Hot topic #2: Rush hour, driving the traffic jams

[Prime]

Hello fellow truckers!

 

The first Hot Topic ran for 2 weeks and many of you participated in the discussions obout the upcoming 1.32 release, now it is time to release a new discussion topic.

For the next 2 weeks we will talk about something that many of you regulary see when playing online and often talk about many different topics: driving (and surviving) in some of the congested areas on the servers.

 

How do you handle them? What do you think about people constantly driving in the same areas with half of Europe at your disposal? What do you think about the rules set out for busy areas (no overtaking, no beacons)?

Discuss it all in this Hot Topic!

[Ali.]

The rules are there to make the gameplay better for everyone. Driving in these highly populated areas such as C-D road and even in the surrounding cities such as Rotterdam, Brussels ,Lille etc. Although certain people don't follow the rules, it's great to see an influx in moderators in those areas to set things straight and make sure that everything runs smoothly.

 

A tip on how to survive these areas would be to;

• Don't drive at the top speed of the truck you're in (helps you control your truck in case of a crash on the road or stopped trucks).
• Leave a suitable amount of distance from you and the truck in front of you (helps with certain players who can lag etc).

That is stuff that I can do to survive in highly populated areas as well as this - I tend to drive the speed limit (which annoys some players, not sure why) because it means that I have more control when driving.

 

If you want to visit the cities that I said above, you can avoid the large amount of players by viewing this topic created by @heyhococo ;

 

[Krewlex]

This one is interesting. We don't fully know why a particular road is busy, but it just is. All sorts of people gather there, either to attempt their delivery route or join in with the traffic (which is rather strange to do when it can last for hours).

At times it would be smarter to avoid said areas and use alternate routes. For the example of a specific road, there's a highway leading underneath. It seems people already use this diversion, and some of the congestion has already lead down there.

 

With 1.32 mentioned, as Germany is being tweaked, maybe the traffic will move further into Germany rather than sitting on the road which happens to have the last section of it into the German side. It is visibly different when checking in the Beta, but of course plenty more to explore than just this.

 

For the most part, the rules are being obeyed better than most would think. Most of the traffic seen especially at the middle intersection is purely just traffic. A handful of it from time to time end up being the overtakers and other troublemakers. Beacons should be turned off indeed. Those that mention the insane lag certainly don't help themselves by smothering the truck in lights. It looks flashy indeed but, bit overdone.

[MrJonton01 [GER]]

I handle the traffic by driving carefully. I avoid speeding in those areas and even if someone is tailgating me or tries to overtake, I stay calm and make space. The more we watch eachother, the less accidents happen. It's attitude of the drivers that make C-D, what it is.

Rules are not really having any effect. People who overtake, speed heavily or just drive recklessly don't care that they could banned.

There are WAY more Game Moderators needed to handle the situation. Right now, it's bad.

[Guest]

I love driving in traffic jams, gives you a chance to stick truckers.fm on, sit back and relax a bit. They're very social as well - yesterday a guy in an identical truck with the same trailer pulled up behind me, completely by chance, and had a nice chat with him. I think once an area becomes busy, people who like the social aspect of lots of trucks flock to it and that results in a seemingly random road becoming very busy.

[Kerupuks]

Many people love driving in traffic jams, but some people violate the rules so that the C-D road is not conducive. IF THEY obeying the rules, the C-D road will be very exciting because of its unique traffic jam and high population area.

[[VIVΛ HH] KЯΛVΛTIΞ]

i love busy areas but its annoying when people overtake and ram out off the road for no reason

 

but when you see like admins with their beacons flashing whilst its within the rules not to have beacons on in busy areas

[PlacGhost]

I don't mind the road because it wasn't as bad as Rotterdam Port in 2015 / 2016 that was a stand still 

[Dziada]

The road is bad, but it won't get any better anytime soon. Like someone wise on this website said:

 

'The road is popular because it is popular'. People love going there, people there are people.

[Glada_Laxen]

Driving in these heavily trafficked areas are not bad in the way you think. It is not the high amount of players that are the issue and not always lag either, the problem is the players who drive reckless and fast, thinking TruckersMP is some sort of racing simulator. 

 

And this topic is rather upsetting as a non-staff user, because: 

 

The attitude from staff members; 

As seen above from the staff themselves, they rather put the blame on every user who drives in heavily trafficked areas. But we have several examples that would prove you wrong; just look at convoys. During convoys people are actually driving seriously, they do not inappropriately overtake or speed. They usually drive with safe distance at a safe/decent speed and it works just fine. Just because there is a high amount of players does not mean that everyone is suddenly driving reckless and crashing. 

 

And come on, you are hosting and moderating for a multiplayer mod and you expect people to avoid other players? People are literally joining TruckersMP to drive with other players. 

 

Useless Traffic Rule;

The Useless Traffic rule is too unspecified. I have several times been falsely kicked and banned for "useless traffic". The useless traffic rule should only apply for those that are making illegal u-turns to repeatedly drive through intersections or roads that are on heavy load on traffic. Not people who are sitting in queue, patiently, respectfully, waiting for their turn to get through the traffic jam. 

 

When Rotterdam - Europoort was heavily trafficked in 2015 I got rammed on my way from Rotterdam towards Europoort. When I arrived at the docks I stopped to record (on DVR) the incident. I was banned within a few seconds because I did not instantly travel to Felixstowe. 

 

You may say; this was in 2015, a long time ago, that things have changed. But they have not. 

 

During the Operation Big Sur Event on American Truck Simulator I was falsely kicked for Useless Traffic. I had just finished the event unloading my last contract to the Big Sur compound. So, what I did was that I picked up a job that was not a contract, since I had finished those, and was about to drive off. I left the compound driving straight out without turning or bothering anyone, it went as smoothly as it could have. But, because I was using a DLC trailer that was not available as a World of Trucks Big Sur contract, I was kicked within seconds for useless traffic even though I had a valid job and nobody in front of me. If I wasn't kicked I would've been out of the trafficked area within a minute maybe. 

 

What I am trying to say is that you are focusing on the wrong people/players and wasting time doing so. Valuable In-Game Moderator time is being wasted on punishing innocent players. Instead you should use this time and focus to ban players inappropriately overtaking, cheating/NCZ-hacking and ramming. 

 

Beacons; 

Surely there can be a added feature to automatically kick players using beacons in heavily trafficked areas? There's already the automated kick that kicks players not using headlights after 21:00 - 5:00(I think those are the times, not relevant anyway) 

So why not try implement a feature that checks how many users are nearby and start kicking players who got their beacons on? 

 

But regarding surviving in heavily trafficked areas; 

Quicksave. Since the cooldown for /fix is too long (you get rammed approximately every 4 minutes on Calais - Duisburg and the cooldown is 10 minutes) you need to quicksave in order to keep your truck repaired.

 

If you wish to go further to report players that are causing issues on these roads, be ready to record your gameplay and use /pinfo <ID> to get their information. If you use the in-game report system, it is very likely going to be rejected as unclaimed reports are automatically rejected after 10 minutes. 

 

And don't listen to people who blame you for driving in heavily trafficked areas. It's like blaming victims of sexual assault for being dressed too lightly. 

[Aco-]

@Glada_Laxen I give you totally right, your words are all true

 

i been kicked before for just driving in Brussel to Duisburg, ( for Reckless Driving ) i been Rammed and pushed by other trucks on the road, they were overtaking me and pushing me, was not even my Fault,

but nevermind it's not about the Admins/Mods

it's about the Driving and Surviving My own Opinion, i like to drive in places where allout of people are because i did join TruckersMP for Interaction, and not to play all alone, as long people are behaving it's really a nice thing to even be stuck in an Traffic Jam, becouse i am playing ETS2 and since even in Real Life allot of Jams are made, i belive TruckersMP needs them too, for Realism, we have such heavy rules and all are kinda made for Realism so why can't we enjoy the Jams ?

so how do i survive ? i take allot of time with me drive on a good speed and try to get pass the jams.

[Greybeard]

if I come across the respectable drivers, I can enjoyable time in the crowded areas but I usually see trolls and NFS players. inevitable end, Alt + F4.

[Numarkk]

How do you handle them? What do you think about people constantly driving in the same areas with half of Europe at your disposal?

 

Well, first of all I just avoid going to the C-D road on EU2, because I am seriously not interested in being a part of "chaos" there. I would rather drive with a few people and chill with friends/members of my VTC on other locations than just visit the service station every 5 minutes.

 

Of course, the C-D road is popular for quite a number of reasons:
1. Since it's MP, most people would like to drive with hundreds of people around them.
2. The chaos part is what most are interested in I suppose, since that adds a "fun" factor to the game. I see a lot of people on forums and discord saying that they "avoid" going to the CD road but in the end I am sure most of them end up going to that road because the FUN part is there.
3. The fact that the road is so narrow that even if you are driving good, you sure will be flipped over some or the other time.
4. Every You-tuber who creates "funny videos" go there and the people around would ram into them just so that they can show their momma that they're on YouTube.
5. People who drive Skoda and have no idea about manual transmission or controlling the wheels.

 

What do you think about the rules set out for busy areas (no overtaking, no beacons)?

 

Are these rules even implemented? Sometimes I see admins posting notification in the game about not using beacons with 25+ people around which is I guess followed by most people, but overtaking? How is it possible for you admins to track that? It's a long road and you can view only one particular location in free cam.

 

The problem in that road is not "overtaking". I used to go to that road a few times to finish job deliveries and I would see people overtaking me a lot. I would just slide to the right and let them go ahead. The main problem of overtaking is when...

 

1. The person who is overtaking DOESN'T care about the fact that there is another truck coming from the opposite direction.
2. When the rear truck is overtaking, the front one would swerve a bit to avoid letting him overtake ending in a major collision.

 

No matter what rules you set, this road will always be a chaos

[NKM01]

Well I try to stay in my lane and stay at a somewhat slow speed when I end up entering a heavily populated area, though my speed may be slow at time due to my FPS dropping below 10 FPS. And I would try to get out soon as I can, but it certainly doesn't help matters when people are impatient and overtake me at a intersection when I turn right or left and though they are not in the correct lane to make the turn, and I get my truck not and I end up doing a 180° before I know it. So I do try to avoid them by getting on the server when it is less full, and if I am on it when it does get full, just try to avoid the area all together. But at times I can not get out in time before it really starts eating my FPS so I try to pull over and stay out of the way of the road, like pulling over in a grassy spot if a parking lot isn't nearby. And I try to wait it out. As for those with beacons on in these areas, I suggest that they turn them off, cause those beacons due as well eat my FPS quite badly. when the population dies down a little so my FPS is back above or at 10 FPS, then I continue to my destination, where ever that may be. I think that the admins and moderators should at least pay attention to the intersections a bit more, cause that is where I have most of my issues with traffic. And they should probably also pay some attention to those who are speeding into the congested roads cause they seem to try and speed through and end up making a big crash site if not plow right through it all. I certainly don't like having to use F7 in these areas cause then I am most certainly not going to make it more than 300 meters away from the repair shop without having to use it several times or without being teleported  back to the repair shop by a admin because I was it and ended up doing a 180° . So I think there is plenty of room for improvement on both the players side and the admin and moderators side.

[BSF-darkmoonsoul-PT-LX]

i simply think that to survive in that type off zone is to stay sharp and try to do the best as possible for staying without ramming no body 

 

[CHRISTINA]

As I do not like congestion, or confusion, I prefer the South America server.
I see almost no one, but I do not have unnecessary annoyances either.  

[TehRamsus]

Europort back to 2019 winter!

[Heemse]

I'm since the beginning when TMP started growing that much, on EU3.. and never had any punishment or anything else.

Registerred November 2014

[Aopin]

I started driving on MP a little over a year ago and started in Rotterdam. I quickly found out that Calais-Duisburg was pure chaos and haven't driven the route ever since. I never take jobs to either city and when GPS directs me through it, I set alternative waypoints avoiding the area. Of course, it's nice to have some traffic around you, but it isn't fun anymore if you can't drive a truck normally. It seems like more distance is done whilst flying instead of driving. 

 

I don't think any rules and/or stronger penalties will solve the issue. In MP players want to drive with other players. So we all think: Where are the other players at? The answer is Calais-Duisburg and the area surrounding it. The further you get away from C-D, the lower the traffic seems to be. The only times when this isn't the case is when there is a new map-DLC or an event that encourages players to drive in a certain part of the map. Like the previous ATS event, which lured all the players to CA. Now after the event, I am lucky to see 200 players online at ATS EU.

 

EU2's C-D road is just known for the crazy traffic, and frankly, it attracts lots of players. Perhaps like mentioned before it is because they all want a cameo on YT? This probably won't change until somewhere else on the map will get a similar reputation. I wonder how players would spread over the map if the devs decided to close of C-D for one week... Where would the mass end up going? or would they just not play altogether? I am pretty sure that changing the rules won't affect it. Maybe if SCS revisits Northern France and Belgium, and C-D would become a separated 2/4 lane freeway, it would lower the number of accidents. But even if it would, I am not sure if that will happen at all. For now, I'll just keep avoiding the route when on EU2, and it'll most likely stay that way until the situation changes for the better.

[IethaI]

How I handle busy areas?

• Drive the speed limit or even below the speed limit a bit
• Keep 100-150 meter distance to the truck in front of me
• Check my mirrors very frequently to see if there is a truck coming up

The rules like no beacons in those areas are in my opinion good. Because the beacons can make the lag higher when there are a lot of people in the area.

[FounD]

I don't actually drive in traffic jams... I prefer quiet Roads and cities with low amount of players

But I know how to deal with traffic jams (keep around 100 meters distance to the truck in front of me; do not overtake...)

 

[ChrisTMH]

Generally, if you know how to drive properly in real life, it's not hard to drive defensively and avoid trouble. I do not drive at the speed limits, especially in populated area, as that increases the chance of an incident - if everyone else is driving at 120, they won't expect you to be driving 80. With that said, read the road ahead and adjust speed accordingly in a way that upsets others the least - rage leads to accidents which lead to more wasted time. As said, leave space in front of you, but do this carefully - if the person behind seems to be type to overtake and take risks, it's probably better to give him less of an opportunity. Never take your eyes off the road, but also never off the minimap - if you see a clump of traffic up ahead, you can preemptively slow down and put your hazards on to warn others. That's another thing, use your hazards ensure people have their eyes fully open.

 

Most importantly, learn to read other player's behaviour and use that to predict their actions and style of driving. Drive defensively if possible, but sometimes it's best to "keep moving" to prevent those behind you from doing anything rash. Know your vehicle and how it drives. Go as fast as appropriate. Watch everything going on around you and act preemptively.

 

Personally, I enjoy the C-D road. It's a great technical exercise and helps sharpen your driving skills and overall awareness. What other have said about a lack of mods is true, I don't bother reporting players in game as they are never dealt with. And their judgement seems to vary, I was once kicked for trying to join a road from the grassy verge with my indicators on - apparently that was reckless driving.

[Pixels_12345]

How do I handle busy areas?

I regularly take WoT jobs which have a 90km/h speed limit, so I highly doubt I would be able to reach 100km/h like the rest of them 

I hate the C-D road as it just promotes more reckless driving and rule-breakers.

- Avoid North Western Europe (especially Koln, Amsterdam, Brussels at peak hours), and drive in DLC areas. If you want to get to UK without getting damage, use the Danish / Norwegian or French ports (e.g. Roscoff). 

What do I think about people constantly driving in the same areas with half of Europe at my disposal?

Every time I drive in the base map regions, drivers' don't seem to understand what lane separation means. They always wait until the last minute, and realize they are in the wrong lane, and then ram into your truck without using their mirrors. Sometimes, I see drivers' overtaking me, and then cut 2 lanes across the highway to get into the exit. It's like people don't understand how to read highway signs. 

 

Another issue I see, is drivers always hogging the fast lane, even if they are going at slow speeds. 

Drivers don't use indicators to warn others that they are merging into another lane. Neither, do they check their mirrors, which meant for slow drivers like us, have to react to vehicles cutting way too dangerously close to other drivers.

What do I think about the rules set out for busy areas?

I think the rules are in some way still too lenient in some areas, especially for ramming and reckless driving. I agree a beacon ban is an excellent idea too as said in previous above posts.

 

The in-game report system also needs a revamp. Admins and game moderators, shouldn't need to set how many days the user should be banned for, instead, there should be a clear structure showing how many days users are banned for, when users receive their first/second/third ban. 

[Sanil]

If you are a long term player, it is kind of obvious where the crowded cities and roads are. Which is why I don't even attempt to go to crowded cities. I don't have a very good PC and I get 8FPS with 20+ people around me. I'd rather not risk lagging and being kicked. Empty roads are nice and when you have a friend around, it can get pretty fun. Slap some spotify or TFM on and you got an amazing combo. Traffic isn't something to waste time on! Gotta finish the job 

[Matt]

I enjoy being in the Rush Hour traffic now and again however it can turn into chaos after a while. So sometimes I'll feel like going on the most populated road, C-D. But most oftenly I'll be in a random city in Europe driving about, doing some loads.
I think the rules on populated traffic are good as overtaking can be very risky in densely populated areas and beacons can cause FPS drops. It would be nice to see people more spread out throughout the map but C-D seems to become the big trend after Euro Port.