Experienced Points: Everyone’s Favorite Crutch

Shamus Young of Twenty Sided has penned his first “Experienced Points” article for The Escapist, with this initial installment covering quick time events. While not very prevalent in RPGs, we did have to put up with them in Mass Effect and Fable II.

This frustration is exacerbated by the fact that the QTE is usually associated with a pre-set action sequence. The player would love to watch all the spectacular fireworks going on, but they have to keep their eyes glued to one section of the screen in anticipation of the next random button prompt. When the sequence is over they focus back on the action and realize that whatever they missed must have been pretty exciting, and that they weren’t a part of it because they were playing Simon Says at the time.

Some games are better about this than others. God of War did a good job of placing the prompts in areas where you were likely already looking, and it prompted you to hit buttons that had some loose association with what your avatar was going to do. This creates the (false) impression this is something you are choosing to do, as opposed to something you’re being told to do. This makes it feel like you took part in the action instead of coaxing the game into letting you see the action. It’s an important distinction, and one that seems lost on most game designers. Likewise, Fable 2 did a decent job of testing reflexes in a way that allows the player to cultivate skill which is portable from one platform to the next. But these games are exceptions. The trend seems to be for random buttons to flash in random areas of the screen, to pull the player out of the game so he can perform an abstract chore while the game designer has all the fun.