What do you love and hate of DCS?

[JorgeB2]

Me.

Love: Realistic visual environment, great plane models, active community, constant updates, capable to learn and fun.

Hate: AI erratic behavior, no dynamic campaings, no advanced red planes, updates that broken something previously working right, no good EW and ATC, no integrate CGI.

But every year better platform.

[Furiz]

I love that this sim is bringing me close to something I can not do in real life, fly a fighter jet,

coding something like this is not an easy task so I think we can all be thankful to the ED team, its cause of them and other 3rd party devs that we get detailed fighters and helicopters, you can't find this kind of fidelity in any other sim.

I hope in the future we get more modern jets to fly.

I don't hate anything about DCS, I'm thankful for their work.

So I can only say, keep up the good work!

[LooseSeal]

I would agree with Furiz for the most part - hate is a very strong word for a product that people put a lot of effort into developing, and it would feel disrespectful to use it.

I completely understand what you're asking, but 'hate' is a slightly too loaded word for me. Maybe 'dislike' or 'annoy'.

People use the word hate way too often and too easily these days, as far as I'm concerned, in all areas of life!

[Rudel_chw]

18 minutes ago, LooseSeal said:

People use the word hate way too often and too easily these days, as far as I'm concerned, in all areas of life!

yes, that’s so true ... not only on this forum, but on most social aspects of modern life ... I think that I only hate the haters 

[Snappy]

Simply take "like" and "dislike" if "love" & "hate" is too strong or loaded for your taste.

Like:

- Cool visuals, normally good systems & flight modelling, sandbox possibilities. These 4 points are awesome.

Dislike:

-AI. AI. AI. both in air and ground units, the simplified FM for AI too. The whole AI issue drags this entire sim down immensely in single player.

-The long overdue core issues. 

-The way older modules are still marketed, but really not cared for and pile up bugs.

-The various variants of the  " I'll ask the team, if there is any progress, We willl let you know when we have something to report.Thanks " -  statements by   community mods, which basically mean nothing and could be dropped completely or would be better be substituted each time by a simple: 

"This is an unpleasant side effect of our business model, live with it or stop buying" 

-The way ,even accurate , objective and on-point criticism is treated on the forums.

-The overblown marketing hyperbole at time, i.e. over-announcing time and again, big plans &  features and then having problems actually delivering in the   projected timeframe or at all.

regards,

Snappy

Edited December 2, 2021 by Snappy

[WobblyFlops]

The modules themselves range from good to almost perfect but they are held back by tech debt and engine limitations, a very limited core game and a questionable business model. It's an excellent cockpit simulator but as a combat game the core itself makes the experience very often less than ideal. Most of these issues are well known and I'm sure ED would love to fix them as much as we would but since the business model incentivizes making more modules, the core upgrades roll in at a snail's pace.

 

The most pressing issues are the terrible AI, lack of proper multicore support, simplified damage models, lack of dynamic campaign, ATC and a mission planner-DTC functionality. There are a lot of things they can improve (sensor simulation in the core engine, weather to name a few) but as long as the AI is so limited and the engine can't handle more complex mission setups on large servers all the other changes will have a somewhat limited impact.

 

For example, a dynamic campaign would be great and it surely sounds promising but how well would it function with the AI being as it is? Even in Liberation the things they do will frustrate you to no end. 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

Plenty of things that are annoying yes, but I don't "hate" anything.
Plenty of things to love as well. The balance is far enough to the positive aspects that it warrants me spending this amount of money on PC components and peripherals 

[Hiob]

5 minutes ago, WobblyFlops said:

and a questionable business model.

What is wrong with the business model. I find it the best I can imagine. Do you want a subscription model? Loot boxes?

Everything can be be tried out free, you can test everything before you buy. You can use only one module or all of them.

What better business model would you suggest?

[Snappy]

11 minutes ago, Hiob said:

What is wrong with the business model. I find it the best I can imagine. Do you want a subscription model? Loot boxes?

Everything can be be tried out free, you can test everything before you buy. You can use only one module or all of them.

What better business model would you suggest?

Lets not get into a discussion about the business model as this leads OT. Suffice to say, they need to churn out new  modules to keep money coming in and due to the complexity of the average module, they have ever more EA modules to finish and (broken by updates) modules to de-bug, while at the same time the next new modules have to be produced and coded to bring in money . Plus they will soon run out of popular  all-star aircraft that sell like hot cakes to the broad majority of customers . Not to mention  the tech gap to bridge from the old core. You can easily project where this leads in the medium to long term. Personally, I dont see this working out.

But if you want to discuss the business model, make new thread, or write in one of the existing ones about it. This one is about likes and dislikes.

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Snappy

[Northstar98]

Likes:

• Study sim philosphy
• Best system of setting controls up I've found so far (apart from  missing or broken keybinds, it's perfect IMO)
• I find the mission editor to be much more intuitive than others, particularly how triggers are set up
• Cockpit interaction
• Graphics
• Fidelity (especially with the likes of say, the Mirage 2000C's new RADAR)

Dislikes:

• AI and AI flight models (I'll throw ATC in here).
• This
• The coalition system
• Most things relating to naval units, though mostly sensor fidelity and damage modelling, most of these also apply to ground units.
• Combined arms
• The tracers
• Long standing issues with ED modules; off the top of my head, and this is far from comprehensive: the F-5E's RWR having a broken search mode and missing functionality, the F-5E nozzle scheduling bug, the attitude indicator bugs (accumulates errors, instead of correcting them (which also affects other modules) and fast erect issues) there are also things like the lack of damage model, LODs (and a few other completion issues) on the Yak-52.
• This one is more pedantic but sometimes the lack of precision of how things are named compared to other stuff.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Northstar98

[JorgeB2]

Sorry if anyone didn't understood that love and hate is only a words game. Of course nobody can "love" or "hate" a sim program. Change it for like or dislike if prefer.

I see most people agree with me that AI is one of the main problem of DCS. 

[NineLine]

I don't like this love/hate/like/dislike game.

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

I love the visuals, FM fidelity, and aircraft selection. It's second to none. Don't know if there's anything I hate about it. There are thinks I strongly dislike because ED's delivered an otherwise great sim and I hate to see such things bring down the experience.

AI is the primary issue I have. We need new AI badly or at least AI that conforms to limitations better. 

And F-86 gun fixes. But, that's really two issues vs. a lot of pros.

EDIT: Me after today's newsletter:



Since I'm evidently some kind of psychic, I am now commanding ED to make that simple LUA change to fix the F-86's guns after 6 years of refusal.

Edited December 3, 2021 by MiG21bisFishbedL

[Japo32]

Like: Even is not great performance, the VR experience in DCS with Reverb G2 is amazing. 

Level of detail of every mod, and that still ED is working on DCS, now with amazing betatesters that makes our lives nice flying.

 

Dislike: That still the dynamic campaign is not out.

[metzger]

I like the in depth simulation of the many combat aircraft and the possibility of learn and experience them in VR.

I hate everything else. 

AI (in all aspects, ATC, wingmen, opfor, ground units and so on) which is broken at every aspect making single player experience close to impossible or at least not on par with the aircraft simulation.

Extremely outdated UI and (lack of)features.

Static weather which remains the same throughout the mission

Graphic engine, especially in terms to lightning, shadows and optimization.

 

I am willing to pay even more for the modules(not some 3rd party) but use them in a different environment as DCS one just suck. Anything you try to do, create a mission be it SP or MP you have to constantly workaround bugs and issues which are hitting you on every step you take.

[Dunx]

I love DCS VR.

"hate" is not a strong enough word to describe my feelings for Windows.

[Thinder]

Love: most of the aircrafts I flew, realism, even the music.

No hate there but dislike at diverse levels, like replays aren't calibrated to VR set view, Binding not always obvious and in a particular case (Mirage 2000C), the A-C not been pitted vs aircrafts of its true generation, that's before the integration of AIM-120 to F-16/18, which mean a clear discrepency in weapon performances.

I don't play PvP and still will have to relearn to fly the Mirage when I'll get a new headset but I wonder how people manage to fly this version vs the Falcon and hornet as they are equiped with more advanced systems and weapons than even the Block 25.

 

[Svsmokey]

My "love" and "hate" objects are the same-DCS in VR .

The in-cockpit experience is incredible and i am profoundly grateful that ED chose to implement VR .

But everything outside the cockpit looks like h*ll - at least at the low altitudes we mudmovers occupy .

I'm hopeful that the upcoming engine changes will provide the performance headroom necessary to allow addressing the view beyond the cockpit .

 

[Glide]

I love my F-16!  I took this massive 20 year break from flight sims, and stepping back into that cockpit felt marvelous.  Thank you thank you thank you ED!

I love to just fly around.  I am sure this sim saved my life during this horrible pandemic.  Again, thanks ED.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Glide

[alexej21]

I love DCS. It gives me a possibility to experience to fly legends like F14,16, MiG21, Su27, Mi-24 etc… which I would never be able to do in a real life.. 

[C3PO]

Love = closest thing I will ever experience to flying my beloved F-16

Hate = After this experience, always knowing that I'll never fly a real F-16

[REDLINEE]

I love the Multiplayer aspect of the game because it makes the game feel more alive.

What I don't like is how stale the single player is, Feels like im the only person in the entire world and it gets stale very quickly, and the lacking of a diverse campaign.