I’ll start saying I’m in tech for 15 years and essentially fight inane issues for a living. But 20 hours I’ve spent learning Unity has been the worst. Every package I download has compatibility issues, or script failure issues, and reference breaks before I’ve even changed anything. I can’t even get started learning because half the tutorials have these issues and I’m too inexperienced to troubleshoot effectively. I’m spending hours playing wack-a-mole with forum suggestions.
I’m demoralized. I wanted to get started in this engine, but I’m weeks into fighting it just to let me START using the templates IN THE ASSET STORE. Is there something fundamental I’m missing here? Or is this engine really that inaccessible to beginners?
I am not familiar with the issues you are talking about. I am a beginner myself and every thing went fine and seemed pretty straightforward.
I am working on a Mac with the latest OS.
As a fellow beginner, I would suggest a fresh start, a new project with no extra packages other than the default stuff.
Adding assets should be avoided until a certain stage of development - I believe, once the basics like movement is implemented and the basics rarely ever require additional packages.
Before installing new packages, check the versions they were tested against and if it is compatible with your version of Unity.
If you are following tutorials, don’t do so blindly. Keep in mind that these tutorials could be made in different versions as well and some things might not be the same for your current version.
Ultimately, while following tutorials, try and make your own version of what is being presented to you, as most, if not all tutorials aim to teach us the core concepts of what we want to do. If, for instance, you seek a tutorial to make a player move, the core concepts would be how to make a script listen to user input and apply it to a game object.