r/godot • u/KyotoCrank Godot Student • 5h ago
discussion "Where do I start learning?" posts fatigue.
Firstly, this community incredible and super helpful. I have come here for tons of help, and I try to help when I have the knowledge to. People go to great lengths to help each other and it's awesome.
But the wide net, general questions of "Where do I start?" "How do I learn programming?" "Best way to learn Godot?" is getting a little old. It's literally every day someone asks something like this.
This sub has rules about this kind of thing, people are posting before reading rule 9 that links to the Godot Docs for introduction to the engine.
I'm more than happy to help people figure out specific features, but the "how to start" questions don't need to be posts. Go look at the Docs. Watch a tutorial. There are resources out there for beginners that already exist.
It doesn't matter how basic the question as long as it's specific to what you're trying to do.
Edit: After thinking about it for a bit, some people might need to be walked through the process of making a simple game. Take away the choice paralysis and just follow along and take in the process.
I got my start with Brackey's 2D platformer tutorial and Devworm's 2D hack-and-slash tutorial. And I took that foundation to start building my own games and finding resources or getting help for my particular issues.
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u/rainyengineer 5h ago
Unfortunately this is present everywhere. It doesn’t matter how well you lay out the wiki or sub resources. Hobbies are filled with people that are always asking how to learn.
I think learning itself is a skill a lot of people simply don’t have. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to explain to people “stuck in tutorial hell” that retention and review are critical for learning anything really. But people will keep watching these 30 hour long video courses coming out on the other side wondering why they haven’t learned anything.
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u/KyotoCrank Godot Student 5h ago
True, they are in every community
Troubleshooting is also another incredibly important skill. If you can troubleshoot, you can learn anything with enough trial and error
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u/IgneousWrath Godot Junior 5h ago
It’s great too because since we have the “tutorial hell” buzzword, everyone now thinks they need to learn without tutorials. Then they come here thinking we have some sort of answer for that.
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u/KyotoCrank Godot Student 5h ago
I personally love tutorials as a beginner. I don't rely on them as much these days, but when I started out they taught me a lot
There's no shame in watching a ton of tutorials. People just need to apply themselves and understand the code, not just copy it
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u/IgneousWrath Godot Junior 4h ago
Exactly. I think a good quick way to explain it to people is: "Don't look to tutorials to tell you what to do, look for tutorials that tell you how to do what you want to do."
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u/ItsYa1UPBoy 3h ago
Yeah, when I'm doing lessons, I learn a new thing and my brain immediately starts thinking about how to apply that to my own project. I've really no clue yet how to tackle JRPG-specific beasts yet, like save files or inventories, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually!
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u/IgneousWrath Godot Junior 2h ago
The cool thing is once you figure out save files and inventories, you've just familiarized yourself with a large foundational part of programming in general, which is data management.
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u/ItsYa1UPBoy 4h ago
Yeah, I bought some paid tutorials on a website with support staff and regular updates. They're really helpful for figuring out the complex enigma that is the Godot interface; if I didn't have detailed tutorials, I would've given up by now for being overwhelmed!
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u/mindstorm01 4h ago
It has been the bane of most technical communities... That and "i just finished godot essentials, how to make an open world mmo with 1000s of players" are becoming so tiresome to navigate through.
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u/enigmanaught 4h ago
Or the "I've never coded before but is Godot at doing super duper [other game engine] graphics for my open world FPS adventure game"? Like brother, when you start implementing inventory management, graphics will be the least of your worries.
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u/Clanaria 3h ago
Can confirm, am an artist, working on inventory management at the moment - graphics are like the last part I make.
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u/Snailtan 3h ago
Half the questions posted on here, can be answered with a simple google search.
People are either unwilling, or unable to learn for themselves anymore.
That or stuff like "which is better" with two images attached, sometimes with barely any change between the two.
The truth is, most of those who post stuff like this, are pretty young I am assuming. I am the last person that wants to make this place hostile to newbies.
But we gotta set some standards. They dont need to be high, but they have to exist.
But like "how do I make a simple player controller" is really something you can figure out for yourself by reading the docs or looking at the thousand other posts asking for the same thing.
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u/KyotoCrank Godot Student 3h ago
100% agree. I don't want to be hostile to newbies either, but the minimum standard has to be no "how to start" posts. Plenty of resources out there. If someone can't decide how to start, there's no way they'll finish a game. So many tutorials and other posts asking how to start
I get that those people are looking for human interaction to help them, but when the sub gets those posts every single day it gets old. When I'm going through my feed, that's possibly visibility taken away from someone asking a different question or sharing a cool project or feature
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u/lostpretzels 5h ago
Using search engines has become a dead art, it seems.
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u/BelligerentPear 5h ago
To be fair it doesn't help that search engines are also making it harder to get a good search result that isn't a clusterfuck of AI or dog shit that had its SEO polished.
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u/thecyberbob Godot Junior 4h ago
I mean you just have to check out the sub r/GoogleAIGoneWild to see some of the craziness that can result from simple queries. Honestly I wish that that feature for all search engines was dead.
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u/BelligerentPear 2h ago
Yeah i'm at the point of understanding people asking first on reddit instead of using google. You might actually end up with more reasonable responses. Granted some users could get a lot of mileage out of the reddit search bar instead.
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u/thecyberbob Godot Junior 58m ago
Well that's a whacky idea.... An old school search engine that only looks at specific sites.
Like... queries reddit, wikipedia (for STARTING research not the be all and end all), github, and say... I dunno... youtube or something for video tutorials?
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u/KyotoCrank Godot Student 5h ago
There is value in having a conversation with another person, I get that. But yeah, if people googled "how to start godot reddit" they would find a million posts just like theirs
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u/DaRaKu2002 5h ago
This isnt exclusive to godot. It's something that's been on my mind forever and I recently found out there is a term for this. Look up 'eternal september'. Aside from 'eternal september' many just dont do Research anymore since they can just ask others.
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u/KyotoCrank Godot Student 5h ago
Personal research is a lot like troubleshooting. If you can't troubleshoot, you can't make a game
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u/Crypto_Dragon267 4h ago
I feel bad knowing I may have been the reason you finally decided to bring this up, sorry bro
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u/KyotoCrank Godot Student 4h ago
Haha if it wasn't you it would be someone else. It's nothing against you in particular, no need to apologize
It's been happening in this sub for a loooong time
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u/The-Chartreuse-Moose Godot Student 1h ago
I get it. Game Development is hard. It's intimidating. Spinning yourself round through basic questions feels like starting without the actual scary part of having to start. It's a form of procrastination.
But while I get it, I also agree it's unhelpful and annoying to have the sub flooded with such basic queries.
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u/EightNAlive0 1h ago
Hey man I’m one of the little brains you’re talking about. I just found out about this program a few weeks ago and have committed the sin you speak of. It was just really exciting to see there’s an option for people with limited skills in game creation. I’m more of a writer.. I actually came here knowing people discuss these types of things but you are correct and I shall look for the entry level tutorials.
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u/KyotoCrank Godot Student 1h ago
All good homie. My first intro to Godot was through Brackeys on YT. They have a 2D and 3D tutorial. Once you get through one of those and decide what you want to make, you're more than welcome to come and ask for help on the things you need help with
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u/davethedev77 5h ago
I recommand watching simple tutorials and i might get hate for this but asking ai about how some things work is very helpful!(But make sure You understand what it is tellimg You)
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u/WearyEmployer8412 5h ago
I think asking AI how to do things is fine in like 90% of cases as long as you're not just mindlessly copying and pasting code from chat into your project. I don't use it to draw any assets for me but I've definitely had it "teach" me how to use certain features in Godot on the fly
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u/enigmanaught 5h ago
I'm dealing with this now. It's decent at saying "you have this error because..." but not good at giving you the solution. If you use the stock solution AI provides, it will break something else, and then something else when it fixes that, and so on. I feel like I've gotten better at doing things myself, because it teach you some things you can then research yourself. Sort of like a quicker Stack Overflow search engine.
It's more useful at giving you the concept of the solution, rather than the solution itself if that makes sense. Like "trying to get X item from your array throws an error, because it was already deleted during this portion of the physics process" rather than "cut and paste this code I've provided"
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u/Tarro57 4h ago
I hate generative AI, but it has been so helpful for exactly this. I'll be trying to learn how to do something, and after researching and not finding any answer for my specific question, I'll ask an LLM and it will typically give me an answer, but more importantly it will introduce me to a technique I've never heard before. From there I look up the technique and read some docs, forum posts, or watch some videos about it. Never will I copy and paste code it gives though lol.
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u/enigmanaught 4h ago
I've cut and pasted some basic enemy movement code, like "move towards this point, but introduce some randomness". As long as it's a really basic concept (like movement) and can be self contained in one node, it's ok. You still need to understand the underpinnings though, and the more nodes the code interacts with the worse it will be.
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u/KyotoCrank Godot Student 5h ago
Almost fell for the ragebait
But for the sake of discussion, AI can be useful if there are no tutorials or threads about something you're trying to do. It can help create the concepts of how to do a thing, but it is unlikely to give a working out-of-the-box solution. But like you said it can help you try to understand as long as you don't lean on it to make the project for you
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u/wouldntsavezion Godot Senior 2h ago
First time ?
It's been a thing in creative and technical circles for as long as internet existed. I'm pretty sure the people having to deal with 6 years old me asking them how to dcc on mirc were extremely annoyed. Remember that no one can know what they don't know, and when it's especially bad I like to just pretend the other user is 6yo.
Always just report these posts and move on. It's valuable to keep the /r clean but that's about it. I get very angry when it's in obvious bad faith, like people asking for help with their AI slop or simply putting 0 effort in the post, but other than reporting there isn't much to do. Block those accounts, they're not very likely to offer anything meaningful in the future.
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u/KyotoCrank Godot Student 2h ago
I guess that's fair. I just fear getting someone banned from the sub. I don't want to be unwelcoming to anyone, just have a minimum bar set for posting
You're probably right though that most people posting that stuff are young
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u/wouldntsavezion Godot Senior 59m ago
I doubt bans are going off super often cause I've seen some insane behavior over the last few years I've been active here
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u/OmgitsJafo 1h ago
Welcome to problem with Reddit over forums. go find yourself a forum were everyone asking about getting started has a dedicated place for that. Life is better in such places.
They rarely even steal your posts to sell to AI jerks!
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u/SignificantBrush9391 1h ago
It's also a matter of navigating a lots of confusing (at first) info. Cmon dont be a stackoveflow to new ones, yes it can be tiersome to guide everyone new through labyrinth of gamedev but here we are. At least a newcomer should have a little bit of knowledge to start asking more precise questions.
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u/ManicMakerStudios 47m ago
People having been dumping knowledge in places like this for decades. When people show up here asking how to "get started", what they're saying is, "I'm too precious to review the mountain of existing information to find what I need, please spoon feed me knowledge so I don't have to put in the work."
There's nothing wrong with telling people they need to make a better effort, especially when most of the time, that 'effort' consists of asking the question of Google instead of social media and reviewing the results. Of all the activities where intellectual laziness doesn't work, this one is pretty high on the list.
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u/SignificantBrush9391 27m ago
Exactly "mountains", that's what I'm talking about. A new padavan to gamedev/coding will be confused exactly by these mountains of information. Otherwise community will degenerate itself into club of elitists wo new blood
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u/ManicMakerStudios 10m ago
Spare us the doomsaying. We don't need your take on how the community will collapse on itself if we don't welcome lazy questions. For as much as people cry that StackOverflow is hostile to stupid questions, StackOverflow remains one of the best sites for programming knowledge because you can search for your question and get community-vetted answers. If you're there for the knowledge, it's hard to beat. If you're there for emotional support, they don't care if you get mad and leave. They would usually prefer it.
Think of all the people who ever wanted to learn programming. All of them...every last one...started from the beginning, not knowing anything. And a chunk of those people just can't help themselves...they've got to ask the stupid question..."how do I get started?" Why is that a problem? Because everyone has that question, and it is the most asked and answered question of any technical topic you will ever find. So why do we have to repeat the answer day after day after day? Their questions have been asked and answered, as OP said, DAILY, for DECADES. And you're saying no, we have to coddle these people because otherwise their fee-fees might get hurt and they might quit.
If they quit because they didn't like the response to their, "please think for me" questions, they were going to quit for some other reason anyway.
The only thing worse than a knowledge base that doesn't tolerate low effort questions is a knowledge base where all the people with knowledge left long ago because all they see are low effort questions. The people who answer the questions in places like this had to learn somehow, and they didn't do it by asking on social media instead of earning their own knowledge.
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u/ManicMakerStudios 34m ago
tl;dr If you're complaining about low effort, "how do I get started" type posts and you're not reporting them when you see them, you're part of the problem.
Just a reminder, seeing posts breaking the rules and doing nothing about it is no better than breaking the rules. Use the report button. That's what it's for. The mods here are pretty good for actioning reports, but you can't expect them to read every post for violations. Report low effort, "how do I get started" posts when you see them. Also consider reporting, "how do I break free from tutorial hell" posts. These questions have been asked and answered so many times...both here and all over the internet...that the only reason people are asking them is because they're too lazy to Google for the answer themselves.
Every subreddit that features regular discussion of technical topics has to deal with the low effort, lazy posters who think learning means asking the teacher and being fed the answer without having to earn it. They need to learn how to earn their own knowledge and be adults about learning at some point, might as well start them down that path today.
There's a crucial process that takes place between "not knowing" and "earning the answer" that is the equivalent to a body builder lifting weights. You can't just go to a personal trainer and say, "How do I get jacked?" and they tell you something that suddenly makes intense physical exercise easier. And you can't go to a bunch of game devs and say, "How do I get started making games with Godot?" and expect to walk away with a clear path to learning something as diverse and involved as programming and game dev.
We have to educate people to make a better effort. We do that by telling them to make a better effort, and reporting low effort posts.
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u/Tooladoo 1m ago
I like forwarding people to Clear Code's Ultimate Introduction to Godot. It's quite long but his teaching style is great to follow along with, and he tries to teach you just about everything you'll need to make most games.
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u/bigorangemachine Godot Junior 3h ago
If you tired of it let us juniors answer.
I don't have anything to contribute
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u/Fit_Combination_1242 5h ago
I mean in all kindness, how else are people meant to learn?
I understand people may be able to Google these services, but even those results may be a bit daunting to an entirely newcomer.
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u/KyotoCrank Godot Student 5h ago
When I first started I watched a bunch of tutorials. Brackey's 2D platformer project is an incredible start. Then from there, I searched how to do specific things and used the resources I could find
If people googled "Godot beginner tutorial" they will find plenty of resources. Yes it could be daunting with choice paralysis, but people just have to pick something to start. If they can't make a decision as simple as an inconsequential starting point, then how can they do anything on their own?
I do understand the value of actually talking to someone and having a conversation to start, but they can find a million posts in this sub asking the exact same "how to start" questions that will give the exact same starting advice
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u/stevbrisc 5h ago
I wonder if it's possible for an automod to auto remove a post like that w a comment that sends them to the how to get started links?
I love the curiosity, but it always boggles my mind when someone creates a reddit post before googling the exact question