The Latest Scourge of AAA Game Design

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

The Latest Scourge of AAA Game Design

Time events in AAA games, either quick or slow, are becoming a nuisance to an absurd level. Press F to Pay Respects for example ...

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[Thaluikhain]

"Press E to interact" in the 2010 AVP game was annoying. Because, for the alien or predator, "interact" usually meant "hit the thing". It's a combat game, there's already options for hitting things, but we are supposed to hit the thing the right way, presumably. Especially noticeable in that you hit similar sorts of things the other way anyway. Right click to hit a fuse box, press "E" when prompted to hit a computer.

Though, minor example in the scheme of things.

 

[TheArchbishopJubilee]

My first instinct when I saw press -- I think it's the square button on PS4 -- was that it was a joke. I was actually eating at the time (to relieve the boredom) and that coupled with being a former XBOX 360 player and not immediately knowing which button the "square button" is, leads me to believe that's exactly what the jokester had in mind.

 

[Something Amyss]

My first instinct when I saw press -- I think it's the square button on PS4 -- was that it was a joke. I was actually eating at the time (to relieve the boredom) and that coupled with being a former XBOX 360 player and not immediately knowing which button the "square button" is, leads me to believe that's exactly what the jokester had in mind.

I almost wonder if the mindset was "oh shit, we actually have a serious moment without explosions. We gotta do something!"

 

[GonzoGamer]

Who knew a QTE/STE could prompt more critical thought than 'press X to jingle keys.'

I still think it may have been invented by comity to be the fluffy white rabbit they can point to in case the media got offended by the violence. "Look, you don't just shoot people, you can pay respects too." Or maybe they called in that Heavy Rain guy (Cage?)on this one.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Oh this isn't a new thing. It's been around for years. It's just so much more noticeable when CoD does it because their writers are shit and their game design is even worse.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

As someone who hasn't played the game I can confirm. With no context that "Press 'F' to pay respects" screenshot is hilarious.

I wonder what happens if you don't? I would purposefully hold back and be deliberately disrespectful just to be awkward.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

I really hate it when a cutscene has prompts like these (or it rumbles the controller) to remind me that I'm playing a game. I'm sitting back to get another slice of the story. And if the story is shit, and they do not have an option to skip the scene, they have failed as game designers. The only button I should be pressing is the confirm button in a text only game.

If I'm interested in the characters or the narrative, making me press things, or reminding me I've got a massager in my hands, breaks the immersion far more that it could add to the experience. If they want me to control a character during a major plot point, go the Half Life route. (And if I waltz away from the action because I went looking for ammo/secrets, that is my own fault.)

 

[Toblo1]

I'll be the odd man out on this and say that not all QTEs are bad if (and only if) the action happening in the QTE event is awesome or cathartic in some way. Asura's Wrath and the boss fights in the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm games (yeah, I like Naruto, is that a problem?) have amazing QTE segments, because the action that occurs in those QTE segments are off-the-wall levels of crazy.

I honestly think QTE's can be done well, but most of the time game devs fuck them up. Or in the case of Advanced Warfare's "Press X to pay Respects" debacle, miss the point completely.

 

[Signa]

Press button to do thing reminds me of one of my complaints about Bioshock Infinite: The skyrail kills. You just point at the guys on the ground and hit the "kill" button to win. Game design used to make it where you had to detach from the rails, and then hit an attack button when the foe was in range. Thief 1 and 2 did this when you were falling from the rafters to KO an unsuspecting guard, and you felt SO AWESOME when you pulled it off right. The single button approach kills that feeling entirely.

 

[Piorn]

It's like the appartment ending of the Stanley Parable.
Press G to watch TV. Press Z to be at work in the morning. Press N to question nothing.

 

[Nazulu]

Good gameplay is about establishing a set of rules and teaching them to the player just enough that they can intuit the next solution, one not so obscure as to be frustrating but not so obvious as to kill their sense of achievement. The moment you need to flash up a caption instructing the player of what button to press (at least, past the point that the standard controls have been tutorialized), you have failed.

I'm taking this to the grave. It's one of the main reasons I love Half-Life and Super Metroid.

I've always hated quick time events, in almost every form. Hated them in God Of War and other popular games. Heavy Rain even cracked me up during it's most dramatic scenes because of the colourful goofy looking button prompts.

The only quick time events I like (if you can even call it that) is the single button KOs like in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time.

 

[Kolyarut]

Yeah, I didn't really think this one was that bad. CoD's STEs are the way it's always handled scripted moments, and it seems like a perfectly cromulant way of doing things - by pressing the button, you're acknowledging that you're handing over control to the plot for a moment, without having it snatched away from you like games did in the oldern days (and without leaving you free to jump around the plot and teabag the coffin).

It's not like it's cramming the need to pay respects into the multiplayer - it's confined to the campaign, and it's not completely unreasonable to expect CoD to show you a story when you elect to play Campaign mode, is it?

Maybe I'm in no place to argue, though - I didn't pick up on the moon dust talk in Portal 2, so was totally puzzled by that final encounter, until my girlfriend, who'd been playing on her own PC and had just done that section herself, pointed it out. It's fair enough, as an ending, but I think people would be a lot more bothered if every problem in every game had to be solved with the same basic left click standard attack.

 

[Spacewolf]

I remember one STE that worked quite well that sticks out in my memory.

From the Darkness- Move sticks to save Jenny. (The bit in the church uses it well as well)

 

[CaitSeith]

- by pressing the button, you're acknowledging that you're handing over control to the plot for a moment...

What control? These games are so scripted that you're reduced to just an actor in a war movie. That STE is pretty much the director giving the cue with his megaphone.

 

[Evonisia]

Well this was better put together than Movie Bob's rather immature response to the Press F To Pay Respects.

Also, I do remember QTEs being described as not as awful if they're part of the core gameplay: See Hitman: Absolution's melee system. It's the same QTE every time.

 

[ScreamingViking]

It's like that part at the beginning of portal 2. Stand in front of the art. Listen to the Jazz. BZZZZT. You have now been mentally revitalized. Go back into stasis until we have need of you. Press F to pay respects. You have now mourned. Resume mass slaughter.

 

[Kolyarut]

- by pressing the button, you're acknowledging that you're handing over control to the plot for a moment...

What control? These games are so scripted that you're reduced to just an actor in a war movie. That STE is pretty much the director giving the cue with his megaphone.

You have control over the protagonist during gameplay sections, and it's frustrating to have that yanked away from you, for the mouse and keyboard to stop accepting input, without any warning. The on-screen prompt is your warning - pressing the button is simply saying "yes, I'm ready for the cutscene now". If the director calls the cutscene and you're not ready for it, it's jarring and annoying (in any game).

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Good gameplay is about establishing a set of rules and teaching them to the player just enough that they can intuit the next solution, one not so obscure as to be frustrating but not so obvious as to kill their sense of achievement. The moment you need to flash up a caption instructing the player of what button to press (at least, past the point that the standard controls have been tutorialized), you have failed.

See also: Games that feel the need to give the player explicit instructions on every single action they need to take via support characters. After playing BioShock for about the third time, I realized that the game was loaded down with "puzzles" which Atlas kept telling me the solution to instead of letting me figure anything out for myself. Granted, the puzzles were kind of obtuse compared to the ones in, say, Half-Life 2 (dump magma into a flooded room to boil off the water?), but that's probably only because they weren't made to be solved by the player; they were made to be direct instructions for them to follow. But then why have them at all? It's just another arbitrary delay between one action scene and another.

Wait, being told exactly what to do at every single turn is the entire Call of Duty franchise in a nutshell. Though I guess it makes sense because that's also pretty much what it's like to be a soldier IRL.

 

[CaitSeith]

- by pressing the button, you're acknowledging that you're handing over control to the plot for a moment...

What control? These games are so scripted that you're reduced to just an actor in a war movie. That STE is pretty much the director giving the cue with his megaphone.

You have control over the protagonist during gameplay sections, and it's frustrating to have that yanked away from you, for the mouse and keyboard to stop accepting input, without any warning. The on-screen prompt is your warning - pressing the button is simply saying "yes, I'm ready for the cutscene now". If the director calls the cutscene and you're not ready for it, it's jarring and annoying (in any game).

That control over the protagonist during gameplay sections isn't control over the plot. Even during the gameplay sections, the control is limited to the corridor. And if you stray from it for more than a couple of seconds (ignoring the warnings), you die without a logical cause (it's pretty much the director head-shooting you for trying to escape from the movie set during the filming session)

PS: The STE appeared at mid-cutscene. You didn't had control over the character and were prompted to start the cutscene. In fact it was totally the opposite.