As a player i don't want to mount / unmount DLCs like harddisks in a UNIX/LINUX system 20 years ago. I just want to choose a route, loco and a timetable or while i'm creating a "timetable run" in the scenario planer, chosse all the locos i will use and create my scenario. Everything should happen automatically. If there's a problem with too many mounts, than a simple "limit reached" notification is fine. Why are you planing to make the things more complicated for the players?
Have you been reading these forums the past few weeks? Have you read the post you quoted? If so, you’d know it’s a solution to a problem, not a deliberate attempt to make things more complicated! What solution would you propose instead, to the maximum 64 GB Add-on limitation imposed by Sony? I’m interested in how you would solve this…
Part of the problem is that until a DLC is mounted it doesnt exist in the game and there is nothing to select in the first place. With DLC's not mounted, the list of available trains in scenario designer is going to be much smaller in the first place. Of course we will continue to listen to feedback and see how we can improve the system going forwards.
I think the OP has a fair point as this is also how I understood would be phase 2 of the fix. I think the thermometer idea is a good idea as it gives the user control. For example: a new loco comes out, but it has a significant bug that impacts gameplay You will be able to disable it. But what you need mounted automatically is preferred and that would be phase 1 of the fix so this will probably also be available in phase 2
From my perspective – so there's a balanced view here – I think that Matt's proposed solution is fine. I suspect that there are quite a lot of players, like myself, who never really use the scenario planner (I think I've opened it once to bag the trophy) and fewer still who make extensive use of 'off the rails' mode, so it's an issue I'll rarely run into. If I do one day decide I want to run a GP38 on Bakerloo, well, I'm fine with having to turn it on manually. As long as all of the sensible trains are there are ready when you choose which route you want to drive, that seems like a fair solution to the limit problem, which will suit most of the people, most of the time.
I've only quoted "Implementation: Step 2" not "Step 1" which is the only possible solution unless sony pushes the limit for DLCs to unlimited, wich never happens.
I wonder if a good solution could be to have the game naturally display all of the routes that you could have regardless of if you purchased them or not. Then when you click on the route it automatically mounts everything. This could be a good way to show off things like hey because you are mounting this route at the moment, here are some of the add-ons that if you purchased you could go buy as well to add on or hey you dont own this route yet, do you want to buy it type of things.
To me it all comes down to how good the UI is for Step Two. It needs to balance being quick and simple (perhaps using Step One as a sensible default setting for each route), allowing easy customisation for those that want different combinations (for "off the rais" etc.) and remembering your preference so you don't need to set it up how you like it each time you play (I'm looking a you Motion Blur!).
Well this solution is not actually far away from how I imagined it will have to happen. Yes it not ideal but then again the whole situation isn't ideal. The only thing that really concerns me is that step one sounds like it may get delayed and pushed out the door alongside step 2 Sorry but the thought of this really hacks me off as we have waited far too long already (what is it, close to two months wait already) Yes I am aware we will lose access to trains from trains on certain tracks but atm I don't really care. Why, because I have NTP, Tees, Cane Creek, Clinchfield, IoW and BR heavy Freight all deleted because of this. That's about 150 quids worth of content deleted. Sorry but in the words of Monty Python... GET ON WITH IT
We are indeed getting on with it, prototyping and proving the mount/unmount is done and proven to work, so an engineer is currently building the code for Step 1 at the moment.
My main request is for DTG to release whatever can be released as soon as possible. That basically means not delaying a possible release of Step 1 just because it’s less hassle for DTG to wait until all of Step 2 is completed ready for release. I know Step 1 takes some functionality away with Off The Rails but it solves the biggest issue which is the manual deletion and re-downloading of content outside the game and wondering if you’ve done enough to stay below the limit.
This! Really this needs to be implemented as well. DTG really missed out on some extra bucks if the layering system wasn't so difficult to understand. I bought a few DLC in the sales that I did not know would appear on other routes I already owned and would have bought them sooner if I had known. What I all so learned or suspect is that having many routes impacts performance. This won't be an issue at the moment on PS5 but it will become an issue eventually so having control over what DLC is activated is a must.
Maybe a solution for that is to implement a full list of all(!) DLC in the core game, which must be updated with every new DLC. While the game starts, the game should try to mount & unmount every single DCL on the list. All successfully mounted & unmounted DLC are available to the game. All others are not installed or bought. When the game has fully started, no DLC is mounted, but the game knows, which are available. Just an idea.
Mounting all DLC one at a time to read its contents would add quite an extensive load time. What we're doing for the route selection menu is having a central list of all routes in the game that is known in the core without needing to access all the packages - it can cross check those against what the back end knows you own and show you what you own and do that instantly - then it can mount as needed going forwards. We may look at expanding this for locos later but that's a much bigger job and I don't want to divert from the priority of the immediate issues or we might scope creep this into an ultimate solution in 6 months leaving everyone suffering this awful situation in the meantime. Fix it now, improve it later.
This is my personal preference as well. We'll see how things go. We're well aware that we need to ease the pains for the majority as soon as possible.
