Why "PRESS X" for QTE segments involving opening doors, lifting boxes?

K

Killagamer

CAGiversary!
I am here watching my brother play BlackOps story mode, I see they tell him to press X
in a scene where the guy needs to get out of sinking a helicopter, the motion you see is an arm like janking a door to the right a few times.

I am wondering why developers choose a button for something like that?
Why not use the Analog stick and tell gamers to press right a few times?, I see that as a more accurate and adds more immersion to the situation.

I have seem this in plenty of other games but it finally clicked right now, why do they tell you press X?, even on games like God Of War when you are pulling up a door or opening those boxes, they tell you keep pressing a button. Why not use the Analog stick? and do the lifting motion?.

Have you ever played a game where one of these QTE segments or just regular situations is done with the Analog stick?, where you think it makes sense or be more immersive then using the buttons?. I am now probably going to notice it more then ever before, heck I just noticed it again in Blackops.

They told him "Help me move this box blocking the way", guess how you would help......."HOLD X" and the scene showed the guy pushing the box to the left, clearly you could of use the stick here, push the stick left a few times. I don't get it man why developers don't take this approach?.
 
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It's probably been playtested to death for a variety of ways to handle that stuff and using a simple button press is probably what works best for most of them. I wouldn't really call that a QTE though.
 
[quote name='FriskyTanuki']It's probably been playtested to death for a variety of ways to handle that stuff and using a simple button press is probably what works best for most of them. I wouldn't really call that a QTE though.[/QUOTE]

Playtesting leads to doing whats best for the most foolish player. :cry:
 
[quote name='Killagamer']Have you ever played a game where one of these QTE segments or just regular situations is done with the Analog stick?, where you think it makes sense or be more immersive then using the buttons?[/QUOTE]

Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain both have analog QTEs. In those games I felt like that made more sense than just mashing a button.
 
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@IceBeast>She-Hulk is awesome. I picked up Volume 1 of Single Green Female last week. Have a comics backlog atm though so I'm working towards it. Just finished Neil Gaiman's take on The Eternals, now reading Skydoll. =)

Why press X?

Reaction Time: Being that QTE stands for Quick-Time-Event, the purpose of a QTE is reaction time. At least as presented in Die Hard Arcade, which to my knowledge is the first QTE game, unless you count the Dragon's Lair games, Space Ace, and to a lesser extent Mad Dog McCree. All of which present QTEs as "Press within 3 seconds or bad stuff happens" Therefore the goal is not to make the input complex (right stick down, half circle counter-clockwise up, Left stick down to brace, R1 held down to emulate trigger, L2 feathered in order to feather the hammer and rapid fire a revover) but simply to make it a "HOLYCRAPNOWDODGEBOULDER X!X!X!X!X!X!X!X!X!X!X!DODGE!"

To be fair, Heavy Rain, which is entirely quicktime based, does use more natural or intuitivemotions, and even challenges the player to do motions on the analog stick in a slow and and smooth fashion rather than banging out 236 and 623 like Daigo on a crack-binge.
 
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Mash QTEs can be quite annoying. It's obvious they are there to immerse the player into feeling they are putting in effort -- like lifting every other door in GoW. But really, it's tedious when done poorly (once again, GoW). Mashing X to move or lift something almost makes your character seem weaker then they would if you simply pressed X and watched.

It has minimum positive effect at best, but mostly just meaningless work for the player anytime else.
 
[quote name='icebeast']Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain both have analog QTEs. In those games I felt like that made more sense than just mashing a button.[/QUOTE]

Those are the ONLY games to ever have a QTE where it fit the game. Anyother and allother games with QTE's are a fucking annoyance to me.

Heavy rain made sense since like when you were in the sinking car it gave you a sense of urgency and to concentrate less you fuck up and die and lose that character the rest of the game. It didnt add any realism to the game or anything like you were actually opening a door but it was a mechanic that suited the game and honestly without it heavy rain would have just been a movie you watched because conventional controls wouldnt have worked as well.

But like resident evil 4 when your fighting krasuer? God damnit I hated that because I couldnt watch the cutscene or pay attention to the dialouge because I was to busy waiting for the god damn QTE to trigger so I could hit the right buttons in a mili second and not screw it up for the 39th time.

Games like god of war? It adds nothing to the game except frustrate me because I have to quickly move the controller or my hands into a posistion to move the analog stick in circle properly.

I like playing games, I hate QTE's because it removes me from the game and I cant pay attention to whats going on or just relax and play because I have to constantly be ready to mash the shoulder buttons less I die and have to restart the stage.

Even to a lesser extent needless shit in games like dead space for instance. Why do I have to use the gravity beam to pick up a battery and carry it across the room to put it in a slot using the beam? Cant you just do with that your hands? Hell you could do that even if you dont have hands and just use your stumps.

To me mashing X to pry open a door is pointless and dumb. Or swinging the analog stick in circles to turn a crank to open a door. It doesnt make it immersive at all. Its just damned annoying.
 
[quote name='gargus']But like resident evil 4 when your fighting krasuer? God damnit I hated that because I couldnt watch the cutscene or pay attention to the dialouge because I was to busy waiting for the god damn QTE to trigger so I could hit the right buttons in a mili second and not screw it up for the 39th time.[/QUOTE]

For an otherwise perfect game this QTE felt unnecessary. It was such a cool scene, unfortunately you couldn't enjoy it.
 
i always feel like X should always be the jump button it just feels right. as fas as qte go theyre ok i liked the ones in re4 but it could be annoying to be killed by one because they decide to toss in odd button combos to press for qte. blame shenmu or dynamtie cop if im right one of them was the first game to have them unless you want to consider dragons lair which is one giant qte.
 
[quote name='gargus']
But like resident evil 4 when your fighting krasuer? God damnit I hated that because I couldnt watch the cutscene or pay attention to the dialouge because I was to busy waiting for the god damn QTE to trigger so I could hit the right buttons in a mili second and not screw it up for the 39th time.

Games like god of war? It adds nothing to the game except frustrate me because I have to quickly move the controller or my hands into a posistion to move the analog stick in circle properly.[/QUOTE]

I couldn't agree with you more on the Krauser fight in RE4 where it was completely random, little room for error and one hit death for the player, but what was so frustrating about it in GoW? You know it GoW when it's coming and at at least have an idea of whether it will be a joystick move or a button move... and if you screw up, it's rarely meant anything more than losing some health.
 
[quote name='panzerfaust']i guess im the only one who found RE4's reflex cutscenes to be utterly hilarious

re5 attempted to do it again and failed miserably[/QUOTE]


re5 was a complete fail from start to finish but i give them props for adding online co-op. still wish code veronica would get a proper sequel and the original story would finally get an ending.
 
[quote name='icebeast']Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain both have analog QTEs. In those games I felt like that made more sense than just mashing a button.[/QUOTE]

Those are two of the very few games where QTEs worked well IMO. Most games these days just seem to throw them in there with no good reason or method.
 
[quote name='Vinny']I couldn't agree with you more on the Krauser fight in RE4 where it was completely random, little room for error and one hit death for the player, but what was so frustrating about it in GoW? You know it GoW when it's coming and at at least have an idea of whether it will be a joystick move or a button move... and if you screw up, it's rarely meant anything more than losing some health.[/QUOTE]

Those fucking Medusas screw me up. Something about those half-rolls with the analog stick just never come easy for me. Give me a button masher QTE any day.
 
It would really be nice to have a programmable controller for these situations. Something where I could just jam on the turbo button, click the button once, and then sit back and enjoy the scene. I honestly hate having to jam on the X button, it does nothing but annoy me and tire out my fingers when I'd much rather be fighting enemies mano e mano.
 
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