Unity is the most frustrating platform ever

Unity has all the potential and is so capable however I have never encountered such a buggy platform
Nothing works. Users can expect to spend 75% of their time dealing with incompatible, deprecated plugs, that cause a never ending host of compile errors (requiring thorough knowledge of C# which is no fun at all) and a million more issues - even with just assets alone that can cause problems because they were created for earlier versions of Unity - just for starts
I recently have attended unity dev meetings where some of the guys were actually working on their laptops instead of being present - and extremely lethargic - literally unkempt with beards - because if they weren't trying to get thru all the compile errors and various problems 24/7 they wouldn't have no chance of creating even a basic game - I literally felt sorry for them cause I know they were so passionate about creating and so dedicated that they wouldn't give up
...forget about being able to create a basic game or even cutscene that can compete with anything out there without having a team of developers or putting years and years into learning the ropes
To the Devs: In my opinion, you guys need to focus almost entirely at this point on compatibility issues, inc but not limited lol ...deprecated plugs and assets from the asset store, outdated aspects of assets not causing issues - maybe some sort of auto reformatting of anything and everything as its being imported into your scene to prevent disaster - PLEASE reduce: the likelihood of compile issues every time you blink; way way way too many variables -that are great - but just exponentially increase the likelihood of yet even more mystery issues
Nothing works: Examples: many addons dont even show up in the window - cant even launch them without spending half the day trying to find out why they wont launch - How about if a plug doesnt work - dont sell it in your asset store or start refunding peoples money
Any support, ie tutorials on ANYTHING Unity is a bag of mixed results because with so many updates and versions of Unity you can expect to learn the wrong lessons that cause yet even more trouble with your projects - How about focus on getting JUST ONE version of unity to work fluidly; without a million buggy issues, incorporating intuitive interfaces with a streamlined workflow - instead of pushing too far forward too soon essentially guaranteeing yet even more potential conflicts
- cant even get past go on much of anything
code referencing outdated components - shouldn't you guys have some sort of solution in place to update that code instead of letting it all bomb our projects?
I cant even remove an instance of an asset from a scene without having to scour the web for some shifty code that allows unity to let me simply click and remove - really?

 

What a rambling, borderline incoherent post that gestures vaguely towards problems but never in such a way that it's possible to actually figure out what the actual problems are. Pointless rant thread.

 

Unity do have a regression problem. It would be interesting to see how they work, if they use proper git flow versioning strategies, how their automated tests are structured etc.

 

Oh wall of text . I stopped reading, after noticing lack consistency in punctuation. Which most likely reflect "quality" of OP itself.

 

Which releases have you been working with?

 

They're not wrong, though. Seasoned developers can make their way through the mess, but it's still a pain sometimes. I can't even imagine if I was trying to learn Unity or game development today. Yikes.

 

I agree, Unity should be more clearly steer beginners towards the LTS releases and don't do mistakes like the Hub's auto-selection of unity version being the latest alpha was.

 

Why are you buying plugins for a system you dont understand and have no competency in?

I do think that there is a problem of misleading advertising in general. That a huge amount of Unity's income is generated through asset store sales for people who have no real capacity to make a game. But this is just ridiculous.

 

It sounds like you're trying to construct a game out of a mishmash of 3rd party assets, and don't really want to code much yourself. That's not a path to success. If you're not very good with C#, yes you will find it very difficult to deal with compile errors in someone else's code. That's not Unity's fault.

The Asset Store states what versions of Unity an asset was uploaded using so you can avoid these kinds of issues.

If you know what you're doing, compile errors are actually fairly rare. Most game developers keep use of 3rd party assets to a minimum. Just enough to fill in a few gaps in their skill set they are missing, or get the project done sooner than otherwise, but the vast majority of their code they write themselves. You also typically aren't importing 3rd party code assets on any kind of frequent basis.

Also, software development has a tendency to attract anti-social personality types. That's more likely why you see devs ignoring a social event in favor of their laptops than anything. Unity wouldn't be as successful as it is if it was nonstop wrestling.

I disagree. Truly deprecated assets are automatically de-listed. Assets which were uploaded many years back say which version of Unity they were using. Yes people still have projects on old versions of Unity and still want to use the Assets Store. Don't tell Unity to kill that for them just because you can't be bothered to consider what importing a asset made in Unity 4.2 will do to your project in 2019.x.

For any popular asset you can also look for forum threads on it before buying, which will usually have comments about bringing the asset into later Unity versions. If there's problems, and you can't be bothered to really learn C# because its "no fun at all", then the asset isn't for you. You can also contact the developer of the asset.

What window?
What do you mean by "cant even launch"?
Undoubtedly, the asset worked when it was uploaded to the Asset Store, and still works just the same in the versions listed. If you're filling your project with a bunch of old assets, why aren't you just using the version of Unity they were written for? If all your assets were made for Unity 5.5, just make your project in 5.5.

Use the exact version of Unity the tutorial was written for. Don't argue, don't come up with excuses why you think your idea of using some newer version is better, just use the exact version of Unity the tutorial was written for. It is just like if you were trying to learn Windows and tried following a Windows 7 tutorial on your Windows 10 computer. You'll still learn a lot about Windows in general, but will get frustrated when things aren't exactly where the tutorial says they are.

You're phrasing this as if you think this problem is happening to everyone. It is not.

Scenes don't contain assets, they contain GameObjects. Assets are in the aptly named Assets folder. Check there next time.

 

Like @Antypodish said, I stopped reading after a few lines too, you gotta use some sort of formatting man, just goes to show..

Sounds like you're diving in the deep before you even know it's water in the pool. (@frosted "asset store sales for people who have no real capacity to make a game").

I don't really think so, I pretty much* learned game development with Unity.
what I did is for the first month or so do nothing but read up on it and follow hand holding tutorials - the same stuff using different approaches from different people.
after that for the better part of the first year I just did random projects with no aim, create something simple like pong for example and start figuring out how to add stuff to it (the ability to shoot the other paddle/ball, power ups to collect with the ball) - doesn't have to be fun at all, just functional, ofcourse it's not gonna be smooth sailing but you re-watch some tutorials, stare at the docs for week, maybe ask around on the forums for help understanding something(but please - search for answers first) and you get the hang of it, you start shaping your workflow and proceed to what you actually wanna do.

Why "pretty much"?

Spoiler: Why "pretty much"? <LifeStory>

Well, I'm very "technically-inclined" and I've been messing around with all kinds of IDEs/editors since I was a kid(photoshop, gimp, FL studios, cubase, pivot, flash, to name a few), around 10-11 (I'm 24 right now) so working with editors wasn't new to me.
The first attempt at game dev I had is when I was 12-13 and I tried making a 2D flash game, up until that point I used it for animations(like "the cliff" copies basically, heh), as a step-up from pivot (not that pivot is bad, it's really fun).
After I done my basic research of what I actually need to know - I decided to ditch the effort but I had a lot of basic-generic information about the dev side of things, both technically(beyond the average gamer knowledge) and design wise, it made me see things in a different eye and analyse things from more angles, it's pretty impossible to measure but i'm confident it had some impact.
I've started to mess around with all types of languages after that, but calling me a novice in anything is a complete exaggeration - besides the C family, there I'm good (now, after I read books and watched unending hours of people just talk about programming).
</LifeStory>

No pain no gain, you can't just skip-watch a couple of tutorials on youtube and start buying stuff that's incompatible with each other, let alone the whole new render pipeline, you gotta study this S*** man.

 

What's wrong with asset store sales, it's nice to get some art assets cheaper

 

I get what you're saying, but you do actually need to get a proper grip on things here before carving your own way.

 

Git gud, i thought I knew the ins and outs of git, never heard of that command, what does it do?

 

I deleted that but damn people are fast.

 

Gud is god in Swedish, must be a devine command

 

I think sometimes people here are overprotecting unity, there are legit problems with it, that needs to be highlighted.

Not saying any of OPs statements are legit though, couldn't read the post becasue of the formatting.

 

The thing is - its not "git gud" - its treat the work with some basic level of respect.

^^ This is not treating the work with any respect at all. "I should be able to compete with teams of people that trained for years and years without needing any skill or serious effort of my own" is what that literally says.

 

And a whole lot of other languages from the looks of it. Language quirks always amuse me.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gud

Speaking of which I think you meant "divine" not "devine". Devine is a French word meaning "guess, perceive, sense".

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/devine

You're not missing much. Most of it reads as someone who finally got frustrated enough to justify venting.

 

I'll regret saying this, I'm quite sure, but I believe that ship sailed when professional game engines became free.

 

Actually I wouldn't be surprised, if that exactly what meant to mean

 

Well, I have similar feeling for long time. To be competitive however, need be more technical and aim for higher target, than just common mobile games for example. Such engines gives an opportunity, to focus on different dev aspects.
But making simple puzzle, is almost few day job now, rather than weeks in past.

 

For people who already know what they're doing there's nothing at all wrong with it, especially if you're mostly sticking to art.

For a newbie Asset Store sales look like a quick and easy way to throw together a game, and that's just not the case. It can be a great time saver, but it can also be a quick way to blow out the complexity of your project and get a tangled mess of dependencies, so you really need to know enough to manage both of those things before starting to integrate a bunch of 3rd party non-art stuff.

Even with art, if you're making a game of significant scope you're likely going to want to modify things to fit with your own workflows, shaders, custom tools, etc.

 

Aye, it became extremely apparent at the other side of the fence ----> Epic.! Before the riches and glory of Fortnite Epic admitted they'd put bugs on the back burner to work on their own games and had no "resources" available.

I asked them why they'd not kept the $30.00 a month sub to pay for a dedicated support team. I understand the chicken egg predicament, some can't afford the cost and could eventually become successful. Still, the negatives are rather large, engines aren't cheap to make.

 

Who cares about the formatting, HE IS 100% CORRECT... Unity has become extremely fragmented!.. I think even Unity Are Confused and do not know the right direction. They have completely given up on the Standard Pipeline, and have scattered unity to LWRP, HDRP , now there is talk of Universal Pipeline, how crazy!. Eg. RTX raytracing is only supported with HDRP and probably will never be supported for the standard pipeline, WHY?? Unity seems like they have given up on cleaning up the mess so just do a completely new engine and call it HDRP.

Also, how about LTS (Long Term Support), another confusing unity version.. My god it just never ends. how many more versions?

How about the Post Processing Stack PPS1, PPS2, PPS3 and all it's incompatibilities.

THERE SHOULD BE ONLY ONE UNITY VERSION!!..

 

This is a monumentally terrible idea for a multitude of reasons. There are lots of very good reasons to stick with specific branches.

 

Gotta cut them some slack, U2019 it's far from the bare bones chaotic "thing" well behind it's competitors.

Yeah, sure it's bit of a mess right this second but they've started integrating things like post processing into Unity by default. Sorting out diagnostics for HDRP so you don't miss anything, HDRP will be finalised end of the year etc.

I don't like to be too harsh on a product, I understand what Unity has done for us as a development platform but I'm just going to say what I think on this one (now there's improvement).

Before 5.X Unity was an utter piece of trash only good for mobile and very small projects, all of it's systems half baked and poorly implemented with little to no thought put into it's application and use case scenario's. You think there's hurdles now? I couldn't find a single system that didn't need "working around" or was highly flawed, unlike Unreal where near enough all of it was well thought out (if not challenging).

Don't care about "what successful" games were released with it, a lot of them could of been released using freeware frameworks and the more adventurous projects suffered the mire of crap well know to those using Unity. I found it hilarious when a big project tried to use it, Unity said "oh we've learned so much from this, now we'll do this like X" whilst everyone else was going well duh, we've been saying this for years.

Besides GO's / C Sharp it had nothing on a professional engine. Now? I like it, still a way to go but past the growing pains stands an engine worthy of any project thrown at it.

 

Unity LTS. It's released once per year.

 

What makes you think there is one right direction?

 

And closing... rants get a few posts, but are shut down as rule. If you have specific questions or bugs, please file a bug report and contact/update assets through their creators.

A few things to bear in mind:
1. Game development is complicated, always has been, always will be. If you try to fight that, you will be frustrated all the time.
2. Don't upgrade constantly, only update as needed, and avoid latest releases (stick with LTS). Let others battle the bugs.
3. Relying on assets from the asset store is a trade off, it can speed up development and/or fill a skill set you don't have, but you are creating a dependency that can bite you in ass later. Some time is worth it, sometimes not at all.