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Well, that's not a very positive outlook, and I doubt they'd do that intentionally. Sure, anything can happen, but so far most of their "mod breaks" are minor adjustments, nothing major. Honestly, so far Microsoft and Asobo have been pretty good for such a big company. Yes, even I was mad about the terrain stuff, and I still don't like the morphing, but overall the last patch was fairly good. I don't think that will happen, they don't want to upset everyone in the end, that hurts sales, and they know it.

 

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Just now, Cristi_Neagu said:

That doesn't mean Microsobo are ok with it, and it doesn't mean that this will be the status quo going forward. I can totally see a future in which Asobo patch the workarounds used by developers to override the default flight model, breaking all of these addons. And they can simply say: "That is not supported. We fixed a security vulnerability in the code."

Are you basing that on anything other than a grumpy outlook or do you have examples of them cutting off new development?  So far I've seen them embrace a team that completely reworked one of their core airliners in a free mod, and then actually hire a team that reworked the garmins and a popular lear jet to help incorporate their innovations more thoroughly into the sim.  Doesnt seem like a group that is dismissive or wary of 3pd development and breakthroughs.

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Exactly, they are making tons of money from the store, they are not going to screw with 3P-Developers intentionally, it will only get more open, not closed. They get a cut, and us mega-spenders have bought enough stuff to buy 10 copies. Heck, I think I own 40 airports and 3 planes, probably spent nearly $700.

 

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3 hours ago, Moria15 said:

LOD has always been a bugbear in games...  The more you increase the detail (or mesh quality), the more you affect the LOD of the terrain and unless the terrain is identical in the various LOD's then you will almost always get popping...  the less detailed the terrain and the more consistent it is between LOD's, then the less popping...  it's a well known issue with all graphics on all games..  This is probably why more are now noticing it because of areas that have been improved visually with a more detailed mesh, but the next LOD down is still as it was when the sim was delivered.

That makes sense. However, I'm wondering why it doesn't seem to be such a big issue in X-Plane. It's been a while since I last used it but I can't remember having seen such extreme morphing - and that with UHD mesh.


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For me just about everything is much better. The A320 with the FBW mod. The CJ4 and Garmins with the WT mods. All the payware airports and planes. All the freeware airports and planes. The World Updates. The sim is running superbly well for me with my ageing CPU and is a pleasure to use.

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8 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

Well, that's not a very positive outlook, and I doubt they'd do that intentionally.

They said they do not want third party developer overriding the flight model. Sounds pretty intentional to me.

9 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

I don't think that will happen, they don't want to upset everyone in the end, that hurts sales, and they know it.

All of the things i mentioned before are hurting sales: a buggy weather model, a buggy flight model, etc. And there are a lot of long time flight simmers that don't want o go into FS2020 because it simply does not meet their desired level of realism. That could be mitigated with third party addons, but Microsobo have been pretty much against anything that is outside the box they drew in the sand. All of that also hurts sales.

9 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

Are you basing that on anything other than a grumpy outlook or do you have examples of them cutting off new development?

Not entirely sure how that question is warranted, considering i didn't say that this is definitely what they would do. I said i consider it a possibility. And if you must really know what i'm basing it on, i am basing it on Asobo's last SDK Q&A, as well as on their resistance towards certain third party developers.

11 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

So far I've seen them embrace a team that completely reworked one of their core airliners in a free mod, and then actually hire a team that reworked the garmins and a popular lear jet to help incorporate their innovations more thoroughly into the sim. Doesnt seem like a group that is dismissive or wary of 3pd development and breakthroughs.

All of those changes were made completely within the bounds of the sim. So i don't see how embracing the "stay in the box" developers is supposed to show any sort of promise towards the "i need more than your box provides" developers.

 

TL;DR: As i said, i consider this to be a possibility in the future. Of course things may change. But up to now, third party developers who need more than the sim provides have either been left out in the cold, or have had to come up with all sorts of unofficial workarounds to deliver their products.


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6 minutes ago, Cristi_Neagu said:

All of the things i mentioned before are hurting sales: a buggy weather model, a buggy flight model, etc. And there are a lot of long time flight simmers that don't want o go into FS2020 because it simply does not meet their desired level of realism. That could be mitigated with third party addons, but Microsobo have been pretty much against anything that is outside the box they drew in the sand. All of that also hurts sales.

Hmm, the weather is the best we've ever had. It's not perfectly synch'd and a few bugs, but nothing comes close. It looks amazing in the rain, looks real pretty much. I don't think so, there are plenty of improvements, and keep in mind companies aren't perfect at speaking in a "unified voice", a company is many different people so maybe someone said something and you took it out of context.

No-one will ever be happy, there are too many items to fix and the budget only goes SO FAR, it's not unlimited, it's big, but big != unlimited.

As far as the flight modeling goes, it's fine until you get 20 feet above the ground, that's where the real issues are. I agree they need to fix landing physics, it's the biggest issue in the game right now, but some planes land ok, it's mainly certain ones. Ground physics can also be problematic, but I think landing physics are the REAL problem. 

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34 minutes ago, Cristi_Neagu said:

They said they do not want third party developer overriding the flight model. Sounds pretty intentional to me.

Do you have a quote/source for this?  I've never seen/heard that said anywhere and I've watched nearly every Q&A, interview etc from Jorg and the team.  There are several planes (on top of the helicopters I mentioned) who have written custom flight modelling code, so if it is their intention, they're not doing a good job of preventing it.

Quote

All of the things i mentioned before are hurting sales: a buggy weather model, a buggy flight model, etc. And there are a lot of long time flight simmers that don't want o go into FS2020 because it simply does not meet their desired level of realism. That could be mitigated with third party addons, but Microsobo have been pretty much against anything that is outside the box they drew in the sand. All of that also hurts sales.

It is true that there are some disgruntled older simmers, but I dont think there is much evidence of a significant impact on sales.

Quote

Not entirely sure how that question is warranted, considering i didn't say that this is definitely what they would do. I said i consider it a possibility. And if you must really know what i'm basing it on, i am basing it on Asobo's last SDK Q&A, as well as on their resistance towards certain third party developers.

Examples?  Who exactly are they resisting?  I've read statements of growing pains getting started, but PMDG, for example, have actually gone out of their way to state that nothing in the SDK is preventing them from moving forward.

Are you one of the developers being effected?  If so, what is it that is preventing you from doing what you want in the sim?

I watched the same SDK Q&A and while I dont quite see the resistance you speak of, I acknowledge that there are those working more closely with the issues and thus more directly effected, so I am curious what exactly the roadblocks are.

Quote

All of those changes were made completely within the bounds of the sim. So i don't see how embracing the "stay in the box" developers is supposed to show any sort of promise towards the "i need more than your box provides" developers.

Again, what is "the box" that you're talking about?  Carenado, Aerosoft, and others have all written code for systems that work outside the sim, as have a plethora of freeware developers.  Are you working on something that you've been told specifically not to do?  I've read that many developers are annoyed that they can't directly port legacy code because the SDK works differently than legacy sims, but that is a roadblock of convenience, not of capability.

Quote

TL;DR: As i said, i consider this to be a possibility in the future. Of course things may change. But up to now, third party developers who need more than the sim provides have either been left out in the cold, or have had to come up with all sorts of unofficial workarounds to deliver their products.

Sure, I suppose anything is a "possibility", but at least for right now, the momentum and actions have indicated otherwise.  If they were to suddenly start cracking down on things that our "outside the box" to use your words, THAT would be the change.

 

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59 minutes ago, Shack95 said:

That makes sense. However, I'm wondering why it doesn't seem to be such a big issue in X-Plane. It's been a while since I last used it but I can't remember having seen such extreme morphing - and that with UHD mesh.

While XP doesn’t have terrain morphing in your immediate flight radius, take a look further out and you will see noticeable terrain smoothing and blurry, brownish textures.  Not to mention transparent autogen buildings.  Pick your poison I suppose.

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27 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

Hmm, the weather is the best we've ever had. It's not perfectly synch'd and a few bugs, but nothing comes close.

Depends what metric you use. If you're only concerned about how it looks, sure, best thing ever. But in terms of variation and accuracy, ActiveSky is way, way better.

29 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

a company is many different people so maybe someone said something and you took it out of context.

Very hard to take their hard line against opening up the weather to third party developers out of context... Also pretty hard to take the Head of Microsoft Flight Sim, the SDK Producer, and the Lead SDK Developer out of context when they say they do not want third party developers overriding the flight model...

32 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

there are too many items to fix and the budget only goes SO FAR, it's not unlimited, it's big, but big != unlimited.

I don't understand why people keep saying that. Here i am, saying that Asobo should let third party developers fix some of these issues, thereby lessening the need to invest into fixing those issues themselves, and people keep telling me how they don't have unlimited resources. I KNOW. That is why i am saying what i'm saying. If i was under the impression that Asobo and Microsoft had unlimited resources, i would be asking them to fix everything, not let other people fix it.

35 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

As far as the flight modeling goes, it's fine until you get 20 feet above the ground, that's where the real issues are

JustFlight have, on numerous occasions, expressed the issues they had with the flight model. From everything from issues with wing shape, issues with rudder authority, all the way to issues with the engine simulation and fuel flow. The issues happening on landing and takeoff are a drop in a very big bucket.

12 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

Do you have a quote/source for this?  I've never seen/heard that said anywhere and I've watched nearly every Q&A, interview etc from Jorg and the team. 

You must have missed a very obvious one, then: https://youtu.be/ZKzNEItrt7U?t=3191 And the point is repeated at 53:52

16 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

It is true that there are some disgruntled older simmers, but I dont think there is much evidence of a significant impact on sales.

We weren't talking about how significant the impact is, because then we start getting into unanswerable questions. No one knows how many people are refusing to buy this sim because of the state it is in. No one knows how many more would buy it if they could get ActiveSky weather running in it and AIG traffic mods. I don't think disparagingly bringing up "disgruntled older simmers" is in any way factual. So it is my turn to ask: Do you have a quote/source for this saying that it's only "disgruntled older simmers" that want this?

20 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

PMDG, for example, have actually gone out of their way to state that nothing in the SDK is preventing them from moving forward.

As far as I know, Asobo is working closely with PMDG in order to facilitate their development efforts. Makes sense, since PMDG is a major player in this field. So is Aerosoft. But how many others have that kind of privilege? Is MilViz treated the same? Reality-XP? IndiaFoxtrotEcho? A2A?

23 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

Again, what is "the box" that you're talking about?

Are you unware of the concept of a "sandbox", which is how Asobo envision every single addon running? That is the reason why DLLs are no longer a thing, and instead developers have to use WASM and JS/HTML.

24 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

Carenado, Aerosoft, and others have all written code for systems that work outside the sim

Carenado have, since forever, been using default simulator functionality. What code is Carenado running outside the simulator?

25 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

at least for right now, the momentum and actions have indicated otherwise.  If they were to suddenly start cracking down on things that our "outside the box" to use your words, THAT would be the change.

Umm, they have explicitly said "no external flight model". They have explicitly said "no external weather engine". They have explicitly said "you must run everything in the sandbox". Compared to FSX, FS2020 has a lot of fences in the way. Sure, for a lot of things there are alternatives, and if there are no alternatives currently, they are planned. But for a lot of things that affect developers aiming for high realism in particular, functionality has been removed and no alternative is being offered or planned.


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That is too many points to even address here in this thread, but it sounds like you want to counter-argue every point. As far as flight modeling goes, well I just disagree, the in-air flying physics does not need to be perfect (for obvious reasons), but the landing physics are of course the MOST important physics in a Flight Sim.

The point is to simulate a landing, kind of the point of the SIM part in Flight Sim. Sure, there is also all the enjoyable stuff you can do, but the landing is what separates it from a SIM and a game. If they can perfect the landings, it will be a sim. Anyone can take off a plane, even an inexperienced pilot would generally be ok in most planes to take off, that is the easy part.

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1 minute ago, Alpine Scenery said:

the in-air flying physics does not need to be perfect

In your opinion. For a lot of us, inflight physics matter a lot, just as much as takeoff physics, and landing physics.. And that is the whole point. We can either rely on Asobo's limited resources to fix all of our problems, which will never happen cause you can't please everyone, which will end up with people arguing non stop about what's more important and what Asobo should focus on next, OR we can hopefully let Asobo know that they don't need to do all the work, and they can focus on other things like graphics, and world scenery, and weather, etc, while allowing those developers that are willing and able to handle things like getting the inflight physics perfected.

Currently, Asobo would rather do all of that work themselves. If that's the case, then it is only to be expected that a lot of people will complain to them about unrealistic physics.


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On 5/10/2021 at 1:57 PM, DJJose said:

I'm very sorry to say this but for me everything got worse since the initial release.

No one agree more than I! The initial release was great, but after that most things has just got worse and worse... Sad to say, but this is the throuth.

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10 minutes ago, Cristi_Neagu said:

In your opinion. For a lot of us, inflight physics matter a lot, just as much as takeoff physics, and landing physics.

Landing physics is the most important thing in a SIM as far as physics go, it's not my opinion, it's the opinion of everyone that builds fully-certified real simulators. Stall physics are also important, but the main thing they practice in simulators is landings.

Physics in the air is really hard to judge, it's very subtle, and even if they had it perfect, the same people would still say it's incorrect. Now I am not talking about climb rates, glide, or general performance (they should have set those numbers better, but that's easy to fix), just talking about reactionary fluid dynamics as a subset of aerodynamics. The problem is NO-ONE has mastered fluid dynamics in the sense of translating that to a game engine, and the real equations are too long. Sure, they could spend millions and make it better, but the same people would still misjudge it and claim it was wrong, because unless you have a 3-projector setup and a real cockpit, and a motion simulator, it's never going to feel right or match anyhow, regardless of what they do or if they hired a hundred scientists to design the flight model (still wouldn't feel right watching a monitor with no motion).

 

 

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1 hour ago, Cristi_Neagu said:

You must have missed a very obvious one, then: https://youtu.be/ZKzNEItrt7U?t=3191 And the point is repeated at 53:52

Well, I'll happily say that when I eat crow, I'm not afraid to floss my teeth with the feathers.  I did watch this video and this obviously didnt register with me at the time. I dare say, though that with the release and popularity of the latest helicopter addons that ARE using their own flight models, the cat is proverbially out of the bag.  If it is fully their intent to prevent this, the more time that passes with examples like these gaining fans and traction, the stronger the pushback from the community will be when and if they do crack down.  Will be interesting to see how that plays out.

 

1 hour ago, Cristi_Neagu said:

 

We weren't talking about how significant the impact is, because then we start getting into unanswerable questions. No one knows how many people are refusing to buy this sim because of the state it is in. No one knows how many more would buy it if they could get ActiveSky weather running in it and AIG traffic mods. I don't think disparagingly bringing up "disgruntled older simmers" is in any way factual. So it is my turn to ask: Do you have a quote/source for this saying that it's only "disgruntled older simmers" that want this?

 

No quote, no facts at all - pure conjecture on my part.  But as an older simmer myself and judging my contemporaries base on general acquaintance, I know we are often grumpy and get annoyed when there are too many remotes and buttons involved in turning on the tv, let alone the number of steps needed to manage a sim update - I find we can tend to be a bit overdramatic with our criticisms.. and yet somehow we still shell out the cash for new addons.

p.s. on a side note, as for things like ActiveSky, I'm not really a fan of weather mods that require "smoothing" and "blending" of transitions (needed to hide the cheat of setting global weather to the nearest Metar).  I'm much happier with a world model that has actual weather fronts, and clouds lining up at the base of a mountain ridge .. no artificial transitions required.

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