If this has already been answered, then I apologise, but after having a look around, I have found multiple threads relating to achievements, some covering what I mention in this topic, but none from what I saw, came to a conclusion about why it's happened, or have had a reply from DTG themselves. So with that out of the way... With the release of TSW 3, there's been many changes to the game, the majority being positive I'd say, but one of the negative changes has been the "slimming down" of achievements so to speak. I know there's probably people who don't care at all for the achievements, and that's fair enough, but I always liked the challenge of going after the achievements and completing them. Personally, I felt like it gave me a reason to go back to older routes, to complete all the achievements, even on routes that aren't my most favourite routes and I wouldn't play normally, WSR being one of those. However, now in TSW 3, with the achievements slimmed down to 3 per route, I just feel like there isn't much, if any, incentive to go back to those older routes for any reason. I'm not sure if this change is meant to be permanent or temporary, but I really do hope it's the latter personally. I understand that there was some achievements that were broken, so if it was just them that were removed until they were fixed, then I'd understand. I also understand that there's an issue with achievements on console, I think it's an achievement cap or something on the PS5 or something, but as unfortunate as that is, I don't see why this should impact other platforms. So while I'm not too sure what the reasoning behind it is, I hope the rest of the achievements are able to added in the future at least.
I think you answered your own question in the last paragraph, I don't think anyone's gonna come in with some stunning revelation. And honestly there's a lot of achievements which are redundant, and extremely basic. Mainly the ones which revolve around completing training modules and scenarios. Often you'd have achievements for each specific scenario and tutorial, and then you'd have one for completing all of them. Like really? There's zero reason to do that, just have latter, and cut the rest, the singular ones are just pointless.
Basically, DTG lowered the number of achievements due to Sony and their arbitrary limitations. I'm not sure if Microsoft told DTG to reel it back on Xbox as well, I remember Matt saying consoles plural on stream so maybe Microsoft did? I don't know for certain. The way around this? Slim down the number of achievements to three per add-on. Unfortunately, this happened to all platforms including Steam, which doesn't have an achievement limit to my knowledge. Look at Train Simulator Classic, it has over 1,000 achievements! I guess they kept the achievements the same on PC for parity, I don't personally think a platform should have had reduced achievements if it could support more though. I said this back when the PS trophy limit was first mentioned, PC or Xbox shouldn't be made to have less achievements just because PlayStation does. Mich mentions above, so many achievement conditions in TSW are repeated. A lot of the older ones can be earned several times now between TSW2020, TSW2 and now TSW3 since they've simply been copy/pasted over to the latest game. The older achievements really should have been left in their respective games, so no TSW2020 achievements in TSW2 and no TSW2020 or TSW2 achievements in TSW3. This way would've avoided being remotely near an achievement limit without needing to reduce number of achievements down to 3 per add-on. As for achievement conditions, this is how I would've done it myself if I were writing them up. Route add-ons: #1: Complete all Tutorials (Bronze) #2: Complete all Scenarios (Silver) #3: Complete X number of Services (or all of them if less than 50) [Silver] #4: Complete route's Journey Mode (Gold) #5: Find all Route Tasks (Gold) #6: Drive X number of miles in included loco #1 (Silver) #7: Drive X number of miles in included loco #2 (Silver) #X: Add extra mileage trophies if route includes more than 2 locos, like Riesa - Dresden. Loco add-ons: #1: Complete tutorial (Bronze) #2: Complete all Scenarios (Silver) #3: Complete X number of Services (or all if less than 50) [Silver] #4: Complete Loco's Journey Mode (Gold) #5: Drive X number of miles in loco (Silver) #X: Add extra mileage trophies for other included locos if this is a three-pack like New Journeys Expansion or TSW3 add-on pack. These trophy requirements would be standardised for all released content and combined with my idea of each game not copy/pasting achievements from the previous game, shouldn't hit the trophy limit on PlayStation. Have a trophy for Journey Mode also gives an incentive to play it.
Having different sets of achievements on different platforms becomes very difficult to maintain and harder to test (and our track record on that front is already not good enough). TSW3 has introduced a TON of new players that have never played TSW at all - and therefore, their purchase of LIRR on TSW3 will be the first time and not having achievements for what is currently 99% of the catalogue will be very odd. It's not an ideal situation and we're constantly monitoring, but it's the best we can do at the moment. Matt.
Well hang on, in TS Classic there's a lot of content, mainly third party stuff like the Smokebox steam locos, which lack achievements. I'd also note Microsoft Flight Simulator only has a handful of achievements, all of which can be completed only with the basic content. And in terms of conventional games I've played a lot of Super Smash Bros. the versions on 3DS onward has a bunch of achievements, but only makes use of base game content. They released DLC characters for them, but never added achievements which required use of those DLC characters. Not a comprehensive list I know, I'd say its enough to prove the point that it's not a insane idea to not have achievements for DLC content.
Sorry I haven't replied to my own thread sooner. Dw, I didn't forget about it, just been a bit too busy until now to have a chance to reply. I think all the points are pretty valid here. Firstly, I agree with the point of redundant achievements, or at least insignificant ones. There's a lot of ones that were either easy to do, or just felt like "why is X an achievement". So yeah, I'm not too fussed about losing those tbh, such as complete XYZ scenario. Secondly, while I still think it's a bit unfair that PS (and xbox) achievement limits should also affect other platforms, but after Matt bringing up the fact that it'd make testing harder when DTG already don't have the best track record with testing, I think it makes a bit more sense now. After all, there's other things much more important in the game for the QA team to focus on than testing different achievements on each platform. And then when it comes down to the idea of not having the achievements for older content, well, I'm not keen on the idea, but I also think it's a very appropriate idea. Afterall, as has already been said, those of us that's been here since CSX HH and and 2020 have done most of these achievements once already, if not twice, so I don't think it's an unreasonable idea. But I do agree with Matt here when he says that not having achievements for 90% of the content would be weird. And I know other games don't do it, I still stick with that. Overall, I think I have to agree with Matt says at the end. Yeah, it's not really ideal, but if it's the best DTG can do at present, then I can accept that. I'd still love to have the old achievements back at some point if possible when the time is right, but tbh, I'm not so against a slimming down of achievements on future content. Would I would suggest though is to keep them consistent, and to have a significant goal too (but not over the top either - like the daunting 1660mi in the 166 achievement). But yeah, it's nice to have a definitive answer now, and I can see why it's been done. At the end of the day, there are a lot more important stuff in TSW which require the attention of DTG, but hopefully as I said, it can potentially be reviewed again in the future, say if DTG was able to sort out the limits on console.
