The regular monthly update schedule is not working. Asobo and customers seem to be prisoners in a never ending project to resolve all outstanding issues, while introducing additional features and scenery updates, to a totally unrealistic timetable. It’s as if we are living in the worst form of dictatorship with constantly changing five year plans and projects. My wish is as follows:
Ditch the current monthly rollout schedule for major simulator updates.
Instead of the current schedule I would suggest something along the following lines:
Concentrate on fixing the current issues of performance and optimisation and rollout tested updates for these as small individual updates when they are ready and only after thorough testing.
Fix the default aircraft so that they are stable and reliable with working autopilots. Introduce these updates for individual aircraft when they are ready then leave them alone. This way we may experience problems with one or two aircraft but not with the entire simulator. Allow improvements and increased functionality to be provided by voluntary teams such as Fly By Wire, who are doing an excellent job, or by other companies who have the expertise and experience.
Introduce an annual or six monthly major update, with new features taken from this wish list when possible. Only release these updates when they have been fully beta tested.
Introduce the regional scenery updates individually as planned, as an optional download as at present, with the option to be uninstalled by the user if problems occur.
Please let us get on with flying and not have to worry about whether each update will break our system or destroy our frame rates.
They will keep introducing bugs and errors, no matter what the development-release cycle takes. Plain and simple. There is no other way, be it 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month or 6 months. It is the nature of software
I disagree entirely. They have locked themselves into an update schedule they cannot meet. If they slow down and take the time to check and test everything they will succeed.
It is not the nature of all software, only rushed software.
I don’t understand why people defend flawed software updates as if it is inevitable. Anyone in the aviation industry who has to introduce a new process has to test it and ensure it is reliable. Software updates are no different.
As a long time flight sim user I can tell you that most updates in the past from Microsoft, Lockheed Martin and X Plane were introduced without major issues for most users, only when they were ready. They may have had minor bugs, but these were usually corrected fairly quickly.
When I bought this sim I wasn’t warned that every month I would be unable to use it until I had installed a large mandatory update. I deliberately bought the disc version in the belief that you could use it even if the Internet failed. At the moment I can’t use it at all because I can’t download the update.
I think Asobo have done a magnificent job of producing an amazing realistic flightsim world, but by introducing these flawed updates I can’t fly in it.
That’s not at all the case. Lockheed Martin’s Enhanced Atmospherics rollout has been pretty disastrous and continues to experience issues in P3D 5.1 In addition, the most common topic being discussed in the P3D community are crashes due to DXGI Device Hung crash.
As far as I remember bugFIXes to existing problems and hotfixes for stuff that got broken were supposed to get priority. But there’s no sense in bringing a big update if it brings back old problems that were already solved or introduce entirely new ones.
Updates have to be thoroughly tested and that takes time and has to be done properly. Thats why there were also supposed to be beta tests for the updates. Seems to me that testing is the problem. So I agree: if it’s not possible to introduce an update without making things worse, the update was rushed. So either they direct more resources to the updates or change the timeline.
This weeks update really was a total wreck.
100% agree. Keep Asobo accountable and have them get better at fixing bugs and making things more of a priority (hence their reasons for hiring additional help, like Working Title). Delaying updates to once or twice a year is not what the thousands of us want.
Good for you.
Can’t say the same. Before the update, everything was smooth with FPS in the 50s and 60s. Even without mods and running MSFS as the only application my framerates suddenly fall into the low 20s everytime I fly a turn or approach an airport. Before the update I could leave Photoshop open while editing textures and then testing them in MSFS directly. And don’t start analyzing. Been around MSFS long enought an basically a daily visitor in the forum. I know what not to do.
And just to make it clear: I DO NOT want 6 months updates. But something has to give. If they cannot test properly with monthly updates they should either do smaller updates or test them more. I have really come to dread upcoming updates because I never know what will happen next.
There’s not a single update that crashed my Pc or degraded Fs. However, reading the bug-section after an update I can imagine a number of people getting tired of changes.
I’m not sure if I’m just lucky never having encountered a crash or it is prevented by the maintenance I perform on my system to keep up with overall developments.
A solution that probably occurs would be to voluntary install updates. Meaning some of us would decline a number of developments. But that would also mean dealing with a bigger number of individual bugs that can only be corrected after a longer period.
Fortunately there are many members on these forums with a more advanced level of technical knowledge, making it possible to (temporary) solve many problems. Again, if Asobo would only correct the bigger issues also these temporary ‘work arounds’ must be reviewed and corrected.
Finally the majority of users aren’t even aware of ‘our’ bugs. Simply because they’re up there flying without any issues. Because we concentrate on all the reports filed on these forums we tend to forget the majority of simmers who don’t encounter any major problems. And if they do many of them rely on these monthly updates.
I can imagine the frustration of some users but don’t think postponing updates would solve problems. It would also delay enhancements. And last but not least, if would make the technical department of Asobo lazy, while we need them to be in top shape to be of our service.
Jorg did mention that they’re currently working on ~30 branches simultaneously, and that this is way too many. Therefore, they have decided to combine a sim update with a world ditto (I didn’t catch which ones). So I think OP’s request for fewer updates is already what they’re contemplating.
I think this update went better than most so far, aside from performance issues, and that is being addressed. I just hope we don’t have to wait for the NEXT update to fix that, otherwise it’s going to be long month or so.
This is the one thing that drives me bonkers. If something breaks, we have to wait a long time for a fix. I don’t mind frequent updates as long as they include frequent hotfixes too.
Yes, Jorg Neumann mentioned the goal was to get sim update 4 and world update 5 to be combined to reduce the number of builds. And having 30 branches is a huge amount of work.
They seem to have realized that it was too much, and are taking an approach to fix this.
But the thing is: The more updates and hotfixes, the greater the risk of new errors being introduced, for several reasons. The trick is to find the balance.
For me, I think the best long-term solution is to expand beta testing for updates. Right now, it’s a pretty small pool that isn’t representative of the broader user base. Once that gets set up, we’ll probably see fewer problems on release day- hopefully.