Feature Live Map 2.0 - Feedback

while hovering over AI locos, the info box is flickering quite a lot
xbox series x

 

Love the new map.. love knowing which direction the signals face, which services are passing and the names of the places I’ll always forget!

Some feedback from just a few hours this evening - some services have the destination listed, but some have just a head code. I assume all services should be consistent and display their ‘Euston to [XYZ]’ tag?

I also noted that services that had arrived and were stationary at MK had the status as, ‘Stopped at point of location’, or something to that effect. Presumably that should say ‘Stopped at Milton Keynes’?

 

On PS5: While the cursor is fixed over your train and travelling with it, if you pass a signal, the cursor will lock to the signal instead.

 

I like the new map features but that purple textured background seems to really clash with it for me, makes it quite hard to look at.

 

I agree about the clashing of colours - the map is a bit overwhelming at present.

Another issue I've noticed is performance-related. When zoomed into the map close enough to show the track names, FPS dropped, and stayed low even when I exited the map. I had to go back into the map and zoom it out again to get performance back. I was playing the San Bernadino line at the time.

 

Possibly the best place to put this given the comments about the colour on the map - I feel the menu colour scheme was about right in TSW4. The cool neutral colours provided support to the onscreen content but stayed out of the way themselves. The purple used throughout TSW5 menus feels too much of a statement and distracts from the content.
Too late to change now, but for TSW6, can we just go back to what worked? No need to change for the sake of change.

 

I think the text from what I’ve seen looks poor. Probably quite difficult to read by those with impaired vision too.

 

I love that the new map is a global change, and also the old routes use it.
On PC I would maybe prefer the station/siding font to be smaller, so the labeling wouldn't require as big zoom-in to get visible. Possibly make it a setting.

Very nice improvement, but please, try to continuously improve the functionality, as I feel that with few tweaks it could be much better.

 

Yes, I prefer the simpler TSW4 colour scheme.

 

Same issue on series S on the WCML. I think because the new map is more detailed, zooming into it eats up performance. I had to zoom out as well to get a smoother ride.

 

PS5 platform. I switched to the map while the train was running. The back to game button didn't work. It's happened to me twice so far.

 

Leaving the map zoomed has insane performance inpact, even when map is no longer showed. These shots were taken seconds apart, the only difference is that in one I left the map zoomend in, and on the other I did zoom out
Zoomed in:

Zoomed out:


Thats 60 vs 25fps...

 

loving this new map

 

Agree that the purple background takes away from overall map legibility. I also feel that the trains do not stand out as well against the tracks as they used to, and even then, I didn't necessarily consider TSW4 to have the trains stand out that greatly either, but this is decidedly worse. I would also suggest that the track names should be off by default; this is not information I am usually looking for, and it creates a lot of clutter. Sure they can be turned off but when I open the map again, there they are. In general I like the idea behind the new map but find the legibility rather poor.

 

• The toggle labels button on the route map could use a little more info. You kinda think it doesn’t work until you zoom in really far because it only affects the siding/platform labels on the tracks themselves.
• Bug: Route map -> click on station fast travel label -> back out of the fast travel prompt with CIRCLE button -> You can now walk around in-game and can see your character’s “feet” icon move around on the map, but are still stuck in the track map and only pressing the touchpad will save you by hiding the map again.
• On the new route map, the train driven by the player has a buggy label without any info when you hover over it. This is especially annoying because you see this label every time you open the map as it locks onto the player (and their train) by default. Either make the label useful by showing the same information as those on AI trains, or hide it entirely.
• Bug: Zooming in the route map (so the orange labels on the rails are visible) and then closing/hiding it will keep the entire gameplay very laggy with low FPS until the map is opened again and zoomed out.

 

Find it quite hard to hover the cursor over a moving train to see what it is with the joypad. They keep escaping!

 

My only comment on the new map is that AI trains are hard to see in contrast with the track

 

I enjoy the new map quite a lot and it makes it much easier when debugging during live gameplay. You can simply see which train is standing/driving where. The contrast seems fine for me.

Platform: PC Steam

 

I love the new map, but please at least give the option for a plain black background. The current purple background makes it quite difficult to read for me. The map for me though is the best new core feature for some time. Just please make it so I can read if it more easily.

 

Using the map just caused a CTD for me on the approach to Fulda. Opened it a couple of times to check an AI train wasn't stuck, on the second occasion tried to zoom out and crash with UE message (sent in).

 

I keep getting stuck in the map for no reason happened 3 times ps4

 

Thats explaining a lot now... Its a puzzle thats coming complete now.... I have a good pc and this is explaining why i have different experience on different runs.... So you advise to zoom out when you done to read the map or do not zoom at all?

 

Zoom-out works for me... it's insane that something like this gets past QA.... Because performance should be one of the focus points when testing such new feature...

 

Zoom out once you have used your map! Otherwise performance will be very poor.

 

Thanks for your help

 

You’re welcome

 

Live Map 2.0 consistently freezes up for me while using it on Xbox One on New York - Trenton when adding a free roam train to a live timetable setup rendering it unusable.

It is not just isolated to this route either. It constantly freezes up to the point I can not move around anywhere on the map nor select anything.

 

Sometimes signals upcoming don't show. Tried this on ecml and could only see ones I had passed. Additionally the toggle feature doesn't seem to be toggling!

 

sometimes I press 9 when crossing a station to see its name... would be cool tho if station name popped up quickly in the air as you are passing a station, like in some train relaxation videos

 

when I open the map it often bugs and I can do nothing except for showing the legend. The game doesn't stop and if the train i'm in is moving the map follows the train even if the pointer remains in the same point you opened the map. Platform: ps5. I have only the free starter pack and compatible contents from previous games.

 

The trains are harder to see on the map now. That means it is not an improvement in that regard.

It would be nice if we could zoom in further to help with the almost impossible task of getting the centre cursor onto a junction to change it. It’s just so fiddly with a controller.

In the top left of the map it says “Route maps” when there is clearly only one map. It shouldn’t be plural. Maybe I’m being a bit odd here but I would also question the need for any text telling me the route map is a route map as it is fairly obvious to me that it is a route map. It’s therefore just a large bit of superfluous text that covers up part of the map.

 

The purple background is not the happiest in this case...it hurt my eyes

 

I basically have the same feedback as above.

• Background design is quite poor.
• Performance related issue needs solving.
• Trains being the same colour as the track is poor.

I think it’s been over engineered personally, it’s a great asset, but it shouldn’t have replaced the ingame map, maybe it should have been put into the performance menu.

The ingame should have been something more simple, with the station names, track numbers & train service codes.

 

More than 500 PC players are already using my (simple) mod to get rid of the strange distracting purple pattern map background. Thanks!

I'll experiment what else I can change there, the dark blue player train sprite is suboptimal imo. Maybe I'll make a TSC style replacement mod too, using the Kuju\RailSimulatorCore\System\Map\map.xml and sprites as a prototype, and using a black background with a dark gray grid.

What I am basically missing is a unique and unmistakable consequent design. TSW1 had that, the UI was well crafted and all fit together well. Seems the intial budget was big, they even hired that male model for their promo screenshots and used professional voice artists for the tutorials.

The pause menu with the big purple "Windows 8" squares looks like it's a different game than when I'm in the image-based main menu.

The whole UI looks as if it was made by different teams toying around, having (too much) creative freedom, not knowing what the other one is doing. (I'm a bit harsh on this, in my company we had very strict corporate design guidelines, with defined RGB palettes and where to use which colour, font face and style etc.)

In TSW there's times we see the the CSX:HH original font, then the TSW3/4 font mixed with the new font, where "a" could be hard to distinguish from an "o" for some, I do take such things into consideration - I would have used an open Roman a here instead of a closed Modern one.

I'm repeating my comments on what is wrong with the big 5 in the logo, that is wrongly weighed, has non-matching / non-aligning radii and therefore gives the impression to have a tendency to fall over to the left, or short: it's unstable.

https://www.trainsimcommunity.com/mods/c3-train-sim-world/c19-patches/i5224-tsw5-map-backgrounds-mod

 

I'm also using the mod, even though I'm very reluctant to use mods that require so stringent placement, because I can already imagine the imaginary thread the mods functionality hangs on

While the map functionality is nice, the UI aspect of it is just all over the place.. Weird color scheme, font size too big, outlines too thick... I can imagine that some of it is so that color-blind or other visually impaired peole can use it, but if it's the case, it should be an accessibility option, not default look. But then, why is train symbol contrast so freaking bad?

Honestly, UX in TSW is just all over the place. The functionality might be there, but is presented to the user in such way that it makes it not a great experience.

 

But the mod does not affect the player from the console ....

 

Expanding further on the colour choices for trains in the map: While it was already difficult in the previous map to see an AI train in a tunnel, in the new map they're now exactly the same colour. Try to locate a train in a mile long tunnel - it's almost impossible. Almost as bad is the decision to make the player's train almost the same colour as the set route.

 

On Steam, being anywhere in the pause menu and pressing M will open the map with bits of the pause menu still stuck over it. On any map.

 

Niddertalbahn is missing live map 2.0 features, both signalsand fast travel.
But that is already known?

 

I like the new map. However, I’ve just played a service that involved a lot of switching and the new map has made this much harder. As seen on PS5.

Firstly, to be able to see junctions the track labels need to be hidden but this operation does not persist. You have to hide them every single time you look at the map. The labels need to stay hidden as it gets very tedious hiding them every time.

Secondly, in order to get more than 15 fps, you need to zoom out on the map every time before you exit it. This leads to a lot of zooming in and out that was never required in the old map as you could stay zoomed in with no impact on frame rate.

Thirdly, the centre dot does not snap to the junctions as well as it used to and therefore full zoom is required and is still very fiddly with a controller. The old map was much better.

So, for a simple switching of a junction on the map, the process is quite involved and is as follows…

Enter map
Zoom in
Hide map labels (necessary in a lot of cases to be able to see the junctions)
Have several attempts to land on the junction
Switch junction
Zoom out (to allow a good frame rate)
Exit map

This whole process needs to be repeated every time you need to switch a junction or sometimes to just check a junction is correct. For the service I just played this was not a pleasant experience.

 

I completely agree. I find it so grating that I've just enabled automatic junction setting now.

 

I might do that myself. I seem to have ended up having automatic coupling turned on in the settings so I may as well go the whole hog and let it do the junctions as well.

 

Just remember that automatic junction switching can also cause problems. Have known it to send me the wrong way.

 

I have an issue on Xbox that has been around since TSW4 at least. If you try to set the path of the train you are driving and the path cannot be set a pop up appears stating it is unreachable. When you press cancel on the pop up, you cannot select the train again to try to set the path. It does not allow you to. You have to close map and reopen.

 

I think it's great overall- something I've been begging for since TSW2020. I would however throw out a suggestion which I suppose goes to LOD- once you zoom out past a certain point, the track and siding labels go away; that's fine. But all the labels go away- It would be nice, I think, to have an intermediate LOD which tags the names of stations so you can tell at a glance where you are.

 

When spawning in locos/trains and then setting a route, if you then go back to the map to add a waypoint, the map freezes the game.
You can't exit the map or quit to menu but the toggle legend and labels buttons still work. Only option is to bring up the PS5 dashboard and close the game.
This has happened to me 3 times now on WSR.

 

It also happened to me on Salzburg - Rosenheim and Frankfurt - Fulda ... I have not tried elsewhere, so it is possible that it is possible everywhere

 

I don't know if this is a map related issue or not, but when the game asks you if you want to give up a service, the map automatically opens after clicking on "No". I don't remember it doing this on previous releases. Quite annoying.

 

To add to that, I’ve found that on the WCML and Blackpool, I found if you turn the controller off, go back to the game with a keyboard and turn the controller back on, upon clicking the mousepad it lets you out.

Also:
You can’t set a route in free roam then go back to the map after completing and set another because it won’t set which ruins shunting in free roam for me and for me it does the freezing thing at random

Personally prefer the old one sadly as it was more functional for free roam
All issues found on PS5 over WCML and Blackpool Branches using the free roam tools in service mode spawn on foot