Sim Update 8 Beta Users, Has it been worth it?

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Well, you know what they say about assumptions

And if you read the forums, you’ll understand exactly why they don’t respond and get drawn into pointless and vitriolic debates with the (minority) of forum members who assume (use intended) they know better. They are on a hiding to nothing, and if I were them, I wouldn’t respond either.

And I doubt you ever will. The forum is for communication between forum members, not a place to enter into dialogue with Asobo developers. Here is the first sentence of the Welcome to the Forum post:

Hello everyone and welcome to the public community forums for Microsoft Flight Simulator! The forums are your one-stop shop to discussing all things MSFS with your fellow simmers.

You can read the rest here:

And yet the OP suggests the exact opposite?

Zendesk is for posting bug reports (with the exception of the beta sections when bug reports are requested through that means. It has been explained many times that zendesk is the way to raise bugs. Unfortunately, whilst many people do this, many more don’t, and would rather just vent on this forum…and then appear surprised when the issues they are interested in don’t get addressed

Back to assumptions again…

Yes, this would be a big improvement - also, by definition, older bugs have accumulated more votes, but perhaps now have less relevance

This would also make a lot of sense as, whilst the core is the same, there are differences that are apparent in the experience users have, options available etc

Pretty sure that’s what’s been driving all the fixes in SU8 beta

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Hang on. If that is the case, why only 8 bugs?

Asobo doesn’t use Zendesk internally to post bugs their internal QA found, do they? And if they do do that, I’m going to wager @BragRaindrop933 was speaking specifically to the bugs we, the userbase, post there.

I’m saying that the SU8 fixes probably all relate to zendesk tickets which are not necessarily related in any way to forum discussions and the 8 bugs marked as “community sourced”.

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I guess I’m confused.

Aren’t the bugs posted on Zendesk from the community, regardless if they are or are not also posted over here on the forum?

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Bugs on zendesk are reported by whoever raises them. Community in the “community identified” refers to some of the larger discussion threads on this forum. The two are not related in any way. A thread on this forum that is drawn to the devs attention might result in something going on the bug list. A zendesk report will result in something going in the bug list. They are independent. That is, I think, why there are only 8 marked as community identified - the rest are from zendesk, internal QA sources, internal developer sources, internal testing bugs not fixed at the time, third party devs etc etc.

An example of a community identified bug from the SU8 betas release notes

  • Fixed framerate drops on D3D11 when the player have multiple external windows :busts_in_silhouette:

This was from this thraed:

I;m going to guess there were many zendisk tickets raised for this too of course, but it is one that has been explictly tagged in the forum as “bug logged” - that’s all it means

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Thanks for that well thought out explanation.

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For the record, I was referring to our posting of bugs on Zendesk in my statement. I realize that I didn’t state that implicitly before.

I wish it was just a bit more clear for us. It’s confusing that there is a bugs and issues section of the forum and that there is also Zendesk. I understand why users come here and get confused by the process. I know it’s easy to point them at all the rules of the forum, etc. but that doesn’t mean the process isn’t mildly convoluted.

It’s also confusing when you see a “bug logged” on something dating back to September 2020, that is still an open issue. 1.5 years is quite awhile. It would be nice to know if that bug will actually be fixed or if it will remain open indefinitely.

A small amount of effort could be paid to these sorts of things to help alleviate assumptions and frustrations.

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I did a zendesk on losing mouse control on XBox on 1 Oct 2021. Gave them a good explanation of the bug and how it was happening, and referenced the post on the forum discussing it. Never heard back from them.

It only became ‘bug logged’ on this forum - I think a couple of months ago after repeated attempts by forum posters to get them to acknowledge it. This was a game breaking issue for me, and I think still is for many, minus the (quite frankly ridiculous that it has to be done) workaround of launching a completely different game to get mouse control back. It’s a fundamental UI issue, been there since launch and has been allowed to go unaddressed for 7 months. Now I guess not all simmers use a mouse on XBox, so those that do are just a tiny minority voice and it’s very hard to be heard, but for another officially supported device to be not working properly, it’s unacceptable. The lack of response on this issue was a major reason I switched to PC. Has it been addressed yet with SU8? I didn’t see a ref to it.

I’ve now happily been able to use the sim for 4+ months on PC with mouse control, as I just wasn’t going to wait a year for a maybe / sometime / never fix. It’s communication (or lack of) on these types of issues that drive me (and i suspect many others) crazy. There are less game breaking issues on PC so I’m much happier on that platform now.

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Exactly this. Some really old bugs on here have 300+ votes but were probably mainly voted on in late 2020/early 2021. Are they still a priority compared to say game breaking bugs on the XBox? That’s where my issue is. Devs seem focussed on either emergency hot fixes for accidentally introduced bugs, fixes for issues that people shout realy loudly about on here (say the weather), or work from a bug list that was last relevant in late 2020 / early 2021, most likely pre SU5. The bug list has to be reset/progressed to reflect the bugs/issues of today including the newest platform (XBox) somehow.

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If all bug fixes are via Zendesk and the forum isn’t a place for us to communicate with Asobo then why have a bugs forum on here where we can vote on bugs? Why do Asobo display and publish an updated summary list of the most popular bug fix requests and wishlists from this forum every single week on a Thursday evening if they aren’t going to address any of them?

Regarding no Asobo responses on here, I’m not expecting them to post on here daily and chat to us, but having a spokesperson who can provide official updates on user’s concerns, especially in the days following an update launch when there are inevitably a multitude of issues would dramatically improve relations with their user base and stop half of the venting and complaining on here.

Most people are reasonable and understand when things go wrong. But when bugs or new issues arise with no response or acknowledgement for weeks it causes frustration and annoyance that could be substantially reduced with a bit more effective communication.

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Honestly it hasn’t been worth it for me on Xbox. The issues I have still exist, most of their “fixes” such as weather radar don’t work on Xbox, aircraft are missing textures & liveries, some cause repeatable CTD’s, horrible lag and crashing using the new marketplace, etc.

I haven’t found any aspect of this update that is an improvement. If I didn’t know any better I’d say all their focus went into the UI change for the marketplace, because little else is working on my Xbox. I’ve even reinstalled the game and all updates twice to make sure that my issues weren’t related to a corrupted install.

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The severe lack of direct communication with the developers on the beta forum pages is more important than the lack of communication from the developers on the general forum pages, I don’t expect them to answer every Joe Bloggs question about birds at altitude or why one cloud looks fluffier than the other, but I do expect them to interact with the very people testing their product updates especially when new game breaking issues are found during said beta process.

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Completely agree with this, this time around I have not joined the beta for this reason.

Unfortunately its been the same since the alpha.

I took the plunge and in VR there is still numerous issues when looking at the world, trying to setup a flight route. Little stupid issues that would normally be caught in the developers unit test, but for some reason goes all the way to a beta.

Choosing departure airport sets your aircraft in a “airborne” state, it’s still not possible to press “add” custom waypoints when a route to/from has already been chosen.

I just don’t get why we are unit testers in a beta program??? It’s really a joke to call this a beta test so no I would say joining the beta has made med much more unhappy.

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A 40 year old infant. They’ve been doing MSFS since 1982. The latest version of Excel isn’t in its infancy either.

But Asobo has never made a flight simulator before. So it is still in its infancy. Your excel comparison doesn’t pan out either as this is an all new from the ground up sim from a new team not a measly software update to and already existing product.

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…and therein lies the problem, they had to call in Working Title to help them out with (currently) one aspect of the Sim and it’s plainly obvious they need help in other areas (Weather, VR) as well. They’d be better off bringing in more WT like groups to help work on specific areas of the Sim, then they can concentrate on the areas they do know about. Relieve the workload, bring in more knowledgable groups, move forward.

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Having an enjoyable experience in VR so far. I’m happy because I know the team is actively working on improving the sim so as long as MSFS is alive, I’ll support them. It’s not as easy as some people might think to develop a big simulator like this and it’s even harder to fix it. It’s a matter of decisions and resource management. I’m sure if they could, they would put a team on every single bugs but it’s not reality. Keep it real :slight_smile:

Plus you need to understand that some of the bugs in this SU8 have probably been fixed before it even released but they need to deal with deadlines and restrictions for software updates. So I’m expecting some minor bug fixes will get pushed to us before the end of this beta testing.

Was. That was a year and a half ago. It’s now gone through how many “measly” software updates?