It was interesting to me to see this thread locked so quickly, and without any moderator comments.  I was in the middle of a reply when it happened, and I'll say here what I was going to say there:  it may be a fairly fluffy post, but I don't mind a low-content "hey, relax and have fun" message here now and then as a counterpoint to the seemingly endless parade of THIS ONE THING IS BROKEN AND EVERYTHING IS AWFUL AND ASOBO ARE IDIOTS rant posts that contribute just as little, if not less, to the discussion here.

I can understand the reason that thread was locked:  it was low content and added little to the conversation.  But if that editorial policy has been set, can we expect a similarly rapid finger on the trigger the next time someone feels the need to create a new low-value post just to vent their own fee-fees about how much the sim sucks? 🙂

 

Many AAA games have bugs and things that the developers struggle to get fixed. Certainly their job is much harder than we think, having strict deadlines and employers' (sometimes impossible) expectations to meet.

I think that what makes us so upset about MSFS, is the fact that we don't see a progressive improvement as the patches are released, and we surely have the right to expect that, rather than the introduction of new bugs and issues. The last patch for example fixed the A320 but didn't fix the coastlines bug introduced with the previous one and introduced random spikes in the terrain. At this rate we will never have a completely fixed sim.  

Asobo need to improve their QC dramatically in order to deliver clear, undisputable improvements with every update. If they don't have the time to do that, they should reintroduce open beta testing and separate servers for those who want to contribute. So that the current version will always be 3-4 weeks behind the latest (beta) patch, but it will be better and "more fixed" than the previous one.

There are QC holes that I've never seen before in any other game, or even any other commercial software. Leaving us with invalid mesh for over a month and not using valid files, so it had to be fixed by a third-party rolling back the files as an addon. It wasn't just the last update that introduced spikes, it was the last 3 updates, it just fixed some and introduced new ones in different places, but the last two were the most severe. We found out they are generating the files incorrectly and then not even bothering to check their work, even though they could have just as easily used the previous files which were still working.

This would be like me deleting 20% of a database in a business app, then ignoring the fact that the users cannot get certain data for over a month, and then restoring some records, but deleting others every time I change which ones are restored or deleted.

This defies belief, as you start to wonder is there even a single person from their team that spends any time playing or testing this. I mean the terrain issues were all over France, and the world for that matter. It was such a simple fix, there is some type of discontinuity with their process.

I actually don't see the other issues being nearly as severe as keeping the spikes and invalid mesh uncorrected, I mean the other stuff you can wait on, but the spikes made it unplayable. So I see it as a serious disconnect in an otherwise broken process.

Edited January 3, 20215 yr by Alpine Scenery

10 hours ago, kaosfere said:

the seemingly endless parade of THIS ONE THING IS BROKEN AND EVERYTHING IS AWFUL AND ASOBO ARE IDIOTS rant posts that contribute just as little, if not less, to the discussion here.

🙂

In addition, these kinds of posts you mention almost never get locked until they've reached 30 or 60 pages. It doesn't matter whether the issues raised have been raised a million times in a dozen other posts. 

2 hours ago, MrFuzzy said:

 

I think that what makes us so upset about MSFS,

Who is this "us"?

There are literally hundreds of MSFS-related videos posted on Twitch and Youtube every day, with people enjoying the sim. 

Since the release of MSFS I've been playing more than I ever have in the past 10 years. 

8 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

Who is this "us"?

There are literally hundreds of MSFS-related videos posted on Twitch and Youtube every day, with people enjoying the sim. 

Since the release of MSFS I've been playing more than I ever have in the past 10 years. 

It's not that, it's just a bit scary to how carefree they seem to be in their patches, literally some of the stuff they do makes no sense. It makes you concerned about the state of things, wondering if anything will improve or if this is the end-game. Some stuff just doesn't make sense.

I still enjoy the sim, but some of the issues are especially frustrating when you waste time developing around them.

Edited January 3, 20215 yr by Alpine Scenery

26 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

it's just a bit scary to how carefree they seem to be in their patches

It's the modern way dude, "move fast and break things" is the new (ish, it's been around a while now and currently called "agile" I believe) programming mantra.

As someone who used to work in old school long cycle software development it seems to mean, "Write shed loads of code quickly and stuff it all in the project so it compiles and don't worry about testing it as the end user will complain if it's broken". It is possible to get into an infinite loop of fixes and bugs (or is it bugs and fixes?).

Get used to it, it's not just Asobo, it's the new normal...

@kaosfere Equal time for what ? The closed thread was not about MSF, its goods and bads, it was about attacking posters of this forum who dare not to share his views. Low content ?  There was zero content about the sim and the reasons why one can enjoy or being frustrated by it. The first thought which came to my mind was, another one posting under the influence to stir the pot.

Do you propose closing threads critical of MSF which do not reach the level quality that you consider as palatable ? 

@Alpine Scenery @MrFuzzy
The obvious problem of quality control implies another worrying issue, project management. The new mesh flaws,  the erratic placement of watermasks (one time you see them, one time you don’t), the autopilot, the persistent difficulties to download or access the market place for many people, etc. make wonder if there is, so to speak, a pilot in the left chair.  

7 minutes ago, iwebber said:

 

Get used to it, it's not just Asobo, it's the new normal...

The mesh issues were not the code, it was the files they were copying, you don't get it completely. No-one has ever done that in a AAA release, never, and even in budget game likely never happened. IT was a matter of changing out a few files, they left it broken for months.

The new normal of what, that is not the new normal, it was not a bug, it was bad files. Never heard of a game sending bad files 3x and leaving it that way for months. Maybe there is a couple other examples, but it's definitely not the new norm.

Edited January 3, 20215 yr by Alpine Scenery

17 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

The obvious problem of quality control implies another worrying issue, project management. The new mesh flaws,  the erratic placement of watermasks (one time you see them, one time you don’t), the autopilot, the persistent difficulties to download or access the market place for many people, etc. make wonder if there is, so to speak, a pilot in the left chair.  

After the sim was released to the public, there was a thread on here about how Asobo was hiring for a bunch of technical and QA roles. At the time everyone was enthusiastic about that, me included, but I think in reality they've bitten off more than they can chew and are desperately throwing money at fresh talent to keep up with Microsoft's schedule.

It's a shame. I was really interested when the pre-release publicity talked about a new flight model and all that good stuff but the overall implementation of the new stuff has been visibly lacking. In about 18 months I'm hoping the base sim will be stable enough (read: Asobo will stop mucking about with unannounced changes) for modders to start fixing and polishing it. Given how (relatively) solid the 18th August version was I think either they've overpromised to Microsoft or, more likely given how the beta was cut so short, Microsoft is thrashing them onwards with little or no heed for quality.

Edited January 3, 20215 yr by lambourne

My guess is they left a skeleton crew of interns in place to replace the original programmers, maybe 1-2 of the original guys left. I find it hard to believe that after all that work, the original guys would have not said something about the mesh issues before releasing it that way (multiple times).

People are acting like it happened once or they needed time during xmas, nah, it's been going on since 4 releases ago and has happened at least 3-4 times. Norway, Alaska, and Canada were the original issues (and parts of Central US). Then it became W-VA, VA, PA and mostly the eastern US, then it became random places all over the world. There were always a few mesh issues, but the # of issues in the last 2 releases was mind boggling.

Even though a modder found the correct mix of files, here we are months from the original problem, and they still haven't even issued a patch for people that aren't aware of the fix at Flightsim.TO. It was a 30-minute fix, with maybe a bit more time to test it all.

 

Edited January 3, 20215 yr by Alpine Scenery

33 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

The mesh issues were not the code, it was the files they were copying

You're right, I was wrong to make the code analogy. What I meant was, they do things quickly without checking them, that is the new normal. Get it out of the door so people will give us money for it/believe we're making progress. Worry about making it right later.

In this case, the issue is one of document(file) control. They had the right version of the file and it worked, somehow the wrong version was put into the master copy and it's obviously too much hassle to get the right version in.

Is this because they have no document(file) control and can't get it back or is it so overwhelmingly complex/difficult that they don't want to or is it simply not perceived as important as many of the other issues they're facing (not least of which is getting it out fot he consoles)?

I appreciate it'll be different people working on different aspects of all the work they have but if it's really that hard to roll back a file to a previous version then there's something really wrong with their document/file control system.

Of course, if there's a freware fix already available I suspect they deem the problem less important so it will sink down their (increasingly lengthy) priority list.

36 minutes ago, iwebber said:

In this case, the issue is one of document(file) control. They had the right version of the file and it worked, somehow the wrong version was put into the master copy and it's obviously too much hassle to get the right version in.

Is this because they have no document(file) control and can't get it back or is it so

Of course, if there's a freware fix already available I suspect they deem the problem less important so it will sink down their (increasingly lengthy) priority list.

I don't have an explanation for it as it is the biggest mistake I've ever seen in any patch or release (even if it only happened once, but for it to be ongoing on every release).

It certainly isn't difficult, a modder figured it out and just raw-copied his own old files in 15 minutes. We know they CAN replace the files, because they keep doing it every single release, hence each release we get more and more randomly bad files instead of more good ones.

What makes it particularly bad is they leave it that way for weeks/months even after receiving hundreds of complaints about it. Not implementing a 15-minute fix after hundreds of ongoing complaints, very strange.

Edited January 3, 20215 yr by Alpine Scenery

I mean, seriously, most folks paid $70 for this game. 

You guys make it sound like we're discussing battery failure on a $80000 Tesla.

If the game doesn't - to quote Marie Kondo - "spark joy" put it aside and play something else for a while. Not a biggie. 

Edited to add: I could probably list 30 different things that "bug" me about MSFS 2020, but that's just a waste of time and good energy. 

Or another example: I've had nothing but CTDs with the 0.8 mod version of the CJ4, but you don't see me running around crying. That's because I trust Working Title (and Asobo) to figure it out eventually. 

Plus, the game has been out only about 5 months. And look how far it has come in just this short amount of time. 

Edited January 3, 20215 yr by Ricardo41

9 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

I mean, seriously, most folks paid $70 for this game. You guys make it sound like we're discussing battery failure on a $80000 Tesla. If the game doesn't - to quote Marie Kondo - "spark joy" put it aside and play something else for a while. Not a biggie. 

You dont have money invested on the commercial side of things, nor time. I had provided my first few fixes at a great expense of time. It's already an incredibly tough side biz, but don't want more headaches. I am also paying another developer to help, and that isn't free.

I can tell you it was a lot more than $70, but not $80,000. I am looking at it long-term and was not originally worried about taking some initial losses, but I'm starting to 2nd guess it.

Edited January 3, 20215 yr by Alpine Scenery