I can certainly understand this but we certainly shouldnt have to reinvent the wheel so much, my thought is that we use third party engines so we dont have to build so much ourselves. Obviously for Epic the Engine is highest priority and thats why I feel this is one area the community could step in and give UE4 a real competitive advantage over Unity which does require alot of rework or outside packages.
I can certainly see where youre coming from, this doesnt sound to me like your typical “I want Epic to make my game or pipeline tools for me” deal and thats why I felt the need to chime in. Water is actually a great example, see Epic might not have a game with water vehicles as an example but for someone that does its a huge task to attempt in the engine and while it does provide the basics there is not alot outside of that, infact what it does provide in the way of water functionality has been in Unreal Engine iterations for a long while and isnt really up to snuff when it comes to modern games and techniques.
Now this isnt to say we need the most extensive water system known to man, it just means a nice solid framework to build from would be great, if everything in the engine had the appropriate hooks for dealing with such a system. This type of thing is best left to the engine level modification and not has the ability to dive that deep, even I myself avoid it where ever possible even though my programming ability is reasonably decent just because of the complexities it adds to the overall development process. In terms of extending such a system to really flesh it out for whatever project I require it for thats no where near as daunting but not having that base means I have to do all the system design and it adds ontop of all the other systems I have to design like basic UI, HUD, Inventory, Weapons, the list goes on. Thats not outside of the range of my abilities and I understand why there isnt a one size fits all approach to those systems but I do think it would be beneficial to have more in the way of game framework in there and not just in templates/examples.
Yeah I think my feelings on this are reasonably well known for those that know me, I will say that Im not overly happy with the system design in this game because it feels too much like legacy port and not designed specific for UE4. The UI system isnt very modular either so its not exactly easy to patch onto, there is also the fact that you have to make whatever you want for UT as you cant bring that code outside of that project.
The issue I have using systems not designed with overall engine scope and modularity in mind is that the time needed to modify them for purpose or integrate them becomes almost as large of a task than writing (or rewriting) them myself. This is why I do agree that some lean systems can use, including marketplace content creators, would be great for getting on a similar page, typically I find design by democracy can be a bad thing and that good system design and code in general is better off as a dictatorship and since Im using Unreal Engine Im already committed in part to The Epic Way ™.