I´m quite tired to read as argumentation that the game is complex and it requires a lot of efforts. Yes, it´s complex but that does not allow to have a poor online implementation as an excuse for complexity. Indeed because that complexity the game should be 100% reliable on the connectivity portion and it´s not, even 2 years after release.
There are many topics which fail and whoever does not acknowledge that and listens to the users worldwide suffering it almost weekly is simply living in a parallel universe. Not only the main online features like weather, traffic or scenery data streaming have issues but many other basic things don´t work either:
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Xbox app - MS Store integration is simply not working: game services produce issues, profile data is not synced or overwrites the local data randomly. Game is now even no longer appearing as purchased in MS Store and even the basic licence check produces issues (“please insert the DVD error”)
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Patching system is stuck on the checking for updates verification forever. That in particular has no sense from a practical point of view as if client is not getting the data holding code waiting there for 3 years more won´t change the fact. It´s better to force a game exit or apply an automatic timed exit for the loop.
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Logbook, progress, completed missions and landing challenges are not updated always nor saved on the cloud either to prevent data loss. Many Steam games sold for less than 20$ already implement a reliable cloud saving, including all your settings and savegames. This one is more expensive and it fails on that.
So yes, we need a solid online structure instead of 100 messages trying to blame users´s networks for the issues. There´s a real problem and it only grows over time. Are we talking about the same Microsoft here when discussing the online features of the game or just the neighbours of Microsoft? Please stay on the performance and quality level that such a mature company offers, because that´s simply what is expected. We didn´t join a crowdfunding experiment of some amateurs. We just joined the product of a company that has, as the recent name claims, 40 years on their backs with this simulator family.
Cheers