig in the timetables to decide which service, time or weather should I choose. Though I'll have to complain about Rivet this time, they would usually shove all scenarios into the first chapter, which is not ideal for a fluctuating experience. For that shrinking journey issue, I think the TSW4 era journeys have take good balance between extreme grinding and nothing at all, and have moderate timings to finish. They also got rid of the journey chapter locks and that is great.
When I get a route, I start with the journey. I then get bored a third of the way in, and finish whatever scenarios I haven't done. I then go to the timetable.
I usually do them, but I can't always finish them because some are way too long. For me, a well done journey is like this: It has a chapter for each loco / train (could potentially have more than one if there is a good reason for it). Each chapter starts with the Tutorial for that train in the Training Center, then it usually has an "easy" scenario where you do all the steps again guided in the route. After that, you have mixed timetable services and scenarios that increases in difficulty as you advance in the chapter(s). It includes mostly only specially interesting timetable services (ie: when you will watch a nice sunset, or something interesting happens in the timetable, etc). If there are more than 10 timetable services for a train / loco in a journey you can suspect there are services that do not deserve to be there. For sure it does not include hundreds of services, a day of work in the line or that kind of things. If I want to do that I will do it using the timetable where I can choose weather, trains, etc ... When I see a journey with 30 - 40 services in a chapter, first thing I think is ... no flipping way! TL;DR: DTG, use the timetable to show us the different types of services (freight, passenger, local, long distance, etc), show us some interesting services you found while beta testing and guide us to do the difficult scenarios when we have played a reasonable time of easier content. For sure do not make the journey a never-ending task list.
I always tend to follow the Journey, though of course there are a few routes where some of the services are bugged and can't be completed. I also think there should be more recognition maybe even an achievement for completing it, as it stands you don't even get a pop up to say the Journey is finished.
I sometimes like to do services using Journey mode. Still, it is missing dynamic weather and the ability to choose any available rolling stock rather than being stuck with the default option.
I always do the Journey mode. I also feel the need for completion but I know I never will complete timetables so I at least try to complete the journey mode.
I find the travel section useful for studying the route, but I want to change it: 1. It is necessary to exclude training sessions from the travel, there is a training center for this (this really irritates me. And they sometimes look ridiculous - one training section with one or two services). 2. The travel section should not be filled with regular flights from the schedule (we can take these services there). It seems to me that the content should be scenarios (scenario companies) that will present us with the entire route and all the rolling stock presented. Such sessions should cover all parts of the route, at different times of the day, in different seasons, in different weather conditions, in extreme situations. They should show the most beautiful places and sights, show sunset, sunrise, a bit of night darkness and beautiful night lighting, fog, storm, rain, winter, summer, crowds of people, emergency situations, etc. We must find something here that is not there or that we need to independently determine for the session in the schedule.
When done properly, the Journey Mode can be very engrossing. In my book, the most enjoyable Journeys have chapters that are not very long, and each contains a mix of scenarios and timetable services that are connected. Either a train, or the weather conditions, or using a part of the route. Most notable, from the top of my head: - Clinchfield: each chapter is a sequence of jobs along a different spur of this amazing route, and there's also a chapter for main line driving; - SEHSx: this route has a great variety of trains, weather conditions, and types of runs (HS vs commuter vs freight). Of course, not all routes have an opportunity for such exquisite Journey. Many routes have just one train, and services are all back and forth, so there's very little variation. What's even worse: in many routes, the first Journey chapter contains all scenarios, and the other chapters are all back-and-forth services. That's not a journey! It's like selecting the route and then play all scenarios, and then work the timetable.
Completing Journey is for me "completing" the route. If I like I do more services in timetable. If it's only ok or less, I move on to the next one.
I'm sure some players will not buy another route until they "finish" the previous one. Probably not if it is a DLC that the player really wants, but if there is a sale and that player is considering buying one of those DLCs that are not his main area of interest, he might think ... still have a few unfinished journeys to do. Do not really need a new one right now.
Love journeys, spend 99% of my time in this mode. One route that was disappointing was Niddertalbahn which didn’t have enough journeys, but in some others there’s too many to finish.
I thought the journey in Niddertalbahn was long enough. They showed all the different kinds of activities and some interesting services.
Well well ... Journey. I used to do them in order to learn the route and sometimes the quirks of the stock. But I become pretty grumpy when something is "unfinishable" ... and usually it's due to bugs. Sometimes they get fixed after long time, usually the don't. And this bugs (sic!) me so much. The journeys sometimes become broken after updates, so happend with the Maintalbahn after the suspension update(s), the train now falls of right at the begin of a (journey-)service. Whole chapters not able to clear. Sometimes it's just one service like on BRO, you get spawned miles away from your train, on foot, besides tracks. Stuff like that. When I think about it, journeys reliably worked only after they got introduced and one iteration of the game later - let me lie, TSW2-3 was the great time time do journeys, today it's a source for frustration IMHO. Oh, and forgot to mention, it doesen't help to report that broken stuff, DEVs are busy expanding the foto mode.
Didn’t realise that about Maintalbahn. IMHO all Journey elements should be fully tested by the beta team when the route is first launched and again after any significant updates.
I like journey mode and often play it. Two gripes though; 1) I don’t like them being locked because inevitably some services are broken which blocks your progress 2) The selection of services/tutorials/scenarios is a bit messed up in that they will often have you drive a train then later down the road do the tutorial for it. I would like to see tutorials removed from Journey mode full stop, they’re a waste of time anyway.
Why not? When you’re charging what DTG are for routes and Journey mode is your Editor’s Choice, as it were, to showcase the route then blooming well make sure it works!
That's the whole point. They have to create "challenges" to make you "challenged." And 90% of the time, night in the rain is what they call a "challenge." Don't you feel "challenged?" ;-)
Hey, I agree with you. Regardless of the asking price, a company is judged by the quality of its product(s). I hate to hear the excuse "At least it's cheap", or "At least it's free". There really is no excuse for knowingly releasing a buggy product. But, as history taught us, DTG are not above charging AAA prices for subpar quality. The onus is on us, the customers, to teach them that it's not acceptable, by not buying their product. But that's not going to happen, plenty of people will buy whatever DTG sells, and then they will have no incentive to improve. But if we can't laugh at a meme that fits the discussion, what else can we do?
In seven years of TSW, I haven't played any Journey so far. I know that many are broken, and I just randomly pick a timetable service.
I really rarely play the journey mode. The only thing that makes it somewhat interesting are the closed chapters. It gives me a sense of purpose, targets and goals. I don't even touch journeys that are open from the start. It's not interesting for me when everything is unlocked straight away.
For PC players all chapters can be unlocked with this setting in the "Documents\My Games\TrainSimWorld4\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\engine.ini": [SystemSettings] ts2.dbg.JourneyChapterLockOverride=1
All in all, I like it, mostly I use it for 'discovering' a new route/loco. Even though, some journeys seem to be somewhat 'exaggerated'...for example, Berninabahn, I mean, well, 49 runs in the whole timetable, while the journey has 42 runs (ok, let's not count the scenarios, so still 37 runs in the journey..., seems to be a 'trademark' of this manufacturer, for example Arosa...40 runs in journey, 84 in the whole timetable...sometimes 'less can be more'...)
Don't forget that weather is assigned weirdly on those Rivet routes: If rain, 100% rain and nothing else; if snow, 100% snow and nothing else. They should really learn from Niddertalbahn.
I’ve had TSW since 2020 and only started on journey mode last week for a change. It makes a nice change I must say.
Ideally the journey mode would be used to highlight the beauty of the route in different weather and different times of day, if memory serves Blackpool Branches did this very well, with an amazing looking sunset over a snow laden countryside cropping up as one of the journey services. Alternatively if there is particular AI at certain times of day then a couple of services scattered through the journey would serve well to highlight them. All too often though it seems to be a tick box exercise for the devs, the first half the journey feels like you are seeing something new, then you'll end up with 10 identikit services run one after the other to pad it out, making you just as bored playing them as the dev clearly was creating them.
Fully agree! Sometimes it is really a journey but most of the time you realise no one could have curated the journey thinking this was the best way to show off the route.
I encountered a case of that recently with the place of the Glimpse into the Future scenario on Niddertalbahn. I don't normally play journey's, but I just got that route and decided to play the two tutorials for the heck of it in Journey mode and knock out that mini-chapter. Much to my shock the very next part of the Journey is the scenario in question. I find so odd since while I haven't played it yet I have heard of what the premise of the scenario was prior. And thing just from that alone it's probably a scenario you should really have toward the end, if not the very end of the bunch. I really don't think that scenario will carry that much weight without already having extensive knowledge of the line. The other odd thing about it is that it's considered a five out of five on difficulty, so it's really odd to go from "Hey you completed the tutorials! Now here's what devs consider the most difficult thing on the entire route".
I like to play journey mode simply because it feels like I'm slowly working towards something, and also because a lot of the time I want to drive a service but I'm not fussed about which specific one and I don't care about the time or weather. Right now it seems like the closest we have to a "career mode".
