Yes, it’s puzzling to me you still don’t ‘get the anger’, despite it being laid out ad nauseam on here and Avsim.
So, being the glutton for punishment that I am I’ll give it one more go but I think that’s my limit.
I don’t know what percentage of MSFS users my experience will resonate with, but I have a feeling it’s not small and may be a majority. I’ve been using sims for many years (FS9, FSX, Microsoft Flight, XPlane 10 / 11, DCS, IL2) and the weather tech has been stagnant for much of that time. Definitely improved, but still marked by poor (usually 2D) cloud depiction of limited layers, and very sudden transitions between metar zones with that metar weather now being translated to the whole world (this is for platforms that even had live weather). In short, never got to see weather in the distance and plan accordingly, or even enjoy flying into and out of, for example, a front. A very unsatisfactory experience, only slightly improved by sometimes very expensive add-ons (X-Enviro cost more than XPlane).
For it’s first few versions, MSFS solved many of these problems and offered an experience never seen in any previous platforms. Consistent weather, clouds that looked real and displayed in many layers, and we could finally experience the anticipation of as we flew towards. Sure, if you compare to local real-time reports they would often be off, but that didn’t matter in producing a consistent and realistic experience.
That has now gone, and it looks like possibly for good. Cloud depiction has narrowed to mostly cumuloforms with, on a good day some stratus (although these are usually just bottom-flattened cumuloforms). We seem to be getting a maximum of 3 layers, usually just 1. Any fronts that might be shown in the distance are highly likely to suddenly change to cumuloforms or volcanic ash everywhere as you get closer. In short, you can never relax and enjoy the sky (good or bad weather so don’t start with that ‘pretty weather’ nonsense again) as it first appears because you know at any moment the whole sky could change in an instance. This is very far from the realistic experience we once had.
I understand that people who want to follow procedures need metars and don’t begrudge you that at all. But you already had an option (REX). Now you’re trying to tell the rest of us who are so disappointed that what we once had has probably gone for good that you don’t understand why we’re so disappointed and that things are going to be better than ever. Do you seriously think they’re going to get rid of transitions, or even smooth them to the point they’re no longer an issue for those of us who want a consistent sky?
I agree there have been improvements recently, and sometimes skies those stunningly real experiences pop up (had a great one of hazy low cloud and rain over Hawaii last week), but there’s always the anxiety, often realized, that the sky can change back to those fecking volcanic ash clouds at any moment.
You haven’t proven it’s an either / or proposition. Just that you’re very happy the desperately problematic metar system is now better represented and that transitions are getting slightly smoother.
Here we can totally see the weather that is predicted is not injected propperly in the sim.
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