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
Do we see it so often? Perhaps I'm playing different games, but I haven't seen QTE in years. And even then it wasn't so bad. I agree it can be immersion breaking, and is often pretty silly, but I don't recall ever getting too frustrated at it, outside of (ironically usually indie) games that do it really badly.
"Press F" is dumb because it has zero gameplay impact. QTE has gameplay impact. Sure, you can say it's lazy design, but I wouldn't say it's "Press F" on steroids. If anything, it's kind of the opposite.
That I can agree with, though. QT events should be kept to gameplay if you're going to use them, and not cutscenes. The two should be differentiated easily, even if it's just something lazy like "cinematic" aspect ratios. If you're going to have cutscenes, they have to be cutscenes. Asking for player input during them defeats the whole purpose.
I still enjoy the occasional Ubi game but, yeah, on the whole I fucking despise what they've become. Lazy, unfun, copy/paste nonsense.
It is disappointing how so many of the big studios are just churning out utter crap.
It's fine in boss fights after you take a boss down to a certain health level, and allows for a nice cinematic ending. I don't remember a QTE other than that type in any game that I've played recently.