I am with the "I-like-QTE" camp. Like OP, I see them as "interactive cutscenes".

I'm just curious, what do people who hate QTE play? Can you please give me an example?

Speaking for myself I game on PC only, and for that matter I only play Fantasy RPG's, I'm fairly focussed on what I like.

I played Dungeons and Dragons (pen and paper) for years.

Not those 'prefab' campaigns that Wizzards of the Coast trotted out towards the end of my playing days either, but those that were hand crafted by a truly creative DM.

To further elaborate, of the RPG's I enjoy 'free roaming', 'open world' games with a good deep story line above any other.

I enjoy exploring the world and like to leave no stone unturned, a truly immersive experience.

Sadly enough such games are less and less common these days.

Combat and action is also important, of course but I don't enjoy the so called Action RPG's as much. Running amok in a seemingly endless battle is not my thing. You've got to have time to stick your head up and have a look at the world around you once in a while.

I guess if you saw my bookshelf you'd understand.

So for example, the Gothic series (Gothic 3 less so), Elderscrolls, I quite liked Divinity II also. I could mention more.

Though I don't like the Isometric control a party type so much, I did enjoy Neverwinter Nights, (forget NWN 2).

I'll be playing Morrowind again before to long, as there are a number of mods, particularly texture replacements, re-renders, and other graphical enhancements. Now that game is an epic.

The Witcher 1 for me rates as one of my all time favourites, mostly because it had so much character, Geralt was more than just a 'hero' but you got closer to him as a 'person' as it were.

Drinking, gambling, and so forth made the Witcher 1 perhaps for me the most 'honest' and true game to the Mediaeval roots that many RPGs draw inspiration from.

So yes the inclusion of the overly scripted elements, the QTE's etc into the Witcher 2 have spoiled the 'experience' for me quite considerably.

It's a good game despite that, I'll most likely play it through a number of times, and 'dust it off' again in the future.

Cheers.

Sports and CRPGs mainly...games I've liked in no particular order:

MLB 2K Series
Madden
The Witcher 1 & 2 (of course)
Baldurs Gate 1 & 2
Icewind Dale 1 & 2
NWN 1 & 2
Dragon Age Origins
Gothic 1 - 3
Hunted Demons Forge
Oblivion

And you know why? Because that's the combat system that The Witcher 2 uses. Why on earth would you suddenly use a different system to play a combat? And why would you replace a cool, deep, complex and detailed combat system with a really lame, one-dimensional combat system for what was supposed to be a really big fight?

You know what the problem is with replacing your own game with a button-mashing minigame like that? The developer is basically saying: "You know, that whole detailed, complex combat system we made? We were wrong. It's much cooler if you just mash your mouse buttons a bit. That's what makes a battle truly climactic." What kind of interaction does it bring? It only takes interaction away. And it takes away the different ways to fight a battle. If you get bored playing The Witcher 2, go play a different game. I get bored playing 1-dimensional button mashing or reaction speed games, and they make me want to go play a different game, which would be a shame, because I'd miss out on all the parts of TW2 that are awesomely cool.

QTEs undermine all the coolness of The Witcher 2.

People who hate QTEs--they're just like us!

Personally, I didn't mind the QTEs. There's not really any other way you could get Geralt jumping onto a tentacle and hacking away, because he can't even jump in combat. I think it fits into that kind of situation where you want something epic but don't have any other means of achieving it aside from a cutscene.

Fistfighting is a whole other issue, though. When you don't understand that the prompts for the different keys show up on different parts of the screen it can be pretty difficult. After figuring that out, it's a cakewalk. I don't think I've ever lost a single fistfight, and that's not something that should be possible on a first playthrough.

I don't see how you find it such a great mechanic. It brings interaction? Yes, into what is essentially a cut scene. Instead of tossing in a few scripted button pushes in a cut scene, why not get rid of the cut scene altogether and allow the player to interact completely with the boss? That would be good interaction.

Don't get me wrong: there's nothing wrong with cut scenes, but relying on them as a game mechanic for boss battles is taking interaction and choice away from the player, not adding it.

Cut scenes are fine in moderation and when used as an element to forward the story or fill in some story gaps. Not as a game mechanic when facing something as important as a boss battle though.

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I would have to ask you:

How does a medium (QTE) bring "interaction" when it confines you to the mashing of one button, to use one single mechanic, playing one single animation? How is that NOT repetitive?

How is that QTEs make fist fighting innovative? It tells you what button to press and when, for crying out loud. It is almost a cheat. There is no strategy involved, no reaction to the enemy, just "press this button", "press this button"... "now press this other button".. yeah, really innovative, really immerses the player in the fist fight...

Why is it that this trend is good? Because you say so?

Why does QTEs being part of W2 make a good argument in favor of QTEs?

Better way for a fist fight? Gee, I don't know :) How about I map my keys to my character's fists and feet? Then I can block punches on my own, evade punches on my own, and counter-attack when I see an opening... crazy, uh?

Better way to kill the Krayan? How about letting me figure it out how to kill a giant beast with huge tentacles using the weapons and the environment at my disposal, rather than me trying to figure out the pre-scripted formula to kill the thing and then NOT playing a QTE that makes no sense, as in riding a freaking huge tentacle the beast has been smashing against a stone bridge when it gets angry, and a stone bridge conveniently landing on the creature?

+1 I agree 100%.

I liked QTEs in Witcher 2, they added more variety and forced you to pay attention during cutscenes. And you can turn them off in the options, so I'm not sure why people still whine about it?

And it has nothing to do with consolization. Did you see people complain about consolization in W1 because of the QTE-based sword combat? No

That was not a QTE. It was a prompt as to when you should attack. On the harder difficulties there were no prompts. W2 QTE's in the fights are just a spamming of a certain button. It has NOTHING to do with tactics on a fight.

You cannot turn them off. You can switch off difficult QTEs, but you can't turn them off altogether. As for paying attention: you're watching for the prompt, not paying attention to the scene itself. If it were a regular fight, then you'd have to pay attention because - as SystemShock7 noted - you'd need to see what the monster is doing, take stock of your environment, and react accordingly. You'd actually be looking at the scene, not watching for a queue to hit a button.

If we turn them off, we don't get our climactic battles back. The interaction in those scenes remains gone. Also, the cue-card fistfighting system stays weirdly detached from the regular combat mechanics. The combat in The Witcher did indeed look like a QTE, at least initially. But there's two major differences: firstly, this was the actual system that was consistently used throughout the game, and interacted well and meaningfully with all the other parts of the game. It was an intrinsic part of the game, rather than some detached mini-game. And secondly, there was an actual rhythm to it. Once you got the hang of it, it wasn't merely waiting for the prompt; you knew when it was coming (though sometimes I was just a bit too eager and clicked a fraction too early).

In all fairness, I should point out that there's one mini-game in TW2 that I actually do kinda like: arm wrestling. It's not merely button mashing or blindly reacting to a cue, it requires subtlety and skill, and it's possible to develop a good feel for it. And most importantly: it's completely optional. It's not nearly as interesting as the real game, but it's a lot better than all the other QTEs.

How do I interact with the dragon? The only options I had were to keep moving in the one direction I had, and evade when told to. What's more, it looks completely ridiculous with that dragon slowly crawling after me when it could just burn me to a cinder or eat me or whatever. It's lame both as a cutscene and as a game. Without the QTE, they could have made it a much more awesome cutscene. Or they could have made it an actual combat where you have to run and dodge yourself, instead of simply responding to a cue. This one I'll grant you. If you get the choice between two valid options, I'm okay with it. Breaking out of conversation and going to combat is perfectly fine with me. (I'd still rather not see it as a reaction time thing, but I can live with it.) No, it forces you to play a very different game. Despite it supposedly representing combat, the game mechanic has nothing whatsoever to do with the combat mechanic used throughout the game. And that hurts the game. Consistency. TW1 uses essentially the same mechanic in any kind of combat, whether armed and lethal, or unarmed and for laughs. In TW2, on the other hand, it's like the developers say: "That thing with the mouse buttons, and the moving around with wasd, that's a stupid way to fight, don't you think? Let's turn it around!" It makes the game inconsistent. It undermines the credibility of the system. If you want to do something else, why not just save and play some other game? Or go out for a walk. Your wrists will thank you. Interrupting the game I've chosen to play to force me to play different kind of games is annoying and disrespecting my choice. I hope not. This is a misfeature I'll be checking on from now on, and just like DRM, it could end up being a deciding factor in whether I'll purchase a game or not.

Resorting to QTEs in not good game design. It's the designers saying: We don't really have faith in our game system. We actually want a different game experience. This is not really what we want, but we're unable to make it what we want, so we'll just give you this QTE instead. It's a lame cop-out. Yes, I want a whole game. Is that so much to expect when I pay a whole price? I'm not saying that The Witcher 2 isn't worth the price; it's an awesome game. But that awesomeness is undermined by these cheap cop-outs and lack of trust or ability to give it a whole, unified system. I explore and talk to people to do that. In fact, monster slaying is only a tiny part of what I do. It's not about the difficulty, it's about the entire concept, and the vote of no confidence by its own designers that it represents. WTF? He says he wants to play a video game, and use the game mechanics in that game to solve the challenges that the game presents him with, and you suggest that maybe he shouldn't be playing video games at all? If you want Geralt to be able to jump, then give him the ability to jump. It's really that simple.

The problem is that on the one hand, the designers envision a scene with Geralt jumping on top of a monster (in fact, he has to, taking choice away from the player), but on the other hand they don't want to design a game system that allows Geralt to make such jumps. They're forcing a situation on a system that they designed to be unable to handle that situation, so they have to resort to QTEs to get out of the hole they painted themselves into.

That is the entire problem with using QTEs in situations like these. They highlight the incompetence and bad design choices of the designers, and that's completely unnecessary, because the game contains so much awesome that they could have highlighted instead. If that's what the game system is designed for, then yes. Of course it would be cool if the system was designed for more, but if it's not, don't try to force more by dropping the intricate and detailed system and replacing it with some lame QTE.