It used to be pretty heavy in the mid 2000s, but it's cleared up a lot. I haven't found a QTE in years. But I did dislike at the time how many former cut scenes turned into press X to not die. Resident Evil 4 in particular had a few scenes that did not need to be QTEs, imo. It wasn't very annoying, but I personally could have done without it. I think the really annoying ones would change which button it was and not give you enough time to see it, recognize it, and press it. Which also could just be my reaction times fading. I am getting older.
I think it's possible that their fall from relevance might have coincided with the collective turn from rhythm games like DDR. The Press the button now or get less or no points genre tied to music. Seems like devs added it because it's what people wanted at the time.
Now people are mostly over it and very few gameplay elements rely on it. I've seen a few mini games rely on timing and pressing a button at a certain time. But never much more than just that.
Resident Evil 4 in particular had a few scenes that did not need to be QTEs
On the flipside, the Krauser knife fight could only be a QTE.
I think its related to what you said, in that the reaction time on them in a lot of games (especially RE4) were so tight and punishing that they lost any ability to be better than annoying.
Which, imo, is also a problem with the non-uniformity of buttons. Like, reaction time level prompts really suck when its "PRESS X IN 0.5 SECONDS" but you are playing on a Playstation after mostly using a Gamecube where that button is a completely different location. Compared to normal gameplay where button locations are reactionary instead of having that extra step of "where is X" in your mind.
You bring up a good point. When games get ported to other systems, X and Y are no longer where they used to be. As well as A and B. And when RE4, (using the same example game), got ported to the Wii, you had to use a different hand sometimes, which was on the nunchuck. And that'd throw you off if you're used to just using your thumb., If you're like me and beat the game each time it went to a new console, and the badly ported PC version that oops forgot to bake in the lighting the first time, just to see if I could get a faster time, or see what was different in this new version.
The QTEs became mini adventure games. Did they port the UI right? Or am I going to see Gamecube/PS2/original Xbox controls on the PC screen. I honestly don't remember if they did iron out that frustration. They probably did, or you'd hear me cursing about it on the other side of the earth.
RE4 was also an asshole about it and would change up some (but not all) the button prompts. So you couldn't just rely on muscle memory even on the same system.
There is a lot that goes into making "good QTEs" that most devs don't even bother thinking about. Its how you end up with either impossibly fast ones that make you hate the game or incredibly boring ones like "F to pay respects."
I don't think RE4s were that good, but given the context of the time (where super long, unskippable cutscenes were the norm) I see why they were popular enough to become a trend.
It used to be pretty heavy in the mid 2000s, but it's cleared up a lot. I haven't found a QTE in years. But I did dislike at the time how many former cut scenes turned into press X to not die. Resident Evil 4 in particular had a few scenes that did not need to be QTEs, imo. It wasn't very annoying, but I personally could have done without it. I think the really annoying ones would change which button it was and not give you enough time to see it, recognize it, and press it. Which also could just be my reaction times fading. I am getting older.
I think it's possible that their fall from relevance might have coincided with the collective turn from rhythm games like DDR. The Press the button now or get less or no points genre tied to music. Seems like devs added it because it's what people wanted at the time.
Now people are mostly over it and very few gameplay elements rely on it. I've seen a few mini games rely on timing and pressing a button at a certain time. But never much more than just that.
On the flipside, the Krauser knife fight could only be a QTE.
I think its related to what you said, in that the reaction time on them in a lot of games (especially RE4) were so tight and punishing that they lost any ability to be better than annoying.
Which, imo, is also a problem with the non-uniformity of buttons. Like, reaction time level prompts really suck when its "PRESS X IN 0.5 SECONDS" but you are playing on a Playstation after mostly using a Gamecube where that button is a completely different location. Compared to normal gameplay where button locations are reactionary instead of having that extra step of "where is X" in your mind.
You bring up a good point. When games get ported to other systems, X and Y are no longer where they used to be. As well as A and B. And when RE4, (using the same example game), got ported to the Wii, you had to use a different hand sometimes, which was on the nunchuck. And that'd throw you off if you're used to just using your thumb., If you're like me and beat the game each time it went to a new console, and the badly ported PC version that oops forgot to bake in the lighting the first time, just to see if I could get a faster time, or see what was different in this new version.
The QTEs became mini adventure games. Did they port the UI right? Or am I going to see Gamecube/PS2/original Xbox controls on the PC screen. I honestly don't remember if they did iron out that frustration. They probably did, or you'd hear me cursing about it on the other side of the earth.
RE4 was also an asshole about it and would change up some (but not all) the button prompts. So you couldn't just rely on muscle memory even on the same system.
There is a lot that goes into making "good QTEs" that most devs don't even bother thinking about. Its how you end up with either impossibly fast ones that make you hate the game or incredibly boring ones like "F to pay respects."
I don't think RE4s were that good, but given the context of the time (where super long, unskippable cutscenes were the norm) I see why they were popular enough to become a trend.