Programming in Unreal/C++ sometimes feels like someone deliberately set up traps for you.
That “UFUNCTION” thing is something you come across at some point, be it here in the forums or in some other blog, but not in the docs.
To me, the worst part is that until I have figured out how something works, I never know whether the problem is my stupidity or just some quirk in the Engine alongside a lack of documentation.
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Here I have strong suspicions that the player start mechanism just doesn’t work.
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Here checking the boxes for “replicates” and “net load on client” in a somewhat contradictory manner solves a problem that (probably) shouldn’t be there to begin with.
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And here I just fell into a beginner trap because I didn’t know that the replication mechanism always ever only serves to let data flow from the server to the client. (For the other direction you need a Server RPC)
Epic Games basically provides me Unreal Engine for free (unless I make more than a million USD with my game). … which is especially crazy given that UE is the most technologically advanced engine of them all. Along with the Epic MegaGrants, their support for game development is huge.
I guess a big reason why developping with UE isn’t “fun” is that UE wasn’t initially thought to be a community project. Now that the uses of UE are extended way beyond 3D-Shooters, it appears that Unreal Engine not only lacks documentation but also clean interfaces.
But imagine you would sit down, clear Unreal Engine of all the weirdness and provide new, more elegant abstractions (with full support for C++ 20) … you would have a lot of work (if such project can be finished at all) and you would totally break the engine for all older versions, leaving the veterans confused. All of this without a strict guarantee that the new product is any better.
Meanwhile, you realize that C++ isn’t even a good choice as a programming language. It’s just there because it always has been.
So there we are, waiting for the rust community to save us, if they ever succeed in their ambitious quest.
(Until then, yes, updating the docs, adding written tutorials and guides - no more YouTube, thanks - and having staff answer here more frequently would be great)