Unity 2017/18 @ Veterans: How do you feel so far? Bug fixes?

Hey Unity vets that have used Unity since 4.x or 5.x -- have you used 2018 yet?

1. How do you feel about 2017 / 2018 beta so far?
   
2. How stable is it compared to 5.6?
3. I heard that enabling the latest C# version is still experimental (and left in an experimental state - unfinished) -- is this true? I can't find in the roadmap where plans to stabilize it are... unless they already stabilized it (is it still "experimental")?
   
4. How often does it crash compared to 5.6?
5. Did you notice any major fixes, such as scroll rect stability?
6. Notice any major quality-of-life changes that truly affected your decision to upgrade?

We have a grandfathered 5.6 -- We were disappointed with the changes in 2017 focusing on art (the new C# version was awesome -- but after we heard it's crashy, we backed into our 5.6 cave). Our #1 concern is stability. Of course, betas are never stable, but the transitions between previous stable versions of Unity have not been pleasant experiences for us.

Overall, we're wondering how you guys felt about migrating from 5.6 to 2017? How do you feel about the 2018 beta for potential + migration experiences?

I looked at the Roadmap and saw the native shaders, IL2CPP support for Mac/Win (Linux...? Can't find this on roadmap). I would assume that the new C# version is stabilized in 2018 -- but assumptions are bad when it comes to upgrading Unity versions, I learned...

This is a pretty big thing as we're deciding if we should do Unity 2018 or Unreal for our next game. The changes for 2018 are pretty impressive, but stability....? 5.6 is far from stable, so it's not a "don't change what's not broken" sorta thing.

I'd love to hear thoughts.

 

This has been always very project depended for me. Some Unity versions work with one project, but cause issues with other projects. I believe it highly depends on what Unity functionality such project is using and what platform you target.

For example, I use 2017.1 as "stable" development environment (as stable as it gets). However, building a Player of the same project with 2018.1.0b7, causes the game to crash.

I don't use 2018 beta for anything than testing and submitting bug-reports, to make sure Unity Technologies is aware of whatever issues I find with my project. Then after a couple of months, perhaps years, that Unity version might be stable enough to work with my project.

 

I'm going to give a small general answer to your questions, I don't use the betas (although I've looked into them the past week, obviously not impressed by the amount of bugs) but I always update to the latest unity versions (patch releases included).

I usually have very few issues when upgrading all projects because I learned that if you use an unity built-in feature it's either going to be bugged or perform very badly on mobile (my main market), so when I upgrade a unity version, there's very little that can break. Funny fact, one of the few features I use is Assetbundles, and it broke on the latest patch (p1) which means I am still using f1.

Currently I am very disappointed with unity, the amount of bugs and features that I can't use, means the engine is useless to me, the only reason I still keep up with it is because the build size for mobile is smaller than Unreal, but, the game is now around 200mb~300mb on android which means the bigger size of Unreal is less of an issue and it's more attractive now, I spent the last 2 days analyzing performance on Unreal on Android and found it to be better than Unity and next week will continue running tests, and depending on the outcome I'll seriously consider dropping unity in favor of Unreal, because with Unreal I'll have better performance, the game looks better with less effort and I'll be able to publish to all platforms just like Unity, the extra 50~mb in build size will hardly be an issue considering all the other advantages, the major drawback is obviously having to learn a new engine and the fear that it might be as problematic as Unity.

 

Every version has bugs. 2018's features outweigh the bugs currently for me so I am enjoying it.

 

Yep, that sounds like Unity. Even the mod says so Someone earlier (I believe hippo above, actually!) said that Unity's CEO was, at one point, a developer. For shame knowing how important stability is and not prioritizing bugs in stable versions.

Unreal I hear is more stable, but less docs, less community, more intimidating, and more lower level crap you have to deal with (I hate low level).

I want to stick with Unity if they improve. The features never outweigh bugs for me (they always break something when they add new features and could care less about fixing them). They don't really know what a "stable" version actually is.

Anyway, I'll keep an eye. If anyone else has input, lmk

@Unity: Prioritize your bugs. Your own mods and everyone notices -- cat's out of the bag. Just a small hackathon will do the trick. You have a big userbase. Don't forget us. Sure, we're not new people, but you can imagine how many people/teams are just waiting to grab Unity Pro but not until you fix the core bugs. We're counting on you, hmm?

 

Well tried almost every 2017/2018 version... Every time something broke, first the UI was not positioned right, the PhysicX upgrade broke a lot of stuff and it took time to workaround stuff. As for now the editor crashes every time we try to open the project (something in the mono compiler or script handling).

I have the feeling that new Unity versions are good when you start a new project. But don't try to upgrade a old / running project it has become a nightmare since the 5.6.

 

They have a solution for bugs that's pretty aggressive and focused. Bugs creep into something like Unity not because of sloppiness or lack of will, but because that's the nature of the beast. No, I think Unity is doing all it can right now. Consider the forces acting on Unity to create bugs:

• releases once a week
• demand for ease of use
• demand for performance
• demand for new features
• demand for bug fixes
• os/driver/hardware changes
• services

I could go on but the result is a heck of a lot of developers making commits. Some fixes cause regressions. Some changes in A cause bugs in B. It's also a moving target with the environment causing bugs non stop. For AAA game devs, it's pretty easy, you support 2-3 platforms and the game only needs to do 1 thing. That's very easy in comparison to Unity. Unity has a dedicated QA team for dealing with bugs, and several strategies in place. I don't know what you are assuming, but bugs are in every game engine in the world. Most of these bugs are undefined behaviour, clobbering and finally at the end, dev mistakes.

So I think Unity is doing pretty good really. As for stability, please check how many Unity games are for sale vs a typical AAA company or developer. You'll find that just maybe, Unity is stable enough. Last I checked even AAA have stability or bug fixes.

What's the outrage for?