I’m now with UE4 for some month, learning the game engine, and for month, i drop question and ask over reddit, discord, this board, answer hub.
Most of the time, my ask still unsanwered. I was thinking it’s probably cause i’m not putting enough information, or a good title ? something like this.
Then now, i have enough knowledge about UE4 to start help some people, i do it mostly on discord but… today, with some time to kill, i go trough this board, start to review some question… and ■■■■…
Most of the question, ask, or issue are… just unanswered. I’m not here to put a bad mood, but regarding unity community, it’s… a bit sad. I’m mean for people w/o background on industry, or with strong programming skill, UE4 is right now, a dark and cold place.
Most of the time people are asking questions that have already been answered and they just need to do a search, or they’re asking something too general which is too much to explain, or they’re asking something too specific which few people have encountered that can share a solution.
Honestly, i don’t have this feeling at all.
Specially when you regard to other community like unity.
One simple example, i post recently about an issue about lightning, i never got an answer, and i will never have.
With reading a lot of doc, trying to debug, got some luck (was really random) and finally found a guy, who look to have the same issu, and this thing was about volumetric light.
No one dare to said “hey dude, you should look into volumetric light”, and there is absolutely 0% chance i found this with a search, as the ask was “why, i’ve got this issue ?”
It’s one example, and for me it’s fine, i’m not a lightning artist, my job is about programming and i got enough years behind me to solvd issues by myself. But for a total beginner ? or someone who is just a step above ?
And it’s literally what i see most of the time.
I’m not here to complain by the way, but to try to understand why there is much difference between UE and Unity community, and, try to push thing in the good way (or what i think is the good way).
I’m pretty sure this Unreal community have nothing to loose as focus on helping, cause right now, outside the discord, i don’t see any help.
I don’t know where you posted your question, but I can see it wasn’t on the forum here so I can’t speak to the effectiveness of other places like Discord
In my experience on the forum, things don’t get answered for those reasons I had said before
To me, it’s quite easy to lose the desire to be more active in the forums and try to help others. There are too many:
that clearly demonstrate a high degree of lazyness, where they just ask for a solution without even really trying anything or they just gave up after the first try — you should try and try again, even if it takes days or even weeks;
that just jump in and start working on their project, without even trying some tutorials or do some small projects to get to know the engine first — acceptable when the engine became publicly available and there was a lack of information, but not now;
rabbit holes: where they require step by step answers, with an high degree of details and explanations — I don’t want to insult anyone, so I won’t say anything about this;
that are trying to learn C++ with unreal — get an lightweight IDE like Code::Blocks and learn the basics of the language there;
Oh common, please, stop being in bad faith, i literraly said i do not complain, and explain it’s ok for me, and i know i will not get answered, i complain no where there will be 0 help in futur, i just know it will be the case, as in majority of case. It’s all.
But if you want some ‘proof’…, i can, if you want list every topic open today who won’t get any answer, store them, and watch in two week what post still unanswered. I’m pretty sure i will be right.
Yup, you are right.
But if nobody do it, so community will never exist. One more time, why Unity achieve to do what we can’t do ? They have same rate of lazyness, no ?
Absolutely not, as i said, i already got the solution by myself, and when it’s not the case, i got some coworker to help me.
I simply try to point out something we can improve, but your behavior is strange and look like you take criticism like a personal offense.
That not the goal, but by experience, no point to go further if you want to go in this direction.
I just visited unity’s forum and there is quite a number of unanswered questions. Also comparing unreal and unity’s forums is like comparing apples and oranges. Why? For 2 main reasons: the number of users and the complexity and scale of the engines. For example, I’m more likely to have any question answer related with windows paint than with gimp.
Yeah, that totally make sens.
Also (unity do this too but), having Answer Hub + Forum + Discord + Reddit as huge “helping bug” probably reduce the efficiency as people are spread, no ? After for some, they are public, external initative (discord, reddit…) but i don’t understand why there is Answer Hub AND the forum, i mean, on early, and even now, i don’t really know where i should post.
I really try to show the bad side of Unreal Community, i mean, is a wonderfull game engine, with wonderfull tools,
there is some really nice tutorial, guide, blog post to do some amazing thing, but answer questions is really not our strong point.
And the only goal to point this, is to try to found solution, or have a little talk about it.
I get your point, it can be very frustrating if you are overwhelmed by a steep learning curve, and even supposedly simple tasks fail when you start out. When I post a question I only very rarely get an answer. However, I decided it is more likely that people either do not know an answer, or have not the luxury of time to answer. And if someone new starts out, some questions have been answered already, multiple times.
So while you can claim it is a ‘bad community’, it could also mean there is nobody around at the time to answer your question. Perhaps there are 50 posts on an average day, and perhaps you can say something valuable in 30 percent, but this means you direct your attention and time to following the current forum stream.
Also responding to a question can be a unsatisfying experience. So the bottom line is, there are actually not super many experienced devs online - with the time to give support at any given time, and basically, learning Unreal is a grind.
Usually you have to get to the ground of things for yourself. So don’t take it personal if your posts stays unanswered. Reflecting in a post helps you a lot, by just writing down the issue it becomes more clear.
In my case, I visit the forums when I have a break.
I do so expecting to find interesting topics… When I know a question can be solved with some simple Google search I won’t even click the topic.
Now imagine dealing with things nobody in a forum can answer, have to buy expensive books and “research” for yourself, for weeks until MAYBE you reach a result. That’s what a normal day is to me, I can’t blame the internet.
I agree with topicstarter. Soo many questions are unanswered. Honestly, UE4 community is one of the worst ever. While UE4 is absolutely fantastic and outstanding, best game engine ever.
Since i start this topic, i don’t stop try to debate about me and me feeling and it’s not what i want,
I will try to be clear, for the last time, it’s obviously not your fault but my bad english who restrict me to some “easy” concept. Yes, when i said bad, it’s… may be a bit strong, i just don’t found the right translation.
One more time, i’m not the most experienced dev in the world but i’m far from beginner, i have a Master Degree, i use C since 11 years, but i start Game Engine with Unity.
I have, like every unreal beginner some troubl, but it’s okay, and like you said, it’s a grind.
sometime i ask on the board, sometime i found by myself, sometime i get help from coworkers,
sometime i finish to found a answer on a very old topic, with 0 keyword related, and sometime, i found topic with people who get answer.
Obviously, i’m not talking about question on the board with people who didn’t try to search before, even one hour.
My reflection come from mostly cause sometime, a lot of time to be honest, when i got an issue and i found an answer on the board, the guy found the solution by itself and write it…
The best case, is someone who found the solution and write it… 2 month after he drop the ask. And it’s a common thing on this board.
Thanks a lot to thoses guys, who take the time to wrote the answer, the fact is sometime, this is only answer i was able to found over multiple hours of search / try, and that save me a lot of time, but everytime i see this, i’m like : wait… no one ever face this issue ?
For some specific issue i can understand, but for others… i’m doubtful.
But, a LOT of you guys, saying to me exactly the same thing, and in my mind, when a lot of people agree on one point, they are most of the time right.
Then, i’m probably wrong, and i’m sorry if this is the case, the point is really not to blame someone, but try to move the thing in the right way, if they need to be moved.
My feeling come from the unity switch to unreal.
I found Unity community more responsive, more helpfull than us, and as someone pointed out on this thread : they have the number and this is right, but can we do more ? should we do more ?
And when i read some people, inclued on this thread (but not you), i’ve got the feeling they are elitist and hide behind “Easy question, alread answered, search google”.
And this is for me, the worst kind of behavior you can have on a community just before troll, cause they block the progression.
If i’m right, then we should do all the possible to avoid this behavior.
If i’m wrong, and we just don’t have the number, then forget what i said, maybe i simply don’t realize or have a wrong vision, and one more time, i’m sorry if this is the case, or i offended some people that not the goal, at all.
