Rant: Core Features Matter

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by ASRGT, Oct 4, 2020.

  1. ASRGT

    ASRGT Well-Known Member

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    The foundation of TSW is and always will be in an unfinished state, with systems only been developed when needed for a particular DLC, this is fine in principal provided you never want to achieve a consistent experience across your product.
    The major pitfall of this approach ? it creates enormous tech debt, if you develop core functions and systems only as needed while continuing to pump out DLC you wind up with an extremely fragmented platform with widely different user experiences across each release.

    Now in some cases that's not an issue at all like signaling however if we use Koln as an example the fact that LZB was only just developed for that DLC means all locos produced prior are now stuck in the tech debt black hole, DTGs solution to this is to make a tiny team to help backport these functions and features this is great news for us however puts a massive burden of work on a small team.
    Take PIS for example, backporting the current PIS system means having to re touch every single DLC ever released across multiple disciplines from art to dev. That seems questionable as to how sustainable that will be given most of these features are not complete.
    Really the core development team needs to set some of these features in stone so to speak (nothing is forever in software ) this tiny incremental improvements approach hurts both players and there own internal team that has to play catch up from here on out. PIS is in fact one of the best examples again right now also due to the fact that the system is in its current form rather rudimentary and was done as a value add and was never planned for, that was a nice surprise for us but with it came an expectation from us the community that this function should be available on all routes, after all we have only been screaming about PIS since day 1. So what do you do ? roll out the rudimentary version ? try and improve it and roll it out ? improve it each time you roll it out ? either way your creating more work for you self as any change will need to be moved out across each release, because the core system is not there to be used by all.

    The features that are at the core of the experience need to be developed now not as part of DLC or as an after through, the current PIS, Weather, sound engine ect these are just a few examples of systems that are core to the experience yet are given almost no attention, sound is fundamental to a sim, so is weather as it impacts adhesion and has gameplay implications and yet there just regarded as nice to haves !!! that's crazy.

    Anyway point is without going through the million examples is DTG really needs to spend some solid time with the engine and feature teams nailing down sound, pis, weather, passengers, adhesion ect that impact the core of each route and they need to do it sooner rather than later as every release that comes out while these things are still not functional is another release that is relegated to the backlog of tech debt and incomplete experience bin that most DLC is currently in.
    While I totally understand why this approach would be taken in terms of business costs ect and been able to keep a release cadence of new content it places a massive burden on the new preserved team to try and keep older content relevant and really there is no future in which you can be confident that rout x will have working <<insert feature here>>, and that will simply just be a source of frustration in this community until the bitter end.

    Software is frankly built on sand, you would never build a house on sand without a solid foundation but we sure as hell will build software, the engine is the main foundational piece comprised generally of physics, animation, sound, scripting, networking ect however the core foundation of a game is far bigger than the engine its self, and core to the experience of TSW are auxiliary systems like PIS, Dynamic /real time Weather, Passenger AI, Sound engine ect and its this part of the game that is constantly criticized and is frankly never really improved on.
    Think about it. every single piece of content released up to now and beyond would make use of that short list of features, and yet we see constantly no development effort put into them. Even when making a major engine change no effort was put into overhauling the weather, sound, passengers, pis no what we got was adhesion that is loosely tied to weather, but not fully due to the limited nature of the weather implementation and thus my rant goes full circle as to why you must build out core systems prior to pumping out content that is reliant on them.
     
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  2. Dinosbacsi

    Dinosbacsi Well-Known Member

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    Really well said, my man. TSW just feels like there is zero planning and organizing going on. As you said, the experience is totally different from route to route, and this "release it now, fix it later" approach they apparently confirmed to be doing, well... it's like they don't even know the basic principles of software development? The whole thing feels all over the place, they are constantly just generating more and more work for themselves, while underperforming in the eye of the community.

    Anyway I would be okay with the "improve stuff later" approach if it didn't mean DLC being released in totally broken states and staying that way for years before anything happening. The main problem with this approach is that the content is in the worst shape at release, where most of the sales is expected. And by the time they get to fix it (if they ever do), noone is going to care anymore. So at the end, they did extra work for nothing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2020
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  3. peterchambers

    peterchambers Active Member

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    ASRGT - What you say, I think, accounts for my current feelings and sense of disapointment and loss of hope for the future of TSW 2. I was beginning to think that TSW2 would never make it and what you say gives a more considered and erudite explanation for that feeling.

    I laid aside TSW 1 and went back to TS, Diesel Railcar and Derail Valley pending what I hoped would be an improvement. The attraction of the DR and DV was the incorporation at the outset of both the sound and the movement of the vehicles. The basic requierements for the "soul" of a railway were established as a core indgredient. I had the same feeling and sense of atmosphere in the cabs of those sims as I had in a real life shunter in a yard. The thud as you went over a joint, the swoop and bounce dictated by the state of the rails. The clanks and rattles. No smells, though !

    Mainly the discovery of the Rivett, Trainworx and Simtrain.ch swiss routes brought me back to TS. I had high hopes of TSW2 and was initially impressed but the last Preserved Collection offering was the last straw. In TS the routes I like just work. There is movement in the cab, track sounds much of the time and in spite of lower grahical quality much more atmosphere. I was holding off on buying stuff for TS but am now doing so again and dare not buy anything in TSW2 considering TSW2 had to be regarded as early access and that I should only return to it when it had passed the beta stage. If it ever does. I am really sorry about this.
     
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  4. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    Core is key.
     
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  5. Winzarten

    Winzarten Well-Known Member

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    TS also has the same issue. Systems are tied to track/loco, not to a base core. It is less obvious because most of the functionality, like PZB, AFB were implemented some time ago, so almost all newer routes have them. But there are still routes and locos where PZB is just AWS in disguise, and LZB is also present on very few locos, just like the UK vigilance systems.
     
  6. LucasLCC

    LucasLCC Well-Known Member

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    Unfortunately it seems to have been a development style of DTG from the very beginning.

    The problem being that now they have so much DLC, it's incredibly hard for them to upgrade stuff.

    They almost need to create a core set of functions (so PZB, LZB, etc), and then port each train across (and away from the bespoke functions for each loco). And the same for routes. Create the core code for PIS and then create a number of assets that link to this code. And when they update the core code, everything changes, as opposed to having to be done manually.
     
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  7. Winzarten

    Winzarten Well-Known Member

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    The reason why they are doing it this way is regression.
    Let be conservative and say they are German 200 dlcs for TS. If stuff like PZB/LZB/AFB/SIFA/German Signaling would be part of the core functionality, then everytime you change a line of code, you're affecting 200 products of various age (some might be 5+ years old). You're almost guaranteed that it will break something, somewhere. This is a rabbit hole no developer wants to go into.

    If you bundle the scripts with the track/loco, then you can develop the scripts, without breaking old stuff. The downside is that you have to backport the changes to older stuff, if you want the functionality in older DLCs. But I much prefer product stability (albeit with outdated systems in older stuff), than scenarios and tracks randomly breaking after each update (with consider how "fast" dtg is in fixing bugs, and how thorough their QA is).
     
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  8. martschuffing

    martschuffing Well-Known Member

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    DtG, put ASRGT in charge.
     
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  9. montes_1234

    montes_1234 Well-Known Member

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    Weather effects should be the same across all the routes. Also the same should be the basic sounds like for example the sound of the running boggies, or sound of wind when you are driving with the windows opened. So yes there are many features that should be core related.
     
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  10. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    The issue with TSW/2 is that there’s no contingency between each DLC release. Every route is a ‘new game within itself’ so we get a fragmented core system.

    This includes things such as:
    - Different lighting (sometimes better, sometimes worse)
    - Different sound set ups (same point applies as above)
    - Identical trains but with one route getting the ‘better and upgraded’ version
    - Different dispatcher versions with signalling, safety and pathing not working correctly
    - Routes with added and/or removed features (PIS, working road barriers, wet surfaces, etc.)

    Yes, the preserved content team HOPE to bring some or all of these features to older routes however there’s no guarantee of this happening.

    This puts players off playing certain routes as the difference between them can be so drastic.

    Personally, for me, I cannot go back and play East Coastway. As good of a route it is, it’s abysmal lighting (more specifically the blindingly bright bloom and poor fog effects) just puts me off playing it. As it looks so bad compared to newer/older routes.
     
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