Enough Is Enough!!!

Sounds like a PRO for TSW4 on an otherwise lengthy CON list. Sometimes I like to create mayhem.

 

For me the "hype" around TSW4 is gone too. I find myself coming back to the same routes everytime. I only play German content and at the moment I mainly play Dresden-Riesa or Bremen-Oldenburg. I just cannot really enjoy the older non TOD4 routes anymore as - compared to the new routes - the Lighting just looks horrible. Oh and don't forget newer rolling stock lighting up the whole of Germany on the older routes too. For me the free roam mode is definitely the best thing about TSW4. I often find myself shunting together some coaches and hooking up a 110 or 103 in front and doing a railtour service. But even that, without being able to actually select stops at stations its just kinda "boring". I always have to guess which station I wanna stop at in the interactive map, select a Go-To there and well. Drive there. But I never 100% know if its the station I actually want to go to as theres no name/marking on the map. Oh well. I'd love to set a proper service and then just driving it via my own created timetable for this particular drive.

But what really kills it for me are the many many bugs that are either there from release on and never fixed or also bugs that got introduced with TSW4 and weren't there in 3. And I'm speaking about super obvious stuff that you will see in 5 mins of playtime. Or bugs from some specific systems that work in other locos and then in a newer release its not working as it should, even if its the same system.
So for example lets say that with 95% of German content the PZB indicators are working correctly. Now we get a new released loco and suddenly the 1000Hz influence yellow indicator doesn't light up when acknowledging it, but the 85 blinks. This is absolutely basic stuff that should just work with every train. They updated the 103 and 110 with TSW4. Now, the 103 afaik didn't have the correct 500Hz influence "wechselblinken" back in TSW3. Now they've fixed it, but guess what? Now everytime you are under a 1000Hz influence it goes straight into "wechselblinken" instead of being a lit up yellow indicator coupled with a blinking 85/70/55. Oh and btw, we can also drive the 110/103 even if the reverser is in the neutral position.
Or lets talk about the with TSW4 newly introduced wrong backmarker signals on the KaKo cabcar in Bremen-Oldenburg. Or the PIS of said cabcar being broken since release. At first it kinda worked but was not synchronized regarding to what you selected and what was shown. Then a patch came out and since then its synchronized (yay!!) but now it just resets back to a blank page after maybe a minute or so of it being set.
Or lets talk about the super bright backmarker lights on the BRO BR425. Just dial down the intensity emissiveness in the editor and it would be fixed... But nothing happens. I think I've created like 3 support tickets since today about that specific problem and everytime you get the same "thanks for the feedback, the team will look into it" response. But nothing ever happens. And lets not talk about the countless forum posts complaining as well.
I could go on and on. Or why do some trains have dimmable indicators, others dont? Or changeable contrast on the displays. Or sometimes only 1 out of 3 displays has a brightness button that actually does something.
Some locos are not driveable from cab 2. Other have barely visible gauges when you are at night and turn on the instrument lighting. Other locos have 5 iterations in the game, where the first is absolutely ***** and the latest is perfectly fine.
To combat many problems they should do it like this: have a base loco/train that will always get the latest updates and then on a per-route basis have a skin for it. This skin would include the correct markings for the route and other smaller details. That way you'd have the fitting train for a route and at least some of the issues would be fixed for all trains if there was a newer iteration. But yeah, thats never gonna happen as it would be too deep of a core change.
To sum it up I just absolutely despise the lack of consistence in rolling stock quality and also routes.

DTG JD DTG Matt

 

Exactly this for me. I like I can just choose any service at any time, on any routes I have and not think about it much. Where as on TSC would have to find scenarios and things, so it has a huge convenience factor

 

Once again flabbergasted that trophies aren’t unlocking on PS5.

DTG, you really need to get your act together and fast.

Why does every one of your fixes break something else?

Your game is seriously broken.

 

You mean when they go all quiet and it's leaked in July sometime?

 

Compared to the usually awful badly scripted scenarios, timetable mode is a much better experience in TSW. It isn’t quite as simple as driving the route one way and then the other as it is a timetable of many services which can vary a lot. Not all scenarios are bad but the timetables are much better for a good driving experience. It’s what train drivers do.

 

For US Freight, I find most services in timetable mode kind of Meh, since DTG just reuses the same formations for each train that runs, nothing changes, its always uniform.

Only one that is decent is Clincfield, but that's due to the multiple coal loading services.

 

So all the bugs and game crashes that ruin the experience of some players hence why the enjoyment of the game for a player may be reduced or some may get tired definitely isn't the fault of DTG? OK ,so when there is an issue in any game that a player didn't cause, it's not definitely the fault of the developer.

 

If I remember right, there has been issues outside DTG's control before. Only thing is that it is rare.

 

This is true. I just found it ridiculous
that one would say that it isn't the fault of the developer when issues that are within the developer's control such as bugs or other problems that leads to some losing enjoyment of the game isn't the developers fault when in many circumstances, it is.

 

The only reason why things get out of control is that nobody takes care to keep them under control. Unreal engine has not been updated by Epic since TSW2, so there´s nothing from the outside world that may have introduced bugs in game. It´s true that threre was an engine update from 4.23 to 4.26 with TSW2 but that was years ago, not last month. However we have had lots of custom objects with wrong LOD configuration, faulty materials, missing sound classes, faulty services/scenarios or faulty custom features designed by DTG in almost any DLC released after that milestone. All that content has been created by DTG artists, sw developers, approved third parties and was cleared by management to be released to market.

This is the only game I know were DLCs can be discontinued even during the lifetime of the game version they were released for. Indeed their expected lifetime is just a few months. Most of the updates we usually see afterwards are just dealing with particular services included in those DLCs because they are impossible to be completed in gameplay. That shouldn´t happen if someone had looked into the editor logs before releasing them. If you open the recently released beta PC editor you will realize how big the problem is because errors are dropped on content everywhere as DLCs are being loaded. Traffic conflicts, configuration errors, wrong variables definition, 3D models errors, sw exceptions, etc. Amazing as well as terrific... Many things are just ignored because that´s faster, easier or cheaper.

So DTG is not the evil but they are not saints either. I can understand why people is so fed up with the situation and even why DTG works this way too. I can honestly understand both sides. Unfortunatelly, as customers we have only one way to keep this relationship healthy: put money on this. But when you pay you also want to see results, not abbandoned DLCs or basic game features which are not corrected for ages. So both sides need to put efforts on this. New content is welcome, sure, but it´s not the solution to all existing problems in this relationship.

Cheers

 

If a relationship isn't working out, there has to be a willingness on both sides to fix it. If its one sided, it's time to break off and find an option that is based on more solid footings.

Try out other products. You may find, as I have, that you are pleasantly surprised. If DTG don't or can't change their ways, let them go bust. Another studio will start or expand into the space provided. For those who say "ahh but I've invested so much already, look at all my dlc".. Well by DTGs own admission, they are all abandoned anyway. You'll still be able to play them but all you're really doing by saying that is that you don't want alternatives.

I hope DTG can change. But if they don't I'm happy where I am now in my gaming choice, and while DTG won't see any cash from me in the current shoddy output context, I'll continue to push for qualitative change.

 

Well I guess TSC is still supporting DTG though most of the content these days is produced by third parties who presumably get a reasonable slice of the pie. That’s why of late I have been buying stuff produced by Bossman or Victory Works or the superb Matrix period coaches. In the case of the latter, one guy working in his spare time has produced a massive range of rolling stock covering all sorts of prototypes and eras. DTG can’t even give us a full range of Mark One coaches or a buffet and restaurant car!

 

Slowly but steady the devs start to grow in tsw, JT shows us whats possible with a "little" effort. We get the BG coaches in blue, a 47 in a new livery.

It can be discussed, but DTG also released the white 377, so its not that there was nothing.

But they did definetly miss the a lot of opportunitys. Mki buffet cars, wagon packs in general never got released. (Except. Rhtt).

So now with a lot of devs, the one with the extramiles will definetly get my day1 money, the others with "excuses" will get from me whats left after a 80% heavy sale discount purchais.

 

That comes down to one party caring, and the other just content to release any old thing as long as it’s a rough approximation of what it’s supposed to be. It’s always been like this and DTG have always operated this way, the only funny thing is people are still being surprised by this. You could go back 10 years on the Steam forums for TSC and find virtually identical threads to this with people bemoaning exactly the same things.

Thing is, in many ways TSW is superior to TSC but it always feels like it’s a couple more weeks work away from being great. Why they seem incapable of making that leap only they know. There seems to be no standardisation, no quality targets, no learning from mistakes, no feedback loop and ultimately no consistent pride in the work. They go to the effort of making so much of it really good, then silly little things, or lapses in concentration can destroy all the good work.

Examples;

• someone places stop markers but, for whatever reason, places them in the wrong place time and time again
• someone is responsible for adding rain effects to train windows but, for whatever reason, has stopped doing this consistently and this has now become a thing…will windows have rain effects or will they not? It is not acceptable that this is now a lottery the customer has to play each release
• Someone has made the choice to keep using the same fence asset from back in the GWE days that shimmers like crazy, and clearly has issues with its materials. Rather than consign it to the history bin or fix it, it is still being used 6 years later and blighting any route it touches. Plenty of fences don’t shimmer in this way, so why is that particular asset still being used?

Whoever is overseeing the dev of the game should have seen these things happen once, identified why it happened and put steps or procedures in place such that they don’t happen again. It must be exhausting to constantly have to go back and fix what should have just been done right in the first place.

I said before TSW4 was released that a few weeks afterwards many of the cheerleaders would be here bemoaning the fact that it was not actually quite the game the glitz and glamour demonstrated it to be. I also said that I believe Just Train’s first route could be a pivotal moment for TSW. Are we going to get an evolution in the JT quality and attention to detail from TSC, or are we going to get more of the same TSW stuff just falling short? If it’s the latter then to me it suggests there are deep rooted issue with the game that cannot be solved.

 

That's actually makes me wonder why there is no 3rd party dev team which would specialize in delivering locos, coaches, wagons etc. only, no routes. Was there any in the back days, but DTG was not interested in cooperating in such matter or was there none yet?

I personally would love to have DLCs with additional rail vehicles to buy to enrich the current routes with variety of those.

 

I think it might be due to stiff time period dedicated to route development, i.e. 6 months - no matter how long or complex might the route, timetable and rolling stock be, which cannot be extended no matter in what shape the route is, unless no critical errors are detected. For me it would explain the numerous of this little things made sloppy (some of you've been mentioning in your examples like that GWE fence asset and stop markers in incorrect places).

Second thing might be that there is no single model of particular unit (loco/EMU/DMU etc), which is evolving, rather than evolution of a model requires to create new iteration of it. This is probably the reason of the issues like the mentioned rain effect. It's easy to miss adding it to i.e. Dostos if there are already 7 versions of it (and additionally when it has to be done fast as it's a minor thing, so it should not be time consuming).

Then after route is released, DTG is monitoring the bugs reported, selects those that have most impact of the gameplay, fix it in one-time release patch and that it. Meanwhile most of the dev resources are already working on another DLC.

 

Hopefully opening up the editors might help, but I know from my limited experience on the route side of things it’s a different ball game compared to TSC, not helped by the state in which the editor has been supplied and lack of documentation. In the case of the Matrix coaches, the guy sells them on Workshop at a very reasonable price, whereas I suspect any add on for TSW as payware is going to have to go through the Steam Store at a much higher price. There also aren’t that many routes on which that era of rolling stock would be at home, compared to TSC.

One item I’m looking to get outside Steam is the Digital Traction GWR Railcar. Looks like a blast but again if this was made for TSW other than West Somerset nowhere to really run it.

 

The roadmap does have two loco packs coming from two new developers doesn't it? So maybe that will be changing going forward?

 

I'm pretty sure some.of the trophies for ps5 are still broken from TSW 3, which goes to show they don't care once product is released.

P.S. congrats on page 40

 

Agreed on this... it´s lost it´s momentum fast. Returned back to TSC and the massiv collection I have on there for a couple of weeks. Since yesterday I jumped abroad the Cities Skylines 2 hype train... going to be having fun with that for a long time now.

 

This continues to drive me crazy, especially since Haltetafel signs are not consistently placed at stations.

 

Same here, well maybe not CS2 but certainly TSC and eyeing long overdue catch up in Snowrunner and the SCS truck sims, not to mention finishing a run through Fallout 4. As said about the only thing which might get me back into TSW is the Blackpool route but even then not absolutely certain I want to spend £30 on it, which could buy a nice loco pack or two in TSC plus some more Matrix coaches.

 

Is snow runner good? Always been curious about it.

 

Brilliant but it is very much a time soak once you get on the more complex maps with muddy, icy and steep terrain.

You will come to love your winch!

 

Is all the DLC worth getting?

 

I would say yes, though Steam records me at 316 hours and only recently 100% completed the original three territories, plus a smattering of the DLC content...

Interesting stat from Steam DB as of now.
Snowrunner 5120 players in game.
TSW4 487 players in game. Well at least that's up a bit on a few evenings ago.
And TSC currently at 1227 right now.

 

Well it's on sale now, I'll pick up the Year one edition for now. Thanks for recommending it!

 

Enjoy!

Just one tip, once you get access to the Russian style trucks they outperform everything else by a considerable margin.

 

Sadly, it appears (at least from my point of view) that DTG is failing to learn from important lessons.

Where is the checklist of features that we were supposed to get?

Why do fixes continue to break other stuff?

Why are DLC still being released with immediately obvious issues such as the Diesel engines running on the Azuma, both headlights and taillights being lit at the same time, trophies not popping etc?

The same mistakes should not be happening time and time again. Where is the pride of a job well done?

All we seem to get is, that’ll do! Sell it!!!

 

Really enjoyed my first two hours in it last night, Thank you for the reccomendation!

 

[Removed - Alex: Inappropriate Content]

 

Is it simply too much to fix by now? Didn't get it done with TSW2 and now the short window for TSW3 fixes is closing fast. Now about 50 Routes and so many (substantive) complaints about things that don't work. I don't mean the petty complaints. But the question must be: Is it beyond the staff and resources to get fixes in now? I don't think too many customers will buy a broken TSW5 next September; though I could be wrong on that.

 

Right. So I held off a few weeks on getting TSW 4, so bought it today.

Disclaimer. I work on the Azumas. I was looking forwards to driving them. Oh my absolute goodness. What a mess.

In the 801 tutorial the voiceover and text says the 801s operate at 124 miles per hour. Wrong. They operate at 125 line speed permitting. Was this a typo on the script? Coach letters are broken. The 9 car I was on showed first class as A. The lettering was set up for a 10 car which uses a separate system. A 9 car is M L K J H G C B A, with M being the first class end. The sounds were wrong. Utterly wrong at running speed. I’ve worked them since 2019 and know the sounds from inside the coaches at speed. I don’t know what they sampled for TSW4 but it sure as hell wasn’t an Azuma.

Pantographs. In game they run forward pan. Wrong. In reality they run rear pan in event of a dewirement. The fire door in the kitchen open from the wrong side.

Walking through the train at speed is impossible. You get thrown around and end up standing on the seats almost.

You can open doors at speed.

They pride themselves on accuracy and detail but it’s missing all of that. Words can express the disappointment I have right now. Why should I wait for these bugs to be rectified when bugs from TSW2 still haven’t been fixed? Uninstalled and refunded.

 

To be fair, that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things that are wrong with ECML. Glaring bugs and errors showing now signs at all of being rectified.

 

Microsoft processed my refund in under 10 minutes with no issues. Even they know it’s bad.

But yeah from what little I played it was just bad. What tipped me over the iceberg was the 124 miles per hour claim. The LNER website itself says that the Azuma operates at speeds up to 125 mph so I genuinely don’t get how they’ve messed that one up. It’s such a small thing but it shows a complete disregard for attention to detail. Either it was a typo which didn’t get checked before the voiceover work and inclusion into the game or someone at DTG genuinely thinks they do 124. Complete incompetence.

 

In terms of the sound, too quiet? This has been a gripe of several of us who have experience of travelling on these trains or the GWR equivalent and even in the front coach some traction noise permeates through. They are also quite noisy and lively as regards track noise, too. But in the cab it feels like you are driving a glider it’s so quiet.

 

Traction noise sounded off to me. Also couldn’t hear the noise generated by the wheels on rails. It’s hard to describe but it’s sort of a high pitched sound, it’s pretty distinctive. Again, I work on them. Probably done about 40 hours on Azumas in the last week alone and know them very well. They’re just not right.

 

I’ve still got issue with the signals constantly being a double yellow aspect then changing as you get close to them. Supposedly this is down to the level crossing timings but it’s ruining the experience. It should never have been released like this, but given it was it should have been sorted by now.

Alongside that;

- The sounds are still off and when they rebalanced the unit audio they killed the tunnel occlusion which was actually a really nice touch
- The windscreen wiper is still parked on the wrong side of the screen. You can switch it to the right but you shouldn’t have to
- The next station stop on the TMS is always wrong. In fact, a lot of the info on the TMS screens is wrong
- When you hit escape all the service information is missing. This was meant to have been fixed in the latest patch but clearly wasn’t
- The DSD goes off with the reverser in neutral. Still
- There is no speed set / speed limiter
- The various other things you mentioned on the 801
- The AI have the diesel engine running constantly
- Many of the Class 66’s are driving round with head and tail lights on at the drivers end
- The short-cut keys don’t turn on all the safety systems
- The cab light is bonkers
- They haven’t tuned the tunnel occlusion on the 158 to the route, so every time you go under a tunnel you get hit with this short, very loud blast of noise
- There are some really obvious areas where there are only 2D grass textures and no 3D foliage making the line side look unnecessarily bare. It makes the route feel a bit ‘unfinished’

I don’t hate it though. It’s actually a nice route (if still a little quiet) and there are some really nice bits of scenery, particularly the stations. It’s nice to see some effort going into that side of things, I just hope this isn’t the usual ‘once a year effort’ that will revert to type soon enough. As per usual though, the route is let down by carelessness and yet again has that typical ‘a couple of more weeks and this would have been great’ feel about it.

 

the DTG flywheel at work here, exact same thing that happened in TSC.

 

Dtg couldn't record a real 801 so they used the recordings armstrong powerhouse used who reused running sounds from an electrostar. Dtg can't do anything without real recordings. They are currently in talks with hitachi and lner if they can record a real running azuma

 

Wait is this actually true or just rumour

 

It’s just marketing blah in the same vain of Rivet going back to record a new sound set for the 385. There’s absolutely no chance of it happening. Why would they? The money has been made.

 

And the rub of it is, they couldn't even mix or modulate the sounds they were given to sound like the Azuma, same as happened with the Class 700. Even if they couldn't get access for official recordings, the sound engineer should have been given a weekly season ticket and told to spend 8 hours a day committing to memory and some form of reference recording as to how the trains actually sound. By the end of the week he should have been hearing Azumas in his sleep.

As an aside the same promise has been made about the Flying Scotsman, they have supposedly obtained faster running sounds than the 25 MPH top speed it was recorded at on a heritage railway. But yet to see the light of day in the game - and with FS so borked in the physics department anyway, it will take more than better sounds to redeem it.

 

The sound engineer said it himself with the disclaimer that the recording session may not happen. The company has a timetable to run after all and renting an entire train for a day is disruption

 

I don't think 'forcing' the sound engineer to sit in a train for eight hours a day for seven days is realistic. They also have other projects and responsibilities

 

Well they should at least be making a reference trip or two. Getting the sound right is their responsibility and yet we repeatedly see the ball getting dropped, excuses being made and the apologists coming in to say what a difficult job the company must have.

Other sims don’t seem to have this persistent problem and constant denials when it comes to acquiring and mixing audio so that traction units actually sound as they should. The EU07 etc. in SimRail are a fantastic implementation of the sound base and DTG’s own sister product TSC also seems to have few issues when it comes to sound.

 

This little phrase is at the front of most of the manuals for train DLC in TSC and this one is a direct quote from the manual for the Pendalino. I think it’s very telling and sums up DTG’s attitude to sound in their games perfectly;

“Whilst we do our utmost to reproduce sounds that are accurate and true-to-life, sometimes these sounds may not completely tally with the user’s expectation. Due to the nature of the simulation, it is often not possible to reproduce a completely accurate soundscape for a variety of reasons such as limitations with our current technology and occasional inability to gain meaningful access to the locomotives being created. You should therefore regard the audio reproduction for our locomotives as authentic interpretations rather than perfect recreations”

 

Sounds reasonable on paper.

 

Show me another sim, any sim, where on a paid DLC there is a disclaimer that effectively says ‘the sounds are LOVE’ in the manual.

Isn’t it amazing how the sounds in the vast majority of aircraft in flightsim are far far more accurate than they are in a train sim. You’re not going to tell me that aircraft sounds are easier to record than trains are you?