Yes for me.   I never expected perfection on day 1 and I was fully aware that this is a flight sim..  not a specific "airliner" sim, or a "garmin sim".  I was expecting a standard flight sim that had the basics and that it was a new release and likely to take time to polish.  From that point of view, I have been very impressed by what was available at release..  the speed at which Asobo and Microsoft are working to get things fixed and responding to the Zendesk reports, and the openness of the interface between the devs and the userbase.

I am also impressed with the base technology of the sim using the new engine and all the advances for the streaming of data in real time.   Technically, this is years ahead of anything else out there in this genre and shows that the future is bright when all of these things finally come to fruition.

On the basis that previous flight sims took years to get to the stage that some people expect this sim to be in on day 1,  all I wanted was something that I could load up, fly an aircraft in and have fun in with the knowledge that we were at the start of a 2 - 3 year journey.

Since I have flown all the aircraft in the sim since release regularly and succesfully with no mods..  and done more hours per day online since launch than is good for me..  have seen many improvements come down the line since day 1  I have to respond a big YES.

Is there a way to go...  of course there is, but has it met my expectations..  absolutely.

Graham

I'm significantly more impressed with the community that I am with the developer. They have gone out of the way to fix or improve MSFS. Thank you to all of them. (Yes)

I expected so much more from MSFS 2020 that what I had before with fully loaded versions of P3D & XP 11 + the updates have been a roller coaster ride to put it nicely. (No)

This platform, like the other MSFS that came before are money making cash machines. 😀 (Yes)

That said, I haven't had the desire to load the other sims because the atmosphere and visuals are so darn stunning! (Yes)

It has not met my ecxpectations but I’ve been told my expectations are ridiculous. 

I feel the marketing is misleading. My expectations were for an immersive experience and so far it’s not very immersive... 

Scenery Issues: LOD issues, photogrammetry melted buildings, poor textures on many mountain faces and poor elevation maps, sea level that’s too high (putting all docks and piers underwater), a strange glitched line cutting across the horizon (known issue since day 1 but not resolved), missing water masks in tropical waters, poor ocean wave rendering, country roads lit like city streets

IFR Issues: ATC cannot be trusted which is an immersion killer, doing pop-up IFR is very troublesome, missing approaches in the Nav data, auto pilot challenges with Vs and FLC, issues doing u-turns after adding an approach from ATC

Aircraft Issues: No need to list them all here, life is too short.

Weather: Getting live weather that matches METAR has been hit or miss... mostly miss.  

It’s a long ways from being an immersive flight sim experience. There’s not an element of this game that doesn’t really require a mod to get it to work or look realistic.  I realize it’s early days, but this is not Microsoft’s first flight sim. In fact, it feels like the last version with new paint, and even that paint has got cracks. Is that really all you can expect after so many years?

But my expectations are ridiculous. 😞

 

Edited November 1, 20205 yr by Virtual-Chris

19 minutes ago, DJJose said:

I expected so much more from MSFS 2020 that what I had before with fully loaded versions of P3D & XP 11

 

Without trying to start an argument in any way whatsoever...   why would anyone even think this..  I really feel this is one of the major issues currently..  People are expecting a brand new sim to outperform one that has had 25 years of development behind it.  (Yes Xplane ws released in 1995) and hundreds of dollars of add-ons,

I agree that for a fully loaded FSX/Prep/Xplane..  currently there are aspects of this flightsim that are not as solid (yet)  but people are comparing a 3 month old release with a nearest competitor with 25 years dev and 3rd party history behind it.

Graham

Edited November 1, 20205 yr by Moria15

I'd say yes. For someone who is a visual pilot who likes looking at the scenery, I can say it certainly met my expectations and I was in the alpha so was using it for a while before release. 

Some things are also not so great for me, the SDK being one of them, and also the amount of clicks it takes to be sat at the airport.

 

 

Yes. I have been simming since FS2002 (which I realise is probably not as long as many here), and I upgraded from FSX. MSFS 2020 has been an absolute paradigm shift in a way not seen across FS8/FS9/FSX. And shockingly, my performance is better in MSFS than FSX, which clearly was designed for different hardware architectures than today. 

Yes, I am annoyed that the sim has had and still has so many bugs, and that each patch seems to break something - and I am missing the years of time I put into the very high quality 'study level' simulations in previous versions. However, MSFS 2020 is the closest I have ever actually felt to flying a real plane on my desktop computer. I could cry at how amazing an achievment this is - and I only can look forward to the future.

Edited November 1, 20205 yr by dolbinau

It has exceeded them (for immersion).  Further SDK development is a given, but even with the current limitations, (which are many) for more technical flying, it is the most immersive civilian flightsim without doubt.

Edited November 1, 20205 yr by ErichB

MSFS is a beautiful piece of software for arcade players. If you just want to get into a plane quick and un-educated and go sight seeing, you will really enjoy this sim and its very realistic world and weather experience.

For serious pilots, who want to master instrument flying, realistic plane- and landing-management - the fun indicater points truly lower. Standard airplanes found in the MSFS are instrument buggy or are missing instrument features, and the build-in flight planner is very premature, since it doesn't show any useful visual flight map to help chart way points, Sids, Stars and Approaches! That means, you must use an external flight planning sofware to graphically show and support your flight plan intensions. At the moment there is no commercial flight planning software on the market capable of creating *.PLN files containing approach procedures, that MSFS can import to its internal flight plan. Especially this unability of MSFS to save or load approach procedures into a *.PLN file is very disturbing, since approach procedures contain the arrival runway information, which is so important to a flight plan. Trying to edit the missing approach in the simulator later by hand changes the whole flight plan - ruining all the flight planing work!

I truly hope that Asobo fixes their flawed *.PLN file format to make MSFS great again...LOL  😇

I'd say yes, although it took some additional work to be able to uninstall it 3 times... 

X-Plane and even P3D uninstall a lot easier, not to talk IL-2, Aerowinx, Condor Soarimng, etc...

I'd say there is still a long way to go for MS / ASOBO to master the uninstall technique used by X-Plane, but the sim is still under development, so I can wait patiently.

[Joke Mode Off]

While I have to admit I am amazed by the level of realism the visuals can sometimes provide, even at the lower settings I have to use in my rig because it's a rather old one but can still perform acceptably running it, I also have to say that I was expecting a more complete / well documented SDK, and above all a more complete / sound flight and systems modelling.

For my friends from Aerowinx PSX who are now using it as a Visuals Generator for their 744 simulator, it couldn't be better - they have managed to merge the best aspects of the two platforms !

I would love to be able to fly DCS World, Condor Soaring and even IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad in MFS scenery too.

I think there is still a lot of work to be done by ASOBO in bringing the SDK and the documentation to levels that will allow proper use of it's features and meet the requirements of the most exotic developers, as well as completing / fine tunning their core flight dynamics model and some of the aircrfat systems modelling, weather, etc... but they look like being rather dynamic and enthusiastic, so, contrarily to what I once started to fear, I don't really think MFS is going to follow the fate of MS FLIGHT ( knock on wood !!! ).

Edited November 1, 20205 yr by jcomm

MSFS 2020 has met my expectations - no more or no less.

As we saw development screenshots and glitzy videos emerge last year I tempered my excitement with the realism that MS employ some very talented guys and gals to sex up marketing material.

We also got subtle heads ups from the likes of Hookins and co. not to expect too much. And as time went by and we were able to discern the repeating patterns of shortfalls in the sim that not even that glitzy marketing material could conceal, I didn't expect anything near what current top line sims were able to supply in terms of aircraft performance. (who can forget the A320 wings stuck in flight flex on the ground?)

That having been said I was immensely excited - and continue to be - about how the World is depicted.

In short - we have a fantastic base which over the coming years will expand to totally eclipse anything else available. So my excitement continues and I'm quite happy poodling about in VFR, waiting patiently for the day I can flip the batteries on a top line PMDG 737 or otherwise.

It's coming, and great things come to those who wait.

Edited November 1, 20205 yr by Will Fly For Cheese

Yes. 100 percent.

It must be mentioned that different people had different expectations, and so had I. For example I never expected the default aircraft to be even 10 percent close to the study-level aircraft, but many people including some real world A320 pilots PMed me on discord asking: "Hey why does the MSFS default a320 not work like the FSLabs a320?". So to me it looks like a huge majority of the self-proclaimed "hardcore, auto-lazy-liner" simmers expected MSFS 2020 to magically work as a better or equivalent replacement for PMDG, FSlabs etc aircraft. Another one streamed MSFS 2020 airbus on Twitch for a few minutes, then said, " Guys this is very bad. I'll now load FSLabs a320 and show you what you get for your money when you buy it".

And there's another group of people who are pretty much convinced that if in a flight simulator you have to hand-fly an aircraft, it's a game with "pretty pictures", etc and not a simulator. They have their own different and unique expectations as well. And there's another who thinks only IFR flights are true flight simulation, and anything else is for Xboxers, gamers etc. 

Microsoft and Asobo devs have been very transparent and honest about everything from the very beginning. 5 days before the release date, they hopped on Twitch and said: "the default aircraft have whatever it takes to perform a flight, from point A to B, and they are not going to be study level". And they gave multiple explanations as to why it is like that. 

I educated myself about the product enough before buying it, and I do the exact same thing in real life when I take a loan, or buy a car etc. Given the reasons as to why I use flight sims and invest time and money on them, MSFS 2020 in its current state fulfilled my expectations 100 percent, and gets a 8 out of 10 from me, and I'm happy to get rid of Prepar3D and X-plane and replace them with MSFS 2020 at the moment. 

 

This talk of 'study level' ... guys, all it is, is complex aircraft!! No more, no less, 'Study level' is used to justify price. Yes, they are high quality, but remember what they are.. A complex add-on that takes time to learn. I hope that those that are learning these add-ons are using the correct controllers?  Calling a Boeing a 'study level' aircraft when using a joystick?

Also, a story that I like telling,.. We built up a sim, on a trailer & when we got 'real' pilots flying it, we noticed that they bumped themselves in the seat, anticipating touchdown.. Such was the immersion factor!!!! & this is in FS2004. So, even then, they guys were feeling that they were flying a real plane, with freeware scenery as well, rivers, 3d powerlines etc. 

Lol let me put my galoshes on so that I don't step in anything.   A+ on the scenery and other visuals of the game D- on everything else.They keep working on the AP which hasn't been

right since 1.8.3,The Traffic,The Weather pick a patch any patch still not working right.The

CTD's ,some here are very lucky you didn't have to wait 2 weeks for the last one.Hey maybe

By patch 15.Whatever fingers crossed.

23 minutes ago, Moria15 said:

Without trying to start an argument in any way whatsoever...   why would anyone even think this..

I can only compare it to what I've experienced. Before the release ASOBO did ask for community feedback and I was one of those simmers that made a simple list of things that I wanted. A simple fully working C172 was not a difficult expectation that they could have met. Failed.

Just sayin.....