A betrayal of the community and the customers that have kept this franchise alive.

[ScaryDuck2]

I took a hiatus from flight sim right when MSFS24 dropped due to needing to focus academics. I am just now coming back from the hiatus and I feel the need to want to express my thoughts. 6 months ago, the MSFS community was vibrant. PMDG had just dropped their 777, the first modern long haul plane to be released in the sim, MK studios, Inibuilds, and others had released some amazing airports like DXB, MK's Laguardia, etc. Fenix was doing their thing and expanding their A32XX product line. IFly had just introduced some competition by releasing their 737Max with some crazy interior features. The community was in anticipation of upcoming releases of things like the Blubird 757, so on and so forth. I was happy, I enjoyed the game, and despite the performance issues, I invested in a better CPU to handle the single thread limitation and played to my hearts content. The community was happy and vibrant, and MSFS was fully on the same page as us customers and earned our hard earned money.

Now, I went on my hiatus, studied for my exams and had some crazy hard weeks in my research lab. I hear some stuff about how the release of MSFS 2024 was not done well or whatever. But I had no idea how bad it was. I want to talk about 3 things:

1. Microsoft made promises and broke them and I am very upset about this.
I have spent over a $1000 on this game, between addons, hardware, things like GSX, etc. Microsoft explicitly and repeatedly announced MS24 as being something that could be a drop in replacement promising us that our existing addons that we worked hard to pay for would work "seamlessly." Instead, we got a rushed transition where: airports from the old sim are broken unless patched. High fidelity aircraft like the PMDG stuff and Fenix stuff dont even launch without major fixes and work from their end. Core utilities to the sim like GSX and Beyond ATC are incompatible, and despite them saying they would improve the funciton of ground vehicles and ATC, they literally did not. Its not remotley comprable to GSX or BATC. This is not bad planning: this is a full blown betrayal of consumer trust.

2. The Devs are stuck in a hard place but some devs are also taking advantage of the consumers and milking it. And this hurts the community.
PMDG at least is honest with their approach. They said they would no longer make anything for MS2020 even though that game has DOUBLE the users as the 2024 version. But for us, that don't want to make the switch because of the heavy investment that we had put into it and nothing being transfered over, we are just screwed because of microsoft taking that content away from us that we would have otherwise gotten. Developers like Inibuilds are the worst case scenario. They are almost weaponizing the transition. They are locking features like the interior cabin of the a350 behind MSFS2024, and marketing that plane like you get it with both. They are releasing only airports to MSFS2024 in the hopes that people switch to that sim. They are pushing "premium upgrades" for ports of scenery with marginal improvements of things that I literally purchased at full (expensive!) prices in the old sim with my hard earned money. I bought the A350 expecting to get all the features and that full cabin that they flexed so hard in the release material and streamer shows only to see that, the MSFS2020 version DID NOT even have a modeled cabin. COME ON? Not only is that misleading, but $80 to buy something that I expected to get all the advertised features only to get a truncated thing is just unethical.

3. Microsoft allowed this to happen, and still had a buggy game.
It would be one thing if all of these betrayals of consumer trust happened, but the game was good and it worked better and performed optimally compared to the old MSFS2020 that was super CPU single thread limited. BUT IT DOES NOT. 5 months post release, the game is SUPER BUGGY, crashes, custom and default sceneries from "premium" models of airports from inibuilds have dissapearing buildings, career mode is virtually unplayable, landings happen at literally single digit FPS because of the enormus VRAM consumption issues, and FPS is not better compared to MSFS2020. Like how is it possible that the game is WORSE than MSFS2020. You're kidding me. And you expect the community to just accept the fact that "eventually everyone will make the switch over." It's honestly baffling to me.

I know this post is going to fall on deaf ears from any developer from microsoft or inibuilds or PMDG or whoever. But I just want to say, as someone who put a lot of money into this game, a lot of investment even back when I was a student working multiple part time jobs to afford my tuition and then still spent a TON of money on this game because I loved it so much, I just hope they realize how utterly betrayed I feel. Its not about broken promises, but just a complete erosion of consumer trust. Microsoft, you have a lot of rebuilding to do and you owe it to your community of flight simmers that have supported you all for years to right your wrongs. You all owe us that much.

[Tyvolus]

Game has been out long enough to see they dont care...there has been one noteworthy update since the horrid launch, and since then new things are breaking nearly everyday I login. one can argue it has gotten worse since launch.

If they cared (again, they do NOT), it would have had multiple large, quality pathches since launch. it has one mid-sized one, that honestly dont look so good no more.

[Quibbly]

I've spent over 15k on my complete flight system and pc. Yeah, I'm pretty upset

[Zyrohex]

Originally posted by Quibbly:

I've spent over 15k on my complete flight system and pc. Yeah, I'm pretty upset

Damn, that sucks big time man. I'm just curious, what type of gear did you invest in? DCS may be worth checking out considering how much you invested, especially if you are looking for high fidelity aircrafts.

[DR GOO]

What a mess.

[Hypnotoast]

Well said. It has been 6 months and after spending countless hours to try to get the sim to, at the very list, perform at the same level 2020 did, I think I am giving up.

What a joke...

[Quibbly]

Originally posted by Zyrohex:

Originally posted by Quibbly:

I've spent over 15k on my complete flight system and pc. Yeah, I'm pretty upset

Damn, that sucks big time man. I'm just curious, what type of gear did you invest in? DCS may be worth checking out considering how much you invested, especially if you are looking for high fidelity aircrafts.

Yeah, the setup supports DCS too. I’ve got rudder pedals that work across all aircraft types, plus separate control and throttle setups—one for jets, another for general aviation and helicopters.

I built the rig so I could experience all kinds of flying. That’s what makes MSFS 2024 so disappointing. I invested in a system to enjoy the full range of aviation, and it feels like the sim took a step backwards instead of moving forward.

[AtomicPrimate]

It sounds like you just don't have a good enough cpu and internet connection for the game to run correctly. Before you get all defensive about it, consider this: It runs perfectly fine for a large number of players. It actually is compatible with everything 2020 was. I use everything you've listed with 2024 and it works fine. As it does for a great number of people. Under these conditions logic indicates that the game itself is not at fault. I would ask for you to check your cpu, internet connection speed, type, and bandwidth specs. You really need a very powerful cpu, unlimited bandwidth, and a high speed fiber optic internet connection for this game to run correctly. Especially when you over tax it with other third party streaming services like beyond atc.

[AtomicPrimate]

Originally posted by Quibbly:

Originally posted by Zyrohex:

Damn, that sucks big time man. I'm just curious, what type of gear did you invest in? DCS may be worth checking out considering how much you invested, especially if you are looking for high fidelity aircrafts.

Yeah, the setup supports DCS too. I’ve got rudder pedals that work across all aircraft types, plus separate control and throttle setups—one for jets, another for general aviation and helicopters.

I built the rig so I could experience all kinds of flying. That’s what makes MSFS 2024 so disappointing. I invested in a system to enjoy the full range of aviation, and it feels like the sim took a step backwards instead of moving forward.

I bet your bottleneck is your internet connection. DCS isn't streaming. MSFS2024 is. The thing people don't seem to understand about this game is that it doesn't need high priced hardware. It needs high priced INTERNET. You'd be amazed at how much data it needs to stream and how fast it needs to stream it for it to all work right. Most internet connections simply can't handle it. And yes, that is perhaps an oversight in the developers side. But the game itself isn't any more broken than any other game. It's just too advanced for most people's current internet connections.

[Quibbly]

Originally posted by AtomicPrimate:

Originally posted by Quibbly:

Yeah, the setup supports DCS too. I’ve got rudder pedals that work across all aircraft types, plus separate control and throttle setups—one for jets, another for general aviation and helicopters.

I built the rig so I could experience all kinds of flying. That’s what makes MSFS 2024 so disappointing. I invested in a system to enjoy the full range of aviation, and it feels like the sim took a step backwards instead of moving forward.

I bet your bottleneck is your internet connection. DCS isn't streaming. MSFS2024 is. The thing people don't seem to understand about this game is that it doesn't need high priced hardware. It needs high priced INTERNET. You'd be amazed at how much data it needs to stream and how fast it needs to stream it for it to all work right. Most internet connections simply can't handle it. And yes, that is perhaps an oversight in the developers side. But the game itself isn't any more broken than any other game. It's just too advanced for most people's current internet connections.

Um, 2.5 GB connection, nice try

[AtomicPrimate]

Originally posted by Quibbly:

Originally posted by AtomicPrimate:

I bet your bottleneck is your internet connection. DCS isn't streaming. MSFS2024 is. The thing people don't seem to understand about this game is that it doesn't need high priced hardware. It needs high priced INTERNET. You'd be amazed at how much data it needs to stream and how fast it needs to stream it for it to all work right. Most internet connections simply can't handle it. And yes, that is perhaps an oversight in the developers side. But the game itself isn't any more broken than any other game. It's just too advanced for most people's current internet connections.

Um, 2.5 GB connection, nice try

Actually that's bottom tire for this game. I have 10gb, and 5 is recommended. Your internet is your problem.

[Quibbly]

Originally posted by AtomicPrimate:

Originally posted by Quibbly:

Um, 2.5 GB connection, nice try

Appreciate the tech advice, but you might want to brush up on your units. MSFS 2024 recommends 5 megabits per second, not 5 gigabytes, not 5 gigabits, and definitely not whatever you think 10 GB is. That’s not how internet speeds work.

For the record, I have 2.5 gigabit fiber. Real sequential fiber, not some mystery Mbps connection pretending to be high-end. So no, it’s not my internet.

There’s a huge difference between Mb, MB, and GB. I get it though, tech talk gets confusing when you're still trying to convert floppy disks into RAM.

Specs, just so we're clear:

Intel Core i9 14th Gen

64 GB DDR5 memory

2 TB and 4 TB Samsung 990 Pro M.2 drives

It’s always entertaining when someone with zero tech knowledge tries to diagnose performance issues like they’re qualified. Talk about a troll—I've seen troll dolls with better hardware awareness.

[Luxiwow]

The Game is atrocious and in the same boat like many other big franchise title like Fifa or 2K. If it wasn't for the top tier graphics and the fact they have no competitor they would flop based on the game itself. So they get away with being a mid Game. Also I agree the way they care about their players should tell everything, I mean we have creators upload garbage into the official store and they just allow it. For example the 777 by Captain Sim. Which has the 747 engine thing, that alone should be a reason to have it removed for lack of authenticity. If someone buys it on a 3rd party website so be it but within the game and on their own official store? big nope.

[ждун]

well the virgin sim actually works mostly fine, it becomes a mess when you start piling up third party stuff on top of it. But then you can hardly blame microsoft for that.

[Fredspekvet]

Originally posted by AtomicPrimate:

Originally posted by Quibbly:

Um, 2.5 GB connection, nice try

Actually that's bottom tire for this game. I have 10gb, and 5 is recommended. Your internet is your problem.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

[udidwht]

Ideal is 100Mbps

I'm using T-Mobile Home internet 5G without issue