Suggestions To Help Improve Future Dlc Quality

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by londonmidland, Mar 23, 2021.

  1. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    As posted in another thread, here are my suggestions which I think will quite significantly help the quality and consistency of future DLC for first, second and third party content.

    The idea came from the very controversial Rivet Games’ Arosa Line add-on. Rather than arguing and disagreeing with each other, I thought why not try and help them and let them know what can be done to improve things.


    Ultimately both DTG and Rivet need to make changes in order to make drastic improvements. I’ll compile a list below of suggestions and some constructive criticism:

    Rivet Games improvements required:
    - Higher resolution textures needed in important assets. Bridges, rock faces and buildings in particular.
    - Much more varied ground textures needed. Currently Rivet have only used one, single green texture, which makes it look very basic and plain. Almost like something out of a free online game or a 90s game.
    - Need to be a lot less conscious of trying to achieve maximum FPS which subsequently harms scenery detail. There’s no need to try and aim to squeeze the maximum FPS across all devices. I’d say 9 out of 10 players would rather have more detailed scenery over maximum FPS for a train simulator.
    - Priorities need sorting out. Less time needs spending on the small, niche things, which not many people will notice, and more time spent on the bigger, more important things such as scenery. Whilst the collectibles are nice, they aren’t and shouldn’t be a main priority of the route.
    - More variation in bush and tree assets required instead of copy and paste the same tree asset everywhere. This will help a lot when it comes to making things look a lot less repetitive and same looking.

    DTG improvements required:
    Most, if not all these suggestions relate to visuals, which is very important when it comes to a scenic route like Arosa..

    - Shadow draw distance drastically needs improvements as landscapes look flat and really doesn’t help to emphasise how big or far away things really are. Mountains look like little hills in TSW.
    - Adding to the above, more blue haze over the white, fake fog required. This massively helps with making objects seem far away, as well as hiding out the lower resolution assets and/or lack of scenery.
    - Adjustable depth of field. This too helps with distant objects. Making them blur slightly as they naturally do in real life, instead of it having it 100% clarity, which really doesn’t help when it comes to distant assets. Low level of detail (LOD) assets appear very clear in the distance, which is highly unrealistic looking.
    - Better lighting required. There’s only really two different types of lighting in TSW; either clear or cloudy. There’s no such thing as partially cloudy lighting, where the cloud shadows cast on ground and move in real time. It’s all a very choppy with no smooth, natural transition, as changes in the lighting is very noticeable. Almost like a slideshow. Imagine seeing the cloud shadows move across the landscape and mountains. I think it’d look very nice.

    One thing DTG is doing is stomping down on a higher quality control required before the DLC is successfully approved. This will mean that, hopefully, we won’t have a repeat of Arosa or SEHS mishmash in scenery quality. It will also mean that consistency in DLC quality should hopefully be more stable, will less of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ DLCs mixed in, regardless of development dates.

    The above was said by Sam in a Discord server yesterday for those that are interested.
     
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  2. 100% agree with the depth of field thing. Right now you either use FXAA and have better sight than an eagle, or use FAA and have the worst case of miopia ever known to man. Objects far away need to be slightly blurry, and this needs to happen soon.
     
  3. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I am not a fan of the white fake fog. It makes it look unnatural. I do think that rivet should not try to maximize fps because personally, 30fps for me is fine. It is good to focus on the little things but to not improve the things that people actually notice is quite odd so I hope rivet do indeed focus on the bigger picture and not the small things that not many will notice. The clouds do need improvement because when I have it set to partly cloudy, it doesn´t feel partly cloudy because the clouds look choppy and don´t look like clouds. I would also like to see dynamic weather included in the timetable and perhaps dtg could improve the quality of the passengers as well as they are not the best looking people
     
  4. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    + introducing new gameplay mechanics and Simugraph features from time to time (physics)
    + to establish some better audio quality standards
     
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  5. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    Yes because I don´t think in my opinion the standards for audio quality are high except for german content
     
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  6. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Strike a deal with Google or Bing for photogrammetry which can then represent the distant hills in something akin to their true appearance (modded as necessary for the devs for winter).
     
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  7. HeyYoPaulie!

    HeyYoPaulie! Well-Known Member

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    In the spirit of supporting this constructive conversation, which has some great ideas on the "what", here's a suggestion for enhancing the "how".

    Specifically: Enhancing the DLC and roadmap processes moving forwards.

    I'm relatively new here, but I see a very passionate team at DTG and an equally passionate community here. I also observe what appears to be a communication gap between the DTG product / dev teams and the community.

    I propose (and wholeheartedly encourage) DTG to reach out to select members of the community here to engage in meaningful dialogue about the development of TSW2 moving forwards, to cover DLC and the roadmap.

    Onboarding passionate, committed community members (akin to how the dev team have onboarded a Beta test team) could fill that perceived gap and provide a crucial, constructive conduit between DTG and the community, in addition to smoothing delivery / enhancing the quality of DLC & the roadmap.

    I welcome your thoughts.
     
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  8. junior hornet

    junior hornet Well-Known Member

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    All these ideas are fine and dandy as long as you don’t mind a major hit in performance. DTG are currently working on optimisation so hopefully these can be addressed when the optimisation patch(es) has/have been released.
     
  9. Anthony Pecoraro

    Anthony Pecoraro Well-Known Member

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    They are using the blue haze now. Definitely better than the white fog from TSW 2020.
     
  10. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    Absolutely, although I think it should be a bit more pronounced, specifically over hills and mountains.

    I don't think Arosa takes advantage of it by the looks of it?
     
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  11. Anthony Pecoraro

    Anthony Pecoraro Well-Known Member

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    I saw it.
     
  12. JayTG123

    JayTG123 Active Member

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    Good post londonmidland Couldn’t agree more. At the end of the day all of these types of threads and messages are created and updated on here because we all want TSW2 to be the best it can be! Might be a silly question but I wonder if DTG have the final say or sign off on externally made DLC before release? I assume they do?
     
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  13. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    The issue isn't communication as such, Sam and Nat do a fairly good job of that already along with Matt dipping his toes in occasionally.

    The issues seem to be more that nobody can give dates when things are going to happen (mainly because the community jump on every scrap of information and tear it to shreds) and nobody from the community is going to have the answers people want which is what's happening, when is it happening, what does it sound/feel/drive like etc etc

    One thing I took from last night's roadmap stream is that a lot of the block on releasing fixes seems to stem from PS and Xbox store where there are limited release windows, hence things like PIS on coastway get completed by Adam's team, but not put out and because DTG want everyone to have the same thing cross-platform, nobody gets it
     
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  14. zawal.belili

    zawal.belili Guest

    The only advice I will give is to have more different ground textures.

    Notament to improve the mountains and the undergrowth.
    The everlasting green that we are served in all sauces how to get out of my nose!

    It does not cost much in resources and it greatly improves the quality of the roads
     
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  15. davidh0501

    davidh0501 Well-Known Member

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    Computer games are primarily visual.
    Authenticity, accuracy, sounds etc. are all secondary.
    Compromises are always necessary, but everything stands or falls on the quality of the graphics.
    Get that wrong and no one will buy your product.

    Personally I'd like Dtg to host small patches on their server for pc enthusiasts to download straight away.
    These could then be removed when the official Steam etc. updates are pushed out.
    Suspect they could even find a volunteer to host amongst the modding community.
    Shame it won't happen...
     
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  16. ArtFart

    ArtFart New Member

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    Add "Complete rework to the in-game TAA so it doesn't freak out when stopped and react to the SSR, or MSAA/SMAA support in the base game" to the DTG part.
     
  17. cilldroichid

    cilldroichid New Member

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    If the above was true there would not be any such thing as the train simulator genre. No Zusi, Run 8, Trainz, Railworks/Train Simulator to name a few, maybe BVE/OpenBVE would survive on account of it being freeware. In my experience graphics has never the strong point of any train simulator, in fact in my opinion TSW 2, despite its problems, is by far and away the best looking current train sim.
     
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  18. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    Not for everyone, in fact from my experience around train simulators and forums for over 15 years I would say for many visuals are often secondary. Maybe for a lot of games visuals are more important, not sure that is so for simulators.

    Sounds are very much a large part of the simulation experience and physics and accuracy are very much up there.

    Obviously having a wonderful almost photo realistic simulator and accurate sounds and physics would be great.

    This is one of the reasons I am choosing to run realistic sounding BR blue diesels on the TS1 Paddington Swindon route which is based on a 14 year old route rather than choosing to own the Western Diesel legends (or not) pack on TSW, even though graphics wise it is light years ahead.
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2021
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  19. davidh0501

    davidh0501 Well-Known Member

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    De gustibus...
    Disagree about sounds. They help, but there’s no way I could have realistic sounds in my house.
    The neighbours would be round with pitchforks.
    Tried the subwoofer on raildriver and was nearly evicted.

    I wouldn’t play Tsw unless the the graphics are reasonable. One reason I don’t play Run8 or Bve.
    Or the original flight simulator.

    When I drive I’m aware of the car sounds but ninety percent of my attention is out of the window.
    Same with train drivers.
    Like a car, train controls are part of their muscle memory.
     
  20. cilldroichid

    cilldroichid New Member

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    And that's your opinion, which of course your entitled to, and don't get me wrong I sort of agree with you in relation to TSW as the graphics are one of its main selling points. Its just you made a very sweeping statement in your previous post about how everything stands or falls on the quality of the graphics when in most Train Simulators, past and present, the quality of the scenery is well down the list of priorities
     
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  21. davidh0501

    davidh0501 Well-Known Member

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    Hah What did you expect?
    This the internet, the home of exaggeration & distortion of truth.
    But then, then truth by coherence or correspondence?
     
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  22. cilldroichid

    cilldroichid New Member

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    I’m afraid a discussion on the theories of truth would be above my pay grade, so I’ll leave it at that.
     
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