Have we really not done this one yet?
Hmph, alright.
I'm sure we've touched on it many times, but this topic hasn't really been given the full treatment.
So, let's fix that.
Today we're going to talk about how to balance depth and complexity in video games
or more accurately we're going to talk about what the proper relationship between the two is.
Basically, it is the designers job to get the maximum amount of depth
out of the minimum amount of complexity.
I could probably just end this episode right there but, just for kicks
let's unpack what that means starting with depth.
Depth is simply the number of emergent experientially different possibilities or meaningful choices that come out of one rule set.
So, for example, tic-tac-toe is light on depth because
the rules don't create a plethora of experientially different possibilities for the player.
Early shooters often struggled with this as well because even though many minor
variations *could* occur they were often not very experientially different.
Even though it was computationally different to be shooting someone from
8 pixels to the right of where you did last time;
experientially, it was about the same the first solution to this problem was
different weapons and different enemy types as this allowed different combat scenarios to play out
bringing truly experientially different variations.
It really did feel like a meaningful choice to decide whether to use your machine gun or your rocket launcher for any given combat problem.
More modern online FPS is have the whole leveling in kit system in place to
give the level of depth necessary to sustain long-term online play.
These systems help create an even wider array of possible meaningful choices for the player
But depth just isn't depth if the player can't utilize it.
Where depth comes in is in the player's ability to think around and use the options the rule set presents
within the context of play to make meaningful choices with the rules presented to them.
This is what we're talking about when we say that first-order optimal strategies can potentially negate a game's depth
This claim might be a little contentious, but I'll say it:
"Depth is entirely a mental activity."
If players can't think around should I use my rocket launcher on my machine gun;
if they can't make a conscious choice about it then there is no depth.
Whether it be something like League of Legends, Magic the Gathering, or Call of Duty
the depth comes in the player's ability to make meaningful choices with the options the rules present to them
and their ability to learn from the outcomes of those choices
Without those two components, you don't have depth.
So, now let's talk about complexity...
In the most basic Layman's sense complexity is the mental burden put on the player by the game.
In a slightly more expanded sense,
mental burden can be thought of in terms of data the player has to store, the rules they have to process, and
calculations they have to make to make a meaningful choice.
So, clearly by this definition rules themselves can be more or less complex
but since that varies from game to game
What, besides the rules themselves, influences how complex a game is?
First, is obviously the user interface or user experience:
The more cluttered a screen is with options; the less intuitive their placement, look, shape, or color is;
the more data the player has to store in their head,
rather than simply being able to utilize these elements on the fly without memorizing or decrypting them.
the prime example of this is clearly Dwarf Fortress;
great game, nowhere near as popular as it would be if it weren't artificially complex.
We've sort of covered this bit before so I'll leave it at this:
"There's no excuse for a counter intuitive user interface"
Don't make your UI a mess.
It's just like we said with tutorials if you can craft how your player learns your game,
you can reduce the amount of data they have to know.
Making it easier for them to process your rules and even giving them a leg up on making
some of the calculations necessary for meaningful choices.
A good tutorial reduces your game's complexity, meaning you can afford to have more of it,
This seems obvious but it's often the most complex games that have the worst tutorials
because the game's complexity makes those tutorials really hard to craft
but if you're struggling with how to teach someone the ins and outs of your own game,
you've probably made it too complex.
Next, let's look at some of the less obvious ones...
First, let's talk about how the pace of play affects complexity.
Fundamentally, the question is how many mental calculations per second are you asking of your player?
Consider your decision-making process in a shooter compared to a turn-based tactics game.
While there are often a lot more calculations to do and rules to process in the latter.
Turn-based tactics games are not overwhelmingly more complex than most modern shooters because of
the pace at which you get to make those decisions.
If you had a shooter that required the same level of data retention rules processing and calculation that
most tactics games do, it would be utterly unmanageable,
it'd be fatally complex
So, when you're thinking about what level of complexity is viable for your player,
Really think about the pace of play, how many decisions are you asking him to make per second?
That will tell you how complex those decisions can be.
Next, let's talk about irreducible complexity;
Grand Strategy games, by Paradox, have come up a couple times in
our Games You Might not Have Tried series, because they're always interesting,
but they usually share a common problem.
You have to learn all of the rules before you can even start to play.
If your tutorial can't be split up and distributed over time, if your player has to know everything before
they can even begin to play, you've created a rule set with irreducible complexity
this puts a much greater mental burden on the player as there's no way for them to practice and get familiar with
individual rules before having to understand how they all interact as a whole,
moreover, it often means that the play itself can't be segmented into smaller mental tasks,
which neutralizes one of our most powerful human faculties for reducing complexity.
So, let's bring it all back to the main question how are depth and complexity related?
Well, since depth is only depth to the extent that the player can play with it even if a rule set allows for a vast
amount of experientially different outcomes a game's complexity limits its depth.
We talked about Dwarf Fortress earlier, a game where 90% of the people I know who have tried it,
experienced a little to none of its depth because of its complexity.
It's a beautiful unbelievably deep game but the few people I know who didn't just quit after 15 minutes of
trying to figure out what was going on, there by experiencing none of its depth,
still often didn't get much past the basics before giving up a week or two later
Depth is bought with complexity but complexity also restricts depth.
You'll often hear designers talk about elegance in design
Elegant design is simply designed with a high depth to complexity ratio;
games like Go.
Many designers I've encountered hold up elegance as the ultimate goal of design,
and I don't personally believe this is true, I believe engagement should be that goal,
but since complexity is kind of like a finite resource with which to buy depth for your game;
I do believe it is the designers job to look for the most bang for your buck in terms of depth to complexity.
So, to answer the statement as it is usually posed on message boards:
"No, more complex games aren't better deeper ones are."
I hope that helps!
We'll see you next week.