The fairness argument, which is repeated like a mantra, is a pseudo-argument. Career Mode involves no competition between players; individual progress is not compared in any way, and each player experiences the game in isolation within a single-player environment.
If PC players are not allowed to mod because there is no way on Xbox to to it ( they doesn’t allow it), then by the same logic, they would also have to ban all mods for MSFS2020 that are available outside the marketplace. And those are a lot.
Still, there are countless games that can be modded without any issues and are also available on Xbox. It doesn’t seem to be a problem there either. It’s simply a platform limitation.
I am sorry you see my post as an argument, when I only set out to tell you the history and practices of the publisher. They are a GAME studio, and it is not in their history to make their games exploitable for some, but not for others. In fact, they have a policy against cheating.
This is not an Asobo thing, but rather an Xbox Game Studios, Xbox Live, and Xbox Game Pass thing.
You run the risk of being locked out, if you are caught cheating.
The main word being competition. Single player is not competitive.
Regarding the modding for Xbox:
-Asobo have all the tools to enable some way for Xbox players to use mods
-teleporting can be a native function in the game like VFRMap was
-instead of takin away PC players abillity to use mods they should add the abillity to Xbox users
No matter the platform you will have people that want to use mods. Why not enable it for everyone?
Mods will be a part of 2024, but as I understand it, MS/Asobo, at least for now, intends to keep career mode behind a walled garden.
Addons should become available in Career Mode over time, but they must be made to work within the rules and parameters of the game-like Career Mode.
I really love Career Mode, but it is structured like a game more than a sim, where balance and fairness come into play, and therefore the studio’s own TOS limits what can and cannot be modded by the user. For now, according to MS/Asobo, they intend to keep the Career Mode encrypted. And I can’t imagine that changing without them seeking special permission from their producer to change their own rules for ALL games (or to make an exception for 2024)… and that seems unlikely.
Outside of the game mode that is Career Mode, things should remain as open as 2020.
This is an original quote from the link you have posted about cheating on xbox:
Parents and guardians often ask us about how someone in their Xbox family group could be capable of cheating. While not always done with malicious intent, any player might willingly join game lobbies or partner with a friend to get modifications (“mods”) for their profile or to gain a competitive advantage in-game.
Getting mods for your profile is nothing malicious.
The important part is: “competitive advantage”.
In career mode there is no competetive advantage to gain. It’s isolated single player.
We had the ability to teleport before. And they dissabled it because someone complained.
The most challenging part of the flight is the landing (in some instances the take off since some runways are too short). As far as I can see no one wants to skip that. Most people want to skip the autopilot flight part and not be punished for it.
You’re kind of missing the point that not everyone has the time to do full missions without skipping.
We feel cheated because we don’t get a say in the matter. No one is forcing you to change the way you play.
The Skies are Open for All - does that not mean people should get a choice on how to play?
One World, One Community - why can’t the small part of the community that wants to grind not accept that most players don’t?
And for gamified (scored) aspects of 2020 like Landing Challenges.
Kinda funny because it is Microsoft, but when it comes to their gaming, they become Apple. Walled off.
I have had an Xbox for 23 years so I am used to their way of handling this kind of thing. Game Pass has brought the practice over to PC in a more noticeable way.
I am not saying I am a fan of this practice. It works better for some titles than others. I am just saying MS is consistent.
The skeptic in me sees it like this: Could MS make $$$ by selling players extra in game money for planes and companies or for pilot training and licenses? If YES, then why would they give that away to modders to exploit for free?
Everything can be competitive if you find 2 people that are willing to compete. There’s a difference if there’s an official scoreboard like you have in the Challenge league or if players post there achivements online.
Realisticaly the hardcore players won’t buy credits since they’ll see it as cheating and the casuals won’t wan’t to spend money on credits that can be erased by a bug (plane crashes and you have to repair/buy new one).
People will buy planes when they become available. Once you buy it it’s yours as long as you want to use it.
But if they really start this scam the player numbers will drop. Even after they dissabled teleporting many lost the will to play career. If they monetize the career even more will lose interest.
I doubt my hypothetical would come to pass. I just mentioned it as a skeptical way to explain why such exploits are limited in Xbox Studios and Game Pass single player games, too. Things achieved in game are reflected in a person’s public gamer score, and MS works to limit any exploits of their entire gamer score system.
It is a silly thing. But it is consistent.
I think an option of an unlocked global sandbox of career mode activities that do not effect your rank and score, or a paid way to unlock said sandbox is a plausible outcome that might eventually happen. A way to appease core simmers, and the production company, while limiting potential exploits.
This is a flight simulator. I NEED to be able to import custom skins, aircraft, etc. If they monopolize simming I’m sure that a lot of the diehard people will either stay on 2020 or move over to X-Plane. Hell, P-3D isn’t too terrible, either.
its about having a normal Career Mode, not some fancy front end for a bunch of missions you do randomly for no reason
Right, so you don’t use the mods that would take away from the game in that way. That’s your choice. Some mods will make gameplay better, others worse but the point is, it’s up to the player to decide and not for the developers to police. Why do you care if someone else mods the game in a way that you wouldn’t do?
Games that are simulators that have career modes do this and are wildly popular including Kerbal Space Program (KSP) and Farming Simulator.
The issue again with this is players having some way they like to play the game and having some notion that it diminishes their play if someone else mods their game in a way that they wouldn’t. However, the reality is that this just isn’t what happens when these games do it. Ask players of KSP or Farming Simulator how much they care if other players mod their games? These games have “scores” like money, experience, etc. The community doesn’t care.
I never use mods that make the games easier. Docking is very frustrating in KSP, there is a mod to do it automatically. I didn’t use it, instead I practiced and got better at it but do I care if someone else uses the mod? No.
Would this even be a discussion if career mode had clear mission objectives that were graded fairly? If they squashed the bugs? If the weather was more transparent and easy to discern? If they allowed you to select your own aircraft for the mission? If they opened up the full library of MS/Asobo aircraft to use on whatever mission you see fit? If they had instrumentation packages that worked 100%? If they had better education and training modules?
I feel like we’re going down this road because everything is so heavily bugged and nebulous. Maybe people want mods because just like the FS2020, mods make things work. I’d bet that if the above goals (and maybe some others) had been met at launch, we’d be griping and sniping a LOT less.
All this talk about competition is based on the severely-bugged and incomplete current state. We don’t even know if the current modality is their final intent because they’re really not talking about it. So perhaps we’re putting the cart before the horse. But I don’t blame anyone for that - it’s our nature to try to find direction when we’re left in the dark. This falls squarely on Asobo.
People want to mod career mode though, that’s entirely the point. They don’t want to mod only single missions.
Mods are already a part of the simulation, they are actually taking effort at this point to block mods. Obviously creating some sort of career API to allow further mods should come as a lower priority than fixing existing bugs. I think the main thrust of this is to not block existing mods.
Mods causing instabilities is already a thing in freeplay mode. MSFS already has ways of dealing with this and needs to handle it for freeplay mode.
In update 3, with all the bugs in career mode, they took the effort to block certain functions of SimConnect API to block already working perfectly stable mods. This time could have, instead, been used to fix bugs.
no they arent wanting to “mod career mode” read the title, it has Nothing to do with modding, we are talking about USE only (as a developer this distinction is critical to me)
This is symantics, they want to be able to use mods in career mode. Your suggestion was to allow mods in single missions, which no, is not what people want.
and that kinda shows my point about people that dont really want a ‘Career’ mode (“open career” is Not a thing, thats freeplay or freeflight territory to me)
You seem to be perscribing some way people want to play. The point is to just allow mods allowing many different ways of playing.
The original message says they want “Please unlock all features of the SimConnect API in Career Mode.” Not in single mission mode.
First, undo the changes to blocking the API they did between Update 2 and 3. Then open up the rest of the API as well. It’s up to the developers to determine how much effort this is, not us. We ask for what we think will make the game better.
You have made your point. You want other players to play a specific way. That’s your opinion and it’s been heard.
Obviously can’t be certain, however, it seems highly likely, in my opinion, that they removed it because of some perception of cheating. Hence, why we need this wish, to make it clear that the player community wants these capabilities. It’s up to the developers to prioritize it, figure out the bugs, etc.
You are posting here that you are against this wish with one of your biggest arguments that it will cause bugs. I think the goal of a wish forum should be providing feedback on what features we want and that’s what the merits of the discussion should be. The arguments should be on the merits of the feature, not our outside perception of how buggy it would be. The developer can look at this and decide it’s too hard to implement.
I’m kind of ambivalent on this wishlist - I think it has merit but is rooted in deeper problems. But there’s no other avenue to discuss the merits either way, and there’s no downvote button. I think respectful discourse is healthy - lest things end up being merely groupthinked into existence (as many have - and I’m not saying that’s the case here).
