Never seen a program so badly presented for new user

Hi,
First of all, sorry for my english it my second language.

I installed unity 2 hours ago and i never experience a program so poorly made in term of "user friendly" use of it. Just nothing work, first of all you download unity and you can't even just open it. you have to go through the unity hud first. And then you discover some tutorial that was exactly what i was looking for starting. But wait nothing work and nothing is like it says.

They sent you on a web page that is separated is way too many section for nothing and keep sending you on new web pages when you click on something. And then you try to follow the tutorial step and IT NOT EVEN RIGHT. You try to download the tutorial like they say and the button download is not even there. I finally found the tutorial under "tutorial material" but wait!!! you download and export after finally opening unity ( they dont tell you how to open it btw you have to figure out by yourself that you have to save and create location for your project first and ask you what type of project you want (2d, 3d, 3d+ etc just so you know at that point i have no F***ing idea if it matter or what i need) . Seem pretty obvious for probably alot of user but for new one i dont know what i was doing and if it would had an impact in the future anyway) So here i am finally in unity and opening the tutorial package but wait!!! It doesnt work hahaha you have a bunch of error right out of the bath. So i keep looking i end up on this forum and see someone right on top saying that for using tutorial you have to use the same unity version. Guess what i have no F***ing idea how to change my version and even after, i know only 10min, looking on google i CANT find a simple answer how to do it. So the guy tell me my problem but dont tell me how to fix it NICE!!

And btw if you are writting a note in forum like this for NEW USER(important keyword here btw) dont use abreviation..... what the F*** mean API

I want to use unity because it a more powerful tool than game maker as exemple but seriously i never felt a program that is so complicated for nothing. I tried just one day game maker studio 2 yesterday and in a day i was doing some kind of playable program and it was really fun to use. But i felt like i was losing my time learning game maker language (GML) that cant really translate to anything else for the futur.

Anyways i dont know if im the only new user in that position but seriously it so frustrating experience. I didnt even talk about when you are on that web page for tutorial and it keep opening new page with no link to the previous one so you end up losing track of where you come from.... Person who did that had really no idea how to make a good GUI experience.

If an Unity admin would want to talk on discord or something about my exprience more in detail it would be a pleasure to try to help for newer user in the futur. Constructively speaking of course

 

"Application Programming Interface".
It's not a specific thing to Unity, but a term used in software development in general.
All it really means is the bridge between the programmer and the program.

Say if you were developing a website and want to request the user's location. Modern web browsers provide a geolocation API to do so. The programmer asks the web browser for the location, and the web browser does all the processing & returns the result for you.

Similarly, if you wanted to simulate any kind of physics operations in Unity, you don't need to write your own physics system; unity provides an API for their physics engine, so you simply tell Unity what you want to simulate, and it does the work for you.

Anyways, that's all I wanted to say.

 

Unity clearly got more convoluted over the years and the constantly changing game dev tech is not making it easier for sure. It's also the reason why most of the tutorials are outdated to some degree. Sometimes stuff is out of date faster than you can learn it, but that is just the way of this rapidly changing technology.

That said, you can not really compare a game engine with a 'normal program'. It's normal to feel a bit (or rather much) lost at the beginning. Try to fight your way through it, it is worth it in the end.

Frustration is the wrong word, you have to replace it with 'lack of knowledge about the subject' and then learn it. If you are the kind of person that is easily frustrated, this whole game dev thing will kill you.

 

I wouldn't normally respond in this manner, but the harsh criticism of your post makes me think a bit of perspective might help.

Game development is not a task for beginners. I know Unity's marketing material suggests the engine makes it easy for you to make your dream game, but that's just fluff. Making a game is hard work and requires a level of technical proficiency (or, lacking that, aptitude) to bypass the many obstacles you'll encounter. When you consider the complexities of everything the engine is doing, it's no wonder things go wrong during updates and new bugs get introduced (Granted, we all wish there were less bugs... my feeling is it's getting better with each release, but still room for improvement). It's also a tough balance to strike for making things intuitive enough for new users while remaining customizable and powerful enough for the advanced users. They've tried a number of things to help with this, and I'm not certain they've found the best solution yet, but I like to see that they're trying.

I think there's an imbalance between what knowledge you feel the editor/documentation/tutorials should be imparting and what it's presumed you'll be able to learn on your own. API is such a common term in computer science that covering that in a Unity tutorial would be overkill for 95% of users. While it's not made clear what you should know before starting Unity, I think the more important thing is the willingness on your end of seeking out this knowledge of your own accord. You could have, for example, just Googled "what does API mean" and gotten some great, informative results before posting here.

You also claim that whoever made the tutorial page has no idea how to make a good GUI, which is far from constructive feedback. As I said, we all have issues we'd like to see addressed with the platform as a whole, but making statements like that -- especially before you've even spent enough time with things to really even be able to speak from experience -- is going to set you up for a lot of frustration and negativity.

Take the time to read as much as you can, to play around with the Editor and experiment with the API a bit. Run through some tutorials, and if you encounter specific issues, post here and one or more of our fantastic community members will help you resolve it. But I highly recommend changing your mentality from thinking you're owed some kind of perfect onboarding experience to one of a novice learning a new skill set that will enable them to create their visions -- if you invest the time and effort.

Best of luck, and let us know when we can help!

 

Calm down and breath.....

You should really have some background in programming, especially C#, before picking up Unity. I know Unity's website suggests otherwise, but ignore that. Go learn the basics of C# and then come back to Unity. You also need to get better at Googling things, which is an absolute requirement for game development as you will be doing that a lot (I mention that because you shouldn't have been stumped on API for more than 5 entire seconds, the amount of time to Google it - it is not a Unity specific term).

When you pick up Unity again, ignore the interactive tutorials. Instead skim the entire manual from start to finish, to understand what Unity does for you so you don't try to reinvent the wheel. Then watch some video tutorials on YouTube. If you want to follow along, download the EXACT version of Unity used in the tutorial. Also, get familiar with how to use the Unity Scripting Reference, as you'll need to be in there all the time.

If you have a specific question, the forum is a good place to ask it if you can't find it already answered. Again use Google to find previous threads on a topic, as the forum's built in search function is trash. Good luck