Focus on fixing bugs in weapons/sensors/models, or continue to develop more features and content?

[AndrewDCS2005]

Eagle Dynamics and partners - you folks absolutely rock, you do outstanding work, you created top-class military flight simulator, and there is great community worldwide which follows your every word. Huge respect and thanks you - especially for memorable moments and bonds created by people across the globe which come together to live in DCS world.

DCS came a long way over 15 years with so much done - just look at Changelog and roadmap tracker, there are hundreds and hundreds of weapons, systems, sensors, models, planes and helicopters, and ground units. DCS world is huge. 

And unfortunately, this scale and complexity has impact on overall quality - there are threads on bugs which are years old, and many bugs exist in the weapons and sensors which are of the core essence to DCS (I will not list them all here, each category has its own bugs subforum).

So the question comes - does it make sense to continue pushing out more and more new features, while already released product has these issues? Would it make sense to take pause on new developments and actually make the released stuff work as it should?

Poll is created to understand community expectations - please vote!

 

 

[BIGNEWY]

Hi, 

you may not know this, but we already have a large amount on our team working on the core of DCS, we then have teams working on various projects, and also artist. 

They are all doing as much as they can and when we have fixes or work to share they are posted in the change logs. 

All of the work takes a lot of time, there is no way around that, the teams are already working as fast as they can, and our project managers are the people to assign work.

best regards

bignewy

 

[Tom Kazansky]

I choose answer C, which is: Do whatever is necessary to keep up DCS World.

 

[rob10]

While I would love to see fixes for all the bugs, I trust ED to prioritize/direct dev's appropriately.  While it might seem "easy" to just put everyone onto bug fixing, the likely reality would be that they'd be falling all over each other and creating more bugs as two (worse when it's 3, 4, 5) devs working different areas change something that impacts the area the 1st one was working on.  They'd be chasing their tails trying to figure out if it's what they did that broke things or if was something that someone else did.  There are a lot of things that are inter-related in something as complex as DCS.

[AndrewDCS2005]

@BIGNEWY thank you for response! What is the percentage of engineering team capacity allocated to bugfixing already released product? You said "large amount" - for the sheer complexity and detail of DCS and its age, I'd expect it to be >50%

And my proposal (and the poll to find out if your customers agree) is to go 100% for lets say for 3 months

[BIGNEWY]

31 minutes ago, AndrewDCS2005 said:

@BIGNEWY thank you for response! What is the percentage of engineering team capacity allocated to bugfixing already released product? You said "large amount" - for the sheer complexity and detail of DCS and its age, I'd expect it to be >50%

And my proposal (and the poll to find out if your customers agree) is to go 100% for lets say for 3 months

I am sorry, that is not how you manage bugs and projects. Everyone who can be working on bugs or the core or projects are doing that, it just takes time.

We have around 200 team members, not all of them are devs, some are artist, FM specialist, QA, admin, support ect, they all work incredibly hard, we have a lot of work at the moment and everyone is focused on the tasks they have been given. You can follow our progress in our changelogs and newsletters, I hope over the remainder of this year you will see the efforts of our work and enjoy the new features and content. 

thank you

[upyr1]

On 6/2/2024 at 5:32 AM, Tom Kazansky said:

I choose answer C, which is: Do whatever is necessary to keep up DCS World.

 

This is the right answer. No matter what ED does someone is going to complain. There is a lot of things that ED needs to do, there are bugs that need to be fixed, we also need more assets, and we also need more modules. 

[darkman222]

If a feature (that is not currently worked on ) is in the game it should remain functional. Of course working on one end of DCS can break another. But users rely on avionics or systems that have been working before. Often a bug is already visible after 15 or less minutes of play time. If ED relies on the users as testes that much, take it more serious with reported bugs. And adress bugs, fix them that the module remains functional in the way that people have been using it all the time.

People are just asking to keep the integrity of what we already have in the game.

 

Edited June 6, 2024 by darkman222

[AndrewDCS2005]

On 6/6/2024 at 11:09 PM, BIGNEWY said:

I am sorry, that is not how you manage bugs and projects. Everyone who can be working on bugs or the core or projects are doing that, it just takes time.

We have around 200 team members, not all of them are devs, some are artist, FM specialist, QA, admin, support ect, they all work incredibly hard, we have a lot of work at the moment and everyone is focused on the tasks they have been given. You can follow our progress in our changelogs and newsletters, I hope over the remainder of this year you will see the efforts of our work and enjoy the new features and content. 

thank you

@BIGNEWY this is exactly how you manage quality vs new features (disclaimer: decades of leading software engineering teams building products with millions of users). Prioritize what your customers need or ask for to be happy and allocate most of engineering capacity to that.

In this specific case, your customers who already paid for the product, just want it to work in its current state. What is the point of adding new modules and weapons and features, if existing ones are often broken and make it unusable? New things occasionally get broken too, adding to users' dissatisfaction.

You have very engaged, very loyal users - ED can run ongoing poll each 3-6 months and ask community to vote for what makes them most happy and use it for prioritization. I think there were few polls in previous years, but it wasn't consistent and mostly run by users themselves, without making it part of ED roadmap.

[AndrewDCS2005]

Relevant thread with similar asks and sentiment from @vgilsoler and @virgo47 

 

[Irisz]

Due to these issues, I left DCS World around 2016, uninstalled the game, and deleted my account, on which I had spent money, just to get rid of the frustration caused by these problems. In 2018, the J-11A Flanker and the MFI-55 display were announced for the J-11A, and I returned. However, there was no 50% sale on FC3, so I bought it at full price because I felt it was a significant update that would finally provide an advanced Flanker, giving me what I had expected from ED after 9 years. In 2021, I left DCS World again delete account and uninstalled the game because the more modern J-11A still had not been released. There is no N001VE radar, which is slightly better than the Su-27's N001 radar. In the meantime, I purchased a Su-27 product from the E shop and soon after deleted my account again.

Now, here we are in 2024. I got my original account back that I deleted in 2016, and I'm still here trying to bring information about the J-11A to the forum, where only one person seems interested. When I speak to the developers, I am met with indifference and rejection, especially when discussing the need for something attractive for FC3 with the arrival of FC2024. I have spent a lot of money and I'm still in the same place I was in 2016. There is a fantasy Su-27 that can use the R77 missile and is named J-11A. They are unable to correct the radar as they did with the F-15C. It's incredibly frustrating that if it's a NATO plane, it's an immediate priority, but if someone talks about a Russian or Soviet plane, they are immediately asked to present secret documents. Meanwhile, the entire FC3 is based on fantasy because it does not accurately reproduce the capabilities of real airplanes, only approximately. I don't understand why we have to wait 6 years for a radar range correction.

I just wait and wait and wait, but I don't know why!

Edited June 12, 2024 by Irisz

[cfrag]

8 minutes ago, AndrewDCS2005 said:

In this specific case, your customers who already paid for the product, just want it to work in its current state. What is the point of adding new modules and weapons and features, if existing ones are often broken and make it unusable?

Since you are (like me) an experienced and accomplished project manager, I'm surprised that you have to ask that question. Because DCS is entirely on a one-off sales model. Fixing bugs are difficult to monetize because unlike selling new modules, fixing bugs does not directly generate new sales; it merely can reinforce potential additional purchases from the same customer. If you purchased the F/A-18, fixing ground AI will not sell you another F/A-18, while you may be willing to overlook that ground AI bug if there was a shiny new XYZ for you to purchase. DCS Management/Project Management is entirely (and rightly so) sales-focused. There is no secondary income stream, and only those one-off sales make money. Fixing what has been sold takes backseat (unless a bug is so glaring that people start talking about it so much that it can impact sales to customers who have not yet purchased) to developing/selling new modules. There is no ill will involved, and this is not criticism from my part -- it's just the result of simple market dynamics: low incentive to invest (fix) into what is deemed 'not broken enough', high incentive to invest (develop) into more products to generate income.

[BIGNEWY]

16 minutes ago, Irisz said:

Due to these issues, I left DCS World around 2016, uninstalled the game, and deleted my account, on which I had spent money, just to get rid of the frustration caused by these problems. In 2018, the J-11A Flanker and the MFI-55 display were announced for the J-11A, and I returned. However, there was no 50% sale on FC3, so I bought it at full price because I felt it was a significant update that would finally provide an advanced Flanker, giving me what I had expected from ED after 9 years. In 2021, I left DCS World again delete account and uninstalled the game because the more modern J-11A still had not been released. There is no N001VE radar, which is slightly better than the Su-27's N001 radar. In the meantime, I purchased a Su-27 product from the E shop and soon after deleted my account again.

Now, here we are in 2024. I got my original account back that I deleted in 2016, and I'm still here trying to bring information about the J-11A to the forum, where only one person seems interested. When I speak to the developers, I am met with indifference and rejection, especially when discussing the need for something attractive for FC3 with the arrival of FC2024. I have spent a lot of money and I'm still in the same place I was in 2016. There is a fantasy Su-27 that can use the R77 missile and is named J-11A. They are unable to correct the radar as they did with the F-15C. It's incredibly frustrating that if it's a NATO plane, it's an immediate priority, but if someone talks about a Russian or Soviet plane, they are immediately asked to present secret documents. Meanwhile, the entire FC3 is based on fantasy because it does not accurately reproduce the capabilities of real airplanes, only approximately. I don't understand why we have to wait 6 years for a radar range correction.

I just wait and wait and wait, but I don't know why!

 

Sorry to hear you are frustrated, but good to know you keep coming back to us. 

Regarding aircraft information especially for NATO, Chinese or Russian aircraft we do have to be careful about what information we use. 

We also have to pick aircraft the will produce a return of investment, so aircraft that will sell well, obviously we are a business that needs to make money to enable us to continue to develop. We have the MiG-29A in development so that is something to look forward to, and hopefully more Redfor aircraft in the future.

 

9 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Since you are (like me) an experienced and accomplished project manager, I'm surprised that you have to ask that question. Because DCS is entirely on a one-off sales model. Fixing bugs are difficult to monetize because unlike selling new modules, fixing bugs does not directly generate new sales; it merely can reinforce potential additional purchases from the same customer. If you purchased the F/A-18, fixing ground AI will not sell you another F/A-18, while you may be willing to overlook that ground AI bug if there was a shiny new XYZ for you to purchase. DCS Management/Project Management is entirely (and rightly so) sales-focused. There is no secondary income stream, and only those one-off sales make money. Fixing what has been sold takes backseat (unless a bug is so glaring that people start talking about it so much that it can impact sales to customers who have not yet purchased) to developing/selling new modules. There is no ill will involved, and this is not criticism from my part -- it's just the result of simple market dynamics: low incentive to invest (fix) into what is deemed 'not broken enough', high incentive to invest (develop) into more products to generate income.

Regarding bug fixes, we fix bugs every patch, you can see that in our change logs, I think some people forget we are not a huge company, we are a small studio and our team are always working as hard as they can. I know some bugs are around for longer than others, our project managers priorities may not always align with what you or I would like to have fixed, but we do get to as many as we can. 

thank you

[Irisz]

19 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

Sorry to hear you are frustrated, but good to know you keep coming back to us. 

Regarding aircraft information especially for NATO, Chinese or Russian aircraft we do have to be careful about what information we use. 

We also have to pick aircraft the will produce a return of investment, so aircraft that will sell well, obviously we are a business that needs to make money to enable us to continue to develop. We have the MiG-29A in development so that is something to look forward to, and hopefully more Redfor aircraft in the future.
 

"Sorry" won't change anything! Unfortunately, I don't feel any indication that the Flanker will get anything new in FC2024. We are not making progress with just texture updates!

There used to be an R-27EM missile in the FC series, but it was removed! They also removed the datalink function from the FC3 MiG-29 series! The range of the R-27 missile family has been reduced!

I asked on the forum for a compromise solution to make FC2024 attractive, which would require about 10 minutes of work from a developer, but everything I try to do here on the forum simply hits a wall!

Updating the R-27T, R-27ET, and R-73 homing heads doesn't require secret military documents!

The range of the N001VE radar is publicly available on the forum, and others besides me have helped ED find information. Is this also illegal and against military law?

There are options for an updated Ukrainian homing head for the R-27ER, which would give the R-27ER the option of an active homing head. In this case, you would only need to modify 2 lines of code and create the existing missile using the copy paste method, everything else is available.

Is this also a military secret and impossible? Why has it been impossible to make any changes for 15 years?

Please, respectfully, let the right person answer. Honestly, I don't expect such an answer like it's unnecessary and there's no time for it because it doesn't pay! Why was there time to update the textures but not address these needs, which are only corrections?

[BIGNEWY]

3 minutes ago, Irisz said:

"Sorry" won't change anything! Unfortunately, I don't feel any indication that the Flanker will get anything new in FC2024. We are not making progress with just texture updates!

There used to be an R-27EM missile in the FC series, but it was removed! They also removed the datalink function from the FC3 MiG-29 series! The range of the R-27 missile family has been reduced!

I asked on the forum for a compromise solution to make FC2024 attractive, which would require about 10 minutes of work from a developer, but everything I try to do here on the forum simply hits a wall!

Updating the R-27T, R-27ET, and R-73 homing heads doesn't require secret military documents!

The range of the N001VE radar is publicly available on the forum, and others besides me have helped ED find information. Is this also illegal and against military law?

There are options for an updated Ukrainian homing head for the R-27ER, which would give the R-27ER the option of an active homing head. In this case, you would only need to modify 2 lines of code and create the existing missile using the copy paste method, everything else is available.

Is this also a military secret and impossible? Why has it been impossible to make any changes for 15 years?

Please, respectfully, let the right person answer. Honestly, I don't expect such an answer like it's unnecessary and there's no time for it because it doesn't pay! Why was there time to update the textures but not address these needs, which are only corrections?

Hopefully one day we can meet your expectations. 

We do have some changes coming for the R family of missiles in a future update, but again for any system we can only use public data that can be verified, some data on the web has been exaggerated for whatever reason. 

 

[Irisz]

8 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hopefully one day we can meet your expectations. 

We do have some changes coming for the R family of missiles in a future update, but again for any system we can only use public data that can be verified, some data on the web has been exaggerated for whatever reason. 

 

I didn't ask ED to develop a new plane for free! I would like to quietly indicate that elsewhere they already fly with Su-27SM aircraft and 1000% that there will be Su-27SM3 and Su-37 as well. I asked for simple things, e.g. rewriting the numbers for the rockets in the code, which would keep the FC3 product attractive and nothing more! In many cases, these requests require 10 minutes of work! The texture update of the FC3 product required much more free work!

The fact that everything is linked to military documents actually puts a wall in front of the ED so that it cannot develop. Only in the case of FC3, the ED could be a little more lenient in this area. Because in many cases ED is unattractive and your product loses money!

Thank you for the answer!

Edited June 12, 2024 by Irisz

[BIGNEWY]

17 minutes ago, Irisz said:

 

The fact that everything is linked to military documents actually puts a wall in front of the ED so that it cannot develop. Only in the case of FC3, the ED could be a little more lenient in this area. Because in many cases ED is unattractive and your product loses money!

Thank you for the answer!

 

are you suggesting we should have different missiles and data for FC3 aircraft compared to full fidelity? I don't see how that would work, everyone needs to be using the same missiles in DCS. 

[draconus]

37 minutes ago, Irisz said:

I don't feel any indication that the Flanker will get anything new in FC2024

It wasn't supposed to. The current plan for FC2024 is to add 3 aircraft to the pack, that's all.

[Irisz]

19 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

are you suggesting we should have different missiles and data for FC3 aircraft compared to full fidelity? I don't see how that would work, everyone needs to be using the same missiles in DCS. 

FC3 is not full fidelity! Let me start listing what is missing from the real Su-27? The flight model is also not real because the real Su-27 accelerates faster in horizontal flight. They showed the developers that a Su-27UB, which has more air resistance, accelerates faster than the FC3 Su-27. The FC3 MiG-29C's radar does not detect at greater distances than the FC3 MiG-29A. There is no peer-to-peer datalink connection between Flankers. The real Su-27 uses ground control to see targets on its MFD and can attack them using datalink.

I have already presented everything here, but unfortunately there is someone who blocks everything if someone makes a suggestion. It took him 15 years to admit that the R-27EP rocket existed!

I didn't want to be disrespectful, but somehow it's tiring that everyone on the ED forum pretends to know nothing about the problem and constantly has to prove it in every case and the end result is NOTHING!

I have already described the result of how many times I deleted my account. 2 of my friends also stopped playing DCS world because of these things and play in a place where the developers are interested in what the players want! Here on the ED Forum, this section is practically dead!

A lot of people have advised me to keep quiet, but I love Flanker so much that I can't keep these things to myself! You know why DCS World is often mocked, and sometimes they do so rightly!

I don't even want to read marketing answers because I know them all by heart!

Edited June 12, 2024 by Irisz

[BIGNEWY]

I can only pass your feedback on, I am sure you have posted in other threads also, but if the team do not think you are correct or have different information I wont be able to change what you want to be changed. 

[Irisz]

6 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

I can only pass your feedback on, I am sure you have posted in other threads also, but if the team do not think you are correct or have different information I wont be able to change what you want to be changed. 

I think the problem is that long ago, for financial reasons, ED decided to only make a fully clickable cockpit, which brings more money to the kitchen! The main problem is that FC3 was mixed in, which used to have a functionality. Removethe datalink from the MiG-29, remove the R-27EM missile! The automatic lock on vertical scan mode removed,  simulated a more detailed radar behavior, which made the Flanker and Fulcrum radars weaker. There are many more things that could be listed, but here I have described how big improvements ED values, these are actually function removals from a purchased product, which reduce its value and take away happiness from users, because the value of FC3 is constantly decreasing!

This is also feedback and then it goes down the drain as usual!

Sorry if my criticism is too strong, but this is the reality!

Edited June 12, 2024 by Irisz

[BIGNEWY]

5 minutes ago, Irisz said:

I think the problem is that long ago, for financial reasons, ED decided to only make a fully clickable cockpit, which brings more money to the kitchen! The main problem is that FC3 was mixed in, which used to have a functionality. Removethe datalink from the MiG-29, remove the R-27EM missile! The automatic lock on vertical scan mode removed,  simulated a more detailed radar behavior, which made the Flanker and Fulcrum radars weaker. There are many more things that could be listed, but here I have described how big improvements ED values, these are actually function removals from a purchased product, which reduce its value and take away happiness from users, because the value of FC3 is constantly decreasing!

This is also feedback and then it goes down the drain as usual!

Sorry if my criticism is too strong, but this is the reality!

 

Sorry I am not sure I understand your claims regarding FC3, it maybe a perceived change. Data link for MP for example was never a planned feature for FC3 aircraft. 

FC3 is one of our biggest selling products, we will soon be selling Flaming Cliffs 2024 which will include some more aircraft, I hope it continues to be as popular as it has been now for many years. 

thank you

[Irisz]

3 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

Sorry I am not sure I understand your claims regarding FC3, it maybe a perceived change. Data link for MP for example was never a planned feature for FC3 aircraft. 

 

But it was planned, this was announced years ago by the CEO of ED, a very high-ranking person on the forum! Ask others about this and they will confirm it!

[Silver_Dragon]

22 minutes ago, Irisz said:

I think the problem is that long ago, for financial reasons, ED decided to only make a fully clickable cockpit, which brings more money to the kitchen! The main problem is that FC3 was mixed in, which used to have a functionality. Removethe datalink from the MiG-29, remove the R-27EM missile! The automatic lock on vertical scan mode removed,  simulated a more detailed radar behavior, which made the Flanker and Fulcrum radars weaker. There are many more things that could be listed, but here I have described how big improvements ED values, these are actually function removals from a purchased product, which reduce its value and take away happiness from users, because the value of FC3 is constantly decreasing!

This is also feedback and then it goes down the drain as usual!

Sorry if my criticism is too strong, but this is the reality!

 

FC-3 was make with the data of the old LOMAC/FC... and many of the old data of system and weapons was invented or none correct to a "softcore" module. Remember has russian personal and data access about the Russian features/weapons/system on the russian Air Force (only need check the russian forum). Some misiles as the R-27EM/Kh-41 was never on service on the Russian Air Force as other systems was remove (as the capability of guided weapons on Su-33 and Mig-29) by not have present on that propper versions. The incoming Mig-29A will open the eyes about the propper system and features about that aircrafts.

The CEO claims required be make with propper data, has none the first time with a "planned feature" has remove by review the data availabe and dismish then from a versions but has not capable to work with them (remember F/A-18C/F-16/A-10/AH-64 claims).

Edited June 12, 2024 by Silver_Dragon

[draconus]

16 minutes ago, Irisz said:

...these are actually function removals from a purchased product, which reduce its value and take away happiness from users...

No, these were the changes to remove some unrealistic things, which actually makes DCS more attractive.