I have been using Unity since 2012 and have shipped 2 games on Steam and PS network using Unity. I have loved creating games as well as teaching the engine at University, until now…
Over the last several years, the engine has become a nightmare in terms of actually developing a game. The single issue I am referring to is the Reloading Domain prompt that comes up every time you press play in the Editor.
Waiting 20-30 seconds each time you want to test something is wasting a LOT of time. Typical developers do this at least 100 times a day. That means that we are waiting for this no less than an hour a day while this happens. This used to not be the case with older versions of Unity. It was quick and made developing very easy.
Graphics, new shaders, new pipeline, new this, new that, etc… None of these things matter at all when you spend this amount of time waiting. It is sad because my students and I love the engine but the workflow is beyond useable now.
I downloaded Unity 6 in hopes that this issue had finally been resolved. Not only is the issue still present but it appears to be worse. At this point, I have made the decision to stop using the engine and have the university move on from it.
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Are you aware that you dont need to reload the domain when you press play… its a direct setting in the project settings section?
Moving to unreal, o3de or any AAA ready engine that is considered at least industry level for example is going to likely be c++ if its c++ its just as bad, if not much worse due to other new programmer related problems. you will find your self regretting it. in most cases compiling c++ code is much worse and far harder to work with from a beginners point of view. The only engines that allow you to work fast with out some sort of modification of workflow is godot and lower end style engines that run on interpreted code. There is pretty much no call for industry work for those types of engines for students to aspire to with studios. there is how ever with unity, (and unreal). For example: the only work currently that i see godot users getting is to also teach godot. but there are relatively low amounts of studios working with those types of engines that actually create access to reasonable jobs. the demand is in unity and unreal. moving from these can negatively affect the future of the students you are trying to guide to the
information for it is available. Moving engines for an entire university over problems that are completely not that big of an issue especially at beginner level with small projects (even if annoying, which i agree if not dealt with, is.). sounds completely overkill. Though i do understand frustration. I can absolutely relate in some aspects.
Here is how you fix the no reload on play.
→ Project Settings → Editor → Enter Play Mode settings → Do Not Reload Domain or Scene
it will only reload when you modify a script. Now there are ways to minimize the times that takes as well. You need to look into assembly definitions to begin with and a few other subjects. but you will find there are plenty of things that can reduce / make life working in unity a whole lot more streamlined.
There is also live help from the discord. Its not perfect but it is what it is. other wise ask questions on here. some one will answer the question.
you should also take a look into a few of the unknown youtubers that have some very high skill levels at unity optimisation. these will give you and your students a great resource to learn from.
here is one to get you started (and no that is not me.):
Game Dev Guru - https://www.youtube.com/@TheGameDevGuru
Enjoy your holidays.
It’s being worked on: CoreCLR and .NET Modernization - Unite 2024
As for things you can do now, removing all unnecessary packages from a project can dramatically reduce domain reload time.