Do Simple and Complex Games Coexist?

lampdemon

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There's a difference between knowing how to play a game and finding out new strategies on it years after it was released.

I could say Arcana Heart games are the best fighting games because they seem more balanced than others(because of its arcana system), but that wont make it true, its just my opinion.
 

Foxi4

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If I may play therapist for a moment here...


Foxi4, why are you trying so adamantly to win an argument on a subject you very clearly are not interested in, with people who are much more knowledgeable about it? Is it some sort of superiority complex in which you must engage in shitting on things other people enjoy, and always maintain the illusion that you're the most knowledgeable person on every subject ever?

I know how that can be, I've been that person.

You'll have a lot more time for productive endeavors if you give up that effort. Let people enjoy things that you don't, accept that they might know more than you about those things. Come to the realization that, even if you're right most of the time, that doesn't mean you're right all of the time. Opposing viewpoints should not be a trigger to double-down. They're an opportunity to re-examine your own.
By no means, I merely have a feverent dislike of people who try to take something and make it out to be more than it actually is. Smash is a fun game, it has hoards of fans and there are good reasons for it - it's fast-paced, it has a set of likable characters, it's well-executed, well-constructed, in short, it's a very wholesome video game. It was never designed to be complex though - it was designed as a fun, fast-paced multiplayer party fighter, at its core it's a casual game and calling it complex is just something that doesn't quite click in my head.

Again, you can exploit any game out there, any game will have control scheme quirks or some planned or unplanned relations between button mashes that could lead to desired effects in terms of cometitiveness if exploited, you can dissect any game to locate hit boxes or range anomalies - wherever there's variables, there's analysis. This doesn't make Smash any special in terms of complexity, it just means that it has a large number of devotees.

I'm not here to sh*t on anyone's parade and I'm not trying to be "that guy" - I like Smash. Smash is fun, it's a good game. I'll go as far to say that dissecting it like this takes away some of the fun from it, but that's besides the point. No, I'm not a Smash scholar and I don't think I'd ever want to be, I prefer to take the game for what it actually is instead of analyzing the pseudo-intricate relations between moves and gentle tilts of the analog stick that amount to nothing more than exploiting hitbox positions. I'm not arguing that it's a bad game or that the fact it's not complex makes it worse than Tekken, Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter - it's nod bad, it's different.
I'm actually well-aware of in-depth analysis of Pac Man, which is why I used the example here. There's whole books dedicated to "winning at Pac Man", see below:
LxHClcF.jpg
You'd think that this should be pamphlet-sized - it's not, the digital release is 162 pages long, the first being the cover, and those pages are full of diagrams and strategies. For Pac Mac, a game about eating pellets while being chased by four A.I.'s - the last thing you'd call "complex".

Any game has a degree of depth, but that doesn't mean that all games are complex - some are more complex than others, which is my entire point.
What makes Smash a complex fighting games are its mechanics/physics, what makes other fighting games complex are the "press 20 buttons to do one move"(a bit of an exaggeration) and slightly different mechanics than other games.
Wow... I couldn't disagree more. If "other fighting games" were based purely on "press this combination of buttons to win", we wouldn't have tournaments, that's just a silly approach. Learning button combinations is one thing, learning how to link them into longer chains, when to use them, what should be the spacing between characters to connect and other such matters is another. On that note, I'm going to agree with Steena here saying that indeed, fighting games simply prioritize different sets of skills, which is why they're different from one another.
 
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Arras

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I guess you can say Beatmania is a very simple game no? i mean, you have 7 buttons (8 if you consider the disc) and you have to tap them in a pattern. Really simple "mechanics" no? based on that, this is simple then?
I think you're mixing up complex concepts and games that are hard(/complex) to play. The concept behind beatmania is as simple as it gets, it's just hard as nails. It's the ultimate easy to get/learn - hard to master situation.
 

Urza

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I'm not here to sh*t on anyone's parade

Yet the statement is directly preceded and followed by additional paragraphs expressing why only your view is correct, and that anyone who gets something different out of the game is wrong.
 

lampdemon

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Wow... I couldn't disagree more. If "other fighting games" were based purely on "press this combination of buttons to win", we wouldn't have tournaments, that's just a silly approach. Learning button combinations is one thing, learning how to link them into longer chains, when to use them, what should be the spacing between characters to connect and other such matters is another. On that note, I'm going to agree with Steena here saying that indeed, fighting games simply prioritize different sets of skills, which is why they're different from one another.


The point that I was trying to convey was that, most fighting games over complicate things by adding ridiculous button combinations to do certain moves(think specials/ultimates), we've had enough buttons in the controllers these past few generations to keep things simple, and smash proves that.
 

Gahars

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Yet the statement is directly preceded and followed by additional paragraphs expressing why only your view is correct, and that anyone who gets something different out of the game is wrong.


Of course he thinks that his view is correct - it's his opinion. That's the name of the game.

Arguing his opinion and providing justification doesn't equal shitting on people, though.
 
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Foxi4

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Yet the statement is directly preceded and followed by additional paragraphs expressing why only your view is correct, and that anyone who gets something different out of the game is wrong.
See above. I've stated it before:
You can believe in whatever you want to believe, I'm going to stand by what I said and maintain that Smash is not a terribly complex game, it's a simple fighter which admittedly has physics, but that doesn't make it a complex game... which is okay because unless you've missed my initial post here, I specifically argued that a game doesn't have to be complex to be fun.
Everyone is free to have their own opinion and every opinion can be contested - mine is that Smash isn't a complex game and I don't see any substantial evidence to prove otherwise, only evidence that people analyze the game and its inner workings, which is not a testament of its complexity, which is why I drew the Pac Man example.

That, and the word "complex" is vague in the context of video games anyways. Gameplay mechanics can be considered to be complex by some and simple by others - to me, they're simple and that's about that. By "not sh*tting on anyone's parade" I meant that my mind is not set to prove anyone is stupid for thinking that Smash is complex, rather to present and justify my opinion why it isn't. I contest their opinion and they contest mine, that's how discussions and debates work. This one is particularly heated, but that doesn't mean that I'm out to insult people for their preferences.
The point that I was trying to convey was that, most fighting games over complicate things by adding ridiculous button combinations to do certain moves(think specials/ultimates), we've had enough buttons in the controllers these past few generations to keep things simple, and smash proves that.
That's pretty much the point of complexity - complex things have a tendency to be complicated, that's sort of the definition. Smash Bros. indeed keeps it simple, which is why it's a simple game, both at face value and to pick up and play. That's the point I've been driving at for those three pages and I really don't understand the uproar it's caused. Of course this goes beyond the simple level of combo execution, but the point stands - Smash was designed to be a simple game and it shows, which doesn't make it a bad game, to the contrary, I've been saying that it's a good game all along. On the same token I praise Naruto games as good fighting games (despite the fact that I find the show to be pretty uninspired) because of their simplicity - the learning curve is not steep and anyone can pick them up, however combining moves together into seamless combos is a matter of experience and skill which is gained by playing the game, it's a very similar case with Smash.
 

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The point that I was trying to convey was that, most fighting games over complicate things by adding ridiculous button combinations to do certain moves(think specials/ultimates), we've had enough buttons in the controllers these past few generations to keep things simple, and smash proves that.
You almost make it sound like other fighting games have more buttons for the sake of having more buttons.

See:


Characters that have 20 types of ranges whose plan is to play the "keep out" game are only possible with those many amounts of inputs that allow for all the options you may need, provided you make the good predictions.
Dhalsim is a character that has little to no combos and gets destroyed in melee range by anyone. Nothing like this that is entirely based on ranged would ever be competitively viable in a smash game.

When complexity adds more options and more unique scenarios, while keeping a balance, then complexity is a good thing and only adds to the game.

Also super/ultra moves are hardly ridiculous button combinations lol, you learn how to execute those in 30 seconds. Consistently executing a melee "advanced technique" is much harder than inputting a bare ultra.
 

Foxi4

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Sheer skill, combo execution, aerial versus ground and ranged versus close quarters aside, even the simple inclusion of high, mid and low hitboxes alone makes the average fighting game more complex than Smash in terms of mechanics - as far as I know, Smash only differentiates between "Hit" and "Not Hit" while the actual trajectory of knock-back is calculated depending on the direction from which the impact force comes, but I'm no Smash scientist. And no, I'm not talking about the attack sweet spots, because Smash does have varied ones depending on the attack and separate ones for grabs and throws, I'm talking about the damage areas on the character itself.

EDIT: More info on hitboxes in Smash available here. As we can see, there is no distinction between high, mid and low boxes for the attacks or for impact areas - there's only "Damagable" (yellow) and "Offensive" (red) hitboxes for the character and the attack respectively, in addition to guard boxes, grab boxes etc.
 

Urza

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I'll make a more straightforward query to everyone in the thread since I'm interested: what would be two games you consider definitively simple, two games that you consider borderline, and two games you consider overtly complex?
 
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Steena

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Sheer skill, combo execution, aerial versus ground and ranged versus close quarters aside, even the simple inclusion of high, mid and low hitboxes alone makes the average fighting game more complex than Smash in terms of mechanics - as far as I know, Smash only differentiates between "Hit" and "Not Hit" while the actual trajectory of knock-back is calculated depending on the direction from which the impact force comes, but I'm no Smash scientist. And no, I'm not talking about the attack sweet spots, because Smash does have varied ones depending on the attack and separate ones for grabs and throws, I'm talking about the damage areas on the character itself.

EDIT: More info on hitboxes in Smash available here. As we can see, there is no distinction between high, mid and low boxes for the attacks or for impact areas - there's only "Damagable" (yellow) and "Offensive" (red) hitboxes for the character and the attack respectively, in addition to guard boxes, grab boxes etc.

You cannot have a good "high and low" system in smash because in order to execute special attacks you use all 4 directions comboed with the action button. Well I suppose theoretically you could, if you made all the down+A actions be recognized as low-hitting ones, but that would be extremely limited as each character would have a single low move and a single high move, it would be close to pointless in the way smash works.


On the topic of complexity versus simplicity, here is a different example that I love:


This is one of the more unique DOTA heroes. Those familiar with League of Legends should look at the inputs and see how closely it relates with theirs.
Basically, Invoker can invoke 3 different orbs, that inputted in a specific order, create a spell, which in turn gets replaced with a new orb combination and so on. Like Magicka, the game.
Needlessly complex to some, but unique, amazing and incredibly fun to others.

Complex mechanics can coexist with easy ones, provided the balance is there. Different things for people with different preferences is always better than being limited to a system that only includes one kind.
RIOT, the developer behind League of Legends, says that such a hero is detrimental to the player community. Because the casual players would be upset that they wouldn't be able to use it properly. Which is mind boggling to me.
 

Foxi4

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I'll make a more straightforward query to everyone in the thread since I'm interested: what would be two games you consider definitively simple, two games that you consider borderline, and two games you consider overtly complex?
In my honest opinion:

(Incredibly) Simple:
  • Pong, Flappy Bird and other similar casual games with no complex mechanics driving them
Borderline (?):
  • Games that are simple to play, but at the same time are driven by more complex gameplay mechanism which do not require player participation, for example racing games that are not simulations
Complex:
  • Games with a complex gameplay mechanism that requires player participation in order to play them, for example Baldur's Gate, Fallout and most RPG's
Here's my reasoning. Pong and Flappy Bird are both incredibly simple games with a very simple premise and very simple mechanics driving them, they're the epitome of what I would consider "simple", or even minimalist. They best illustrate what I understand as simplicity - there is practically no learning curve because everything required to play them is presented to the player in a straight-forward way and there are no in-depth gameplay mechanics for one to consider. This simplicity can be extended onwards to "more complex" games like SHUMPs, the general idea is that if the game has no complex mechanisms that require mastering to actually play the game effectively, they're simple.

I would probably say that a borderline game is a game which is simple to pick up, however the mechanics that drive it may be pretty complex, require a degree of mastery (or the mythical "skill"), however they work in the background and do not require active player participation in order to function - they are taught by experience rather than by necessity. Most racing games could be put in this category - you are presented with a simple control scheme for controlling the vehicle, however in the background, there's a physics engine that controls most elements of your gameplay. Impact into a boundry at high speed is going to have more drastic effects than impact at low speed, cutting corners can allow you to get ahead of your opponents despite driving at a lower speed, utilizing drifting may allow you to cut those corners at a higher speed than it would normally be possible etc. The forementioned Smash fits neatly into this category simply because it contains physics, and this inclusion requires the player to strategize gameplay on the basis of the damage levels, the available skill set of the characters used etc.. In conclusion, a borderline game would be one that's very simple to pick up and play, but still designed with a somewhat complex system underneath the hood, a system about which the player is often completely unaware, but nevertheless a system that requires a degree of mastery.

Complex games are games based on a system of variables known to the player that directly impact gameplay in such a way that not knowing them would be detrimental to the player or in extreme cases it would actually stall the game. In the case of Baldur's Gate, this set of rules is directly based on D&D which is insanely complex on-paper and features such wonders like the "Conga Line of Death" as described by Spoony according to which attacks from various directions cause a varied degree of damage on top of the obvious matters such as a skill tree, a stats system and other customizable and non-customizable elements of the mechanics. In some RPG's, it doesn't matter if you're holding a mace, a dagger or a sword - you're just doing X amount of damage and that's that. In D&D, you have to consider the amount of dice a given weapon uses to generate damage which can give you better or worse prospects (in other words, maximum damage does not always directly translate to maximum DPS), the type of weapon (two-handed, one-handed, double-weapon, dual wield etc.), the type of damage it deals (blunt, slashing, piercing etc.) and the type of your enemy and its defensive capabilities against said weapon. In the case of Fallout, the system used is called SPECIAL and it has seen a revival as of late in games like Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and even Skyrim, in a modified way. In SPECIAL, the character's talents are represented in percentages which simplifies matters at face value, but the underlying mechanisms are still as complex as D&D, if not more so. In both later D&D and SPECIAL the direction the hits are coming from is not the sole determining factor of damage - you have to consider individual body parts of the enemy as well as the possibility that you might be able to deal a crippling strike... or receive one yourself, which can change the outcome of the battle substantially. Of course such complexity isn't limited to role-playing games - many shooters implement similar mechanics, cue the inevitable headshot reference. In short, by complexity I understand the degree of knowledge required to not just play the game, but to play it effectively. The more the game plays out in your head rather than in the actual game the more complex it is.

tl;dr I think I simply draw the lines between the three on the basis of gameplay mechanics. Games which do not feature a complicated gameplay mechanism of any kind and are presented in a simple fashion are simple, games that do feature such a mechanism, however said mechanism is in the background and does not require the player to actively participate in it are somewhere in-between, while games that require the player to utilize said mechanism and knowledge about it is absolutely crucial to gameplay are complex. Of course this is all purely theoretical - there are other matters that have to be considered, such as the actual complexity of the presented mechanism, the intentions of the developers, the way actual gameplay in played out and so on. It's all a very individual matter, I think.
You cannot have a good "high and low" system in smash because in order to execute special attacks you use all 4 directions comboed with the action button. Well I suppose theoretically you could, if you made all the down+A actions be recognized as low-hitting ones, but that would be extremely limited as each character would have a single low move and a single high move, it would be close to pointless in the way smash works.
I think the biggest problem here would be the actual size of in-game models on the screen. I think the designers forfeit the idea of including the High/Mid/Low distinction in Smash simply because actually seeing what's going on on-screen is often a challenge and it wouldn't necessarily help players gain the edge, rather it would introduce a degree of randomness, if not chaos to the gameplay. knock-back trajectories are not an equivalent substitute in Smash, but they serve the game well and replacing them with something else would probably make Smash less Smashing - a joke to lighten up the atmosphere. ;)
 
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natkoden

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If I may play therapist for a moment here...


Foxi4, why are you trying so adamantly to win an argument on a subject you very clearly are not interested in, with people who are much more knowledgeable about it? Is it some sort of superiority complex in which you must engage in shitting on things other people enjoy, and always maintain the illusion that you're the most knowledgeable person on every subject ever?

I know how that can be, I've been that person.

You'll have a lot more time for productive endeavors if you give up that effort. Let people enjoy things that you don't, accept that they might know more than you about those things. Come to the realization that, even if you're right most of the time, that doesn't mean you're right all of the time. Opposing viewpoints should not be a trigger to double-down. They're an opportunity to re-examine your own.


Finally, someone said it. Extremely well put.

That guy ruins the forum experience for all of us, not the other way around.
 

Tom Bombadildo

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Finally, someone said it. Extremely well put.

That guy ruins the forum experience for all of us, not the other way around.

:rofl2:

You are aware that the "forum experience" is essentially multiple parties discussing a certain topic, right? Foxi is discussing his own opinion against others or, y'know, having a conversation :rolleyes: Just because someone doesn't agree with an opinion doesn't mean they're "ruining" anything, especially when their opinion is well thought out and includes actual reasoning and facts against the other parties.

tl;dr cry moar.
 

Foxi4

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Finally, someone said it. Extremely well put.

That guy ruins the forum experience for all of us, not the other way around.
I'm sorry to hear that you think of me that way, I never specifically set out to "ruin" anyone's forum experience, although I admittedly do have the habit of getting into heated debates. I'll try to tone it down a little if it upsets you, but I suppose discussions are just the way I roll, especially on forums which exist solely for the purpose of discussing things.
 
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natkoden

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:rofl2:

You are aware that the "forum experience" is essentially multiple parties discussing a certain topic, right? Foxi is discussing his own opinion against others or, y'know, having a conversation :rolleyes: Just because someone doesn't agree with an opinion doesn't mean they're "ruining" anything, especially when their opinion is well thought out and includes actual reasoning and facts against the other parties.

tl;dr cry moar.


You are aware that stating your opinion is very different from trying to win every single argument while diminishing other people's opinions? It is very annoying to read a guy that express the same thing on every single one of his posts, that he's always correct and what you think is crap. That "I'm the most knowledgeable guy on earth" gets old extremely fast.

tl;dr you're a suck up
 

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