Enigma: 2023 A Look Back. Was 2023 a good year for flight sims.

[spreckair]

1 hour ago, Enceladus828 said:

I don't think there will be much competition between GBs Pacific and Combat Pilot.

Neither do I but for a different reason.  Those who really want to fly the WWII Pacific Theater are not going to choose one or the other; they are going to buy both.  I know that I will.  Because we are a niche crowd, we will buy all things WWII aviation.

Edited February 12, 2024 by spreckair

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, IckyATLAS said:

Combat Pilot will most probably be the first out and that's a very good thing as I am very tired of waiting for this theater. When it comes out I hope I won't be too old ? 

I wouldn't bet on it as starting from scratch is a tough thing to do and they seem to have lots to do still.

[Aapje]

12 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

Even with the pretty negative outlook I think IL2GB has still a great potential but lost (through bad marketing and communication) a lot of its base and so the critical mass to attract more players. There was a moment where they gave the impression that they did not really "need" customers/players and where doing things according to their internal "opinions", "liking""wishes" etc.. If it happens that you want to play "their game", fine but that's all, don't bother them with your requests or comments.  To be fair they delivered what was promised before they entered the black hole two years ago. The problem here is when you piss off or loose players to get them back is extremely difficult. You must not loose them in the first instance. This is just basic commercial good sense, first keep your existing customer base happy.

Getting out of a black hole is very difficult due to very strong gravity. To be fair again it seems the team now tries to improve things by communicating more but it will be very difficult to climb the cliff "of dover"?. 

Did they really make a lot of players angry or it is more that people got bored, or such? I don't get the impression that bridges were burned with many. I don't necessarily see the issue with luring people back, if they hear that the new game is substantially different.

 

My opinion is that the team has not taken enough advantage of the community. Both DCS and MSFS sell third party content in their store and have free content as well. With such a passionate community, which includes many with technical skills, having very good modding ability means that new content gets created by the community and they can often fix things that are blind spots of the game developers.

 

I also think that a dynamic campaign would do wonders to keep people engaged, both for single and multiplayer.

[Gambit21]

7 hours ago, Aapje said:

 

I also think that a dynamic campaign would do wonders to keep people engaged, both for single and multiplayer.

Don’t count on a dynamic campaign - ever. It’s giving ED a real go, and ED has many more resources to throw at it. Over here it would be a real accomplishment to sort out the problems with the existing career.

 

 

 

 

[IckyATLAS]

11 hours ago, Aapje said:

My opinion is that the team has not taken enough advantage of the community. Both DCS and MSFS sell third party content in their store and have free content as well. With such a passionate community, which includes many with technical skills, having very good modding ability means that new content gets created by the community and they can often fix things that are blind spots of the game developers.

I would agree on that. They have not capitalized on the high enthusiasm there was in the community, and incentivized it to create an ecosystem to enrich the game. They could have been a market for content, objects, missions etc. This is what keeps us alive and wanting more in a way. 

[Robli]

14 hours ago, Enceladus828 said:

GBs they'll probably do New Guinea including Rabaul and make the B-25 flyable. After that they could do Burma ... With Combat Pilot they'd probably do Guadalcanal after Midway

 

That could make sense, if the target audience are WWII history fans. If they try to target potential customers from a bigger general public that have seen Hollywood movies and mini-series, like the fancy carriers and all the illustrious stuff that goes with Pacific, then selling point Midway and Guadalcanal are in a different league than New Guinea and Burma. 

[Aapje]

7 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

Don’t count on a dynamic campaign - ever. It’s giving ED a real go, and ED has many more resources to throw at it. Over here it would be a real accomplishment to sort out the problems with the existing career.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a full campaign. But it would be great to just fly around looking for trouble & finding an assault on the front lines, a bomber attack, a combat patrol just happening in different places at the same time, rather than feeling like you are in a mostly empty world with some enemies spawned for your pleasure.

 

PWCG was a step in the right direction, but it still suffered from the limitation that every spawned AI is pretty heavy, so you can never have too many enemies and friendlies existing in the world. Perhaps a way can be found with the new engine to reduce the load greatly for AI NPCs that are not near any real players, so way more of them can exist in the world.

[[CPT]Crunch]

I'd be over joyed if they simply could get easily accessible online co-op style missions going that would beat the pants off the stale old none interactive dogfight modes.  Something in between where you could join up at any time, yet it would run for hours with a raging on going ground war.

[Aapje]

The upside of a solid AI implementation that works for both SP and MP is that you'll never have empty servers online, as they can just fill the empty spots with AI planes.

[Lusekofte]

Absolute best and most fun is coop in this game. I found a way to enjoy bombers in this game too. Enter a server with not too many people. Just enough to make it a little risky. Career I cannot do. It simply too dead for me. I’m more into scripted campaigns. They are carefully balanced

[NO.20_Krispy_Duck]

DCS is still overrated. It has always been a slow-loading, technical mess on my computer. Update quality control allowed a memory leak bug and some other issues that had to be fixed. The WWII plane set is semi-incoherent, considering the setting is supposed to be Channel era and summer 1944 Normandy. DCS is a sim for Korea at the earliest, but more a modern setting. I fly it once in a great while because my squad moved over there. The times I've tried it on my own just to mess around in MP, I've regretted it most of the time.

 

I don't disagree with the notion that the MP community in Great Battles is smaller. The game itself has not gotten any worse, just starting to show its age more. People move on to other things eventually. The biggest disappointment for me was FC. FC has expanded, but US/Can evenings are pretty dead. There are the Tuesday night missions, which might draw 25 people in a good week. European times on the weekend are better, but US/Can evenings have been a bust. We used to see 40+ on the weekly Thursday night missions a few years ago, now it's 20+ if you're lucky. I hoped the expansion of FC would draw more people, but it isn't happening so far.

 

CLOD/Tobruk is still underrated as a game. Team Fusion has done an outstanding job bringing back to life. It still needs work and would benefit from VR support, but if you devote the time to learn the quirky interface, it's a really good game with a lot of challenge to it. The one disappointment is that VR did not come out in 2023 for it. Hopefully it will do better in 2024.

 

Looking forward to Combat Pilot. I keep IL2 1946 with BAT mod installed specifically because I sometimes like to go back to the Pacific, Burma, New Guinea, etc.

Edited February 16, 2024 by NO.20_Krispy_Duck

[Lusekofte]

DCS is overrated? By whom? Well then that make all games and simulators overrated. 
I fly mostly DCS, not because I over rate it. But because it is the sim currently give me most fun.

 

[[CPT]Crunch]

As Nick Grey himself stated, they are not an entertainment company, they are a technology company, they only build the world, it's left up to you to figure out how to entertain yourself in it.  I like that philosophical approach, it's deep enough most can figure out their own unique path to satisfy.  I spend almost all my time testing high performance jets, aerobatics, distance navigation, touch and goes, and foul weather approaches, can't remember when was the last year I fired a missile in anger, but I like dropping occasional dumb iron.

[Gambit21]

On 2/16/2024 at 1:52 PM, NO.20_Krispy_Duck said:

DCS is still overrated. It has always been a slow-loading, technical mess on my computer. Update quality control allowed a memory leak bug and some other issues that had to be fixed. The WWII plane set is semi-incoherent, considering the setting is supposed to be Channel era and summer 1944 Normandy. DCS is a sim for Korea at the earliest, but more a modern setting. I fly it once in a great while because my squad moved over there. The times I've tried it on my own just to mess around in MP, I've regretted it most of the time.

 

I don't disagree with the notion that the MP community in Great Battles is smaller. The game itself has not gotten any worse, just starting to show its age more. People move on to other things eventually. The biggest disappointment for me was FC. FC has expanded, but US/Can evenings are pretty dead. There are the Tuesday night missions, which might draw 25 people in a good week. European times on the weekend are better, but US/Can evenings have been a bust. We used to see 40+ on the weekly Thursday night missions a few years ago, now it's 20+ if you're lucky. I hoped the expansion of FC would draw more people, but it isn't happening so far.

 

CLOD/Tobruk is still underrated as a game. Team Fusion has done an outstanding job bringing back to life. It still needs work and would benefit from VR support, but if you devote the time to learn the quirky interface, it's a really good game with a lot of challenge to it. The one disappointment is that VR did not come out in 2023 for it. Hopefully it will do better in 2024.

 

Looking forward to Combat Pilot. I keep IL2 1946 with BAT mod installed specifically because I sometimes like to go back to the Pacific, Burma, New Guinea, etc.

Who is rating it and by who’s measure then are they “over” rating it?

 

[Robli]

On 2/16/2024 at 11:52 PM, NO.20_Krispy_Duck said:

DCS is still overrated. It has always been a slow-loading, technical mess on my computer.

It could also be that your PC is overrated/outdated. Loading times were certainly not nice, when I had the game on HDD, but since I moved it to SSD they are quite fine now.

 

On 2/16/2024 at 11:52 PM, NO.20_Krispy_Duck said:

The WWII plane set is semi-incoherent, considering the setting is supposed to be Channel era and summer 1944 Normandy.

If you look at the survey again, DCS is not mainly rated for it's WWII part. It is the jets and helicopters why it is rated the best combat flight sim currently. Out of the 900+ votes in the survey only two voted that Channel map was the best DCS release in 2023 and only three voted that a WWII era model (2 for Bf109, 1 for I-16) improved the most during 2023.

[Aapje]

42 minutes ago, Robli said:

If you look at the survey again, DCS is not mainly rated for it's WWII part. It is the jets and helicopters why it is rated the best combat flight sim currently.

It's pretty much their own fault that WWII in DCS lacks players and developers, which both feed into each other.

 

You can get into jet and helicopter flying in DCS for free and then gradually buy modules. For WWII, you always need to buy a map, the asset pack and a plane. Their business model for jets has always been to give you the engine for free with some basic modules and then you pay (a lot) for each extra individual plane or map. But at least you can test it out for free before you commit to spending. And even that business model was a bit too aggressive it seems, as they are now offering much better value than buying individual planes and such, with the Flaming Cliffs 3 bundle.

 

The business model for WWII in DCS is basically double dipping, you pay a lot to get started with a minimal set and then you pay again to expand your game with more planes and maps. It all makes it an awful deal compared to IL-2. Heck, they're not even offering a WW II bundle with the things that you typically need.

 

If they wanted to be serious about WWII in DCS, they should give you one WWII map for free, the WWII asset pack and one (basic) plane that can actually shoot, like the FW 190. Then they can sell you other maps and planes like the BF 109, P-51, etc. Giving away a german plane for free would also help to balance out the multiplayer, since gamers tend to favor the allied planes.

[Robli]

I am not even talking about whose fault their state of WWII content is, but I mean that the DCS high rating is not based on WWII. I agree that their WWII part as a cohesive game is bad and most people that I know also think it is quite bad, so it can't really be overrated, when most people rate that area as bad. Good overall rating comes from jets and helicopters. If lots of people enjoy that and there is not a better alternative available, then it is hard to say that it is overrated.

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, Robli said:

I am not even talking about whose fault their state of WWII content is, but I mean that the DCS high rating is not based on WWII.

If a game is rated only on the good parts, but not on the bad parts, then that perfectly fits my definition of overrated. And from the perspective of someone who was interested in the bad parts, it is then definitely overrated.

 

I'm not sure why 'only interested in jets and helicopters' would be a valid perspective to rate DCS from, but not 'only interested in warbirds' or 'interested in both'.

 

It's not like DCS is giving the WWII content away for free. Or that they publicly state that their WWII content is not as good.

[Robli]

3 minutes ago, Aapje said:

If a game is rated only on the good parts, but not on the bad parts, then that perfectly fits my definition of overrated.

You have very weird definition then. The game or any product is rated as a whole and if jet and helicopter fans like the game then they rate it from their perspective. If the survey goes to almost 1000 players and most of them like DCS the most because they like to use jets and helicopters then you decide it is overrated, because you like WWII stuff instead?

 

4 minutes ago, Aapje said:

And from the perspective of someone who was interested in the bad parts, it is then definitely overrated.

You know many people that are interested in playing any game for it's bad parts? 

 

14 minutes ago, Aapje said:

I'm not sure why 'only interested in jets and helicopters' would be a valid perspective to rate DCS from

Where did you see that kind of perspective? If the survey was only about jets and helicopters then IL2 GD or CloD would not even made the list. The survey was about combat flight sims as a whole and not about people only interested in jets and helicopters. 

 

17 minutes ago, Aapje said:

It's not like DCS is giving the WWII content away for free.

So by your approach everything else in the survey besides War Thunder is overrated, because they don't give WWII content away for free?

[BlitzPig_EL]

Gents, play the games you like and move along.  Arguments over which is better, or over/under rated are pointless.

[Aapje]

2 hours ago, Robli said:

You have very weird definition then. The game or any product is rated as a whole and if jet and helicopter fans like the game then they rate it from their perspective.

 

You are being inconsistent here, it is not rated as a whole if most people who rate it, ignore major portions of the game and rate it from a limited perspective.

 

2 hours ago, Robli said:

If the survey goes to almost 1000 players and most of them like DCS the most because they like to use jets and helicopters then you decide it is overrated, because you like WWII stuff instead?

Are those people representative of the broader flight simming community? Enigma himself argues that the results are not representative and he seems to have gotten a lot of respondents through a post on the hoggit subreddit, which advertises itself as such: "Discussion primarily focuses on DCS: World and BMS."

 

If you look at the poll results, then even BMS is twice as popular as IL-2 GB. I don't believe for a second that BMS has anywhere near twice the actual player numbers as IL-2.

 

If you poll people who overwhelmingly self-selected into being frequent DCS or BMS players, then of course they will answer that DCS or BMS is their favorite game. But this is then not representative of combat flight simmers as a whole. If you were to hold a survey on this forum, I would expect IL-2 to be overrated as well. 

 

2 hours ago, Robli said:

You know many people that are interested in playing any game for it's bad parts? 

If they don't know that these are the bad parts because the game is rated based on the good parts and people don't warn them that the part they are interested in, isn't as good, yes.

 

2 hours ago, Robli said:

So by your approach everything else in the survey besides War Thunder is overrated, because they don't give WWII content away for free?

You don't have to respond to me seriously, but such a poor take that in no way reflects that I said, doesn't help with me taking you seriously.

 

It is just a fact that the WW II entry fee is way higher than the jet entry fee in DCS to get somewhat similar levels of modules. And I've seen a lot of people complain about the cost of WW II in DCS and compare it unfavorably to IL-2.

I personally paid 80 euros (sale price) for 4 maps and 43 planes in IL-2. In DCS you might get all the WW II content for that, but that is 2 maps and 6 planes or so?

 

1 hour ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

Gents, play the games you like and move along.  Arguments over which is better, or over/under rated are pointless.

Perhaps you should take your own advice, rather than try to police other people. It's not your right to tell others what they consider pointless or not. So I kindly suggest you buzz off in a P-51.

Edited February 19, 2024 by Aapje

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Who cares which game got most votes. Everyone knows exactly what to play , for their reasons.

[Robli]

44 minutes ago, Aapje said:

You are being inconsistent here, it is not rated as a whole if most people who rate it, ignore major portions of the game and rate it from a limited perspective.

Sorry m8, but you are the one that is inconsistent here. People rate the game from the perspective that they use it for and you demand them to rate it fir a niche part of it that they don't use, because you happen to value only that part. 

 

47 minutes ago, Aapje said:

Are those people representative of the broader flight simming community?

Almost 1000 answers is definitely a better reprsentation that your own personal and quite weird perspective.

 

49 minutes ago, Aapje said:

If they don't know that these are the bad parts because the game is rated based on the good parts and people don't warn them that the part they are interested in, isn't as good, yes.

They rate the game on the part that they use. It is quite probable that DCS would be the highest rated combat flight sim, even if there was no WWII content at all or even no FC3 content. Big majority uses it for the high fidelity jets and helicopters.

 

56 minutes ago, Aapje said:

It is just a fact that the WW II entry fee is way higher than the jet entry fee in DCS to get somewhat similar levels of modules.

And all that is totally irrelevant when it comes to rating the game. It is like saying that IL2 GB is very overrated flight sim, because Tank Crew or Flying Circus have high entry fees. 

[Aapje]

32 minutes ago, Robli said:

Sorry m8, but you are the one that is inconsistent here. People rate the game from the perspective that they use it for and you demand them to rate it fir a niche part of it that they don't use, because you happen to value only that part. 

That's not what I'm saying. You keep arguing against points that I didn't make.

 

My claim is that the number of people who rate DCS (and BMS) as their favorite game in the survey is not representative of the combat flight sim player base as a whole. The creator of the survey agrees with me that the surveyed people are not representative!!!

 

32 minutes ago, Robli said:

 

Almost 1000 answers is definitely a better reprsentation that your own personal and quite weird perspective.

Let's do a little thought experiment. You ask 1000 people at a vegan forum whether they like meat and I ask 100 people passing through a railway station.

 

Which survey do you think is more representative of the average person? Do you think that people who dislike meat will be hugely over-represented in the 1000-people survey?

 

32 minutes ago, Robli said:

They rate the game on the part that they use. It is quite probable that DCS would be the highest rated combat flight sim, even if there was no WWII content at all or even no FC3 content. Big majority uses it for the high fidelity jets and helicopters.

The issue is not so much that DCS is the highest rated combat flight sim, but how much so in the survey, compared to IL-2.

 

And if you look at the survey results, even car sims and non-combat sims get votes (and the question is not limited to combat sims or flying sims). But in a representative sample over all simmers, driving sims would almost certainly dominate, and MSFS would beat the pants off DCS. And there would almost certainly be way more votes for War Thunder.

 

So everything points to the survey result not being representative, with DCS in particular being highly overrated, no matter which way you slice it.

[Lusekofte]

This is not an interesting debate. Period. 
We all have our preferences and in my case it shifts during a period. 
what people like to do is not alway a static thing it changes. 
I think right now ww2 is in rock bottom due to the Korea focus. I saw this happen already when bodenplatte  was announced. 
Introduse fast planes with big guns to people , there is no real chance of going back. 
I saw Battle of France and Finnish winterwar vape away in that instance. 
I think WW2 has seen its end and we got to take what we have and make the best of it. 
The audience in this game want shiny fast planes. Period. Some refuse the fact that fast jet is better simulated in DCS , they want it in this. 

[Robli]

31 minutes ago, Aapje said:

My claim is that the number of people who rate DCS (and BMS) as their favorite game in the survey is not representative of the combat flight sim player base as a whole.

Actually your claim is that almost 1000 people are rating DCS wrong, because you happen to be only interested in WWII. P.S. Almost 1000 people is quite good representation and way better than one person with absurd logic.

 

31 minutes ago, Aapje said:

Let's do a little thought experiment. You ask 1000 people at a vegan forum whether they like meat and I ask 100 people passing through a railway station.

How is that experiment correlating to Enigma's survey? More absurdity.

 

31 minutes ago, Aapje said:

The issue is not so much that DCS is the highest rated combat flight sim, but how much so in the survey, compared to IL-2.

So, basically you are angry, because you did not like the results and now you are ranting about it. 

 

31 minutes ago, Aapje said:

But in a representative sample over all simmers, driving sims would almost certainly dominate, and MSFS would beat the pants off DCS.

So? Should we start ranting that iRacing and Assetto Corza Competizione are overrated, because you can't get a free WWII era car there or can't fly a plane there, so racing fans are totally wrong for liking these sims?

Edited February 19, 2024 by Robli

[[CPT]Crunch]

Apples to oranges, IL-2 is an excellent entertainment source, DCS as stated by it's CEO Nick is more a technology company, not specifically designed with entertainment in mind, they leave that up to us, hence the sandbox meme.  They have a major stake in professional contracts and that drags and drives much of the game side.  Do I like DCS, heck yeah, it coexists in peace on the same drive as Great Battles, and I fly it with the same set of controllers and VR HMD.  What I specifically like about it is unlike IL-2 where as if you can fly one plane really good you can basically fly them all well, in DCS you have to learn the specific character and flight quirks for many an unforgiving craft, and there's no training wheels giving you warnings your exceeding the limits, stuff breaks when you do. 

 

Just because you can take off successfully and land proficiently in one jet doesn't translate into instant success with another, that along with the sheer depth of systems is a breath of fresh air from the same old routines of a fixed entertainment based game, which has it's own advantages.  You can gather a group of friends and be shooting up the skies and launching raids against other gangs in minutes for some smashing good fun, because it's easy as pie to fly and throw weaponry about in any available plane.  They compliment one another, DCS satisfies the solo single player side for me, while I exclusively fly GB only with friends online. 

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, Robli said:

Actually your claim is that almost 1000 people are rating DCS wrong, because you happen to be only interested in WWII. P.S. Almost 1000 people is quite good representation and way better than one person with absurd logic.

I'm not saying that they are wrong. I'm saying that the surveyed group is not representative for the global combat flight sim population. Again, the person who held the survey agrees with me. So you are the odd one out, here.

 

1 hour ago, Robli said:

How is that experiment correlating to Enigma's survey?

The question whether a surveyed group is properly representative for the group you want to draw conclusions about is one of the most basic elements of doing a good survey. For example, pretty much all political surveys suffer from certain groups being underrepresented in their surveys and making corrections for certain groups being underrepresented is normal practice. Otherwise you get the issue that the election results differ substantially from the surveys.

 

If you survey a biased sample, then the issue is not that these people are lying, but that their answers are not representative for the greater group.

 

I've tried to teach you some elementary understanding of biased sampling with my vegan thought experiment, which is actually very similar to the issue I have with Enigma's survey, which is that he seems to have surveyed a group of mostly DCS players.

 

However, if you are unwilling to learn even the most basic knowledge about doing surveys properly, then you are not going to understand my point and you are also missing an opportunity to learn something.

 

1 hour ago, Robli said:

More absurdity.

So, basically you are angry, because you did not like the results and now you are ranting about it. 

 

So? Should we start ranting that iRacing and Assetto Corza Competizione are overrated, because you can't get a free WWII era car there or can't fly a plane there, so racing fans are totally wrong for liking these sims?

You are now fantasizing that I'm angry and ranting, which I take as an admission that you've ran out of arguments and are now simply projecting your own mental state onto me.

[LukeFF]

17 minutes ago, Aapje said:

You are now fantasizing that I'm angry and ranting, which I take as an admission that you've ran out of arguments and are now simply projecting your own mental state onto me.

 

Please refrain from making such comments, thank you. 

[Robli]

23 minutes ago, Aapje said:

I'm not saying that they are wrong.

You are saying that they are overrating DCS, which means they are wrong in your opinion. Allow me remind you that this has been the main point of your rant so far.

 

23 minutes ago, Aapje said:

I'm saying that the surveyed group is not representative for the global combat flight sim population.

Almost 1000 answers is a good sample size and good representation. Don't know why try to show off in your ignorance in statitistics also, in addition to your absurd approach to overrating. 

 

Not really interested in replying to the rest of your ranting which consist of mainly nonsense.

Edited February 19, 2024 by Robli

[Robli]

35 minutes ago, Aapje said:

I'm saying that the surveyed group is not representative for the global combat flight sim population.

Just for educational purposes, type into google "Is a sample size of 1000 statistically significant?"

[AndyJWest]

20 minutes ago, Robli said:

Just for educational purposes, type into google "Is a sample size of 1000 statistically significant?"

 

[LukeFF]

Alright, this has gone on long enough.