What are the things that get you mad in a flight sim?

[BigMotor]

People or game related doesn't bother me.

 

Screen freeze due to software/hardware- I want to take a sledgehammer to the CPU and fire 00 buckshot through the monitor.

 

Guess I have some issues to work on.

[Mac_Messer]

I thought we were supposed to be talking about what we hate in a sim, This elitist attitude is part of what is now wrong with this genre. I know what a sim is. Ive been playing since the start with Total Air War, Janes and Falcon 4.I dont need advice from you about what the sim experience is about. A lot of people want different things from the experience.

All this obsession for " realism " has done is kill the genre and the fun in it. The " full real" brigade and their elitism. Online and in the forums, have driven away a lot of potential players.

Many aspects of flying would be intuitive to a real pilot and in my opinion can be automated so the player can actually enjoy concentrate on the art of fighting. If I wanted to play a game about navigating and engine efficiency with my Airbus. Id be playing Airbus. 

When IL2 came out there were a lot of players and a lot of online games to join. Forgotten battles became less accessible and there were a lot fewer. It got modded and there were  a lot less and they became hard to join because you might have the wrong mod. Then BOB and no games at all.  If the new IL2 sticks with that recipe then the genre will be dead in 5 years.   

 

Theres a reason why there is no Falcon 5 or Janes lets not add IL2 to the list.

Funny post.

You don`t want to navigate in a flightsim? Your loss.It`s a part of the whole experience Same with engine efficiency. Hopefully we will have all the options for arcade players so they can concentrate on flying because they can`t do nothing besides that. Yes, everything automated for you, manual for me. Next thing you`ll be saying that situational awareness is not part of flying. I disagree.

There`s a reason why the so called "elitists" use Kommandogerat, figure it out.

 

About the IL2 online experience, you`re ofcourse wrong. I was there from 2001 to 2007. None of what you say, besides the mods part, is true. The online numbers grew every year. First cause of this is many bugs being fixed, second being new software developped for online flying, giving more options to players.

 

IL2 is still functioning, because it has strongly developped online features. Lack of it killed other titles and not additional realism.

[ATAG_Slipstream]

People gaming the game, and exploiting.Using nav lights/flares, 10% fuel, sound radar etc etc.

[VeryOldMan]

Reduced fuel load is not totally unrealistic (altough 10% would be). When you scrmble to defend you may very well  do it with half fuel depending on the plane. If  soem US base ever needed  to scramble p51 to defense.. they woudl certainly not  take off with more than 20% of fuel

[=LD=Hethwill]

Well, if a "realistic" Defending the Fatherland scenario would be made some of the poor scrubs out the academy flying K4's and Doras would have to fly with 15 minutes of fuel... You're an Ace ? Fine, 30 mins for you.

 

But yes, doesn't apply really. Gaming the game is not a simmy thing, but some individuals just can't help it. 

[von_Tom]

Russian squads cheating in friendly squad v squad matches in 1946.  Still annoys me when I found out they had radar instead of a map, with enemy aircraft plotted and their height indicated by the icons being colour coded relative to the cheat, plus the reticule turning red when the firing solution was good.

 

And I know not all Russians are like that, or Russian squads, but in a friendly match?  In any match?

 

Hood

[6S.Manu]

Russian squads cheating in friendly squad v squad matches in 1946.  Still annoys me when I found out they had radar instead of a map, with enemy aircraft plotted and their height indicated by the icons being colour coded relative to the cheat, plus the reticule turning red when the firing solution was good.

 

And I know not all Russians are like that, or Russian squads, but in a friendly match?  In any match?

 

Hood

 

What's the squad's name? 

Edited October 7, 2013 by 6S.Manu

[von_Tom]

 

I shouldn't say I think.

 

I seem to remember it was a collection of pilots from different squads flying under a banner with a G a v etc in it.

 

Hood

[silent_one]

Mac_Messer your a toll and a pretty poor one . your funny too . But not in a good way.

[Roskolnikov]

I agree with  OBT-Psychopoak.  All members should demonstrate honorable behavior. How we behave in virtual reality is a reflection of our real world character.

[Bearcat]

There is also a reason why a lot of people dont speak up on forums unfortunatly , and that is becasue they get jumped upon when they dare to say or suggest something about FM ,DM, Online wars or any thing that certain individuals disagree with or dont like. It hasnt happened in this forum yet or if it has i have missed it . I have seen it time and time again on other forums for the 2 flight sims i play where someone has mentioned something out of curiosity or asks a simple question about why a plane can or cannot do a certain thing or dares to mention that he thinks that something may be wrong in the FM of 2 opposing machines and they get absolutly slaughtered for posting their query/problem . Its mainly the same names who

stick the boot in they know who they are and god knows what sort of satisfaction they get in publicly humiliating some one on a gaming forum.

They should instead come up with some constructive answers to the questions or points raised instead of crucifying people. Just my take on why i think a lot of folks dont or rarely post, a lot "Want to be heard" but dont want the Bollocks that can come with it

 

This brings the P-47 as a dogfighter to mind... .

 

This is true in every message board. It's the Internet. 

 

 

Yes ,but my point is... people dont have to be complete twats on it, common manners is all thats needed or is that beyond some people

 

Very true.. unfortunately twats with internet balls abound ...

 

I hate bad AI the most. How can you succeed in BOB2 and fail so bad in IL2.  Also the  Sniper gunners. AI can fly faster and engine never overheats.  Grrrr.

 

I also hate that the rivet counters spoiled the sim for me. Personally I cant be arsed playing microsoft flightsim with guns. I want a combat sim experience . Not the Airbus experience. AS for in the last stream " you can navigate by the stars "  WTF!     I think the original IL2 had it right and lost it in Forgotten Battles.  When your spending more time fiddling with fuel mixture than concentrating on your air combat maneuvering. The games lost its way.

 

I disagree with this... I want more than jkust the flyig and fighting experience.. if that was all I wanted I'd be in WT right now. I also disagree with your statement about IL2 & FB. FB was a great improvement over the original IL2 in every way. At this moment in time 4.12.1 is the best incarnation of IL2 ever and I haven't tried it yet but I am certain that HSFX 7 will only make it even better like icing on a cake.

 

When you have to spend some of your time with engine management during a combat to get the most of your ride,then the game gets closer to a simulation.

A air combat simulation doesn't stop with moving throttle, stick and rudder.

 

Exactly...

 

Funny post.

You don`t want to navigate in a flightsim? Your loss.It`s a part of the whole experience Same with engine efficiency. Hopefully we will have all the options for arcade players so they can concentrate on flying because they can`t do nothing besides that. Yes, everything automated for you, manual for me. Next thing you`ll be saying that situational awareness is not part of flying. I disagree.

There`s a reason why the so called "elitists" use Kommandogerat, figure it out.

 

About the IL2 online experience, you`re ofcourse wrong. I was there from 2001 to 2007. None of what you say, besides the mods part, is true. The online numbers grew every year. First cause of this is many bugs being fixed, second being new software developped for online flying, giving more options to players.

 

IL2 is still functioning, because it has strongly developped online features. Lack of it killed other titles and not additional realism.

 

+1

 

Mac_Messer your a toll and a pretty poor one . your funny too . But not in a good way.

 

Please check your PMs..

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

What makes me mad?

 

Many of the things already covered but the one thing that makes me the maddest above all else is me.  Making dumb mistakes.

[MarcoRossolini]

It makes me mad on forums when the moment FMs or anything historical comes up the arguments become vicious.

 

Also, in RoF, people using planes that have funny FMs... but that's just me being weak really.

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

Found a new thing irritating. The small vocal group of players that start tirades if things do not go how they want as they say "representing the majority". Having a bad day, heck yes.

[fiddlinjim]

The main thing that gets me mad during a BOS multiplayer fight is when I fly straight and level too long not watching my six and get an ass full of lead.    

Also, when I turn to hard or climb too steeply, stall out and crash.  Now those things are what  really pisses me off.

However, occasionally someone doesn't watch their six, they let me turn inside them or they are a little slow getting off their airfield and then I show no mercy.

However, it's a great flightsim and I really enjoy it, no complaints from Boomer2.

[Feathered_IV]

Squandered opportunities due to bad project management is probably the worst thing for me. 

[startrekmike]

I have three things that seem to always seem to either annoy me or even worse, make me kinda sad.

 

  1.) Multiplayer missions that have way, way too many player aircraft, this is not so much a issue in WWI or WWII sims but in DCS it is actually a bit of a problem on a lot of the more popular public servers that run some of the better known missions.

 

  You see, I used to fly with a group awhile back that had this same issue, too many members that all needed to fit into a missions that really should have had a fraction of the players realistically, this sometimes meant that you had eight or more A-10's buzzing over a single engagement area and it made no sense, it just turned into a mess when realistically you would perhaps have a few groups of two over a much larger area.

 

  I just wish it would be more acceptable to make missions that don't need to have as many players as you can cram into them all the time, it is sometimes better to limit the player count to provide a tighter, more interesting experience for fewer players.

 

 2.) Players who "can't be bothered" to learn a sim complaining about sims that are built for those that do enjoy the learning aspect, again, this is not something that WWI and WWII sims usually deal with but it still does happen, there are folks that get upset at the notion that they will need to learn stuff as basic as using mixture and a radiator, there are plenty of things that people do in games easily that are more complicated, what makes flight sims different? (besides, I think learning is fun).

 

  3.) Players that adopt tactics that could be best described as "gamey", stuff like blowing the canopy to hear planes better, getting worked up about using the best "dominant strategy" like it is a game of Starcraft and all that stuff, I can't stand it and I avoid being around it whenever I can as it is a easy way to ruin immersion entirely. 

[jaydee]

Squandered opportunities due to bad project management is probably the worst thing for me. 

Feathered, hopefully this One may be different. ~S~

[Feathered_IV]

Definitely.  I'm very impressed by the team here. 

[DD_fruitbat]

Not being anywhere near as good as I used to be, because I don't have the time to practice these days, that sucks.

 

Shoulder shooting on public servers.

 

People thinking airquake is the be all of combat flight simming.

 

The J2M3 and the I-185 with there just ridiculousness.

 

People using the term 'full real', there just so heroic...

[Reflected]

AI

 

Either when it's too dumb and predictable, or when it's got superhuman skills.

[Matt]

-Quitting during a dogfight when losing

-FM discussions over chat during MP (in this case i'm mad that it's not possible to hide some peoples comments in the chat)

-Winning team joiners (at least when it's causing an imbalance in player numbers)

-Best-planetype-switchers (i've no problem with people sticking to one side or planetype, but people who always choose the best plane regardless of side annoy me quite a bit)

Edited June 17, 2014 by Matt

[Requiem]

"You know what really grinds my gears..."

 

#1 When the AI pulls of ridiculous shots because of how it snaps the gunsight onto its target. This annoys me more than anything else and reminds me why I prefer MP.

#2 Like Matt I get annoyed when people flock to the best aircraft regardless of side, especially when they are good enough to not need it.

#3 Screwing up a landing.

#4 Mid-air collisions when I'm at fault when hitting someone from behind because I was too stupid/eager to get an accurate shot that I didn't pull off in time.

#5 Not having an external free camera    

Edited June 17, 2014 by SYN_Requiem

[Br00ns]

I thought we were supposed to be talking about what we hate in a sim, This elitist attitude is part of what is now wrong with this genre. I know what a sim is. Ive been playing since the start with Total Air War, Janes and Falcon 4.I dont need advice from you about what the sim experience is about. A lot of people want different things from the experience.

All this obsession for " realism " has done is kill the genre and the fun in it. The " full real" brigade and their elitism. Online and in the forums, have driven away a lot of potential players.

Many aspects of flying would be intuitive to a real pilot and in my opinion can be automated so the player can actually enjoy concentrate on the art of fighting. If I wanted to play a game about navigating and engine efficiency with my Airbus. Id be playing Airbus. 

When IL2 came out there were a lot of players and a lot of online games to join. Forgotten battles became less accessible and there were a lot fewer. It got modded and there were  a lot less and they became hard to join because you might have the wrong mod. Then BOB and no games at all.  If the new IL2 sticks with that recipe then the genre will be dead in 5 years.   

 

Theres a reason why there is no Falcon 5 or Janes lets not add IL2 to the list.

 

 

Well said. I'd say that the full-real-only crowd has the genre on life-support, both in the sense that it's the only thing keeping developers afloat these days and also because it's the reason it's in trouble to begin with.

 

You make a particularly good point about the fact that certain things would be intuitive to a real pilot - the limitations of even very good hardware make the rivet-realism that the most serious hardcore types demand impossible. You'll never be able to completely capture the experience, absent a house-sized rig with enough room to whip you around and simulate G-forces, and a screen able to perfectly simulate the glint off the wings of a miles-away foe, not to mention completely reconstructed cockpits featuring air fresheners in the odor of cordite and 1940s engine lubricants.

 

If you want the game as realistic as possible, great, so do I - I also value fine detail and attention to history. But despite all the fancy peripherals that many of us own, and despite the fact that we refer to it as a simulation, this is still a game we're playing on the PC. It's supposed to be recreational. It's supposed to be fun.

 

This, to me, is where the furious, blustering insistence that the focus be on simulating reality as closely as possible, to the exclusion of the whole "game" part of a video game, becomes so harmful. Angry, passionate posts fly back and forth about small details of the 109's flight model, yet nobody talks about the complete lack of anything like flight school to get newbies off the ground.

 

Games like the one BoS is shaping up to be not only expect you to be a flight sim junkie, who's flown many times before and has a solid grasp of the aircraft, tactics, weapons and flying techniques involved - they require it. We're not just introducing a challenging skill curve, here - we're actively keeping new players away by pushing for the design decisions that we do.

 

The insistence that bone-dry sim aspects of the game take precedence over actually making it fun to play is not only killing its appeal to potential new players, it's killing single player, as well. So much work has to go into making every single detail of the flight models and the ballistics and the engine characteristics absolutely just so, in order to appease the hardcore crowd on the forums, that there really isn't any room for a reasonable dynamic campaign or career mode. (Nor, as I mentioned above, any training for new players.) 

 

And please, before you tell me to go back to War Thunder (which I've never played), take a deep knee bend - I'm not arguing for one moment for that kind of arcade nonsense. There's a vast range of gameplay experience between impenetrable, real-as-it-gets study sim and things like War Thunder.

 

It isn't impossible to make a game that addresses several different points on that continuum. It isn't impossible to make a difficult game that does a good job of teaching you how to play. It isn't impossible to make a sim that really immerses you in the experience of combat flying while simultaneously eliding small details that real-world fighter pilots would've had to deal with. And it's not impossible to make a game that doesn't require single-player types to spend half their play time in the mission editor in order to have something to do.

 

I'm not a fighter pilot, and the vast majority of you aren't, either. None of us, ever, is going to have the opportunity to fly one of these aircraft in anger. You want it to be as real as possible? Then the next time you crash, or get killed by a stray tailgunner's bullet, shut the client down and never play again. After all, you're dead.

 

I love flight sims, and I want to have some of the experience of flying a fighter on the Eastern Front, but I'm a busy guy, and I frankly don't have enough time in the evenings to have THE WHOLE experience. If that's your idea of fun, great - but I can't be the only one who isn't wild about the direction BoS in particular, and flight sims in general, have been going lately.

 

Damn, this came out long. TL;DR - BoS could have much broader appeal and be a better overall game if it wasn't so focused on pleasing one vocal subset of players to the exclusion of others.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Bruins

[sturmkraehe]

Currently the lack of an altitude fighter for VVS.

[JG4Helofly]

Well said. I'd say that the full-real-only crowd has the genre on life-support, both in the sense that it's the only thing keeping developers afloat these days and also because it's the reason it's in trouble to begin with.

 

You make a particularly good point about the fact that certain things would be intuitive to a real pilot - the limitations of even very good hardware make the rivet-realism that the most serious hardcore types demand impossible. You'll never be able to completely capture the experience, absent a house-sized rig with enough room to whip you around and simulate G-forces, and a screen able to perfectly simulate the glint off the wings of a miles-away foe, not to mention completely reconstructed cockpits featuring air fresheners in the odor of cordite and 1940s engine lubricants.

 

If you want the game as realistic as possible, great, so do I - I also value fine detail and attention to history. But despite all the fancy peripherals that many of us own, and despite the fact that we refer to it as a simulation, this is still a game we're playing on the PC. It's supposed to be recreational. It's supposed to be fun.

 

This, to me, is where the furious, blustering insistence that the focus be on simulating reality as closely as possible, to the exclusion of the whole "game" part of a video game, becomes so harmful. Angry, passionate posts fly back and forth about small details of the 109's flight model, yet nobody talks about the complete lack of anything like flight school to get newbies off the ground.

 

Games like the one BoS is shaping up to be not only expect you to be a flight sim junkie, who's flown many times before and has a solid grasp of the aircraft, tactics, weapons and flying techniques involved - they require it. We're not just introducing a challenging skill curve, here - we're actively keeping new players away by pushing for the design decisions that we do.

 

The insistence that bone-dry sim aspects of the game take precedence over actually making it fun to play is not only killing its appeal to potential new players, it's killing single player, as well. So much work has to go into making every single detail of the flight models and the ballistics and the engine characteristics absolutely just so, in order to appease the hardcore crowd on the forums, that there really isn't any room for a reasonable dynamic campaign or career mode. (Nor, as I mentioned above, any training for new players.) 

 

And please, before you tell me to go back to War Thunder (which I've never played), take a deep knee bend - I'm not arguing for one moment for that kind of arcade nonsense. There's a vast range of gameplay experience between impenetrable, real-as-it-gets study sim and things like War Thunder.

 

It isn't impossible to make a game that addresses several different points on that continuum. It isn't impossible to make a difficult game that does a good job of teaching you how to play. It isn't impossible to make a sim that really immerses you in the experience of combat flying while simultaneously eliding small details that real-world fighter pilots would've had to deal with. And it's not impossible to make a game that doesn't require single-player types to spend half their play time in the mission editor in order to have something to do.

 

I'm not a fighter pilot, and the vast majority of you aren't, either. None of us, ever, is going to have the opportunity to fly one of these aircraft in anger. You want it to be as real as possible? Then the next time you crash, or get killed by a stray tailgunner's bullet, shut the client down and never play again. After all, you're dead.

 

I love flight sims, and I want to have some of the experience of flying a fighter on the Eastern Front, but I'm a busy guy, and I frankly don't have enough time in the evenings to have THE WHOLE experience. If that's your idea of fun, great - but I can't be the only one who isn't wild about the direction BoS in particular, and flight sims in general, have been going lately.

 

Damn, this came out long. TL;DR - BoS could have much broader appeal and be a better overall game if it wasn't so focused on pleasing one vocal subset of players to the exclusion of others.

 

 

So, how realistic should it be and who decides what is and is not fun?

I am a full real flyer, because of the challenge. But others might like lables to better see the enemy or fly without cockpit. Is my definition of fun better or worse than the other? And what is the problem of having a game with a wide range of realism with arcade/realism options?

[Talisman]

Santa pilots flashing their Christmas tree lights (nav lights) in a dog fight during the day to call their friends (save me save me (in a frantic high pitch voice, lol)).

The nav lights are currently far too bright for day flying and should not be visible in the way they are at the moment, but that is no excuse for such lame behaviour as giving us flashing Christmas lights that ruin immersion and smack of an arcade game rather than a serious combat flight sim. Sad and lame behaviour in my book, unless for those under 10 years old and then it might be understandable, although I suspect the average 10 year old might have more self respect, LOL.

[Br00ns]

So, how realistic should it be and who decides what is and is not fun?

I am a full real flyer, because of the challenge. But others might like lables to better see the enemy or fly without cockpit. Is my definition of fun better or worse than the other? And what is the problem of having a game with a wide range of realism with arcade/realism options?

 

That's exactly my point. We need options beyond "total handholding autopilot-fest" and "if you don't know how to tune the sparkplugs on a DB601, you're in trouble." Those options should be granular and diverse - maybe player X feels like he needs labels, but can handle full CEM just fine, while player Y doesn't need the labels but doesn't want CEM or "cockpit always on." Meanwhile, player Z is completely and totally full-real EXCEPT for realistic gunnery, because he's got a medical condition that messes with his fine motor skills.

 

The problem is that even arguing for accommodations to be made for players who don't want to play full-realism, hardcore multiplayer gets you yelled at by the full-realism, hardcore multiplayer crowd, because they're the noisiest people on the forums.

[HeavyCavalrySgt]

Targets that disappear in SP missions as you engage them, or after stalking them for miles.

 

Passive AI that won't attack or defend.

 

Championship skeet shooters that signed up for anti-aircraft gunner slots on the enemy side when the war started.  All of them.

 

Friendly AA gunners who are more likely to hit their own aircraft than the aircraft they are shooting at, because the are unwilling to stop shooting when friends and enemies are separated by less than 200 meters.

 

2-axis stabilized self propelled AA guns that can shoot as accurately on the move as they can stopped in 1916.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Bruins, That is one of the best posts I've ever read on the state of our genre. Well said, and I agree with you 100%

Edited June 19, 2014 by ElAurens

[Georgio]

The only thing that really ticks me off in modern flight sims is egotistical zelots whining on said modern flight sim forums about how rubbish this and that is on an unfinished sim.

Amazingly they think that a.) they're qualified to talk about something they know jack about, b.) their money in a project entitles them to call the shots and c.) that anyone gives a monkey about their pathetic whinging.

 

Yes I also went out with a Liz many years ago and I still Have nightmares.

[MasaIV]

Squandered opportunities due to bad project management is probably the worst thing for me. 

 

 

We plan to keep presets only in the final version.

 

This (in reference to graphics options).

[Br00ns]

Thanks, ElAurens, nice of you to say. Been thinking about this stuff for a while, considering turning it into a full-on essay.

[SOLIDKREATE]

I hate when you're behind a contact, you fire and your shells go right through him due to just a tiny fraction of lag. And his plane model LOD magically warp several meters to the left/right/up/down.

 

Also I hate FM exploits (maneuvers you know cannot happen).

[LuftManu]

Things that I hate

 

: People figthing each other because of their favorite planes P51 vs 109 vs spit blah blah blah

: Cheaters

: The guy that says " I know evrything, so your argument it is not valid"

[Gambit21]

I've only ever gotten anything close to angry once, and that was when some tool on my own side put a few rounds in me intentionally because

he perceived I was going after his target. That wasn't the case.

 

I booted his dumb ass from the CoOp and never let him in again.

 

Aside from that, I only find certain things 'irritating' - mostly pilots who whine and make excuses after you shoot them down.

Just say "good kill" and move on buddy. Also, pilots in CoOps who go off and play solo cowboy instead of flying the mission.

 

For the most part though I refuse to truly get angry at anything that happens on my computer screen unless it's a toxic email

from my ex. Even then, I pretty much let it go.

[JimmyGiro]

MP "pilots" demand for enforced "Sissy Rules" on forums...

 

Sokol1

Totally agree. And I'd add, those 'traffic-warden' types, that need to tell others the rights and wrongs of play, as some compensation for their own limited imaginations.

 

In games, and especially war-games, the spirit is the marriage between anarchy and intelligence; therefore jumped up orthodox pricks are the bane of the internet gaming fraternities.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Well said Jimmy. Cheers!

[Seren77]

My peeves are

 

Frame rate people seem overly tolerant of bad framerates in flight sims 10fps is fine!

 

No or poor tutorials. Flight sims can be very hard, in game tutorials to explain engine management and stalls go a long way to get new players into sims. There is a lot of good videos on youtube to try and fill the gap but I think devs would always be better off spending time on tutorials than working on arcade or simpler flight models.

 

Microstutters - !

 

Vague missions and no confirmation of completing mission objectives.

 

Taking off in CloD water jacket fails on take off, make a bomber start smoking after few hits. my engine dies, glide to runway, land hurricane on it's roof. Mission Success! I feel like I'm making up my own objectives in that sim and feel like I just have to tell myself if I completed objectives or not.

 

Kind of like, you must damage your engine, damage an enemy plane without bringing it down then land on roof without engine running (tell myself yeah you nailed it)

 

I have not played BoS yet. Downloading it tonight so hopefully it has tutorials and better single player than it's predecessor. (Though is long as it runs better I'll be somewhat content)

[SR-F_Winger]

#1 Myself making mistakes and being shot down for being stupid:P

Vulchers. I dont hate if Il-2/PE-2 do that. Since theyre built for it. But fighters just flying to enemy airfields all the time just ruin it for everyone IMHO.

What i hate more: Me being so stupid to launch at the same drome when i am actually aware there is a vulcher:P

What i also hate. AA getting stuck shooting holes in the air instead of shooting attacking aircraft:)

Edited June 30, 2014 by VSG1_Winger