Starting out by saying I love MSFS since FSX. For the most part FS2020 is a beautiful looking product but with some issues. And I really do hope 2024 is made with serious flight sim players in mind.
I tried FS2020 when it was first released via gamepass. After the first month, I uninstalled and held off on buying it because there was no replay feature and the clouds was too unrealistic among other bugs I encountered including my plane randomly turning away from the flight plan near the destination.
Since then I took a flight in RL and realized how much I miss flying virtually. So this past week I discovered the 50% off sale, saw that there were some improvements since 2020 and bought the premium deluxe to hold me over until I decide to get 2024. I don’t regret my purchase as I still can have fun with this. But I encountered roadblocks so far just from my first session.
I did not expect a perfect simulator. I saw that we now have a replay feature but not a fully featured one. Ok, there are freeware and 3rd party commercial solutions so no big deal. We have 3rd party tools to enhance the overall look of the sim including skies. Still the cloud puffs but can kinda let it slide for now. But what shocked me was a basic function of saving a long haul flight midway and coming back to it the way we leave them is non existent??? A feature we enjoyed for years in FSX and other flight sims. I have a lot of respect for game developers and understand how complicated things can get so I’m not here to bash Asobo. I just want to give some constructive feedback as a veteran FSX user for many years.
Who wants to make a flight plan for a long haul that takes 5+ hours and not have the ability to stop and save for a later time to finish? How was this missed in development as an important thing players may need? What use is loading a saved flight when the flight plan is removed and we have no way to put it back? I’m also looking into why the last waypoint of my flight plan did not exist leaving me confused on what to do to finish the night flight via IFR. Why do we have a replay feature that’s buried as an experimental feature 4 years later?
I have a lot more to explore since I’m just getting started and have a feeling I’m gonna run into some more issues I didn’t expect.
My impression is that too much favor was given to bush flyers who do short hops and those who are more interested in flying in Google Earth rather than serious flight simulation we enjoyed for decades. Not saying that VFR is not serious simming though. I just really hope that core features such as saving, replay and sky visuals including accurate real world weather and it’s representation is given the love it deserves going forward.
If anyone reading this have solutions or workarounds to the issues I mentioned in this post, your help is welcome.
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Well welcome back to the sim. Believe me many of us have been asking Asobo for this feature many times. There are relentless topics regarding this and about many other features that are missing or they can bring in. While they have not commented on this, the sim like you said has made great strides to become better and is continually evolving. Only thing we can do is wait and see when they will add it because the requests are out, now it is up to them.
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And the plot thickens. Day 2…discovers a basic function called “pause” have issues. Still looking into this one, but for now I have to choose between having a history in my log book or using dev mode so I can actually pause without the menus. Just wow.
Thanks for the link. Seeing the long history of these issues reading through that thread, this game feels like one of those “have fun however you can, use your imagination around the limitations” kinda thing. 4 years and basic quality of life UI functions for players unfinished while the next one is around the corner. I hope they’re not letting fs2020 sink on purpose. I plan to play FS2020 for a good while before getting 2024.
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There are some spectacular flaws built into every sim.
At this point, the ones that stand out to you are just things many of us have grown used to! 
Use Esc to pause. 
I think you will be pleasantly surprised as you learn the depth on 2020, it just hides in different places than in FSX. It can take a few months to learn the nuance, roadblocks, and workarounds of any sim.
Not like the vanilla FSX was a banger.
Also, VFR is serious simming.
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If I press escape the game pauses but then I’m in the menus. Only way I know of so far to pause and still see the scenery and plane is to be in developer mode. Which causes none of my flights to get logged in the book. Do you know a workaround for that?
There’s a thing called Active Pause where you stay in the sim, but I don’t use it so I can’t comment on how well it works.
ha…
you come up with the answer to that one… you let me know
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There are many freeware and payware external flight recorders. This should not be a concern. Even though I personally fly mostly GA, there many very deep close to study level airliners and I do not think the sim is aimed towards bush pilots. Just because you can’t save a flight doesn’t mean that airliners of various types can’t be used successfully. Just ask the folks on Vatsim for example. There are also solutions for weather and sky, such as Active Sky or Atmos and also advanced ATC . The accuracy of the real world weather has also improved a lot in the sim itself.
I guess you found something that doesn’t work properly like saving a flight, but I don’t see how that makes the sim so unplayable. Clouds are not perfect, but for someone like myself who has been simming for many years, I believe they are more than satisfactory. Not to be too snarky, but if it’s realism you’re after, INR pilots don’t get to stop and later restart their flight. You can re-input a flight plan if necessary. This could be a PITA, but certainly doable.
Hi @GeneralDee17
Regarding:
Try using the “Set Pause On” and “Set Pause Off” commands.
In Options | Control Options, type in:
Set Pause
In the Search by Name box:
to see how they are currently configured (I’ve configured mine to use 2 buttons on my Xbox controller, as seen in the screenshot)
You can modify the bindings to suit your specific keyboard, mouse or controller preferences.
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Nothing that you have stated is anything new that others haven’t stated 1000 other times. A lot of your complaints will be addressed on the new sim 
‍↔
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HI everyone.
I do share most if not all of this post.
I think that the words FLIGHT and SIMULATOR are used as wishful thinking and far from where previous versions that had a lot of technological limitations.
Focus should be on FLYING. It means good flight models and a feeling we are in the real aircraft.
This is a joke for most of the stock planes. Light ones have ridiculous p-factor when taking off, turbulence varies between a thunderstorm in Medium and a train on rails when setting in LOW. Trimming is very difficult. (Question: Has ever a developer flown a real aircraft and trimmed it? (It is still on my muscle memory trimming for level flight or 500ft/min descending on training in a C172)
So, the good planes are addons, do not come with the product we buy.
Looking out of the window its very bad Google Earth.
Will wait and see before junping in 2024.
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I agree with much of your points and recognized them in my original post as things that give me hope for enjoying FS2020 for a while. I do plan on buying Atmos (I’m a REX fan from FSX) and shopping around for some of the best add-ons. I was just shocked at certain things like saving and pausing being so complicated or not developed to how we always played a flight sim.
Things like pause and saving is not just a flight sim related thing. Unless you’re playing a multiplayer game like COD or something, saving your progress and pausing the game are basic gaming things. So I would never expect those to be broken in a 4 year old game.
Please explain to me how to put back in a flight plan or share a link. I am very open to learn so I can breath easier and enjoy the game. I will continue to google this but so far I’m just running into complaints that burst my bubble. Maybe I just didn’t find the right posts yet.
As far as being able to save a long haul, I do like seeing the whole flight through to the end but that have to be the kind of day where I’m not doing anything else with my PC and don’t really have anything else to do. There’s the reality of things happening and you have to shut down the Sim because you gotta go. If I’m flying from JFK to Helsinki for example, that’s a full 8 hour work day of flight.
Will setting those up pause the whole game or just the plane? I read some have issues when pausing but the simulator keeps going causing weird things when returning to the cockpit. That’s why I went into developer mode to pause from the top so I don’t go into the menus.
“Also, VFR is serious simming.”
My apologies, I did not mean to imply that VFR wasn’t serious simming. I could’ve worded it better. When I finish a long haul flight, I like to get into a smaller plane and explore the region close up like a tourist or make up stories like I have to pick up someone way out at a difficult to land airstrip out in the bush somewhere. Then fly them back to the international airport to get on an airliner back home or wherever…stuff like that.
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Many moons ago, people doing 5-hour tube flights were a substantial chunk of FS users.
With MSFS2020, their slice of the user base has decreased. You now have people like me that use the sim very, very frequently but 80% in bush and GA because of how insanely immersive and gorgeous the sim is in VR.
MSFS2024 will be welcomed by “gamers” because of career mode and the increased visual fidelity coupled with “walk-around” will also pander to “virtual tourists”.
None of that is bad. The bigger the user base, the brighter the future of MSFS as a product for all of us. Asobo/MS seem committed to satisfying the needs of all user groups but priorities are likely driven by internal metrics and 5-hour tube flyers may not be first in line, so to speak.
Hopefully, everyone’s needs can be addressed by the team once MSFS2024 settles and matures.
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I do look forward to one day playing career mode. VR sounds interesting.
I have a personal rule I made way back when I first started flying in FSX. I don’t start a flight from an airport I never landed in. Of course it all started from my home airport. It gives me many reasons to get into an airliner then I do what I shared in my last post above. I set that rule for myself to give me more immersion as a virtual pilot to “travel” and earn the right to start from any given airport by successfully landing there.
Trust me, I know I can still enjoy this for what it is atm and yes I’m watching what happens with 2024 closely. I been out of the loop with flight sim for some years, I have a lot of catching up to do.
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Time and again we have discussed, “Serious simming” over the years, and it tends to come down to folks like you who add EXTRA rules to your flying.
Like your rule about airports.
Although I like to say, “Serious simmers don’t laugh at jokes!” 
Now, I wouldn’t sleep on VFR since it works in MSFS because you can see virtually all landmarks. It finally works. One of the reasons IFR was so good in FSX was how VFR was somewhat useless. It encouraged folks to learn to fly by instrument. That was the best flying experience.
If you love airliners, payware is the way to go. The PMDG 737s and 777, and the Fenix Airbus are really next level.
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As a FS veteran of the first version until now, through every single iteration I was a little amused by someone popping into the forum, think the local towns marketplace where everyone hangs about, and voice an opinion about a now 4 year old product. One that most „serious simmers“ have used since day one.
Well, I think by now some of the original „rough rider language“ of the OP has been put into context by others or himself so I will just add these few points.
It was indeed surprising to find that some of the mainstays of older sim versions were either not present at all in 2020 or were there but worse than in for example FS9 or FSX.
Pausing the sim, Saving the sim and starting back exactly where you left off, ATC in many ways……
I had a saved flight, from FS9 that carried through to the end of FSX, always flying on to the next destination from where I had last landed.
Because changing planes was easier in these older sims, without having to go back into a big opening screen, that whole process was just simpler then.
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