It’s unreasonable to expect users to wait several months between sim updates, due to the current state of the simulation. Please implement a more agile development process which would increase the frequency of the releases.
Increasing the frequency will just lead to more issue’s they are meant to be adding a beta tester in the future to allow updates to be tested better before releases.
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They are already in an agile development process. We get constant communication through developers updates, news and announcements. Then we have a publicly released roadmaps on what are the things they’re developing and when can we expect to receive their changes.
They’re not an amateur developer here. They’re professionals and they know what they’re doing and how to do them. We just need to have faith and patience in their process.
The one thing we need is an Insider Programme that we can register and opt-in to receive upcoming updates earlier, then we can use that opportunity to test those features in our own environment. Something that they may not have access to.
We get regular monthly updates from launch. Compare this during the FSX era and earlier. How often do we get official updates and fixes? We ended up relying on third party addons which makes up more than half of what the base FSX was. Here, we get free updates regularly, and it keeps improving.
Yes there are new issues here and there, but honestly, they fix a lot more than they break. All we need is to adjust our style slightly to adapt to the changes. It also keeps you on your toes, to always get new challenges new things to react to, new things to do differently.
Eventually, it’ll get there. It’s slowly moving towards it. But it’ll get there. Be patient, and appreciate with what we have rather than being upset with what we don’t have.
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It’s not necessarily to patch large numbers of bugs at the same time, but I think the recent issues with flaps, shows that the patch release process is complicated - potentially due to the Microsoft Store/Steam relationship. An improved process would allow those individual hot fixes to be quickly and easily deployed.
I struggle to relate to the comments with previous versions. We had games that couldn’t be updated - so the quality was significantly better in my opinion because that wasn’t an option. You’re starting to make me feel old.
Agree with your other comments but I would be surprised if improvements couldn’t be implemented. Something does flow right.
I agree with Neo4316. Frankly, this has been one of the most impressive, responsive and transparent update roadmaps I’ve ever seen. I’m not blind to the bugs and issues people have - I’ve had a few myself. But compared to what Cyberpunk players are going through right now, this is absolute heaven, despite being a far more complex piece of software.
For anyone who gamed in flight sims in the early 80s, everything was built on Waterfall, which meant that estimates and features were committed upfront, but the reality (how much it cost, how long and what features were in fact included/working) weren’t known until the end. Fun fact, most of those estimates were wrong, sometimes dreadfully so. That’s why FSX really didn’t shine until the end of life over a decade later - where multiple service packs and the near heroic efforts of third party makers brought a complete (and mostly satisfying) set of features. But not one minute before.
Agile turns that on its head. It delivers minimum features to make a viable product up front, as soon as possible. And the cadence of iteration - fixes plus new features - is faster, on the order of weeks vs months/years in Waterfall.
Many people just don’t know that, or don’t care. Part of that is this “instant gratification” which is exacerbated by Internet time and immediate delivery. No such animal or vegetable exists in Software Development that way, at least not for a competent product.
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How do you think they were able to release the original product in the time they did, have it be light years ahead of others on the market and release more updates in several months than P3D and X-plane have done over the same time, combined? Really, the level of petulance here sometimes blows me away.
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You clearly don’t understand what an agile development method is, and you’re obviously quite agitated. Sorry if this topic made you angry.
Not angry at all. You’ve shared a perspective, as have I. Be mindful about what you claim others don’t know. I’ve previously served many years as a Product Manager working hand in hand with developers doing “Agile/Scrum”.
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Thanks for your contribution 
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And I hear you on the concerns of quality when it comes to some of the updates. Concerns of some things bring fixed, yet new issues being introduced.
The precedent that’s been set is sloppy work, plain and simple.
I’m not so concerned as to whether a release cycle is a week or a month. But it’s got to be better. There’s no excuse to be sending out updates with glaring issues that are obvious within minutes or hours of playing.
Which is why I suggest that they should open up an Insider Programme for us to opt-in and get those updates earlier than everyone else. That way we can test them first and pick up any issues before the general public receives this update.
There’s no way they can test every single scenario using every single combination of environments hardware and software configurations. That’s just impossible. For the proper QA to actually work is to have us, the users to be the tester for them. That way these updates can be tested in each of our environments. So anything that we picked up which might obviously be missed by them due to the lack of testing in real world scenario, can be reported and they can fix it before the general release.
I’m willing to be an insider tester and get these updates earlier than everyone else. I don’t mind getting issues or getting the game broken, as long as I can get them first than everyone else, I’m willing to do that and report to them for tweaking and fixing before they release to the general public.
There’s no reason to have these updates tested in like 20 machines in their team, where they can grab the insider community with hundreds of users in real world scenario and test it for them.
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Absolutely true. But at the same time, not at all what the primarily issue is here.
We’re not running into edge-case scenarios of really particularly quirks of hardware combinations. Or if we do, that’s understandable.
The flaps issue in this latest release, with lift being off by a factor of 2, is something that anyone can experience regardless of their platform. It’s one of those things that appears in minutes or hours or typical use. It’s one of many glaring issues that have been introduced over the months since release.
I do software development for a living. Simulation work, specifically. I get it, you’re never going to have a 100.0% bug-free environment as you’re rolling new stuff out. But IMO we’re not yet at a point of having an “insider program” that maybe catches the oddball quirks here and there. The internal testing and QA stuff needs to take a quantum leap forward first.
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They could have easily picked up on the Flaps issue. You only need to load the plane, and see that you can take off ridiculously sooner than in real life. But hey lets push the update in another months time. Oh your updates aren’t working? here go ■■■■ with your IPv6 Settings and run Command-Line codes to fix your issue. Asobo directs its players to solutions that delve outside of the gaming realm. Touching IPv6 isn’t something people should be doing if they’re inexperienced. But of course Asobo wipes its hands and takes no responsibility.
I like this idea as well. As a former Alpha tester, I’d support this.
I’m a programmer, the problem with agile programming is it will create more issues. You think the new line of code or a new if statement, etc will fix a problem and then it brakes your update function leading to errors, memory leaks, crashes. SU11 is the most stable version of msfs to date. Unfortunately as expected it broke a few things. The code behind the scenes must’ve become so confusing that a new programmers will only brake the sim more.
Agile doesn’t deliver “minimum features” per definition.
Agile delivers an agreed upon content and a defined set of functions that are meaningful and useful for a customer to use within a defined timeframe. If during the development phase it becomes obvious that not all of the commited functions can be delivered till the commited date, functions are decommited while ensuring that the remaining functions that are delivered still can be used meaningfully by a customer. In any case the delivered functions are thoroughly tested and documented.
Without having detailed insight into how MS/Asobo are developing my gut feeling is that they are much closer to an old fashioned waterfall model with all it’s shortcomings and are definitely lightyears away from a pure and efficient agile development model and mode.
To crosscheck the later statement: ask them for documentation and testcases: in agile development documentation and test cases are done prior to desinging and coding even the 1st loc.
I’m not privy to whether the 20 machines they use are of similar configurations. But I would bet they’re a lot more homongenous than the variety of components, software, and setups than 100 insiders would have.
Too often here I see complaints that eventually get traced to a computer configuration issue, and not a problem with the sim itself. Yes, there is benefit to testing bug fixes on a variety of platforms, but the first rule of troubleshooting is to minimize variables. I’m not saying your idea doesn’t have merit - just that having expectations that what works on my computer will automatically work the same on yours can lead to placing blame where it doesn’t belong.