Please explain why this game mechanic is getting so popular. (salt warning)

[BoogieManFL]

Needing to Press and Hold a button to do basic stuff. Tapping or pressing the button isn't good enough you have to HOLD it down. WHY?

Maybe it will seem like a trivial concern to others but I have nothing but burning hatred for it. At first it was just a minor annoyance, and seem restricted to console games. Well now all the console ports are transferring this curse to the PC because developers are too lazy to implement proper PC controls. Most recently, Mass Effect Andromeda and Ghost Recon Wildlands. First time I encountered this was on Destiny.

I can see having to hold the key down for stuff like selling items and other things you don't want to do on accident, but EVERY SINGLE ACTION now requires you to hold a key down, often for 1-3 seconds. EVERY. TIME. FOR. ROUTINE. COMMONPLACE. ACTIONS.

Oh? You're getting shot? Want to get in that car and drive away? Hold it down and take a few more hits first. Have 20 items to get rid of? Get ready for lots of wasted time holding down a freaking button instead of playing the game. Are you SURE you want to rez your buddy? Are you SURE you want to open that door? The games are acting like helicopter parents that can't bear the thought of you making one mistake.

You obviously made the decision when you pressed the key down in the first place. What is the point of further delay.


Makes me feel like tracking down whatever idiot started this mess and vigorously beating his face with a dog crap covered mallet while he is savaged from behind by a very angry goat.

!@&% YOU.

 

[Zhukov]

I understand why it's annoying, but I'm just relieved that they aren't making me repeatedly mash the button any more.

(Fuck you God of War doors and boxes.)

I'll take holding over mashing any day. I almost wept for joy when I saw Uncharted 4 offer an option to replace button mashing with holding.

As for why they do the hold X to Y things, one reason is for actions that they don't want you to be able to complete immediately. For example, reviving a teammate. They don't want you to be able to do drive-by rezes while sprinting past. They want it to be a decision. "Do I risk exposing myself to fire for the few seconds it would take to scrape xXxWhittyCokkxXx off the floor?"

Plus, when holding down a button you can cancel a mistaken action by just releasing. For instance if you meant to open that loot crate but were looking half an inch too far to the left and instead ended up climbing into your nearby vehicle.

 

[BoogieManFL]

Fair point, like running in GTA4.

Better but still terrible.

 

[skywolfblue]

I've been playing Horizon: Zero Dawn lately, and even though I am loving the game to death, this is one of those minor things that's been annoying me lately.

Loot? Hold down the button for 2 seconds
Talk to someone? Hold down the button for 2 seconds
Hack a robot? Hold down the button for 2 seconds (That one actually makes sense)
Craft an item? Hold down the button for 2 seconds
Purchase a skillpoint? Hold down the button for 2 seconds
Quicksave at a campfire? Hold down the button for 2 seconds

 

[Zhukov]

Loot? Hold down the button for 2 seconds

That's so you don't enter the loot screen accidentally during combat and get trampled before you can back out of it.

Craft an item? Hold down the button for 2 seconds

Purchase a skillpoint? Hold down the button for 2 seconds

Those ones are so you don't accidentally spend irreversible points while navigating the skill tree.

Although I really don't think it was needed for crafting.

Quicksave at a campfire? Hold down the button for 2 seconds

I can't be bothered booting up my PS4 to check, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

 

[Michel Henzel]

I don't remember exactly which game it was that first really annoyed me with it, I think it might have been the second cybertron game. But I do remember it made no sense to have it. WTF is wrong with just a button press? Do you really need to waste my time with holding or even mashing a button? It almost feels like unnecessary padding of a few min. if you add up all the seconds of holding a button. No, just no. A single button press has worked fine and still works fine. Just feels like bad design.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

It's to make the most out of the buttons you have. Tap once for X, hold for Y.
I'm not crazy about it but I think that's the reason behind it. Nothing as gratuitous as "pissing the player".

 

[darkcalling]

I find it odd but not annoying enough to rage about. I do wonder why it seems to be getting more and more popular though.

 

[BucketHatAficionado]

I've been playing Horizon: Zero Dawn lately, and even though I am loving the game to death, this is one of those minor things that's been annoying me lately.

Loot? Hold down the button for 2 seconds
Talk to someone? Hold down the button for 2 seconds
Hack a robot? Hold down the button for 2 seconds (That one actually makes sense)
Craft an item? Hold down the button for 2 seconds
Purchase a skillpoint? Hold down the button for 2 seconds
Quicksave at a campfire? Hold down the button for 2 seconds

Couldn't agree with this more; love Horizon: Zero Dawn but that was defiantly something that irked me. Honestly, I think this whole fad stated in an attempt to make games feel more substantial than they actually are; in a way, holding down a button does give an action more weight but I think it can absolutely be overdone.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Holding down a button to do something like reviving a teammate is there so you can cancel the animation if you feel you will die from an attack. Whereas if you just pressed the button and had to wait the 5 seconds for the animation to finish and died because of that, you'd be much more pissed off. But I do agree with holding buttons (especially tapping buttons) to do something when it's totally not required.

Loot? Hold down the button for 2 seconds

That's so you don't enter the loot screen accidentally during combat and get trampled before you can back out of it.

Quicksave at a campfire? Hold down the button for 2 seconds

I can't be bothered booting up my PS4 to check, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

You never use the loot button during combat though so I don't get why you'd have hold down the button to loot a dead machine either. You just press the loot button to pick up broken off parts like sparklers for example, and that never causes a problem. You definitely don't have to hold down a button to save because I'll quite often slide to a campfire to quick-save and then press square to un-crouch, and that brings up the manual save screen.

 

[Casual Shinji]

You obviously made the decision when you pressed the key down in the first place. What is the point of further delay.

In case you pressed it by accident or unintentionally.

It's similar to why they have the 'Are you sure you want to overwrite this save data?' pop-up whenever you overwrite a save.

I'm totally cool with this feature as it keeps me from accidentally getting locked into a conversation, a menu, or ladder that I didn't want to access at that moment.

 

[infohippie]

It's to make the most out of the buttons you have. Tap once for X, hold for Y.
I'm not crazy about it but I think that's the reason behind it. Nothing as gratuitous as "pissing the player".

But shitty workarounds like that should be fixed on a PC version. We have keyboards. We have a truckload of buttons as well as modifier keys. At least let us configure it ourselves, don't bind us with console limitations.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

You obviously made the decision when you pressed the key down in the first place. What is the point of further delay.

This doesn't apply to all these instances, but in some cases it's to balance gameplay. For example, reviving teammates in multiplayer FPSs. In doing this you sacrifice a finger, ie. the ability to do another action, to be able to revive a teammate. If it was just instantaneous, or the bar filled automatically, there would be no sacrifice or making yourself vulnerable, and therefore no risk in doing it. Same with the crafting in The Last of Us: if you're trying to craft an item in a heated moment, but see that you don't have the time and want to reposition, you can opt out of it by merely lifting your thumb from the button.

The difference between merely pressing a button and holding it is also used to allocate multiple control functions to a single button, and can work quite well. In Borderlands you can either press a button to pick up a gun and put it in your inventory, or hold the button down and instantly have the weapon in your weapon slot. In Call of Duty you can hold the grenade button down to throw it later, so it'll explode more immediately after throwing it.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Couldn't agree more. Annoying as hell, though in some rare cases it is warranted (rezzing).
It is only one of several such practices that has spread from the console market and infected the PC one.
Some gamers are partly to blame as well.
Their apathy and making purchases despite shady and abhorrent practices enables this to continue.

 

[Trunkage]

I seem to remember holding button being in at least Far Cry 3 (I think even in 2). Its been around for a long time

 

[sXeth]

Prettymuch its there for actions that require a time commitment mechanically, while allowing for the option to instantly cancel out if necessary.

There's a few cases where whoever was doing the UI seems to have either gotten it stuck in their head as a standard (or were too lazy to code the distinctions).

In Horizon the looting or overriding is something that takes a few seconds mechanically, but you also want to be able to cancel away if you see a Sawtooth leaping at you. The save point definitely doesn't require a hold (I thought I crashed my game once cause I accidentally popped up the manual save by being too near a bonfire while fighting), and I'm prettysure the talking doesn't either.

 

[BoogieManFL]

It's to make the most out of the buttons you have. Tap once for X, hold for Y.
I'm not crazy about it but I think that's the reason behind it. Nothing as gratuitous as "pissing the player".

I personally have yet to play any game where that is the case. Just press and hold because reasons, not a dual function button. Not saying they don't exist, but they do exist where it's not the case and it's not needed.

You obviously made the decision when you pressed the key down in the first place. What is the point of further delay.

In case you pressed it by accident or unintentionally.

It's similar to why they have the 'Are you sure you want to overwrite this save data?' pop-up whenever you overwrite a save.

I'm totally cool with this feature as it keeps me from accidentally getting locked into a conversation, a menu, or ladder that I didn't want to access at that moment.

You don't need such safeguards on EVERY action however, which is the entire point.

You obviously made the decision when you pressed the key down in the first place. What is the point of further delay.

This doesn't apply to all these instances, but in some cases it's to balance gameplay. For example, reviving teammates in multiplayer FPSs. In doing this you sacrifice a finger, ie. the ability to do another action, to be able to revive a teammate. If it was just instantaneous, or the bar filled automatically, there would be no sacrifice or making yourself vulnerable, and therefore no risk in doing it. Same with the crafting in The Last of Us: if you're trying to craft an item in a heated moment, but see that you don't have the time and want to reposition, you can opt out of it by merely lifting your thumb from the button.

The difference between merely pressing a button and holding it is also used to allocate multiple control functions to a single button, and can work quite well. In Borderlands you can either press a button to pick up a gun and put it in your inventory, or hold the button down and instantly have the weapon in your weapon slot. In Call of Duty you can hold the grenade button down to throw it later, so it'll explode more immediately after throwing it.

It has it's place when used intelligently. But it is not used intelligently. You don't need a delay to be on every single action.

Worse part is when you're playing on PC you still have this dumbass delays even when you can rebind the keys and have plenty to go around. It's just not implemented in many games in any way that makes even a shred of sense.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I guess it's a less intrusive way of the "are you sure?" selection screen. People do make mistakes at times, me included. Then there are the actions that take up a button that is already being used for something more reactionary, such as reloading. There are games have the reload and search mapped to same buttons, so you dont wanna be in the middle of a firefight trying to to reload whereupon your character suddenly gives in to the urge to molest the nearest corpse instead.

Games can make the hold delay slightly longer than it needs to be, which may be where peeps could get frustrated. But I noticed Mafia 3 had a fairly brief and effective use of the hold, something like less than half a second, but enough to distinguish from a tap and to make sure you're doing what you intend to be doing.

It's not annoying in games that are fun, as opposed to those that are actively wasting my time with their very existence. Though perhaps they're more annoying because I realise i do it to myself. Instead of something productive!!
Pure. evil.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Yes, it is annoying and I imagine they do it to prevent you from accidentally doing something but really the solution is worse than the problem when it's overused. BTW, please explain why everyone now uses the word salt all the time now instead of just saying they are irritated or otherwise unhappy about a situation. I am salty that the word salt is overused.