I may be very late to the party, but thus far, I've somehow managed to avoid games where cutscènes are broken up by quicktime events (QTE). I remember playing God of war on a PSP with a friend of mine, and got bored of it before even finishing the introduction levels.
This is furthered by me being a fan of ZeroPunctuation, Angry Joe and (recently) Totalbiscuit, who more than once poke fun at the whole QTE thing. As such, I simply don't buy those games.
But since steam sales are steam sales, and I currently have plenty of free time, I recently played two games that actually made me think more about this:
-Tomb raider (the reboot)
-The walking dead (episodes 1-5)
I think neither need much of an introduction. But what I soon learned in tomb raider is that there are a goddamn awful lot of QTE's in there. Of the "press X to not die" kind. Sure, they're not all that hard (so far) and if you fail you respawn just before that section. So it's there in the least obstructing way possible.
The thing is: it is simply not fun. At first, I played with a PS4 controller with input mapper to emulate a 360 controller. This means the names of the buttons are different, and I don't use this controller enough to have truly grokked the layout. Playing with a keyboard was better, although that had the rather strange issue of making things too easy. As an FPS veteran, playing with a mouse ended up with me being able to headshot everyone instantly...except that there is this stupid delay which enemies usually exploit by dodging. Which is another thing that bothers me: the keyboard/mouse controls feel unnecessary clunky, making it so that I never feel that a miss is actually my fault.
...but I digress. To get back at the QTE: as a Belgian, I use an AZERTY keyboard. And since the game accounts for that, it sometimes asked me to press "é" instantly (by default, our alphanumeric top row types those characters rather than the numbers). Which I don't know by heart. Which causes me to die often because I don't know the location of those characters by heart (and by the time I've looked, it's too late).
Of course, this sort of situation makes things worse. But it doesn't change the gist that the QTE's don't add anything to the game. In fact, I'm advocating it does exactly the opposite. In these sorts of cutscènes, your entire focus shifts to the location of where that colored button is going to appear. Which means it is shifted AWAY from what's actually going on.
Thanks to the keyboard/gamepad bullshit, I had to escape from the wolf den at least half a dozen times (which is fairly in the beginning of the game). When did I finally make it? When I wasn't paying attention to the actual wolf AT ALL.
This same 'way of playing' followed in future QTE's: as soon as something bad was about to go on, my eyes focussed on the center of the screen and I started praying it wouldn't ask me to press "&".
It didn't take long to start wondering if I should ask around whether there were cheats to bypass the QTE's entirely. But since the combat in the rest of the game was rather clunky, I just decided not to play anymore entirely.
The interesting thing was that when I checked Totalbiscuit's 'WTF is...tomb raider?' video, the game came across as way more fun than my original thoughts on it. I even think I gave the game another chance...but it wouldn't let me.
It's my own thought, but I think developers use QTE's not so much for the one playing the game but for the ones watching someone play said game. This may sound ridiculous, but think about it: as a spectator, you can easily focus on the wolf in the cutscène and hope that the player presses the right button in time. And let's be honest: as a player, visuals don't really matter as long as they don't clutter up your view. But for a spectator, that really does make a difference in your perception.
But whatever the reason: tomb raider isn't the kind of game I like. There's this interesting thread that discusses this (and which inspired this writing), and aside from the generalisation, I sorta agree on it. Or perhaps I'd say 'would agree on it'.
...because then I played the walking dead. It also uses QTE's. In fact, QTE's make up the large part of the game. They, however, do NOT use QTE's in a "press X to not die" form. The QTE's are about choices. While a minority of choices may end up with you being killed and a reaction timer is often involved, they are not what the game is about.
And that's the main difference: when the 'choice' is just 'do I want to live or do I want to die?', the QTE is about nothing but wasting everyone's time. It's not engaging because there is a clear win state and a clear lose state (in the latter case, you just have to try again). Sure, it trains reflexes, but it does so at the expense of game immersion (again: no matter how beautiful the cutsène is, you can't focus on it).
The walking dead, on the other hand, is about what you do and how that impacts the outcome in a more long-term way. It's rarely if ever about having quick reflexes and always about what you decide to do. And that, my friends, is engaging.
In fact, there is at least one situation where such a QTE is about choice as well:
If you had the chance in tomb raider to either kill the wolf or merely avoid it from killing you...then what would you do? THAT is a choice. And it doesn't even matter if it turns out not to matter a damn in the rest of the game because as a player, you don't know that until the end.
Take a look at both games. Nobody will argue that tomb raider looks better. In fact, I bet the manhours put into tomb raider was probably in the range of ten times as much. Then why does it engage less? I played tomb raider for 2 hours before somewhat ragequitting. Meanwhile, I blazed through TWD in three or four days, clocking at 12 hours total. And it's certainly not 'despite' the QTE's, because the game is about 66% QTE's.
The unfortunate thing is that BECAUSE AAA-titles look better, they can't offer the same choice variety that games like TWD give. I know not all choice options of TWD end in different outcomes, but for all 'cutscènes' I watched, I bet there are at least half a dozen I haven't seen. And since AAA-titles spend quite a lot on their visuals and their users usually measure a game by completion length, the 'corridor'-syndrome in those games is but a logical outcome.
This is furthered by me being a fan of ZeroPunctuation, Angry Joe and (recently) Totalbiscuit, who more than once poke fun at the whole QTE thing. As such, I simply don't buy those games.
But since steam sales are steam sales, and I currently have plenty of free time, I recently played two games that actually made me think more about this:
-Tomb raider (the reboot)
-The walking dead (episodes 1-5)
I think neither need much of an introduction. But what I soon learned in tomb raider is that there are a goddamn awful lot of QTE's in there. Of the "press X to not die" kind. Sure, they're not all that hard (so far) and if you fail you respawn just before that section. So it's there in the least obstructing way possible.
The thing is: it is simply not fun. At first, I played with a PS4 controller with input mapper to emulate a 360 controller. This means the names of the buttons are different, and I don't use this controller enough to have truly grokked the layout. Playing with a keyboard was better, although that had the rather strange issue of making things too easy. As an FPS veteran, playing with a mouse ended up with me being able to headshot everyone instantly...except that there is this stupid delay which enemies usually exploit by dodging. Which is another thing that bothers me: the keyboard/mouse controls feel unnecessary clunky, making it so that I never feel that a miss is actually my fault.
...but I digress. To get back at the QTE: as a Belgian, I use an AZERTY keyboard. And since the game accounts for that, it sometimes asked me to press "é" instantly (by default, our alphanumeric top row types those characters rather than the numbers). Which I don't know by heart. Which causes me to die often because I don't know the location of those characters by heart (and by the time I've looked, it's too late).
Of course, this sort of situation makes things worse. But it doesn't change the gist that the QTE's don't add anything to the game. In fact, I'm advocating it does exactly the opposite. In these sorts of cutscènes, your entire focus shifts to the location of where that colored button is going to appear. Which means it is shifted AWAY from what's actually going on.
Thanks to the keyboard/gamepad bullshit, I had to escape from the wolf den at least half a dozen times (which is fairly in the beginning of the game). When did I finally make it? When I wasn't paying attention to the actual wolf AT ALL.
This same 'way of playing' followed in future QTE's: as soon as something bad was about to go on, my eyes focussed on the center of the screen and I started praying it wouldn't ask me to press "&".
It didn't take long to start wondering if I should ask around whether there were cheats to bypass the QTE's entirely. But since the combat in the rest of the game was rather clunky, I just decided not to play anymore entirely.
The interesting thing was that when I checked Totalbiscuit's 'WTF is...tomb raider?' video, the game came across as way more fun than my original thoughts on it. I even think I gave the game another chance...but it wouldn't let me.
It's my own thought, but I think developers use QTE's not so much for the one playing the game but for the ones watching someone play said game. This may sound ridiculous, but think about it: as a spectator, you can easily focus on the wolf in the cutscène and hope that the player presses the right button in time. And let's be honest: as a player, visuals don't really matter as long as they don't clutter up your view. But for a spectator, that really does make a difference in your perception.
But whatever the reason: tomb raider isn't the kind of game I like. There's this interesting thread that discusses this (and which inspired this writing), and aside from the generalisation, I sorta agree on it. Or perhaps I'd say 'would agree on it'.
...because then I played the walking dead. It also uses QTE's. In fact, QTE's make up the large part of the game. They, however, do NOT use QTE's in a "press X to not die" form. The QTE's are about choices. While a minority of choices may end up with you being killed and a reaction timer is often involved, they are not what the game is about.
And that's the main difference: when the 'choice' is just 'do I want to live or do I want to die?', the QTE is about nothing but wasting everyone's time. It's not engaging because there is a clear win state and a clear lose state (in the latter case, you just have to try again). Sure, it trains reflexes, but it does so at the expense of game immersion (again: no matter how beautiful the cutsène is, you can't focus on it).
The walking dead, on the other hand, is about what you do and how that impacts the outcome in a more long-term way. It's rarely if ever about having quick reflexes and always about what you decide to do. And that, my friends, is engaging.
In fact, there is at least one situation where such a QTE is about choice as well:
After Kenny's wife and kid dies, you run into an argument with him when it comes to starting the train. Of course he's heartbroken that his family is dead, and that I'd put a bullet through his son's head certainly wasn't helping. So I understood his anger and rage. Not sure if it could be avoided, but my dialogue choices about getting things started ended up him starting a fight with me. I could have fought back - the controls where there - but I didn't. I actively choose not to fight back...which turned out to be a valid option as well.
If you had the chance in tomb raider to either kill the wolf or merely avoid it from killing you...then what would you do? THAT is a choice. And it doesn't even matter if it turns out not to matter a damn in the rest of the game because as a player, you don't know that until the end.
Take a look at both games. Nobody will argue that tomb raider looks better. In fact, I bet the manhours put into tomb raider was probably in the range of ten times as much. Then why does it engage less? I played tomb raider for 2 hours before somewhat ragequitting. Meanwhile, I blazed through TWD in three or four days, clocking at 12 hours total. And it's certainly not 'despite' the QTE's, because the game is about 66% QTE's.
The unfortunate thing is that BECAUSE AAA-titles look better, they can't offer the same choice variety that games like TWD give. I know not all choice options of TWD end in different outcomes, but for all 'cutscènes' I watched, I bet there are at least half a dozen I haven't seen. And since AAA-titles spend quite a lot on their visuals and their users usually measure a game by completion length, the 'corridor'-syndrome in those games is but a logical outcome.
