Are video games too complicated these days?

I never said a game HAD to be 'complex' to require lots of skill, I just stated that the height of the skill ceiling for each game will always be in part influenced by the complexity of the game itself, which Kreeee basically disagreed with. I've already used examples of this based on Quake. Remove complexity from Quake and the skill ceiling would lower, add complexity to it and the skill ceiling would go higher. Universally the skill ceiling for Quake may well be quite high, not because of it's 'complexity', but simply the type and nature of the game. That doesn't mean however that complexity has no influence on the skill ceiling for that game. Adding more complexity would definitely increase the skill ceiling.
 
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I've always viewed it in the manner that some games require complexity in order to attract 'skillful' play and others need to be simplistic. Twitch action games, examples of which would be the aforementioned starcraft and quake 3, have an effectively limitless skill ceiling due to the fact it is human reactions that is primarily responsible for that persons success. Perfect proof of this would be that a measure of how good a player is in starcraft is often considered their 'click rate', as it is a good way to gauge how quick that player is at micro management. As this years Olympics have shown, due to the insane number of world records obliterated, humans are still changing and evolving and i'm sure this evolution will carry on into 'twitch' gaming. Sure adding complexity to quake would 'sort the men from the boys' if you will, but the resulting skill ceiling would still be effectively unlimited due to reactions being the biggest part of the game which are, for lack of a better term, limitless.

Games like my current favorite, disgaea, are more reliant on complexity to increase the level of skill required to play it. The reason for this is that it is not at all a reaction based game and so requires tactical thinking and a complete knowledge of the 'rules' in order to get the best out of your team. But in turn, free thinking is still yet again a human limit and will always be changing.

[EDIT] That is the most **** i've spouted in a while, i blame my hangover.
 
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Ive already been over this though. You are right in a sense that certain individual aspects of say, Quake for example, will always have a 'limitless' skill ceiling. Well infact it's not actually limitless, that's the wrong word, there is a limit to what the game can technically allow, and I guess realistically there is a limit to what a human being can physically do right now. It's not limitless per se, it's just that it has a ceiling which a human being will probably never reach. That is not the same as limitless or infinity.

So the skill ceiling for those individual aspects isn't limitless, it just cannot possibly be limitless due to the nature of the game and the human body. So lets put this on a scale. Say the game will only technically allow up to 100, and the human body is only capable of going to say, 30. 0-100. The skill ceiling is 100. Now that's just for one aspect. Having multiple aspects will increase the overall skill ceiling because you have to add them together. More to do, more to think about and so on is more skill and ultimately means a higher skill ceiling, more potential for skill even if you can't reach the ceiling for one individual aspect. More which a human can possibly do in terms of skill, and more in terms of what the game will allow. Two aspects would have a technical skill ceiling of 200, with the physical human skill ceiling at 60.

I guess a good example would be one of those flash games that tests your reaction speed. Now realistically a human will probably never reach the technical boundary for one of those games. Does that mean the potential for skill to be applied by a human being is the same as in Quake? Is the overall skill ceiling the same height just because we can't reach the boundary of that individual aspect (Reaction time)?
 
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I describe it as limitless in the same way scientists say the universe is infinite even though they know it isn't - it's too hard to quantify so it's easier to just describe it as such. Humans are constantly changing and evolving so the level to which people play reaction based games is constantly changing, though i can see what you mean.

The thing is, i view complexity as an obstacle for new players, not one for more experienced players. A simple game, such as quake, can easily be played by anyone but the difference between a new player and a experienced player will be vast but at least the new player will have a handle on the basic mechanics. In a more complex game a new player wouldn't even be able to attempt to take on an experienced one due to not actually having any knowledge of the rules or tricks that are possible, the term easy to learn difficult to master jumps to mind.

It is because both complicated and reaction based games are unquantifiable in terms of the limits a human can achieve that i think the complexity of a game does not denote the skill level of the highest level players. I do think however more complex games require more knowledge in order to be successful, but skill and knowledge are different entities.

I'm struggling to explain what i mean but i do see what you are saying i just don't agree, i think this is a topic where there isn't a clear cut right and wrong answer however.
 
Streeteh said:
I've always viewed it in the manner that some games require complexity in order to attract 'skillful' play and others need to be simplistic. Twitch action games, examples of which would be the aforementioned starcraft and quake 3, have an effectively limitless skill ceiling due to the fact it is human reactions that is primarily responsible for that persons success. Perfect proof of this would be that a measure of how good a player is in starcraft is often considered their 'click rate', as it is a good way to gauge how quick that player is at micro management. As this years Olympics have shown, due to the insane number of world records obliterated, humans are still changing and evolving and i'm sure this evolution will carry on into 'twitch' gaming. Sure adding complexity to quake would 'sort the men from the boys' if you will, but the resulting skill ceiling would still be effectively unlimited due to reactions being the biggest part of the game which are, for lack of a better term, limitless.
Click to expand...

I agree with most of that but I must point out that the skill in StarCraft isn't from reaction speed but the ability to massively parallelise your gameplay use a very serial display and controls. Each click is planned rather than a reaction to an unexpected event.

Streeteh said:
the term easy to learn difficult to master jumps to mind.
Click to expand...

That's a great phrase to encapsulate the issue. I view a "simple" game as one that requires no tutorial and one that anyone can just pick up and play. This has very little bearing on how complex the game is on a highly competitive level as often the simplest games become the most competitive (Brawl, CS 1.6, Quake 3, StarCraft, street fighter etc.) and often initially very complex games seem to have a lot of players reaching a similar level with no professional/competitive gaming scene.

Now I'm not flat out saying that more complex games do not raise the skill ceiling at all (which is a pointless pink elephant argument anyway) but that simple games have their own form of complexities that often ends up with a more competitive environment.
 
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Kreeeee said:
I agree with most of that but I must point out that the skill in StarCraft isn't from reaction speed but the ability to massively parallelise your gameplay use a very serial display and controls. Each click is planned rather than a reaction to an unexpected event.
Click to expand...

I did assume starcraft was more complex than clicking or reacting faster than the other guy, though i'm so rubbish at it i obviously don't grasp the entire approach taken by the best players. The thing is when people talk about good starcraft players their 'click speed' or 'clicks per min' are often discussed as an important element which is a perfect example of how games are limited by the human behind the controls, typically not by the game itself.
 
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Actions per minute (APM) is only important up to around 350 apm (I'm crap so I only did around 140 when I played it regularly). It's necessary to make that many clicks to play in a parallel manner.
 
The better you are at starcraft the more tasks you perform simultaneously. You macro/micro simultaneously by attacking with your main army, manually targeting individual units while moving your own injured units back and casting "spells". While doing this you will be expanding, building drones, pumping out new units, upgrading and sending a dropship to mess up the opponents expansion while they are distracted. This is all done at once by flicking between many different areas of the battlefield many times a second rather than focusing on one task at a time and neglecting the others.

Does that explain it?
 
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It does yes, cheers for the explanation, but the fact i had to read it three times before i could actually get my head around it is probably a good indication that i should just give up on RTS' :p
 
I've given up on them, I just can't keep up with the Koreans so I only play on public battle.net games now where everyone sucks as much as me :p

Or just stick to the tank spammers like C&C3 which are still a hoot but for very different reasons.
 
For myself i don't think games have got too complicated but i can't say the same for my dad...

He used to play on the speccy and sega master system all the time and never had any problems, he even finished a few games but now i give him a go on the 360 and he is completely confused by the amount of the buttons that are used in most games today.

he is perfectly fine with the wii which can be expected but anything else and he really struggles lol
 
Computer games started out as just a pass-time, a form of entertainment/fun when you had nothing else better to do.

Nowadays, most games are simulators for a userbase who probably spend more time with a pad in their hands than actually enjoying life.

Many games today are probably more stressful (and thus less fun) than actually doing real-life things.
 
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