Any ideas for alternatives to QTE?

Hello Whiskey Media Community

Just wondering what would you like as alternative to QTE? People say its bad and overused. I agree with this statement. but wondering what is an alternative to this yet get the same cinematic experiece?

My only though would be situation movement. Meaning that the characters animations change depending on the situation at hand however your controls does not. (Think Shadow of colossus)

i think this is were kinect will help. instead of just pressing buttons i will be able to 'act' out the action that is on screen.

so, if for instance the character on screen is in say a fight or maybe a bath i can 'act' out the action of the said fight or bath instead of just pressing silly buttons.

i think this would be great

Slow Time Event.

I'd just remove them. A direction and one context-sensitive button should be enough to perform, or at least trigger, a variety of animations. Really though, the ideal situation would be playing through what would otherwise be cinematics. Animation in games has come a long way.

I actually don't mind QTE in itself. What I dislike is when it's used completely out of the blue, and rarely on top of that. I'd appreciate it if more games gave you some cue to let you know that QTEs might appear, like, say, the screen suddenly becoming letterboxed.

"alternative to this yet get the same cinematic experiece"

Bashing my head against a wall would offer a similar experience. Truth be told, I couldn't like QTE any less and I the only game where I felt the system fit at all was Heavy Rain. I hope that eventually it'll disappear altogether from games that don't revolve around it (like God of War).

QTE for the sake of having QTE is fucking frustrating. The only game that gets a pass on them is Heavy Rain due to how they are implemented. I don't have an idea for an alternative, but developers need to be more conscious of how and when they use them. Multiplayer QTE things like in Gear of War are the WORST, and ones that require an unnecessary amount of inputs (Arkham Asylum's batclaw pulling down walls comes to mind) make me want to stop playing the game.

Just don't have them. I'm not afraid to simply watch a cutscene without having to cling to my controller just in case I get a random button prompt.

Design controllers with built-in "Jason" buttons.

QTE's allow you to interact with the movie-like parts of interactive software. They are great and serve their purpose.

@AhmadMetallic said:

QTE's allow you to interact with the movie-like parts of interactive software. They are great and serve their purpose.

It seems like sloppy game design, IMO. Why not just make the entire game more cinematic and have the player in total control the whole time (e.g. Half-Life 2). QTEs make me enjoy cutscenes less because I'm constantly worried I'll have to mash a button randomly instead of appreciating what's being presented.

I like qte when, if I fail, I dont have to do the whole thing again, much like how heavy rain did it.

I actually like a tastefully done QTE. They're like anything else, some people do them well and some abuse and overuse them.

Slow Time Event.

Ain't nothing wrong with a quick time event provided the button prompts maintain the original purpose of the button. If X is punch and Y is counter, and a man comes up to punch me and the QTE is A, then fuck that shit. But done properly, it's fine.

If you want to be reductive, all gameplay is just quick time events that are not cinematic. Pressing A to get in cover is better than crouching and facing a wall like it used to be. I'd rather press X to reload than have to manually move my character's finger to the release, reach my character's left hand to the extra mag, move that hand in such a way that it slides it into place.

Although manually cocking a shotgun up and down one-handed would be a pretty fun mechanic for about ten minutes.

If you really want to be reductive, compare Battlefield to that AC-130 simulator. In Battlefield take off is a QTE; Right Trigger to Start Plane.

@Ravenlight said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

QTE's allow you to interact with the movie-like parts of interactive software. They are great and serve their purpose.

It seems like sloppy game design, IMO. Why not just make the entire game more cinematic and have the player in total control the whole time (e.g. Half-Life 2). QTEs make me enjoy cutscenes less because I'm constantly worried I'll have to mash a button randomly instead of appreciating what's being presented.

Because at no point in HL2 did I rocket 200 feet into the air, pirouette around a dozen missiles, grab the last one, reverse it, and slam it back into the arm cannon of the 50-foot-tall robot before running across its shoulder to leap off the other arm to safety, all within the span of 8 seconds while being highlighted from various cool cinematic angles that would never have worked if I was in direct control.

EDIT: QTE's are an amazing tool and have their place when implemented well.

@Dagbiker said:

I like qte when, if I fail, I dont have to do the whole thing again, much like how heavy rain did it.

That's the real problem right there. In Shenmue (the game that first brought us QTE's)--if the player were to miss a prompt, the sequence would often take an entirely different path, rather than resulting in instant failure. That is a key component in creating a successful QTE, unlike, say, Resident Evil 4, where you're just mashing buttons to outrun boulders or some shit.

@BeachThunder said:

Design controllers with built-in "Jason" buttons.

I'd love to see something like this. You should work for David Cage.

Focus on making the combat good and fluid. I've not played Batman Arkham Asalym, but from what I've seen it looks as good in real time as most games look in QTE mode. I realize it must be extremely hard to make it look as good in real time combat, but no one is impressed by QTE anymore. Even the most over the top God of War moment is just meh because it's basically just a cutscene. I want to feel like I have direct control over what is happening.

I don't just want it to look like a Bruce Lee movie, it needs to feel like I'm Bruce Lee as well with full control and me doing those awesome moves with the controller, not just watching a movie and pushing a putton that comes up. When that day comes it would revolutionize the beat 'em up genre.

@Ravenlight said:

It seems like sloppy game design, IMO. Why not just make the entire game more cinematic and have the player in total control the whole time (e.g. Half-Life 2). QTEs make me enjoy cutscenes less because I'm constantly worried I'll have to mash a button randomly instead of appreciating what's being presented.

That's a really flawed argument because there are certain things that just can't be done with pure gameplay, at what point in Half Life 2 do you do anything nearing the intricacy of God of War's ridiculously violent boss finishers? Though I do agree with delivering plot driven elements of the game such as dialogue scenes in such manner as the Half Life games.

However, when the pacing of the game calls for a scene that is larger than the boundaries of it's engine, QTEs are a nice way of bridging that gap between watching your character do something and feeling like you are doing it yourself.

Poorly designed QTEs will always be terrible, because they are only succesful when they follow the same logic that flows through the rest of the game's mechanics.

The only alternatives there really are to QTEs are either having a single button-press or nothing at all.

I think the right way to do Quick Time Events would be to reward you if you do it correctly, and not punish you by having to do it again if you fail - simply put QTEs shouldn't stop the action it should lead to two outcomes: one that rewards you for doing it right, and one that doesn't fail you for doing it wrong but rather give a minor punishment and let the game continue on.

Focus on making the combat good and fluid. I've not played Batman Arkham Asalym, but from what I've seen it looks as good in real time as most games look in QTE mode. I realize it must be extremely hard to make it look as good in real time combat, but no one is impressed by QTE anymore. Even the most over the top God of War moment is just meh because it's basically just a cutscene. I want to feel like I have direct control over what is happening.

I don't just want it to look like a Bruce Lee movie, it needs to feel like I'm Bruce Lee as well with full control and me doing those awesome moves with the controller, not just watching a movie and pushing a putton that comes up. When that day comes it would revolutionize the beat 'em up genre.

Cutscenes.

I think the Uncharted series is a good example of games trying to take those "cinematic moments" that would otherwise be all OTE or cutscenes in other games and instead craft the sequence in such a way that the player is guided but yet still have enough control over the character that it doesn't feel too scripted and on rails.

@StarvingGamer said:

EDIT: QTE's are an amazing tool and have their place when implemented well.

Agreed. I guess I don't think about the mechanic itself when it's well done and fluidly integrated. But when it obviously detracts from the experience of a given game, I'm probably a little quick to call it out.

I guess what I'd like to see is better use of QTEs in games instead of utilizing them as a crutch to involve the player.

Good controls and allowing the player to do cool shit without having to do it in cutscenes.

@AhmadMetallic said:

QTE's allow you to interact with the movie-like parts of interactive software. They are great and serve their purpose.

It seems like sloppy game design, IMO. Why not just make the entire game more cinematic and have the player in total control the whole time (e.g. Half-Life 2). QTEs make me enjoy cutscenes less because I'm constantly worried I'll have to mash a button randomly instead of appreciating what's being presented.

Gameplay.

@AhmadMetallic said:

There's your problem right there. You don't wanna interact with what's being presented, you wanna sit back and watch it (assuming that's what you mean by "appreciating it"). I personally play videos games, well, to play them :P And I welcome any new additions that bring my interactions with the experience closer to 100%. First time I played Assassin's Creed II, when I climbed through Christina's window and watched the two lovers talk, and then i tapped a key on my keyboard that allowed Ezio to drop her clothes and make love to her, I was fascinated by this game design achievement because for a second there it made me feel like I controlled Ezio even in that romantic cinematic moment. In other words, I felt like I'd just gotten laid.

Why stop there? There should have been a sexing minigame a la God of War.

I liked the way QTEs are implemented in JRPGs like FF13-2 and Lost Odyssey. They add a whole another level of engagement, so much that I'm not just clicking and waiting.

@AhmadMetallic said:

There's your problem right there. You don't wanna interact with what's being presented, you wanna sit back and watch it (assuming that's what you mean by "appreciating it"). I personally play videos games, well, to play them :P And I welcome any new additions that bring my interactions with the experience closer to 100%. First time I played Assassin's Creed II, when I climbed through Christina's window and watched the two lovers talk, and then i tapped a key on my keyboard that allowed Ezio to drop her clothes and make love to her, I was fascinated by this game design achievement because for a second there it made me feel like I controlled Ezio even in that romantic cinematic moment. In other words, I felt like I'd just gotten laid.

Why stop there? There should have been a sexing minigame a la God of War.

@AhmadMetallic said:

First time I played Assassin's Creed II, when I climbed through Christina's window and watched the two lovers talk, and then i tapped a key on my keyboard that allowed Ezio to drop her clothes and make love to her, I was fascinated by this game design achievement because for a second there it made me feel like I controlled Ezio even in that romantic cinematic moment. In other words, I felt like I'd just gotten laid.

This is probably the saddest paragraph I've ever read.

As for the discussion. Cutscenes in general aren't gamic -- there are exceptions -- ergo they don't need arbitrary mechanics attached to them. They are designed to be a small moving image, not some interactive ass-fest.

Diegetic narrative, dialogue & plot elements are something that would always be preferable to me over "interactive" cutscenes. Valve do a superb job of this in most of their games.

QTEs are fine. I was also fine with non interactive cut scenes but my ADHD brethren made short work of that.

@AhmadMetallic said:

First time I played Assassin's Creed II, when I climbed through Christina's window and watched the two lovers talk, and then i tapped a key on my keyboard that allowed Ezio to drop her clothes and make love to her, I was fascinated by this game design achievement because for a second there it made me feel like I controlled Ezio even in that romantic cinematic moment. In other words, I felt like I'd just gotten laid.

This is probably the saddest paragraph I've ever read.

@AhmadMetallic said:

@dabe said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

First time I played Assassin's Creed II, when I climbed through Christina's window and watched the two lovers talk, and then i tapped a key on my keyboard that allowed Ezio to drop her clothes and make love to her, I was fascinated by this game design achievement because for a second there it made me feel like I controlled Ezio even in that romantic cinematic moment. In other words, I felt like I'd just gotten laid.

This is probably the saddest paragraph I've ever read.

Hey man I was 18 and it was my first QTE (I think).

QTEs: Only for perverts.

@AhmadMetallic said:

@dabe said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

First time I played Assassin's Creed II, when I climbed through Christina's window and watched the two lovers talk, and then i tapped a key on my keyboard that allowed Ezio to drop her clothes and make love to her, I was fascinated by this game design achievement because for a second there it made me feel like I controlled Ezio even in that romantic cinematic moment. In other words, I felt like I'd just gotten laid.

This is probably the saddest paragraph I've ever read.

Hey man I was 18 and it was my first QTE (I think).

I still don't know whether to laugh or cry.

@AhmadMetallic said:

@dabe said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

First time I played Assassin's Creed II, when I climbed through Christina's window and watched the two lovers talk, and then i tapped a key on my keyboard that allowed Ezio to drop her clothes and make love to her, I was fascinated by this game design achievement because for a second there it made me feel like I controlled Ezio even in that romantic cinematic moment. In other words, I felt like I'd just gotten laid.

This is probably the saddest paragraph I've ever read.

Hey man I was 18 and it was my first QTE (I think).

I still don't know whether to laugh or cry.

@AhmadMetallic: Oh we're both joking and I'm totally aware of this.

@WEB_War4 said:

Slow Time Event.

This =D

Good quick time events are good and bad ones are bad. I have always personally liked them but I wouldn't miss them (that much) if they were gone. I would like to never see ones where you have to press the button really fast. That can get painful.

Meh , just dont take the too seriously and move on ... so in other words I have no idea :I

Sometimes QTEs are pretty awesome. Oftentimes, though, they should just be removed. An example of how to make things cinematic without QTEs? Uncharted. Awesome QTEs? God of War.

@Brodehouse said:

If you really want to be reductive, compare Battlefield to that AC-130 simulator. In Battlefield take off is a QTE; Right Trigger to Start Plane.

Don't forget the rat

I can't remember ever trying a QTE that was good. Usualyl it's just trying to make me feel like i'm controlling my character doing al kinds of crazy shit, but i'm just pushing 1 button. It takes me out of the action completely. And the ones where you have to press really fast are the worst.

i'm fine with QTE even like them when they are done well. I think the only game that are close to not needing QTE is Uncharted or anything like that. But i think we are quite a bit away from game play being the same as a well made QTE. So until that time i think we just need better QTE. Heavy rain did it really well and i think more Devs need to learn from that and keep it moving if you failed or make more than one path to the QTE.