Official Discussion: August 19th, 2021 Development Update

Discussion Hub General Discussion
103

Probably because some users have been waiting for a year now for some of these core issues to get fixed. That frustration builds up over time. - I personally think it is a bit silly, but if I had been stuck with certain issues for months and months that hadn’t been fixed, I’d be getting annoyed so I kind of get it.

@ViscousTundra09 does bring up a good point though. Many game studios have a far better set-up for customer communication, news, support and bug reporting. Everything about MSFS makes you feel like Microsoft deliberately underinvested in those things.

I come from Eve Online where I spent 11 years. That game had a proper support team that would provide a response of some sort to most tickets in less than 48 hours even on public holidays, here you can spend 50 days and only get a response because Jayne has stumbled upon a remark you’ve made on the forums and then goes and chases it up internally.

There are only three or four community managers for a sim with well “over 2 million users” (according to a graphic released late last year). In Eve, at the height, we had six or seven.

We had proper bug reporting tools, this sim doesn’t, and probably never will

If they deployed an update (including to their database), and ■■■■ started exploding, they could either fix it with a hot patch within a few hours or roll the system back, fix the issue and re-deploy a few days later.

Some pretty simple but major installer issues that have existed since launch still exist to day. These are things that just don’t exist in other games. - It would be nice if Microsoft invested more in the community, it benifits everyone including their QA teams, but I highly doubt they will. Why? Because they’ve shown very little interest thus far, and this sim has had people actively using it for well over 18 months now.

23 Likes
104

I think you have to compare the number of active community members rather than the full user numbers some games attract more to the community than others.
And afaik there are more community managers, just not all of them post publicly.

Part of this gap in terms of transparency and communication comes probably from the separation between MS and Asobo. There seems to be a hard cut between responsibilities and it seems like MS doesn’t allow direct communication from Asobo to the Community except for the MS-hosted Q&A.
It’s no excuse (actually the opposite), but my explanation about why it’s what it is currently.
Every move towards transparency still follows this strict separation with all its limitations.

I’d really like to have some developers spending part of their time to actually communicate in some topics they are deeply involved in. You can see how great the input is in some posts of Matt from Working Title whenever he posts something in his area of expertise.
That’s something I’m missing more than a bugtracker, really.
Not saying Community Managers are the wrong people to communicate, but it’s just a different level of in-depth knowledge that would help in certain areas that only developers can have.

As a software developer myself having had multiple projects, I always felt the ones allowing me direct contact with the users were not only better in result but also motivated me a lot more.

2 Likes
105

All of the customers have different priorities. - I am with you, I would like to see some game engine improvements; weather, physics, powerplant logic (god the 350i is a mess), and I am hoping that we will start to see some progress here.

But some people care less about physics realism and care more about visual fidelity. I understand that as well, they are here in part because of the promises Microsoft made in trailers prior to release.

You will never be able to please everybody, but you can at least make intelligent decision decisions. Let’s take two examples of complaints PC users had from the latest update:

Change What should have happened
Cockpit interaction system - All PC users should have remained on the old settings (now called legacy). - This one is fairly simple if you introduce a new setting for existing customers they should have to opt-in, whereas new customers should have to opt-out
Graphic popping (reduced LODs) This feature should have been introduced with a slider, allowing PC users to choose the amount of culling and FPS gains they wanted. This would have been a really simple one, and is one that is coming in the next update

Getting just these two things right would have made people less unhappy with the last patch. - As an aside, if I could change one thing about the simulator right now, I would fix the stupid installation bugs that have been plaguing issues since launch.

13 Likes
106

Thank you very much! Not just for the opening paragraph I quoted, but for the entire message.

Greatly appreciated!

1 Like
107

The CMs here work bloody hard, and they have more on their plate than they should. - Hence using that team as an example of an under-resourced client-facing system within MSFS (along with a proper BR tool, customer support etc.)

The lack of, and my desire for more developer interaction is something I’ve been quite vocal about here.

Having some direct interaction, even if it is tightly controlled, helps to foster a positive relationship between the developers and community, it also allows information to flow more freely in both directions, something that can help them resolve bugs and to get good and fast-flowing feedback on suggested features and/or changes. This was something that (up until a few years ago) was done really well in Eve.

The side effect of this is that it would also take weight off of the CM team’s shoulders.

2 Likes
108

Yes, it is a typo. Of course,I know that ASOBO is ASOBO.

I have accepted many typos because they just naturally happen.

I usually try to see if I can figure out the missing or wrong character and then ignore the mistype.

This is an indication of the need in this Forum to score points.

Okay, consider me scored. You knew what I was stating. Even said “ASOBO” n the preceding paragraph.

Thanks.

2 Likes
109

You are good at this! You should work as community manager i think! I totally agree with you i had problems with the installation when it was released. I have been lucky to not have a reason to re-install yet.

I think the best they could do now is to not release any new features and focus on fixing all the things first and then when all is stable they could release something with much testing first. Patches with fixes should come much much more often though. We should not need to wait weeks for a patch that fixes things.

4 Likes
110

You make some good points here, particularly about the weird (re: extremely obnoxious) Asobo/MS communication pipeline. I suppose that goes both ways. I’ve heard (via Jorg during the developer Q&A) that some of the other teams were very nervous about interfacing with the community for fear of not wanting to upset anyone or make mistakes. I’m sure we can empathize. To your point though, having more direct and concise lines of communication would help.

I’ve actually mentioned this to Matt previously in public, so I know he is aware that there are plenty of developers and engineers in the crowd who see the value in directly interfacing with the community. We shall see though - there are a lot of cogs in the machine, and of course they would need to strike a balance between staying focused on their core work and working with the community.

1 Like
111

How long have I been waiting and advocating to fix photogrammetry and better LOD… finally! So excited for this, just wish it would be released over Labor Day weekend for those of us on holiday. But it sounds great.

1 Like
112

Unfortunately this is something that many managers see more as a risk (to their multi-year milestone plan) than an opportunity. Again, speaking from first-hand experience of many years.

It’s the same people fearing loss of control when establishing Agile methodology and DevOps, the same who brake innovation because they have been taught otherwise in their workshops 20 years ago.

You see, there’s another type of frustration in me :smiley:

Anyway, what I initially wanted to say that people are right to be disappointed, impatient etc.
But sometimes I’d wish they’d reflect on whether what they write into a forum is really helping their cause.

Another positive effect of having direct contact with developers is the respect that is established. Which is also lacking in many comments (especially after SU5).

2 Likes
113

See and this I think is what really grinds a lot of (otherwise reasonable) people’s gears…Here you are, retrospecting very insightfully on two examples of the more obvious mistakes made in the last year - why can’t the MS/Asobo team do this themselves and then stick to a plan to correcting it?

I mean, the “dirty laundry” is here - and everyone knows it, whether its behind the closed doors, or openly acknowledged or not. What I don’t understand is the overwhelming obsession with them spin-doctoring it to look like its all “very minor”.

It’s a whole lot of “yes, yes, we know, move along move along, nothing to see here”.

3 Likes
114

Thanks, but I’d rather shoot myself.

I spent seven months here as a volunteer moderator, I got to work closely with a good team of volunteers with Jummivana (Jayne), Ollie and Taleborbus, I’ve seen how hard they work for people here, something I don’t think most people here will know.

But to be honest, I don’t know how they do it. It has been my experience with the gaming industry that CMs are often at the bottom of the totem pole, despite having the most interaction with the community and the best understanding of its desire and needs. - They often don’t get to be involved in decision making, even when the decisions being made are obviously bad ones, and then they are the ones that have to clean up the mess.

That is not a job I’d want.

That wouldn’t surprise me, some of the developers I know a really shy, others on the other hand are not. I’m sure if a straw poll was to have been done in the development studios in France around release time last year, we would have found at least a small number of devs who would have been happy to be involved here.

With controls in place to protect those developers as well as us, it could have gone really well. - It still could, but with how heated the community is at the moment, I think it would be harder to implement but still possible, and still worth pursuing.

I don’t know how many developers actively work on this project for Asobo, but even if two or three occasionally came to the forums to chat, ask about issues or seek feedback it would go a very long way,

I’m more familiar with this paradigm than I would like :slight_smile:

8 Likes
115

Seriously. I’m so ecstatic they’re adding in a couple of technical/visual updates into the world update. And before anyone blasts me, we’ve been asking for LOD improvements and photogrammetry improvements since day 1, so I’m ecstatic they’re finally answering it.

Also, this isn’t a sim update. It’s a world update (with some fixes to the visuals which were downgraded in SU5). People need to remember this, and yes it’s frustrating that some “big bugs” aren’t being addressed in a hot fix… but in this upcoming update it’s not meant to be a sim update. It’s meant to bring better visuals and photogrammetry into new regions of the sim.

Guess those who aren’t satisfied can bring it up during the q&a.

2 Likes
116

Ok, a delay. They have paused to think and maybe also to give themselves enough time to address some of the faults introduced in SU5?

Seems reasonable, I can totally live with that.

@Jummivana - the timely update with this info also helps. Many thanks.

3 Likes
117

As per my post earlier in this thread, it’s not clear there are going to be any improvements in these areas . Is the new ultra option just going to be where it was before SU5 for the culling and likewise the Photogrammetry LOD/Draw distance.

2 Likes
118

This “don’t develop new stuff until what we have is fixed” gets me every time. Let’s say you were given a voice and Asobo said OK, MSFS users, YOU get to decide when we should move on with new development." The guys that bought MSFS just to fly around and crash into buildings would tell them to bring on the new stuff, while the rest of us would be telling them to wait. Those people who love crashing into buildings paid just like we did, so they should get a say.

And they can’t just redirect the programmers and testers in new development to come over and work on the flight code and UI until everything is fixed to our specifications. On something this complex, you don’t just stop coding airports and slide over to flight dynamics.

The PC users have already paid. All we can do now is ask/beg for fixes and try to be patient.

2 Likes
119

Personally, I would prefer Apple Maps or even Open Street Maps over Google Maps. Although, in certain parts of the world, Bing Maps aren’t too shabby.

120

Yes 2 more weeks, would you rather 2 more weeks and have it all working, or still get it on the 24th and have it broken?

I mean the last hotfix required a hotfix, so do you think still releasing it on the 24th would be a wise move considering the past issues?

You’re not the only one that’s spent that much money on this sim. We have a patch coming that will fix issues, yet still complaining. That fits the ungrateful description to me.

5 Likes
121

From how I read the release notes, there is no reason to doubt it.
But again - we’ll see.
What’s the benefit of trying to read information that’s not there and then considering it’s going to be the worst outcome you could put into it?

2 Likes
122

I don’t mean to suggest the problem is on your end, but if you cannot even install it, there’s only two real possibilities-

  1. There’s something broken about your machine/windows install/store account

Or

  1. There’s something in the network between you and Microsoft that’s preventing the download/install.

If you have a friend with a laptop, maybe they can come over to your place and you try the install on that machine. Sign in with your store credentials. Obviously the game won’t run on most laptops, but if the installation starts and goes further than what it’s going on your machine, you know that the network connection is ok and it’s on your machine.

If it doesn’t work, then you know it’s the network.

That’s what I would do to try and narrow it down. Again, I’m only saying this to be helpful - I hope it gets fixed for you.

7 Likes