23 minutes ago, MattNischan said:

Asobo and Microsoft actually have a reasonably sized testing team. I think it's just luck of the draw, in this case.

If you polled all of the thousand+ users on our Discord the number of folks who experienced this issue was actually not anywhere near ubiquitous, and it actually only occurred during some specific circumstances, which you must have hit. Software like this is just a nightmare to test: there is basically an unbounded set of operating conditions and outcomes.

I think if you asked them if they needed even more testing resources, I think they'd be the first to agree. But the suggestion I keep reading that they just don't bother testing and toss stuff out there is just mean-spirited and factually incorrect, even if coming from a place of understandable frustration.

-Matt

Ok but why not open it up to Beta testing before the update is released.  I don’t for a second, believe this is an isolated issue to only a few users.  I have a totally stock game and my A320 is 100% not flyable with the autopilot engaged.  I’m certain this game killing bug would have been discovered in Beta testing within 5 minutes.

Again, other games that are similar open world, open to mod games are already opening up updates to Beta testers and allow all users to opt in before forcing an update on the community.  It’s not hard— and these are games with probably about 1/100th the resources Microsoft has.

Edited December 1, 20205 yr by jspilot

According the Development update they are adding in a beta version pre release.  Looks like they've started it and it's slated for Q1, Q2 next year.

43 minutes ago, jspilot said:

The switch will make things worse if they don’t test the updates before releasing them.  They broke the A320 and released it without a functioning Autopilot.  A simple test flight of about 5 minutes would have revealed this problem( like the one I took before giving up.) Not testing the updates before releasing them is inexcusable!  They have a community right here that would be happy to do it!  Why they choose not to is absurd.

I have an issue between two pieces of payware scenery that CTD's while loading a flight when both of them are the only things in my community folder.  Removing one of the scenery's resolves the issue.  Neither developer can reproduce.  Neither can anyone here, it appears.      And I have reinstalled each package "multiple times".  And each package works as designed when in the community folder by itself.  But you don't see me accusing the developer of either of these packages of not "testing" their sceneries.

Point is, just because it is easily replicated by you, doesn't mean it is easily replicated by them.  

So you are assuming that this AP issue could have simply been found with a 5 minute flight.  I had three different flights and three different behaviors all from the same airport.  On one flight, I had the spiral of death while ignoring the Autothrottle,   On Flight two.  A very normal capture of the LNAV flight plan and other than the fact that the plane would barely climb between FL200 and FL300 it was normal (which may have been designed behavior).  Flight three.  Ignored the flight plan completely and simply circled in a 1 degree shallow circle around the airport.

All three of these behaviors were on the same plane, from the same C&D conditions.  It's also been reported that there were different behaviors whether the flight was started C&D or at the runway.  I've also seen different behavior when using a plane with a livery and when using the default paint.  It also appears to be related to how close and at what angle the first waypoint is from the A/C.  

Point is.  Many flights, many different outcomes.  So your assumption that they did not test, when you don't know this to be true, is pure conjecture on your part.  And since it was easy to reproduce on your system doesn't mean it was easy to reproduce on theirs.  

So maybe before accusing a company of not performing any testing, you might want to validate that point with something other than your own circumstantial evidence.

16 minutes ago, jspilot said:

Ok but why not open it up to Beta testing before the update is released.  I don’t for a second, believe this is an isolated issue to only a few users.  I have a totally stock game and my A320 is 100% not flyable with the autopilot engaged.  I’m certain this game killing bug would have been discovered in Beta testing within 5 minutes.

Again, other games that are similar open world, open to mod games are already opening up updates to Beta testers and allow all users to opt in before forcing an update on the community.  It’s not hard— and these are games with probably about 1/100th the resources Microsoft has.

Because that requires an entire new set of servers.  You forget this is not self contained software.  It is client/server software.  So a "beta" branch now requires a set of "beta" scenery servers, and all the other support servers so that they can run with the back end changes that make the front end changes work as well.

Right now they probably have a set of servers for development and the public set.  The dev set are probably pretty low power servers because they have limited people who hit them (just the developers and qa folks).  Now they'll have to stand up a "beta" set, and that beta set will have to have the same level of performance that the prod servers have, since it will supposedly be an open beta.

How many beta servers are Blizzard running for WOW, or Diablo III?  

 

1 hour ago, jspilot said:

It’s not hard

It actually is hard.

Supporting multiple build streams, multiple sets of servers, having quality paths for code merge, setting up standards for what is critical to fix vs what isn't, managing all the resources that get split somewhat, these are all huge challenges at scale and just a portion of the issues one runs into. A beta is not a time where your whole development team of 100 people just sits around and waits for bugs to come in and isn't moving forward. A small portion of them are tasked with fixing the critical issues that come up but the rest of the team is moving forward and the entire process and infrastructure needs to be geared towards that, which is no easy feat.

That being said, build flighting is on the roadmap for a reason: it is important. But is also on the roadmap because it's a challenge that requires a lot of thought, planning, and potential infrastructure and process change. Definitely no easy feat to do well without making the entire build process and code streams a horrible nightmare to work with.

-Matt

13 minutes ago, MattNischan said:

It actually is hard.

Supporting multiple build streams, multiple sets of servers, having quality paths for code merge, setting up standards for what is critical to fix vs what isn't, managing all the resources that get split somewhat, these are all huge challenges at scale and just a portion of the issues one runs into. A beta is not a time where your whole development team of 100 people just sits around and waits for bugs to come in and isn't moving forward. A small portion of them are tasked with fixing the critical issues that come up but the rest of the team is moving forward and the entire process and infrastructure needs to be geared towards that, which is no easy feat.

That being said, build flighting is on the roadmap for a reason: it is important. But is also on the roadmap because it's a challenge that requires a lot of thought, planning, and potential infrastructure and process change. Definitely no easy feat to do well without making the entire build process and code streams a horrible nightmare to work with.

-Matt

All of this should have been forseen and planned for though.

Guys-  you defend this company like you work for them.  They’ve made constant mistakes, screwed up more than they fix, can’t produce a product deserving of our money and seem incapable of the task they were hired to do.  I’d honestly want some of you for any PR department because you seem to just explain away errors like they are excusable.  

Who made the choice to release the software in a way that would not allow open betas?

 

Who made the choice to promise way more than could be delivered?

Who made the choice to release updates that break more than they fix?

To the guy who says errors can’t be reproduced because if the multiple mods and add ons you are missing the point totally.  Of course ASOBO can’t predict every possible issue that might be occurring.  But when you release an update the BREAKS an airplanes AP so much that within a few weeks you have to have your CEO spend time fixing it and you then have to promise that the next update will fix it—that’s a bug that should have been caught.  And your justification that I can’t verify ASOBO does not test takes my point to the extreme. I think you have to agree that they are not testing well enough even if they are testing at all!  Issues like the AP are just one of a long list of obvious issues- remember that Lightning flashing out of partly cloudy skies?  Remember the Thunderstorm issues?  Remember that live weather was wrong almost all the time??  If all those bugs get through then I’m sorry to say, their missing obvious issues time and time again!  There is nothing easier to test than live weather( take off at an airport near where you are playing the game and check and verify if live weather is even close!) 

Once again, my game is 100% without add ons, and I went to fly the stock A320 today and within 5 minutes I knew the AP was broken beyond anything that was flyable.  Judging by how many others in here and elsewhere are posting the exact same issue, it seems to me that this problem was EASILY caught if anyone bothered to look or thoroughly tested.
 

It amazes me how people will defend garbage but go after the people who actual have standards for a company that willingly takes my money and then gives me this mess.  I’ve been patient and a long time supporter of flight sims but this one is just simply bad and the execution is what is killing it.  It has SO much potential but that only gets it so far.  Start executing and stop making excuses/defending the junk.

 

 

Edited December 2, 20205 yr by jspilot

For the life of me I can’t get my head around what on the stock A320 is broken AP wise that makes it unflyable.  Since the Saturday prior when I decided to begin flying it, I have logged around 45 flights and not encountered a single issue with AP or anything that has resulted in a botched ILS landing.  Add to that at least 25 separate practice landings, and no failures there either.  

11 hours ago, DJJose said:

BTW, do you remember the scene in My Cousin Vinny when the judge asked how do you plead?

I love that movie

jspilot wrote: Once again, my game is 100% without add ons, and I went to fly the stock A320 today and within 5 minutes I knew the AP was broken beyond anything that was flyable.

....You were 4 pages deep  into the FBW AP fix thread complaining  about the stock A320.   Completely off the topic....

You do realize that the current fix is for a "community folder" addon right?  not the stock aircraft...

6 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

Interesting... the Bonanza has:

headingPID = 2.0, 0.01, 1.2, 0.2, 1.0

Does anyone know how to adapt this fix?

I think there are quite a lot of misconceptions about all of this. All that has happened is that someone received some suggestions about what numbers to put in their individual ai.cfg files. Any flight model modder will tell you that almost from week one, they have been tweaking these values themselves. There is no "fix". A fix would be to re-instigate the core autopilot before the heading function was slowed down. None of the PID values in any ai.cfg file are going to fix it. All they can do is to a very limited extent make the core changes slightly less severe. The heading issue is still there, whatever values you change.

Dat watant Ditka, dat was Gaawd. 🙂

Or, put another way:  I'm a professional engineer and no stranger to complex and demanding systems.  I've developed on high frequency trading systems where microseconds mattered and a single error could cost millions.  I've done work for a famous company you've probably heard of that might have made a phone in your pocket now, and another famous company you've certainly heard of that played a key role in the personal computer revolution.   Currently I'm building high performance data systems for a company that that on a daily basis routes messages to phones for a significant chunk of the US population.  I've done some high pressure work, I've done it well... and I don't envy the folks at Asobo the job they are trying to do, especially with the reactions they get from certain parts of the "community".

I'm also a lifelong gamer, and I can tell you that it's rare to encounter a development team as interested, enthusiastic, and engaged at the folks at Asobo and their friends at MS are. Like my WT brethren have said, folks from there have worked directly with us, and with Fly By Wire, to help resolve problems that the community is facing.  No, you may not be happy -- I can understand the frustration.  But believe me when I say that the people working on this care, and they're engaged, and they're open in a way that's rare to find.  Things haven't been perfect, and they'll admit this as readily as anyone -- but they're also working to make it better, and we're lucky as a community to have them involved with our hobby.

If I get accused of providing free PR for saying this, then so be it.  I'll gladly take that hit, because frankly I care little what the folks slinging barbs in here think about me.  If you want to think they're doing a crappy job, and they're ripping you off, and just want to take your money, in spite of evidence provided by sincere people to the contrary, that's your right, of course. 

But I'd hope most well-intentioned people would be able to recognize folks who are doing their best with a hard and often thankless job, and not act like them having bought a license to a game means they're entitled to the entire world stopping to honor their own personal grievance parade.

 

1 hour ago, kaosfere said:

Just like people in this forum do.

Some people get carried away in here, but having been pretty deep in all these SIM's SDK all the way back to FS 2004/FSX and P3D and Xplane, and now FS 2020...

There are issues here that are below the standards of what would be expected in a software rollout, especially in a rollout that is this high profile and where the graphics engine is this high fidelity. For instance, 80% of the SDK still says "TO DO" in the documentation, we are on version 0.8 now. That is why there are so few planes ready. The mesh update was a total failure IMO, and I am not really a complainer at all to be honest, as a matter of fact I am trying to fix the issues they left (and do it for free for purely good Karma or to help people get 'their area' back). It's a lot of work though.

Frankly, having been in software since the TI 99 4A days and C64, this idea that in 2020 they cannot have a beta because it costs extra servers. They don't need to double the size, in closed beta they can just pipe what they already have. I guarantee you they already have BETA versions being piped internally in the company, it would be impossible not to. So opening a Beta up to maybe 50 people wouldn't hurt.

The problem is they are a GAMING company, and they are thinking in terms of designing a game with least amount of labor. In their calculations, they did X or Y to reduce labor, but in the end it will cost more labor. There are humans involved in these decisions, and I see it at software companies all the time, they are making the classic same mistake I've seen 50+ other companies make.

They can get through it, but they must be willing to scrub the process and switch to a proper development cycle, there is NO (and I mean zero) reason to design software this way, I've been doing this my whole life and I can promise you it's not cheaper, it's actually more expensive the way they are doing it.

Edited December 2, 20205 yr by SceneryFX

14 hours ago, sanh said:

Yes I know they are introducing annoying bugs but when the (i assume) CEO of Asobo is helping the A320 mod team fix the AP bug perhaps we should be a little more grateful 

References

Special thanks to Sebastian from Asobo for helping to diagnose the issue and come up with this temporary solution.

https://github.com/flybywiresim/a32nx/pull/2140

Why the heaps of praise. The A320 as well as many other planes have been broken for months as far as systems are concerned.

Paying customers shouldn’t have to heap praise on the pre-release product.