You know that guy that watches you playing games and yells out what buttons to press. PRESS X, NO, NO NOT Y YOU IDIOT I SAID X, OH, SEE YOU PRESSED IT TOO LATE, NOW YOU'RE DEAD... well that prick has found his way into a bunch of games and it seems he aint leaving... well someone needs to kick his ass out..
Developers like quick-time events because they can show the main character doing some cool stuff without having to program complex animations and the connections between them. Just pre-canned fail & success conditions while giving the player an illusion of control, yes you have some control but about as much as you do over a bloody DVD. So far It's the closest they've gotten to an interactive (action) cut scene, but it
My solution is simple but requires a little more work on the Developers part.
1st Don't tell me what to press. flashing a big blue x on the screen makes me want to throw the controller at the screen more than it makes me want to press x before my 2 milliseconds is up. It ruins immersion as far as I'm concerned and I never want to be reminded that all I'm really doing is pressing buttons to make my avatar pull off crazy stunts. I should be able to press any button i want and my character should do something that correlates to what that button does in the rest of the game (only cooler) and fits in the context of the current situation. If it's a dumb idea I should fail , if it was a wise choice I should kick some serious assage. so their should be multiple success conditions and multiple failure conditions. The player should never think "Crap I pressed Y when I should have pressed X" he should think "Why the hell did I try to punch that flying taxi, I should have ducked instead"
2nd Give me enough time to make my decision, and give a brother a hint. Time should slow down (of course) and there should be an rhythm based 1, 2, 3 count (don't display the numbers) a simple warped sound effect and camera focus(and pause) on the immediate danger on the first two beats then on the third beat you press your button (or direction) or fail.
Example: Boss throws a Bus (sideways) at you while you run towards it....
Time slows down, the Rhythm count starts, the first beat pauses for a split second and the camera focuses just below the bus (enough room to slide under) ; on the second Beat the camera focuses on the blown out windows of the bus (you may be able to Jump through it); on the third beat you need to press either Jump (which makes you dive through the windows) or crouch (which in this case turns into slide) or get squashed by a bus. if you chose correctly you see one of the two awesome cinematics (added bonus if you hold fire while doing it) if not you see an idiot trying to punch/kick or shoot a flying bus.. i think that's a win-win situation.
Wonder's role as Persona 5: The Phantom X's protagonist has thrust him into the spotlight, and there are clear parallels to the original's hero Joker.
The Xbox version of Final Fantasy XVI has failed to enter the platform's top 20 paid games list, indicating weak launch sales performance.
Day One Release vs One year later release with zero marketing to build excitement/hype.
Both Xbox and SE should know better.
Also fewer than half the consoles sold compared to the PS5 so much smaller customer base.
I get that the game was older.
But so were Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon when they came to playstation and those made it into the top download lists for awhile. So the coming a year later excuse doesn't really fly anymore.
look at stellar blade on PC. over a year later and it's already sold over a million copies. this has nothing to do with marketing or hype. the xbox audience, broadly speaking, just doesn't purchase games.
Excuses lol. Everyone already knew this would be the case. 90% of Xbox players don't buy games.
If it ain't on gamepass, they ain't interested.
Great job MS for training most of your player base to not want to actually buy games, maybe SE will realise releasing FF on xbox isn't somehow going to help them match their exaggerated sales targets. Hopefully remake fairs better, probably will on Switch 2 at least.
No game, especially a AAA one, deserves strong sales after taking years to arrive on a platform and still asking the same price as everywhere else. You can’t just ignore a platform for that long and then expect people to be excited by the release. That cycle came and went already, there is no hype for it anymore.
Either you're all in from the start or you're not. This lazy, bare-minimum approach of tossing out a late port and calling it a day shouldn't be rewarded. If you're not willing to respect the platform, don't bother showing up at all.
But the formerly exclusive Xbox games like Forza Horizon enjoyed great sales on PS even after years past their initial release.
Your references to deserving and "shouldn't be rewarded" implies that gamers are buying games based on some moral platitude that simply doesn't exist in practice.
Gamers buy games because they want to play them.
Nah, it implies how it should be. If gamers weren't the dumbass consumer class around, being played like freaking dumbass because they can't get over the hype for a freaking second and think if that purchase even make sense.
This is EXACTLY why they wouldn't and shouldn't bother im the first place. I can't remember which FF game launched on Xbox with the Switch and Playstation version and ONLY did 4% sales on Xbox. So lets not pretend these sales would have been better because if you believe that you are absolutely delusional
"Either you're all in from the start or you're not. This lazy, bare-minimum approach of tossing out a late port and calling it a day shouldn't be rewarded. If you're not willing to respect the platform, don't bother showing up at all."
Weird. How come you don't say the same about Xbox studio games that show up some YEARS/DECADES later as well?
Sea of Thieves
Grounded
Forza Horizon 5
Pentiment
Hi Fi Rush
Gears of War
Mostly at full price and selling well. Oh right doesn't fit your BS narrative
Survival Kids tries and fails to rekindle an old Konami franchise by bringing it to the Switch 2, but ends up leaving it stranded and to fend for its own.
Good read, especially the 2nd idea sounds nice, if someone pulled it off.
Now, most QTEs suck. Sorry to say that since I am sure there is at aleast one person somewhere who has the hots for them, but that's what I and a lot of other people think.
You pretty much summed up all the things bad abou them and I'd like to add something to your suggestions.
If you played ShenMue - often mistaken as the grandfather of QTEs - you might remember a certain chase sequence. It was a truckload of quick QTEs about you running after some guy. If you got him, good for you. If you didn't... the game went on. Not the RE4 way, i.e. "Now you press another button fast to run from that big rock", but in a way that opened another part of the game. Due to you f'cking up, you now had to do some detective work to find the clues that guy would have "given" you.
Now, that might not *solve* QTEs (if you can do such a thing...), but it at least gave them a meaning. Not just button mashing, but opening up a whole branch of the story.
- - -[NOTE: If my mind just makes this scene up due to gloryfiing this masterpiece, feel free to correct me] - - -
Your 2nd idea would also make for some epic movie/cartoon like experiences. Why movie like? When you succed, freeze the frame, open a new window (think of the splitscreens in MGS4) where the action goes on. You could even continue from the last successfull one in case you f'ck one up.
Why cartoon like? Pretty much the same as above, but make the windows overlap, like pictures laying on another. Just some ideas.
But, alas, I don't think we will see something like that soon (Heavy Rain might contain something new, who knows). The common pattern "Hit button X quick enough or die trying" is... well, common, and most devs rather use that template instead of spending time on something creative.
Let's hope someone grows the balls to try something different someday, something that breaks the mold of trial and error sequences.
resi 4 and gow does it perfectly and it's amazing
in some games,they seems a bit annoying
good subject man