I'm not poor, and i'm not mc Scrooge, but ...

[Vertigo72]

What part of ''ED has stated it multiple times'' flew by?

 

Im not denying your conclusion based on what you said in the entire post, and on other evidence, as well as on common sense; I fully accept there is a significant portion of offline players and explicitly said I accepted that. So nothing flew by me. I said what I did because the sentence I quoted from you was a logical fallacy.

 

3. And yet it's been here for over a decade, so clearly not the case

 

Again, not a valid conclusion. What happened over the past 10 years says nothing about EDs current sustainability. Especially not with their business model that depends on selling new modules to quite often, old loyal customers. When your customers only have 2 planes, it would have been fairly easy to sell them a third and a forth. But when 10 years later most of your old customers already have 10-30 planes, they may no longer be as receptive.

 

Maybe you know more than me, but I have absolutely nothing to go on to conclude ED is either swimming in cash, on the edge of bankruptcy or just having a normal steady sustainable business.

[Vertigo72]

Not really, you can have a game in your library, even play it regularly, but not follow it.

 

Excuse my ignorance, I barely use steam. I do have DCS in there, and after searching a bit, I finally found a "follow" button. It isnt checked. Hovering over it it says that checking it will bring DCS news in to my community feed. But when I go to my community home page, or news, Im getting all the DCS news anyhow. Sure sounds like Im being a "follower" just because I have it in my library?

[Vertigo72]

I flew real A-Cs and gliders (low hours) and pilled up thousand of flight sim hours since Jane's IAF but I have no intention of going PvP without a fair dose of training, and this means AI..

 

Doesnt need to be offline though. many (most?) servers focus on PvE. So you will be fighting AI anyhow but you can have human wingmen providing a helping hand. And even if you are just doing touch and goes and landing practice, its more fun on any of the training servers. Particularly for carrier landings its a good motivator to see others mess up worse than you :)

[Thinder]

Doesnt need to be offline though. many (most?) servers focus on PvE. So you will be fighting AI anyhow but you can have human wingmen providing a helping hand. And even if you are just doing touch and goes and landing practice, its more fun on any of the training servers. Particularly for carrier landings its a good motivator to see others mess up worse than you :)

 

I see your point but I am trying to apply real procedures to flight simulation, mainly what we call "Prise de Terrain" in "L", "S", or "U" shapes, something I was very good at with real aircraft.

 

The problem I encounter now, flying Strike Fighters II to cumulate stick hours, is visibility, acquiring the terrain visually to start and finish the maneuver at the right spot, VR would improve this but it's not an option right now.

 

In the real world, if you fly VFR, you'll have ground clues and get used to them but with a flight sim you need good resolution and ground details.

 

The second issue is damping at low speed of the flight models, I think there will be a difference between those of Strike Fighters and DCS, It might also help because of the setting solutions offered for the controls and more realistic flight envelops and characteristics.

 

This is tedious work and requires to be precise, I only can get it right with practice and it's going to take some time, but the advantage of doing it is that you get the habit to be more precise, which helps later when you get into maneuverability and aerobatics.

 

Dogfighting is easy in a flight sim, doing it right something else, so It's gonna be flying school first, then combat school on the Mirage with missions and Red Flag, then I'll see about joining other players.

[Jester2138]

This has been discussed so many times it's not funny. It's been stated multiple times by ED, plus common sense. Look at the server population. Even if you multiple it several times over, it's not enough to sustain a game, conclusion : it represents a fraction of the population.

 

The server population being low doesn't mean people are playing singleplayer. It could also mean that there's a huge proportion of people who buy modules but don't play much - which, again, would check with my personal experience among my social groups.

 

I know ED's implied things about MP vs. SP, but they've never said anything explicitly and we have a lot of reasons to doubt the idea that most regular players are primarily playing in SP. Literally everything one can independently check and read in the DCS community shows MP being the central element of the game for most people.

 

If you want an example of a flight sim that is primarily a SP experience with some MP elements, look at X-Plane 11, which is also much more popular than DCS. It's fairly easy to verify all this stuff by using Steam numbers and some common sense guesses as to Standalone.

 

There isn't some vast silent majority of SP users in DCS. There are some SP users. But DCS is clearly primarily played for its MP element by most of its users - it's just that DCS is not that popular in general.

Edited June 17, 2020 by Jester2138

[Jester2138]

On top of that, you also have to consider what SP is used for when it's used. I would wager a huge proportion of SP "flight hours" are spent preparing or learning for the ultimate goal of playing in MP. If you took MP out of the game, I think you'd lose a massive percentage of the playerbase overnight, regardless of what ED sometimes implies about it mostly being a SP game.

[Vertigo72]

In the real world, if you fly VFR, you'll have ground clues and get used to them but with a flight sim you need good resolution and ground details.

 

Resolution wont help you much. Its DCS. You either fly over water or sand. ;)

[unknown]

The server population being low doesn't mean people are playing singleplayer. It could also mean that there's a huge proportion of people who buy modules but don't play much - which, again, would check with my personal experience among my social groups.

 

I know ED's implied things about MP vs. SP, but they've never said anything explicitly and we have a lot of reasons to doubt the idea that most regular players are primarily playing in SP. Literally everything one can independently check and read in the DCS community shows MP being the central element of the game for most people.

 

If you want an example of a flight sim that is primarily a SP experience with some MP elements, look at X-Plane 11, which is also much more popular than DCS. It's fairly easy to verify all this stuff by using Steam numbers and some common sense guesses as to Standalone.

 

There isn't some vast silent majority of SP users in DCS. There are some SP users. But DCS is clearly primarily played for its MP element by most of its users - it's just that DCS is not that popular in general.

 

Hallo, i'm one of these (mostly) SP/OB DCS pilots. I'm flying since LOMAC in SP but i looked into MP sometimes(MP less than 10 hours) - hundreds of hours(SP) in the MI-8 alone. :prop:

 

We don't have to assume/guess, some official numbers for you from Kate Perederko:

2/3 - offline

1/3 - online

 

for last moth.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4288253&postcount=243

 

We didn't expect that 2.5.6 performance issues will rise so dramatically and we o not want to update Stable release with this unstable version. 2.5.6 was released in the middle of February and potentially it may take some additional time to complete.

 

2.5.5 = 60%

2.5.6 = 35%

1.2 and 1.5 = 5%

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4287694&postcount=115

in that case 2.5.5=60% was stable version vs 2.5.6=35% open beta vs legacy versions 1.2/1.5=5%

 

If you watch the ED forums you could think OB and MP is the vast majority of DCS players but it isn't.

[Baldrick33]

There isn't some vast silent majority of SP users in DCS. There are some SP users. But DCS is clearly primarily played for its MP element by most of its users - it's just that DCS is not that popular in general.

I don't think that is clearly the case at all. What you see in social media feeds and forums is going to be hugely biased by those who play multiplayer. I would agree it probably represents the most enthusiast group and also probably the players who individually put in the most hours a week but collectively I would speculate that players who never use multiplayer account for the majority of sales. Not sure the stats are available to prove that, probably only ED would know for sure. Edited June 18, 2020 by Baldrick33
typing error

[Aluminum Donkey]

A really dumb post.

 

 

Thank you, I try my best. Anyway, the module could be finished in a year, or it might take 5 years. Who knows. That's what you're in for when you buy an early-access module.

 

 

AD

[deadpool]

I'm not poor, i have good disposable income.

But i just can't seem to get myself to pay 80 dollars for 20% finished F16 ?

This goes for all modules above 40 dollars to be honest.

 

I'm not ranting, i try to purchase F16 but everytime 'common sense' (?) seems to stop me. I just get the strong feeling i'm being scammed everytime i try to click the 'pay' button.

 

Triple A game titles , that cost 50 to 100 million dollars to make, are half the price of one DCS module.

 

I mean, is this a russian thing ?

Anyone know that game "Escape from Tarkov"from Russian developer ? It costs 40 to 140 euro's for "beta" version .

 

Can someone explain the pricing point of the modules to me ?

Because if it is because it's a 'niche market', and not a lot of copies are sold then it seems like there might be a problem in the long run because with pricing like this it's also kind of a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

How can i make friends who never played DCS attracted to the game like this ?

 

 

Don't support the ongoing practice by buying the F-16. That would be my wish and recommendation.

 

I disagree. The F-16 is far from A2A capable - especially not against humans.

You can't tap into the G region you want to be in.

The ACM modes are broken. Etc. etc. etc.

 

The funny thing to me is that the DCS modules are the ones worth the money out of the two. I haven't really bought many mainstream games in a long time because they just aren't worth it to me (others will have different opinions), while DCS has given me a decade of use, more if you count Lock On and other previous versions. Hardcore simulators in general tend to be more about fun and enjoyment in my opinion. Traditional games are full of content gating and prizes that attempt to get people to invest in them with less time spent on the content that the game is supposed to be offering. Simulators on the other hand are 100% content generally.

 

 

 

 

Where does the 20% come from? The F-16 is complete enough that it's more involving to use than say the finished FC aircraft. I mainly fly air and air and I'd say that 20% is a really low number to describe the air combat side of completion. It's missing smart AG weapons, but you can still perform ground attack missions.

 

 

Basically, whatever % the module is, it's functioning at a level that lets you do things with it. It is a fully functional DCS aircraft, just not a complete F-16 yet.

 

 

No offense, but I think you're doing good weather A-G and also no BFM against non-AI.

 

Being in the Bozosphere, being fast, dispensing AMRAAMS like a PEZ, sure.

Go into BFM and you fight yourself out of rate quickly because you can't pull the Gs you need.

 

And as for A2G. Just spawn a convoy on the move with a couple of Tunguskas in and make it a nice solid cloud layer at 10.000ft.

 

Any plane will just happily fly around using MAVs, in the F-16 you can then resort to flying big circles under the clouds while the shooter drops the LGB on future coords you provided from above the clouds. Not exactly perfect.

 

Buy it!

 

$80 (or whatever on discount) over 1 year isn't even a cup of coffee per month.

 

That would be 6.66 USD for a cup of coffee. That's quite expensive!!!

Edited June 18, 2020 by deadpool
Added more replies to one post

[erniedaoage]

The server population being low doesn't mean people are playing singleplayer. It could also mean that there's a huge proportion of people who buy modules but don't play much - which, again, would check with my personal experience among my social groups.

 

I know ED's implied things about MP vs. SP, but they've never said anything explicitly and we have a lot of reasons to doubt the idea that most regular players are primarily playing in SP. Literally everything one can independently check and read in the DCS community shows MP being the central element of the game for most people.

 

If you want an example of a flight sim that is primarily a SP experience with some MP elements, look at X-Plane 11, which is also much more popular than DCS. It's fairly easy to verify all this stuff by using Steam numbers and some common sense guesses as to Standalone.

 

There isn't some vast silent majority of SP users in DCS. There are some SP users. But DCS is clearly primarily played for its MP element by most of its users - it's just that DCS is not that popular in general.

 

Yeah and the 3rd party mission and campaign developers do all their work with voice overs and mission briefings just to prepare "those few" singleplayer people for multiplayer. Why isn't then any campaign out there where half of your squadron takes off without a canopy from the runway, stalling their plane half way to the objective while shooting friendlies and killing themselves just to respawn and repeat?:doh:

 

I am also somebody who has much more hours offline than online. I would have to guess but alone with the ka50 since 2009 i would say easy around 2500 hours(with the same campaigns and missions) against maybe 200 online hours in the last 4-5 years. Multiplayer is fun as long as there are enough other players who take it serious, but it becomes madness as soon as you realize you are surrounded by lunatics.

 

Also if you look at the user files section there are 1364 singleplayer missions, 274 campaigns and only 654 multiplayer missions. I don't know but it seems that there is a huge demand for singleplayer stuff.

[Tiger-II]

That would be 6.66 USD for a cup of coffee. That's quite expensive!!!

 

I didn't say it was a cheap cup of coffee! :D

[unknown]

FINE, it better not go on sale in the next months !

77 EURO'S , holy sh@tballs.

It better also be super OP in MP !

 

:mad::mad:

 

You really have bad timing, it's on sale right now for $39.99 on the ED store.

[Furiz]

You really have bad timing, it's on sale right now for $39.99 on the ED store.

 

 

A sale again?!?

[unknown]

A sale again?!?

 

Summer sale

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4393509&postcount=258

[Csgo GE oh yeah]

Dick move

 

At least it's normal priced now , for a while.

 

Never buying anything else from them unless it's on fire sale >_<

Edited June 19, 2020 by Csgo GE oh yeah

[Mars Exulte]

You know what's a dick move? Griping about a sale. They aren't crapping on everybody, they do it EVERY YEAR at the same times, spring, summer, fall, and winter.

[Csgo GE oh yeah]

calm your boobs , read a joke , just bought the hornet as well

 

Sales are good, my timing is not.

[LordOrion]

I'm not poor, i have good disposable income.

But i just can't seem to get myself to pay 80 dollars for 20% finished F16?

 

 

Then wait until it is 100% finished.

/Endthread

 

 

 

 

Inviato dal mio iPad utilizzando Tapatalk Pro

[Gunrun_KS]

It's really just perspective. My thought process is I am a simmer. I want to fly some planes. There's one other WW2 sim that I play along with Arma 3. Waiting years to fly a plane just doesn't sound fun.

 

 

 

Call me easy to please but the modules I fly (except F-16) are 99.9% complete by my operational standards. That .1% being some minor bugs that can be a pain here and there. The F-18 and Harrier do all I need them to do to accomplish the mission. The fancy sub-systems and whatever else I hardly use are just "that's cool" parts of the sim. I know everyone is different.

 

 

 

The only problem I have with the F-16 right now is the lack of SEAD.

[LordOrion]

Call me easy to please but the modules I fly (except F-16) are 99.9% complete by my operational standards. That .1% being some minor bugs that can be a pain here and there. The F-18 and Harrier do all I need them to do to accomplish the mission. The fancy sub-systems and whatever else I hardly use are just "that's cool" parts of the sim. I know everyone is different.

 

 

/this same, here! :thumbup: