Does DCS have the right focus?

Looking back over the lifetime of DCS and ED products, there have been a few strategy changes. You end up asking if the current one is still the correct one, or perhaps it's time to turn a new page, or to revive old projects that back then were not successful. It's a decision where ED sometimes needs to have a great vision and sometimes they just need to play by the seat of their pants.

I want planes... LOTS OF planes

This is where DCS is at today. Players asked for more planes... ED delivered them. For a price. It was a good move, because ED started cashing in money and was able to expand, combining this with significant engine upgrades until DCS 2.5.

DCS excels in highly detailed simulation of combat aircraft. This is a defining aspect of DCS and should so remain if ED doesn't want to turn its back to some of its most loyal fans.

The question - how long will ED be able to sell more and more planes to the same crowd who already has 30 or so? Can DCS find enough new customers if the old ones leave once they get bored? Or is ED capable of offering interesting game and simulation features as a part of the DCS platform, making people to stay much longer? One key idea in modern marketing is "customer lifetime value" - keeping your existing customers happy so they pay more, instead of spending your effort in finding new ones (and possibly ruining your reputation in the process).

Me, myself and my Mk IX Spitfire

In the meanwhile DCS has also grown to new audiences. Steam sales are bringing in mainstream gamers intrigued by jet fighters and air combat. WW2 assets are capitalizing on the WW2 trend and possibilities for multiple historic eras are building slowly.

We first saw the Mustang some 6 years ago and the WW2 environment is still far from complete. We are missing key items like multiengine aircraft, a good collection of maps to play on, DLC campaigns for German planes and a notable multiplayer scene. Will still take several years to get all that with the current rate of development. In DCS, resources are spread thin and timelines are unusually long - which highlights the need to pick the battles and to take the best windows of opportunity.

But what about early access and quality

Originally I didn't want this subject (that has caused much commotion) in the thread, but let me just comment briefly because it connects. Aggressive expansion is taxing ED's resources and bringing new risks. It is harder to maintain existing modules when new stuff is added every year and loyal customers together with new people are suffering the results. Recent events have also highlighted ED's role in supporting 3rd party developers and guaranteeing the results of their work. Not an easy job that the community is placing on ED.

ED's strategy of expansion has been a bold move, and I'm not saying it has been a bad decision. Quite the contrary. We have received well fleshed out combat environments with several usable aircraft on both sides of the curtain, new players have been attracted to the game and DCS has broadened and deepened its revenue base considerably.

Another aspect is all the little improvements and major updates that ED has been doing to the DCS platform itself over all the years. Graphics is better, performance has increased, features are more complete... These have received little fanfare, even by ED themselves, despite bringing value to every single module out there.

Would somebody please think of the operational authenticy

The improved offering from DCS and the growing player base are great enablers for ED's next move. We are getting closer to the fully fledged combat environment that DCS: World was promising 7 years ago. It is no longer about just a couple of flying things - a much better context can now be simulated and new development could be directed this way. A change of focus is possible for DCS.

In addition to faithfully simulating a number of aircraft, DCS could also do an exciting survey of the tactical and operational context around them. The original Combined Arms module was a step in this direction but the many limitations of the simulation engine held back ED's efforts. They are trying to make progress currently but I'd hope they put more bullets in this clip. The progress has been stagnant and radical improvements are necessary to make DCS an enjoyable combined arms combat game.

All this is necessary to make the air warfare meaningful and to lock scores of new players into hours and hours of battle that involve fun on so many different levels. (If you look at some competitors in the gaming industry there are examples how this can be successfully done.) When the ground operations themselves become interesting and there are other players fighting them, the players taking care of air support feel they have a vital role to play and they connect better with the game and their fellow player community.

Also the operational level of warfare can be highly relevant and interesting. (The strategic level is not necessary and would not fit in with the scope of DCS.) Many conflicts are decided on this level and it is widely discussed in literature. Creating this side to the game will provide the players with a feel of being a part of something real and much more bigger than just a simple mission with some planes and helicopters in it. There's a reason you have selected these targets and things can be gained by taking them out.

The dynamic campaign is obviously moving in this direction and I earnestly hope that ED can bring about a full implementation according to their visions this time around. In a summary, DCS now has an opportunity to expand beyond just technical realism into the domain of tactical and operational authenticy. If they can pull this off there are lots of new and fun experiences in store even for old players.

The Multiplayer is coming, are you ready

With the advent of the dedicated server, DCS may be in for a sea change bigger than what ED realizes. The player base has been growing and while development of the multiplayer has been sluggish, there could be an explosion given the large long term player base and a better multiplayer experience. This is a scene that could connect closely with more well rounded general warfare features, adding a whole new appeal to DCS.

The learning curves would have to be smoother for scores of new people being actually siphoned in to populate the multiplayer. The community has to get its act together and welcome new members with high accessibility and alternative approaches to coaching and mentoring. ED should do more aggressive promotion of historical, trainer and helicopter modules to get new players started, while tomcats and hornets would be full price and keep up ED's pricing model and premium product brand.

That said, some brief comments on two aspects that also relate to the focus of DCS:

The Cold War opportunity

In terms of the aircraft, I have a hunch that the years in the 1960s and 1970s would have the most untapped potential in today's DCS. We already have a couple of planes from those years but there are many more which can be freely chose from due to no longer being in high tier military service. Some pilots would still be available to comment on flight and operational characteristics. The systems are fairly simple to learn yet complex warfare is possible. Also many famous conflicts are from the historical period, from Vietnam to the Arab-Israeli wars and even the Falklands somewhat.

The Terrains

This is another aspect where I find the current DCS lacking. New aircraft are exciting, but flying them in the same terrain over and over gets boring. The current roadmap is promising, but will take several years to implement and I'd hope maps would get more focus.

There is also the issue that many players are skipping maps in their purchasing choices - it seems Nevada and Normandy are not yet used to their full potential and mission development for PG is going slowly still. At least Nevada should be heavily promoted (bundles and discounts) to get it moving and in general I think ED should monetize more heavily on aircraft and use the proceeds to discount map modules as they bring the platform and the multiplayer scene forward.

The problem with this type of armchair-analysis, is that us customer dont have any real fact about DCS: we dont know how large is the user base, we dont know how many of those do go into Multiplayer with regularity, we dont know how may are interested on WW2, we dont know how is the user-share of the available Maps, we dont know almost anything, so these analysis are kind of pointless.

I find that most opinions are based on just personal beliefs, for example I'm not so sure that discounting the Maps would bring in new players ... there is already a free Map so that new players can try DCS .. what would be the point of discounting the rest of the Maps? I'd rather prefer that DCS is able to recover the development cost of the Maps, so that they can invest in create more maps.

In the end, I don't care much for trying to convince ED to do this or that, as I trust that they have enough real data to make informed decisions on what should be the focus of DCS going forward.

Me? ... I just try to enjoy what we already have, there is so much to learn still ... that's what I love the most from DCS :)

Best regards

the question - how long will ED be able to sell more and more planes to the same crowd who already has 30 or so

steam brought a lot new players to DCS, so they already did shift their focus

I'm sure they will read your off the cuff assessment, sans anything but spitballing and opinions, with bated breath.

As for multiplayer, there are only a few thousand active users, which is something extremely easy to confirm, if you give it just a tiny bit of thought. Dedicated servers will improve the experience of the existing community. It's not going to trigger a massive influx of people willing to spend 40-100 hours learning an aircraft and turn DCS into an MMO.

If you want crappy looking autogen terrain, sure. The terrains we have are high detail and carefully crafted. And at the end of the day, it's not a suoer high priority. Let's be honest, what REALLY is the difference between one desert and the next? Or one forested European landscape and the next? Purely aesthetic. You don't need huge numbers of maps when you're 10,000ft up it's all the same.

Otherwise, some of the stuff you're asking for is out of the scope of a video game and DCS in particular, in part due to computational limits. There's nothing here distinguishing it from the rest of the armchair analysts and wishful thinking, sorry. It is what it is to a certain extent.

Im surprised by the lack of any mentions of MAC, after all it should have a big impact on accessibility, entry point for newbies, good amount of content and especially (somehow limited) additional maps. Cant wait for it, looks like something i want in VR

As a relative newcomer to DCS I can say the following...

Planes:

Yes new planes is exactly what got me into DCS, the F14 to be specific. But I figured I better hop in before its released to learn how to play. I used to play LOMAC way back in the day, so I got FC3 but it didn't really hold my interest at all, I wanted a clicky plane, so the mig21 it was. Then there was the sale and I got a bunch of modules, many that I haven't played yet. And I still want more planes, I'd say the current plane set is very limited from my perspective/interests. I don't think I'm alone in that. I think the F14 will bring people in, as will the upcoming 16. Also modern red air which is more my interest, as well as more cold war planes (mig23/F4) etc.

I can't comment too much on operational authenticity, but it seems to me that given engine limitations there is a limit to what can be done, and limited war type stuff seems to be the focus.

Early Access: As a new guy I jumped in on the Harrier after I learned the "Simple" mig21. That was a steep learning curve, and in many ways its soured me a bit on early access, out of date videos etc made it hard to learn. Though on the other hand the community here was great in lending a hand so hats off to all the gentlemen in the Harrier form that helped me out. I hope that the F14 is in better shape when released too.

Maps. I guess for me having a "Real" theater is important, its more than eye candy frankly. I find the Caucus map a bit absurd when flying off carriers there as a glaring example though I understand it was the first map and all that. I really like the Hormuz map as it seems relevant as possible flashpoint from the cold war until modern day (Burj Kalifa aside). I'm super excited about a possible afghanistan map as well as the potential for a falklands map and maybe even the cold war era baltic.

I think from my perspective, getting enough planes to simulate an "era" well would be cool, as the current plane set just seems really random aside from the warbirds.

My opinion: Absolutely not, but it comes with the territory for such a massive, ambitions, long term project. So it's easy for me to look past that. Computer programming is hard and God knows I'm not going to make one on my own.

 

If you want crappy looking autogen terrain, sure. The terrains we have are high detail and carefully crafted. And at the end of the day, it's not a suoer high priority. Let's be honest, what REALLY is the difference between one desert and the next? Or one forested European landscape and the next? Purely aesthetic. You don't need huge numbers of maps when you're 10,000ft up it's all the same.

 

 

Otherwise, some of the stuff you're asking for is out of the scope of a video game and DCS in particular, in part due to computational limits. There's nothing here distinguishing it from the rest of the armchair analysts and wishful thinking, sorry. It is what it is to a certain extent.

Going to disagree with you regarding terrain. Obviously just one persons opinion but I love new terrain. I love NTTR because I have always been fascinated with the area. I love to fly around exploring the many areas and airports. I would love to see NTTR expand. I would love to fly to Miramar, LAX or even my home town of Portland. Regarding users wanting dozens of planes, there is a saying for that! “Jack of all trades but a master of nothing”. I plan on sticking with three, maybe four planes. Again, just one guys opinion.

Wow....If this thread does not become the most responded to thread in ED history, I'll go into shock. I will post my response later when I have had time to write what will probably be a 30 page opinion.

The big word here though is "opinion". I do not run E.D. so my opinion really means nothing.

Somewhere around...damn, was it really 15 years ago, my public policy analysis professor taught me that any good proposal needs to lead with its conclusion. You can spell out the reasons why your conclusion is correct with as much length as you need, but if you do not lead with your conclusion, people will read through your proposal wondering what the hell you are suggesting. Just a thought...

Yes I just lost 10min of my life I wont get back again.

op is not the right target demographic

Another thinly veiled wish list post wrapped up as an opinion piece.

Yay.

Yes, it does.

DCS absolutely has the right focus. The sim is one of a kind, the upgrade to 2.0 and then 2.5 took way longer than expected and undoubtedly drained resources for a long period of time. I do think that updating old modules would be appreciated, but as I lay here in bed with my 'opinion' I have no idea how complex a matter running a simulation software company could be.

ED are doing a stellar job, otherwise we wouldn't have invested thousands of hours in the sim. I am glad I don't have DCS on Steam, because I would probably see something like 'played 4000' hours or something crazy like that!

Let's not forget how far we have come either. When DCS was standalone most gamers got really bad frames by and large. There were posters on You-Tube uploading videos with titles like 'DCS World at 60fps!', you would see some pilot skimming over trees with his FPS on the top corner of the screen and think damn I need those frames.

The sim was hard to run at 60 fps where nowadays it's not, and the graphics are way better now. Small improvements like explosions in 2.1 made a huge difference after years of the same explosions.

So in conclusion (to keep the English teacher on this thread happy), there have been massive upgrades over the years and clearly ED have us on the right track for a bright future, and there is no reason to worry or think otherwise.

I think I'm going to check ED's focus by flying some planes right now... and for the next years.

If I'll come to an important conclusion I'll check back here later.

Cu out there!

Looking back over the lifetime of DCS and ED products, there have been a few strategy changes. You end up asking if the current one is the still the correct one, or perhaps it's time to turn a new page, or to revive old projects that back then were not successful. It's a decision where ED sometimes needs to have a great vision and sometimes they just need to play by the seat of their pants.

 

I want planes... LOTS OF planes!

 

The question - how long will ED be able to sell more and more planes to the same crowd who already has 30 or so?

 

How many people turned 18 just today in the world?

How many older or younger want to get into flight simulation and get to fly the F-14, Harrier etc into battle in VR? That's also going to get better for an even better experience...... (Still cRazy cool now)

ED knows where they are going and have a finger on the pulse, you listed the big picture yourself. It all just takes lots of work to do it right the first time. If you just spam it together like some other older sims, we all know how long it takes to go back and redo it.

Vulkan api (Much need for the things listed below and for things like the ground radar possibly)

Dedicated Server (Multiplayer) This here is a good example of what can be built now (Their own DDCS engine), with a dedicated server.....?

The icing on the cake for the maps and new maps is of course a dynamic campaign engine.

DCS is a big sandbox were anything will be possible (Our consumer side and the commercial side)

From dynamic campaigns to uniquely crafted experiences made by mission builders on many different maps.

The big one is that their still here and have a great team that has stuck together and keep pushing forward in this niche.

Here is a good old forum post by EvilBivol-1 (TFC Associate)

The Parable of Jane's A-10 and Flight Sim Development

Here's just one of the posts.

Which do you think has had more of an impact since 1998, change in the market or the fact that what goes as a passable flight sim has changed?

The latter, definitely. The market, at least in terms of sales volume and price points is more or less the same. The problem is that development costs have skyrocketed due to the increased complexity of flight sims. Growing cost of development vs. flat sales numbers = bad business environment. To quote Andy Hollis above, "Building a product that would satisfy all these expectations would cost a tremendous amount of money..."

 

Some people call the 90's the golden age of flight sims. I scoff at that notion since I don't think you can really compare this:

 

I do refer to the late 90s at the "golden era," in the sense that flight simmers had a variety of quality products to choose from and the titles were continually getting better and better. We sort of peaked around 1998-1999 with Falcon, the Jane's titles, Flanker (for some of us, anyway). But that was about as far as flight sims could go in terms of development cost before they stopped making money for the people making them. Lock-On was one last attempt (credit to Ubisoft, by the way), but even though it did well in the market, it was apparently not well enough to justify further investment.

 

 

Ok, then here's the million dollar question. Why does Eagle Dynamics do it? For the love of their craft? Out of a sense of charity? Or is just a side project to what they consider the big fish, military contracts? Thank goodness they do, but what motivates them?

 

 

To a large degree, yes, they do it for the love of their craft. In a private exchange with one of the programmers at ED, he told me that most of the staff at ED are artists by nature. Not in the literal sense of creating artwork for the sim, but in the sense that they have an emotional stake in the work. The TFC/ED partnership has been ongoing since 1995. I doubt this would be possible without a fundamental mutual bond.

 

Loving your craft doesn't keep the company afloat though, so obviously ED/TFC are running a business where the first and foremost priority is the financial well being of the company. To this end, they've adopted a strategy to co-develop two simulation branches - military and entertainment. We often tend to think that the military contracts are now the "bread and butter" for ED, but this is not necessarily the case. It's more subtle than that. The idea is basically to utilize military contracts as a source of funding to develop technologies, which can then be "recycled" in the entertainment sector. Similarly, some technologies developed for DCS, for example AI entities and routines or world maps, can be "recycled" in a military contract. Two birds with one stone - as much as possible anyway.

 

Here's how Wags described it in the interview to Rock, Paper, Shotgun!:

RPS: Would ED rather work on sims for the military or the public? I get the feeling defence departments pay more and complain less.

 

Matt: We want to work on both! The developments are very much complementary. We have a development engine, which for want of a better term we call TFCSE (The Fighter Collection Simulation Engine). This engine is under continuous development and enhancement. Therefore the military gains an advantage of using technology that is state of the art, and the public get an entertainment title that has improved fidelity from our military experience (obviously limited to those are areas that are not classified!). We therefore can amortise our development costs across two markets, to the benefit of all. Military contracts are not a license to print money, as often they are required to be done on a “cost plus” basis, and I can assure you that they are very demanding as the simulation has to be perfect so as not to introduce “negative training”. In addition, gaining/winning military contracts is highly unpredictable, whereas for entertainment titles, we can plan a business over several years.

Agree 100% with the OP.

I love DCS but after going through startup and a mission I come back feeling hollow like 'what exactly have I achieved'? Sure there's lots of a/c but yes over the same terrain like the Caucasus is boring af.

I've raised this point before, they should be focused on PERIOD SPECIFIC maps and aircraft. eg. WW2. Korea. Vietnam. Instead we have a splattering of a/c from 60 odd years.

...

Here is a good old forum post by EvilBivol-1 (TFC Associate)

 

The Parable of Jane's A-10 and Flight Sim Development

 

Here's just one of the posts...

Thanks a lot .. really, really interesting information, from those people who actually know how this business works :)

The real question is, do the users, new and old, have the right focus and understanding of what DCS is and is becoming.

I'm with you on explosions 2.1! I've come back after a 3 year break and thought WTF was that after my first ground target exploded throwing debris up in the air...

Although more planes and more maps are great, the only thing I'm really missing is a dynamic campaign and possibly some way of roleplaying.

Kind of like Falcon 3.0 used to be: create a squadron with yourself as commander, plan missions and affect the course of a war with your squadrons efforts.

DCS is a fantastic simulator but it's kind of missing the game aspect.

BUT! Adding Falcon 3.0 style gameplay would not bring any additional money to ED. It might bring additional players, but I think most dedicated military simulation enthousiasts are already here while more casual gamers are playing more casual games (duh).

On the other hand focussing more on (aspects of) civil simulation would bring new players and new money.

DCS focus

I really rarely play any campaigns, I rarely play off line period. Almost everything I do in DCS is in Multiply player. I run a server on weekends for a few people and use a lot of other people's missions to run it. I do make some amateur missions but most people I play with only few hours so a giant DCS/DCG is not that much off a big deal for me.. What is a big deal is being able to make training as realistic as possible... I have liked the direction of DCS as far as maps and modules. It has been slow progress, and I have scratched my head at some of the decisions that DCS has made but I have been here playing constantly since 2006. I will use this program until I cannot.

For DCS in its current state aircraft like like the F14, the Hornet and Harrier are the best option to get the most from what DCS world has to offer IMO. Now I’m an aviation enthusiast and by that I mean I love all aviation, and have loved flight sims since the early 90s. So I love WWI air combat WWII and modern air combat. I accept that for WWII DCS probably isn’t the best platform for a combat simulation, that being said if I want a simulation that will offer me the most realistic experience available then for me DCS is the place to go. I’m not saying that because I can fly a spitfire well in DCS world means I would be an exceptional pilot in the real thing, but I think ultimately we all strive for realism, it’s what simulation has always been about and I love being able to manage all the systems in the aeroplane. I think DCS WWII has potential, and I was a backer from the start. Personally I’ve always loved Spitfires and absolutely love that simulation in DCS, and nothing else has the level of detail of the DCS modules. So one day I hope that everything else can catch up, the Normandy map is good but I think it still needs work, I feel the colours need work particularly with the VR situation, (In fact all VR needs some TLC in DCS). I also feel a huge turning point for DCS WWII will be the damage modelling which is so important for a WWII sim and then some single player missions and more a.i units. So going back to the direction DCS is going, I feel at the moment it’s best suited for modern air combat but i think it has the potential to be the best platform for everything I really do, but it’s going to take a lot of work and time.

DCS has no focus, just content spread all over.