I Truly Don't Get the Quicktime Event Hate
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That too, I remember playing Heavy Rain and thinking "this would be a lot more interesting if I could pay attention to the story rather than the directions to what button to press" several times.Nimzabaat said:
That said, I did meet a QTE I liked - Mass Effect 2. It's small, unnoticeable and essentially worthless, but somehow I loved interrupting conversations, even if it was with just a button press.
Holy crap! That was an acceptable QTE! I thought there were no examples of a good QTE but you're right. I think what made that QTE work is that the buttons were clearly established so you could focus on the scene. They just flashed the symbol in either corner, again not really detracting from the scene. Huh.Vrach said:
They can be good, BUT, some games use them to mess up games. Like Fable 2 and Halo 4 - both i think you beat the boss with a QTE instead of fighting them. I think even Far Cry 3 you beat the boss with a QTE. Its just unsatisfying. Heard they had that with that Ryse game, though ive not played it so maybe someone can put me right on that fact.
Dragon's Lair and Space Ace were popular because they looked so much better than other games of the era, not because people found that game-play rewarding. Disney Quality animation vs Pac Man.
Well it's because QTE's in cut scenes are just an annoying waste of time. Why even bother putting an game over in the middle of a cut scene if the player isn't really going to have open control anyway? Oh you just beat this hard boss but you didn't hit X at the right time, get ready to do that whole boss over again, Way to disengage the player in less then 5 seconds.
They are just lazy, Imagine if the end of Metroids iconic "Oh crap self destruct is activated time to GTFO" Running through a good portion of the game with a time limit and all your abilities was just boiled down to "Mash X for 10 seconds." you'd lose all the fun of that.
They are just lazy, Imagine if the end of Metroids iconic "Oh crap self destruct is activated time to GTFO" Running through a good portion of the game with a time limit and all your abilities was just boiled down to "Mash X for 10 seconds." you'd lose all the fun of that.
It entirely depends. If you have a solid QTE system built into the core gameplay in a reasonable and justifiable way, sure, go ahead, no problem there. In cases like this the dev plans ahead and structures gameplay in a way to accommodate QTEs in a non-jarring way, that may not break the flow too much.
However, if the only reason you threw in a few "mash button to not die" sequences is that you can't be assed to add variety to gameplay in a meaningful manner, then that's just plain shitty game design.
However, if the only reason you threw in a few "mash button to not die" sequences is that you can't be assed to add variety to gameplay in a meaningful manner, then that's just plain shitty game design.
People liked Space Ace and Dragon's Lair because they were beautifully animated showpieces that didn't look like anything else on the arcade floor when they were released. You have to remember they both came out in the early eighties- their contemporaries were things like Balloon Fight and Great Swordsman, Spy Hunter and Mario Bros.
They were beautiful. They were huge quarter-eaters.
They were also terrible games.
They weren't about mastering mechanics, or awareness of resources and enemy placement, or trying different approaches to situations to find which ones were more or less viable. They weren't even about reflexes, by and large; they were about one thing, and one thing only: memorizing a strict pattern. Maybe mirrored to the opposite side if the dip switches were set to be particularly tricky. They were Simon with less unpredictability.
To this day, QTEs are used when a game's creators want a showpiece but don't want to risk the player screwing up their beautiful cinematic moment by implementing functional controls to make their avatar do cool things. If you play by their rules and memorize their patterns, after a certain number of deaths the player will be rewarded by seeing a cut scene they've already seen at least half of multiple times and which they are probably by then sick of anyway.
They can be tolerable as a change of pace if used very, very sparingly. As climactic moments- where they are used far too often- they function as a kind of refutation of the time the player has spent mastering far more meaningful and engaged control mechanisms on the way.
In some ways, I'd argue they can actually be worse than non-interactive cut scenes. Those at least can say "Look, you've already proven you're awesome- we know if you were at the helm, your awesome hero would handle things this way." QTEs say "We need to keep you just engaged enough to not leave the chair to get a snack while we pull out the stops."
They were beautiful. They were huge quarter-eaters.
They were also terrible games.
They weren't about mastering mechanics, or awareness of resources and enemy placement, or trying different approaches to situations to find which ones were more or less viable. They weren't even about reflexes, by and large; they were about one thing, and one thing only: memorizing a strict pattern. Maybe mirrored to the opposite side if the dip switches were set to be particularly tricky. They were Simon with less unpredictability.
To this day, QTEs are used when a game's creators want a showpiece but don't want to risk the player screwing up their beautiful cinematic moment by implementing functional controls to make their avatar do cool things. If you play by their rules and memorize their patterns, after a certain number of deaths the player will be rewarded by seeing a cut scene they've already seen at least half of multiple times and which they are probably by then sick of anyway.
They can be tolerable as a change of pace if used very, very sparingly. As climactic moments- where they are used far too often- they function as a kind of refutation of the time the player has spent mastering far more meaningful and engaged control mechanisms on the way.
In some ways, I'd argue they can actually be worse than non-interactive cut scenes. Those at least can say "Look, you've already proven you're awesome- we know if you were at the helm, your awesome hero would handle things this way." QTEs say "We need to keep you just engaged enough to not leave the chair to get a snack while we pull out the stops."
They're ok if the game doesn't overdo it. I'd rather have more control over an encounter than just timing buttons though.
They just aren't very well done usually, and like many others have said, it can really distract you from the possible epicness of the cutscene if you enjoy cutscenes. For example in south park - stick of truth, most of the quicktime events kinda made sense, and most of them were woven into gameplay(like paper mario) now off the top of my head i can remember two types of events that i hated in that game. Kenny's and Kyle's final abilities utilized random buttons with pretty fast reflex time when literally every other sequence was formulaic or made sense actionwise. Kenny and the unicorn were just adorable but i could not watch the animation because i had to guess if i would press the right button or try to change it in the short time.
As for when it can ruin the whole game, I haven't felt an inkling to play god of war 2(or 1) again because i spent literally more than hour to get through the last qte sequence with zeus and always died at the 3rd or so qte. It was way faster than the others in that and now aside from remembering that hades was a boss in that game(possibly) I can't remember a single other thing than that quicktime event. To be completely honest, i haven't even tried god of war 3 because of it even though i love the genre.
EDIT: the zeus fight quick time event also changed the buttons every time so if you weren't fast enough to process that input, you just had to guess. It was followed by a game over retry screen that put you right before the event.
Those aside i quite enjoyed the demo of azuras wrath because it fit the style, and there was a sequence in heavenly sword that used it somewhat well, it was semiscripted (the buttons you pressed had effect very close to real time instead of just checking if the button was pressed when the prompt was up) and doing it well ended in you getting on a better position for the next fight, and failing ended you in the middle of enemy horde. There might have been a fail condition at the very beginning that made you do it again, but it still felt like you were playing it.
As for when it can ruin the whole game, I haven't felt an inkling to play god of war 2(or 1) again because i spent literally more than hour to get through the last qte sequence with zeus and always died at the 3rd or so qte. It was way faster than the others in that and now aside from remembering that hades was a boss in that game(possibly) I can't remember a single other thing than that quicktime event. To be completely honest, i haven't even tried god of war 3 because of it even though i love the genre.
EDIT: the zeus fight quick time event also changed the buttons every time so if you weren't fast enough to process that input, you just had to guess. It was followed by a game over retry screen that put you right before the event.
Those aside i quite enjoyed the demo of azuras wrath because it fit the style, and there was a sequence in heavenly sword that used it somewhat well, it was semiscripted (the buttons you pressed had effect very close to real time instead of just checking if the button was pressed when the prompt was up) and doing it well ended in you getting on a better position for the next fight, and failing ended you in the middle of enemy horde. There might have been a fail condition at the very beginning that made you do it again, but it still felt like you were playing it.
Because sometimes its just annoying as all hell having to try to mash a button to make the story progress, or be constantly aware during a cutscene just in case one shows up. Take resident evil for example, there might be 3 minutes of story happening in a cutscene, and then BOOM "PRESS A HOPE YOU WERE PAYING ATTENTION".
I'm not terribly fond of quick-time events, but I think they do have their place and done right they can add something more than just watching a cutscene doing absolutely nothing but scratching your ass waiting for player input again. Though I totally get the criticism, they can come out of nowhere and break the flow of the game completelyif done wrong.
And one other thing.
Guys, can we stop it with the whole: "I hate QTE's because it's not gameplay, it just looks like it is" argument, because (to me at least) it kinda doesn't work. It may sound right, but when you look at the core of what gaming is, it starts falling apart. A video game is defined as "a game played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a television screen or display" (from the Oxford dictionary, also defined pretty much like this elsewhere too). So when we really look at it, there isn't that much difference between QTEs and normal gameplay. In both situations you are playing the game, because you are electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program.
A Quicktime Event IS gameplay, whether you like it or not is another subject matter.
And one other thing.
Guys, can we stop it with the whole: "I hate QTE's because it's not gameplay, it just looks like it is" argument, because (to me at least) it kinda doesn't work. It may sound right, but when you look at the core of what gaming is, it starts falling apart. A video game is defined as "a game played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a television screen or display" (from the Oxford dictionary, also defined pretty much like this elsewhere too). So when we really look at it, there isn't that much difference between QTEs and normal gameplay. In both situations you are playing the game, because you are electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program.
A Quicktime Event IS gameplay, whether you like it or not is another subject matter.
They ruin cutscenes because you are always on edge looking out for them. Ruining the crucial down time in which you enjoy the story.Happyninja42 said:
If you fail at it you have to restart or retry its annoying and hurts the cutscene.
Pressing one button because a flashing prompt told you to doesn't feel like you are doing something awesome, or playing a game at all.
They are lazy game design personified. Very few people like them. And for very good reason.
I do agree that QTEs can be a compromise of sorts. God of War seemed to start the trend, and I thought it pulled them off tastefully enough, particularly against the bosses. The developers envision this badass part of the fight in which Kratos snaps the ship's mast, latches onto the hydra, and impales its head. Or he runs up the giant's arm, cuts off its hand, and swings up to cram it down its throat. It's really freaking cool... the problem being, none of that can be emulated with traditional gameplay. Especially not with older tech. So QTEs give them a way to add a cinematic element to a fight, while still maintaining some faint vestige of possible failure. It was easy enough in God of War, where most enemies have unique input commands that are easy enough to remember. Analog sticks for the gorgons, X button to cram your blade down a minotaur's throat, etcetera etcetera.
Granted, many games go overkill with them. Especially with the "push to kill this enemy instantly" mentality. At least in God of War, the mundane enemies could be killed without them.
Granted, many games go overkill with them. Especially with the "push to kill this enemy instantly" mentality. At least in God of War, the mundane enemies could be killed without them.
There's only a handful of games that people actually liked the QTEs in them. The entire music/dance genre, and a few RPGs like Legend of Dragoon and Mario RPG. Everywhere else is exactly as described as above. I have a hard time playing games with simple ones like in Just Cause 2. I don't want to keep punching the driver in the face, because if I fail, I'll either just try boarding again, or find a different car. It does nothing but stop me from playing the game.
People h8 qtes because more often then not they are poorly executed.
People keep bringing up god of war as a good example but they are a LARGE part of why I h8 the series.
I personally don't like qtes simply because it ends up becoming a sequence of buttons I have to remember in order to pass a fucking cutscene and replaces complex and/or skilled gameplay, such as the "boss" fights of Far Cry 3 or Re4,5,6's cutscene qtes that were in the middle of the goddamn bosses (I had repeat the final wesker fight twice. Not because of a lack of skill, but because of punching a boulder and putting the controller down because I thought I'd beaten the game to find out that there was ONE LAST QTE TO FIRE THE RPGS CAUSING ME TO HAVE TO DO THE FIGHT AGAIN)
Hell part of the reason I got a ps4 over xbox1 is because the game that was suppose to sell the system to me (ryse) was qte after qte after qte. How about no.
I have grown to dislike them so much that I won't buy games if I know they have qtes beforehand.
Tomb Raider was the last one I bought knowing it had them, never again.
Edit: south park game has them, but I was unaware of that b4 I bought the game.
People keep bringing up god of war as a good example but they are a LARGE part of why I h8 the series.
I personally don't like qtes simply because it ends up becoming a sequence of buttons I have to remember in order to pass a fucking cutscene and replaces complex and/or skilled gameplay, such as the "boss" fights of Far Cry 3 or Re4,5,6's cutscene qtes that were in the middle of the goddamn bosses (I had repeat the final wesker fight twice. Not because of a lack of skill, but because of punching a boulder and putting the controller down because I thought I'd beaten the game to find out that there was ONE LAST QTE TO FIRE THE RPGS CAUSING ME TO HAVE TO DO THE FIGHT AGAIN)
Hell part of the reason I got a ps4 over xbox1 is because the game that was suppose to sell the system to me (ryse) was qte after qte after qte. How about no.
I have grown to dislike them so much that I won't buy games if I know they have qtes beforehand.
Tomb Raider was the last one I bought knowing it had them, never again.
Edit: south park game has them, but I was unaware of that b4 I bought the game.
I'd say the exact opposite for Asura's Wrath, personally. I disliked the QTEs in Assassin's Creed 2 (which were irrelevant) but the ones in Asura's Wrath were a whole new level of annoying. I can't really say how much of a gamee is it - it seemed more like an anime which randomly rewinds back if you fail to press some buttons. I can achieve a similar the experience, if I play a video on my PC and disable the "Keep computer awake" in the video player.DeadProxy said:
And this is where we differ, I suppose - if I want flashy visuals, I'd just watch something. I don't want to keep pressing buttons and stuff for the duration. Heck, I've set up my old laptop to be an HTPC to basically watch stuff on it and I control it using the phone because it saves me effort of leaning forward, like, half a meter away and operating the mouse. Otherwise I'd even occasionally need to use the keyboard and you don't know how far away it is...if I've leaned to get the mouse I can just about touch the keyboard, so I actually need to shift my ass just a few centimetres forward to get it. Too much effort. I'd much prefer not doing anything and being rewarded with flashy visuals.DeadProxy said: