Now that the hype train is at full speed towards destination overload I got to thinking about areas that are of concern, as with *any* gaming title there's gonna be shortfalls, drawbacks, issues, bugs etc on release and in the months after, that is to be expected. But what we have here is a recent history lesson to guide us to areas that have been below par with the previous title that can be of slight concern for the new title. I'll preface this by saying I'm not looking for issues, I'm looking for improvement in these areas, there's nothing wrong with that before the local Defenders Of The Peace start pointing out what's been said in this interview or what that streamer said on you tube or what was answered in a Q&A.....these are things we'll find out on release and in time thereafter and are maybe more personal concerns than your average "OMG teh sErveRs R d0wn AgaiN"
 

1. Reliance on the Cloud - Some of us have had the god awful experience of our Assistance Settings being reset, sometimes multiple times, the lack of saving these locally (along with all other settings) was a major oversight in development. It's not yet fully clear whether this will continue to be the case, but what if it is? Imagine being halfway through the Career Mode and some server somewhere has a spat and loses your progress?!, there's no backup locally, the cloud has "lost" the progress made. Have Asobo woken up and developed these areas to be saved locally? even an Option to do so? Not everything has to be cloud based, but hearing that the Log Book is saved on the Cloud only worries me that they've not made backup plans here, not an overly massive concern but a concern none the less, I don't want to lose hours of progression in Career mode only to have it wiped and the need to start over.
2. VR - Goes without saying that Asobos lackluster attention to VR is plainly obvious, I still see a graphical bug from SU5 they never fixed, I still have to deal with mouse issues *on every flight*  from the god awful SU7 release which they never fixed properly. Yes they keep repeating "we use VR" and "we see VR as another platform" over & over again in Q&As, but the fact remains it's release was a shambles, they've ignored major bugs (Shutdown for example), controller support is still weak, a reliance on using OpenXR Toolkit (created by one bloke in his spare time..) when half of those features should be default in game - will they be in MSFS24? Will VR get taken seriously this time around? 10%-15% of players are VR users according to Jorg, that's a large number of players out of the reported 15million. Yes it works and yes the performance optimisations may help with that side of things going forward (FFR is rumoured to be included), but it's the attention to detail and TLC that VR requires that's gone AWOL with the current Sim, it's time they took this area more seriously.
3. Quality Control with Sim Updates - The aforementioned SU7 is a prime example of where MS/Asobo failed massively, they didn't have a Public Beta Test beforehand and the result was a massive game breaking issue for VR & TrackIR users. On top of that numerous updates have fixed one thing to break something else that's entirely unrelated, why was it that a World Update earlier this year broke some Toolbar Apps? Why is it that they allow blatant new bugs to progress through to public releases of Sim Updates when people are reporting them in Betas? (more on that next). For some of us it became more a concern what a SU would break than looking forward to the features within, this all points to a major lack of QC that has at times plagued the current Sim. Yes we get these updates for free, that's fabulous and yes some issues will arise from time to time, but that doesn't mean we can't ask for better scrutiny when they're released and it's certainly an area that remains valid for concern moving forward with the new title.
4. Beta Periods - This ones well down the pecking order of priority but I thought it worth mentioning anyway, now from personal experience of being involved in both Private & Public beta testing programs for a wide range of games/simulations since the 1990s, I have to say the "Flights" as they call them have been nothing but shambolic at times and mostly pointless. There's no structure (there was a brief period whereby they gave us a list of things to test & report on but that soon stopped), there's little to no direction, there's no direct communication with the Devs (major failing), bugs get reported then archived and you have to make the bug report again for live (if you can be bothered), there's no proper management of the Beta periods. If these were better managed, better organised, better detailed in what to address then maybe point 3 above would improve also as they kinda go together in some ways. But alas it seems they utilise these periods solely to find any show stopping issues, I've seen simple (yes simple) UI bugs get reported the first day in Beta, 5 weeks later the SU comes out and the same UI bug is still there, something that would literally takes seconds to fix (text errors). Of course that example is an extremely low priority item, but it goes some way to proving the point that Beta Periods are simply not being utilised well enough.

In conclusion none of these areas are massive in the sense that they're any more important than the flight model or live weather, but regardless of their priority and going by what I've witnessed these past 4 and a bit years I have every right to be slightly concerned that they're not going to improve. There's nothing wrong with that before you get the pitchforks out and claim my glass is half empty, (I'll reiterate I *love* this sim, I use it weekly and my steam time shows that). I'm going to love MSFS24 as well, but I've been accustomed to the shortcomings of MS/Asobo and I just want to see them improve in areas where they've not been good enough in the past.
As ever respect everyones opinions and yours shall be respected too, happy Friday 🙂

Edited September 27, 20241 yr by MarcG

I have to say I don't share a single one of those concerns (I'm more concerned about the rain at the moment to be honest) but yes, Happy Friday! 

I do not see any of those as 'concerns', but I do agree that they are areas which need some revised management. 

Its the gaming world we live in today being many (most?) products are of a state of Early Access. I hate it but I'd rather PC game than not.

Only way around most concerns are to wait 4 years (or more) when the game is actually fully bug free and feature rich.

11 minutes ago, VeryBumpy said:

Only way around most concerns are to wait 4 years (or more) when the game is actually fully bug free and feature rich.

…only to be replaced by then next version and the cycle starts again.

We’ve all been there over the years😀

13 minutes ago, VeryBumpy said:

wait 4 years (or more) when the game is actually fully bug free

And after 4 years, is there any likelihood of MSFS2020 being fully bug free?

We just have to accept that no game title is ever perfect, enjoy what we have and ask the devs to make improvements wherever they can.

 

2 hours ago, MarcG said:

In conclusion none of these areas are massive

Certainly none of these issues are showstopping like server connection issues are. Though, it would be appreciated if Asobo/MS paid a bit more attention to the user experience regarding your points.

They have said VR performance is better in 2024 because of the multi threading improvements, and if you use their auto quality scaling 

2 hours ago, St Mawgan said:

I have to say I don't share a single one of those concerns (I'm more concerned about the rain at the moment to be honest) but yes, Happy Friday! 

Yeah, as I don’t do VR and I’ve enjoyed the beta’s I’ve been involved in I can’t say anything of this is much of a concern.

As I’ve also spent most of the morning lying on a Greek beach my most pressing concern is shall I have grilled Sea Bream or Sea Bass to go with my Calamari and chips tonight?

Pass me another of those cold stubbies darling….😍

I also do not have any of these concerns. There will be bugs and some updates will go smoother than others, some will break things. Servers will go down or experience connectivity issues. Really, I do not think anything is going to change from 2020. But none of these issues over the past 4 years have been concerns for me and on the whole I have found the whole experience to be quite enjoyable. In fact I have never enjoyed flight simulation as much as in the past 4 years and I am excited to see it continue to develop and refine. To look at a few retrogressions and bugs and the handful to times there were connectivity issues would be like not seeing the forest for the leaves. I also have the impression that Asobo makes an honest effort and at the end of the day this is an entertainment title not critical software.

I have no interest in VR so I personally have no concerns about this aspect but I understand its importance for those that do use it and this is an area I hope can get greater attention.

 

 

I'm looking forward to the journey - it's going to be a hell of a ride