Stolen Pixels #214: X, A, B, Win!

[Shamus Young]

Stolen Pixels #214: X, A, B, Win!

They never teach you how to do quick-time events in the Dark Jedi Academy.

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[crotalidian]

Or just y'know stop using them? That would work

if you ARE going to implement them make them more forgiving and preferably they trigger actions rather than continue an action (more like heavy rain)

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

One day a game will come along that actually makes QTE look good. Indigo Prophecy came close, but then it had that section where a character was talking, and you have to do some QTE to represent the another character focusing on what he's saying... you know, that thing that I'd like to be doing? Consequently, I have no idea what was said during that entire scene, but I guess at least my character knows what's going on.

 

[ShadowKatt]

yeah, that's generally how I feel about QTE events. I like the cinematics in a game, that's one of the reasons I never had a problem with the Final Fantasy series. I consider them a reward for all my hard work. QTE kinda ruins that.

 

[Errickfoxy]

God of War III at least puts its triggers in the corners and sides of the screen, so once you work out which prompt is which, you can then watch the scene and just use peripheral vision to tell what button to press. But I'm not sure that's actually better.

 

[Jared]

Heh...QTE, they seem to be the staple these days...taking the action out of our hands to a couple button presses...sucks

 

[Random Argument Man]

I actually prefer Shenmue's QTE. Most of them are in specific sequences. If you fail, it alternates the story a little.

Although, there's still some of those moments that comes out of the blue.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I just really hate the "MASH THE SAME BUTTON REPEATEDLY". Like opening ANYTHING in God of War.

Or having a chainsaw duel in Gears.

Or well...anything that requires mashing the button over and over.

I don't mind the "Press Buttons in Sequence" ones very much.

 

[imaloony]

Happens to me too. I missed like all the action scenes in The Force Unleashed because of this stupid shit. Plus, half the time I missed the quick time events anyways. They gave you like no time to hit the buttons.

 

[justthisguy]

I thought Mass Effect 2 did them pretty well, with lots of "Press X to be Badass"

 

[RiffRaff]

Agreed. Don't cover up that sweet cut-scene with button mashing. Cut-scenes are earned because you beat the previous section of the game - give me a break from button mashing for a while.

 

[Mr. Socky]

I thought Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones did a good job. Scenes that normally would be relegated to cutscenes gained a little extra fun when you had to press the attack button when the screen "flashed". It wasn't really difficult, but it added interactivity without completely murdering your ability to watch the cutscene.

 

[EmeraldGreen]

I just really hate the "MASH THE SAME BUTTON REPEATEDLY".

This. Sequence QTEs are bad enough, but this...

"So, you want me to 'PRESS BUTTON REPEATEDLY', game? Here's another idea. How about I throw the mouse at the wall - it'll cause approximately the same amount of damage - and then go do something actually fun, like watching the grass grow?"

 

[RoyalWelsh]

I don't mind QTE's but at the same time, I wouldn't mind if they went either.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

I'd suggest that developers simply stop trying to make cutscenes interactive, but I'm logical like that. At the very least they could do something like what Mass Effect 2 did and make any quicktime events optional. Seriously, if you want us to be playing the game during your awesome cinematics, make the things you want us to accomplish via loathsome immersion breaking prompts things we can just do in the game normally and stop showing them in cinematics, because you'll have exactly this problem otherwise. If you make your players paranoid that you're going to make them press arbitrary buttons to not die in a bloody cutscene, they're going to be watching for prompts and not the scene, duh.

 

[Irridium]

They're especially awful in horror games. In F.E.A.R. 2, instead of being helpless against ghosts, its a quicktime event to kill them. And Dead Space 2 seems to be going the QTE route.

Listen up designers, I AM NOT SCARED IF I HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL OVER EVERYTHING!

 

[cefm]

I really don't understand the purpose of QTE's. In a fighting game you'd have specific button-sequences to perform certain actions, so you can choose whether to do action A or action B in context. But to make you mash completely random buttons in order to achieve a pre-determined outcome or fail - what sense does that make?

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

quick time events in cutscenes suck, even mass effect should have just been regular dialog options

quick time events during gameplay a-la god of war, almost acceptable

press x to not die is just the game designers unable to create a challenge

 

[Robyrt]

God of War 3 is a step in the right direction here: because it is spread out across the edge of the screen, you are always looking at what's going on in the center. And because most of the QTEs are repeated several times, you can put your fingers on autopilot and just watch the pretty animations.

Replacing visual icons with other prompts would be even more frustrating - it took me 30 minutes to train myself on which button to press for the "world goes black and white effect" in Prince of Persia, because it didn't intuitively map to any of my existing buttons, and I'm a seasoned hardcore gamer.