PC Developers, This Is The Feedback You Need !

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by Underbird, Aug 14, 2019.

  1. Underbird

    Underbird New Member

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    Fellow train and train sim enthusiasts,

    Any developer interested in selling the best product possible depends on customer feedback; here is mine.

    1. graphics:
    + better than any competitor
    - blur around rolling wheels has to be fixed
    - lack of distant rural scenery destroys the character of some routes
    2. sound:
    + apt
    - fade could be improved
    3. performance:
    + clear improvement over Rail Simulator / Railworks 1 - 3 / Train Simulator 2013 - 2019 on modern systems (e. g. no tile loading stutter)
    - users appear to have more performance issues with this game than other UE4 games. A game that is not properly optimised is worth very little, further optimisation has to be done
    4. physics:
    + anything "within" the rolling stock (e. g. throttle and brake application, inertia) appears to be well modelled
    - traction and slip, a core aspect of any train simulator, does not seem to be modelled realistically. Slip almost never occurs, sand is never necessary and weather conditions have no recognisable influence.
    - cab sway and head physics allow us to "feel" the accelerations, a core feature whose omission sets TSW back behind TS.
    5. content:
    I. routes:
    + good choice of three countries
    + interesting choice of real routes
    - horrible choice of route segments: nearly no route has any purpose, they either end in the middle of nowhere (CSX HH) or at minor stops (GWE).
    II. trains:
    + interesting locomotives
    - uninteresting packaging (e. g. only Bombardier Traxx locomotives in MSB)
    6. gameplay:
    + great scenarios
    + time table mode is exactly what a train simulation should be
    - unrealistic lack of trains in timetable mode
    - lack of random variations, not every train in timetable mode should always be on time
    7. various
    I. pricing:
    + bundle prices are good, sale prices are great
    - 30€ for a short (!) route is too much
    II. the game itself:
    - bugs take too long to fix (e. g. CSX HH physics)
    - bugs are purposely not fixed at all (e. g. PZB on RT)
    - there is no common ground between the routes; bugs and features exist in one route but not in the other
    III. DTG:
    - lying to customers! latest example: "you’ll have the option to upgrade to get any of these you don’t already own for a discounted price." Dmitry now stated that there will be no sale on individual routes.
    IV. editor:
    - no visible progress for months

    To conclude, TSW has all the opportunities to be the very train simulator we always wanted. However, certain main issues have to adressed:
    1. introduction of the editor
    2. realisitc, logical route sections
    3. cab sway & head physics
    4. improved traction simulation
    5. random variations in timetable mode
    6. further optimisation & bug fixing

    Furthermore, DTG, treat your customers like they ought to be treated:
    - give us (weekly) progress reports
    - do not promise what you can't deliver
    - do not break your promises
    - do not lie to us
    - do not stall us
    - do not milk us
    - do not ignore us
    We pay your bills.

    As of now, despite the great opportunities TSW has, I have to refrain from buying TSW2020 until improvements of these core issues are made and the editor is released.

    Sincerly,
    a live-long train enthusiast
     
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  2. hightower

    hightower Guest

    A fair summary of the current state of affairs with TSW.

    I’m not sure I agree on demanding weekly updates of them (no one does that), and I don’t think it’s fair to say they lie to their customers. That said, I do think there is a disconnect between the developers and the marketing department however, as the latter have a tendency to over promise, leaving us feeling like the developers have under delivered. I suspect the reality is that the developers have never made the sorts of promises the marketing department are selling.

    TSW2020 is a prime example. If you believed the hype, and many did, you’d be expecting significant changes to the game with expansion of content and game modes. The reality is a bit of fiddling with the UI and a re-packing of existing content. Whilst I welcome the improvements, I still think they’re in areas that I’d class as ‘niceties’. They’re not fixes for some of the major bugs (lighting, audio etc) that many of us are crying out for.

    The acid test for me will be Peninsula Corridor. Will that show a step change improvement? By all accounts the last DLC was awful so I’m hoping this will show an incremental improvement on TVL. If so that’s good and I for one, will be happy.
     
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  3. Underbird

    Underbird New Member

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    Thank you, hightower!
    I got the idea of weekly updates from Eagle Dynamics, the developers of DCS. While those developers and their game have their fair share of issues as well, their weekly newsletter at the very least keeps the community posted.
    You are correct in assessing a disconnect between the developers and the markeeting department. I did not think of it myself but it explains the behaviour of "DTG" as a whole - thank you.
    Given the announcement, I am disappointed with TSW2020 as well. Although, being used to Train Simulator's yearly updates, I expected just that - despite of their announcements.
    Finally, even if Peninsula Corridor is the route we always wanted (thank God I didn't purchase their last route, it seems!), there still is 300€ worth of content waiting to brought to the same level, something I unfortunately do not see happening, given the current structure of game and its development.
     
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  4. LastTrainToClarksville

    LastTrainToClarksville Well-Known Member

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    TVL is an excellent route: try reading the positive comments as well as the negative some time and take off those doom and gloom glasses.
     
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  5. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    Nice list and good on you instead of just choosing to list the positive or negative things. It gives a fair argument and provides constructive criticism to the developers.

    Two things I highly agree with here:

    - Headbob/cab sway; This will really change the way trains feel when we drive them. It’ll give us a sense of speed and also when changing tracks, we can feel the train sway left and right. Currently there is no sense of movement in the cab when driving so it feels very sterile.

    - Service mode/timetable; I’ve yet to see a route which fully makes use of the available rolling stock which DTG can use. Currently it feels like they re-create less than half the amount of services running in real life.I feel like they don’t make use of all the available stock that they have, and instead intentionally make large gaps between the services. More trains mean a busier route, which makes it look and feel more realistic, as well as making driving more interesting too.
     
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  6. Underbird

    Underbird New Member

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    Thank you for your support, londonmidland!
     
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  7. Anthony Pecoraro

    Anthony Pecoraro Well-Known Member

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    They actually did fix some of the audio occlusions in TSW 2020.
     
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  8. hightower

    hightower Guest

    I agree. It is excellent. When did I say TVL wasn’t? The last DLC was the American shunter, which is what I was referring to. I still hope to see that Peninsula Corridor is an incremental improvement on TVL all the same.

    Maybe it’s time to stop jumping down people’s throats when you’ve not even read (or understood) their posts properly.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 15, 2019
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  9. hightower

    hightower Guest

    The proof will be in the pudding Anthony. We’ll see when it’s released.
     
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  10. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Not sure Reading counts as "a minor stop" on the GWML, and except Bristol TM don't know where would be more major on that route...

    As for the "lying", I believe what DTG have been trying to get at is that you CAN buy their new bundle which has a release price drop of 10% and this will get you the routes that come with that bundle at a reduced price. I haven't seen them say that they're going to reduce the DLC cost generally (although they do have regular sales on all the platforms, most frequently on steam due to the limitations of MS and PS stores)
    So if they stick with say £35 for the bundle and you get a few routes that's good value right there even if you owned the core game in the first place but not all the routes that come with.
     
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  11. hightower

    hightower Guest

    Agreed. If you don’t already own them, £35 for that bundle it’s an absolute bargain!
     
  12. InspectorTiger

    InspectorTiger Well-Known Member

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    I think this is a very fair and accurate assessment. It's also probably true of every games company ever (heck, every software company).

    It's Marketing's job to put the most exciting possible spin on whatever the team have produced. Everything they said about TSW2020 is true, strictly speaking, but if you read it incautiously and optimistically, you might come away with ideas which are a little inflated compared to the reality. Caveat lector.

    This is also technically true, but I think understating it a little. DTG have done a lot of player testing, and used the results of that research to make incremental improvements to the UI and player experience throughout the entire game, especially onboarding new players. For example:
    • Changes to the menu system to reduce the number of clicks and get you playing the game quicker
    • Renaming things to make it clearer what they are (people thought "Service mode" was something to do with train repairs, so it was renamed "Timetable")
    • Improved and expanded game and route introductions and tutorials (people didn't realise you can get up from the driver's seat and walk around)
    • Much more detailed task log including stop times at your upcoming stations
    • The Journey system solves the problem of "what do I do next?" It guides new players through a curated set of tutorials, scenarios, and services, organised in a logical order, so that they can always just click 'Continue Journey' and go to the next thing. This is a big improvement on just picking random services from a big list.
    Plus, of course, stacks of bug fixes. I assume we'll see a similar evolution in TSW2021, and so on every year. That's not to say big new features won't come, but at the moment they're clearly concentrating on making TSW easier to start playing, easier to understand, more fun to play, and generally a more polished experience, before they start building further on top of that stable base.
     
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  13. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    And let's not forget that "TSW" was the first version of this front end, so with version 2 (2020) the advancements might make it much easier to get into the game from a standing start, even if there is much to learn from there.

    Hopefully as DLC get better produced going forward, and certain fixes retro-added to existing DLC, the whole process will get better and easier
     
  14. Underbird

    Underbird New Member

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    The issue of routes ending at minor stops - or no stops at all - is universal. GWML may not have been a good example, I chose I it merely for I own it. A better example would be the Hagen - Siegen route, which has been halfed (and now only runs to Finnentrop) compared to a game release twelve (!) years ago.

    The bundle price is good, I agree.
    However, there is a discrepancy between what was promised and what is currently offered: the subsection of the news article refers to owners of TSW and states that any of the routes included in the TSW2020 bundle but not already owned are sold at a discounted price. In reality, however, there is no offer for owners of TSW: To get the routes bundled in TSW2020 "at a discunt" old customers have to buy the TSW2020 bundle - of which they already own 40% of the content!
    Furthermore, there are many other examples of DTG breaking their promises which. given the quantity, has to be understood as deliberate lying.
     
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  15. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    I believe the logic of DTG's route choices has been mentioned quite a few times... Just Reading made me chuckle.

    I haven't seen them promise that "everyone who has the game can get discounts on the routes they don't own", but then that sounds like "a sale" which they do have regularly
     
  16. hightower

    hightower Guest

    I do agree with what you say. That said, even if TSW2020 makes it “easier to start playing, easier to understand, more fun to play, and generally a more polished experience” I’d argue that the base game isn’t stable. I can’t help but feel that all TSW2020 will do is annoy a whole new bunch of players, who will end up complaining about the same bugs we’ve been highlighting for 18 months to 2 years. For example, I don’t see anything in the release notes to suggest that the signal boxes & night lighting on NTP have been fixed. The signalling and sound on GWE will still be broken, the wagons in CSX still weigh nothing, the service mode in LIRR will still be dead, the speed limits are still messed up on NEC meaning you can’t complete scenarios with the safety systems on, you still can’t save a game...and on and on and on. What point a new front end if the crux of the actual game is still broken?

    Whilst the improvements to the UI are welcome, there was nothing overly wrong with what was already in place. Remember, it’s already been tweaked at least once since initial release. I feel that they’d have been better off addressing some of the big headline bugs than spending time on changing something that wasn’t overly broken to start with.

    All just my opinion of course, and if I’m in the minority then so be it. Any update is welcome, but I’d like to know when the bigger problems are going to be tackled.
     
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  17. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    This translates to fixing and re-releasing DLC rather than the core game
    MattP has already said on devstreams that the early routes are overly complex and therefore take up a lot more resources than newer ones, but to me that would mean "doing them again" rather than fixing what's there as it may not be fixable in that fashion
     
  18. hightower

    hightower Guest

    They managed it with Rapid Transit did they not? That was way more broken than any of the others.
     
  19. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Thought that was only signalling...?
     
  20. hyperlord

    hyperlord Well-Known Member

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    I drove the entire route multiple times with PZB and SiFa active and everything was "right". But I have to add that I didn't know it was broken since I joined TSW in May 2019

    Edit: Video inserted (there are more RT videos on this playlist if you're feeling like it

     
  21. hightower

    hightower Guest

    Don’t know about you but for me, in a train simulator, signalling is a pretty big deal.

    The party line was always that the whole route would need to be rebuilt and it was too big a job. When the successful release of a loco DLC depended on it suddenly it became possible.
     
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  22. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    You've been on this forum long enough to know that for someone, somewhere EVERYTHING is a big deal, but I also know pedantry when I see it LOL
    Yes, signalling is a big deal, but so is view distance, scenery, safety features, braking physics etc etc
    But they're not part of the core program, they're individual to each DLC so would need to be retroactively applied every time something is done. Unfortunate, but seemingly real
     
  23. Underbird

    Underbird New Member

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    Regular sales have, being regular, no relation to the release of TSW2020 and can, therefore, not logically be linked to this announcement. They did promise that, it literally says it in the announcement: " you’ll have the option to upgrade to get any of these you don’t already own for a discounted price". This does not mean that owners of TSW can, like everybody else, buy TSW2020 - of course they can.
    And even if they did not, being forced to buy the bundle to get any discount (barring the regular sales) means existing customers get 40% less content for the same price.
     
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  24. hightower

    hightower Guest

    I’m honestly not being pedantic. You said “it was only signalling”. Signalling isn’t a ‘big deal’, it’s fundamental to the game.

    I simply don’t believe that fixing the signal boxes and night lighting on NTP is a massive job. Simple fix, easy win, but not done.

    And there’s my point in a nutshell. I’d rather be able to play that route and not be slightly annoyed every time I pass a signal box, than I would be getting through the menu with one less click.
     
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  25. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Yep, if you already own the route then buying the bundle means you get less value than someone starting from scratch.
    Please provide a link rather than quoting out of context
     
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  26. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Except that they're in different software components, but then I see DLC as completely separate from the game front end. they can update the front end all they like as far as I'm concerned and at the same time work on the content as a separate issue.
    The main problem seem to be that people see everything as related to everything (hence why things like the editor get mentioned no matter what the original topic)
     
  27. hightower

    hightower Guest

    We’re going round in circles here and it appears we’ll have to agree to disagree.

    For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not lumping the two together. They’ve spent time working on the front end (not broken) when they could have spent time fixing major problems in the actual game / individual DLC / whatever you want to call it.

    I can’t make it clearer than that!
     
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  28. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    I agree with you!
     
  29. hightower

    hightower Guest

    ps For anyone interested the update is out early.
     
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  30. WiSchmo

    WiSchmo Active Member

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    https://live.dovetailgames.com/live/train-sim-world/articles/article/introducing-tsw-2020

    4th paragraph, titled "Already own Train Sim World?", last sentence.

    For me it's the word any that implies that also single routes would be discounted for TSW owners. The bundle is the same price as TSW2020, but doesn't contain GWE, so technically less content. That's pretty pathetic, in my opinion... :|
     
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  31. Underbird

    Underbird New Member

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    Sure: https://live.dovetailgames.com/live/train-sim-world/articles/article/introducing-tsw-2020
    Still says exactly what I said, not what DTG says now.

    You speaking of "big deals" not being "part of the core program" but being "individual to each DLC" is spot on. And this explains the inconsistent quality of DLC, gamebreaking bugs in some and the time or unwillingness to solve those issues.
    There does not seem to be a "main TSW" with added content (which is what DLC are supposed to be) but much rather a collection of various small train sims built in the Unreal Engine with their own up- and downsides.
     
  32. bart2day

    bart2day Well-Known Member

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    I agree 100% with this. Rather than work on the frustrating aspects of the game that are actually ‘broken’ they have fiddled with the parts that work fine, albeit they will be improved.
     
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  33. Ian1991

    Ian1991 Well-Known Member

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    just did a full legnth on GWE with a 166, sound seems more stable however, every single signal is one yellow, the whole way, even when i can see the signal past the one im approaching theyre all yellow‍♂️ also across the whole game we need more people, more passengers, people walking in the street/stations, yes the cars have been added but we have 'the busiest' routes as DLC yet have no passengers to transport or very minimal, every signal is yellow, and even when there is still ZERO people on a station and ZERO getting on or off whilst running late, i have to sit in silence for over a minute for the clock‍♂️ so again, great graphics.....but that is the only realistic part of this game
     
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  34. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    ^ Moving cars have always featured in GWE from the very beginning iirc. This feature is not new to GWE.
     
  35. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    The full quote is:
    For the new routes included in Train Sim World 2020 (Main-Spessart Bahn, Long Island Railroad, Northern-Trans Pennine), you’ll have the option to upgrade to get any of these you don’t already own for a discounted price.

    Translates as "If you don't have any of the DLC mentioned, you can get the upgrade to the new 2020 which is an effective discount over buying them separately". The "ANY" doesn't apply to any DLC not mentioned and that's formed by the context of the entire sentence.

    But again, all DLC will be in the sales within a few months
     
  36. hyperlord

    hyperlord Well-Known Member

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