Since installing MSFS 2024 (Aviator’s Edition) and trying to fly numerous aircraft I’m frustrated and disappointed beyond measure. It’s enough to make you throw your hands in the air. MSFS 2020 had a bit of a rough start and it did take quite a bit of time to smooth things out and here we are again IMHO spending more time troubleshooting and fighting to make things work then we are enjoying flying and this can be expected to a degree. MSFS is supposed to be about flying aircraft, it is a flight simulator, not spending hours troubleshooting every aspect of the simulator and trying to get the aircraft in the air. Just look at the forums and bug reports.
I can appreciate the improvements in the technical aspects of the sim such as using more CPU cores, aircraft physics and the like, such improvements are welcome but it is disheartening to see the number of issues with aircraft in the sim, the lack of quality is abysmal. I have test flown several aircraft in the Aviator’s Edition since installing MSFS 2024 and the results are extremely disheartening, many aircraft suffered various issues. I found so many it becomes a monumental time-consuming task just wanting to report them. I’m I giving up, well I’ve been doing this since MSFS was born, so no, but first some food-for-thought…
One of the first things nearly every sim pilot must do to fly their aircraft is configure their peripherals. The key commands section is sorely lacking improvements. This in itself is a monster. It hasn’t changed in decades and is antiquated. A group should be formed to come up with ideas and new methods to allow sim pilots to bind key commands to any external peripherals for each aircraft, being intuitive and quick, quick and quick. If you cannot configure an aircraft, especially a complex aircraft in under 30 minutes it’s not good enough. The Aviator’s Edition has over 100+ aircraft, think about that, if you could easily configure an aircraft in 30 minutes or less without issue that’s 50+ hours alone. Now what if the process lacks intuitiveness and takes for example 2 hours just to do a single aircraft due to the lack of flexibility or proper command structure? That multiplies the hours and kindles a vast frustration. Currently, I’d have no hair left on my head trying to configure all the aircraft in the Aviator’s Edition using the current key command structure and interface not including issues related to each aircraft.
Speaking about aircraft issues, if you do manage to get all the buttons and axes configured to your liking then what happens when those functions don’t work correctly. So far, every aircraft I’ve tested in the Aviator’s Edition has either minor or major bugs. Some issues totally destroy the flight experience such as, not being able to properly taxi aircraft, nose wheels snapping 90 degrees after take-off or the gear not retracting. Reverse thrusters not working properly on jumbo jets such as only one thrust reverser working visually from an external view or not providing any reverse thrust when activated. There were avionics or systems issues also. Separate from aircraft control are texture and graphic anomalies in aircraft, such as engines on the Dreamlifter being ghosted just above the actual engines or cockpit textures that are blurred, but I digress. Still, one of the most important things a pilot must have is proper control of the aircraft, whether it’s about configuring your hardware or those things configured not working correctly in each aircraft such as the aforementioned reverse thrusters. If not, then your flight experience is going to crash.
Of course, we know the folks at Asobo are exhaustively working to resolve many of the issues, which again is going to take a lot of time just because of the sheer volume of issues, I do not envy the task. IMHO control of aircraft or things related to flying the aircraft should garner the utmost priority. Each aircraft currently available across all editions should be highly scrutinized for quality (even basic quality). Use the power of the community, there are plenty of sim pilots that could help form multiple dedicated teams for each and every aircraft in the MSFS hanger to identify and submit issues found (given the proper communications) to more quickly remedy the worst and smooth things out.
Scenery, weather, addons and such are great but if we cannot fly the aircraft the other stuff becomes a moot point. Maybe there should be one simple survey vote available to the MSFS community at all times (don’t know if it already exists) such as, “How do you feel about the State-of-the-Sim?” Excellent, Good, Neutral, Bad, or Sucks. This might help Asobo better evaluate where the “community” stands. Ask yourself, can you easily configure any aircraft, get into the air, fly from point A to point B and complete an entire flight without major issues? If not, then what is the “State-of-the-Sim?” Flying our aircraft is paramount, enjoying the flight, whether it involves a career mode, great weather depiction, functional ATC, or just the breathtaking scenery is the cherry on top!
