Need Advice on Starting a Minecraft Server & Learning Java from Scratch

Check out kaupenjoes modding tutorials, also no idea wdym with 3, since you are asking if you should go with plugins or mods, where most of the time a modded server needs both forge and plugins.

No? You shouldn't have a modded server with plugins unless you want crazy mod and plugin conflicts

my bad then, i was guessing that there arent really many mods that mimic plugin behaviour

What

Going for both mods and plugins at the same time will make it complicated, I can do one at a time and I will definitely check out that tutorial 🙂

good idea

I would highly, highly recommend just learning java plugins

developing mods is very clunky and complicated

once you get very advanced with making paper plugins you could branch out into fabric mods 100%, but would get the hang of just developing Minecraft plugins in java first

Actually yeah I was going for plugin first :0

Check out Kody Simpson on Youtube

Learn plugins and mods, don't ditch one for another.
Plugins are generally serversided and require hacky bullshit to get working outside of designed scope which is fairly often because of serverside limitations, mods basically give you complete freedom to cut the game apart if you want but that comes with needing to know what you're doing.

Generally start with plugins to get an idea of how to do basic stuff in Java, and remember that while Java is popular it's not the only lang, Kotlin is very good.

^ Not a bad take but I would argue running an RPG server and trying to make it marketable to the general public is going to be a much smoother experience with paper plugins as opposed to fabric mods

To my knowledge there are no large-scale RPG servers that run on fabric

Anything that requires a player to download their own modpack to play on your server is going to severely limit your growth

Even if you don't actually use Fabric mods it's worth learning. Don't limit yourself to a sandbox because maybe probably at the very start you don't need it.

It's borderline impossible to tell where you'll end up or what your requirements will be. Learn the tools that'll let you grow.
Even if you never end up needing the knowledge for your current project you'll learn shitloads about programming and other related skillsets and I can pretty much guarantee you that knowledge transfers or comes in useful later.

I will first learn plugin development for the server and I can do mods later on

Ig plugins(paper) are better for server as they are serversided not client based

There are a lot of players who have difficulty running mods because their setup is not powerful enough at the same time plugins don't seem to have that issue

This is a common misconception. Mods can be serverside as well, plugins are enforced serverside. You just… write your software to be only serverside, there’s nothing special about plugins that makes them unique in that regard.

I apologise for it but actually what I am saying is for entering into a modded server we have to install the mods both on server and the client but for plugins only server installation is required. Thus improving overall performance