Does anyone else think the whole “mash this button 20 times as fast as you can” to break-free of an enemy hold on the player is very old. It was an interesting concept when it came out in 2004. Now it is just over-used and annoying to have this in every single FPS game I play.
Maybe it’s just me, but I loathe this game mechanic. It reduces the enjoyment I have of the game.
There are some games where this is unavoidable. The enemy will spawn behind you without warning and grapple you. Why do developers keep doing this?
Why not just a single button press to melee and break-free? Why do I have to press the button quickly 10-20 times? IMO it makes no sense.
I struggle pressing the controller buttons fast enough, which is mainly why I have a gripe with this game mechanic.
The point is to make you feel the struggle of the character by making you mirror the effort and have some stake in the action.
Although it’s kinda plain, good struggle has minor variation and are mini high stake story with constant shift of power balance, linear struggle are rarely interesting visually. If I where to implement such a scene and keep the core idea, I would had multiple stakes and sequences that would cycle very quickly. The classic one is pushing back the opponent while trying to get a weapon, it’s a small management where you have to push back just enough yet save enough energy to get the knife, first sequence focus on the struggle, you push back the enemy just enough after it almost over power you, then the pan is introduce by a shift of the camera shoot and you have to balance pushing back vs reaching the pan, then you get the upper hand and now the enemy is struggling against you. Basically the problem is storytelling.
Because it’s established and easy.
I thought about something like this - a little similar to fight night round2. The triggers and bumpers could be considered hands and legs, the thumb sticks could be the direction/motion of each limb corresponding to the depressed button (trigger / bumper) so as to use counters for martial arts, combat mechanics, fighting games, and yes - breaking free from bad guys. That would be so complex -
Probably why they use mash button 20 times to get free.
Nobody beat me at the running sections of that game.
I used the tried and true short pencil cheat! On top of middle finger below pointer/ring finger. Apply pressure with ring finger - Tap as fast as you can on your pointer finger with other hand. So fast!
I sucked at the other sections, pole vault and hammer throw.
I think it’s stupid too. Why bother implementing enemy grapple attacks if the player counter is just “mash” button. What does anybody get from that?
I think the first game that made QTE’s a big thing was Shenmue. Correct me if I’m wrong. I know they may have existed before that, but I think it was Shenmue on the dreamcast that made them a major part of the gameplay.
But in Shenmue, the QTE’s were pretty challenging – or at least I remember struggling with them way back when – and it wasn’t dumb “press A repeatedly to do lots of stuff”. So I think in a story driven game, thoughtfully designed QTE scenarios are acceptable. Assuming the story is actually worth discovering. Otherwise who wants to play whack-a-mole?
It’s a respectable attempt at emulating a situation where the person in question is mainly exerting effort, and not necessarily complex technique, to overpower someone else. Allow me to expand upon what was already asked. How else do you intend to replicate a situation where the main challenge is simply pushing back and building up strength and overpowering someone? It depends on how the game implements it of course, but in some of the situations I’ve seen it’s mainly used in these types of situations. I recall seeing it in some melee action games where a couple of characters cross swords, and it fits there too.
I play video games on consoles only and those sequences are normally “wiggle analog-stick”, which kind of makes sense to me, as it “simulates” your body actually going left/right to break free.
The button mashy type QTEs are bad for people with RSI issues and make the game inaccessible to a number of people with physical disabilities who would otherwise be able to play the game (that’s at least what I remember reading on a site about game accessibility issues as one of the bigger and easiest to fix showstoppers for those players). Even a notoriously hard game like Dark Souls 3 has you escaping from being held by one of those blobby things that hang on the ceiling and drop onto you with just one button press (or even fully automatic, I don’t know). Button mashing is not a fun test of skill, it’s just dumb imho.
Heat Signature has a fun twist on the “panic QTE” when your ship crashes where a list of 4 or so damaged systems pops up with a randomized list of “hold X to fix Y” and “DON’T press Z!”, so you quickly have to read through the information and hold the right buttons (no mashing) without pressing any of the wrong buttons. So it has both the panic element and something very deliberate about resolving it.
Can’t stand this type of thing. It’s immersion-breaking and skill-less. How about a series of timed presses where each one corresponds to moving to a better wrestling position, and ending with a punch or something. Sitting there hammering on a button like a starving rat looks, and is, stupid.
I think people aren’t timing how quickly the bar goes up vs how quickly the button is mashed. Likely, it’s time based and only needs a tap every half a second (regular more important than speed). People will mash at the maximum speed because they think it will go faster than say, the minimum period of 2.5 seconds, when it’s perfectly OK to press it 5 times.
I’ve personally recognised this relaxed nature in most AAA games I’ve played that have it. It’s just people get a bit more frantic than they need to, which is kind of the feeling such a tapping hopes to inspire. Probably, everyone taps 2-3 times faster than the maximum effective rate of tapping.
GTA5 requires you tap a button regularly to cycle or run. In my testing, it does not get more effective to mash the button faster than half a second per press. Certainly, older games did not have a cap on how effective your tapping speed could be.
I’ve seen both, there certainly are games (AAA too) where I’ve failed the button mashy QTEs in spite of legit trying to win them. I can’t press very rapidly with my thumb. When I want to “make sure” I get it, I have to let go of the right side of the controller and use my index finger to press the button. There’s no way to convince me this is a great mandatory feature in a game. If it was optional I wouldn’t complain.
That’s even dumber and caused me quite a bit of very unneccessary thumb joint pain. It adds nothing to the game but tedium and pain. GTA5 even has a side mission where you need to do this for minutes because it’s a bike race that you can’t win otherwise. Red Dead Redemption had much of it too. If you dig it that’s cool, but it should be optional because these things are nothing but annoying to people like me.
Sounds like an autofire joypad will be very helpful indeed! But if we go with your argument, we also need to make any form of timing optional because everyone has different competency here too. At what point does the game just become easy mush to interact with?
I totally get the RSI thing, I can no longer do some of the better SF combos and I used to be able to. I don’t think the game should change though.
