How complicated do you like your video games?

[Kentucky Fried Torchic]

During my last semester of college, I got addicted to a little grand strategy game called Hearts of Iron IV and when I say addicted I am only slightly exaggerating. Thankfully, I have been largely weaned off of it, but not before I tried out a few other games designed by the same studio and my goodness are they all mind-numbingly complicated affairs to me, with tabs and buttons and windows that seem to multiply expodentially depending on whatever it is that you want to do. Compared to these monsters, Hearts of Iron seems fairly tame. But then last weekend I had the opportunity to play Super Mario Odyssey on a friend's Switch and I was amazed at how intuitive the game seemed, to the point where it did not feel like I was fighting the game but actually, y'know, playing it.

All that build-up is to say, how complex do you like your video games? Do they have to be intuitive affairs or are you generally more tolerant of a steeper learning curve?

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Cool topic idea.

I don't mind games that have complex stuff but if I'm hit with it all at once at the start of the game, I would probably get overwhelmed and not want to play. Iv'e played games before where the basics are pretty easy to pick up and then you learn as you go or there are optional more complicated mechanics you can delve into if you want to, and that always works well.

I don't play a lot of games nor spend a lot of time playing games so I personally prefer games I can pick up rather quickly.

[EmeraldSky]

I prefer my games to be not too easy, but not so hard that you throw the controller/keyboard/phone/handheld at the wall. I don't want to have to go through fifteen different menus to find the option I'm looking for.

I also don't want a boss that takes two months to defeat on EASY mode.

[Dream Eater]

Eh, it all depends on whatever I am in the mood for. Preferably, I like my games to be somewhat challenging. I try to stay way from games that are purposely difficult just to piss you off.

[Otter Mii-kun]

Having spent nearly all of my first year of video gaming playing the original Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt on the NES, I prefer that games have controls that are simple enough to master in a short amount of time, and plots that are straightforward enough for beginners, yet allow some amount of leeway for going 'off-course'.

I also don't want a boss that takes two months to defeat on EASY mode.

Goodness Gracious! That was my problem with the original N64 Super Smash Bros.: A lot of the levels were a pain to get through, even playing on "Very Easy" mode. Very frustrating when trying to unlock bonus features (e.g. extra characters and options).

[Suicune's Fire]

Not sure what the definition of 'complex' is here, but it sounds like you encountered some games that, rather than being complex, are lacking intuitive design.

Usually I enjoy games that have many components to them, though there is always an exception. For instance, going into the Witcher 3, there were many things to learn off the bat, from the controls of combat and memorising each spells to understanding the rich lore. I love to play games that seem complicated and a little difficult to learn at first, but after a few hours of gameplay, become easy to grasp to the point where you're doing everything smoothly and naturally while enjoying the experience. I found this also with Horizon, although that was fairly easy to grasp straight off the bat.

Of course, I enjoy simple games sometimes. I am not immune to getting addicted to the odd mobile game, although my interest never lasts because it becomes a repetitive gimmick to me. To really enjoy a game, usually I need story and good characters, as well as nice gameplay. Sometimes it works the other way around as well; if I enjoy the gameplay a lot but the story is basic (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for instance, and most Pokemon games), then it also works. I think, for me, it requires some sort of balance.

For my very favourite games, I tend to play them through the first time on normal difficulty, and then replay them on a harder difficulty. This seems to allow me to enjoy the experience just as much, while feeling like I'm being rewarded with my favourite bits by really earning them. With games that focus on lore and characters and worldbuilding, it's fun for me to play through them multiple times because, like watching a movie for a second or third time, you pick up on things you missed the first time around. You also understand references better and even acknowledge foreshadowing. Mass Effect is a great example of this; it never really sits there and unloads exposition onto you regarding the culture of species, or history before the game's time setting; rather, it's information you acquire throughout the game. Of course there IS exposition so first-timers aren't completely lost, but it also leaves it up to you to go into the codex and brush up on your knowledge, or do that one side mission which gives a certain culture more context. So, if you really apply yourself and pay attention, the experience tends to be more rewarding with multiple play-throughs purely from a story point of view. That's a narrative complexity I enjoy.

Anyway, I'm going on a tad too much now. Point is, I enjoy games where there's a lot to learn, but not necessarily when the complex controls are the reason it's difficult. A challenge is good, but an impossible fight or annoyingly complicated controls or interfaces will leave your players frustrated with your game. It's a fine line that a lot of games get wrong, but many succeed in.

[Neo Emolga]

I like games with some complexity that don't punish a player for wanting to explore other strategies beyond what the devs were thinking of. I think one of the best strategy games I've played was Final Fantasy Tactics on Playstation, as there were soooo many different ways you could play through it and it was just downright fun each time. That and it had just the right amount of challenge.

I really don't like games that are so hard or obscure that you have to look up a walkthrough just to keep going. As nice of a game as it seemed, Metroid Prime had me constantly stopping the game to see how to fight each boss and miniboss because out of your whole arsenal of like a dozen different weapons, only one of them would actually do damage, and it had to be done during a particular time of the boss fight on a particular part of the boss's body. What made it even worse was then you had a "Step 2" thing were you had to switch weapons once the thing from "Step 1" was "dead" and some new doohickey needed to be shot at with some other weapon and nothing else. PLEASE don't do that. I don't mind this little gimmick so much on very rare occasions, but this was constantly going on in this game and it's not the only culprit that has done something like this. It's fine when it's kind of obvious, like "oh, I need a fire-based weapon to kill this plant or insect creature" or "I need an explosive to blow up this armored tank." Those are fine, they're pretty obvious and they make sense. I'm talking about the "this weird obscure robot that moves all over the place like a fly on adrenaline can only be damaged by the wave gun, but you have to shoot the tiny red circle in the inner core, and the inner core only reveals itself after using mega blaster thingy that deals 2000% health damage, and it's only open for two milliseconds before it closes again. Other than that, it's totally iNvInCiBlE11!1!" I will so turn your game off and do something else.

As far as storyline complexity, I like some lore, but I like to keep playing the game as well. It's cool if you can dive more into the history or lore behind a particular place, person, group, relic, or whatever, but if you don't really want to because it's not really that important to the gameplay, that should be okay too. And it's okay if you go into detail about the main villain, but I don't need to know all the details about his college roommate's mother's boyfriend's sister and who they got married to and that they had a family heirloom of spoons that has nothing else to do with the story. Some games and stories really overdo it with some of these things sometimes and it does get to be too much to wrap my head around. XD

[Fate]

It depends on my mood, really. Sometimes I wanna play something that makes me think. Sometimes I just wanna play something mindless. But I always appreciate good, creative gameplay. One developer named Sting (Riviera, Yggdra Union, Knights in the Nightmare, Gungnir--pretty obscure games) makes some really unique and complicated gameplay, but I love them. And of course the Souls series (and Bloodborne), which stops holding your hand from the start and just leaves you to learn from dying over and over. Challenging but rewarding.

That being said, games that have stupid or unfair content to make it seem difficult drive me crazy. I've been known to break a controller before. (And have been reeeaaally good at not doing that anymore since those things are bloody expensive.)

And some games are good games only if you stick with them, 'cause they dump so much stuff on you without much explanation. I remember playing Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance with my friend and I kept asking, "Hey, what's that thing for, anyway?" And every time, he'd say, "I don't know! The game doesn't tell you!"

[Wookie Mistake]

I love playing games with depth and complexity for the most part. One of the reasons i got into competitive pokemon was the depth and relative variety you would find. Same thing with the FE games, I think I had 4 maybe 5 constants on all of my FE:RD run throughs. When I'm playing with friends though we tend to play some of the more mindless games, COD, Destiny, stuff like that, since a lot of the people I play with are all over the country it's a good time to catch up, talk trash with each other, and generally just mess around