I think we can agree to a certain extent that the current system of servers and violations isn’t perfect. I have, however, spent some time trying to put together a concrete solution to address this issue.
My idea is fairly simple. The devs at IF could create a “realistic” server on top of the casual, training and expert servers already in the game. In the realistic server you would begin as a pilot on smaller aircraft. You would fly short haul flights and you could be limited to aircraft smaller than an A320 for example. Then, as you follow the strict rules and rack up landings and flight hours, you would advance and much like in real life would begin flying larger and larger aircraft.
But, if you break rules on purpose or accidently like exceeding 250kts below 10,000ft, you would be deducted flight hours and therefore could be bumped down a stage from A330 sized aircraft to 757 sized aircraft or something like that. The level of severty could also be scaled to the number of flight hours deducted (for example you would lose much less flight hours for exceeding 250kts below 10,000ft for 30 seconds as opposed to 5 minutes).
These flight hours would also be deducted slowly if the player doesn’t use Infinite Flight for a certain amount of time which, if left for long enough would restart their “career” for lack of a better word.
Not only does this encourage players to follow the rules, it also provides a punishment without being too harsh in an unrealistic manner. Also, the addition of progression through the game could add a huge amount of depth for players that the game is currently lacking.
This server would only really attract the most hardcore players and because of the punishment of losing hard-earned progress, people will be much more likely to follow the rules and act like a real pilot instead of receiving a violation and moving server until the time is up.
It would also make flying larger planes much more satisfying and it would be a much rarer sight to see “heavy” on the ends of callsigns much like it as at many airports around the world.
It’s important to keep in mind that the other servers are there too, separate from the realistic one. If you want to hop in an A380 whenever you want, you can - you just need to do it in casual, training or expert.
This also makes sense from a business perspective for the IF devs too - a lot of the aircraft that are largely forgotten would be utilised much more because the server would force pilots to become very creative about their flights which only increases replayability and on top of that if the flight hours drop off over time, people will be much more likely to renew their subscription to keep up the streak of flight hours.
I’d be really interested to see what other people think of this and also if there are any obstacles that would make this difficult to implement.
Thank you
Edit: I’m aware that four servers would certainly stretch the number of players and reduce the amount of players on each server.
