Migrating to Slash Commands | My Opinion on why it's not that great as Bot Prefixes...

I am a 13 year old Discord user as well as a bot developer.
Just yesterday, I heard the announcement that all bots must transfer to the slash-commands system before April, 2022.
However, I personally feel that this system is not as efficient as the bot-prefix system and brings a lot of problems for developers and their bots.
Hence, I prepared a few reasons as to why I feel that bot prefixes are better than slash commands.

Why I feel this:

1) Due to the slash commands system, bot developers that have not enabled the "applications.commands" in their bot, have to re-invite their bot to all the servers for the slash commands to work, when it is newly programmed into the bot. This causes a huge problem in bots which are already in hundreds of servers. It is practically impossible for the developers to re-invite their bots to all hundred plus servers, which they do not even own.
This is the same problem that I am facing. My bot is in 97 servers currently (as I am typing this feedback). Now, even if I code the slash commands system and enable the "applications.commands" in my bot, all servers which my bot is already in (97 servers) will not be able to use the slash commands unless they re-invite the bot again. This is quite a huge problem, since it is almost impossible for me to make an announcement to all the 97 servers, telling them to re-invite my bot.

2) A bot can have only MAX 50 slash commands:
This is also another huge problem, since many bots which have more than 100-200 commands, will not be able to fit all of it into just 50 slash commands. Especially multi-purpose bots like mine which have hundreds of commands.

3) Slash commands are not that efficient, as I said before. Sometimes they give slow responses as compared to bot commands powered by prefixes. However, I do like the way slash commands are and how easy they are to use. However, if all the bot's commands are in the form of slash commands, it will be very inefficient for users to use them.

4) If all bots work on slash commands, it will be very difficult for users to understand. If each bot has around 50 slash commands, it will be very hard to organize and understand how they work. This destroys the uniqueness of bots, they way each bot had different prefixes and different ways of working.

5) User Education:
This is also one issue. Since years, all users have accustomed to using bot prefixes for the bot to reply to them and perform various commands.

6) Shutting Down of Discord.py:
Due to the new slash commands system, unfortunately, discord.py was made to shut down, which millions of discord developers were using. This is resulting in a massive problem for discord.py developers. Especially the fact that discord.py is such a big platform.

So these are my 6 reasons as to why I feel Bot Prefixes are much better than Slash Commands. I compiled together all the problems that I and many other developers are facing.

7) I personally think that force-switching all bots (which are verified) to work on slash commands may not be a good idea for all. The prefix system currently is way more convenient, especially when you can have different prefixes for each bot.

On the other hand, slash commands will be mixed up for all bots, if we use /help, it will be pretty hard to search through all bots and find the bot you want, click on it and request for help command (big servers have 20+ bots mostly, and navigating through 20+ bots and finding the one you need might as well be pretty irritating). Another concern is that the bots that did not have the "applications.commands" scope in the bot invite will need to have their bot be re-invited to servers, which also is troublesome. If the slash commands system is implemented (though I would personally hope not), I hope the applications.commands is automatically added as a scope for all bot invites, and also that the servers wont have to re-invite the bot.

Slash commands may prove effective for some developers. However this is inefficient for developers like me and many others.

I do like the way how slash commands work, BUT I believe that we should not be forced into using slash commands ONLY for our bot 😉

Please do upvote this suggestion, so that discord can see this and understand our problem :)

Hope you have a great day!

Mr.Respected

August 31, 2021 07:15

Yeah I second that :)

Fluxx

September 07, 2021 02:15

YES YES YES! Discord needs to see this! What moron at Discord thought that slash commands were any good? The only thing it's doing is causing chaos, confusion and frustration for discord bot developers like me. Please, discord, READ THIS!! I am very upset with slash commands!

Ducky

January 12, 2022 16:29

Agreed. My bot commands are fun because we can see the command itself, and there's nothing fun if you remove it and replace it with slash commands. E.G. say commands and chat commands, basically chat bot commands. With slash commands being forced, I don't think I can continue my bot anymore.

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