Let's be more critical of P3D

[RALF9636 1,904]

There seems to be a tendency here to be overly enthusiastic towards P3D and to immediately shout down any criticism.

 

Just as an example, in the thread about FFTF Dynamic someone points out that such a basic functionality like having an optimal balance between FPS and texture loading any time by dynamically adjusting the FFTF value should be included in the base sim and shouldn't require to buy an addon.

He immediately was shouted down from all sides, even by a moderator who blamed him for having an agenda and told him to move on. He was told that a default blank P3D runs smooth out of the box and it's the users fault to install all kinds of addons. Well, but how does a default blank P3D look like? It looks like a software from a decade ago, so P3D just relies on the plethora of addons most of us are using.

 

In other threads users post screenshots and videos praising what a great sim P3D V5 is, while the video shows a constant texture and mesh morphing right in front of the user's aircraft and autogen popping up in patches all the time further away. Screenshots show a harsh straight and rectangle line between a snow covered winter wonderland and lush green meadows and trees right next to it. There are screenshots of San Francisco which were posted to praise the new truesky technology, where the rendition of the city itself could as well have been from FS2004.

Apart from a handful of users who keep pointing to these and many other long standing issues from time to time nobody seems to care. When it comes to unfinished features or bugs of P3D V5 most people seem to be happy with P3D V5 having "a great potential". Users post about an external addon to be used to organize their addons, the tweaks they use to make the sim run better or the affinity mask that is needed with HT on or off, without exposing the question why these things aren't included in the base sim after all these years.

To the contrary most of the time those who keep criticising P3D are being massively attacked like they were fouling their own nest.

 

Someone posted in a thread that MSFS looks too good, so it looks more like a game and not like a simulator.

This is were the sluggish evolution of flight simulation over the last 15 years has led us to: People think a software must look bad to be considered a flight sim. If it looks anywhere near the graphical standards of the gaming industry in 2020, it can't be a flight simulator.

 

What's wrong with pointing out the shortcomings of P3D with the goal to make the developers improve that software?

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with enjoying what we have and with applauding for the improvements P3D has made all the while, and I don't want to bash P3D. But sometimes it seems any criticism here is regarded as a lèse majesté.

How can we expect LM to finally adress all the long standing issues and bring P3D closer to today's standards of the gaming industry if we just praise the status quo and suppress all the critique?

 

Edited May 13, 2020 by RALF9636

[d.tsakiris 417]

Don't think you'll reach a consensus here. Everyone and their brother has their own opinion of how a flight sim should look, feel and perform. Some opinions are more informed than others, some comparisons make more sense than others.

I'd also like to make the case that if LM were to incorporate all those improvements we wish for (better textures, sounds, scenery, up-to-date navaids etc), it would raise the price of the base product. As it is now, everyone of us can choose what to improve, and where to spend our money.

[chapstick 2,757]

On the one hand, I agree, on the other, there's only so much criticism you can dish out before you realize it's pretty much useless. P3D is on a set path at this point. The only opportunity for significant change is with the full version releases (V4, V5, etc.). Over the next three years, it will receive some nice and modest improvements and bug fixes. But it'll never look as good or run as well as a contemporary video game from a triple-A studio, that much has been made clear with the release of V5. The bar has been set. All you can do is make suggestions and bug reports on their forum and hope they respond.

Also, the LM team mostly listens to payware devs, who have a vested interest in improving the platform just enough to move it forward, but not so much that it would crowd out their own products.

[LHookins 3,102]

It is possible to write a post offering constructive criticism that does not come across as bashing a product.

If someone writes a post that bashes a product then they shouldn't be surprised when people are critical of it.  Posts with genuine constructive criticism seldom draw complaints.

Hook

[rickjake 243]

P3D is still based on a 15 year old platform. Although LM has done some great work over the years to improve it and try to take advantage of modern hardware, it will never ever be a modern flightsim that can take advantage of all the bells and whistles without a complete rewrite of the software from the ground up. People seem to forget this when trying to compare it to the new FS2020. I for one, am grateful for LM for breathing new life into the old FSX and allowing us simmers accesses to it.  There was a point a several years back, that we all thought flight simulation was dead, Now, the future looks very promising. 

[duckbilled 310]

47 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

Also, the LM team mostly listens to payware devs, who have a vested interest in improving the platform just enough to move it forward, but not so much that it would crowd out their own products.

I think this is a pretty accurate interpretation of a key issue. Like all of the MS products in the past, LM is just providing a template for 3rd parties to improve upon. Those developers are only going to push LM far enough so that the devs can continue to sell their products for each new version. If massive improvements in the sim require a lot of new work for 3rd party developers, my guess is those developers will not push for those changes in the sim. After all, small developers just don't have the capacity to keep up with platforms that changes every few months vs incremental changes over a long period of time.

I have complained in the past that the community is too forgiving of payware developers. Most of my frustrations revolve around different installation methods and even the phrasing used in installer GUI's. Even when they ask where you want something installed, they don't maintain a common folder structure. My favorite one is the Simmarket installer that creates a Simmarket directory. I'm just old school I guess. I want the name of the scenery as the folder name with two sub folders - one that is titled "scenery" and one that is titles"texture". Dev's can't even stay consistent with that long-standing standard, and they love to get cute with their folder structure an naming conventions. This is just the tip of the iceberg of how developers drive me crazy, and as I have said before, there should be standards for all developers, and a org like AVSIM should enforce those standards by creating a certification for developers that adhere to common install procedures and naming conventions, among other things. For those that are not AVSIM certified, customers should steer clear of those developers. Buying something that isn't AVSIM certified should be similar to taking a drug that isn't FDA approved.

I can only dream.

[Chock 17,769]

16 minutes ago, duckbilled said:

a org like AVSIM should enforce those standards by creating a certification for developers that adhere to common install procedures and naming conventions, among other things. For those that are not AVSIM certified, customers should steer clear of those developers. Buying something that isn't AVSIM certified should be similar to taking a drug that isn't FDA approved.

Sounds like you've been taking some of those unapproved drugs when you dreamed up this idea.  🤣

Edited May 13, 2020 by Chock

[newtie 533]

1 hour ago, RALF9636 said:

There seems to be a tendency here to be overly enthusiastic towards P3D and to immediately shout down any criticism.

 

Just as an example, in the thread about FFTF Dynamic someone points out that such a basic functionality like having an optimal balance between FPS and texture loading any time by dynamically adjusting the FFTF value should be included in the base sim and shouldn't require to buy an addon.

He immediately was shouted down from all sides, even by a moderator who blamed him for having an agenda and told him to move on. He was told that a default blank P3D runs smooth out of the box and it's the users fault to install all kinds of addons. Well, but how does a default blank P3D look like? It looks like a software from a decade ago, so P3D just relies on the plethora of addons most of us are using.

 

In other threads users post screenshots and videos praising what a great sim P3D V5 is, while the video shows a constant texture and mesh morphing right in front of the user's aircraft and autogen popping up in patches all the time further away. Screenshots show a harsh straight and rectangle line between a snow covered winter wonderland and lush green meadows and trees right next to it. There are screenshots of San Francisco which were posted to praise the new truesky technology, where the rendition of the city itself could as well have been from FS2004.

Apart from a handful of users who keep pointing to these and many other long standing issues from time to time nobody seems to care. When it comes to unfinished features or bugs of P3D V5 most people seem to be happy with P3D V5 having "a great potential". Users post about an external addon to be used to organize their addons, the tweaks they use to make the sim run better or the affinity mask that is needed with HT on or off, without exposing the question why these things aren't included in the base sim after all these years.

To the contrary most of the time those who keep criticising P3D are being massively attacked like they were fouling their own nest.

 

Someone posted in a thread that MSFS looks too good, so it looks more like a game and not like a simulator.

This is were the sluggish evolution of flight simulation over the last 15 years has led us to: People think a software must look bad to be considered a flight sim. If it looks anywhere near the graphical standards of the gaming industry in 2020, it can't be a flight simulator.

 

What's wrong with pointing out the shortcomings of P3D with the goal to make the developers improve that software?

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with enjoying what we have and with applauding for the improvements P3D has made all the while, and I don't want to bash P3D. But sometimes it seems any criticism here is regarded as a lèse majesté.

How can we expect LM to finally adress all the long standing issues and bring P3D closer to today's standards of the gaming industry if we just praise the status quo and suppress all the critique?

 

I'm too busy flying 4.5, which runs perfectly, to criticize anything.

Also, everything works.

Back to my DC3 flight!

Cheers,

Mark

[newtie 533]

4 minutes ago, Chock said:

Sounds like you've been taking some unapproved drugs when you dreamed up this idea.

Yer killin' me :>)

[mwilk 1,106]

Flight simmers would complain if you hung them with a new rope. Wait until MSFS2020 comes out. It will be the same thing. A certain segment will find something to complain about.

[duckbilled 310]

26 minutes ago, Chock said:

Sounds like you've been taking some of those unapproved drugs when you dreamed up this idea.  🤣

Not FDA approved, but considered safe in some states😃

[G-RFRY 1,708]

We are critical on Avsim "MS are bunch of (word not allowed) for FSX then pulling the plug never trust them or buy there software again", OH DEAR wait a minute they have just announced MSFS, "MS are the best thing since sliced bread love them".   

Welcome to the world of social or more so now unsocial media.😀 

[cwburnett 1,809]

2 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

To the contrary most of the time those who keep criticising P3D are being massively attacked like they were fouling their own nest.

First, let me just say, this line wins the internet for me today. Bolding mine. 👍

Second, to be clear, you're complaining about people complaining about other people's complaints about P3D? I think that if we're allowing complaints, which we certainly do on the internet, you can't reasonably make an argument to limit the complaints from the other side. I mean, equal opportunity complaining. If one wants to complain about something and take a thread off topic, then the 'other side' reserves the right to complain right back. "Those who keep criticising P3D" don't have a monopoly on the right to freely complain.

2 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

What's wrong with pointing out the shortcomings of P3D with the goal to make the developers improve that software?

Nothing if the feedback is being provided to LM on their forum which they set up to collect feedback on their platform. But Avsim isn't where LM tracks bugs. So why report it or complain about it here? I come to this site to get and give assistance in resolving problems with the platforms we have and that's harder to do when every third thread is an endless echo chamber of people complaining and fighting, to no end, about Captain Sim or LM or some other 3PD. A single collection thread for all the complaints would be okay - that way, if someone wants to see all the bad with P3D, they can do that in one place.

Threads that say "hey, xyz is a problem with P3Dv5, this issue has been reported to LM and here's the workaround" - that's amazing and helpful.

Threads that say "hey, xyz is a problem with P3Dv5, I haven't bothered to report it, I'm just complaining about it here and these people are morons" - no, thank you.

And having the same subset of posters bombard every thread with the same ranting makes it harder to sort out the valuable stuff.

We get it. There are TONS if deficiencies in P3D; how does repeating it over and over on Avsim help anyone? There are TONS of deficiencies in XP. I expect deficiencies in MSFS. There are deficiencies in almost all software, especially software that can be acquired for tens of dollars. There are deficiencies in enterprise software that comes with a $250,000/yr license fee. You want to help? Work with the developers to get the things you most care about resolved or take your business elsewhere; I have found that LM as responded to every thread I've started on their forum. There is plenty of competition in the space. But complaining about it to a group of people that are mainly trying to get the most out of the platform detracts from that goal. It doesn't assist me to know what you think is wrong with P3D. It DOES assist me if you tell me how you worked around a particular problem.

[Sethos 4,299]

1 hour ago, rickjake said:

P3D is still based on a 15 year old platform. Although LM has done some great work over the years to improve it and try to take advantage of modern hardware, it will never ever be a modern flightsim that can take advantage of all the bells and whistles without a complete rewrite of the software from the ground up. People seem to forget this when trying to compare it to the new FS2020. I for one, am grateful for LM for breathing new life into the old FSX and allowing us simmers accesses to it.  There was a point a several years back, that we all thought flight simulation was dead, Now, the future looks very promising. 

Indeed. People also forget, this complete rewrite or even partial, would come at the expense of the entire third party community that is basically the life blood of the ESP platform. It's an incredibly fine line you walk between progress and maintaining compatibility. Too much progress, you break addons and possibly to an extend that never gets them working again, as the developer might not see the benefit in maintaining it. The ESP platform is essentially a game of Jenga, you can switch out a few parts, remove others but too much or too fast, it'll come crumbling down. 

So I think most simmers are just appreciative that someone is maintaining it, walking that fine line and allowing us all to enjoy that platform, while giving all the problems, tweaking and stuff you'd normally think "that should be default", a lot of leniency. 

[newtie 533]

1 hour ago, mwilk said:

Flight simmers would complain if you hung them with a new rope. Wait until MSFS2020 comes out. It will be the same thing. A certain segment will find something to complain about.

Wrong adjective; large.