Complexity vs Bugginess

[IncendiaryDevice]

What's the best compromise?

NO COMPROMISE NO SURRENDER

or

Just make regular games, bro. Keep it stupidly simple

or

Is there some kind of middle ground where a game can be both fairly complex and relatively bug free.

What's the most complex game you've ever played where there has also been zero noticeable/non-nitpicky bugs?

What kind of complexity do you expect from a good game?

How many bugs / what type of bugs are you willing to bare in the name of prestigious complexity? How buggy does a game have to be before you surrender?

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

i expect a product i purchase to work as intended, not engage in some self-defeating bargain with a manufacturer as to the reliability of a future purchase

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Jarmaro]

Why isn't it in Bethesda branch of the forum

 

[Lazing Dirk]

What's the most complex game you've ever played where there has also been zero noticeable/non-nitpicky bugs?

Dwarf Fortress.

There are no bugs, only !!FUN!! features. For example, the popular tale of the cats in the taverns:

"I added taverns to fortress mode, so the dwarves will go to a proper establishment, get mugs, and make orders, and they’ll drink in the mug," Adams said. "And, you know, things happen, mugs get spilled, there’s some alcohol on the ground.

"Now, the cats would walk into the taverns, right, and because of the old blood footprint code from, like, eight years ago or something, they would get alcohol on their feet. It was originally so people could pad blood around, but now any liquid, right, so they get alcohol on their feet. And then I wanted to add cleaning stuff so when people were bathing, or I even made eyelids work for no reason, because I do random things sometimes. So cats will lick and clean themselves, and on a lark, when I made them clean themselves I’m like, ‘Well, it’s a cat. When you do lick cleaning, you actually ingest the thing that you’re cleaning off, right? They make hairballs, so they must swallow something, right?' And so the cats, when they cleaned the alcohol off their feet, they all got drunk. Because they were drinking.

But the numbers were off on that. I had never thought about, you know, activating inebriation syndromes back when I was adding the cleaning stuff. I was just like, ‘Well, they ingest it and they get a full dose,’ but a full dose is a whole mug of alcohol for a cat-sized creature, and it does all the blood alcohol size-based calculations, so the cats would get sick and vomit all over the tavern."

 

[fantadomat]

Why isn't it in Bethesda branch of the forum

At least in Bathesda games you have console command to fix them.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Tbh bethesda game bugs are more entertaining than the games themselves

 

[v1rus]

Well, DotA is prolly the most complex game I've ever encountered, and its relatively bug free, innit?

 

[Abhay]

The topic to be addressed should have been about Complexity vs Simplistic, no risks approach in design, rather than bringing the "bugginess" factor into it. It feels a bit misleading to think that buggines tends to apply "complex" games, and not much to lesser complex ones.
A buggy game is a buggy game, irrespective of how complex the game is. It has an impact on the player's experiences depending upon how much progress has been made in resolving the bugs of any game.
Many older games that involve relatively simple gameplay and mechanics have been as buggy as any modern game that has more complex mechanics, and advanced tech in comparison.
For the topic, I'd go with the option, "some kind of middle ground where a game can be both fairly complex and relatively bug free" - like Mafia 1, Freedom Fighters, Ghost Recon 1, Silent Storm, etc, rather than overly complex games where practically only a couple of mechanics/features are useful in the entire game, nor any casual, dumbed down experiences with nothing new to offer.
I'm not willing to bare buggy games like Skyrim, irrespective of how complex or simple it may be, when the entire game is designed so badly in every department that I've no other option but to QUIT playing it. Even buggy games should be good enough to complete the game without much serious issues causing any trouble with the overall gameplay. Bethesda games are an absolute nightmare to survive even few hours into the game without installing any community patches. The developer is to be blamed here more than their games for poor post-game support.