Career mode punishes casual players who are unable to play for 6+ hours every day

Discussion Hub Activities, Career & Challenges
1

There are a lot of players who are not able to fly 6+ hour missions every day because they have a full-time job, a partner, and maybe even children.

Believe it or not, we also want to play Career Mode. Most of us casual players bought MSFS2024 specifically because it now includes a Career Mode where we can take on different types of missions.

But Career Mode is designed to punish casual players while rewarding those who can spend their entire day in the game.

First of all:

The “Skip Cruise” function is useless because it skips the entire cruise phase.
Maybe I want to fly for half an hour at the start of my flight and then teleport to a point that’s half an hour away from my destination. I should be able to do that to manage my flight time as I see fit.

Let’s say I have two hours to play before I need to go to work or before my children come home from school. I start a 6-hour mission, and then, after some time, I realize that I only have half an hour left to play. I should be able to teleport to a point that’s about half an hour away from my destination, finish the flight, and land the plane.

This approach gives me much more flight time than simply skipping the cruise phase entirely, but it still fits into my schedule and allows me to return to real-life responsibilities.

I was able to do all of that with the VFRMap Mod, but now you took it away from us. So I stopped playing career mode.

Additionally, we’re penalized for using the skip feature because it significantly reduces the credits we earn.

Flying with an increased sim rate is too dangerous and risks crashing. At higher rates, the plane starts to wobble and eventually crashes.

On top of that, casual players face other disadvantages.

Because we can’t play for several hours every day—and sometimes not at all for days, or only on weekends—we earn little to no passive income.

Our progress is extremely slowed down due to all these issues, not to mention the loss of credits and progress caused by bugs.

Casual players with jobs, partners, and children are at a massive disadvantage compared to those who can sit and play for hours every day, earning additional credits and progressing much faster.

Why should we be punished for not being able to fly for several hours daily due to real-life responsibilities?

Also, not everyone enjoys spending 6+ hours flying in autopilot mode. For much of that time, you’re simply staring at the instruments and occasionally communicating.

About the “hardcore simmers”

I know there are some people who think Microsoft Flight Simulator is a serious software tool designed exclusively for professional real-life pilots.

Sure, there might be a few real-life hardcore sim pilots, but most hardcore simmers are definitely not real pilots.

These players feel the need to pretend to be real pilots in a video game and believe they have the right to dictate how others should play—even in single-player mode without any competition.

Luckily not all hardcore simmers are like that. Most of them don’t even care.

Alienating casual players creates unnecessary gatekeeping and elitism, which could discourage new players from joining or sticking with the game. A more inclusive approach would make it more welcoming for everyone, regardless of how much time they can dedicate to the game.

At the end of the day, MSFS is just a great game (even with all its bugs).
I enjoy playing MSFS2024 alone or with my son (he also plays Career Mode), and I’d like to see it become more inclusive for casual players and their children.

Edit: Please vote here to bring back VFRMap Teleporting:

30 Likes
Bring back the ability to use sim connect with VFRmap
3

Oh, yes! When I argued with hardcore players, I also made exactly this argument: I thought that career mode was created just to attract more regular players. But in fact, it turns out to be quite the opposite. MSFS 24 is only scaring off a large number of players now. And imagine that there is a maximum of 10% or less of all players on this forum. The rest just don’t know the details. They open the game, see all this hardcore stuff with a bunch of bugs and just close it. and never come back here again.

Yesterday I was on a cargo mission and watching a movie. I decided to complete this mission “honestly”. 2 hours later, just before boarding, my game crashed. I went to bed in a disgusting mood. But if there was a teleporter, I would just reload and teleport, skipping the cruise. With teleport, I would be more loyal to all the bugs.

12 Likes
4

With this aproach Asobo is going to lose even more players than they did with the catastrophic launch. Most casuals will simply stop playing and either go back to 2020 or play something else. They could easily have said before the launch they intend career to be a grind and take hours for 1 mission. The only reason the didn’t was because they knew a lot of casuals won’t buy the game. Career is the only thing that would make a casual buy the new game if they already had 2020. Better graphics aren’t worth the price they’re charging. Realisticaly neither is the game in the current state but that’s a different discussion.

8 Likes
5

They’re going to keep pandering to the hardcore players until they drive all the casuals away. And then be surprised why the player numbers are soo low. But by then it will be to late for damage control noone is going to come back.

The hardcore players forget that without us casuals none of this would be possible. Asobo would not spend the money they did to develop the game for the ~50 hardcore players.

Asobo seem to also forget the the casuals are probably 90% if not more of the active players. What happens when we leave to a game where we aren’t treated like spit? Are the ~50 hardcore players that will maybe buy a plane or two going to be enought for you to keep supporting the game?

Casuals are not the same as the hardcore players. The only reason we play this is to have fun. If you take that away then there is no reason to play or to buy any planes. Once you drive casual players away they are not comming back.

4 Likes
6

Do you believe that all players should get the same payout by playing 30 mins of a 2.5hr mission?

I’ll suggest that to the boss on Monday when I expect full pay for doing a quarter of the day.

4 Likes
7

How do you care how we enjoy the game? Compare real life and the game?

7 Likes
8

As far as I know, hardcore simmers use third-party offerings like VATSIM, NeoFly, OnAir Company, and FSEconomy as career modes with more realism.

The career mode in MSFS2024 doesn’t come close to this level of detail and depth.

Therefore, it’s highly unlikely that hardcore simmers will spend much time with the MSFS2024 career mode if they’re flying for airlines or completing missions on the mentioned platforms.

I’ve also seen discussions in forums where hardcore simmers complain that the career mode is too casual and they want more realism.

The MSFS2024 career mode should be seen for what it is: a rudimentary career mode that casual players will mostly be fully satisfied with.

For hardcore simmers, the scope and realism of the career mode are definitely not sufficient in the long run.

6 Likes
9

Hey, no offense, but do you have problems separating reality and games?

I mean, it should be clear to everyone that we can’t transfer situations from the MSFS 1:1 into real life.
That’s why I don’t understand these comparisons.

12 Likes
10

Is any one of us getting payed to play this game? Fictional currency in a game is not the same as real money. That’s why it should not matter.

7 Likes
11

Settings > Commands
Sim speed +
Sim speed -

Do you really think ppl are flying for 6hours real time ? we use auto pilot and sim speed my friend

4 Likes
12

If that’s true the career is to grindy for casuals and not realistic enough for hardcore simmer. Who exactly is it meant for then?

2 Likes
13

There’s more than casuals and “hard core”.

There are many, like me, who flit between both modes as we see fit, and circumstance allows. Many of us are also long-time users. Sometimes you just want to hot start and fly, other times you might want to do the whole cold start clicky checklist thing to learn the ins and outs.

I detest grind in game design, it’s just a lazy substitute for good content and intelligent adaptive design. Games should have multiple modes to cater for user choice and need.

How they can claim long flights are mandatory “because it’s a shimulation” yet in the same breath give you your license based on one quick circuit is interesting to say the least. You can crash your plane, write it off, sustain a huge bill, but sustain no injuries also isn’t very realistic either.

I don’t understand why the career mode doesn’t have a creative/freeplay mode with unlimited credits and toolbar access to allow players to experience it however they like. That’s standard in any simulation or game to have that mode alongside hard core or permadeath modes.

I’m not touching career till it gets more flexible play modes, and more fixes.

5 Likes
15

Before this gets out of hand, I’ll jump the gun and remind you of some of the SOPs:

  • The Skies are Open for All - Everyone is welcome to Microsoft Flight Simulator regardless of age, gender, race, sexuality, or creed.
  • One World, One Community - No matter how you play – regardless of platform, experience level, or reason – we are one community of aviation lovers.
  • A Pilot is a Pilot - Treat everyone in the community with respect, and seek to have positive experiences with your fellow pilots.

(I have a vague feeling that this might be necessary.)

4 Likes
16

Just like a restaurant with too many options, quantity over quality. They try to cater to everyone’s tastes but end up losing out on both ends. You can’t make everybody happy…you just have to make a good product and stick to the recipes you know. Yes you can experiment, but not to the detriment of your core offerings. Now I’m hungry. Cheers.

17

You can suggest that to your boss because your boss lives in a video game. Our bosses live in the real world. I know it can be frustrating that there’s a real world out there with real jobs and real lives. But that’s just how it is. Or do you think you can tell a real boss in the real world that you don’t have time for work or your family because you still have 4 hours of flight left in a video game?

Your comment was the perfect example of someone living in a video game and no longer being in touch with the real world.

4 Likes
18

And what exactly is the moral difference beetween using sim speed or teleporting? With sim speed you sit there for 20-40min (depending on the mission). In both scenarios you still have to take off and land as everyone else. Noone is demanding they pust something new. We just hated the fact they took something away that was present at the launch of the game. It makes it a lot easier for people with limited time ti still enjoy and progress in the career.
The whole point of this is to let people play the way they see fit. We are not really flying planes so what does it matter how we get to the destination? If i can do twice the ammount of missions without getting penalised for skipping who does that affect?

1 Like
19

So. what do you propose would be better for “Casuals” ? I heard all of your complaints about it but I didn’t hear any solutions.

20

But by your definition you would still fall more on the casual side. I do the same. Depends on the time that I have and the mood I’m in. Just because someone’s a casual doesn’t mean they don’t treat it seriusly.

21

Enable the teleport again. Let everyone play the way the want as it was before the last update. We’ve been debating this on another post for the past couple of days.

2 Likes
22

No solutions, eh?

Then what about this ↓ ?

Or do these solutions have to be worked out in a dedicated “casual” forum?

3 Likes