MSFS2020 Disappointment thread

Juliet Hotel said:
So we've got several comments that the visuals are great but its terrible for and kind of IFR. Why is that? Are navaids and approaches missing?
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Jim K said:
The 430/530 are completely broken as far as I can tell. I couldn't even get them to go direct, let alone load an approach. I did finally figure out that I could get it to take data if I was in the air, but then the game crashed, so in went back to xplane. I'll try it again later. Garmin let them use their name in the game, so I assume they won't let them remain broken. I've heard the g1000 is worse, but I've never used a real one, and didn't try the one in- game so I can't speak to what's wrong with it.
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I'm sure Garmin gladly took some money to license their name in the sim, but they sure as heck didn't provide any sort of QA....or event guidance on how to implement basic GPS functionality needed to go /G under IFR. It's baaaaad. Really bad...across the board from the GNS430 through the G5000. If I were Garmin, I'd be pretty upset right now. The good news is that you can use that fancy looking G1000/3000/5000 equipped plane and shoot all the approaches you want /a.

ATC has never been great, but they managed to take it from basic but functional to whiskey tango foxtrot. I think eventually they will get Garmin avionics to a better place, but I don't know how long before that happens.
 
I'll be looking for them to improve the system. For now, this doesn't really do anything for me, so I'll be back to X-Plane.

I'm amazed at how real it felt flying a VFR approach. I could correlate what was happening. But that's one of the few times the flight model was working.

It's a simulator, but right now it's a really, really bad simulator.
 
My 17 year old kid has been talking about it for months. Reminding me of the due date. Asking if we can get it, can our computer run it, do we have a joystick. Asking if my plane is in the game. Asking how to learn to fly.

My kid doesn't know or care if the twin engine flight model should have asymmetric thrust. But he is a digital native, and he expects photo realistic graphics. He isn't going to Instagram screenshots of setup menus on the Garmin 430W, but he and his friends will be posting YouTube videos of him buzzing the Statue of Liberty or flying up a fjord in Iceland. And maybe some of those kids will see a real plane one day and think "maybe I could do that", just like each of us did once upon a time.

Kudos to MS for doing something there was no real business case for. It was just cool.
 
Ed Haywood said:
My 17 year old kid has been talking about it for months. Reminding me of the due date. Asking if we can get it, can our computer run it, do we have a joystick. Asking if my plane is in the game. Asking how to learn to fly.

My kid doesn't know or care if the twin engine flight model should have asymmetric thrust. But he is a digital native, and he expects photo realistic graphics. He isn't going to Instagram screenshots of setup menus on the Garmin 430W, but he and his friends will be posting YouTube videos of him buzzing the Statue of Liberty or flying up a fjord in Iceland. And maybe some of those kids will see a real plane one day and think "maybe I could do that", just like each of us did once upon a time.

Kudos to MS for doing something there was no real business case for. It was just cool.
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I disagree there's no business case, but that's another thread. I agree with your excitement, though. Although it's not useful for me at this point, it is a great hook to get kids interested in aviation. I spent hundreds of hours on MSFS 5.1, an experience im sure stuck in the back of my brain. Msfs is perfectly gamey, and when it releases on xbox, will hit a huge demographic.

I suspect they have much, much bigger plans for this world they've created. I hope they make this a decent procedural trainer before moving on. Im optimistic that the marketplace revenue will provide motivation for continued improvement.
 
The casual gamers/flight simmers are in love with it, and they're who this was marketed at. The sim will get better for those of us that want more fidelity.
 
Fidelity? I’d just like stability first.
 
Got to say- I am one who was heavily influenced by the earlier flight sim games when I was a kid and this version takes many steps forward with the graphics and visuals but I totally agree that, as a game it’s really awful. What is beyond understanding is how unfinished the game feels and how many issues their are with basic aspects like control of airplanes, unfinished airports( my home airport has grass covering over a few taxiways) absurdly bad airport interaction with like vehicles just driving on taxiways and many other issues the original poster pointed out. To me, this game needed a much longer time in development and appears rushed to market and that just a bad look for microsoft. I also don’t get why they incorporated 0 “career mode” aspect or progression aspect to the game. They did not need to make it the core part of the game but something to give the game a purpose would have been nice. As it stands now, it’s basically the same game I played as a kid like 20 years ago just with better graphics. Not really good enough to me.

Specifically I’ll share an example of something that’s unacceptable for “ready for market game” to have. Yesterday I flew one of the bush plane missions. The one with the Cessna 172. Flew all the way through leg one, landed at the airport and their is absolutely nothing that happens. No clue where to park the plane, no “congratulations on completing leg one” no anything. So I thought, well I guess I’m done so I returned to the main menu and much to my surprise after flying nearly 45 minutes I could not move on to leg two because it still did not recognize I finished leg one. That’s just terrible and I believe reveals why this game is not really going to improve until they fix the massive amounts of issues the released version contains.

I’m still going to give it a shot and it provides a nice chance to fly some better airplanes than I’ll ever be able to do as a real pilot but this game is miles away from where it could/should be.
 
Here's what I had when I was young to influence me about flight:

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So...why would anyone install MSFS 2020 instead of X-Plane?
I'm not a gamer at all, and use only a small portion of the capabilities of X-Plane 11.
But I understood X-Plane was a pretty well developed product with a lot of 3rd party aircraft options one can add to fly the exotic stuff. Among other things I like the ForeFlight interface.
What am I not understanding here?
 
GRG55 said:
So...why would anyone install MSFS 2020 instead of X-Plane?
I'm not a gamer at all, and use only a small portion of the capabilities of X-Plane 11.
But I understood X-Plane was a pretty well developed product with a lot of 3rd party aircraft options one can add to fly the exotic stuff. Among other things I like the ForeFlight interface.
What am I not understanding here?
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Why do people download newer versions of Apple OS or newer versions of Foreflight? Better software comes along and is able to leverage modern hardware. MSFS2020 will likely surpass XP11 in terms of immersion and such, just due to having better mapping/graphics alone. Once they work out the flight control fidelity and 3rd party companies get add-ons going for aircraft/panel customization, it should be pretty solid. If they can get VR headsets integrated as well, it will be the best flight sim available to the masses. Unfortunately, MSFS2020 has a long way to go to patch the existing holes. Give it a year.
 
GRG55 said:
So...why would anyone install MSFS 2020 instead of X-Plane?
I'm not a gamer at all, and use only a small portion of the capabilities of X-Plane 11.
But I understood X-Plane was a pretty well developed product with a lot of 3rd party aircraft options one can add to fly the exotic stuff. Among other things I like the ForeFlight interface.
What am I not understanding here?
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I was a long time FS user, all the way to FSX. Then I started trying XP and thought XP 9 sucked, XP 10 was ok but only when XP 11 came out that was what made me switch from FSX.
Better flight models and systems, avionics and decent graphics and hardware connectivity (controls, saitek panels), is what made the difference for me.

I think FS2020 will eventually get there. The scenery is a huge step forward, graphics look really good. Tweaking the flight models and fixing the avionics and controls stuff will come.
 
GRG55 said:
So...why would anyone install MSFS 2020 instead of X-Plane?
I'm not a gamer at all, and use only a small portion of the capabilities of X-Plane 11.
But I understood X-Plane was a pretty well developed product with a lot of 3rd party aircraft options one can add to fly the exotic stuff. Among other things I like the ForeFlight interface.
What am I not understanding here?
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The visuals are amazing. It's good enough that if you going to a new place you could pre-fly it in the sim and have a very good idea of visual landmarks to look for. Picking out an airport in the middle of a city for example, or one nestled in a valley.

They are also going to have constantly updating nav data. The main reason I bought xplane is that the nav data in fsx was so out of date as to be useless. Xplane can be updated, but you have to do it manually. Mine is about 6mo old, but nothing major has changed in my area except a couple of marker beacons have been shut off.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Why do people download newer versions of Apple OS or newer versions of Foreflight? Better software comes along and is able to leverage modern hardware. MSFS2020 will likely surpass XP11 in terms of immersion and such, just due to having better mapping/graphics alone. Once they work out the flight control fidelity and 3rd party companies get add-ons going for aircraft/panel customization, it should be pretty solid. If they can get VR headsets integrated as well, it will be the best flight sim available to the masses. Unfortunately, MSFS2020 has a long way to go to patch the existing holes. Give it a year.
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Solid response.
 
arnoha said:
Real is better, but sometimes real is far out of reach. As mentioned, I'm never going to afford to fly jets. I'm not going to get to fly all corners of the world. This isn't like really doing those things and really being there, exactly, but it's something and I'll take it.

Note: you don't need to buy a rig. Rent one! I've got a VM I've allocated in Azure to run this thing. About a dollar an hour of play time, always up-to-date hardware, crazy download speeds so you can play with all the graphics turned on and not mess with your housemates streaming Netflix. I have it installed locally, too, and the latency is better locally, of course. But I can't turn on all the options because my internet bandwidth available doesn't come close to what FS2020 demands for all the graphical options. I don't have all the kinks ironed out yet, but when I do, I'll post up about it if anyone is interested.
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Few likes on this, so I'll work on that. Might take me a bit...I'm close to the Northern California wildfires (CZU complex for me) and am a bit distracted these days...
 
I have quite a number of hours now in the new sim... There are MANY issues. I won't get into them all here. But default aircraft have always sucked. 3rd party will put out study level aircraft. Crashing to desktop, live weather with no winds... no way of using G1000/GPS properly. BUT they have given a canvas which can be improved upon. It was probably released too early though, I would agree. I have had fun checking out the new digital world they created, and it looks great. I agree though, it is unstable, and buggy. Unfortunate. Hoping they will fix soon.
 
The problem I see Microsoft has had all along, and appears to have continued with FS2020, is their software structure is too rigid. The system architecture in MSFS doesn't allow for anything outside of what MS put in it. X-Plane and DCS have a more open architecture and allow third party developers the ability to customize and include systems in a way MS never did. Some third parties manage to emulate things outside of MS, APU's for example. It is usually just a fake gauge on the panel that appears to work, but doesn't have any actual functionality to it because MS doesn't include APUs.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Why do people download newer versions of Apple OS or newer versions of Foreflight? Better software comes along and is able to leverage modern hardware. MSFS2020 will likely surpass XP11 in terms of immersion and such, just due to having better mapping/graphics alone. Once they work out the flight control fidelity and 3rd party companies get add-ons going for aircraft/panel customization, it should be pretty solid. If they can get VR headsets integrated as well, it will be the best flight sim available to the masses. Unfortunately, MSFS2020 has a long way to go to patch the existing holes. Give it a year.
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Not the same thing.
I went from X-Plane 10 to X-Plane 11. Sort of the same thing as "download newer versions of Apple OS or newer versions of Foreflight".
Doesn't answer my question as to why someone would choose a poor piece of new software (MSFS 2020) over software that is well developed, works well and is also being constantly improved (X-Plane).
You seem to imply X-Plane will remain static. I wonder if MSFS will surpass X-Plane in immersion. FS is only one of many products in the MS portfolio. MS has never had a reputation for producing 1st in class anything. X-Plane is pretty well the only product Laminar produces and supports. Which of the two companies would you bet on?
 
GRG55 said:
Not the same thing.
I went from X-Plane 10 to X-Plane 11. Sort of the same thing as "download newer versions of Apple OS or newer versions of Foreflight".
Doesn't answer my question as to why someone would choose a poor piece of new software (MSFS 2020) over software that is well developed, works well and is also being constantly improved (X-Plane).
You seem to imply X-Plane will remain static. I wonder if MSFS will surpass X-Plane in immersion. FS is only one of many products in the MS portfolio. MS has never had a reputation for producing 1st in class anything. X-Plane is pretty well the only product Laminar produces and supports. Which of the two companies would you bet on?
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Ok, fine. How about: people who switch from Android to Apple despite iPhones being mostly inferior in comparison to flagship Android phones? iPhones aren't Apples only product so how well do you think they'll fare when it comes to competing against Android? Does that make a better comparison for you?

MS likely has infinitely more resources than Laminar does in terms of software development and finances, so what makes you think they can keep up with Microsoft?

XP11 has the advantage in some areas, but the graphics isn't one of them. Time will tell what XP12 will look like and whether it matches whatever MSFS2020 becomes in the next year after they correct some of the first release shortcomings.
 
SoonerAviator said:
MS likely has infinitely more resources than Laminar does in terms of software development and finances, so what makes you think they can keep up with Microsoft?
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Yeah I'm really not sure how this is even a question.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Ok, fine. How about: people who switch from Android to Apple despite iPhones being mostly inferior in comparison to flagship Android phones? iPhones aren't Apples only product so how well do you think they'll fare when it comes to competing against Android? Does that make a better comparison for you?

MS likely has infinitely more resources than Laminar does in terms of software development and finances, so what makes you think they can keep up with Microsoft?

XP11 has the advantage in some areas, but the graphics isn't one of them. Time will tell what XP12 will look like and whether it matches whatever MSFS2020 becomes in the next year after they correct some of the first release shortcomings.
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Still a less than perfect analogue. :)

The iPhone might not be Apple's only product. But it is Apple's most important product. By far.
Same can't be said of MSFS 2020. And apparently it shows from the reviews on this thread.

The competition should make both products better. We will see in due course how it plays out.
What makes me think they can keep up with Microsoft?
Didn't Microsoft put out a mobile phone with proprietary software at one point?
In competition with an upstart search engine company called Google? ;)
 
Anyone remember the first SubLogic flight sim on the Apple II? Stick mountains and a grid landscape. That was over 40 years ago..wow.
 
Silvaire said:
Anyone remember the first SubLogic flight sim on the Apple II? Stick mountains and a grid landscape. That was over 40 years ago..wow.
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Gee... Thanks for pointing that out... :(

Coincidentally, the last time I used an Apple computer it was the then brand-new IIe. o_O
 
Jim K said:
The visuals are amazing. It's good enough that if you going to a new place you could pre-fly it in the sim and have a very good idea of visual landmarks to look for. Picking out an airport in the middle of a city for example, or one nestled in a valley.
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outside the few scenery areas, this isn’t possible. Most cities are poorly developed and major VFR landmarks are just flat spots on the ground.

why switch? The scenery in msfs developed areas IS astounding. Now if they could only fix the little things like a stable flight model and auto pilots. Maybe provide for connection of sim gear.
 
midwestpa24 said:
The problem I see Microsoft has had all along, and appears to have continued with FS2020, is their software structure is too rigid.
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That might not be the case this time around. 2 weeks after release and an open source group is already modifying the default A320 with a lot of missing capability. I'm not an airliner guy but it is pretty impressive what they are able to do. Apparently it is so impressive that the Microsoft team has reached out to work with them directly to assist (or maybe adopt) what they are doing.
 
bflynn said:
outside the few scenery areas, this isn’t possible. Most cities are poorly developed and major VFR landmarks are just flat spots on the ground.

why switch? The scenery in msfs developed areas IS astounding. Now if they could only fix the little things like a stable flight model and auto pilots. Maybe provide for connection of sim gear.
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I haven't spent much time with it yet, but I flew around my local area, and aside from the grain elevators (admittedly the most prominent visual landmarks in the area), it was spot on. Well, CMI itself looked like crap too, but the University buildings and city were spot on. There were too many trees in the rural areas, but the little towns were identifiable and looked right. If you were planning a VFR flight to my area it would absolutely be valuable. I also flew around the area we visit in Florida. It was shockingly accurate. In both areas i could identify individual buildings I'm familiar with. I agree that some major things are missing....the Sunshine Skyway bridge for example.

I liked this video 'Fly with the guys' did comparing his local area to a real flight:
 
Jim K said:
I liked this video 'Fly with the guys' did comparing his local area to a real flight:
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Who still leaves a towbar attached when it is not in their hand?? That Guy!!! o_O
 
smv said:
Who still leaves a towbar attached when it is not in their hand?? That Guy!!! o_O
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Well, I do as well since mine has a trailer hitch ball on it - I don't use the pull-by-hand-towbar in my hangar. And it's impossible to put the hitch on the ball and connect it to the airplane. It has to go on the plane first, and I have to walk away from the tow bar to get the tug. So how am I supposed to accomplish that?

Plus his plane is still in the hangar, and if it's like my lease agreement, no starting the engine in the hangar, so he has to pull the plane out of the hangar before starting it - not sure what the issue is. Now if it were on a taxiway and has been moved to a place to start it....
 
MBDiagMan said:
Maybe we need a sub forum for aviation related toys.
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Already discussed in the Site section. Mostly the folks here say it’s not what the forum is for, and there’s plenty of other forums for it.

YMMV. Just sayin’ it’s already got a thread. :)
 
EdFred said:
Plus his plane is still in the hangar, and if it's like my lease agreement, no starting the engine in the hangar, so he has to pull the plane out of the hangar before starting it - not sure what the issue is. Now if it were on a taxiway and has been moved to a place to start it....
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Vehicle-towed equipment notwithstanding, I get the part about being in the hangar and all. Sure he will not be starting the engine in there. What tends to happen, however, is that people get into the habit of dropping the tow bar without thinking about it much. "Well, it is in the hangar and I will not be starting the engine in here." leads to "Oh, it will only be for a moment while I latch the door that got caught in that breeze." or some such thing. Eventually they drop the tow bar while on the ramp (to latch the door, for example), get distracted by something else, and forget it is still attached.

Do a googles for "towbar still attached" some time and read the stories. The majority of them are from pilots who fell into a scenerio very similar to what I described above. It was only going to be for a moment until they got distracted by something else. They do not normally leave the tow bar attached while on the ramp but were not so adament about it when elsewhere. Pretty much every one of them end with something along the lines of "I sure wish I was in the habit of always removing the tow bar when it is not in my hands. That few extra seconds it would have taken to detach/reattach would have saved my flight and 1000s of dollars in repairs."

As for me and my students, I can pretty much guarantee you we will never become part of that google search result. Whether it is in the hangar, at the fuel pit after a flight, or just pushing it out onto the ramp to begin the day. You simply do NOT lay the tow bar on the ground while it is still attached to the aircraft. Why worry yourself about where the aircraft is located at the time when developing the habit of never leaving it attached will cover you in all situations?
 
Jim K said:
I agree that some major things are missing....the Sunshine Skyway bridge for example.
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That's a big thing to be missing. Maybe they are going for the 1980 post-accident scenery. Too soon?

PH-508009987.jpg
 
So maybe not “disappointment” but Clint weighed in and it’s a pretty reasonable review from a gamer type.

He’s critical of a lot and excited about a lot which seems pretty common.

2 PB of visual data available. Holy freaking hell. Not only will I want a fast rig, but a nice custom file server connected at 10 Gbit to store it all in after tricking the game rig into thinking the ZFS server is a local disk, if the software even cares. LOL.


Still not even going to bother demoing it on current hardware nor attempting to download even the base 90GB over rural internet! LOL. It’ll be a “project” to build then take the machine to the office someday. No rush.

An incredible amount of work for the price tag. The sweatshop of data entry people alone makes me think the thing can’t possibly be profitable yet. Expecting “paid upgrades” relatively soonish as far as software goes, is probably a good bet.
 
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This might tie in with Bing efforts to catch up to Google Earth on 3D modeling of the world.

The flight model and airplanes are easy. A company with the software DNA of Microsoft could do that with one hand tied behind their back. They might have .0001% of their devs tasked with that.

But modeling the world, that takes effort. If you are already doing it for your mapping product, might as well throw a flight sim on top so people can check it out.

Too bad Google isn't into flight sims.
 
A Microsoft product didn't live up to it's hype?!?!?!?!

story at 7..

Edit: ding on Microsoft not the OP
 
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Doc Holliday said:
The market this is created for are not pilots. It's created for amateurs who want the "feeling" of flying, not all of the actual mechanics of it.

If they had created for pilots, it would fall way short of their target audience.
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Maybe it’s been mentioned already, but they sure as hell were marketing it for pilots. They had several videos talking about how much more realistic the aerodynamics were, that they used many more data points to really capture how a real airplane handles.

But can it be that some “realism” mode must be set for it to act as a real airplane does?
 
LongRoadBob said:
Maybe it’s been mentioned already, but they sure as hell were marketing it for pilots. They had several videos talking about how much more realistic the aerodynamics were, that they used many more data points to really capture how a real airplane handles.

But can it be that some “realism” mode must be set for it to act as a real airplane does?
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They were marketing to the pilot wannabe market. The marketing was to get them believe it was just like actually flying.
 
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