where did the hate for QTE come from?

[FATALITY]

the title says it all.

i mean there is some bad QTE out there (Platinum games im looking at you) and good ones
(sony santa monica)
but because of 30 seconds of QTE people start to hate the all game why?

also the order 1886 has one of the worst QTE ever. jesus christ pointless shit

 

[Htown]

because pressing a button to not pause/stop a cutscene isn't usually fun

 

[Thomper]

You answered your own question in the OP:

also the order 1886 has one of the worst QTE ever. jesus christ pointless shit

People hate bad QTE's, and there are a lot of bad QTE's out there.

 

[Dangerous1992]

the only thing i know, the QTE's in Shenmue are amazing

 

[antitrop]

Until Dawn: Doing it right

The Order 1886: Doing it wrong

I've never been one to hate them outright, just when the sequences are so insipid as to be demeaning.

 

[Blackquill]

Because most of the time we could actually do something better than simply pressing a button.

The only studio that nailed it was indeed Santa Monica. But Wonderful 101 had pretty great QTE too

 

[John Kowalski]

RE4 probably.

 

[Parakeetman]

When too many devs started using them as crutches for actually properly designing things. And the whole mentality of PRESS A FOR AWESOME began.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

They seem to be an attempt to make an uninterative sequence interactve. They rarely add too much to the sequence. I enjoy the God of War ones where it's as a finisher against an enemy or mashing the button in, say, MGS4 builds suspense to a scene, but if it's opening a door or something like that? What's the point? Open the damn door.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

Overuse in general I think. Everyone started using it.

 

[FATALITY]

because pressing a button to not pause/stop a cutscene isn't usually fun

but i think is pretty fun finish a boss in god of war with QTE.
i mean sometime is cool to use QTE to rip off the heads of regulars enemies.

 

[Joeku]

I like Asura's Wrath. That's a pretty cool game.

Insofar as doing an 8-hour long QTE counts as a game.

It's neat.

 

[gblues]

They seem to be an attempt to make an uninterative sequence interactve. They rarely add too much to the sequence. I enjoy the God of War ones where it's as a finisher against an enemy or mashing the button in, say, MGS4 builds suspense to a scene, but if it's opening a door or something like that? What's the point? Open the damn door.

These are usually loading screens in disguise.

 

[Woffls]

I remember people being unhappy about not being able to play the whole thing properly. Early QTEs that were replacements for cutscenes rather than gameplay as they often are in modern games. I think the idea initially was to make cutscenes more involving, and it worked in my opinion.

I imagine QTEs are also hated because they require the player to have good reaction times and more familiarity with the controller.

In a game like Shenmue which is mostly walking around asking people where things are, suddenly going to unskippable QTEs isn't particularly fair to the player as it halts progress. Eventually you can memorise the sequences, but that's not fun either.

Personally I enjoy them, but the earlier implementations were perhaps a bit misguided.

 

[TheTux]

Because some companies suck at making QTE cutscenes (e.g: FINAL FANTASY XIII-2).

At least that's why I don't like QTE, not sure about why other people hate them.

 

[Muchi Muchi Pink]

Turning an action game into a rhythm game is not fun.
Also I want to play the game or section my own way.

A game that's just QTE's turns me off.

 

[Neff]

RE4 probably.

People were fine with it. Many even liked it. RE4 along with God of War was the game which brought QTEs back and made them mainstream. It was after everyone started using them, and badly, resulting in simple and easy to fail gameplay, that they fell out of favour.

 

[Renekton]

I think Capcom RE4 popularized it.

 

[akachan ningen]

from the part of your brain that knows better

 

[FATALITY]

You answered your own question in the OP:

People hate bad QTE's, and there are a lot of bad QTE's out there.

yeah but people sometimes overreact when they see a trailer with a qte scene
until dawn got a little of that hate and in the end the impressions of the game has been very positive.

edit: i havent played yet

 

[Jobbs]

Until Dawn: Doing it right

The Order 1886: Doing it wrong

I've never been one to hate them outright, just when the sequences are so insipid as to be demeaning.

I thought Until Dawn was fun, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it'd be MORE fun if it wasn't a QTE game. Like --

Spoiler

I just don't like QTE in general.

 

[Stallion Dan]

Because it became too much 'Press ? to not die'.

Good QTEs should reward you for completion but not kill you for failing.


RE4 is a great example of shitty QTEs, so many fail and die moments out of the blue. Heavy Rain is a good example, where you can fail some and still get the 'good' result, and failing will just take you down a different story path.


It also helps if the same buttons are use for same actions, rather than random buttons everytime, always pressing the same button to dodge a certain type of attack for example.

 

[Corpekata]

It went way overkill for a few years. Needing to mash shit to like open doors and chests, and you could frigging fail at it.

It's not too bad these days for the most part.

 

[Valygar]

Overuse is the most common one. Not only that it appeared in many games, but that it was also overused in some particular games.

I like the concept in a game that is going to have cutscenes no matter what. You add a QTE to the "cutscene" so you still feel in control. RE4 is an amazing game for this (in my opinion).

However, there are some games that could have some interesting mechanics... and instead offer you simple QTEs.

I know this has not happened, but imagine a GTAV where some car chases were replaced by QTEs. Some people would say "it has to happen like that because that car chase is central to the story".
Still, it would be really bad.

PS: I am not sure if Asura's wrath is all the time like that (just watched a video of the "epic battle"), final battle I guess, but if that fight is first a "normal" fight and then comes the QTE part I am ok with it. If it was something like that the final boss is a QTE only I would be dissapointed.

In telltale games I am ok with it. I would like more "point and click" interactions like the old sam & max, but still I prefer that the game has some QTE and it is not all based on dialogue trees.

 

[sixteen-bit]

folks don't like how punitive they are

 

[nubbe]

QTE has gone too far

 

[Fudgepuppy]

Because it gave developers an excuse for not making emergent gameplay that could be cinematic on its own. Instead, they could just show something cinematic and let you press the button once in a while.

 

[Water]

Press X to pay respects to good game design, may it rest in peace.

 

[MudoSkills]

Despite being fine in combat, God of War has some pretty bullshit QTE rammed in there too.

Mashing buttons to open chests/doors always felt kind of pointless, and there's a part in 2 where you have to take the skull off a dead body, I mean you're Kratos, that should be a button tap, but instead you're sitting there mashing O for 30 seconds while he grunts his way through pulling the head off a rotten corpse.

 

[matrix-cat]

There's good QTEs and bad. For me, a Platinum-style QTE where I've just beaten a boss and now I'm hitting prompts to run over to him on a stream of missiles and slice the living shit out of him is video game bliss. Wonderful 101, Vanquish, Revengeance? Glorious QTEs. They aren't tests of your Simon Says ability, they're rewards for having done some badass shit.

However (and speaking of Platinum), there's also the Bayonetta 1 style of QTE where you're in the middle of a cutscene, the game suddenly throws up a button prompt on screen, and if you don't hit it within half a second you can straight up go fuck yourself. Ey bruh, you lose. Watch the whole cutscene again and do it right this time. Oh, and this will count against you in your score at the end of the level.

In the old God of War days I feel there was also a problem where I'd be so intently focused on waiting for the next button prompt to appear that I wouldn't be able to concentrate on any of the ill shit Kratos was actually doing. Thankfully games have got much better about understanding where the player's eyes are going to be focused over the years.

 

[CaviarMeths]

I'm against them generally because I don't like to feel like I'm not actually playing the game. You press a button on prompt and watch something happen that you don't have any control over once initiated.

God of War QTEs were actually probably the ones that made me start rejecting them on principle. Over-the-top Press A for Awesome edginess that barely appealed to be as a teenager. Heavy Rain QTEs were the ones that made me throw up my hands and give up though. Shaking the controller to dry myself off with a towel, fucking wheeee, I'm having fun aren't I.

 

[JHoNNy1OoO]

Either a game is full of QTE's so you are always on your toes for them or a game will have a couple of them here and there catching you by surprise so you miss it and have to repeat it.

The vast majority of the time I feel like QTE's add very little to the game unless the game is centered around them like God of War. The one thing I absolutely despise though is cutscene QTE's. For as long as I can remember whenever a cutscene comes up in any game I always set down my controller to just enjoy it. Cutscenes with QTE's just feel wrong to me.

 

[MikeyB]

I don't like them because they jam a minigame into the middle of boss fights. The rest of the game may have awesome mechanics, but if I've essentially got to play whack-a-mole with my thumb to finish the boss, they have reduced those mechanics to a carnival or Chuck E. Cheese game.

 

[Molemitts]

Because it gave developers an excuse for not making emergent gameplay that could be cinematic on its own. Instead, they could just show something cinematic and let you press the button once in a while.

Pretty much this. Even decisions that are made through QTEs could work better if made through gameplay.

 

[lazygecko]

The original idea was much more in line with spicing up cutscenes with some semblance of interactivity. That's all well and good. But over time the application morphed more into cool looking choreographed QTEs being an easy substitute for coming up with actual interesting and engaging gameplay mechanics.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

Because they are terrible.
Either let me play the game or, if you think I'm not stylish enough and might mess up this cool sequence you had in your head, let me watch a cutscene.

 

[I Stalk Alone]

My hate for them began here

 

[Pompadour]

They're alright if used sparingly. I've never been bothered by them but I've probably failed less than ten QTEs since Shenmue. I've always been naturally good at those for whatever reason.

 

[Durante]

Generally, QTEs take away the actual game controls you learn and use for all the game (which should be polished, interesting, and have depth), and replace them with following on-screen prompts.

What's not to like?

 

[Piers]

RE4 probably.

It was a loved feature in that game iirc — it's the amount of games following that it began feeling like a tired fad.
But Wonderful 101 made me love QTEs

 

[ClaptoVaughn]

It's particularly bad when a final boss is reduced to little more than (or entirely of) QTE's, when the game's core gameplay was not.

A few games off the top of my head that have QTE final bosses:

Spoiler

The key to a satisfying final boss is that it should require the summation of skills (both as a player and your character) that you've accumulated up to that point. Or at the very least, some semblance of the gameplay you've enjoyed enough to get that far in the first place.

A QTE final boss makes it feel like all the practice and thought you've put into the gameplay up to that point was for nothing. Your adaptation to the control scheme, understanding of the core mechanics, careful allocation of skill points, development of personal style, and good old fashioned muscle memory. All of that is rendered void and now all you get is an interactive cutscene that disregards the time and effort you've put into the game.

I don't mind if the FINAL blow is a QTE if it's particularly fancy and couldn't have been done through the basic controls. However, there should still be a proper battle leading up to that point, so it still feels like your skills matter.

 

[Visualante2]

To me it's the equivalent of "we'll fix it in post" from film. A lazy get out of jail free card for when systems don't meet the goals of a scenario.

 

[GECK]

Lazy and boring design at this point.

 

[Erimriv]

On some games they are quite annoying, like the ones on TR. Some developers like to dumb down boss fights with QTEs.

 

[PantsuJo]

I don't hate the QTE concept itself.
I hate the the overuse of QTE.

 

[Ayato Kanzaki]

I'm a casual console player with multiple consoles. Because of that, I mentally associate actions to the button's location on the pad, not the letter or symbol on said button. So for me, QTE are a pain in the butt, and for what benefit? Make you feel more involved in the cinematic? As if we need that...

On top of that, it cause your gaze to fixate on the lower-middle of the cinematic, while you may prefer to be free to focus at other parts of the screen..


OP, since you started this thread, I want to ask you a question. How is your game experience improved by QTE? Is there a sense of achievement in clicking the buttons in the correct order?

 

[lazygecko]

The jarring disconnect from the core gameplay is a great critique. I was thinking just yesterday while playing Just Cause 2 how much better it would be without the obnoxious QTE fistfights when you attempt to hijack a helicopter.

The worst offender for me was probably Kingdoms of Amalur with the whole "Reckoning Mode" where you have to tap a button furiously to consume the souls of enemies or whatever. After a while I could simply not be arsed any longer and just completely ignored that mechanic and forfeited whatever bonuses you got from that. I'm convinced that this was something marketing or some committee insisted on having tacked on to the game, just like its "Reckoning" subtitle.

 

[Cheeseman Battitude]

https://youtu.be/Yy44s_de15Y

 

[LonelyGreyWolf]

RE4 probably.

It was actually loved in RE4 because it was the first game to do it, and it was cool at the time.

Now it's just overdone and boring. It's just trial and error, and it's especially annoying if you mess up a stupid button-press and have to watch a cut-scene all over again because of it. It fits games like Sonic and The Walking Dead, but has no place in modern action, action or shooter games.

 

[MillionStabs]

For me, it was when the final boss of Tomb Raider was just like 5 QTEs