Route 101 and SCS map design

[Walta Gaming]

Is it just me or does Route 101 feel leagues better then just about every other highway in the game? I used to think the Norway section of ETS2 was peak map design but everytime I drive down Route 101 I am just blown away by how good this road looks.

101 is just stuffed with cool details like deer walking around in the bushes, custom town welcome signs, loads of custom bridges and has engaging roads to navigate. My favourite example is the trollies in Astoria. At first I though SCS was lazy and did not bother to add wiring but I looked it up and IRL the trollies run on generators that they pull around which are even modeled ingame. However, the sad fact is I have only really used this road about 3 times out of over 100 hours of gameplay. The towns on 101 have too few industries and Interstate 5 is faster in almost every situation so I end up the I-5 whenever I am in the Western section of the map.

This is basicaly what happens in real life but the problem is the Interstates in this game are very bland compaired to the side highways. The I-5 in Washington / Oregon feels really boring (Seattle section excluded) because there are very few custom assets and the towns are mostly hidden off the road so you never see any of the cool buildings unless you stop for gas.

The same sort of situations can be found all over the map. It took me over 100 hours to use SR 20 in Washington which featured waterfalls and lookout points with readable information signs. In New Mexico we have a great road northwest of Raton but I have only been on that one twice compaired with half a dozen runs on the I-40. Just 2 weeks ago I found Mount St. Helens for the first time since there is no reason to go there except for the view. The Helens detour cost me almost 4 hours and it was off on an already obscure road that my GPS has never told me to drive through.

It is great that SCS has made these amazing side roads with jaw dropping views but some of them are so far off of major roads that I almost wish SCS dumped them and worked on improving gameplay or adding more custom assets to Interstates.

I think a major reason why these games are so great is due to the varriety of routes that you can take. Compare this to a train simulator game where you will take the same route over and over because you are stuck on rails and other DLC's are in a completely different world. With ATS all the DLC's are stiched together and there are always different route to explore. However, if I am stuck using the big boring Interstates all the time because if I take a side road I will be doomed to arrive late then a lot of the drivers freedom is gone.

There are a few ways I can think of to fix this.

1. Add more job offers.

The map keeps growing but the number of offers stays the same. Medium hauls go everywhere but they are split in so many different ways it is almost impossible to get jobs on routes you want. The issue is compounded by the fact that larger cities demand more cargo so you end being forced into the same cities over an over. There are a few towns on the map that I have never been given a job for because there are not enough job options availible.

2. Improve the Interstate driving exsperiance.

It makes sense that side roads are more interesting to drive on but that does not mean Interstates should be snore fests. More AI vehicals (mods do this but updates break mods often) and varriety in AI driving patterns would make these highways much more interesting. I like mods that add slow vehicals that you have to pass or random AI car crashes that you have to avoid because it keeps you engaged. Maybe have some emergency vehicals that you have to pull over for. Road events are great but this alone is not enough to make up for how bland the Interstates are in game.

3. Improve job offers.

Fully open world games are great but having a few curated sections can help to attract players to intersting sections of the map. The oversize cargo DLC is a great example of this. The cargos are set to specific scenic sections of the map so you can drive on certain, cool routes anytime you want. Having more jobs like this would allow players to drive on cool roads that would be hard to find jobs for otherwise. Another option that might require a little more work is having scenario missions where you start at a standard location but take a cargo to an interesting drop off point. This would let players visit places like Mount St. Helens or other landmarks without having to worry about scrolling through dozens of job offers looking for a specific route with a low urgency delivery.

I can see that SCS is trying to fix the boring main road issue by driving though Bulgaria in ETS 2 where the main roads are stitched together side roads with excellent scenary. This is good but it will never fix the boring highways of the existing map.

TLDR:

Route 101 is amazing and you should drive it if you have the Pacific Northwest states. However, good luck getting a job for it and have fun finishing that job on time. Most of the time you will end up on Interstate 5 which is very "meh" to drive on. This is just one example of an amazing route being pushed off to the side where few players use it. A solution should be found to either close the quality difference between Interstates and side roads or make it easier to get jobs that let you use the side roads that SCS has poured time and effort into.

[Trucker_71]

https://forum.scssoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=272590#p272590

[mojo_musica]

I assume you know that you can map your own route to a destination?
The game will choose the best route if you leave the settings unchanged, but it doesn't mean you HAVE to follow it.
Try setting the job length slider to maximum and routing the jobs the way you want to go, not taking the games's suggested route.
There is a setting in options>gameplay>navigation mode to chose "small roads" as well as "best" and "shortest". Play around with these settings as well and see if you get different routes.
Cargo opportunities are, as you say, dependent on the number of companies in each town and city, but isn't that exactly like real life? Thousands of jobs in Los Angeles, but very few in small towns like Showlow with 3 companies.
There is a huge amount to be explored if you have all the map DLC and cargo extras, more than enough for 1,000-plus hours of gameplay. If you've got the time, you can explore 100% of the map, without hauling any loads, and still get XP points, or do it the hard way and take enough jobs to explore it all AND get paid.

[Walta Gaming]

Originally posted by mojo_musica:

I assume you know that you can map your own route to a destination?
The game will choose the best route if you leave the settings unchanged, but it doesn't mean you HAVE to follow it.
Try setting the job length slider to maximum and routing the jobs the way you want to go, not taking the games's suggested route.
There is a setting in options>gameplay>navigation mode to chose "small roads" as well as "best" and "shortest". Play around with these settings as well and see if you get different routes.
Cargo opportunities are, as you say, dependent on the number of companies in each town and city, but isn't that exactly like real life? Thousands of jobs in Los Angeles, but very few in small towns like Showlow with 3 companies.
There is a huge amount to be explored if you have all the map DLC and cargo extras, more than enough for 1,000-plus hours of gameplay. If you've got the time, you can explore 100% of the map, without hauling any loads, and still get XP points, or do it the hard way and take enough jobs to explore it all AND get paid.

The GPS and routing options are nice and I use them on most trips. The problem is the delivery times are calculated based on the fastest route so on long trips you need to take highways or you will never make it on time. Ie if you start in Port Angeles and go to L.A. with an urgent delivery you will be late if you take route 101 because the timing is calculated based on the time it would take if you used the I-5. One time I only took back roads across the country and was more then 2 days late because I was supposed to take the Interstates the whole way.

Small towns having less jobs makes sense but in gameplay is translates into making runs on the same roads too often. There are so many cool roads in the game that are hard to use because it is really hard to get jobs for them. Just seems silly that after over 100 hours of gameplay I have done some routes a dozen times while there are better roads that I have done once or never before because the game won't give me jobs for them.

At this point I have just started a new file with long distance driving level 2 and no just in time skills so I can see every town and have enough time for detours.

[The Pitts]

Originally posted by Finnegan Fox:

The map keeps growing but the number of offers stays the same

How so? The number of job offers increases with the number of yards/depots in the game world. Each yard has a fixed number of job slots (baked into the prefabs, I believe) and therefore the number of jobs available in the Quick Jobs/Freight Market increases accordingly. Now those jobs don't necessarily go where you want them to go, but nonetheless there are more of them the more map areas you add.

[Walta Gaming]

Originally posted by The Pitts:

Originally posted by Finnegan Fox:

The map keeps growing but the number of offers stays the same

How so? The number of job offers increases with the number of yards/depots in the game world. Each yard has a fixed number of job slots (baked into the prefabs, I believe) and therefore the number of jobs available in the Quick Jobs/Freight Market increases accordingly. Now those jobs don't necessarily go where you want them to go, but nonetheless there are more of them the more map areas you add.

I could be wrong but I think each company in a city offers about 3 jobs. The issue is that as more destinations are added, it becomes harder and harder to find jobs you want. I found this an issue in ETS2 mostly because I bought the DLC's one at a time. In the base game I could mostly decide where I wanted to go because the number of locations was limited. ie if I wanted to go from London to Germany I usually could but by the time I had most of the map DLC's I would be lucky to find even 1 job going to Germany because the other jobs went all over the map. Same situation in ATS where if you wanted to go to Vegas in the base game it is not hard to find a job for it but with map DLC the destinations will be spread all over the place. This issue will only get worse when more States are added.

[The Pitts]

As you describe it the issue is not really with the number of jobs but with the number of destinations. If you wish to go from where you are to point X (especially if you are looking for particular depots in point X) then each DLC makes that harder and harder.

I am not at the stage where it bothers me much with ATS (still enjoying driving where the fancy takes me with just the Enchanted Bundle installed) but in ETS2 I've been trying to visit every yard whilst either delivering from it or to it (no bagging prefabs whilst free roaming) and some are incredibly difficult to get. I've been trying a mixture of External Contracts (where generally you get a larger choice but seemingly some strange weightings toward particular routes) and looking for anything in the Freight Market going to where I want to visit and trying to find my way to the starting point in time. Neither are entirely successful and the level of frustration that built is one of the reasons I purchased ATS at the beginning of this year.

[cycleboxer]

TeamReforma Sierra Nevada crushes anything SCS could even dream of. As a trucker of 10 years it is the only area that is fun to drive...also the roads are not 50ft wide.