Hi,
Not everything is plug and play by far on the asset store, this is a misconception I am afraid, but I think we all get your point of course.
All advertising plugins, in app purchase, all the thing that deals with server side, all the mecanim type of animation framework, are not plug and play, extra work is needed in order to get to a point where that particular asset will perform, this is not the case with PlayMaker, PlayMaker is operational as soon as you installed it on your project, as such it completely validates being labeled plug and play.
What your vision of plug an play is tends to be assets that propose a solution for a given gameplay, like an FPS or a racing game, theses assets gives you easy access to a very specific type of gameplay. PlayMaker is not constraining you to a particular type of game, and as such it means you need to build your gameplay and features from scratch. I think this is the confusion with the term "plug and play".
If PlayMaker was "Plug and Play" in these terms, what game type and features would you like to see? We all understand it's impossible to cover all types ( even Unity tried and quickly deprecated its attempt to provide ready made projects for certain types of games, hence why the Asset store is filled with hundreds of solutions.
Also, it is clear from my experience, that the best way to work with Unity is to embrace the Asset store and what it has to offer, 99% of the assets have a very, very low cost, and give you a tremendous push in the direction you want to go by having spend hours, days, weeks, years to come to the best possible way to deal with a specific feature or gameplay. It has to be regarded as a way to save money, not a way to make you buy more things or trick you. ALWAYS read the reviews, they are very informative and very likely true about a given asset.
An asset like Playmaker is sometime seen as expensive, but for an artists that has no clue what c# is, it makes all the difference, to the extent that even some artist got a job at Unity headquarters because they could show off their artists skills because they could produce the interactive aspect of their art themselves, It's too bad I did not ask for the card of this guy that approached me at Unite Austin, he basically came to the booth to tell us about this story ( so if you read this, get back to me please
). Makes all the effort of all these years worth it, with only just this feedback really. How do you price that then on the Asset Store for what it really worth?
Doing a stealth mode or combat takes days, weeks, likely month to get right. So, is it not desirable to find a ready made system for a few bucks that will save you hundreds of hours/bucks down the road?
for example:
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/stealth-action-game-kit-32535 if you are into making a stealth game, this kind of asset should be very attractive to you, you might not use it in the end, but you can inspire from it, looking at how problems where solved, etc etc. I do that a lot myself, getting an asset to learn something. I also learn so much from the Unity learn assets, the last few are incredible, and yes they might not be what you are after, but they sure give you a lot to learn and digest for later on in our own projects.
So, make sure you create new thread on your questions as you'll learn PlayMaker, and ping me so that I don't miss your post
Bye,
Jean