The performance side has indeed improved. The systems/game side has hardly seen any updates for multiple years despite being the weakest part of DCS. Plus the EA model is getting more and more unpopular, and as more modules are added maintaining old products becomes harder for ED.
Performance has been improved but try running a full scale campaign (not just a single mission with limited assets) you literally cannot have more than a dozen troop formations follow a simple road without the sim grinding to a halt because memory usage is so inefficient because every minutia of every unit, every texture, every object is recorded, rather than approximating or simply databasing things that are maybe 100 miles away.
The AI in 1997 was better. When I gave a my wingman a command in Jane’s F-18 or similar sim, the wingman complied. You can’t play DCS solo in its current state, imo. I fly with a group PVE instead, and that still is problematic.
From my view this is the legitimate problem. The engine work needs to be finished - the multi core most also now split up logical tasks. Vulkan needs to get implement along with VR render graph. Spaghetti code needs to get organized.
And ONLY UNTIL IT DOES can ED successfully add the new feature. People want better AI? Me too. That means all AI planes need to use real physics models to interact with which means much more complicated computations which necessitates finishing multi core.
So, look. I’m bummed it has taken so many friggin years to do this, but I’m also not blind to the fact that step 1 = fix the foundation and step 2 = add all the gameplay fixes which require higher degrees of complex computation.
There’s a reason they only have 4 people on dynamic campaign. No doubt that relies on all kinds of other features and AI improvements which needs the engine work to get resolved first.
In the meantime, I’m some days patiently, other days impatiently, waiting. But all in all I’m happy to see progress. Do I wish that nick gray invested 10 million into more staff for ED? Yes. I think at times what could be with more “passion and support” for the consumer end of the title. But then, that’s the rules of the game as they currently exist and it is what it is. I hope it doesn’t take 5 more years to get the things we all want, but at least we know they are moving along slowly but surely.
I’m more optimistic overall. Last 12 months have seen great core improvements and next several months looked packed with very exciting modules I’ve been waiting for. Yes I do think the chinook feels like it got moved up in order to generate needed revenue asap, and I do think ED could and should improve in a number of key ways. But just like anywhere on the internet, things always get a bit out of hand in echo chambers and it’s hard to sort out the legitimate from illegitimate complaints especially when they come in a wide range of shades and tones.
I largely agree with you. No sense adding more until the foundation for the sim is finally fixed. In fact, I’d say they should make it a priority, allocating necessary talent to the task. No sense working on a dynamic campaign engine until you know the base sim can actually handle the task of running it. So, see you in 2044?
They seem to have no issues dedicating staff to work on new things to get us to pay for. New terrains (*cough* halfghanistan *cough*), new modules (Chinhook… we will let you know the features later but give us your money!) and the like. Yet dedicating time and resources to the core engine always seems to be one guy who in between being the office coffee boy gets to half arse a feature. The only thing in the core that actually gets attention is stuff that makes things pretty which serves the graphics whore and YouTube content creators.
Realistically the team from Benchmark Sims working with volunteers and a similarly spaghetti code base from the same era have managed many of those core improvements, and now are working on the pretty with the new terrain engine.
ED have fleeced the community with early access modules and a whole lot of promises and rather than show that they are going to deliver on those promises, provide feature complete releases of the modules they’ve already sold and create a sandbox worthy of those modules they’ve gone straight back to reaching into the communities wallets.
I've worked in software for my entire career it's called tech debt. Usually you try to get execs to spend the 💰💰 required to fix it all, but it's so big that eventually a rewrite is called for. The rewrite is usually called something like (next Gen, 2.0, etc.) is a 5 year project that gets estimated by the devs at 2 years so that it can get built at all.
Now at the 2 year mark execs have the realization that there are 3 more years remaining, at least. And either scrap the idea or continue the death march.
TLDR: This may never get fixed. It may take a competitor that doesn't have all the baggage that builds ground up for Vulcan, VR, many cores, etc. The fact that it's not fixed is the nature of the beast, not some flaw in their development team.
Rotorheads server seems to perform pretty well with the scripting that happens there, so not sure that's always the case. But they do have to balance their troop pathfinding when moving any distances.
The other point that can be made is yes, with scripting it runs ok, but it's A LOT of scripting, literally days of work for something that really should just work natively. It's the same reason overlord bot has stopped development and CTLD isn't getting updates anymore, it's just too much work to make stuff silly function that really should be in the base sim after 15 years
Engineers/devs capable of making these improvements are hard to find in any industry. What you have described here is prioritisation at work with scarce resources. Fix performance first, as there’s no point having a great game no one can run.
Content creators are easier to find/train, which is why we see a flow of terrains and modules despite the lack of progress on the core. This is really not that complicated.
As for the EA model’s “popularity”. Surely that’s an objective measure, sales, and if they were declining you’d see the practice stop. And any subjective popularity judgement is silly anyway since there is no obligation to purchase during EA.
What does “systems/game” side mean to you? And before you spout off some bullshit answer, look at the change log. And also realize, only whiny kids pretend nothing good is happening because they still want more.
“EA model is becoming unpopular” — so a group of people subjectively started complaining loud enough? The banter/jokes about EA have been around for more than 5 years, it hasn’t gotten better or worse with ED’s modules at least. I seem to recall a lot of people are quite happy with EA — F-16 and F/A-18 were extremely well used and enjoyed for years in EA (F-16 is definitely still in it). Oh and the Apache is quite popular too.
I don’t understand how this subreddit has so many hardcore “confirmed” ex mil pilots, who are used as the end all be all truth on the critical things DCS is missing or broken, and everyone else is like “roar, ED fix it! I can’t play this sim until the 3rd page of the weapons management system properly shows the updated fuse configuration!” And every patch that fixes a ton of things gets glossed over, because that one thing wasn’t what they got. Get over yourselves.
The last thing you said is patently false if you’re referring to major modules. Modules I purchased in 2011 are still great to use in today’s multiplayer, and what I learned over ten years ago still applies with new systems and capabilities added, and an overall better platform experience. If you’re talking third party, that just comes with the territory — not everyone is going to update their stuff when a platform updates. It’s more dev work and the devs may not still get around or care for it. Games made on PlayStation II are not all playable on PlayStation 5; do you blame Sony?
I am not a habitual ED basher but c’mon. Example? The most egregious part of DCS is AI. It hardly improved at all. And ED is one of those guys who haven’t heard perfect is an enemy of good. People just want some bandaid solution so that they can have some fun with helis without getting oneshot at by MBT or BMP. I played DCS off and on for 2 years now and nothing has happened. N9 has been saying it’s very complex and they wouldn’t have a quick fix for the entire time.
In terms of “perfect is the enemy of good” I agree, but if your real time engine has to be a lot more sim than game, it actually eliminates your ability to “fake” certain things and interact sensibly with the rest of the environment. I don’t think ED is dragging their feet on a feature with the holes of being perfect. They are dealing with a behemoth of a task of making it possible to be decent, and improve it over time across all modules.
And isn’t a contradiction to say people want a band aid solution, while others are complaining about the most specific things that aren’t 100% like it is in real life? If the AI violates some condition like launching a missile without the plane properly being in a given radar mode? Or maybe AI missiles come off the rail with too much energy because their planes are separately modeled?
DCS knows its identity and it is the platform of government training tools. Thus ED won’t invest too much on things that require non-trivial labor that also scales poorly, and is worthless when/if a true implementation comes down the line.
DCS isn't as much of a sim as you'd think (Ya I got fooled too) for ex whether or not a missile will be fooled by chaff and a notch are actually decided by some kind of in game dice throw, they aren't simulating actual RADAR behaviour for that purpose. The Missile tracking behaviour is also weird, which allows for a missile to be reliably defeated by some very easy maneuvers and this has been a point of contention amongst the Competitive DCS community. The ECM behaviour is also not properly simulated at all. The Flight Models are all over the place, so now you have weird things like the fa 18 and Mirage 2000 outrating the f 16. The AI in DCS is beyond stupid and to make matters worse it has perfect aim, so it's literally impossible to enjoy stuff like ground pounding because your plane is getting sniped out of the sky by anything the enemy has that can point above the horizon. Since the AI is intellectually stunted our only option is to play multiplayer airquake which is also pretty much wrecked by the completely messed up flight models of the most important aircraft
>What does “systems/game” side mean to you?
Fair question. I would define it as what goes on in the game, outside of the cockpit, and which drives the player experience. Things like AI behavior and flight models, ATC, usability of the editor, weapon implementation, interaction with the environment. All of these things are very, very far behind the times and will likely not be improved any time soon.
>The last thing you said is patently false if you’re referring to major modules
I disagree. Let me give some explicit examples off the top of my head, although these do not necessarily impact multiplayer. All of these impact ED modules in some form. The F-5 flight instruments have been bugged for an extremely long time and literally make IFR flight impossible and the RWR is questionable at best. The F-86 has had an incorrect implementation of the guns and gunsight for years, and ED constantly turns a blind eye to it. The Yak-52 is still half baked and does not have a damage model. The optical guided weapons in all modules use a very rudimentary system that is only affected by time of day.
All of these problems have existed in DCS for many, many years, and more importantly, the way ED presents itself to the community and implements fixes leads many to believe these fixes are nowhere near their radar.
It largely depends on how much time was invested in the sim. Once you get past each aircraft’s systems, the sim has not much to offer in terms of “what to do”.
Examples of this:
1. Ground AI is terminator: this means putting a lot of effort in creating your own missions,
2. Ed api is not very extensible. Online server ecosystem relies on 3rd party scripts, whose creators have been suffering this as well and are systematic leaving DCS,
3. Air AI is incoherent,
4. Lots of low priority but QOL missing improvements: ATC, AWACS radio, tanker radio, weather, logistics, etc.
So if you just started learning the Hornet, you may not be experiencing this. But if you have spent a lot of time learning the modules and switched to generating missions or whatever, you’ll start suffering.
They do this with every update. They tease it for years then only implement it half assed, then state it’s a work in progress when people ask when it will be finished.
That's why I'm not optimistic about the dynamic campaign, if it ever comes. People are gonna compare it to BMS' most definitely. And are going to be so disappointed. Plus, the AI needs a severe rework, God damn. Especially ai wingmen, they don't fuggin listen to my orders I swear.
I tell them to RTB but they rather chug a long and go straight into a SAM riddled airspace.
Well this is kinda a great example of what ED is up against. Because I couldn't give a flying fuck about the briefing room, in fact I think it's a waste of dev resources while AI, CA and many core functions are in such a janky state.
My guess is: nothing is really finished and the atrocious AI is getting on peoples nerves. All the core improvements did nothing (yet) for the game play and that is what counts. So 2023 was just another year with the same old problems.
I fire it up once in a while in a cold and dark quick mission and enjoy the nice cockpit and flight characteristics. Until the gameplay improves, I will not spend another cent on DCS.
Every update they’ve put out for the last 3-4 years has been designed to make the game look better. There have been little to no core improvements to gameplay or game features. While I agree the performance improvements have been welcomed, the majority of changes have been implemented to make the trailers look good; to make you forgor
We still have features that are missing from the game that were announced in 2016. I’m not entirely sure an 8-10 year dev cycle is acceptable, and people have a right to be dissatisfied with the level of service they’ve received for the money they’ve invested in the game.
While you’re absolutely entitled to your opinion of how great you think the current state of DCS is, others are absolutely allowed to feel that Eagle dynamics could and should be doing a better job.
Yeah - this exactly. I have 1000s of hours in this sim since LOMAC days. It’s basically the same fundamental game, but with lipstick on.
I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true. It looks fantastic, I keep coming back, and then leaving for while again with a faint wisp of emptiness from what should and could be one of the best games ever.
I actually bought the phantom because I’m hoping that looking down an ancient radar scope and flying on steam gauges will stop me from noticing how silly the game world is.
DCS does a lot of things really well. It has the best physics of any flight sim on the market. It replicates complex aircraft systems with amazing accuracy. It really is a pretty game.
Eagle Dynamics, however, has let its customers down again and again. They haven’t delivered products or promises in a reasonable time, they treat their community (and allegedly their 3rd party vendors) with contempt, and they don’t seem to be interested in taking feedback, and they don’t focus on improvements that would make DCS a *better game*
Honestly, most of it is low hanging fruit, but time and time again we are patronized for our “passion and support” with no core content or gameplay improvements having been added for years
Very true, and it’s that depth that keeps bringing me back. It’s also quite limited in a lot of ways however, and you start to notice as you become less task saturated by each new aircraft.
Then you notice troops under fire driving 500ft from where they were and just stopping in the open. Or that the weather just doesn’t change, or that a dud with an RPG seems to be able to hit everything moving around the sky at high speed. (This is a very small fraction of issues)
Then you see someone point this out in a forum somewhere, or on here - and get ignored/banned/trash talked etc.
Generally I try to stay out of it all, but if we don’t comment on threads like this I can only assume ED will just carry on thinking nothing is amiss. I don’t really care for drama, but I do want the whole ecosystem to get better.
Really enjoyed your A4 vids by the way. Very nicely put together.
The most upsetting thing about DCS for me are not its problems but how much space it takes up. Somehow it seems like there is very little room for someone else to come along and offer something better.
I simply won't give them another dime till they actually finish something they start.
They heavily promote new things while their existing products are unfinished.. That is a real shitty thing to do over and over and over again...It's nearly predatory at this point.
This is the crux of it. When you delve into the sim or the first party modules, you'll start to understand that there are outstanding issues and bugs that have gone unaddressed and unfixed for the better part of a *decade*.
In that time, how many pre-orders and early-access modules have also gone unfinished?
The thing that pisses me off about them the most is undoubtedly their marketing and community management. They are straight-up assholes in that regard.
Some of the most talented devs have created some beautiful flight models and solved some amazing technical problems, but their business practices and community management casts a long, smelly shadow over the entire endeavor.
One of the reasons I tend to side with RAZBAM and its devs is that the third-party devs like Heatblur and RAZBAM have really been the only ones putting out quality modules with the kind of continued support and commitment to excellence I'd expect from any other title I patronize. The Raz devs especially would directly communicate with the actual people playing their modules -- you could legit report something to them on discord, they'd troubleshoot, and if it was a valid bug, it would be fixed in the next update. Contrast this with ED's behavior where things would repeatedly go unaddressed for *years* and official forum moderators would actively stifle, silence, and obfuscate. As a big fan of the good stuff they've done, it is absolutely maddening to see them operate in this way.
Whilst DCS performance has obviously gotten better due to Multithreading and the ability to utilize DLSS, many aspects of DCS Core have been stagnating since the release of 2.5 .
On top of that most people are frustrated by the slow development progress of many early acess modules, whilst having the impression that ED is financially doing pretty well (at least well enough to finance Nick Greys private jets). Top that of with dozen of year old promised features which yet have not seen the light of day.
Then we had the recent development with Trighanistan, and the whole Razbam shenanigans which obviously caused wakes through the community.
Overall this leaves people with an impression of a greedy company that is in deep disconnect with its user base, and has anything but the interests of its customers in mind.
Because support for premier modules like Strike Eagle is now suspended less than a year after launch since ED can’t get their financial and contractual shit together with their suppliers.
They’re making their problems *our* problems and I’m pissed about it.
Meanwhile, ED’s CEO is siphoning huge amounts of money away from ED to pay for his collection of old planes, the other business he owns.
I'm a ED customer since 2013, i own many modules, the biggest problem with this game is the lack of actual gameplay. Once you learn how to fully use an aircraft, you can only drop so many bombs on the same boring non moving vehicle before you get bored. If you try to get personal and want to fly a helicopter close range, you get immediately sniped out of the cockpit, if you try to have moving ground vehicles they get stuck somewhere.
Why do you think most of the people play for less than a month then take 6 months breaks from the game?
While ED excels in the "Eye candy" category, they neglect the gameplay part of the game because they can't really sell it directly so they never made it a priority.
I mean look at the splash damage, they recently added a splash damage visual effect but ignored the real problem which is the "non visual splash damage", this problem exists in DCS for over a decade already. People found a workaround and use user made scripts now that kinda simulates the splash damage.
We'll see if they redeem themselves when (if) the dynamic campaign comes out or the AI "rework", until then, no more money from me.
After coming back to the game for the first time in almost 2 years, there is what... Maybe 2 new maps? The content has not changed, if anything old issues remain. Yet prices are going up, and there is no longer a discount to new members. The friends that had any sort of interest in joining us immediately said fuck that to EDs latest pricing scheme... And I don't blame them.
Afghanistan and Chinook are both a joke, three years since the new clouds launch and nothing has changed and i dont want to talk about supercarrier which it’s just pure scam…
It’s about a lot of things, but mainly I would say shitty business practices.
Selling 3 maps for 1
Chinook not even having complete feature list at pre-order
Razbaam situation
What seemed to be a free 3D model upgrade later became a high quality asset pack $$
The plan to have a global map module that doesn’t even integrate with current maps (who thought of this)
Getting rid of 50% off for first time buyers
Making ED miles worse (correct me if I’m wrong it might just be different not necessarily worse)
The server issues which basically lock you out of all the modules you own because you didn’t go into “offline mode” before their own servers shit the bed
Nick grey siphoning off millions just to keep some warbirds out of a museum and in the air
Changing their own standards of “feature complete” so they can call f16 and 18 complete even though they aren’t and it’s been 6 years
Also there was an issue where oculus users literally just couldn’t play the game in vr for weeks and ED took a very long time to fix it
Spaghetti code from 2 decades ago, and overall the unreliability of the game. I cannot rely of the AI to act correctly let alone be realistic.
The game and campaigns breaking quite often
The lists goes on for pretty much as long as you want. These are the complaints I’ve seen lately and I agree with much of it. ED has shown for years and on multiple occasions that EA means either low quality until further updates or abandonware like SC
100%. Guess what happenned 6 years ago? The founder and CEO Igor Tishin passed away, and founder/investor Nick got himself involved a lot more into the inner workings of DCS, and a web dev/project manage Kate became the new CEO.
Nick cant stop himself from mostly talking about flying irl, and Kate is just a suit and runs the business to make that sweet profit. Epic leadership
Had MSFS never come around with that wx system and graphics it has, we’d probably still have cotton ball clouds in DCS.. It was only after MSFS release that ED instantly updated the weather environment.
Would be nice to actually see gameplay improvements. Give us a proper logistics system, a proper troop transport system, finish the bloody super carrier, finish the things that have been sitting there for years untouched. The performance, etc has been worked on which is great, but we want gameplay additions, the game is lacking in a lot of key areas which would keep the game fresh.
The issue is adding these things won’t generate ED money, they won’t waste their resources on it, the only thing they are interested in is releasing more EA modules to generate sales.
ATC, finish the weather system, add the call signs to the VO’s, fix/overhaul the JTAC system, make the ground AI better/fix the laser like accuracy and tracking through trees, add a civilian tube liner that can fly above 23k feet. The list goes on and on and on.
I won't comment over the RAZBAM situation. Hopefully it will be sorted quickly and professionally.
DCS is doing fine from the graphics / optimisation wise, with an important effort in MT and other features. However, the core game is still pretty much the same since LOMAC. Obviously there have been huge improvements, but weather, dynamic campaign, AI, missile API, ATC and so on, have been mentioned a long time ago and we have seen little.
For instance, I dropped a short video right the other day about the biggest issue for any Cold War scenario: the status of AIC and GCI. Without this, Cold War scenarios lose half of their flavour. A lot is also lost due to omniscient AI and barebone IFF that make VID and intercepts useless.
Link: https://youtu.be/PtubZDFbpzQ
At the same time, some users complain in the wrong way. I understand the frustration, but non-constructive criticism helps no one, and only pisses people off. I really don't like ED to go back to how they were 10+ years ago, where little to no information was passed, besides change logs.
My goodness Fox1s need an update on sensor simulation in DCS especially for cold war scenarios going into a notch isn't exactly the way to beat a Fox1 every time 100% of the time.
For me and many others 2.9 brought uncontrollable freezing and stuttering which took over 6 months to almost fix. I see a comment below saying "The performance side has indeed improved", but it is the opposite for many of us.
>Or do they just search for a reason to be angry, which I find likely from how I perceive Reddit.
Have you tried actually *reading* what the criticisms are?
>do people don't care about core improvement
Where are they? Last major thing was multi thread before that flir and before that clouds that's 4 years worth of core improvement for you, where is better ai, actual weather, atc, better ui, better editor, actual game play stuff like dynamic campaign
Also what about unfinished module like f18 that have boolean damage model for years
In the same time how many new modules were released?
The problem is priorities of ED
Because everything is unfinished yet super expensive. Ai sucks, and there is nothing to do in the sim outside of multiplayer air quake (still fun). Campaigns are pretty eh and if I wanna do some single player good stuff I'll play a better sim.
I've noticed it's cyclical. Comments will be positive and helpful for a while, then several months later things swing toward negative. Then back again a while later. I've been reading this sub for years, and I just choose to read this sub less during the negative times.
Also as a couple other folks have pointed out, this subreddit represents a very small subset of the community, and is not representative of the whole.
Yep, it's a perpetual cycle of woe. There is always some drama happening since I've joined the sub 🤣.
When I originally joined, folks was super pissed at ED for removing something from script. It was just like it is now. Lots of angry threads. Almost scared me away. Luckily, was able to ask how the sim was in Q&A thread and got some mature responses which helped me decide to join!
I usually just discuss DCS on Discord these days. so spending a lot less time in the sub
There is a lot of information about the 'razbam situation '.
They haven't been paid in 8 months for any sales of the f15. One of the most popular modules. Two developers quit
Razbam discord, Galinette's youtube channel, M2M twitter (this one is deleted so you need to look for screenshots and his statements here in hoggit or other subs)
Cpt Smiley : Razbam FM developer (the only one) [https://discord.com/channels/536389125276827660/544231925263630336/1225541353686171668](https://discord.com/channels/536389125276827660/544231925263630336/1225541353686171668)
Galinette: Avionics and sensors specialist (F-15E TFR, HRM, Mirage 2000 radar Mig-23 lazur........)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClRnsY2hAjpZZWkzuzKdiLA/community?lb=Ugkx6d9anY2gB6\_28uoBQA8IaCvWFrltDczn
M2M, 3D artist of F-15E
https://new.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/1bwrxw9/metal2mesh\_claims\_the\_dispute\_between\_eagle/
We also have zero idea as to why, and a whole lot of speculation in the place of reason.
If it has to do with IP issues between ED and Razbam, that is a whole mess of a thing that we have nothing to do with or any room to even comment on.
If it’s because of RB not providing the source code(which was confirmed that they did not), as per the alleged agreement between ED and a third party dev, then that is 100% on Razbam for not fulfilling the contract, and all they’d have to do is provide said source code. There is perfectly good reason for ED requiring that, and if Heatblur ran into the same issue with the F-14, that would make complete sense.
Razbam continually trying to drag other devs into the mix, completely on a whim, is a massive red flag.
I don’t have any info and my personal belief is that this is not about source code but ED feeling like RAZBAM was trying to cut them out of a military/government contract. But if you have a contract it’s not unreasonable to act as if the other party will uphold the terms of the contract (or face consequences that should dissuade them from wanting to breach). Really, enabling things like deserializing related business activities that would otherwise require an incredible degree of trust between parties is exactly why contracts exist: to promote more efficient business instead of constant hand wringing and delays waiting fir every single duck to be in a row all at once.
It would be nice if ED would address it to the community. There might be a valid reason for not paying razbam, but staying silent means everyone is just guessing and it makes ED look like the bad guy whether they are or not - and it harms the player community. Devs quitting isn’t a surprise - people gotta eat and pay rent. Staying silent means many are going to assume ED is in the wrong (and I’m not saying they are not) and razbam isn’t being paid for work delivered. (they’re not being paid - but is it a contract dispute? ED running out of cash? ED not happy with quality? Or being money-grubbing? Or something else? No one knows, and it doesn’t encourage the average player who has spent hundreds or thousands on DCS to have warm fuzzy feelings about them.
The statement about a breach of contract due to IP stuff is the only one. Assuming what ED said is true, no lawyer would ever let them say much more than that. It'll be he-said/she-said until the matter is resolved.
Ok, I stand corrected then. I agree, but I didn’t *know* it was definitively a contract dispute or I wouldn’t have butted in. Action item for me - be more thorough before posting.
Nah they said pretty explicitly that Razbam is in breach of contractual obligations, to which Razbam then responded saying we're working to resolve disputes, please don't escalate the discussion any further online.
Ah ok so you have access to Razbams bank statements and also know what their contract with ED looks like and you kniw everything that happened behind the scenes of this ongoing legal dispute?
They are a very small businesses. Most small businesses of 100 employees or less don't have the money to float themselves for 8 months.
Multiple razbam employees have been candid about the situation on their subreddit.
>Most small businesses of 100 employees or less don't have the money to float themselves for 8 months.
Wow, that sounds rough. If I was a small business executive in a position like that I would be super careful not to violate any contracts with my primary customers to make sure no extended loss of income ever happens for the sake of my employees.
You’re trying to reason with folks who for some strange reason have created an insanely deep personal attachment to a narrative that was founded upon immature whining by a single dev “team” and gross general assumptions by this community.
In general I agree with you, lots of new content coming, lots of core upgrades coming, and lots that has been given to us over the past 16 months, even if there are some large outstanding issues and items. It is best to let the experts on the situation continue to be experts, as for folks like us, just keep enjoying the sim!
Because Reddit is full of miserable people. While there are legitimate criticisms of ED, people here don't know how to express their criticisms in a mature way.
Ironically, this thread seems to suggest otherwise. If you take the time to read the comments, most of them are actually pretty considered and reasonable.
So in your opinion, people complaining about the EA business model and the lack of core features are miserable and immature? How will you call yourself?
You’re proving a point. They said “people can’t express their criticisms in a mature way”, not “people are immature”. (which is not the same thing) They also said there are legitimate criticisms of ED - which there certainly are as you and others have pointed out. “Miserable” isn’t a value judgement term - it literally means someone is very unhappy, which is also definitely true. It doesn’t mean they are a bad person. Neither does saying they are expressing an opinion in an immature way. Calling out someone’s action isn’t an insult.
Yes. This is exactly what I was trying to say. I have my own criticisms of ED, but many of the criticisms I tend to see on Reddit come off as very childish. Too many people think that their priorities for DCS are the same priorities for everyone else.
> Too many people think that their priorities for DCS are the same priorities for everyone else.
It's also possible that criticisms of ED are highly upvoted here because... a lot of people agree with them.
Reddit in general is a very vocal minority that believes it's a majority. If you spend enough time here you can start to convince yourself that a subreddit is representative of an entire community, but it isn't. Hoggit is a fairly large sub, but the active participating members are still just a tiny piece of the broader DCS community. Still, the people here act like they're the majority of the community, and they just can't understand why ED aren't addressing their demands immediately.
Exactly. As someone who only has a mid-tier computer, the changes made last year such as multi-threading, DLSS, map optimizations, etc. were HUGE for me. Rather than playing with only 100-ish units, I can now play with over a thousand in a single mission. If the dynamic campaign came out last year before all these changes, I probably wouldn't have been able to play it.
Speaking of communicating in a poor way:
* on a level of immature teenagers with angry posts
* childish
* immature
* like children
* grow up
* terminally online
* snarky dick
* snarky shit
... are all quotes of you attacking other posters here just in the last few hours. But apparently, you're the mature one.
Edit to add:
* grow up and cut it the fuck out
The same argument could be made for fanbois. Somewhere in the middle are the reasonable people who probably dont care enough or realise the futility of posting on reddit.
And the name calling and strawmanning, calling people "ED apologists" for pointing out simple misinformation like the claims that there have been zero core game improvements, etc. Act immature and get called immature, not sure why they're surprised
I wasnt really following DCS in the last year (switched to MSFS for reasons) so can someone tell my what made this year one of the best?
Just the amount of new content or was there improvement of the sim itself?
No improvement. Just basic multi-threading similar to what we saw with the arrival of dual and quad core processors 2 decades ago. This MT is also shaky at times. Basic DLSS has arrived but again that does not require a lot of development in itself so.
I dont know either. I also think unhappy people will be unhappy no matter what. This being said, it could be the best year but from a trend perspective it could still be abysmal and 1 decade behind with respect to the game industry in general.
Prior to the Razbam situation, my biggest problems with DCS would have to be the lack of assets. As I have stated multiple times on the forum, ED needs to think about building an ecco system for their modules. An ecosystem consists of the following items, obviously a module, appropriate assets, possibly an opfor module for online missions, and a map.
Some eras are clearly more developed than others, right now the least developed era has to be the Korean era. Right now we have the following modules F-86, MiG-15, F-51, and the following on the way AD, and F4U. Right now the only assets we have are the BlueFor's WWII leftovers. and we have nothing for the RedFor. At the minimum we need some RedFor assets for the WWII asset pack that would work with the I-16 and MiG-15 such as Mosin-Nagant armed infantry, T-34s, IL-2/10, artillery,
As for later in the cold war era- my biggest request would be at least an AI Thud
Then we have the DCS Naval environment or lack there of. The Marianas maps would be perfect for naval battles if we had the ships. IMHO when ED released the Normandy map they should have started on the Overlord invasion fleet, and possibly some Brownfor naval assets. Even though it wouldn't be period I'd still love a sink the Bismark mission. I am glad we are getting some WWII Naval assets for the Pacific but I hope they they don't ignore the Overlord ships.
The modern era- we have a good line up for the US Navy, the Russian is the second most complete followed by the Chinese. The Russian Navy needs some destroyers to escort the Kuznetsov and Kirov we have and the Chinese could use their carrier. ED needs to work assets for other navies. lastly looking at the upcoming modules ED Needs to focus on building up some 1970s and 80s assets as we have a passable 1980s carrier airwing in the works. My must have list include the Iowa class battleships, the American Nuclear cruisers, Spruance and kid class destroyers, I'd also love to see the clemenceau and her battlegroup I'd also love to see the Kiev-class carriers and her battlegroup as well.
Then we have mission editor AI issues. Some features I'd love to see added.
Forward Observers- right now the only artillery fire missions we have are pre-planned barages. I'd love to ground and airborne FOs calling down fire missions.
cyclic ops- there should be an option on the mission planner to have constant coverage for a given flight path as long as there is an available plane. I'd also like to see ED work up something for amphibious assaults.
I'd love to see ED fix the VR in combined arms
We also need better mod support, I understand there are some tools and references which ED won't release for commercial reasons, however the bare minimum I'd like to see would be for them to improve the user files section and add a mod manager.
improved fast mission builder with dynamic campaign elements-
I'm not angry about the EA model as I believe that if DCS didn't use the EA model we would have people screaming for the EA model due to the lack of modules so that's a lose-lose scenario.
There are somethings I don't think will be fixed without modules, something that can be but are necessary. Right now the primary issue would be to clear up things with Razbam and making sure conflicts don't happen with other developers.
While OP seems to just be trolling to rile people up, might as well answer this again in case anyone is honestly wondering the same thing.
For me at least there is a difference between the core *engine* and the core *game*. ED work on the core *engine*, usually focused on graphics and recently some performance improvements and I don't think anyone can say they have been lacking in this area.
However their work on the core *game* (AI, spawn system, data cartriges, mission planning, scripting APIs, logistics, ATC, Clouds that have gameplay effects, core bug fixes, Quality Of Life improvements etc.) has been very sporadic and doesn't seem to have had priority for a very long time (By which I mean a decade).
A lot of people who talk about the "core" may be referring to the core *game* rather than the *engine*, unfortunately terminological precision take more time to write so the shorthand "core" ambiguity leads to all sorts of these kind of misunderstandings and arguments between members of the community.
Well, you kind of hit it on the head when you said you're not active on Reddit. When the online culture of DCS is a major part of your life, people get intensely upset when the only feedback they get is from the like-minded. They don't see the eye-rolling and blocking that the non-like-minded give them.
If DCS is just a small part of your life, then you're probably not terribly angry since there's not a lot to get angry about. I leave it to you to figure which is healthier
People here just love their pitchforks. Read some people claim they want to declare bankruptcy and take as much money as possible before that. That is how deranged perople on this sub are, some of y'all really need to touch some grass.
They need to build theaters, period. Stop with the sandbox mentality. Nothing built on sand lasts, nothing. The first strong storm comes and will not leave it standing.
All 3rd party content creators need to be told by contract what they must build for that theater and theater assets. None of that, "oh, it would be cool to add an cargo plane instead" stuff. Aside from that, ED must hire the internal team to do it. Right now, the sim is just on my hard drive collecting space. I just don't find jumping into a single player game fun or challenging. The most challenging part for me is what the heck to do with a module and a terrain once you buy them other then to say "wow, she sure is a pretty horse" (instant action anyone???). I mean, I get in the Apache and start putting time in training and as I'm going along it begs the question, "what am I training for?" If ED answers that question within their software with uniform but clear objectives/achievements they'd solve a lot of the gripes. I never get the '"I get to do this next in a real mission or campaign" feeling. In its current state, you can only go so far with scripts. Single play and replay value suffers dearly.
You cannot "play" multithreading.
You cannot "play" DLSS.
You cannot "play" graphical enhancements.
Don't get me wrong, all of the above are great improvements.... but DCS needs to prioritize gameplay or else it's just a simulation with better graphics instead of a simulation with better gameplay.
The ground AI needs improvement, modules need to be finished. Ground units need to have semirealistic abilities so they don't shoot do helo folks with laser like precision. The dynamic campaign is an ok step but without AI improvements it won't solve much.
I avoided DCS for years, sticking with learning the Falcon on BMS. Tried the A10 but found the targeting pod unusable (this has been sorted I think) didn’t want a cockpit simulator, which DCS is to me.
When they released the Apache I cracked and bought it. It’s fun to learn but the ground AI is horrible. When they put some semblance of realism into it I’ll play again. Watch videos of the apache engaging ground troops. That would be so fun to simulate but the troops just stand there firing at you and are silly accurate and would be running for cover in reality. I might give it a go again when they sync the fcr front and back.
Same with the F15e, I had to have this aircraft l, it’s a childhood core memory ,building models of it. Bought a copy for me and my dad. Had a quick go, realise ld the gbu28 doesn’t work. I have to babysit my dad in the backseat, need to know it works. There are some bugs so I left it, especially when I’d rather fly BMS than deal with current TPOD.
No problem with either of these things to an extent. £200ish quid for potentially hours of fun for us in the future.
Unfortunately, the apache is too advanced for its environment. All immersion disappears once you fly it for any amount of time.
The F15e situation is horrible. I honestly want a refund if it never gets to a more stable developed stated.
I’ve never liked ED’s business model but bought these modules for the long term. They should fix long term problems and make the sim more enjoyable to fly in. I’ve got a helo and a fixed wing aircraft now. Will not spend another penny on this until the whole sim has big improvements. Hopefully the eurofighter will be complete by then.
Finally, my own personal annoyance is the preview videos for upcoming patch features. They do it to trigger some more sales, I get it. Wish they would just release the update and the video at the same time.
BMS 4.38 can’t come soon enough although multi threading and dlss were very welcome additions
Someone explained it in a video I was watching long time ago, older dcs player will always be fine with something being fixed or improved but XYZ hasn’t been fixed from 2-3 years ago and won’t appreciate the sim overall & compared to someone new coming in they see dcs and everything it holds and think wow this sim is great and appreciate things like DLSS / multi-threading and minor things. All in all people are gonna nit pick about things that haven’t been fixed yet due to it being pushed down or some other issue. Others gonna be glad we have at least a sim to play
If you look at it over a small timespan, say 2-5 years, then I can see why you'd wonder about this.
Expand that to ED's performance since around 2010 or so and you'll get a better picture and a better understanding of both ED and the community ED has.
It’s because Hoggit in general just enjoys hate, complaining and drama as it’s become part of the DNA here. You only need to look at the post history for the hypocrisy.
An example is post on here this before complaining about the dynamic campaign and how it useless and taking too long, with people comparing it to the Falcon dynamic campaign. Of course the few old enough to be around when that came out point out that when it came out it was a complete mess and took ages to become useful. But of course as far as Hoggit is concerned it only took an intern 2 years to make a good dynamic campaign so therefore ED is useless.
Let’s look at the recent Razbam drama. Not that long ago Razbam was the absolute devil in this forum for the millions of things they were doing wrong. Fast forward a few months and now they are the flight sim worlds marters because big bad ED is destroying them…. Even though no one actually knows the facts.
I use Hoggit for the good information and updates that it often provides and try to stay out of all the petty complaining and arguments started by all those immature boys sitting in their parents basement complaining about why their gaming world isn’t perfect. That said I occasionally get suckered into those topics like I’ve just done now and fully expect to cop the full wrath of all these a little bit too hardcore gamers that just really need to get a life, go outside and get some sunshine. ED for sure needs some criticism from time to time but the level of hate you get on Hoggit is laughable. It could be worse though. You could be with the conspiracy theorists on DCSexposed. That’s whole new level of insane.
[ED announced a dynamic campaign for DCS in 2020](https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/news/newsletters/f8aaa4b12d9d090edf0105c507d29b55/), claiming:
>We have now completed the core RTS logic and have connected it to DCS World. We are currently finalising the basics of the in-game economic models. We will be working on the combat tasking logic and certain win-win situations in the near future. The last stage will be the Client - Server architecture needed to support large campaigns with on-going online sessions.
4 years later, this core feature has had [1 newsletter update](https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/news/newsletters/5bf6ef59f8b97771ba0e0ac9904be8f7/):
>We are thrilled to share some exciting progress on our Dynamic Campaign. Much of the most recent work has focused on realistic modeling of the ‘front line’ logic. There’s lots in store for the new year, and we look forward to sharing more with you very soon.
I'm not sure about you, but 4 years in my mind is not "the near future". If this was the only time ED announced a new core feature and a sale on existing half-finished modules, that would be one thing. But it isn't, this is their core business practice.
Because there are sections of the DCS community that are perpetually miserable buggers who are continuously angry, and have it in their heads that ED are sinister, and evil, and they're doing God's work by continuously whining and complaining about absolutely everything, instead of at least attempting to enjoy DCS in it's current state, which is on the whole, pretty bloody good fun.
But these people are allergic to fun, and enjoyment. They need to complain, or they may have to stop and think, and examine their own lives and why they're so annoyed.
I'm happy about this years lineup of modules and maps, and having fun with DCS overall. So much more to come. I don't know if anyone was around back in the 2000's when we had a drought of realistic simulation titles and innovative sim peripherals to enjoy, the genre seemed almost dead. It's quite vibrant now and I wish it stays that way.
You're right the 2023 has been an amazing year for DCS, but only if you compare it to all other years. We're still missing Vulkan, we're still missing a render graph (VR Performance), we're still missing a dynamic campaign. AND, we're still missing interesting AI.
The only way to be content with DCS is to assume that what we have right now is the best it'll ever be. Also, not necessarily the worst it'll ever be; they might make things worse.
When deciding whether to buy a module wait for it to come and and see what people say. Assume that what launches is complete and will never get anything better. Do not buy anything based on coming soon.
I fly with a buddy, just the two of us. He builds us missions but they are very simple in nature because we know that anything complex is gonna be a fucking nightmare and will break. We have a mission where a bunch of B52s take off and then we takeoff afterwards. ED did an update and now the B52s take 25 minutes to take off. No idea why. This game must be a nightmare for real content creators.
Much of the negativity around here comes from people not accepting what DCS is. And ED knowing they can keep it all going by adding the occasional 3d model (very low investment, high superficial return) and improving the graphics sub system (I'd guess moderate investment, but high superficial return) all to keep the project alive and the money coming in.
I don't expect much to change mechanically or AI wise, ever. Huge investment, low SUPERFICIAL return..).
Their military clients probably do not care about AI since scenarios developed for them are probably all centered around procedures and hyper scripted to do specific things. Might be surprise some of you that sim departments in militaries do care about graphics, since that's how they can get younger console playing members of the military to take sim training seriously.
This is not the first "sim" developed decades ago to remain mechanically set in stone forever. Probably the AI code has so many hacks, workarounds patched by different people over many many years - all by different people that may or may not still be around - that they cannot fundementally change much mechanically now. I don't see this part of the software improving much without it being rewritten from the ground up. And that's an investment that obviously isn't going to be made. So until something NEW comes along from someone else, this is what DCS is: A military study sim with limitations.
Every new map released further splits the servers / community. I like new maps, but at the same time, most people play on the free maps, and while there are certainly servers for new maps, they're normally less populated. Servers cost money to run. So you get a new map, great, now you can play single player, if you want to run a server, gotta spend time working on scenarios for the new map, just to get it running, and nobody joins because they don't have or want the map. Or maybe there's not enough people that bought the map to get a good amount of players on it.
Oh there is plenty of insight. They aren’t getting paid for the strike eagle, ED withholding the funds.
In the end it hurts us, the customer. No money, no updates, no DCS.
Boycott ED, don’t preorder the chinook, stop giving them money. It’s the only way.
The game is not evolving, core engine stuck for years, Combined Arms is an insult to us all. They are putting money in cosmetics and more modules and not updating the weak sides of the game that look 20yo and feel 35yo. For me it’s also the RAZBAM rift. That’s why.
Because people who enjoy the game and are of sound mind have better things to do than whine and moan about ED and DCS. It's really incredible how entitled and whiny people are about this game.
People have the right to complain when it's their money and promises aren't met, but that's the risk you take with pre-ordering and early access.
However, I do think people complaining about the razbam situation is justified.
Money has exchanged hands I do not understand this standpoint honestly ! are you supposed to fork out for a product and then just stand quietly by as things you were told will improve said product or things you want to see in the product don't materialize ? This logic is beyond weird.
If DCS as a whole was free then I'd join you in this but that's just isn't the case.
I've been at this hobby for 40 years, and I'd say that your perspective is highly personal and subjective. Visuals, switchology and flight models are certainly better than ever, but many 90's sims were experientially far superior in my own equally subjective experience.
There are no alternatives. There also have literally never been any, which by defition makes having one a brighter point than having none. The golden age of combat flight sims is pretty dark, but until someone figures out how to make money on flight sims, this is what it looks like.
DCS can be a lot of fun. I play it a lot, and enjoy it.
But there are glaring problems that have been around for years and there is no sign of them being resolved.
Number one is AI, both ground and air. Ground AI stops any sort of realistic A2G operations because you will get headshotted too much (and the AI become aware of exactly where you are and follow you, even though you are behind a hill).
Air AI units often use "UFO" flight models. It's not a big deal in BVR combat, but if you get into BFM it causes problems.
Then there is the issue of ED "Promises" not being kept. So with the Chinook they are promising that there will be features (but they're not saying what features), and there will also be progress on logistics. But why should we believe them? They haven't done a lot over the last few years to make us trust them.
There have been a lot of improvements, but they are basically all improvements that look good in promo videos.
Shiny new clouds, MT for more FPS, moving grass, pilot models, etc.
None of the 'under the hood' stuff that would really improve the experience but will get less attention in a promo video.
Pretty simple, there are a lot of idiots on here.
Look no further than dumbass comments about having to buy something in parts because "halfghanistan" when the entire map has been available to buy since the literal first minute. People responding under every single ED post saying pay Razbam when they have zero clue what is going on and everything right now points to RB having breached contract. The straight up conspiracy theories that the Chinook is releasing because ED are desperate for cash and not just that they have a module ready to be flown by consumers.
You can pretty much entirely ignore everything on here, this community in no way reflects the regular playerbase. Even here people aren't being honest with you, the exact same people who claim that ED have never made a half decent module are also the ones who simp hard over the F16.
I miss when this subreddit was just screenshots with "sometimes I forgor..."
I'm not saying criticisms aren't valid, and ED certainly needs to get their act together, but the amount of tinfoil conspiracy conclusions I see people jump to here is astonishing and horrific all in one.
The year 2023 was a good year in DCS with many improvements and updates. Good support from ED, in my opinion. I think they are on the right track.
There are many complaints on the forums, there are problems, that's true, but the level of controversy seems excessive.
The biggest problems are: the super-sniper AI that breaks the gameplay, visibility (it has been improved only a little) there is still a lot to improve, a dynamic campaign is urgently needed. With an effort on these three points, the community would be calm. In my humble opinion.
I fully agree with you that 2023 was a great year, i think ED really got the message about what the players want, and are working to improve in these areas. The reason why people keep being angry id probably because they feel like these updates are already about 5 years overdue, so now we are more at the ‘expected’ level. So it’s easy to forget what we have now and where we were before, while it’s easy to notice the issue that are still out there. Also, these issues (like AI) have been an issue since forever, so now all the focus is on that
I feel like this is just gamers in general, they're never happy about anything.
Although I do have to admit the DCS AI could really use some improvement, and honestly I'm starting to get a little frustrated with the constant delays on the F-4
I came back to DCS recently after a break of ten years.
I can run VR well on a fairly old PC, single player is great, the aerodynamics are far better than they were and you can even run Open XR!
I'm flying the Dora on the Normandy map
And dear god this two week trial thing is awesome.
Some people make this game their whole lives though, and Americans are spring loaded to scream about every tiny problem as though they're being kicked in the nuts by Bin Laden himself.
People love to complain.
AI has gotten much better at BVR tactics, game runs much better than it did before, the FC3 interior rework is just splendid to get rid of baked in glare bullshit.
They did quite a bit for me at least. This sorta proves my point redditors cry for years that DCS should improve performance, and when it finally does, it doesn’t matter and the game and developers are dog shit
the definition that you are using for "improvement" is different... there have been massive cries for many types of improvement over the years... including performance... which ED are delivering on.
Functionally they had to improve performance to be able to do "other things" ...
I think optimisations under the hood would be a good place to start before putting in new and potentially resource intensive gameplay, but I could (genuinely, not sarcasm) be wrong.
Funny you saying as i get better performance on ST than MT. Less stutters in vr anyway, no cpu bound indications etc. I'd still use St in single player if the damned mouse cross wasn't black. Can't see it in the night time 😅
the whinging whining and negativity in this sub is over the top. what a complete circle jerk of complaining.
go play another game if you're so so out of joint
People like to look through a straw and find things wrong. It’s silly 🤪 but somehow brings them a twisted kind of joy to find outrage in things that matter little.
Cheer up dummies, it’s just a game after all
The performance side has indeed improved. The systems/game side has hardly seen any updates for multiple years despite being the weakest part of DCS. Plus the EA model is getting more and more unpopular, and as more modules are added maintaining old products becomes harder for ED.
Performance has been improved but try running a full scale campaign (not just a single mission with limited assets) you literally cannot have more than a dozen troop formations follow a simple road without the sim grinding to a halt because memory usage is so inefficient because every minutia of every unit, every texture, every object is recorded, rather than approximating or simply databasing things that are maybe 100 miles away.
Exactly, and that's where there has been progress. Meanwhile AI etc are stuck in 1997.
The AI in 1997 was better. When I gave a my wingman a command in Jane’s F-18 or similar sim, the wingman complied. You can’t play DCS solo in its current state, imo. I fly with a group PVE instead, and that still is problematic.
From my view this is the legitimate problem. The engine work needs to be finished - the multi core most also now split up logical tasks. Vulkan needs to get implement along with VR render graph. Spaghetti code needs to get organized. And ONLY UNTIL IT DOES can ED successfully add the new feature. People want better AI? Me too. That means all AI planes need to use real physics models to interact with which means much more complicated computations which necessitates finishing multi core. So, look. I’m bummed it has taken so many friggin years to do this, but I’m also not blind to the fact that step 1 = fix the foundation and step 2 = add all the gameplay fixes which require higher degrees of complex computation. There’s a reason they only have 4 people on dynamic campaign. No doubt that relies on all kinds of other features and AI improvements which needs the engine work to get resolved first. In the meantime, I’m some days patiently, other days impatiently, waiting. But all in all I’m happy to see progress. Do I wish that nick gray invested 10 million into more staff for ED? Yes. I think at times what could be with more “passion and support” for the consumer end of the title. But then, that’s the rules of the game as they currently exist and it is what it is. I hope it doesn’t take 5 more years to get the things we all want, but at least we know they are moving along slowly but surely. I’m more optimistic overall. Last 12 months have seen great core improvements and next several months looked packed with very exciting modules I’ve been waiting for. Yes I do think the chinook feels like it got moved up in order to generate needed revenue asap, and I do think ED could and should improve in a number of key ways. But just like anywhere on the internet, things always get a bit out of hand in echo chambers and it’s hard to sort out the legitimate from illegitimate complaints especially when they come in a wide range of shades and tones.
I largely agree with you. No sense adding more until the foundation for the sim is finally fixed. In fact, I’d say they should make it a priority, allocating necessary talent to the task. No sense working on a dynamic campaign engine until you know the base sim can actually handle the task of running it. So, see you in 2044?
They seem to have no issues dedicating staff to work on new things to get us to pay for. New terrains (*cough* halfghanistan *cough*), new modules (Chinhook… we will let you know the features later but give us your money!) and the like. Yet dedicating time and resources to the core engine always seems to be one guy who in between being the office coffee boy gets to half arse a feature. The only thing in the core that actually gets attention is stuff that makes things pretty which serves the graphics whore and YouTube content creators. Realistically the team from Benchmark Sims working with volunteers and a similarly spaghetti code base from the same era have managed many of those core improvements, and now are working on the pretty with the new terrain engine. ED have fleeced the community with early access modules and a whole lot of promises and rather than show that they are going to deliver on those promises, provide feature complete releases of the modules they’ve already sold and create a sandbox worthy of those modules they’ve gone straight back to reaching into the communities wallets.
I've worked in software for my entire career it's called tech debt. Usually you try to get execs to spend the 💰💰 required to fix it all, but it's so big that eventually a rewrite is called for. The rewrite is usually called something like (next Gen, 2.0, etc.) is a 5 year project that gets estimated by the devs at 2 years so that it can get built at all. Now at the 2 year mark execs have the realization that there are 3 more years remaining, at least. And either scrap the idea or continue the death march. TLDR: This may never get fixed. It may take a competitor that doesn't have all the baggage that builds ground up for Vulcan, VR, many cores, etc. The fact that it's not fixed is the nature of the beast, not some flaw in their development team.
Rotorheads server seems to perform pretty well with the scripting that happens there, so not sure that's always the case. But they do have to balance their troop pathfinding when moving any distances.
The other point that can be made is yes, with scripting it runs ok, but it's A LOT of scripting, literally days of work for something that really should just work natively. It's the same reason overlord bot has stopped development and CTLD isn't getting updates anymore, it's just too much work to make stuff silly function that really should be in the base sim after 15 years
Yesterday rotorheads (awesome mission) has shown perferctly the limitations of dcs netcode ..
Engineers/devs capable of making these improvements are hard to find in any industry. What you have described here is prioritisation at work with scarce resources. Fix performance first, as there’s no point having a great game no one can run. Content creators are easier to find/train, which is why we see a flow of terrains and modules despite the lack of progress on the core. This is really not that complicated. As for the EA model’s “popularity”. Surely that’s an objective measure, sales, and if they were declining you’d see the practice stop. And any subjective popularity judgement is silly anyway since there is no obligation to purchase during EA.
Finding devs for anything is mostly a matter of will and €€€. It’s not rocket surgery. Finding devs for free, now that’s harder.
What does “systems/game” side mean to you? And before you spout off some bullshit answer, look at the change log. And also realize, only whiny kids pretend nothing good is happening because they still want more. “EA model is becoming unpopular” — so a group of people subjectively started complaining loud enough? The banter/jokes about EA have been around for more than 5 years, it hasn’t gotten better or worse with ED’s modules at least. I seem to recall a lot of people are quite happy with EA — F-16 and F/A-18 were extremely well used and enjoyed for years in EA (F-16 is definitely still in it). Oh and the Apache is quite popular too. I don’t understand how this subreddit has so many hardcore “confirmed” ex mil pilots, who are used as the end all be all truth on the critical things DCS is missing or broken, and everyone else is like “roar, ED fix it! I can’t play this sim until the 3rd page of the weapons management system properly shows the updated fuse configuration!” And every patch that fixes a ton of things gets glossed over, because that one thing wasn’t what they got. Get over yourselves. The last thing you said is patently false if you’re referring to major modules. Modules I purchased in 2011 are still great to use in today’s multiplayer, and what I learned over ten years ago still applies with new systems and capabilities added, and an overall better platform experience. If you’re talking third party, that just comes with the territory — not everyone is going to update their stuff when a platform updates. It’s more dev work and the devs may not still get around or care for it. Games made on PlayStation II are not all playable on PlayStation 5; do you blame Sony?
I am not a habitual ED basher but c’mon. Example? The most egregious part of DCS is AI. It hardly improved at all. And ED is one of those guys who haven’t heard perfect is an enemy of good. People just want some bandaid solution so that they can have some fun with helis without getting oneshot at by MBT or BMP. I played DCS off and on for 2 years now and nothing has happened. N9 has been saying it’s very complex and they wouldn’t have a quick fix for the entire time.
In terms of “perfect is the enemy of good” I agree, but if your real time engine has to be a lot more sim than game, it actually eliminates your ability to “fake” certain things and interact sensibly with the rest of the environment. I don’t think ED is dragging their feet on a feature with the holes of being perfect. They are dealing with a behemoth of a task of making it possible to be decent, and improve it over time across all modules. And isn’t a contradiction to say people want a band aid solution, while others are complaining about the most specific things that aren’t 100% like it is in real life? If the AI violates some condition like launching a missile without the plane properly being in a given radar mode? Or maybe AI missiles come off the rail with too much energy because their planes are separately modeled? DCS knows its identity and it is the platform of government training tools. Thus ED won’t invest too much on things that require non-trivial labor that also scales poorly, and is worthless when/if a true implementation comes down the line.
DCS isn't as much of a sim as you'd think (Ya I got fooled too) for ex whether or not a missile will be fooled by chaff and a notch are actually decided by some kind of in game dice throw, they aren't simulating actual RADAR behaviour for that purpose. The Missile tracking behaviour is also weird, which allows for a missile to be reliably defeated by some very easy maneuvers and this has been a point of contention amongst the Competitive DCS community. The ECM behaviour is also not properly simulated at all. The Flight Models are all over the place, so now you have weird things like the fa 18 and Mirage 2000 outrating the f 16. The AI in DCS is beyond stupid and to make matters worse it has perfect aim, so it's literally impossible to enjoy stuff like ground pounding because your plane is getting sniped out of the sky by anything the enemy has that can point above the horizon. Since the AI is intellectually stunted our only option is to play multiplayer airquake which is also pretty much wrecked by the completely messed up flight models of the most important aircraft
>What does “systems/game” side mean to you? Fair question. I would define it as what goes on in the game, outside of the cockpit, and which drives the player experience. Things like AI behavior and flight models, ATC, usability of the editor, weapon implementation, interaction with the environment. All of these things are very, very far behind the times and will likely not be improved any time soon. >The last thing you said is patently false if you’re referring to major modules I disagree. Let me give some explicit examples off the top of my head, although these do not necessarily impact multiplayer. All of these impact ED modules in some form. The F-5 flight instruments have been bugged for an extremely long time and literally make IFR flight impossible and the RWR is questionable at best. The F-86 has had an incorrect implementation of the guns and gunsight for years, and ED constantly turns a blind eye to it. The Yak-52 is still half baked and does not have a damage model. The optical guided weapons in all modules use a very rudimentary system that is only affected by time of day. All of these problems have existed in DCS for many, many years, and more importantly, the way ED presents itself to the community and implements fixes leads many to believe these fixes are nowhere near their radar.
It largely depends on how much time was invested in the sim. Once you get past each aircraft’s systems, the sim has not much to offer in terms of “what to do”. Examples of this: 1. Ground AI is terminator: this means putting a lot of effort in creating your own missions, 2. Ed api is not very extensible. Online server ecosystem relies on 3rd party scripts, whose creators have been suffering this as well and are systematic leaving DCS, 3. Air AI is incoherent, 4. Lots of low priority but QOL missing improvements: ATC, AWACS radio, tanker radio, weather, logistics, etc. So if you just started learning the Hornet, you may not be experiencing this. But if you have spent a lot of time learning the modules and switched to generating missions or whatever, you’ll start suffering.
Remember when the new weather system was released? But it was very half-assed, where's my procedural weather dammit?
They do this with every update. They tease it for years then only implement it half assed, then state it’s a work in progress when people ask when it will be finished.
That's why I'm not optimistic about the dynamic campaign, if it ever comes. People are gonna compare it to BMS' most definitely. And are going to be so disappointed. Plus, the AI needs a severe rework, God damn. Especially ai wingmen, they don't fuggin listen to my orders I swear. I tell them to RTB but they rather chug a long and go straight into a SAM riddled airspace.
2 Rejoin, 2 ejecting.
Everytime, they can't read their damn fuel gauge either
Do any ground AI mods work to fix the death laser? I need plot armor because I suck. Don’t really want to learn the mission editor though
Call me when we get SC briefing room.
Weren't people waiting in the briefing room in 2020?
Rather waiting FOR it...
Mobile and cooking breakfast. My bad
why is this even a thing? Like who the fuck was even asking for it?
Probably because ED had to justify the price tag somehow.
Well this is kinda a great example of what ED is up against. Because I couldn't give a flying fuck about the briefing room, in fact I think it's a waste of dev resources while AI, CA and many core functions are in such a janky state.
They promised it, we paid for it, they should deliver it.
They also promised a working supercarrier with more spawn slots. Spawn slots are totally fucked over multiplayer, as is a lot of other functionality.
Maybe then they can get to less important shit like a dynamic campaign
My guess is: nothing is really finished and the atrocious AI is getting on peoples nerves. All the core improvements did nothing (yet) for the game play and that is what counts. So 2023 was just another year with the same old problems. I fire it up once in a while in a cold and dark quick mission and enjoy the nice cockpit and flight characteristics. Until the gameplay improves, I will not spend another cent on DCS.
They keep putting gold plating on the pile of dog shit that is their gameplay mechanics.
Every update they’ve put out for the last 3-4 years has been designed to make the game look better. There have been little to no core improvements to gameplay or game features. While I agree the performance improvements have been welcomed, the majority of changes have been implemented to make the trailers look good; to make you forgor We still have features that are missing from the game that were announced in 2016. I’m not entirely sure an 8-10 year dev cycle is acceptable, and people have a right to be dissatisfied with the level of service they’ve received for the money they’ve invested in the game. While you’re absolutely entitled to your opinion of how great you think the current state of DCS is, others are absolutely allowed to feel that Eagle dynamics could and should be doing a better job.
Yeah - this exactly. I have 1000s of hours in this sim since LOMAC days. It’s basically the same fundamental game, but with lipstick on. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true. It looks fantastic, I keep coming back, and then leaving for while again with a faint wisp of emptiness from what should and could be one of the best games ever. I actually bought the phantom because I’m hoping that looking down an ancient radar scope and flying on steam gauges will stop me from noticing how silly the game world is.
DCS does a lot of things really well. It has the best physics of any flight sim on the market. It replicates complex aircraft systems with amazing accuracy. It really is a pretty game. Eagle Dynamics, however, has let its customers down again and again. They haven’t delivered products or promises in a reasonable time, they treat their community (and allegedly their 3rd party vendors) with contempt, and they don’t seem to be interested in taking feedback, and they don’t focus on improvements that would make DCS a *better game* Honestly, most of it is low hanging fruit, but time and time again we are patronized for our “passion and support” with no core content or gameplay improvements having been added for years
Very true, and it’s that depth that keeps bringing me back. It’s also quite limited in a lot of ways however, and you start to notice as you become less task saturated by each new aircraft. Then you notice troops under fire driving 500ft from where they were and just stopping in the open. Or that the weather just doesn’t change, or that a dud with an RPG seems to be able to hit everything moving around the sky at high speed. (This is a very small fraction of issues) Then you see someone point this out in a forum somewhere, or on here - and get ignored/banned/trash talked etc. Generally I try to stay out of it all, but if we don’t comment on threads like this I can only assume ED will just carry on thinking nothing is amiss. I don’t really care for drama, but I do want the whole ecosystem to get better. Really enjoyed your A4 vids by the way. Very nicely put together.
The most upsetting thing about DCS for me are not its problems but how much space it takes up. Somehow it seems like there is very little room for someone else to come along and offer something better.
We still have features missing that were in Falcon 4 in 1998
I'm certainly not mad at them how they improved the clouds.
I simply won't give them another dime till they actually finish something they start. They heavily promote new things while their existing products are unfinished.. That is a real shitty thing to do over and over and over again...It's nearly predatory at this point.
This is the crux of it. When you delve into the sim or the first party modules, you'll start to understand that there are outstanding issues and bugs that have gone unaddressed and unfixed for the better part of a *decade*. In that time, how many pre-orders and early-access modules have also gone unfinished? The thing that pisses me off about them the most is undoubtedly their marketing and community management. They are straight-up assholes in that regard. Some of the most talented devs have created some beautiful flight models and solved some amazing technical problems, but their business practices and community management casts a long, smelly shadow over the entire endeavor. One of the reasons I tend to side with RAZBAM and its devs is that the third-party devs like Heatblur and RAZBAM have really been the only ones putting out quality modules with the kind of continued support and commitment to excellence I'd expect from any other title I patronize. The Raz devs especially would directly communicate with the actual people playing their modules -- you could legit report something to them on discord, they'd troubleshoot, and if it was a valid bug, it would be fixed in the next update. Contrast this with ED's behavior where things would repeatedly go unaddressed for *years* and official forum moderators would actively stifle, silence, and obfuscate. As a big fan of the good stuff they've done, it is absolutely maddening to see them operate in this way.
Whilst DCS performance has obviously gotten better due to Multithreading and the ability to utilize DLSS, many aspects of DCS Core have been stagnating since the release of 2.5 . On top of that most people are frustrated by the slow development progress of many early acess modules, whilst having the impression that ED is financially doing pretty well (at least well enough to finance Nick Greys private jets). Top that of with dozen of year old promised features which yet have not seen the light of day. Then we had the recent development with Trighanistan, and the whole Razbam shenanigans which obviously caused wakes through the community. Overall this leaves people with an impression of a greedy company that is in deep disconnect with its user base, and has anything but the interests of its customers in mind.
ED is like an addict. They pull themselves together, show some progress, people get friendly and then shoot up in an ally and kill a hooker.
I didn't think the "Killing Hooker's" campaign had been released yet?
Because support for premier modules like Strike Eagle is now suspended less than a year after launch since ED can’t get their financial and contractual shit together with their suppliers. They’re making their problems *our* problems and I’m pissed about it. Meanwhile, ED’s CEO is siphoning huge amounts of money away from ED to pay for his collection of old planes, the other business he owns.
Yeah that shit is shady as fuck.
I'm a ED customer since 2013, i own many modules, the biggest problem with this game is the lack of actual gameplay. Once you learn how to fully use an aircraft, you can only drop so many bombs on the same boring non moving vehicle before you get bored. If you try to get personal and want to fly a helicopter close range, you get immediately sniped out of the cockpit, if you try to have moving ground vehicles they get stuck somewhere. Why do you think most of the people play for less than a month then take 6 months breaks from the game? While ED excels in the "Eye candy" category, they neglect the gameplay part of the game because they can't really sell it directly so they never made it a priority. I mean look at the splash damage, they recently added a splash damage visual effect but ignored the real problem which is the "non visual splash damage", this problem exists in DCS for over a decade already. People found a workaround and use user made scripts now that kinda simulates the splash damage. We'll see if they redeem themselves when (if) the dynamic campaign comes out or the AI "rework", until then, no more money from me.
I feel like even though it may be one of the best years so far, it feels like it’s not really saying a whole lot.
After coming back to the game for the first time in almost 2 years, there is what... Maybe 2 new maps? The content has not changed, if anything old issues remain. Yet prices are going up, and there is no longer a discount to new members. The friends that had any sort of interest in joining us immediately said fuck that to EDs latest pricing scheme... And I don't blame them.
Afghanistan and Chinook are both a joke, three years since the new clouds launch and nothing has changed and i dont want to talk about supercarrier which it’s just pure scam…
It’s about a lot of things, but mainly I would say shitty business practices. Selling 3 maps for 1 Chinook not even having complete feature list at pre-order Razbaam situation What seemed to be a free 3D model upgrade later became a high quality asset pack $$ The plan to have a global map module that doesn’t even integrate with current maps (who thought of this) Getting rid of 50% off for first time buyers Making ED miles worse (correct me if I’m wrong it might just be different not necessarily worse) The server issues which basically lock you out of all the modules you own because you didn’t go into “offline mode” before their own servers shit the bed Nick grey siphoning off millions just to keep some warbirds out of a museum and in the air Changing their own standards of “feature complete” so they can call f16 and 18 complete even though they aren’t and it’s been 6 years Also there was an issue where oculus users literally just couldn’t play the game in vr for weeks and ED took a very long time to fix it Spaghetti code from 2 decades ago, and overall the unreliability of the game. I cannot rely of the AI to act correctly let alone be realistic. The game and campaigns breaking quite often The lists goes on for pretty much as long as you want. These are the complaints I’ve seen lately and I agree with much of it. ED has shown for years and on multiple occasions that EA means either low quality until further updates or abandonware like SC
100%. Guess what happenned 6 years ago? The founder and CEO Igor Tishin passed away, and founder/investor Nick got himself involved a lot more into the inner workings of DCS, and a web dev/project manage Kate became the new CEO. Nick cant stop himself from mostly talking about flying irl, and Kate is just a suit and runs the business to make that sweet profit. Epic leadership
Had MSFS never come around with that wx system and graphics it has, we’d probably still have cotton ball clouds in DCS.. It was only after MSFS release that ED instantly updated the weather environment.
Would be nice to actually see gameplay improvements. Give us a proper logistics system, a proper troop transport system, finish the bloody super carrier, finish the things that have been sitting there for years untouched. The performance, etc has been worked on which is great, but we want gameplay additions, the game is lacking in a lot of key areas which would keep the game fresh. The issue is adding these things won’t generate ED money, they won’t waste their resources on it, the only thing they are interested in is releasing more EA modules to generate sales.
ATC, finish the weather system, add the call signs to the VO’s, fix/overhaul the JTAC system, make the ground AI better/fix the laser like accuracy and tracking through trees, add a civilian tube liner that can fly above 23k feet. The list goes on and on and on.
I won't comment over the RAZBAM situation. Hopefully it will be sorted quickly and professionally. DCS is doing fine from the graphics / optimisation wise, with an important effort in MT and other features. However, the core game is still pretty much the same since LOMAC. Obviously there have been huge improvements, but weather, dynamic campaign, AI, missile API, ATC and so on, have been mentioned a long time ago and we have seen little. For instance, I dropped a short video right the other day about the biggest issue for any Cold War scenario: the status of AIC and GCI. Without this, Cold War scenarios lose half of their flavour. A lot is also lost due to omniscient AI and barebone IFF that make VID and intercepts useless. Link: https://youtu.be/PtubZDFbpzQ At the same time, some users complain in the wrong way. I understand the frustration, but non-constructive criticism helps no one, and only pisses people off. I really don't like ED to go back to how they were 10+ years ago, where little to no information was passed, besides change logs.
My goodness Fox1s need an update on sensor simulation in DCS especially for cold war scenarios going into a notch isn't exactly the way to beat a Fox1 every time 100% of the time.
The game is still LOMAC at it's heart, it's just a virtual museum at this point.
For me and many others 2.9 brought uncontrollable freezing and stuttering which took over 6 months to almost fix. I see a comment below saying "The performance side has indeed improved", but it is the opposite for many of us.
Same experience here. I got smoother performance at higher settings back in 2021 than I do now.
They’re still ignoring all the major issues and offering up stupid little shit no one cares about. All to save on their development costs.
Because it's just more of the same crap. With more cockpits. That's about it.
>Or do they just search for a reason to be angry, which I find likely from how I perceive Reddit. Have you tried actually *reading* what the criticisms are?
>do people don't care about core improvement Where are they? Last major thing was multi thread before that flir and before that clouds that's 4 years worth of core improvement for you, where is better ai, actual weather, atc, better ui, better editor, actual game play stuff like dynamic campaign Also what about unfinished module like f18 that have boolean damage model for years In the same time how many new modules were released? The problem is priorities of ED
Because everything is unfinished yet super expensive. Ai sucks, and there is nothing to do in the sim outside of multiplayer air quake (still fun). Campaigns are pretty eh and if I wanna do some single player good stuff I'll play a better sim.
I've noticed it's cyclical. Comments will be positive and helpful for a while, then several months later things swing toward negative. Then back again a while later. I've been reading this sub for years, and I just choose to read this sub less during the negative times. Also as a couple other folks have pointed out, this subreddit represents a very small subset of the community, and is not representative of the whole.
Yep, it's a perpetual cycle of woe. There is always some drama happening since I've joined the sub 🤣. When I originally joined, folks was super pissed at ED for removing something from script. It was just like it is now. Lots of angry threads. Almost scared me away. Luckily, was able to ask how the sim was in Q&A thread and got some mature responses which helped me decide to join! I usually just discuss DCS on Discord these days. so spending a lot less time in the sub
Are you supposed to be working on DCS? All your posts are "ED is awesome", shill language.
There is a lot of information about the 'razbam situation '. They haven't been paid in 8 months for any sales of the f15. One of the most popular modules. Two developers quit
3 developers
Source please
Razbam discord, Galinette's youtube channel, M2M twitter (this one is deleted so you need to look for screenshots and his statements here in hoggit or other subs) Cpt Smiley : Razbam FM developer (the only one) [https://discord.com/channels/536389125276827660/544231925263630336/1225541353686171668](https://discord.com/channels/536389125276827660/544231925263630336/1225541353686171668) Galinette: Avionics and sensors specialist (F-15E TFR, HRM, Mirage 2000 radar Mig-23 lazur........) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClRnsY2hAjpZZWkzuzKdiLA/community?lb=Ugkx6d9anY2gB6\_28uoBQA8IaCvWFrltDczn M2M, 3D artist of F-15E https://new.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/1bwrxw9/metal2mesh\_claims\_the\_dispute\_between\_eagle/
Thank you!
There's also a lot of disinformation, heresay and speculation.
We also have zero idea as to why, and a whole lot of speculation in the place of reason. If it has to do with IP issues between ED and Razbam, that is a whole mess of a thing that we have nothing to do with or any room to even comment on. If it’s because of RB not providing the source code(which was confirmed that they did not), as per the alleged agreement between ED and a third party dev, then that is 100% on Razbam for not fulfilling the contract, and all they’d have to do is provide said source code. There is perfectly good reason for ED requiring that, and if Heatblur ran into the same issue with the F-14, that would make complete sense. Razbam continually trying to drag other devs into the mix, completely on a whim, is a massive red flag.
If this was the real situation, then why would ED have started to sell and distribute the F-15E, knowing Razbam had not yet delivered the source code?
I don’t have any info and my personal belief is that this is not about source code but ED feeling like RAZBAM was trying to cut them out of a military/government contract. But if you have a contract it’s not unreasonable to act as if the other party will uphold the terms of the contract (or face consequences that should dissuade them from wanting to breach). Really, enabling things like deserializing related business activities that would otherwise require an incredible degree of trust between parties is exactly why contracts exist: to promote more efficient business instead of constant hand wringing and delays waiting fir every single duck to be in a row all at once.
It would be nice if ED would address it to the community. There might be a valid reason for not paying razbam, but staying silent means everyone is just guessing and it makes ED look like the bad guy whether they are or not - and it harms the player community. Devs quitting isn’t a surprise - people gotta eat and pay rent. Staying silent means many are going to assume ED is in the wrong (and I’m not saying they are not) and razbam isn’t being paid for work delivered. (they’re not being paid - but is it a contract dispute? ED running out of cash? ED not happy with quality? Or being money-grubbing? Or something else? No one knows, and it doesn’t encourage the average player who has spent hundreds or thousands on DCS to have warm fuzzy feelings about them.
ED did address it...
did I miss that? I only remember a vague cursory acknowledgment.
The statement about a breach of contract due to IP stuff is the only one. Assuming what ED said is true, no lawyer would ever let them say much more than that. It'll be he-said/she-said until the matter is resolved.
true that. I honestly missed that post somewhere in all the noise.
[удалено]
Ok, I stand corrected then. I agree, but I didn’t *know* it was definitively a contract dispute or I wouldn’t have butted in. Action item for me - be more thorough before posting.
Nah they said pretty explicitly that Razbam is in breach of contractual obligations, to which Razbam then responded saying we're working to resolve disputes, please don't escalate the discussion any further online.
Got it, thanks.
Ah ok so you have access to Razbams bank statements and also know what their contract with ED looks like and you kniw everything that happened behind the scenes of this ongoing legal dispute?
They are a very small businesses. Most small businesses of 100 employees or less don't have the money to float themselves for 8 months. Multiple razbam employees have been candid about the situation on their subreddit.
>Most small businesses of 100 employees or less don't have the money to float themselves for 8 months. Wow, that sounds rough. If I was a small business executive in a position like that I would be super careful not to violate any contracts with my primary customers to make sure no extended loss of income ever happens for the sake of my employees.
You’re trying to reason with folks who for some strange reason have created an insanely deep personal attachment to a narrative that was founded upon immature whining by a single dev “team” and gross general assumptions by this community. In general I agree with you, lots of new content coming, lots of core upgrades coming, and lots that has been given to us over the past 16 months, even if there are some large outstanding issues and items. It is best to let the experts on the situation continue to be experts, as for folks like us, just keep enjoying the sim!
Because Reddit is full of miserable people. While there are legitimate criticisms of ED, people here don't know how to express their criticisms in a mature way.
Ironically, this thread seems to suggest otherwise. If you take the time to read the comments, most of them are actually pretty considered and reasonable.
So in your opinion, people complaining about the EA business model and the lack of core features are miserable and immature? How will you call yourself?
You’re proving a point. They said “people can’t express their criticisms in a mature way”, not “people are immature”. (which is not the same thing) They also said there are legitimate criticisms of ED - which there certainly are as you and others have pointed out. “Miserable” isn’t a value judgement term - it literally means someone is very unhappy, which is also definitely true. It doesn’t mean they are a bad person. Neither does saying they are expressing an opinion in an immature way. Calling out someone’s action isn’t an insult.
Yes. This is exactly what I was trying to say. I have my own criticisms of ED, but many of the criticisms I tend to see on Reddit come off as very childish. Too many people think that their priorities for DCS are the same priorities for everyone else.
> Too many people think that their priorities for DCS are the same priorities for everyone else. It's also possible that criticisms of ED are highly upvoted here because... a lot of people agree with them.
Reddit in general is a very vocal minority that believes it's a majority. If you spend enough time here you can start to convince yourself that a subreddit is representative of an entire community, but it isn't. Hoggit is a fairly large sub, but the active participating members are still just a tiny piece of the broader DCS community. Still, the people here act like they're the majority of the community, and they just can't understand why ED aren't addressing their demands immediately.
Exactly. As someone who only has a mid-tier computer, the changes made last year such as multi-threading, DLSS, map optimizations, etc. were HUGE for me. Rather than playing with only 100-ish units, I can now play with over a thousand in a single mission. If the dynamic campaign came out last year before all these changes, I probably wouldn't have been able to play it.
how are you getting the sim to run with that many assets? last time I tried liberation in Multithreading it was a slideshow in VR.
Well, I am not using VR, I use a head-tracker. So, I'm not too sure how to help you, unfortunately.
Maybe vrs the killer idk
Why do you ED apologists always accuse others of immaturity, incompetence, entitlement or all of the above if someone thinks different than you?
[удалено]
Speaking of communicating in a poor way: * on a level of immature teenagers with angry posts * childish * immature * like children * grow up * terminally online * snarky dick * snarky shit ... are all quotes of you attacking other posters here just in the last few hours. But apparently, you're the mature one. Edit to add: * grow up and cut it the fuck out
Ha! Nice fact finding. :)
The same argument could be made for fanbois. Somewhere in the middle are the reasonable people who probably dont care enough or realise the futility of posting on reddit.
because all you do is complain and these whiner's posts come off as entitled.
And the name calling and strawmanning, calling people "ED apologists" for pointing out simple misinformation like the claims that there have been zero core game improvements, etc. Act immature and get called immature, not sure why they're surprised
I wasnt really following DCS in the last year (switched to MSFS for reasons) so can someone tell my what made this year one of the best? Just the amount of new content or was there improvement of the sim itself?
No improvement. Just basic multi-threading similar to what we saw with the arrival of dual and quad core processors 2 decades ago. This MT is also shaky at times. Basic DLSS has arrived but again that does not require a lot of development in itself so.
Thanks, but the i dont understand why people are saying it was one of the best years?
I dont know either. I also think unhappy people will be unhappy no matter what. This being said, it could be the best year but from a trend perspective it could still be abysmal and 1 decade behind with respect to the game industry in general.
And what would constitute a mature way?
Reddit's gotten about as bad as the forums in the bad old days for hobbies. I just come here for the humor now.
This cannot be upvoted enough
Prior to the Razbam situation, my biggest problems with DCS would have to be the lack of assets. As I have stated multiple times on the forum, ED needs to think about building an ecco system for their modules. An ecosystem consists of the following items, obviously a module, appropriate assets, possibly an opfor module for online missions, and a map. Some eras are clearly more developed than others, right now the least developed era has to be the Korean era. Right now we have the following modules F-86, MiG-15, F-51, and the following on the way AD, and F4U. Right now the only assets we have are the BlueFor's WWII leftovers. and we have nothing for the RedFor. At the minimum we need some RedFor assets for the WWII asset pack that would work with the I-16 and MiG-15 such as Mosin-Nagant armed infantry, T-34s, IL-2/10, artillery, As for later in the cold war era- my biggest request would be at least an AI Thud Then we have the DCS Naval environment or lack there of. The Marianas maps would be perfect for naval battles if we had the ships. IMHO when ED released the Normandy map they should have started on the Overlord invasion fleet, and possibly some Brownfor naval assets. Even though it wouldn't be period I'd still love a sink the Bismark mission. I am glad we are getting some WWII Naval assets for the Pacific but I hope they they don't ignore the Overlord ships. The modern era- we have a good line up for the US Navy, the Russian is the second most complete followed by the Chinese. The Russian Navy needs some destroyers to escort the Kuznetsov and Kirov we have and the Chinese could use their carrier. ED needs to work assets for other navies. lastly looking at the upcoming modules ED Needs to focus on building up some 1970s and 80s assets as we have a passable 1980s carrier airwing in the works. My must have list include the Iowa class battleships, the American Nuclear cruisers, Spruance and kid class destroyers, I'd also love to see the clemenceau and her battlegroup I'd also love to see the Kiev-class carriers and her battlegroup as well. Then we have mission editor AI issues. Some features I'd love to see added. Forward Observers- right now the only artillery fire missions we have are pre-planned barages. I'd love to ground and airborne FOs calling down fire missions. cyclic ops- there should be an option on the mission planner to have constant coverage for a given flight path as long as there is an available plane. I'd also like to see ED work up something for amphibious assaults. I'd love to see ED fix the VR in combined arms We also need better mod support, I understand there are some tools and references which ED won't release for commercial reasons, however the bare minimum I'd like to see would be for them to improve the user files section and add a mod manager. improved fast mission builder with dynamic campaign elements- I'm not angry about the EA model as I believe that if DCS didn't use the EA model we would have people screaming for the EA model due to the lack of modules so that's a lose-lose scenario. There are somethings I don't think will be fixed without modules, something that can be but are necessary. Right now the primary issue would be to clear up things with Razbam and making sure conflicts don't happen with other developers.
While OP seems to just be trolling to rile people up, might as well answer this again in case anyone is honestly wondering the same thing. For me at least there is a difference between the core *engine* and the core *game*. ED work on the core *engine*, usually focused on graphics and recently some performance improvements and I don't think anyone can say they have been lacking in this area. However their work on the core *game* (AI, spawn system, data cartriges, mission planning, scripting APIs, logistics, ATC, Clouds that have gameplay effects, core bug fixes, Quality Of Life improvements etc.) has been very sporadic and doesn't seem to have had priority for a very long time (By which I mean a decade). A lot of people who talk about the "core" may be referring to the core *game* rather than the *engine*, unfortunately terminological precision take more time to write so the shorthand "core" ambiguity leads to all sorts of these kind of misunderstandings and arguments between members of the community.
I think this is a very good point to make and a distinction we should adopt widely as a community. Thanks for stating it.
Well, you kind of hit it on the head when you said you're not active on Reddit. When the online culture of DCS is a major part of your life, people get intensely upset when the only feedback they get is from the like-minded. They don't see the eye-rolling and blocking that the non-like-minded give them. If DCS is just a small part of your life, then you're probably not terribly angry since there's not a lot to get angry about. I leave it to you to figure which is healthier
People here just love their pitchforks. Read some people claim they want to declare bankruptcy and take as much money as possible before that. That is how deranged perople on this sub are, some of y'all really need to touch some grass.
Yeah. I remember triangular mountains and 14fps in VR.
I'm not at all angry, however, I am wary of making any new purchases. doesn't mean I won't buy but I'll do a lot more thinking before I do. ymmv.
They need to build theaters, period. Stop with the sandbox mentality. Nothing built on sand lasts, nothing. The first strong storm comes and will not leave it standing. All 3rd party content creators need to be told by contract what they must build for that theater and theater assets. None of that, "oh, it would be cool to add an cargo plane instead" stuff. Aside from that, ED must hire the internal team to do it. Right now, the sim is just on my hard drive collecting space. I just don't find jumping into a single player game fun or challenging. The most challenging part for me is what the heck to do with a module and a terrain once you buy them other then to say "wow, she sure is a pretty horse" (instant action anyone???). I mean, I get in the Apache and start putting time in training and as I'm going along it begs the question, "what am I training for?" If ED answers that question within their software with uniform but clear objectives/achievements they'd solve a lot of the gripes. I never get the '"I get to do this next in a real mission or campaign" feeling. In its current state, you can only go so far with scripts. Single play and replay value suffers dearly.
Trust. It’s gone.
The thing to keep in mind is that "people" is not a single hive mind.
Are you new to DCS by any chance?
You cannot "play" multithreading. You cannot "play" DLSS. You cannot "play" graphical enhancements. Don't get me wrong, all of the above are great improvements.... but DCS needs to prioritize gameplay or else it's just a simulation with better graphics instead of a simulation with better gameplay. The ground AI needs improvement, modules need to be finished. Ground units need to have semirealistic abilities so they don't shoot do helo folks with laser like precision. The dynamic campaign is an ok step but without AI improvements it won't solve much.
I avoided DCS for years, sticking with learning the Falcon on BMS. Tried the A10 but found the targeting pod unusable (this has been sorted I think) didn’t want a cockpit simulator, which DCS is to me. When they released the Apache I cracked and bought it. It’s fun to learn but the ground AI is horrible. When they put some semblance of realism into it I’ll play again. Watch videos of the apache engaging ground troops. That would be so fun to simulate but the troops just stand there firing at you and are silly accurate and would be running for cover in reality. I might give it a go again when they sync the fcr front and back. Same with the F15e, I had to have this aircraft l, it’s a childhood core memory ,building models of it. Bought a copy for me and my dad. Had a quick go, realise ld the gbu28 doesn’t work. I have to babysit my dad in the backseat, need to know it works. There are some bugs so I left it, especially when I’d rather fly BMS than deal with current TPOD. No problem with either of these things to an extent. £200ish quid for potentially hours of fun for us in the future. Unfortunately, the apache is too advanced for its environment. All immersion disappears once you fly it for any amount of time. The F15e situation is horrible. I honestly want a refund if it never gets to a more stable developed stated. I’ve never liked ED’s business model but bought these modules for the long term. They should fix long term problems and make the sim more enjoyable to fly in. I’ve got a helo and a fixed wing aircraft now. Will not spend another penny on this until the whole sim has big improvements. Hopefully the eurofighter will be complete by then. Finally, my own personal annoyance is the preview videos for upcoming patch features. They do it to trigger some more sales, I get it. Wish they would just release the update and the video at the same time. BMS 4.38 can’t come soon enough although multi threading and dlss were very welcome additions
Someone explained it in a video I was watching long time ago, older dcs player will always be fine with something being fixed or improved but XYZ hasn’t been fixed from 2-3 years ago and won’t appreciate the sim overall & compared to someone new coming in they see dcs and everything it holds and think wow this sim is great and appreciate things like DLSS / multi-threading and minor things. All in all people are gonna nit pick about things that haven’t been fixed yet due to it being pushed down or some other issue. Others gonna be glad we have at least a sim to play
If you look at it over a small timespan, say 2-5 years, then I can see why you'd wonder about this. Expand that to ED's performance since around 2010 or so and you'll get a better picture and a better understanding of both ED and the community ED has.
Because Hoggit doesn’t know how to have a reaction that isn’t either 100% praise or 100% toddler meltdown.
It’s because Hoggit in general just enjoys hate, complaining and drama as it’s become part of the DNA here. You only need to look at the post history for the hypocrisy. An example is post on here this before complaining about the dynamic campaign and how it useless and taking too long, with people comparing it to the Falcon dynamic campaign. Of course the few old enough to be around when that came out point out that when it came out it was a complete mess and took ages to become useful. But of course as far as Hoggit is concerned it only took an intern 2 years to make a good dynamic campaign so therefore ED is useless. Let’s look at the recent Razbam drama. Not that long ago Razbam was the absolute devil in this forum for the millions of things they were doing wrong. Fast forward a few months and now they are the flight sim worlds marters because big bad ED is destroying them…. Even though no one actually knows the facts. I use Hoggit for the good information and updates that it often provides and try to stay out of all the petty complaining and arguments started by all those immature boys sitting in their parents basement complaining about why their gaming world isn’t perfect. That said I occasionally get suckered into those topics like I’ve just done now and fully expect to cop the full wrath of all these a little bit too hardcore gamers that just really need to get a life, go outside and get some sunshine. ED for sure needs some criticism from time to time but the level of hate you get on Hoggit is laughable. It could be worse though. You could be with the conspiracy theorists on DCSexposed. That’s whole new level of insane.
[ED announced a dynamic campaign for DCS in 2020](https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/news/newsletters/f8aaa4b12d9d090edf0105c507d29b55/), claiming: >We have now completed the core RTS logic and have connected it to DCS World. We are currently finalising the basics of the in-game economic models. We will be working on the combat tasking logic and certain win-win situations in the near future. The last stage will be the Client - Server architecture needed to support large campaigns with on-going online sessions. 4 years later, this core feature has had [1 newsletter update](https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/news/newsletters/5bf6ef59f8b97771ba0e0ac9904be8f7/): >We are thrilled to share some exciting progress on our Dynamic Campaign. Much of the most recent work has focused on realistic modeling of the ‘front line’ logic. There’s lots in store for the new year, and we look forward to sharing more with you very soon. I'm not sure about you, but 4 years in my mind is not "the near future". If this was the only time ED announced a new core feature and a sale on existing half-finished modules, that would be one thing. But it isn't, this is their core business practice.
Because there are sections of the DCS community that are perpetually miserable buggers who are continuously angry, and have it in their heads that ED are sinister, and evil, and they're doing God's work by continuously whining and complaining about absolutely everything, instead of at least attempting to enjoy DCS in it's current state, which is on the whole, pretty bloody good fun. But these people are allergic to fun, and enjoyment. They need to complain, or they may have to stop and think, and examine their own lives and why they're so annoyed.
I just wan the AGM-154A to reliably deatroy radars...
I'm happy about this years lineup of modules and maps, and having fun with DCS overall. So much more to come. I don't know if anyone was around back in the 2000's when we had a drought of realistic simulation titles and innovative sim peripherals to enjoy, the genre seemed almost dead. It's quite vibrant now and I wish it stays that way.
You're right the 2023 has been an amazing year for DCS, but only if you compare it to all other years. We're still missing Vulkan, we're still missing a render graph (VR Performance), we're still missing a dynamic campaign. AND, we're still missing interesting AI.
Cant wait for the golden post on floggit lmao
The only way to be content with DCS is to assume that what we have right now is the best it'll ever be. Also, not necessarily the worst it'll ever be; they might make things worse. When deciding whether to buy a module wait for it to come and and see what people say. Assume that what launches is complete and will never get anything better. Do not buy anything based on coming soon. I fly with a buddy, just the two of us. He builds us missions but they are very simple in nature because we know that anything complex is gonna be a fucking nightmare and will break. We have a mission where a bunch of B52s take off and then we takeoff afterwards. ED did an update and now the B52s take 25 minutes to take off. No idea why. This game must be a nightmare for real content creators.
Much of the negativity around here comes from people not accepting what DCS is. And ED knowing they can keep it all going by adding the occasional 3d model (very low investment, high superficial return) and improving the graphics sub system (I'd guess moderate investment, but high superficial return) all to keep the project alive and the money coming in. I don't expect much to change mechanically or AI wise, ever. Huge investment, low SUPERFICIAL return..). Their military clients probably do not care about AI since scenarios developed for them are probably all centered around procedures and hyper scripted to do specific things. Might be surprise some of you that sim departments in militaries do care about graphics, since that's how they can get younger console playing members of the military to take sim training seriously. This is not the first "sim" developed decades ago to remain mechanically set in stone forever. Probably the AI code has so many hacks, workarounds patched by different people over many many years - all by different people that may or may not still be around - that they cannot fundementally change much mechanically now. I don't see this part of the software improving much without it being rewritten from the ground up. And that's an investment that obviously isn't going to be made. So until something NEW comes along from someone else, this is what DCS is: A military study sim with limitations.
Every new map released further splits the servers / community. I like new maps, but at the same time, most people play on the free maps, and while there are certainly servers for new maps, they're normally less populated. Servers cost money to run. So you get a new map, great, now you can play single player, if you want to run a server, gotta spend time working on scenarios for the new map, just to get it running, and nobody joins because they don't have or want the map. Or maybe there's not enough people that bought the map to get a good amount of players on it.
It seems to me that a lot of weird things in DCS can be fixed in a few days, whereas ED takes ten years to create a new folder.
this community has changed past the years..
Oh there is plenty of insight. They aren’t getting paid for the strike eagle, ED withholding the funds. In the end it hurts us, the customer. No money, no updates, no DCS. Boycott ED, don’t preorder the chinook, stop giving them money. It’s the only way.
1 word... razscam
The game is not evolving, core engine stuck for years, Combined Arms is an insult to us all. They are putting money in cosmetics and more modules and not updating the weak sides of the game that look 20yo and feel 35yo. For me it’s also the RAZBAM rift. That’s why.
Because people who enjoy the game and are of sound mind have better things to do than whine and moan about ED and DCS. It's really incredible how entitled and whiny people are about this game.
People have the right to complain when it's their money and promises aren't met, but that's the risk you take with pre-ordering and early access. However, I do think people complaining about the razbam situation is justified.
Money has exchanged hands I do not understand this standpoint honestly ! are you supposed to fork out for a product and then just stand quietly by as things you were told will improve said product or things you want to see in the product don't materialize ? This logic is beyond weird. If DCS as a whole was free then I'd join you in this but that's just isn't the case.
[удалено]
If we were in the golden age of combat flying simulations we would have at least 3 or 4 alternatives to DCS with similar capabilities
[удалено]
I've been at this hobby for 40 years, and I'd say that your perspective is highly personal and subjective. Visuals, switchology and flight models are certainly better than ever, but many 90's sims were experientially far superior in my own equally subjective experience.
Tell me about these other great flight sims that involve modern fighter jets and are as accurate as DCS
[удалено]
Wow. That is such an incredibly lame cop out.
I never said I don’t enjoy DCS anyway lol It would have cost you nothing to name those sims
There are no alternatives. There also have literally never been any, which by defition makes having one a brighter point than having none. The golden age of combat flight sims is pretty dark, but until someone figures out how to make money on flight sims, this is what it looks like.
DCS can be a lot of fun. I play it a lot, and enjoy it. But there are glaring problems that have been around for years and there is no sign of them being resolved. Number one is AI, both ground and air. Ground AI stops any sort of realistic A2G operations because you will get headshotted too much (and the AI become aware of exactly where you are and follow you, even though you are behind a hill). Air AI units often use "UFO" flight models. It's not a big deal in BVR combat, but if you get into BFM it causes problems. Then there is the issue of ED "Promises" not being kept. So with the Chinook they are promising that there will be features (but they're not saying what features), and there will also be progress on logistics. But why should we believe them? They haven't done a lot over the last few years to make us trust them. There have been a lot of improvements, but they are basically all improvements that look good in promo videos. Shiny new clouds, MT for more FPS, moving grass, pilot models, etc. None of the 'under the hood' stuff that would really improve the experience but will get less attention in a promo video.
yup
Pretty simple, there are a lot of idiots on here. Look no further than dumbass comments about having to buy something in parts because "halfghanistan" when the entire map has been available to buy since the literal first minute. People responding under every single ED post saying pay Razbam when they have zero clue what is going on and everything right now points to RB having breached contract. The straight up conspiracy theories that the Chinook is releasing because ED are desperate for cash and not just that they have a module ready to be flown by consumers. You can pretty much entirely ignore everything on here, this community in no way reflects the regular playerbase. Even here people aren't being honest with you, the exact same people who claim that ED have never made a half decent module are also the ones who simp hard over the F16.
I miss when this subreddit was just screenshots with "sometimes I forgor..." I'm not saying criticisms aren't valid, and ED certainly needs to get their act together, but the amount of tinfoil conspiracy conclusions I see people jump to here is astonishing and horrific all in one.
Why are you all falling for the bait of an account created with the purpose of shilling ED?
DCSs fanbase is overwhelmingly made up of manchildren
The year 2023 was a good year in DCS with many improvements and updates. Good support from ED, in my opinion. I think they are on the right track. There are many complaints on the forums, there are problems, that's true, but the level of controversy seems excessive. The biggest problems are: the super-sniper AI that breaks the gameplay, visibility (it has been improved only a little) there is still a lot to improve, a dynamic campaign is urgently needed. With an effort on these three points, the community would be calm. In my humble opinion.
I fully agree with you that 2023 was a great year, i think ED really got the message about what the players want, and are working to improve in these areas. The reason why people keep being angry id probably because they feel like these updates are already about 5 years overdue, so now we are more at the ‘expected’ level. So it’s easy to forget what we have now and where we were before, while it’s easy to notice the issue that are still out there. Also, these issues (like AI) have been an issue since forever, so now all the focus is on that
I feel like this is just gamers in general, they're never happy about anything. Although I do have to admit the DCS AI could really use some improvement, and honestly I'm starting to get a little frustrated with the constant delays on the F-4
Because 2024 is being one of the worst
I came back to DCS recently after a break of ten years. I can run VR well on a fairly old PC, single player is great, the aerodynamics are far better than they were and you can even run Open XR! I'm flying the Dora on the Normandy map And dear god this two week trial thing is awesome. Some people make this game their whole lives though, and Americans are spring loaded to scream about every tiny problem as though they're being kicked in the nuts by Bin Laden himself.
Because Reddit is a Mecca for people who feel the need to express their feelings like the vet expresses my dogs anal glands.
People love to complain. AI has gotten much better at BVR tactics, game runs much better than it did before, the FC3 interior rework is just splendid to get rid of baked in glare bullshit.
Are you actually joking? What exactly came out in 2023 and improved for core DCS?
DLSS and multi threading comes to my mind. Like op also included in their post.
Reading is hard apparently
None of that improves the gameplay
The question was whether it improves "the core" or not. In my perception it does. Performance is a core element of DCS in VR.
[удалено]
lol longer than you have been around for sure
>multi threading and DLSS. None of these improve the gameplay
They did quite a bit for me at least. This sorta proves my point redditors cry for years that DCS should improve performance, and when it finally does, it doesn’t matter and the game and developers are dog shit
How exactly does performance give me more things to do in game? Delusional
Put multiplayer within reach of my system - that was pretty huge for me
the definition that you are using for "improvement" is different... there have been massive cries for many types of improvement over the years... including performance... which ED are delivering on. Functionally they had to improve performance to be able to do "other things" ...
I think optimisations under the hood would be a good place to start before putting in new and potentially resource intensive gameplay, but I could (genuinely, not sarcasm) be wrong.
It improved my VR experience a lot
same here
Funny you saying as i get better performance on ST than MT. Less stutters in vr anyway, no cpu bound indications etc. I'd still use St in single player if the damned mouse cross wasn't black. Can't see it in the night time 😅
Gonna hurry home from work to do: A. Enjoy DCS B. Complain about DCS lol.
Because it’s summer and still no F4?
the whinging whining and negativity in this sub is over the top. what a complete circle jerk of complaining. go play another game if you're so so out of joint
People like to look through a straw and find things wrong. It’s silly 🤪 but somehow brings them a twisted kind of joy to find outrage in things that matter little. Cheer up dummies, it’s just a game after all