So, the problem I have right now, is that I know how to design websites and use HTML and CSS. I understand the general way that OctoberCMS works, such as using a layout for certain pages, and using the {% partial %} and component tags. I get all of that, but, where I run into problems is when I need to do very specific customization such as wanting to make my own registration and login. I gave up after not being able to figure out the form plugins, such as Magic Forms I believe it's called. I want to be able to call specific things like forum topic names into a page or cms partial I'm working on but don't know how. I found a few snippets in various themes such as, calling the current date and time using various letters like H T D, that sort of thing. I understand the Docs exist but, they aren't helpful to me. There is a set of videos on Youtube but it's just too much time to sit through all of them to try and find the specific understanding that I need. I know I learn well from just going over other peoples work and seeing how they used specific codes, and I begin to understand that way. Is there any place I can look to find snippets or example projects that I could use to practice with? I know with creating plugins I'll need to watch the videos but even when I try to, I feel like I'm missing something. Is there any prior coding I should learn before trying to get into this? I know the fundamentals of coding like functions, if then statements, etc and I get PHP to an extent but obviously not well enough. I can't get how things link up and come together with controllers, partials, so on. Any suggestions?

Absolutely first thing that you should do is read through all the docs, start to finish, like you're reading a book. Try clicking on every link, making sure you hit the main docs, the markup docs, the backend UI docs, & take a look through the API docs (specifically the available events).

This doesn't take that long to do, and the main reason to do so is it will you give a basic level of familiarity with what's available in October. That means that whenever you try to do something in the future with October you can think to yourself "oh, I read about something like this in the docs a while back" and then that's when you go back and use the docs as a reference tool.

Once you've done that, you'll have a much easier time understanding any videos giving you deeper understanding into a specific task.

Another thing that you can use to acquaint yourself with October is to take a look through my introduction google sheets presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1KRj0LAnbC-Fgl392-Hz0MnJgihu41KwmhNCOhMHn93k/edit?usp=sharing.

I'd also recommend to give my forms plugin a try, it's the best one available (in my clearly unbiased opinion ;) https://octobercms.com/plugin/luketowers-easyforms).

If you're going to get into creating plugins (which you should, because pretty much every project ends up needing it's own custom plugin), then I recommend you start with reading the docs through, and then using the RainLab.Builder plugin to quickly build the base of what your plugin needs to function and watch what files it creates.

You say: "I know I learn well from just going over other peoples work and seeing how they used specific codes, and I begin to understand that way."

I strongly suggest installing the rainlab plugins (blog, forum, user, [static] pages, builder, notification, etc.) and look at their source code to learn how things are done. This is really the best way to learn (on top of reading the docs) in my opinion.

Good luck.