If you put it that way, neither does mileage, timetables completed or scenarios completed. It's just finding a useful metric to measure yourself against, and a nice challenge in and of itself. As such, I prefer XP over mileage because it rewards clean driving, in addition to miles covered.
It's a valid point. If collecting whatever makes someone feel good that's fine. I just think that the challenges that "do something" bring more people to do them. Like when you unlock the route challenges and stuff to see (the amusement park, the flea market, flags, etc) show up on the route. That's the stuff I prefer anyway. The XP could be used to unlock liveries or something. Thankfully it's not a PvP game or anything so there's no "pay to play" sorta thing or any push for people to play more or "lose out." (best guns, best best items, etc) Makes TSW a lot more chill. I have heard of people "tracking" their accomplishments on websites as a group to sort of run a "railroad" on their own, but that's entirely up to them and it's not really competitive so much as cooperative. (You apparently make a "log" like a real train driver to add your numbers of miles/tonnage/etc to the team total for the month)
Yes, agreed. That is why I like that there are new mastery rewards coming (posters) Those people that track everything, seems kind of extreme to each their own of course
Yes think I have tempered my enthusiasm for the mileage accumulation slightly. Nearly there now but I’ve got Semmering. Mittenwaldbahn and now the F59 largely unplayed while I grind out the last few hundred kilometres. So if Alex or Jamie are reading this I would say 500 miles/800 km a more realistic target to set going forward. And if the 1000 mile goalpost is repeated, do it in a month with 31 days! Various things I wanted to do and play with the PC have gone on the back burner to try and get this finished.
I have now completed the mastery but I have to say it's burnt me out a little on TSW if I'm honest. Just been sticking to long high speed runs instead of the content I usually play. Not sure the livery decals are enough for a reward though as it feels a little empty. Hopefully they can introduce something a little more substantial or something a little more worth collecting for further ones The posters are a good start maybe a few other options like more scenery tiles? Maybe some extra dioramas which have been on routes as mastery tiles before? But in light of sitting in a cab for hours I've felt the need to get outside and touch some grass. So to that end I've redownloaded Ark so gonna go relax on the beach for a few hours while trying not to get eaten by the local wildlife tonight instead.
How much have you got left to complete? If it's only a few hundred km's, you could complete it in 8 days by just playing Semmering, AV and Mittenwald.... And of course, you could also play a bit more on the Gloggnitz to Wiener Neustadt section of Semmeringbahn which is pretty fast ;-)
According to DTG Live, just under 270km to go. So yes, a run each on Semmering, AVL, SBO and Mitten should polish that off nicely.
I think "Mitten" is my favorite name for a TSW route now. It sounds like taking your adorable kitten along while you drive. "Railway Adventures with Mittens and Old Vern"
Glad to have it done, so I can focus on other stuff. Bought Mittenwald and the F59PHR, so started playing that. Also finished the trophies on Mannheim-Kaiserslautern, which really starts to grow on me. Better than expected.
Finished it yesterday evening, so think I will be taking a break from TSW for a few evenings a bit burned out doing all that!
Finished everything except the distance, so I’ve given up for this month. With starting a new job and other real life things getting in the way, I just didn’t have the time and actually found it a bit demotivating in the end. Never mind, it was only a decal! Hopefully if we start getting meaningful rewards like the posters they’ve been talking about, that will improve the look of the route, I will be able to achieve those.
Agree about the rewards. I doubt we will see something tangible like real money (even 50p) off a DLC, but something a bit more meaningful maybe even a Steam or similar achievement for doing it. Otherwise it was a lot of grind and seemed designed to keep people playing TSW rather than going off and doing something else in between.
The poster rewards can be earned by completing an extra mastery tier to the existing tsw5 routes (which will be added soon). Big advantage is that the challenges for the posters won't have a deadline (like the monthly masteries)
"Time sinks" seems to be a common thing now in games. Rather than "how can we encourage people to have fun" (since they can't measure that) to get a "metric" they can measure many games have gone to "time in the game" since Steam and others track that already. Hence making things take longer to keep people in the game longer. Supposedly makes investors happy to see a metric on powerpoint slides? Only I think that shoots themselves in the foot because people will ultimately not play if they aren't having fun. That's especially true for people with limited time due to real life responsibilities. If you make them waste time and NOT have fun that's two strikes against your game. It hasn't been terribly bad for TSW up to now (I mean it is railroading after all) but sometimes the long waits at reds or the extra slow bits at 15-20mph can seem extra punishing when I only have so long to game after work. As for those challenges... no interest. I can find other more rewarding things to do than "grind" with no reward. If I want to play TSW, I want to have fun, explore and maybe learn something (like a route or a loco) Maybe some people like grinding or sitting at red lights....
Yeah I know man, having a full time job and a family puts some serious constraints on what you can do. Nevertheless, I find that these challenges add enjoyment to my game. Not for any rewards, but for the challenge in and of itself. But hey, that's just my opinion.
If that's fun for you then that's awesome. I was just commenting on the "grindy" part to it as people have noted above. 1,000 miles is "grinding", whereas maybe 200-300 miles would be more of a "challenge" but still not a huge amount of time. It's not the idea of challenges, it's how much they involve.
Something like 300 miles still seems short for me, and a lot of my time away from work isn't spent on TSW. It all depends on which routes you drive. I tend to stick to ECML and SEHS lately, I'd easily reach 300 miles even with a short time dedicated to it, purely because of the route lengths. ECML for example I'll go Peterborough to Doncaster and then do Doncaster to Peterborough, that's around 160 miles there. Cue me playing TSW more than one day at a time (whenever I actually get the chance) and that limit would be easily reached. It's all about perspective and the time you have to reach that goal. Despite my limited playtime, due to the routes I use often 1000 miles is still easily achievable. On the other hand, it can feel like a grand, especially when I lack in motivation to even play the game, never mind doing the challenges as well (if it was more than a decal I'll never use it'd probably motivate me more).
Yesterday and today I finished 3 Würzburg - Kassel trips, ~510km and my odometer still shows 37087 m.
spamdog#2920 Could you get in contact with Dovetail Support, please? We'd be happy to have a look if you can provide us with your account details (Please do not share here).
Sometimes the progress bar doesn't update, but the mastery will still complete (it still counts your miles in the background)
If you look back earlier in the thread, I had the same issue. After putting in a Support ticket, Chris gave the server a kick and it restored my distance accrual.
March: Complete 15 Scenarios Complete 2 Scenarios or Timetables after reaching 100mph/160kph, without exceeding 102mph/164kph Gain 100,000 XP Collect 15 collectibles Personally prefer timetables to scenarios as I've already done most of the scenarios due to starting most routes by doing the journey, but the 100mph challenge looks like fun.
Well Scenarios or the regular runs or the Journeys, are not meant to be replayed in this game, once completed it get check marked
Completing 15 scenarios is quite a time consuming challenge. Unless you want to resort to saving near the end of a scenario, completing it, and reloading it over and over again, of course ;-)
Think I will pass on March. Most scenarios already done as part of Journey Mode. Collectibles don’t interest me in the slightest and the AP is just a grind, though you could just use the stupid way it’s set up and do half a dozen round trips on Bakerloo at > 20k each to get it done. Besides, I burned out on TSW doing the February one and found myself hooked back in Snowrunner the other evening, more grinding to finish Scandinavia and just bought the Austrian maps but it’s a different grind!
wasn't the bakerloo line absolutely broken in amount of AP? might be time to take that route out of the dust for a few runs
Yes. As I said, over 20k AP for a 40 minute run. Also has the unfortunate side effect of promoting the train and route to favourite status, even when it’s not.
I do find it amusing how these monthly masteries bring out the 'gaming' mindset for many people. Last month we had people doing depot runs in the rain, then doing laps of the training centre because that left them nowhere near the 1000 miles required. Now we have people working out how to 'game' the system by doing the least playtime to get 100k AP. A single timetable run on Peninsular Corrider nets over 25k AP, a run in the Class 87 over Shap earns 13k, if you've only got the base TSW5 routes then even Milton-Keynes to Euston in the 350 is 16k AP. If freight is more your thing then using the 363 to deliver logs on Ruhr-Sieg Nord is a lot of fun rewarding over 10k AP. Admittedly my personal circumstances may make me more time rich than others, but using those examples we are talking about between 7 and 12 hours of playtime over the course of an entire month. Surely that's better than forcing yourself to spend 4 hours running content you don't even enjoy.
The only difference being that 100k XP is not a steep target at all, certainly not compared to the 1.000 mile target of February. The 320k of december was much more challenging. The target that is most likely to make me go 'out of my way' is the 15 scenario challenge. If I buy Mildmay, I will get those collectibles anyway.
Not exactly 'broken', but it showed where the old scoring system was flawed: too much credit for stops, too little for distance driven
Yeah, the 100k AP will really come naturally via the 15 scenarios, the 5 scenarios on Mildmay will be about 60k on their own, the 1000 miles were certainly a bigger challenge.
Oh I forgot about these. But looking at the comments there seems to be a issue of giving players more challenges and possibly a better rewards system to keep players interested. I play anyway as I love to drive trains, but for those that seek something new with a possible reward other than say a decal, then could more be done. To keep things fresh and more importantly with the times so to speak. I have in the past seen many issues around surrounding such things. The XP where does that come in to play on say a leaderboard on the game?. Could use a system where the top player each month gets a free DLC. Something that may want, but can’t afford. This would make driving or doing things you may not want. As an example DTG could say use two select routes each month. If you don’t own then that will be a down side. But if you do then if it’s a route you don’t normally play as much then by forcing you to play may make use of the routes you own but don’t play. I own many German routes but don’t play. Not once and I’d say that’s around 100 to 150quids worth of routes I never play. But if for that month I had to in order to win a DLC loco or route then I would. Even here the prizes could be based on XP points. So many for gold prize, full route. Silver, a loco. Then bronze special edition decals for that months theme. This would be for those to enter that enjoy making liveries. I have been away from the community for some time, and the game. But this issue for me has been around for some time. Not sure how things like this could be implemented if it was a good idea for keeping players to the game. But I see it as simply if a player gets tired of doing things with limited rewards, one they may feel would be off interest and more importantly worth the time. Because it’s time we’re talking about here. It don’t take five mins to do a route. So it better be worth the players time. This keeping players to the game and to the franchise.
Hi I have seen similar problems like this in a another title I play. Sometimes to get that mouth’s reward seems impossible. But if a user plays the game, and drives the trains with all safety systems on then XP goes up higher so by only doing a few routes challenges etc then for me they are achievable.
On reflection I might take a crack at it, in between doing missions on Snowrunner. As stated, the challenge for me will be finding enough scenarios I haven't already done, rather than the other objectives.
