Is God's Directing of the Process That's the Problem?

I worry about the feasibility though, because I see the objection, but even when you articulate, why wouldn't God decrease suffering by 50 or 80%? It seems like there's something more direct about animal life that is the problem here. We're embedded in the rules of a chess game that's already been laid down as it were. But we're not the very author of the chess game itself and the rules by which it operates.