Depth vs Complexity - Why More Features Don't Make a Better Game - Extra Credits

So, basically, complexity is how many options/tools you have, and depth is how much you can do with those options/tools. Is that right?

"the most complex games have the worst tutorials." "Oh yes." said by paradox

Their explanation kind of reminds me of Fullmetal Alchemist. I think that Ed's Alchemy in that show is like the greatest superpower ever. All it does it change the shape of stuff he understands the molecular composition of. He can't make it bigger or smaller, and he has to be touching it to manipulate it. And yet, it was an incredibly versatile power the way he used it: he would make a wall of rock/dirt to block attacks, he could repair broken objects, he could instantaneously forge weapons or make seamless garments, he could recycle and salvage materials and make something new with them, he was like MacGuyver if MacGuyver had superpowers. That's a great example of minimal complexity having incredible depth.

Best example of this is Minecraft. Not very complex, but with so much depth.

Extra Credits Drinking Game: Drink every time GO is used as a positive example of anything.

Portal (the first one) I think might have one of the best depth to complexity ratio, as you only have 1 major and 5-9 minor game elements, and it creates endless possibilities and mind blowing new mechanics. Not the mention the "tutorial" is basicly the game itself with seemless transition. It's a genius design...

Programmers put elegance on a pedestal as well. I wrote a program to find prime numbers, and it was less than 20 lines long. Almost half of that was asking the user for an input. I showed a friend of mine, who also programs, and she was amazed at how simple it was. It was easy to follow, fairly fast, and worked. I'm sure if I went further into mathematics, I'd have a better way to do it. But the way I did it was elegant, none the less.

I think the smash bros series is a great example of low complexity and good depth look at competitive melee circuits

SO... depth is how much the player CAN think,what variables they can use. Ware as complexity is how much they HAVE to think and on what caliber.

I think the battle system in Final Fantasy X is a great example of high depth at low complexity. On the surface, it looks like a completely simple and straightforward turn-based battle system. Your turn comes and you pick a move. Heck, it may even look like a step backwards from the battle system of FF4-9. But if you spend a significant amount of time in that battle system, you'll see that it is actually WAY deeper than it appears on the surface. Essentially, every move in the game takes a different amount of "time" to pull off (normal attacks, for instance, take an average amount of "time"; defending or using an item takes a short "time"; and something like an overdrive takes a long "time"). The games takes how much "time" each move takes in addition to the "speed" of your party members and the "speed" of your enemies, and puts it all together to generate a turn order. The best thing is that you don't need understand how it all works because the game displays a window in the corner of the screen that shows you who will be acting for each of the next 16 turns or something (I don't remember the exact number, but you can see well ahead), and you can even see how a move will affect the turn order BEFORE you make it! And that fact that (unlike almost any other FF) there's NO time pressure means that the doors are blown WIDE open for potential to strategize. In fact, of all the FF games I've played, X had BY FAR the most necessity for strategy in its battles.

The best example of great depth at low complexity that you never heard of: Reassembly.

4:30 --> That picture illustrates SO perfectly how is to play a Paradox grand strategy title! You nailed it there guys! Props to the art team.

A slight counter argument: a very complex game can be highly satisfying, especially in competitive multiplayer. You have outsmarted your opponent by simply being able to do more careful processing of the jungle rules, calculations, and causes.

Your videos are so deep yet not very complex. Hence their high rate of retaining my engagement! :D

This is why I can't really get into MMOs compared to RPGs. Too many cluttered menus and chatboxes with news announcements and notifications, a baffling economy and crafting system thrown on you once you reach the main city... It's a nightmare. I'll use Blade and Soul as an example, though it's by no means the biggest culprit. All I wanted to do was enjoy the combat system, which is surprisingly quite nuanced once you face tougher enemies. And I made it my personal quest to get good gear for my character. But I hit the hub town and all the clutter just turned me off. I stopped feeling like I was on an adventure training my warrior and had entered the Accounting department, with pretty icons instead of numbers.

One thing you touched on here, that the video game industry seems to have forgotten with all of their buttons, is what I like to call, "easy to play, hard to win." What makes all those 80s game so great? Simple controls, but ramping difficulty. All you need to know to play Sonic or Mario is: up, down, left, right, and ABC. That's it. No left trigger, no right bumper, no which stick-click is which - four directions and a few buttons is really all you need. These games are easy to play and thus, inviting to the player. Sure, maybe you'll fall into pits or get hit by fireballs, but once you know the hazard, you instantly know how to defeat it, because the controls are simple and intuitive. This make the player think: "Yeah! I can do this," not "WTF?! How do I even?!!" The more complex the controls and the steeper the learning curve, the more likely that the player says "fukitall." This is why I've always liked Street Fighter more than Mortal Kombat. It's all about that stupid block button. If I'm retreating, clearly I'm going to take a defensive stance - Back = Block. It's intuitive and easy. The block button however, has always just made a hard game harder, with all it's up-left-right-down-A-X-Y-B to do your fatality moves. Just let me half-circle and punch for my Hadoken. Why punish the player for not memorizing every twelve-button move for every character? Why not make a simple interface with ramping difficulty, so you know what to do, and you just have to get better at doing it. That, I believe, is what they call, "skill."

Heres a great way of thinking about this:Complexity is how much you need to know to play the game. Depth is how much you can learn to become better at the game.

This should be a required watch for anyone who ever intends to post anything on any message boards for any game.

I'm constantly coming back to and pointing people toward this video. There are so many people, even those who have played and reviewed many games, who fail to understand this concept. So thank you very much for making this!

we should add depth by designing better maps, making more solutions to 1 problem instead of one, or even better, letting the player create those solutions while playing. We dont need 100 weapons or 50 different enemies to add depth.