Aircraft developers (SimWorks, MilViz, Aerosoft) being criticized for realistic flight simulation

Hi all,

There is a trend that’s in development that bothers me greatly. Take a look at this post by SimWorks:

In addition, Milviz included a realistic engine failure simulation for when you fly the aircraft improperly and outside allowable parameters. They are also now being hounded by some to not have that. Or at least, make it optional (which thankfully, so fair they have stated they are NOT gonna do)…

This is unfortunate in my view. Just cause some people want “easy to fly” aircraft, now developers are getting complaints if they actually include authentic simulation features and make the aircraft deeper than default. CRJ is now being criticized for having to actually learn how to program FMS with a flight plan cause it doesn’t use the default flight planner.

Some of us WANT these things - that’s why you pay good money for deeper aircraft! If you want to fly easy stuff, you have your default planes! Why ask for SIMULATION features being taken away from a SIMULATOR?

My proposed solution is to MAYBE do what InfiaFoxtEcho did (have a LITE version of their T-45 included as a selectable aircraft). That one was done for PERFORMANCE reasons and not simulation differences, but that may be a possibility. It’s probably a pain for a developer to do, but it’s the only solution I can think of.

What do you all think? I am all for casual simmers’ right to enjoy the sim and all, but certain simulations are deeper than others and I have been waiting patiently for things like this to come from devs. Them being hounded to take it away now is REALLY disappointing. I suppose it’s the downside of this simulator’s wider appeal. Wait until the X-Box crowd comes too. This issue is NOT going away, I am afraid.

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Agree! Torquesim’s new SR20 with the Entegra avionics is how it should be done. No compromise. FS2020 wouldn’t be able to run it though. I’m so glad Xplane is alive and well.

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I don’t like it at all. I want my aircraft to be, literally, “as real as it gets”, and I don’t like that the developers are caving on the issue. That said, this aircraft isn’t my cup of tea to begin with, and I hope the big boys don’t make similar concessions. If/when I buy a 787, to be repetitive, I want it “as real as it gets”. Or as a worst case scenario, for them to take your advice on a backup strategy.

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This is NOT good news for MSFS. Asobo need to make the models as accurate as possible!

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Wait till the Xbox version comes out and consumers want Ace Combat-like realism.

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this is not about Asobo. It’s about 3rd party devs.
Asobo won’t make the planes much more realistic than they are: standard planes have to be more accessible to a greater audience, and planes that come standard with the sim never were as well developed as 3rd party ones.
And that’s quite ok, when you consider the amount you pay for a single 3rd party plane in comparison to the whole flightsim with 10 and more aircraft.

Considering BostonJeremy’s statement: I agree that it sets the wrong signals to the community to bow to people who do not care too much about realism. There will always be the two extremes: the ones for who it can’t get realistic enough, and the others who want to keep it casual. After all there’s a wide range of players with far different levels of knowledge out there, and MSFS has to be accessible to the novice as well as the pro to be successful.

On the other hand considering the Corsair I was quite astonished to find out that you can quite easily blow up the engine even while engine stress damage is disabled. So I would also prefer the option that I CAN fly the Corsair damage free if I wish to. After all that’s the reason Asobo put it in there. :slight_smile:

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People should be able to dial in the level of detail they want to enjoy using the simulator.

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That would be the best option and some 3rd parties partially include this (like the maintenance feature on the JF Pa28R).

But I even got into a discussion on this forum with someone who said the aircraft was too slow despite it being spot on the numbers of the POH.
They even sounded angry about the fact that they expected higher speeds than the real one.
So should Asobo add a slider for unrealistically high speeds?

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A sim running on a console is not a sim, it’s an arcade game.
Just wait for the cell phone release…

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That person should fly a plane they enjoy, instead.

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Well it’s hard to say after them having bought a quite expensive addon.
It’s just an example that people paying a premium addon not necessarily expect the realism that it provides. But that shouldn’t make the developers dial down the realism for everyone.

Adding options if possible to reduce realism for the sake of having fun in the sim is totally fine (which is why they included a hidden Altitude hold feature for the AP which doesn’t support it in real life), but if there is no option, the default should always target the realism.

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Then they should get a refund for their purchase, if they don’t enjoy it.

True. But it’s also a brilliant move from a business perspective, and will benefit us serious simmers a lot over the long haul.

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There is often no way for refunds.

I think all of that is a matter of managing expectations. And there will always be people expecting something different even if you clearly state what the addon is about.

Of course addon developers are also seeing a bigger crowd willing to spend money and they’d be dumb if they wouldn’t try to please everyone. It just shouldn’t get a trend for the more realistic addons to be dumbed down without options.

I mean Carenado is a good example targeting more casual simmers/players with reduced complexity and you can see how many people enjoy their addons. Nothing bad about that.

Maybe there should be some kind of realism scale for addons like “beginner - advanced - experts” and when buying an “experts” addon you should expect to deal with realistic simulations.
But as I said, 3rd party developers don’t want to rule out sales to the beginners just by labeling an addon as “for experts only”.

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Then there should be a way to get a refund, since consumer protection laws probably require it.

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Seriously folks if people could get refunded for their money if they don’t like the product, this entire problem goes away. This is purely a MSFS Marketplace payment processing system problem.

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I am also concerned about the move to console, but honestly I cannot imagine dumbing down the sim. It would be a monumental mistake to do that! As stated in the OP, I also think that alot more easy aircraft will be made than the deep sim ones. It should be advertised as such. Like a filter function in the marketplace:

  • arcade
  • basic simulation
  • full simulation (prof level)

Something like that. It just needs more transparency!

Demand dictates production, simple as that.

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Digital sales often rule out such protections. Also the product is not defective and is not falsely advertised, therefore there is no reason to offer refunds except goodwill.

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If people don’t get the value out of the product, then they have been ripped off. If it’s not clearly labeled what the expectations are, then they have been ripped off.

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I guess if you don’t like having goodwill and having customers want to buy your products, then you can go ahead and not ever offer refunds for products that don’t meet the consumer’s needs.

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