Realism or accessibility, what decision should be made?

[Viper2000]

Realism all the way for me. But realistic isn't always the same as "harder".

We, as a community, also need to try our best to help new players, because otherwise the genre will die. But helping new players isn't the the same as "dumbing down".

[jimbop]

Both, just has to be both. Didn't vote.

[JG14_Jagr]

I vote for Scalability.. I want the game to be commercial success first and for emost. That will drive future funding and development. FM's and performance online I want the server to be able to make sure everyone is on a level playing field..but if customer XYZ wants to play in arcade mode offline or on an arcade mode server and that allows thousands or tens of thousands in more sales then I'm all for adding those options to the realism panel.. I won't use them, but I don't mind them being there.

[HFC_Dolphin]

Well, there is a real problem.
Whatever the "full real" settings become, these will be "enforced" to everyone in top-level servers/coops/online wars.
So, we got to be carefull in setting the "most diffcult level", because this will be the guide for many cases.

On the other hand, we do know that game can't become realistic.
We can simulate a lot, but to be honest, we actually have a lot of advantages and disadvantages over real situation.
On Saturday I was flying over the British Channel and enjoyed a fantastic view and visibility and I said to myself: "real pilots could see much more than what we see in our small monitors". Then again, I watched the information screen in the Airbus and I saw the external temperature at 10.000m, which was something like -70 degrees Celcius (I don't recall the exact number, but it was really cold) and I said to myself "I've been several times at +10k on my IL-2 BF's and....it wasn't cold ".

You do get the point, don't you?

So, the question should not be whether we prefer realism or not, because we will never get realism in a PC flight simulator.
The question should always be: how do we make the game as close to reality as possible, without making it silly difficult (i.e. is there a reason to start walking or running to the plane and then climb-open canopy-seat inside-put belts...etc., you get the point, don't you?).

In my opinion, developers completely understand this need and they do their best to accommodate it, so I have trust in them (until I discover that red planes are uber and then start yelling at them because I get shot on my BF ).

[III/JG11_Simmox]

the real question is
who's realism?

gotta allways have a balance of realism and gameplay,its important for the online players to have a sense of it.

its quite clear by the spit/hurri carby changes threads that not everyone agree's on the experts changes to FM

i do respect their work and opinion,it must be a thankless task

sometimes however i think the data being used may not translate the same to the game engine as intended.

baby steps i think are in order instead of broad strides in FM changes

oh i abstained from the vote

[Wolf_Rider]

Originally Posted by III/JG11_Simmox

the real question is who's realism?

its quite clear by the spit/hurri carby changes threads that not everyone agree's on the experts changes to FM

Originally Posted by luthier

AIRCRAFT

* Completely removed overload assessment from carburetters. Rolls-Royce engines will now cut if overload is negative, and will not cut if it is positive. (old values were sneezing at .5G, and cut-out at .25 which we felt were dead on, but this apparently confused most of the players)

* Replaced every tachometer in every British and Italian plane with an electrical type, since some people find needle movement on the mechanical type not what they expected.

oh well

[snwkill]

For me I really couldn't tell the difference between the two patches... Take it from a newbie to old A/C sims, the type of person that would rather play an arcade fighter, probably isn't looking at the instrument panel closely enough to notice that it is bouncing around. For me the biggest annoyance is the muscle it takes on the rudder just to get her off the grass. And the compass behind the flight stick, which will be solved when my track-IR gets here.

[SEE]

It's important to distinguish 'Realism' from 'accuracy' in terms of the modelling. The Tacho may be 'realistic' in that it moves but is it 'accurate' in the displacement and oscillatory motion originally modelled? I don't know but a few better informed people have commented that it was overmodelled - 'realistic' in that it moved but not 'accurate' in how it moved.

Fortunately, we have far better information and evidence regards Neg G and I would expect this to be modelled accurately as Neg G modelling has far more impact than an erratic tacho needle'.

[fruitbat]

I think we should go all the way.

the game should ship with a 45, and when you get shot down, you have to shoot yourself in the head.

[flyingblind]

It has to be realistic. I agree realistic dosen't always mean harder but if something was hard in real life then it shouldn't be removed just to make the sim easier to play. If neccessary or possible provide an easier setting as an option. I suppose this is the one really good thing about Steam. The developers can continually tune and upgrade the code and provide frequent updates and patches that are automatically downloaded to the users. What you have today can always be improved tomorrow - so don't panic.