On Complexity, Depth and Skill

[icycalm]

You guys are drowning in a cup of water. And for apparently no reason.

Before you pursue a line of reasoning you need to ask yourself "Why am I pursuing this line of reasoning? What do I hope to gain from it?" All the fuss about "breaking" or "not breaking" the rules is about nothing. Where did all this talk come from? What does it have to do with the subject under discussion?

So yeah, in videogames IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BREAK THE RULES. If you give me an example where the rules where seemingly broken, I am only going to reply that no rules were broken, because a videogame, since it runs on a machine incapable of autonomous thought, cannot accommodate that. Even if a game HANGS ON YOU, that's still the result of one of the game's rules. Whether the programmers knew about it or not is another matter. It is as a result of their programming that the rule (the glitch, etc.) even exists at all, so they are responsible for it. It exists. It's in the game, etc.

In real-life games, on the other hand, players MAY PERHAPS be capable of "breaking" the rules, but in that case there are OTHER RULES, which dictate what happens in each case. So, in essence, since even when you break the rules you are still following other, more fundamental rules, you are still always within the game's ruleset.

[icycalm]

To ask it another way: are you contrasting recitation (i.e. parroting the syllables) with the ability to follow the rules? Or do you mean (as I think you do) that to "understand" a ruleset you must grasp the realm of possibilities that it creates? In the former case, understanding the rules of Chess is a trivial task. In the latter, well, who can ever be said to understand them?

You are splitting hairs right now. Here, do this: assume that there are two versions of the word 'understand' in the present context: a weak and a strong one. In the former case you are using its weak version, and in the latter its strong one. Problem solved.

In any case, the distinction between rulesets that are difficult to learn (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons) vs. those that are easy (Chess) seems an important one. Can you suggest words, instead of "simple" or "complicated," that we can use to mean "low/high barriers to entry?" Although the journalists may use trite phrases like "minutes to learn, a lifetime to master," it's useful to note such characteristics.

I don't really care to suggest appropriate words. As long as you understand the essence of the matter you should every time be able to find the appropriate words to express whatever it is you want to say.

I understand all there is to know about how to follow the rules of Chess, but I am poor Chess player. Do you say that I don't understand the rules of Chess?

Yes. Just like a Street Fighter player who knows all the combos but gets killed in mixup and can't perform the combos when he's not against a training mode dummy.

Watch it, here. You are comparing an action game with a purely intellectual one, so the analogy is not a very good one. "Knowing all the combos", for example, is NOT the equivalent of understanding the rules of chess. Indeed, you can understand all the rules of SF without knowing any combos at all. Without even being aware of their existence, in fact. But don't bother attempting to refute this claim because we'd end up splitting hairs again. The question would then become: which are the main rules of SF? But that is not a very interesting question.

The bottom line is that playing a game is a process. Even if you study all the rules before you even attempt a single game, you still don't really understand much about them until you start seeing them work in practice.

[icycalm]

So, application equals understanding in this case?

(a) knows the rules (inputs) on performing combos
(b) cannot apply the rules (inputs) on performing combos
(c) bad at Street Fighter

If (a) and (b), then (c).

Sorry about the boring presentation— just trying to break it down.

There is nothing "simple" about the ruleset of Go, just as there is nothing simple about the ruleset of Mushihime-sama or KOF XI. Just because you can easily recite something (a poem, say, or a ruleset comprised of six rules) doesn't mean you understand it.

I understand all there is to know about how to follow the rules of Chess, but I am poor Chess player. Do you say that I don't understand the rules of Chess?

All I am reading from this is that knowing does not equal understanding when dealing with rulesets. I don’t see where being a good/bad player with regards to things that follow rulesets comes in.

See how you confused this guy, Josh? Man, I just don't have the energy to do any more explaining right now. Just think about this: some games require more physical skills and some more intellectual ones. "Understanding" in the former case involves even things like "muscle memory", etc. Your body has to "understand" things too. Do you see now?

[icycalm]

In any case, the distinction between rulesets that are difficult to learn (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons) vs. those that are easy (Chess) seems an important one. Can you suggest words, instead of "simple" or "complicated," that we can use to mean "low/high barriers to entry?" Although the journalists may use trite phrases like "minutes to learn, a lifetime to master," it's useful to note such characteristics.

I don't really care to suggest appropriate words. As long as you understand the essence of the matter you should every time be able to find the appropriate words to express whatever it is you want to say.

But note that the very least you can do is distinguish between a simple GAME and a simple RULESET. Here are some examples:

tic-tac-toe is a simple game with a simple ruleset
Go is a complex game with a simple ruleset
D&D is a complex game with a complex ruleset

I have yet to hear of a game journalist who understands the above distinction...

[icycalm]

To give an example of the absurdities that journalists end up spewing because of their ignorance of game theory fundamentals, here's a quote from that hobag, Leigh Alexander, who's so popular these days:

Simple, but deep, yeah?

http://sexyvideogameland.blogspot.com/2 ... s-bad.html

She asks the question: "Is simplicity bad?", without realizing that there are two kinds of simplicity.

But even if we interpret her answer ("simple but deep is best") the way she would like us to interpret it -- i.e. simple ruleset, deep game is best -- it turns out THAT SHE IS STILL WRONG. Because think about it. Why should a simple ruleset be universally preferable to a complex one? Part of the greatness of stuff like Dungeons and Dragons or Civilization or M1 Tank Platoon, etc. is that you have to invest a lot of time in figuring out how things work. Intelligent people love that -- in fact, intelligent people LIVE FOR THAT. From the perspective of intelligent people, then, the correct answer is not "simple but deep" but "complex and deep".

So yeah. Journalists, lol.

But I wonder, from what perspective are reviewers judging complexity, in the broader sense? Are we talking about controls, the sophistication of the game mechanics, the game's length, its plot, characters, what?

Keep wondering, bitch.

[Worm]

Just think about this: some games require more physical skills and some more intellectual ones. "Understanding" in the former case involves even things like "muscle memory", etc. Your body has to "understand" things too. Do you see now?

This reminds me of something else I wanted to ask about:

Making it more physically challenging to input commands doesn't affect the game's possibility space. So, we can increase or decrease the gap between the best and worst players without affecting the complexity at all. Right?

I can't think of a better way to gauge complexity, so I'm not suggesting this is a failure of your approach. Nor do I mean to split hairs; I'm just looking for clarification. Thanks for the previous responses.

[icycalm]

Haha. It's a good call. But no cigar, I am afraid.

Making it more physically challenging to input commands doesn't affect the game's possibility space.

Oh but it does! You didn't pay very much attention to the "muscle memory" example. You see, the more physical you make a game, the more complex you make it. This is a universal law. And when you make commands more physically challenging to pull off, this is what you are doing -- injecting more, let us say, reality into the game, and reality is always immeasurably complex. All the muscles and joints in the hand, the nerves communicating to the brain, what we call reflexes -- by increasing the required precision for commands, you are bringing all of this vastly complex apparatus into play, even more so than before. The possibilities for error are increased a hundrefold or thousandfold, and form an added layer of complexity that the players are called upon to master...

[Kuzdu]

I have a couple of questions, just for clarification.

If you're saying that increasing the physicality of a game increases that game's possibility space, then:

1. Is it true that human psychology is also part of a game's possibility space? Does a game of pure second-guessing like Rock-Paper-Scissors have a much larger possibility space than might be expected?

2. Would you say that the ruleset of a game is separate from the rules of physics, even if it's dependent on them? In other words, should we include the rules of physics in a list of the rules of Basketball?

[A.Wrench]

...injecting more, let us say, reality into the game, and reality is always immeasurably complex. All the muscles and joints in the hand, the nerves communicating to the brain, what we call reflexes -- by increasing the required precision for commands, you are bringing all of this vastly complex apparatus into play, even more so than before. The possibilities for error are increased a hundrefold or thousandfold, and form an added layer of complexity that the players are called upon to master...

Just making sure I'm following this right, that would make actual sports far more complex and take far more to master than any video game. And that makes sense, considering the gap between some intramural soccer kid and a paid professional is a lot more than the gap between me and the best Street Fighter player there is.

But if it's possible for arbitrary rules to detract from a game, can a game also have arbitrarily complex commands that possibly detract from the experience?

[icycalm]

I think we've taken this thread quite a bit further than I had intended. I could answer the latest round of questions if I wanted to, but that would mean copy-pasting a chapter from my book... But then that would only prompt more questions, which I am answering in all the other chapters... So let's just call it a day here until the book is published.

[icycalm]

I'll answer this one, because it's very easy:

If you're saying that increasing the physicality of a game increases that game's possibility space, then:

1. Is it true that human psychology is also part of a game's possibility space? Does a game of pure second-guessing like Rock-Paper-Scissors have a much larger possibility space than might be expected?

Human psychology is part of EVERY game involving human players. So it's cancelled out when you are comparing the possibility spaces of different games. I.e. Chess will always be a more complicated game than Rock-Paper-Scissors, etc. Nothing changes when you factor in the human brain.

Of course some games engage the player's brain more than others, in a similar way that some games engage a player's body more than others...

Again, we are getting in waters far too deep for the scope of the present discussion.

[icycalm]

Three-player chess:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-handed_chess

The introduction of a third player drastically changes the style of play, even if standard pieces are used. Many chess openings are useless due to the extended board and third player. The introduction of the 'extra' move by the third player can introduce situations of deadlock, for example if a white piece is undefended and simultaneously attacked by both black and red pieces. Black cannot take the white piece, since red would then capture the black piece next turn. Thus the black and red pieces are both simultaneously attacking the white piece and defending it from attack by the other player. In similar situations, a piece can move quite safely into a square where it is attacked by both opponents, since neither opponent would take the piece and risk capture by the third player. Each player must think twice as far ahead- anticipating the moves of both opponents, with the added complexity that the next player may move to attack either of his opponents.

In games where the third player loses as well as the checkmated one, players must concentrate not only on their own attack and defense, but also on preventing the two opponents from checkmating each other. A player can take advantage of one opponents position to checkmate the other, but must be careful that the third player does not checkmate first. White could checkmate red, only to have his piece captured by a black piece, which checkmates red. In this situation, white would lose since black delivers the final checkmating move. This strategy also applies to games which give the checkmating player command of the checkmated opponent's pieces- a player who allows the second player to checkmate the third would surely go on to lose due to the increased power of his remaining opponent, now armed with the third player's pieces.

A very good demonstration of the effects of increasing complexity in a game.

[icycalm]

The later games like Rome, with their fortifications, siege engines, war elephants and whatnot, they were all great games - but they complicated it a great deal. Shogun's strength was its depth through simplicity.

http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?s= ... &p=5813526

Classic forumroid nonsense. He explains perfectly well why the later Total War games are more complex (and therefore deeper) than the original game, and then ends up by concluding that the original's strength was "its depth through simplicity" -- even though he has already fucking DEMONSTRATED that the damn game was the most shallow of the lot!

[ganheddo]

I think I've understood most of what you've written in the article and thread, but this passage still bugs me.

Why should a simple ruleset be universally preferable to a complex one? Part of the greatness of stuff like Dungeons and Dragons or Civilization or M1 Tank Platoon, etc. is that you have to invest a lot of time in figuring out how things work. Intelligent people love that -- in fact, intelligent people LIVE FOR THAT. From the perspective of intelligent people, then, the correct answer is not "simple but deep" but "complex and deep".

If a simpler ruleset is able to produce an equally great amount of interesting possibilities compared to a more complex one, doesn't this mean that the latter is less efficient, and isn't it therefore understandable to say that efficiency is preferable or at least aesthetically pleasing?

[JoshF]

If a simpler ruleset is able to produce an equally great amount of interesting possibilities compared to a more complex one

How?

[ganheddo]

I think the problem arises out of the ruleset<>game differentiation. If we say that Go has a simple ruleset, than Chess has a less simple one, but the amount of possibilities in Go is greater, i.e. the game is at least as complex. You probably have a different understanding of what the ruleset of each game is.

The question would then become: which are the main rules of SF? But that is not a very interesting question.

By the way: This is totally unrelated, but... after reading all this I remembered a quote from Sid Meier, who said something like: "A [good] game is a series of interesting choices." And well... he was damn right.

[Bradford]

To Test a Powerful Computer, Play an Ancient Game
by George Johnson, The New York Times, July 29, 1997

Regarding your earlier post, I'm not sure you should use the term or concept of 'efficiency' in this context. We're not talking about creating rules to produce a result, like it's a manufacturing process, we're talking about creating rules to define a vehicle for competition. I think it might be nonsense to call rules efficient or ineffecient. It would be like saying that A Fistful of Dollars is a more efficient movie than Yojimbo because it told the same story in only 100 minutes, as opposed to Yojimbo's 110 minutes. Would you say that Fistful is preferable as a result? (Please note that I'm not even going to touch the suggestion that a ruleset could more or less "aesthetically pleasing.")

I'm going to think about this awhile; it feels like there should be a simpler way to explain this, but it's not coming to me right now. Anybody else?

[Strifer]

I think the problem is that "simple and deep" and "complex and deep" imply the same level of depth. Which is not true. While you can have a game that is simple and deep, you can also have a game that is complex and in return offers more depth.

Why am I even saying this, it's in the article.

Each new meaningful[1] rule makes a game more complex, and gives the player some extra work to do in order to learn it. Each new rule interacts with the existing rules in new and increasingly complicated ways, creating an ever-widening realm of possibilities which the player is called upon to grasp. The better he grasps them the more capable he becomes in using them to his advantage, and thus the more skillfully he can play.

The choice word here is "meaningful". You cannot have two games, one simple and one complex, with the same level of depth.

[Worm]

Strifer, you are talking past the previous posters because they are making a ruleset/game distinction and you are not.

tic-tac-toe is a simple game with a simple ruleset
Go is a complex game with a simple ruleset
D&D is a complex game with a complex ruleset

Even if you think the language is unnecessarily confusing, the distinction should be clear. If two games have the same distance between their respective best and worst players, they have the same complexity (and therefore depth). However, one game might have a very complicated set of rules that the player must learn before even starting a game. Yes, some of those rules might be meaningless, but it doesn't follow that you can boil them all down to an easy-to-grasp ruleset.

[Strifer]

So let's put in another way.

I think Ganheddo is wondering about the fourth distinction: a simple game with a complex ruleset. Since the same simple game can just as easily be expressed with a simple ruleset, why bother with a complex one? But that would be stupid because if there really was a complex ruleset within a game, the game would not be simple. Assuming the complexity was meaningful.

Yes, some of those rules might be meaningless, but it doesn't follow that you can boil them all down to an easy-to-grasp ruleset.

They either are meaningless or not. It does not matter what the player thinks might be meaningless, otherwise Microsoft Flight Simulator would end up alongside Ace Combat.

[Worm]

Since the same simple game can just as easily be expressed with a simple ruleset, why bother with a complex one?

A game is defined by its ruleset, so you cannot have the "same simple game" with a different ruleset. You can say, "if the same amount of depth can be achieved with a simple ruleset, why bother with a complex one?" but that is what icycalm was addressing. Some people like figuring out rulesets with lots of special cases and particulars.

...if there really was a complex ruleset within a game, the game would not be simple. Assuming the complexity was meaningful.

A more complex ruleset can result in the same depth as a simple ruleset, but it does not follow that any of the rules must therefore be meaningless. Each one can add a comparatively small amount of complexity, perhaps by having many special cases as I suggested above. My comment was only intended to acknowledge that it can be tricky to tell which are truly meaningless when you have a large body of rules.

[ganheddo]

I think Ganheddo is wondering about the fourth distinction: a simple game with a complex ruleset.

No, I'm not talking about JRPGs. The quote in my first post should clarify that it's about simple ruleset but deep game vs complex ruleset and deep game.

But maybe instead of ruleset, we could also say "the rules that concern the execution of a player's move". You have to learn more of these if you want to execute a valid move in chess than in Go. Yet the almost infinite possibilities of how the player's input may affect the course of the game, makes both very deep games.

Edit: I just find the idea of achieving "more with less" compelling. I'm not saying that it is universally preferable to have a simple ruleset, but to have one that is as concise as possible to produce the desired complexity i.e. where each individual rule is as important as possible.

[icycalm]

I'll clear out some of the confusion.

First of all, it is important to understand that the game/ruleset distinction, in the case of electronic games, is a more or less spurious one. In reality, a game IS the ruleset, the complete ruleset, and that is that. What we mean by "ruleset" though, when we use it in every day conversation, is the minimum number of rules a player must know in order to be able to play the game. But this minimum amount, in the case of electronic games, is, strictly speaking, zero, because you can play an electronic game -- ANY electronic game -- without knowing anything about its ruleset. This, indeed, is one of the many charms of such games. You are given the controller, and you can start hammering away on the buttons right away, and simply see what happens.

Besides, even if we tried to define this minimum amount of rules which constitutes a game's "ruleset", we would always fail. What is the ruleset of Guilty Gear, for example? Do you need to know how Roman Cancels work in order to play it? And if you do, why stop there? Why not say that you also need to know the current tier list in order to play it? Or the particular attributes/hitbox data etc. of every single character? Or the entire string of 1s and 0s that constitute the game's code?

Even games with rulesets as complex as those of Civilization or an aircraft simulator can be played in this way -- and indeed, such games are usually best enjoyed when played in this way. They last longer this way... and I often find that there is a strange nostalgia associated with those early periods of play, when I had no idea what the fuck was going on and every button press, every decision, was a delightful little experiment.

(Note that all of the above does not entirely apply to real-life games. Things there get a little more complicated.)

[icycalm]

If a simpler ruleset is able to produce an equally great amount of interesting possibilities

What is the difference between "interesting" and "uninteresting" possibilities? Do not use words which you can't define. It just makes everything more difficult.

If a simpler ruleset is able to produce an equally great amount of interesting possibilities compared to a more complex one, doesn't this mean that the latter is less efficient, and isn't it therefore understandable to say that efficiency is preferable or at least aesthetically pleasing?

Your problem is basically that you do not understand the distinction between size and shape of the possibility space. A ruleset, defined as ALL the rules of a game (not simply the ones a player must learn in order to play it), defines not only the size of the possibility space, but also its shape. So you could have a less complex game with more rules than a more complex game, but whose extra rules help give the possibility space a different shape.

I think the problem arises out of the ruleset<>game differentiation. If we say that Go has a simple ruleset, than Chess has a less simple one, but the amount of possibilities in Go is greater, i.e. the game is at least as complex. You probably have a different understanding of what the ruleset of each game is.

The above passage makes absolutely zero sense.

-What does the symbol "<>" signify?

-The sentence "If we say that Go has a simple ruleset, than Chess has a less simple one" is rendered meaningless by the comma and the "than".

-Then you add the "i.e. the game is at least as complex" part and make the sentence even MORE incomprehensible.

-Then the final sentence seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the previous ones, the post you were replying to, or with anything else talked about in this thread.

So basically, in order to reply to such a passage, one must attempt to imagine what was going on in your head when you wrote it. Now, the problems we are discussing are difficult enough as it is, without the added effort of each of us attempting to phantasize what everyone else is thinking all the time. So what I am trying to tell you here is that if you can't manage to express yourself in a more coherent manner you might as well do everyone a favor and simply drop out of the the discussion.

[icycalm]

So, basically, what it comes down to is that the phrases "simple ruleset" or "complex ruleset" are equivalent to "simple game" or "complex game", because at the end of the day ruleset=game.

It all goes to show how many mistakes can be prevented by being very careful with our use of words. My four ruleset/game distinctions earlier on, which were meant to clarify what game journalists are perhaps trying to express when they say such logically inconsistent things as "simple but deep", while useful to a certain extent, are ultimately misleading, because they assume a distinction where in reality there is none.

Anyway, in the long run all of this is not too important. A few simple model games, with corresponding graphs of their possibility spaces, would have helped us greatly here, but I'll let the scientists handle all this grunt work. As long as one has understood the basics here, one can move on. There are far more important problems to solve.