Conductor Mode: Needs Either Major Overhaul Or Gotten Rid Off Completely

I decided to play this game mode because of May's current mastery challenge. To put it bluntly, conductor mode needs a major overhaul as its current state is both disappointing and rather uninspiring.

For example, conductor mode is available for many services which travel just between two stations. But what's the issue here? Well, you end up doing nothing as it will say 'wait for next station' - then it's service completed without doing anything or hardly, if any, XP gained.

Then, even if you choose a long service with many stations, it still seems rather pointless. I decided to play Groningen to Zwolle which is about 1hr 6mins duration. Upon departure, wait for next station. After that, check just one ticket despite the train being completely full. Then, next up, check ten tickets, but two passengers are sitting in first class with a standard ticket, yet it scores you wrong. Then for about the remaining 40 minutes and following stations, nothing, as it's just wait for the next station - with barely any XP gained too.

To be clear, I like the idea of conductor mode personally as it gives much needed variation. But it needs a major overhaul as its current format is rather pointless, otherwise what's the point of this game mode? Moreover, I'd like to see more older routes and different service types have conductor mode too.

What do you think?

 

Yes, I played Trent route and have no XP at all...if they can fix it correctly it can still be a cool mode.

 

It probably needs some improvements to its functionality, but for years and years people were asking for guard mode, and now they've got it. What a stupid thing it would be, to completely backtrack on it? Yes it does need improving, but it does have a place in the game. DTG were kind enough to implement it from feedback, so to even suggest withdrawing it is counter productive.

 

Just another half-baked feature lol.

I'd hope they could improve it- don't see how removing it does anything but hurt the players who do enjoy it.

 

I'm curious what you think a conductor would be doing that isn't currently simulated during the 40 minutes between stations

Perhaps DTG could add a virtual newspaper to read while not conducting

Or perhaps they could make the driver an AI that you could chat to over the intercom about last night's football

 

The feature itself mostly works (fixes are needed), but is heavily let down by the horrendous passenger system - which is truly the one deserving an overhaul. The fact that no passengers board your train simply means you got nothing to do.
I think something like sitting in first class with second cleas ticket should be implemented for more variety.
Also, I do think we need something else to do - maybe DTG should implement a in-game web browser for viewing news website.

 

Well it needs to work as intended, i.e. you actually get some passengers on the train who need their tickets checking. I did a couple of attempts for the Mastery and had no passengers at all on one run and I think one on another, It used to work okay but something else broken in a recent update.

 

Add it to the list of "promising half-baked features that need finishing".

 

Most times on a long distance service conductors will check all tickets, especially when starting from an origin station.

I do feel that perhaps conductor mode wasn't right for timetable services, but for scenarios instead, so that different scripted scenarios might have been made to provide more variety and challenge.

 

Also, you get penalised for accepting a ticket for a station off the map so for example if you're on WCMLOS and there's a ticket say Preston-Perth you get penalised for accepting it even though the date on it is correct. In reality it's perfectly valid.

That needs to be fixed.

 

I imagine its worse when a service is split into two parts like on the San Bernadino Line, because then half the on-route stations are invalid.

However, I would like to keep Conductor Mode in the game even if it never receives another update again. I haven't tried it yet, but it does look like fun from what I've seen.

 

Was broken when it came out and has got worse since then. No hope of it being fixed unfortunately

 

I played it once or twice when it was new and haven't touched it since. In my experience it was half-baked and buggy. I don't think the core game is in a state where it would be a compelling feature even if they fixed it up to be honest, and I see it as a feature they only added to put another bullet point on the box so to speak. Do what you have to do, but it's not something that interests me.

"Sit in complete silence between stops and press buttons in front of otherwise lifeless NPC passengers and items."

I would rather they spend time fixing parts of the game and making the whole package more lifelike overall.

 

They got the basics right. Just a few improvements here and there needed.

 

Just add it to the list of things that need sorting. It’s pretty long at this point nothing seems to be implemented well. This is a list so far.

Passenger behaviour
Timetables
Dynamic weather
Conductor Mode
Textures

Missed anything?

 

Optimisation, especially reducing video memory errors
Scenario Planner overhaul
Consistency overall

 

Well, you know, the complete obvious thing like at least checking tickets regularly when new passengers board etc. And, to be clear, it was roughly 40 minutes remaining of the service with around four stations left if I remember correctly, each time after departure having to always 'wait for the next station'; obviously it's not simulated correctly if doing absolutely nothing - the passenger system needs a major overhaul anyway. Plus, you have to remember this is a game mode for a video game and it needs to provide some kind of entertainment and satisfaction otherwise it's a completely pointless feature.

 

Suspension (still isn't universally implemented)
Passenger announcements (3rd-parties only so far)

 

I'm definitely enjoying it, but it needs work for a few bugs.

 

Something I have to ask - surely you'd know that being a guard on a train with not many stops would not be action packed before starting? I don't know what you're expecting from it. Fights on the train? A fare evader smoking cannabis in the toilet? A passenger collapsing from dehydration? The Doctor parking the Tardis in a vestibule?

There is a hard limit to how interesting a guard mode can be without TSW genre-shifting into a first person action game. Being a guard in the real world is not a job for the faint of heart, and there are a lot of idiots to deal with, but there's no way you'd ever be able to simulate that in a Pegi 3 rated game. If you want to make guard mode less boring, just pick a service that stops more often.

 

Quickdrive (ability to better specify what I want to drive),
Map (color choice for AI trains is abysmal),
Freeroam (Allow me to add i.e. passenger stops),
Layer Selection (persist my selection)

 

Filtering!

Can no longer filter countries on Xbox series x when I go to my routes.

 

I don't do a lot of conductor mode. Since TSW5 came out I did maybe 10 services in conductor mode. If I'm not mistaken, none of those went completely as expected.

Whole rides without any tickets to check resulting in 0% score (which should be 100% as I did my job correctly, not my fault there weren't any passengers).
Trains not leaving the first station
Trains getting stuck somewhere along the route
Incorrect tickets that you have to accept anyway in order to get the full score

I would like conductor mode, if it worked correctly...

 

Great conductor mode is part of the monthly challenge, this should go well. I havent bothered with conductor mode, being too busy driving trains. I havent a clue what to do on conductor mode, so this is gonna go well.

 

Well there was an exploit in that completing the free play type scenarios on some routes checked off the Conductor requirements. Save just before walking into the marker then rinse and repeat. Done in less than 10 minutes.

 

Yeah, it’s certainly playable. I think the issue is more in the game’s passenger system than conductor mode itself.

I did a Euston - Tring conductor run last night and hardly any passengers boarded or got off the train, making it a very uneventful session, only checking one or two tickets between each station.

TSW’s passenger mechanics are in serious need of an overhaul.

 

I think the best that can be said for Conductor Mode at present is that it adds (maybe) something to do while travelling as a passenger.

 

I tried guard mode when it was released and that was it. Unless your on a commuter route with frequent stops, where you can be a doorman. There's not much to do! Not with the bugged passenger system anyway.

Although it's more eventful than the role of the guard on most of the rl services I travel on, where the guard sits and reads a book for most of the journey.

 

Conduct

 

Sadly it's very hit and miss, mostly miss, I know it's pointless doing the express services as there are never any passengers to check before the 1st stop, but I was just doing an early evening Boston Worcester service that should have stopped at 9 stations and never had a single ticket to check in the first 6, and then the train never moved on from there so complete waste of time.

The only route that has kept me busy enough to enjoy was Birmingham Cross City, lots of stops, a couple of times over 20 tickets to check, one time I didn't get to 2 of them before the next station, so it actually felt like I had purpose throughout the journey, rather than just opening and closing doors every few minutes.

 

I haven't guarded in a while now, but, as above, BCC was busy with checks, also Fife Circle will have you running up and down the train all the way.

 

Yes?

A TARDIS in the toilets would certainly be interesting.

 

As I said in my post...

Dovetail (and for once I agree with them) won't do anything that might put a negative light on the railway industry. They were too scared to add the Covid liveries to trains, and that's pretty tame.

 

I wasn't being serious. Obviously they won't do anything like that.

But, to counter your point they won't do anything that portrays the railway negatively, they already have scenarios that do such a thing (drivers taking instructions from farmers such as the ECML In Threes scenario for example) and apparent suicidal passengers which seem to not be a problem. So whats stopping them having people fighting on a train?

 

I didn't bother with conductor/guard mode at first... only started trying it when Mittenwaldbahn came, and featured it. Tried it on Frankfurt-Fulda and Mannheim-Kaiserslautern since then.

It's not a bad feature per se... just not very well thought through. The runs I did on either route tended to be either quite tedious or boring. Or both.
On Frankfurt-Fulda it works best, there are plenty of stops along the route, in quite regular intervals. But navigating through the Dosto cars starts getting tedious after a while, it's like running parcours. I don't envy actual conductors doing that for a living.
On Mannheim-Kaiserslautern it's a joke, only being available on a total of four (4!) services. And those happen to be the 111/Dosto ones, the express ones, which skip most of the intermediate stations.
On Mittenwaldbahn, it's just plain boring. There are so few things to do that I spend at least 90% of the (rather long) journey sitting on some free art leather bench, enjoying the view. Did two short runs from Garmisch to Mittenwald and back, and both times there was absolutely nothing to do.

So I voted for Yes, the mode should stay, but it is in need of an overhaul. More passengers to check, a wider variety of things to do... and a more inspired choice of which services to feature it on

 

I mean, I dunno about other people but I play this as a bit of relaxation and to unwind, I have plenty games with enough fisticuffs to satisfy my pugilistic desires.

 

For a start it would immediately require the game to be rerated to age 12+. Even if it didn't, there's no way DTG would have violence in a train game. That farmer scenario is stupid and I'm not sure why they greenlit it.

 

Errrrrrrr......why does my train have a sunroof?

 

What? You a vampire or something?

 

I tried to carry out a conductor mission, but my chap seems to step on a passenger seat and put his head through the roof, no quality issues here. Players are giving out about conductor or guard mode, no mention about trains.

 

Also the problem with guard/conductor mode my character is dressed like the public, no uniform? That being the case we can all pretend to be conductors in real life going by that, no uniform required?

 

I still think upgrading catering cars and having some sort of interactive service menu as the virtual steward would make an interesting mini game. Greet your customers with the classic, “Yeah, what?”

 

Yes I completely agree, here I some things I think they should add:

1. Get rid of the weird hud that's says 15mph and the emergency brake symbol
2. PLEASE ADD Driver's response to the two buzzers!
3. Create a better timetable to view. Just duplicate the one from driver mode.
4. Add points for opening and closing the doors
5. Give a variety of different tickets options / choices
6. Add the whistle to UK routes - already in-game for Frankfurt-Fulda and WCML Overshap
7. Add some announcements and a bit more variety to the mode? (Not just moving bags!) (Maybe telling passengers to move back from the train etc)
8. Remove the 'Stand at Guard Panel' option as seen on the Class 390 & 801. - Utterly pointless and wastes time.
9. Matt was keen to add AI guards as standard for when you are driving as seen on the class 158 on Midland Mainline.

 

I agree with point 1, why is that even there to begin with?

About point 8, 801 guards (don't know about 390) always stand at these panels when they arrive at a station, so technically accurate.

 

A very good list, well said. The only thing I'd add is, if I remember correctly, unlike drivable services listed in the timetable which show as completed once you have finished them, it doesn't do this for conductor mode - so how to know which services have already been completed for conductor? I'm the type of player when completing a service, I'd never ever repeat unless very special.

 

Yeah I get what you mean.
It just slows down you down when you're trying to open and close the doors.

 

I'd also like to add, being able to close doors on coaching stock that the AI driver closes to trigger the next step.

So for example on mark 3 stock on WCMLOS, Close the doors physically.

 

"Here you go, love"

 

Announcements would add a huge amount to conductor mode, I've been doing a few on the pacer and with not many tickets to check I've started sneaking into the drivers compartment to click on the phone, would love to either have them happen automatically, or have a phone to press on within the coach.