I'm surprised it took me so long to explain properly in detail exactly why QTE is such a terrible game design choice but I think it's important to articulate your thoughts rather than be some irrational douchebag about it. Oddly enough, it was my recent attempts at trying to play modern 'rockstar games' and finally tweak on them that did it. I can't seriously think of any gamer who looks at that shitty gameplay and goes "Yes, I can't wait to tap a button repeatedly in order to progress through a cutscene that has nothing to do with the gameplay!".
Do you guys remember how they did it in older games? I even have something of a reliable formulae on that as well and I'm making notes on it which is part of what this post is about.
gameplay/cutscene/gameplay/cutscene/ - Simple right?
Now it's fucking
Gameplay/CutsceneQTE/QTE/Gameplay/CutsceneQTE/CutsceneQTE WITH EPIC ENDING PRESS X TO APPRECIATE
It's the "Press F to pay respects" meme on steroids and I hate it. Finishing a game used to be a joy, you used to get excited with a story driven game and could sit back and watch it like a movie for a reward once you beat a certain section a.k.a Halo 2 ( Especially with the amazing anniversary cutscenes ).
Now you have to keep doing this bullshit of "PRESS X TO APPRECIATE CUTSCENE" and it drives me fucking mental. Games developers much like with ubisoft with their gameplay breaking UI vomit seem to have tricked themselves into thinking this is what gamers want or alternatively and sadly more likely this is pretentious hipster nonsense and they really think this design philosophy is the way to go and then they act shocked that so many gamers aren't interested in their stupid walking simulators. It's so damn boring with arguably no real gameplay you could probably code some hotkey script to play the game for you.
TAP X REPEATEDLY TO COLLECT CASH LOOK AT HOW AMAZING THIS CRIME GAME IS YOU GUYS BY THE WAY YOU CAN'T SKIP IT EITHER
I like QTE when it's involved in gameplay, and isn't overused as fuck. God of War has always been fucking irritating with QTE, and tbh I feel like they invented the damn thing. Probably wrong but it's the first place I saw it.
Remnant 2 is the game I'm playing now with my friends, and there are zero QTE in cutscenes but they pop up occasionally with certain enemies that will grab you if you let them too close. But it's not all the enemies, they aren't put in as executions like Gears or God of War, and not every enemy can force it on you. It also makes for funny moments when it's a flying unit that grabs your ass up and flies you into the heavens to drop you on your head, if you don't do the Quick button mash, or hold if you change it in settings.
I think God of War was responsible for bringing them back and popularizing them, but there were a couple 80s arcade games that were nothing but QTE. Dragon's Lair and Space Ace were both very pretty games at the time, being made of hand drawn cut scenes and QTE, but the laser disc equipment they ran off was crazy expensive, which is probably why there was never a 3rd game and the QTE concept died out for a few decades.