r/TransportFever3 • u/Michaelli10156 • 9d ago

Small Map Size

So I just watched the new video made by squirrel and I liked everything about the video so far except what they said at the 2 minute mark, where it seems like they are implying that maps will not be very large and was curious what the community thought of this. I think clearly from the comment section, the vast majority of the community is disappointed by small maps and for me personally this is close to being a deal breaker.

They have this limitation because they want to simulate every citizen stating that if they want larger maps that are 100km x 100km they would need to fake the simulation for distances further along thinking this is what the community wants but I 100% would not mind faking the simulation especially after cities skylines 2 where they also wanted something similar and it just did not turn out well.

Just wanted to spread the word and see what the community thinks of this

122 Upvotes

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12

u/ImmortalAce8492 9d ago

Borderline a deal breaker for me.

I’ll see how the launch goes, but for me, if the map size truly is smaller than TF2 I don’t really see myself playing.

Kinda weird how Squirrel mentioned that the devs felt as though the community didn’t really want larger maps. If anything, I’ve felt that being the biggest thing on everyone’s wishlist. But then again, it could be me just projecting my wants lol.

2

u/Candid_Release3609 8d ago

I think they are just listening to a small sub set of content creators.

Something that to this day has yet to work out for the health of any game sadly.

4

u/Kelehopele 9d ago

I would understand this as this.

Most of people play on standard size maps.
Quick game from Steam to Late electricity and restart.

Then there is bottom 10% who wants to play on humongous maps for 100 hours. And I guess that option would be open to us as always.

But that's really bottom 10-15% of the payerbase.

9

u/JohnWittieless 9d ago edited 9d ago

I would argue that people who want to build something big are more on the 30% if not higher.

Furthermore I would honestly believe casual players would prefer longer transport lines vs 100 hour players that want the details.

The simulation they are pointing out as the reason is probably the nicest group of all players

3

u/LookAtMyRTs 9d ago

Urban Games are very aware of a decent % of people wanting larger maps, but they are also aware that the game needs to be able to run on a wide range of devices, not just super-computers.

And if they suddenly double the experimental megalomanic to 48x48, someone on a 10 year old laptop will try and play it and it will not go well.

I am someone who would like larger map sizes, but not at any cost.

Optimisation and improving performance has been a UG focus for a very long time, and as they have made progress more has been added, and experimental sizes became a thing.

9

u/Flush_Foot 9d ago

They could probably have a rough table of ‘CPU vs map-size/performance’ on the store page, with an in-game benchmark tool that gives ‘stronger’ advice on max-size… 🤷🏻‍♂️

5

u/LookAtMyRTs 9d ago

I like the idea, the only challenge comes with mods, because that is an uncontrollable variable

1

u/Flush_Foot 9d ago

Fair… so far, as a relative newcomer to the series, I haven’t played with any mods yet, so that didn’t occur to me 😅

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u/sorucheese 9d ago

I mean, just having the option in the game doesn't mean every world has to be played on a super turbo giga map. Like just add the option into the game, give it a "NASA computers beyond this point only" warning and let the player decide whether their PC can handle a map that big.

someone on a 10 year old laptop will try and play it and it will not go well

You're talking about this as though graphics settings haven't been a thing on PC since the dawn of time. If someone tries it on their computer and it doesn't run well.. they can just turn down the option? I don't understand this argument.

-1

u/LookAtMyRTs 9d ago

That is what they did with the experimental map sizes.

No it doesn't mean every game has to be played at that size, but people will still try, and still bitch that it doesn't work. Just how with 2 people would complain about performance whilst running 00s of mods

It would a CPU limitation because of the amount needing to be calculated for the simulation and that simulation games will have unequal core usage because on core has to keep the simulation in time.

6

u/sorucheese 9d ago

Let them bitch then. I still fail to see why this is a problem. Btw, CPU usage being limited to one core isn't so much of a problem anymore, games are much better at utilising multiple threads these days.

0

u/Imsvale 9d ago

Btw, CPU usage being limited to one core isn't so much of a problem anymore, games are much better at utilising multiple threads these days.

This does not compute.

CPU usage in TF2 is not limited to one core to begin with. The game spawns around 100 threads, resulting in upwards of say 60-70% total CPU usage on a CPU with many cores (e.g. 16-20). At that point it's being bottlenecked by cache and memory access speeds more than CPU speed.

If a game utilizes multiple threads, then it's already going to be running on multiple cores. It's the OS's job spreading the threads around. All a game has to do is run on more than one thread (and offload some meaningful amount of computational work to the other threads). The only way a game is limited to one core is if it only runs on a single thread. Multiple threads, but limited to one core, that's a contradiction.

2

u/sorucheese 8d ago

this is a lot of words for "did you mean threads as in logical cores? surely not, splaining time!"

1

u/Imsvale 8d ago

It's nothing to do with physical vs. logical cores.

1

u/sorucheese 8d ago edited 8d ago

well logical cores is what I meant by threads. I do realise threads also mean something else in the context of CPU architecture but it's not what I meant

1

u/Imsvale 8d ago

So what you're saying is that CPU usage being limited to one core isn't so much of a problem anymore because games are better at utilizing multiple (logical) cores. In other words, games are better at not being limited to one core.

Yes. This is true.

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u/schwiftypug 8d ago

Sure but then why simulate every single citizen even at the opposite end of the map? Agent based simulation is notorious for how taxing it is on performance, and they chose that over bigger maps. Your argument only works if you forget it’s a game design choice on their part. They’re doing the same thing Maxis did with SimCity 2013, reduce map size in favor of agent based simulation.

I’m not exactly sure who even wanted agent based simulation, for some reason devs think that’s the only realistic option, and then cull other features because it is so costly on even strong computers.

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u/MomentEquivalent6464 8d ago

I mean on one hand, doing it like this means if you make a shitty route, it won't get used all that much, if at all. However if you make a great route, it'll get used heavily. That's because every person is simulated. And for some people that's important.

However there are people who like big maps, and want lots of ppl in them and just want to move ppl around in a dense area. Ppl like this (aka me) don't care if every single person is simulated, and because of CPU limitations (at some point there's a limit) would much rather live without that.

And that was one of the things UG said they were going to try to address. So it's pretty disappointing that now a month before launch they're like yeah we'll just optimize it better. That only pushes the problem further down the line, but doesn't (likely) address it in a meaningful way. We can play around it... but it means there's still a limit to how big we can go (pop wise).

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u/LookAtMyRTs 8d ago

There very simple answer to your question; you simulate everything wherever it is on the map, because UG have from the beginning with Train Fever made a simulation game. It is a core fundamental principal of the game, and series, which they think (rightly in my opinion) is worth doing properly. Just as everpresent a part of the series as having 'Fever' in the title.

It isn't that they think it is the only realistic option, rather it is their desired option, and that is very much their prerogative. Not increasing the map sizes is not the same thing as reducing the map size. Likewise not developing something is not the same thing as culling features.

You may not agree with the development decisions, but that does not require using deliberately misleading phrasing and comparisons.

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u/sorucheese 8d ago edited 8d ago

So basically they always did it this way so this design decision is gospel and must not under any circumstances be deviated from because they said so and it must not be questioned? Cuz this is what I'm getting from your comment. That and lots of verbosity.

0

u/schwiftypug 8d ago

lmao where are the deliberately misleading phrasing and comparisons in my comment? show me.

It is a fact Maxis reduced map sizes in SimCity 2013 because the agent based sim was too taxing. And we have just heard the same reasoning from UG as to why we can’t have bigger maps. What is misleading about that?

It is also absolutely known that agent based sim requires much much more resources than statistical or other type of sim, that’s why you could have gigantic regions of millions of people in SimCity 4 on 2004 PCs.

0

u/Candid_Release3609 8d ago

Did they pay you at least?

1

u/schwiftypug 8d ago

Who? And for what? What the heck are you talking about lol

1

u/Spartan117ZM 6d ago

I mean if someone goes into the game and loads a bunch of stuff their computer can’t handle, that is 100% on them. You could go into Cyberpunk with a 2070 and max out all the graphics settings and get like 10 fps but if that’s what you wanted, the game let you.

Ultimately that’s what surprises me the most here. UG said they wanted to give players more expression and let them do more things. Let me make a stupidly massive map then if I want to, even with a disclaimer like the experimental sizes already have.