I Truly Don't Get the Quicktime Event Hate

[Dominic Crossman]

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.

 

[DoPo]

I love them, and they're done best in Asura's Wrath, which hasn't been mentioned at all on this whole page. Sure, it was more like an anime than a video game, but it was still a game. The prompts were easy to understand, made sense with what was going on on-screen, and made me feel like I was doing something.

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.

I don't really have a problem with QTE's, I guess I just like pushing buttons and being rewarded with flashy visuals.

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.

 

[Lovecrafts Sunny Day]

Not frothing here, but I'm not a fan tbh.

Depends on the game in question at the end of the day (Far Cry3 I'm looking at you )

If you will give us a lush tempting resplendent gameworld with which to interact, allow us to explore it's verdant landscape at our leisure, dealing with the many dangers we may face in which ever way we choose, why must I press buttons in a random fashion if I wish to proceed with the narrative?

I get the 'mini' boss aspect the game attempts to infer by using QTEs, to define a chapter in the story, but FC3 also handled similar encounters in much better ways using standard (albeit more trippy) game mechanics, can they not stick to that?

I want the knife, I have a Magnum .44.
Can I not just shoot the C*nt?

 

[Someone Depressing]

Quick time events are not bad. For example, the Clock Tower series is a great example of horror games that use the system as a combat system, making you feel like the helpless person you are against supernatural forces. David Cage's games, though of... varying, and very undecide, quality, are all good examples of QTEs being used in a very interesting manner.

It just so happens that they're almost never done right. In general, games with it being scripted, ie; regular, expectable, and a core part of the game, tend to handle it well. But being given a 2 second QTE halfway through a game with none previously is not cool.

 

[Zipa]

Play Resident evil 6 the you will understand.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Becoming immersed in game flow only happens when the player has become so familiar with the controls that they no longer need to have cognition of the input: instead they react to their environment by thinking of the appropriate in-game action to take, and muscle memory has developed around the inputs so they do it without taking their eyes off the screen.

Quick time events tend to completely fuck this up, because they change the context the player associates with the input. It doesn't matter how 'cinematic' the camerawork becomes at this point: a sudden change in how the inputs function will break the flow, and when you combine that with a time penalty you have a recipe for frustration.

Compare two games with QTEs: Arkham Asylum and The Force Unleashed. In Arkham Asylum, there are a few dodgy cutscene QTEs but the majority are just contextual button presses that are consistent with regular gameplay. The counter and stun attacks may have a small window, but they have contextual clues in game which the player learns to react to. By contrast, in The Force Unleashed the four console buttons are assigned to Lightsabre, Jump, Push and Lightning respectively. When a QTE happens, you have absolutely zero cues to which button to press. "Oh crap, this boss has me pinned down. What do I do? Should I jump, should I slash back, should I zap his ass?" The game doesn't tell you in a contextual way, it just flashes up a button for you to press, and then AFTER you press it it bothers to use some kind of animation to show you jumping or slashing or whatever.

That's lazy design. It rips you out of the game flow and stops you from reacting to events with unconscious inputs. You end up watching the screen to go "what button do I press", and suddenly you're not the one controlling the character anymore, you're just a player waiting for instructions so they can pass to the next section. That's when QTEs become a fucking pain in the ass.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well, every game does this to some degree.

Yes, and some do it to worse degrees. And some do it only at random points which make little top no sense given the overall mechanics of the game, or the freedom otherwise afforded.

But that's my point. Every game limits you by the number of options that the devs code into it. Yet QTE's get an extreme amount of dislike, even though there are plenty of games that arbitrarily restrict your options due to programming, yet they don't seem to get demonized for it.

No, that wasn't your point. He was saying, as I and others are also saying is that less options = less good. And yes, we accept some limitations in gaming, but gaming has evolved well beyond the "Simon Says" level.

2. It takes me out of the game flow.

Really?

Really.

Odd, cause generally, given how cinematic the QTE's usually are, like an upclose and personal knife grappling scene, or some epic power struggle with one of the gods of Olympus, it's always felt way more dramatic and engaging to me.

You do understand that a lot of people don't like cinematics or cut scenes and feel they're also pulling them out of the game, right? This is a great argument if you rule them out, but that's a pretty big problem.

Hell, two of the most classic games from decades past, were a continuous QTE story. Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. People LOVED those games, and yet I've never heard anyone gripe about those games.

I can't help what you've heard, but Dragon's Crown was a novelty which aged poorly and has since met with a lot of criticism.

In a sense, QTE's are an updated form of Simon Says, an incredibly popular game that's been around for decades, and hell, all the DDR games are basically QTE's too. You are forced along a predetermined sequence of inputs, and yet those games are popular.

They're also specific games structured specifically for this. QTEs usually don't get complained about in this context. They're treated different because they are different. They are Simon, and people are okay with that. What they don't like is playing a game that's not Simon and having to bring in Simon.

You know, a decent example is Drakengard. The last boss fight, the real last deal before the final ending, is a DDR scene. And people didn't like it. Why? Well, in part because it was drawn out. But mostly because you have a freaking hack and slash game that pulls a rhythm game out of its ass at the last fucking second. Since we're making cinema comparisons, that's the equivalent of watching Schindler's List only to find the last reel has been replaced with the last reel of Blazing Saddles. I like both movies, but I'd be annoyed if someone did this.

And those are really the only reasons you've heard? More have shown up on The Escapist alone.

Howabout:

3. " It obstructs my view."

Shamus Young makes this point here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comicsandcosplay/comics/stolen-pixels/7887-Stolen-Pixels-214-X-A-B-Win].

4. "Gee, that's pretty cool. Kind of makes me wish I was playing."

This is similar to the cinematic issue. QTEs in games, much like cinematics, often take control from you at the points where the coolest things happen.

There are better ways to engage us as gamers. That would be gameplay.

5. They often don't make sense.

Guy Hero does three impossible things, only to be hit by a pass/fail QTE, turning it from cutscene to (stunted) gameplay.

There were a couple of Spider-Man QTEs in the middle of Web of Shadows cutscenes where Peter apparently....Forgets he's Spider-Man if you don't press the right button. He's been fine up until then, but suddenly, he gets a brain cramp or something. Because ponies.

6. It's busywork.

You put in the most insulting manner, undermining our intelligence as teens/adults. But you know what? It's true.

I'll just borrow this from you and say 7. It's insulting. At the very least, it's annoying to have the control ripped out of your hands and your input reduced.

The general consensus, as far as I know, is that games are not actually movies [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/3075-Videogames-Are-Not-Movies-Get-Over-It].

Despite the industry's obsession with imitating Hollywood.

Jim touches upon this in the video you linked, but the massive inferiority complex the gaming industry has is really a problem. They want to take gaming out of gaming.

Video games are a different medium - a movie in which you press buttons to progress forward should not be confused with one.

In fact, it seems quite primitive nowadays.

 

[major_chaos]

I can see how they are annoying if jammed into cutscenes constantly, but if used in gameplay I think they work great. The two best example is when they are used to preform epic finishers on bosses in games like God of War so you get something much more interesting than the boss just having a heart attack when its lifebar hits zero, and to escape when grabbed by an enemy (ex. Dead Space) where "mash X" is about the best way to convey a frantic escape attempt that I can think of. Preforming executions in brawlers like GoW is fun too, and while it can get old I think the finishers would feel really boring and weightless if reduced to "push X and watch". I honestly wonder what people who hate QTEs think would work better in these situations, because I can't think of anything.

 

[Dragonlayer]

*Standing in the lonely corner* I like QTEs....

Though the ones in Clive Barker's Jericho were brutally unforgiving, especially on the harder difficulties.

 

[seaweed]

When they're done well, they're okay. Like if a zombie grabs me, it naturally makes sense to mash a certain button to pull them off. It feels logical. Or if you have to evade an attack and the QTE is mapped to the button that evades in normal gameplay. That's incredibly logical.

When they're done poorly, there is almost nothing worse. RE4 was one of the pioneers of popularizing QTEs but most of the ones in that game are honestly god awful. You're three minutes into a cutscene and aren't even holding the controller. Suddenly there's something lunging at you! - quick, press a random combination of buttons! Oh and by the way, the buttons are different every time and have no relation at all to the controls in normal gameplay. Thanks, Capcom.

 

[nvzboy]

A QTE can be done right and I have seen some instances where they really felt good but a lot of them were bad. A good QTE is basically a more cinematic version of the game mechanics. For example: In a first person shooter an enemy comes charging at me with a knife and gets close enough, I get the prompt here to use the button normally used for crouching to duck away from the knife followed by a melee attack of my own by pressing sayd button to incapacitate my enemy.
I remember a bit in spec ops the line where you zipline into an enemy when the player suddenly gets a hallucination of that enemy being one of his squadmates. This is in some way a QTE because you have to press a single button but it never feels forced because the solution to it is simply pressing the fire button. There is also no button prompt, but if you wait long enough the enemy will pull the pistol from his holster and shoot you in the gut.
If this instance would be done by the makers of battlefield 3 I would have had to push the button to move left for instance to solve this. The action normally associated with that control is in no way connected to the action done in the QTE, you suddenly realise you are playing a game and that the buttons have names and have to remember what button is under what finger.
They can also be used well in some fighting games where the sudden requirement of mashing the attack button implies brute strength or struggle.

In short: QTE's can be good but are easily ruined by odd choice of commands or button prompts.

 

[Proto325]

Someone mentioned Prince of Persia: Two Thrones earlier, and I'd like to use that example to illustrate my point.

QTEs occur in two different situations in that game. The first is stealth kills - you initiate the QTE, then press attack when prompted. I don't have a problem with this for two reasons: it's completely optional; and if you fail all that happens is that you lose a little health and fight the enemies normally. The second is finishing boss fights, which work the same way but with more prompts. The problem I have with these is that you HAVE to do them - if you fail you lose health and have to get to the QTE point again until you win (or die)

Most QTEs are like the latter: if you fail you have to see the exact same thing over again. It's annoying and repetitive, a bit like putting a checkpoint just before an unskippable cutscene. Even if you succeed it's unfulfilling because, instead of being rewarded for mastering the game's mechanics, you're being made to play a minigame (Simon Says, as you so eloquently put) - and the devs couldn't even be bothered to come up with a interesting minigame either - in order to get through the bloody game.

Yes, QTEs can be implemented well, but for the most part they aren't, which is why people don't like them.

 

[MrBaskerville]

I just hate it because it is pointless. It gets annoying in cutscenes because it forces you to rewatch things if you fail the QTE and when there are QTE they often lock your ability to skip cutscenes. I also hate them as finishers, mostly because i hate the entire idea of a finishing move. It just gets tedious to finish the same enemy, the same way again and again. I prefer to kill enemies and bosses using the my own moves instead of via some oversimplified button prompt just because it makes it look cool (It's the God of War vs Ninja Gaiden approach, i find it a lot more satisfying to win a boss battle in NG where GOW is always a bit anticlimactic).

The worst thing about QTE is that there isn't any positives, just a lot of negatives. Why would you ever need QTE in a cutscene? How is it fun to be able to fail watching a movie? It's a bit like turret sequences, i can tolerate them, but it would always be an improvement if you could remove them.