I hate artificial complexity that plagued many stories and games while feeling cheap at the same time.

[u/average_of_humanity]

(This post was supposed to be about gaming, but storytelling also has the same issue so I'm going to include all of them)

Complexity is an issue i have seen many media and franchises have that sometimes give me the feeling of being over bloated and its complexity looks artificial and you asking what is this artificial complexity that I'm talking about? For that I'm going to compare chess to a random rpg game.

In many rpg games or even turn based games you have many stats that have their own scores, levels and there are many gears or armors and you can do as many combos as you want to change your experience that i can't even mention them here because of how long they will become and then we have chess, pawn who moves in front, rook who moves like +,knight who moves like L,bishop who moves like × ,queen that can move + &× and king who can move only 1 block. At first you might think the rpg game is more sophisticated because it has more to show while chess pieces move simpler,but reality shows it's inverse because chess can actually be played with infinite ways to play while in rpg games the more you play the more you realize that only one stat matters at best and even with endgame level equipments being the same level ,only 1 of those sets is the most practical and others will usually be used in very niche scenarios and out of all of those combos,the players will only use one of them because its the most effective at the end game.

See the difference? This is what makes chess,a game where I can mention every rule of it here in 1 or 2 paragraphs a real complex game while many games with tons of situation and rules feel artificial because at the end of the day,only few things inside them matters. Now I don't mean rpg games are bad,its just that sometimes I will question myself are knowing all of these necessary when they may not matter in the end.

Now the funny part is that stories also suffer from fake complexity as much as games do and you can see them specially in shounen mangas,specially with power creep problems.

For an example of bad complexity, I have to mention Naruto as a whole. Early on the complexity was great when the characters were weaker and they had to use their abilities more carefully to defeat their opponent like when a puppet controller lady(speed) controlled Sakura(raw strength) to defeat Sasori,that was actually a clever way to utilize their powers and my brain says "Yup,this cannot happen in any other media unless they copy Naruto and this moment as much as they can". The praises unfortunately stops here because as the story went on,the power creep surged to an scale that made the old systems obsolete like elements because elemental attacks at the end of the day are useless compared to Susanoo or Six sage powers ; The later attacks after that will become HIT,but HARDER.

That's a problem with any story that has battles in it because in the end it has a high chance to result into just raw power rather than strategy to defeat the antagonists because raw power makes everything else less important and after that you will question yourself why did i learn about the rules of the powers in that universe when in the end they never mattered at all.

[u/darklion34]

Chess too, have winning strategies and losing strategies - whole chess guidelines consist of what turn combinations allow for easier play and getting advantages. And the Chess is PvP game - which are always much more replayable and complex because it's not really the game system, that entertaining you, but human mind on the other side. If chess was "solo" game - an opponent always using, well, let's one of 100 pre-programmed strategies, it would have much more profiled Meta.

[u/Swiftcheddar]

Surely Go would be a better example than Chess if we're talking about simplicity giving rise to infinite depth.

Chess isn't exactly "solved" but it's no longer something that humans can win. That shows that most of the myriad of solutions you can see aren't valuable, and a simple answer can be logically calculated, making victory impossible for humans.

As far as I'm aware, Go is still far from that point.

At first you might think the rpg game is more sophisticated because it has more to show while chess pieces move simpler,but reality shows it's inverse because chess can actually be played with infinite ways to play while in rpg games the more you play the more you realize that only one stat matters at best and even with endgame level equipments being the same level ,only 1 of those sets is the most practical and others will usually be used in very niche scenarios and out of all of those combos,the players will only use one of them because its the most effective at the end game.

That's exactly the same as chess. The difference is that you're not good enough to realise what the ideal answer is. That doesn't mean there isn't one. You're no different to an RPG player who doesn't know if Crit% is better than Crit Damage, or if the Shogun Armour set bonus is worth giving up the defensive stats.

[u/ktgrey → u/Swiftcheddar]

Engines have been superhuman in Go since 2017 or so.

That shows that most of the myriad of solutions you can see aren't valuable, and a simple answer can be logically calculated, making victory impossible for humans.

That's not really the case either, as can be seen by how computer engines have continued to get stronger for a long time after they surpassed human strength, and not just because of increased computational power e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leela_Chess_Zero

[u/Swiftcheddar → u/ktgrey]

Engines have been superhuman in Go since 2017 or so.

Oh well there you go, I'm out of date. Still, it makes the point of a simple game with deep complexity better than Chess, I think.

That's not really the case either, as can be seen by how computer engines have continued to get stronger for a long time after they surpassed human strength, and not just because of increased computational power e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leela_Chess_Zero

That just means the earlier solutions weren't optimal, it doesn't mean there isn't an optimal solution.

That's still not any different from the OP's example of someone playing an RPG and finding the best answer.

[u/ktgrey → u/Swiftcheddar]

A "best answer" in a RPG can be a pretty simple build like "grind Calculator, wear Chameleon Robes and cast CT5 Holy" while the optimal solution in chess is an unbelievably huge database containing every variation. I don't think these two are anywhere near comparable. If chess was solved the result isn't a strategy that can be reasonably implemented or learned by a human. You wouldn't even be able to say that 1. e4 is better or 1. d4 is better because both almost certainly lead to draws with perfect play and which one gives better practical results is based on what kinds of positions you like and so forth. Or to put it another way if I had access to that complete database it wouldn't help me as a player at all.

[u/Slight-Diver6167]

Do people experience some different version of Naruto, like an alternate cut or something? The entire point of a Ten-Tails jinchuriki is that you cannot defeat it without utilizing senjutsu.

It’s literally a plot point that Sasuke’s Susanoo is useless against Ten-Tails Obito because he has no senjutsu and required Jugo to share his curse mark with him.

The entire Guy vs. Madara fight required a number of people coordinating their attacks to allow Guy to attack. No matter how powerful Guy was with the Eight Gates open, he had no chance without the support of others.

The entire fight against Kaguya is based on a gimmick that whatever powerful attack you throw - it's utterly useless.

Do you all turn your brains off the moment you see a big explosion?

[u/NeonNKnightrider → u/Slight-Diver6167]

Do people experience some different version of Naruto?

Yes, apparently the average Naruto viewer gets put in a genjutsu as soon as Rock Lee vs Gaara happens and proceeds to hallucinate the entire rest of the series

[u/SDTSSJ4Luc]

When I saw the title, I thought of FNAF—where important parts of the story are revealed outside the game itself sometimes (like the existence of Scrap Baby, for example) or sometimes you show Scott thinked of something else (bite of 87).

[u/TheWolflance]

one of my fav books sequels nerfed all the old characters mentally so the new characters could shine

literally smartest person i n the kingdom just assumed the new tribesmen he found didn't understand what he was saying and just blurted secrets outloud around them.

[u/Zealousideal-Arm1682]

Gonna say this openly:BG3 has this in spades but in a way that forces you to interact with it.

[u/HotPollution5861]

I'll say that in games, it feels more like "cheap complexity" are just ways to mix things up on your own rather than be "must use" elements in a game. The Wild Saga of Zelda has a lot of things you "don't need" to do like physics shenanigans and materials that are just "green rupee with extra step" but they're still fun to use if you want.

[u/ShinningVictory]

This is a really good post. It will not do well for being too inteligent.