A short review of MSFS 2024 current state after 14 months of updates and bug fixing

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164

I completely understand you. I had a buying list for improvements, among which was a better flight stick and better pedals, and other hardware. Just before release and knowing that each interation of MSFS 2024 has been more hardware demanding than the earlier, I found a Radeon 7900XTX on a good deal. It wasn’t an adequate time to such spending. It was christmas and wife wasn’t going to be very happy, however, I went for it.

On top of that add the funds for MSFS 2024 itself, which, if MS/Asobo would have been honest and at least had mentioned it was “Early access” or would have been totally honest and say “alpha stage”, I would have passed after holidays.

Imagine my dispair when I saw what MSFS 2024 was, thinking why on earth didn’t they disclose the real state of the sim. I can understand the need for funds for the project, and business deadlines, but a dishonest move like releasing the game in that state, was at least very questionable. On top of the dispair was the wife asking me why I wasn’t flying at all (a common habit of mine while I was working at the computer preparing classes).

Looking at your setup, which looks amazing, I can’t anything less than concur with your disappointment.

Lastly, there’s one more thing:

This question is overwhelming me. During the first year I kept wondering when fixes would come to stock airplanes, ATC, etc. Nowadays, I’m not even sure if MSFS 2024 will get those fixes, and if it will ever be, as you mentioned, a finished program, or at least one that isn’t full of bugs.

Yesterday I tried a night flight with the Twin Otter, and again, just like 14 months ago, not a single gauge has the proper lighting, like it should, and you have to use cockpit fill lighting, which makes so much reflections on the cockpit that looking outside is practically impossible. The two things have been reported a year ago, and one is completely forgotten (the Twotter) and the other is “bug logged” (the cockpit reflections).

Let’s see what the future brings, but I’m really let down by this scenario.

165

MANY AIRCRAFT BUGS ARE CARRIED OVER FROM MSFS 2020!

Incredible isn’t it? You can read the full detail in PC Pilot 130, Nov/Dec 2020, article “Microsoft Flight Simulator - The Aircraft”, pp. 18-21, listing many shortcomings in flying dynamics and in instrument panels which are found identically in MSFS 2024 at February 2026.

166

Nothing new that issues carry over… MSFS 2024 is built on the same core platform as 2020.

167

As I dig into the possible activities (excluding Career), I have listed 150, each one with its aircraft. And here comes another surprise. For a significant proportion of the activities they have selected aircraft such as the Aibus A320neo, the Boeing F/A-18E Hornet, the Cessna Citation CJ4 and the Boeing 747-8. They have in common a glass cockpit and hundreds of controls: very complex aircraft to learn to fly, only suitable for VERY experienced flight-simmers, and especially those familiar NOT to historical aircraft, NOT to GA aircraft, but to the most complex modern ones.
This goes couner to any common sense, IMHO.

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169

I have to agree. It feels like the sim is on life support. Look at the YT content creators because this is a good way to gauge the interest in the sim. It’s dried up. My thoughts now are heading towards a post mortem. What went wrong? The vision was wrong. Expecting the community to make the sim great failed spectacularly. There are so many 3rd party aircraft that are half baked and are never going to improve. I get it; they wanted to engage the community, but that just got in the way of making a great sim. There is some fundamental flaw in the business model that has brought us to this situation.
Where do we go from here? I doubt there’s a big pot of money available to get the train back on the rails. Can the business model be fixed? Can the community be re-engaged? I’m not seeing it.

170

On the positive side, since SU4, I’m flying on a PC with 3 screens - something I was not sure would happen last year. I think they have sacrificed some textures and draw distances to achieve better performance, but, I’m flying, without CTDs.

I’m still finding and reporting bugs, in beta testing, because collectively that still does help, and I have to acknowledge the progress.

I think it feels like things have slowed down - and they probably have. My sense is that last year, when Jorg and Seb were saying “all hands on deck to fix bugs”, and “800 people working on it”, that was a year-long triage which culminated with SU4. I am guessing that after that there aren’t as many people bug fixing, (and maybe just fewer people…?) and that the focus has been forced to dealing with bugs on PS5 (because as we heard in the Dev Q&A, Sony is stricter about QA).

I am somewhat disappointed that after saying 2020 aircraft would just work in 2024, the now-huge fleet of 130+ first party aircraft still has so many that need fixing. They must have underestimated how the SDK would evolve, and even though AAU4, 5, and 6 are on the calendar, it’s going to take them a long time to get from the payware Aviator aircraft down to the Standard ones. Years.

I wish they would focus more on the platform and maybe sell of some of the fleet. 1st party aircraft should be examples of the SDK for developers. Likewise, I think 3rd party devs would do a better job of Career Mode, and certainly ATC.

I think they keep trying to do everything in house in a belief that they need to do it themselves for console - but if they focussed their talents on the platform, and ways to allow more 3rd party solutions on to console, it might be a better result all around. But that’s just my lazy from-the-arm-chair-opinion.

I really hope they solve the current memory issues that seem to be the root of SU5 issues, and I’m optimistic for the future of MSFS. Even as I’m looking at the lack of ocean waves on the Indian ocean en route to Singapore right now, I’m still glad to be flying.

171

The community could have done it, but they made it harder to do so and keep changing the rules. The speed at which really simple fixes are made is comically slow, because they’ve mostly shut the community out from base-sim dev work, especially with regard to career mode.

The direction the sim takes seems really stubborn and often quite tone-deaf.

I still love it because I’m old school and can find my way. I’ve found my niche. But take a look through “fresh eyes” and you can see where it bogs down.

172

The community has it’s dark side too. Look at all the fluff that gets submitted to the marketplace. Look at all those developers who just copied default aircraft and sold them back to the marketplace. The marketplace is a mess.

The graphics engine is still a mess. CTD’s and WASM crashes everywhere. I think the open ecosystem is to blame here as well. You buy an aircraft that SHOULD be good, and the YToobers hype it up. But, it turns out to be full of bugs, and this happens over and over again. Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results…

Stubborn and tone deaf. I’ve seen that many times before. Big players with big plans using big tools serving big customers like Boeing and Airbus. I wonder how things look from their side of the bed. It looks like we’re all just beta testers for them.

Sure, I still love it, and by my math there are about 15,000 of us who do. We can make it work and find that sweet spot where things don’t fail. But, Xplane has a new beta out with a bunch of VR upgrades, and Aerofly FS 4 has a new beta out, and those sims are just inches away from taking the lead here. Better lighting, better terrain, better VR are all within their reach.

173

I made a comment in another thread that community submissions need strong human gatekeeping for QA. There’s a lot required to get something to look right, behave right, and to be structured/coded properly for the sim.

174

I’m also of the opinion that the Marketplace needs far stronger QA and/or submission moderation than it currently has. That, and certain developers who only submit absolute slop need to be completely banned (not going to name names; those of us who have been around for a while ought to know quite well which ones I’m talking about).

175

It’s definitely been a case of two steps forward, one step back. While there have been many improvements since release, WASM issues, for me at least, have become much worse. Prior to SU4 I’d never had a WASM crash in PMDG or iniBuilds products, I had my first in SU4 and since SU5 I’m facing them in practically all airliners, including the MD-11 :sob: It’s almost always the same scenario too - entering data into the FMC. I’ve had to give up flying airliners for now, which I’m really frustrated about.

176

Couldn’t agree with your posts more. The sim is probably the best in the franchise, and is completely serviceable as it is because those “old school” simmers have been able to do just as much with less, in previous sims.

BUT, the last few months have left me disappointed. Not upset, not angry, not bothered - just disappointed. It’s funny how in the last dev stream, Jorg said they don’t hold their aircraft partners to any contractual obligations because they should do it out of passion. Where is the passion out of the Dev Team themselves? The passion that was there during MSFS 2020 and the early days of MSFS 2024 seems to have completely disappeared. There’s no clear direction (maybe due to the lack of communication). Beyond the performance improvements in SU4, there’s been nothing of substance in the sim updates nor the weekly dev blogs giving us anything to look forward to. It’s weird. You and I will be fine as we continue to fly like we always have, but I’ve been given nothing to make me think that the future of this sim doesn’t look bleak for potential newcomers to the hobby.

177

You’re right - the internal development momentum seems to have stalled, as well as the hype, despite the addition of console users.

While that is not solely attributable to any one thing (the COVID period was lightning in a bottle as far as people’s interest in getting into gaming and r/w flying, especially with the post-COVID hiring bonanza), I was thinking about things this morning and I realized 50% of my enjoyment of the sim is simply the scenery, and the vast majority of the rest is coming from third party aircraft, systems, scenery enhancements, apps, and hardware. Barely anything I use is “stock” (except the baseline aerial imagery and weather) and when I do fly “stock,” it’s fairly off-putting.

The third-party devs (and a handful of official partners) are the ones stretching the limits and demonstrating what the sim is capable of, despite having to work around rules that constantly change, definitions that are hard to understand, compatibility issues, and other limitations that I can’t even imagine. That’s the biggest issue to me - the workarounds that are required to make something realistic, accurate, or just useable. Many of these third-party things should simply be the baseline sim. The focus should be on removing barriers so that help, in the form of the community and third-parties, can improve the baseline condition of the sim, of course, with streamlined QA management.

178

What’s strange is i only have the PMDG 737-800 installed, nothing else, and never had a WASM crash in the hundreds of hours i’ve already flown it.

179

Certainly everyone’s experience and expectations are going to vary. For me, I’ve found since 2024’s release that I actually adore MSFS2024. I’ve been flying much more often than ever before as the time has gone on, even after SU5 introduced some slight performance hits for me. Don’t get me wrong there are things that have really kinda’ ticked me off that they haven’t been fixed yet because they seem like nothing little things to fix, but I also can see just how seriously complex the MSFS world and scenery are and I can imagine how difficult and time consuming it can be to fix them.

Yes I’d like for those bugs to be fixed, but I’ve had more enjoyment out of this simulator just even in the last couple months than ever in my life with flight simulators, especially enjoy GA flight because of the scenery. And I’m not even running a beefy machine (Core i7 12700K, RTX3050, 32GB RAM). I’ve looked at the other two sims mentioned here and while they look pretty cool I just can’t imagine getting the same realistic vibe in those sims that I get from MSFS.

Patience, though not always ideal, is key.

180

MSFS 2020 (and by extension, MSFS 2024) are certainly the most groundbreaking sims ever released. MSFS 2024 is quite enjoyable to fly in, not only thanks to Asobo’s hard work to create an excellent base sim, but also 3rd party developers, (to @CharlieFox00’s point have had to navigate numerous obstacles to give us these products).

The truth is, Asobo will never be able to provide the level of quality that dedicated 3rd party teams can provide for specific products. They simply don’t have the resources. I feel like some people insist that each of the 100+ default aircraft should be PMDG-quality, which is a completely unrealistic expectation. Instead, Asobo focusing on the core sim and focusing on eliminating barriers for 3rd parties should be priority number 1 instead of updating their half-baked features to 3/4-baked.

But the root of my complaint is that we don’t know what is being worked on right now. This is fine if you’re content with what we have. But if there’s a show-stopper bug or lack of feature preventing you from enjoying the sim, you’re completely left in the dark.

181

I’ll link a post here from another thread that is addressing a specific issue, but does an excellent job describing the general barriers and lack of cohesive implementation, and the workarounds required to overcome that.

And again, don’t get me wrong, I love MSFS 2024, in spite of these things. I just feel bad for all the people who get frustrated. It should be easier to enjoy the sim and to learn how to get the most out of it across all the different styles of simming, without all the add-ons and, frankly, super-helpful folks here and on other social media who go out of their way to explain, troubleshoot, and/or fix the things that should have been part of the core long ago.

182

That’s a good thread.

It’s just a shame that everything is so locked down. And I’m sure this is more of corporate direction than Asobo’s wishes.

Just a few examples:

  • No mods in career mode. This isn’t a multiplayer mode. What does it matter if someone wants to advance through career faster, or make more money, etc. etc. I don’t use career mode but I’m irked on behalf of those that do.
  • Weather system is locked down. Going into the specifics would be beating a very dead horse.
  • Bush trip mechanics seemingly completely removed and users can’t even add them.
  • Little to no UI customization options.
  • LLs, FFs, Premium aircraft are almost entirely locked, making it extremely difficult to develop the common “improvement mods” that make up for the lack of quality in the initial release (broad statement, there are a handful of very nice releases that do have the support and quality that you’d come to expect from a paid addon).

I know I’m oversimplifying things - I’m sure there are contracts, agreements, deals, etc that make this way more difficult than it sounds. But opening this sim a bit more to allow the community to fix some of its shortcomings would immediately and significantly improve the overall state of the program.

183

I can completely relate to the joystick being a paper weight at the moment. It has been for the past 4-5 months.

One of the recent SU updates suddenly started giving me issues with crashing and major stutters just 10-20 feet before touchdown, while it looks like it’s trying to render/load many of the airport objects upon touchdown.

Turning down the graphics helped a little, but it was still inconsistent.

This single issue eventually had me quitting MSFS all together after a week and I haven’t really felt like coming back.

This is despite having a great Winctrl setup and so on for the PMDG 737.

I think it all boils down to new bugs being introduced with each SU update, despite the long list of fixes. Just like OP mentions - it doesn’t really feel like anything gets added or fixed with each update.

There is however no doubt that they nailed the graphics… It kept me from going back to X-plane :).

I don’t know when I will get back to MSFS. I kinda need to see a new breakthrough. I am tired of new bugs and I am, mostly by principle, tired of contract issues that’s probably the underlying issue of many things we can’t have. I am tired of the thought of that in only a year, they will probably introduce the next MSFS, that will probably be released in the same unplayable state as MSFS2024.

All in all, I just don’t feel like supporting this game much anymore.