Has MSFS stalled?

[jozeff 93]

I have to disagree on this one..

There is so much going on in msfs world that I parked xplane11 and p3dv5 for now just to keep up with everything around mmsfs.

I truly have the feeling that this sim really had a major lift off the last couple of months. 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

10 minutes ago, mtaxp said:

Did you actually see what happened here or just gave up to pressure? people started insulting an OP just because they suspected he is an x-plane user and I am the wrong one here? Did you even see what @abrams_tank posted? A thread HE derailed and then accused me?

I’ve read the whole topic. Suspecting someone is not proof. There is no evidence that the OP is/was an XP user.

Just because someone says something derogatory about another sim isn’t sufficient reason to jump in and start a debate. Just ignore it. You don’t seem able to do that.

13 minutes ago, mtaxp said:

So as long as Avsim mods are concerned, as long as the status quo is remained, one can't express his own opinion. Good to know.

Of course opinions can be posted but in a responsible way. Take a step back and think before you post. Is the post constructive or is it likely to inflame the situation?

16 minutes ago, mtaxp said:

As someone who actually tries MSFS, can I say negative stuff about it or it should be only praises? Please update the rules in here accordingly so we know. Im sure others want that too since they had the exact same points mentioned by me.

As a beta tester for MSFS you should know the rules. Objective statements are fine. Unsubstantiated ones aren’t.

I won’t be responding to any more comments on this topic.

[mtaxp 666]

8 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I’ve read the whole topic. Suspecting someone is not proof. There is no evidence that the OP is/was an XP user.

WOW!!!!

So, if the OP was an x-plane user, it was all good to insult him ain't it? This is your take from here? 

Look at my comments, am I the only one who wrote about water interaction? About helis? About the flight model?

Also I never said I was an MSFS beta tester, I did say I occasionally try what is new, 2 years passed and yawn. Am I allowed to express that in a thread that literally talks about that?

@Ray Proudfoot, what about this, that came way before my comment:

Quote

The Xplane word not allowed must be getting worried as their only valid criticism of MSFS 2020 was a real lack of any "Study Level" airliners, which has now been consigned to history, maybe the imminent arrival of the the best airliner in any sim has them worried?

•  

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by mtaxp

[WestAir 2,522]

I actually really do want to see some major new core features, like weather with vertical winds, new cloud types, microburst, etc. I also would love to see the new ATC and AI traffic system in its intended glory. We also really need the ground friction and physics overhauls to come out.

OP is right that a lot of time has been spent on bug fixing, but that's just the nature of the beast. Slow progress is still progress.

We'll get there.

[CFIJose 5,485]

I think, but it needs to be confirmed that the weather will eventually be allowed to be improved by a third party such as Hi-Fi.

That still doesn't address why ASOBO has not made the live weather feature, AI traffic, and the ATC a priority. dev

Maybe we need to protest.

[MySound 403]

12 hours ago, sanh said:

It's now been a couple of years since MSFS was released but the sim largely is the same as it was at release.

Stopped reading after this.

[abrams_tank 7,417]

2 minutes ago, DJJose said:

I think, but it needs to be confirmed that the weather will eventually be allowed to be improved by a third party such as Hi-Fi.

That still doesn't address why ASOBO has not made the live weather feature, AI traffic, and the ATC a priority. dev

Maybe we need to protest.

My take on why Microsoft/Asobo are ignoring the changes to the SDK for weather is that they want to take a stab at live weather themselves first.  On a software project, your developers can only do so many tasks (and sometimes, adding more developers does not necessarily speed up the project).  So I think Micrsoft/Asobo don't want the developers that can improve live weather to be overwhelmed with other tasks, such as modifying the SDK to allow weather modification. Otherwise, this will slow down the progress of live weather.

From my take, I think we should give Microsoft/Asobo another 2 to 3 years to make live weather as good as possible.  After another 2 to 3 years, if it's still not up to the standard we expect, I think it's okay to push them to open up the SDK for weather modification.  But at least give them some time to see what they can do with live weather.  IMO, live weather is getting much better, and it's usable on VATSIM now.  For VATSIM users at least, live weather is much better.

[Amon1973 1,421]

That MSFS has some issues, not many people would disagree with that, but it's definitely generally improving.

obviously it's had it's ups and downs. But at this point in time it's the sim I always use (I have them all) IMO MSFS is not far off from being an exceptional flight simulator. 

But with all the staff that Asobo are hiring, be it from SDK specialists to graphic designers most of it's issues will be a thing of the past relatively soon. 

Edited May 16, 2022 by Amon1973

[Ricardo41 5,949]

After almost 2 years of using MSFS, I've come to the conclusion that MSFS 2020 is the best simulator that has ever been released. Sim updates, world updates - the hits just keep on coming.

You could, in theory, install vanilla MSFS, only use freeware mods, and you'll still have the best looking and best performing sim currently available.

You just want to noodle around and don't care about accuracy or study level? MSFS 2020 has you covered. You want study level - here ya go - install the FREE Fbw A320 Neo.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Ricardo41

[mrueedi 702]

1 hour ago, AnkH said:

If you actually DO a comparison of the sim now against release and ignore the addons and the world updates, what is left?

The big features added since release (in the sense of causing large efforts in a already tremendously complex codebase) are:

• VR
• Refactoring of legacy code to increase performance significantly
• The point before enabled XBox then
• Weather refactoring (wip)
• SDK extensions
• DX12

Many of these cover platform aspects, improve non functional requirements such as performance, maintainability, extensibility or robustness. Depending on how borked the state of the legacy code was, bringing it from fit-for-purpose to fit-for-future alone can cause an enourmous effort (close to rewritting large chunks of the code). A safe bet would be, that the initial code was not optimized much and hardly more than fit-for-purpose.

As such, you may not feel, that much has changed, but keep in mind, all these things are "enablers" for future additions.

In short, the points above are enablers for things we all like:

• VR -> a super cool, mind blowing feature in itself. It catapults the sim from a PC application to a time machine, which enables you to travel to real places, in real planes... so to speak.
• Refactorings -> enabler for basically everything else
• XBOX -> enabler for a huge user base, which in return enables viability of the platform 
• Weather -> enabler for all-inclusive weather (btw. there are more cloud type in the Sim than in August 2020)
• SDK extensions -> enabler for the cool addons we have. The capabilities of any sim explode by bringing in addons.
• DX12 -> enabler for performance gains, being thus a key enabler to make the sim fit-for-future (giving more headroom to add other features)

[wiler 394]

1 hour ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

And this is why I agreed with the OP's initial point. Spot on. Absolutely things that *should* have been top of the list, 2 years in, are still left hanging. I have BIG expectations for DX12.

Of course, we could have a poll, and include ice cream?

even after all this I still havnt gone back to the other sim, especially since the MD80 and the pmdg have arrived. I just dont have time or the patience anymore to tweek files, create orthos etc etc.  The fact that MSFS is vanilla scenery wise already amazing is a massive plus.  Addons are a bit cheaper as well. Im still waiting for a payware AI traffic addon that is also easy to use and consumes little time to get it setup.  These days I just want to fire up a sim and go.  Been in this since 1994 so ive probably spent half my sim time just tweeking stuff to get things to work decent.  MSFS works decent out of the box which is exactly what Ive waited 25 yrs for! 

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

14 minutes ago, wiler said:

even after all this I still havnt gone back to the other sim, especially since the MD80 and the pmdg have arrived. I just dont have time or the patience anymore to tweek files, create orthos etc etc.  The fact that MSFS is vanilla scenery wise already amazing is a massive plus.  Addons are a bit cheaper as well. Im still waiting for a payware AI traffic addon that is also easy to use and consumes little time to get it setup.  These days I just want to fire up a sim and go.  Been in this since 1994 so ive probably spent half my sim time just tweeking stuff to get things to work decent.  MSFS works decent out of the box which is exactly what Ive waited 25 yrs for! 

Yup I agree. However, there is alway room for improvement, right? progress 🙂 

[F737MAX 5,604]

49 minutes ago, WestAir said:

We also really need the ground friction and physics overhauls to come out.

This is key. On one of the real-world 737 pilots' twitch streams linked in one of the multitude of PMDG 737 threads on here last week, he noted that the ground friction was not realistic and made for some odd landings.
It's also one of the original complaints not fixed since launch.

 

53 minutes ago, WestAir said:

I also would love to see the new ATC and AI traffic system in its intended glory

Same.
Though given the complexity, the amount of developer hours that can be sunk into trying to improve the logic and the long list of other outstanding issues for the Asobo team, I see this being left to a 3rd party add-on like Flight 1's FSHud.
 

58 minutes ago, WestAir said:

Slow progress is still progress.

True. But then there's the introduction of significant new problems. The FPS drop at the crucial phase of landing for many simmers following SU9, is a show-stopping event.

 

There's so much to like in MSFS, and yet, so much left to improve.

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

23 minutes ago, F737NG said:

There's so much to like in MSFS, and yet, so much left to improve.

And this is the key. 

[AnkH 2,266]

54 minutes ago, mrueedi said:

The big features added since release (in the sense of causing large efforts in a already tremendously complex codebase) are:

• VR
• Refactoring of legacy code to increase performance significantly
• The point before enabled XBox then
• Weather refactoring (wip)
• SDK extensions
• DX12

 

DX12? You cant put this half-baked stuttery implementation on the list seriously... the other points: as I said, nothing about the core sim. Flying (!) in MSFS is not affected at all in most aspects from those things you listed. Performance: I do not see any difference on my rig since release, it was smooth and still is (which is great of course). 

Dont get me wrong, I love flying in this sim, but as the TS asked, for me, besides the addons of course, the sim is basically still the same compared to release, sadly with most of the shortcomings that annoy me (personal point of view) still not resolved or even being worked on...