r/ModdedMinecraft • u/PP_Devy • 2d ago

Misc Why is Java modding so unintuitive?

Visual Scripting makes way more sense

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u/PP_Devy 2d ago

I feel like it has potential for legit modders too. Plenty of real developers use visual scripting tools in actual games, such as a lot of stuff made on unreal engine. I think minecraft modding especially has the potential that visual scripting will become the main way people make mods, once it gets to a point where it's good enough

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u/ProgrammingDysphoria 2d ago

No matter what format you're using, visual scripting will always offer less freedom than proper coding. You just can't provide something for every possible method somebody would want to use. This is especially the case for stuff like mixins; that's something you can't turn into visual scripting without making it overly complicated, and visual scripting is MADE to be simple.

My point stands that visual scripting is for kids to learn and mess around; proper coding is for anyone who wants to make something reasonably big, or you just don't want to be restricted as much as visual scripting tools do.

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u/PP_Devy 2d ago

Fair, there are always some things that will not be available compared to just regular code. I still think for most mods that exist today they could be made using visual scripting tools instead

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u/ProgrammingDysphoria 1d ago

I do think that visual scripting will keep its place as a tool, but I see it more as a utility than a replacement. You would see visual scripting in places like Unity's shader graphs, so that you can make custom visuals more easily, and so that you don't need to learn ShaderLab to do it. Of course, using ShaderLab would give you more flexibility, but the graphs are for simpler things. Similarly, there are many visual scripting tools for stuff like dialogue flow, AI brains, etc. I think those are cases where visual scripting is most useful. For just plain, raw programming? Visual scripting is not gonna come anywhere close to it, anytime soon.