Well, this thread is a mixture of venting some anger and really looking for opinions as I am quite confused at the moment...

Quick backstory, I try to make it short:

After having rediscovered my love for Castlevania thanks to the PS1 emulation console version of Symphony of the night on my PS3 (I finally gave in, as I could only play the japanese version in '97), and having aquired the classical Super Castlevania for my SNES, I figured I would give newer Castlevanias a chance again (Lament of sorrow on the PS2 made me stop playing Castlevania for almost 10 years... it was just so boring and crap IMO)...

Having read lots of good reviews of Lords of Shadows, I choose to use this years Steam Sale to get the PC Version cheap.

Now when I fired the game up, I was at first really hyped... this game looked good! And the story sounded dark and brooding, as in the good old days.

First downer was the really linear level design, but well... that is kinda classical. SotN is rather exceptional here for a Castlevania...

What I was NOT prepared for was the extremly annoying amount of quicktime events! Granted, I usually avoid brawlers like god of war (and I am a little bit pissed Castlevania has evolved into another such brawler), but as if Quicktime events in 2010 wouldn't be bad enough, the developers filled the game to the brim with it! No boss battle without annoying Quicktime Fiesta... often you don't even use your whip anymore besides swinging up a ledge, instead you watch the Boss battle as a movie waiting for that random button press to flash up.

Now, I know tastes differ, but seeing how gamers usually despise quicktime events, what could make a developer force players through lengthy quicktime events when the whole history of games show that QT Events are NOT needed at all for a good game.

I totally understand that the devs where not happy anymore to have players whip holes in walls and uproot trees with throwing knives... it looked okay in pixely 2D, but would look just funny in HD 3D (Still, even then I am not 100% I need more than a short hint what I need to do, instead of the constant "Press X Now!").

But Boss battles? Common! I don't care how spectacularly big and cool your boss is, if it looks off whipping the beast to death, how about giving players the chance to just jump up to the beasty and whip his weakspot, instead of forcing him to climb and jump with random QT button mashing galore?

Puzzles me really. Cut the cutscenes to the minimum (a good story does not need cutscenes), leave out the QT crap, and concentrate on interesting, non-linear levels. Without invisible walls and stuff. And just let the player decide how he tackles the boss, as long as he is able to hit the weakspots. This could have been a good game, but I don't think I will finish this QT helll.

TL; DR (yes, I failed with the short part):

Why do devs still choose QT Events over better forms of game design? Do they think players expect a (not so) interactive movie? Do they think its the only way to make things look good when the best free running system fails because the climbing target is moving?

Or does it just relieve them from proper game and level design, because they can skip a complex free running system, and make an extremly simple collision handling, and just force the player into a narrow corridor and binary (hit the button or die) choices?

Is there a different reason I am ignorant to?

I think you’re basically right that QTEs are an easier and more binary way to approach game design. They use QTEs instead of integrating regular mechanics into boss fights and such because QTEs are a lot less prone to glitches and exploits. ‘Press X to climb boss’ is going to be a lot easier to debug than a full on climbing system with collision detection.

I’d imagine it’s the same reason why studios prioritize cinematic cutscenes over complex mechanics. The simpler the gameplay is, the less there is to go wrong during development, so it’s less likely that the game will get delayed from balancing issues. Even if it’s expensive to individually tailor animations to each QTE or render cutscenes, it’s a more predictable timeframe so it’s less risky than implementing a new combat system that could end up taking months to debug.

As for why players accept it, I’m definitely one of those that's not a fan of QTEs, but I guess enough people value story and graphics enough that they’ll overlook sub-par mechanics.

I definitely feel QTE (or their closely-related brethren: 'action tests') are useful game design tools. Do some games over-use them? Certainly. I haven't played the specific Castlevania you mentioned, so I can't comment on that particular game, but I did drop a link here that may be interesting.

As a player, I hate QTEs. They're cutscenes where I can't focus on the awesome animations because I need to watch for which button I'm supposed to be mashing. I would rather just have a hands-free cutscene instead.

As a programmer, I love QTEs. Implement the input handling, the HUD indicator, the state transitions, document the system for the design and art teams, and then I never have to touch the system ever again.

As a game developer, I loathe QTEs. QTEs say to me "Our creative director used to be a lead artist and just wants fancy graphics and doesn't give a shit about gameplay." and "We decided to go art-heavy on this game which ended up requiring a lot of extra engineering support. We had to cut all the cool features because the programmers had to spend all their time implementing the character animation system to make the character able to perfectly climb over 15 different types of terrain instead. I guess we're forced to use QTEs <sigh>."

I thought this was about Apple's Quicktime. In which case, I would agree why it's still widespread.

Nevertheless, QTE is perfect for mobile games. Forget about coordinated input just to get your character latches on a ledge, or have it perform some combo. One button press, or one touch event, is all it needs to execute the next move. Easy to do, and caters well to casual gamers.

I definitely feel QTE (or their closely-related brethren: 'action tests') are useful game design tools. Do some games over-use them? Certainly. I haven't played the specific Castlevania you mentioned, so I can't comment on that particular game, but I did drop a link here that may be interesting.

Hum... I'm not sure that I'd classify that "accuracy-bar" mechanic to which you linked as quite the same thing as a "quick-time event"--a minigame, yes, and an "action test", perhaps (I'm struggling a little to find a definition of that term), but not quite a "quick-time event". To my mind it falls somewhere in-between a true quick-time event--which is something quite divorced from the actual proceedings in the game--and more direct gameplay that simply requires that the player react quickly, such as a dedicated "block" or "attack" button.

As to quick-time events, I'm another person that strongly dislikes them as a gamer: I find them to be intrusive, unintuitive, and distractive from the events of the game. I hesitate to guess at why other developers might include them in their games; some guesses might be (the first two as mentioned already) ease of implementation, assignment of resources elsewhere than gameplay, and an attempt at reducing the minimum skill required to play, thus potentially broadening the game's audience.

I've never bought a game that uses these quick time events, and probably never will.

Some good points....

Yes, I guessed that some studios do use it to cut their development time. Though I didn't think about the time needed to debug, brilliant! Now that I think of it, these boss battles in the Castlevania I mentioned most probably took them only few hours to playtest. "Do all QTE work as intended and are there no loopholes and glitches" takes most probably 10x less time to playtest than "Is there any loophole in all the possible item / weapon combinations possible with that specific boss? Do all the moves and combos work as intended? Is the collision model correct? ..."

I agree that some of the simpler casual games DO make sense using Quicktime events for more than just side activities or non-mandatory tasks... but we are at really low expectations here, we are talking about devices that usually lack any kind of physical controls and let you game on 5" screens... no wonder QTE feel much less jarring in such a case.

Action bars, as mentioned before, DO actually also make an appearance in Lords of Shadows as an additional Element in the QTE sequences. IMO, they only add to the frustration as they are yet another alien element not really integrated into the normal battle system, and not really being a skill based mechanic as much as the designer planned it to be. Having an action bar like mechanic for a slight advantage (like faster reload as mentioned or faster acceleration at some racing games at the start if you hit the accelerate button at the right time) might make the game more interesting to play.

Relying on action bars, multiples of them in sequence, to finish off a boss that cannot be defeated by normal means, while taking damage when you miss on of the bars in the sequence, is really just frustrating and a mis-use of the mechanic in my eyes.

I see it like that: you take a highly polished brawler, with nicely animated moves and combos, that give you this really satisfying flow... but at all the climatic scenes where it really matters, you get out of the flow because the games designers decided to dumb down the game from a brawler to a simple phone casual game. It would have been really cool to whip that End boss to dead with some nicely chained moves, combos and evasive moves... instead you have to solve some pretty crappy casual skill puzzles to continue, as soon as the fight reaches its climax. This does not belong into a combat system, at all!

I guess I will have to be more restrictive what I buy in the future, even during Steam sales. It would be nice if game reviews included a "QTE alert", that maybe also gives you the severity of ingame QTE (Only used for non-mandatory side activities / QTE only boss battles for example)... I feel like lots of reviewers just lowered their expectations and see QTE as a "necessary evil" nowadays...

Action bars, as mentioned before, DO actually also make an appearance in Lords of Shadows as an additional Element in the QTE sequences. IMO, they only add to the frustration as they are yet another alien element not really integrated into the normal battle system, and not really being a skill based mechanic as much as the designer planned it to be.

For the sake of clarity, I'll note that my own post above, at least, was not made in reference to Lord of Shadows: I've never played any of the Castlevania games that I recall, so I'm really not in a position to comment on how a given gameplay mechanic works in any of them, I feel.

I think that a lot comes down to implementation and how the mechanic meshes with the game: if, as you suggest, an action bar is suddenly thrown up in the middle of what is otherwise a standard brawler, then that could well be pretty jarring. On the other hand, the thread linked-to above (and here, for convenience) describes, as I recall, a situation in which action-tests are used as a core mechanic, which actually seems like a pretty cool idea for that game. It may not be for everyone--but then, I'm not sure that there are many mechanics that are.

For the sake of clarity, I'll note that my own post above, at least, was not made in reference to Lord of Shadows: I've never played any of the Castlevania games that I recall, so I'm really not in a position to comment on how a given gameplay mechanic works in any of them, I feel.

I think that a lot comes down to implementation and how the mechanic meshes with the game: if, as you suggest, an action bar is suddenly thrown up in the middle of what is otherwise a standard brawler, then that could well be pretty jarring. On the other hand, the thread linked-to above (and here, for convenience) describes, as I recall, a situation in which action-tests are used as a core mechanic, which actually seems like a pretty cool idea for that game. It may not be for everyone--but then, I'm not sure that there are many mechanics that are.

Well, I just wanted to point out that, while it might be something different than the average QTE, these action test / action bar mechanics do show up in my example.

And yes, agreed, it can be a part of a good game design, as well as QTE. IF it really is integrated into the game design itself, and not designed as what I would call "disruptive elements". As in, trying to make people do something during a cutscene. While either adding some QTE like subsystem for minor side effects into a fully fledged game system, or designing a game with a wll defined QTE like user interaction layer as its core can make for a rather fun game, there are multiple things that I have seen being wron with the QTE implementations I have seen to date (new Castlevanias, Resident Evil):

- using QTE to make cutscenes interactive: If you get to see a cool cutscene, most people want to enjoy the cutscene, not be interuptet with button presses while they want to watch. If the cutscene is to long, no button press in the middle changes the fact you took the player out of his / her flow for a solid 10 minutes. Chances are your gameplay is 10x more fun than pressing random buttons during cutscenes, so you 1. wasted time developing a QTE system that does more harm than good and 2. made your cutscenes less enjoyable when you should have saved money by making your cutscenes short and to the point.

- designing them to be "disruptive": just to make sure nobody can button mash through a QTE sequence, change timing and button all the time. This makes an annoyance even more annoying. Buttons mashers will be annoyed because they most probably mashed the buttons because, you know, they couldn't care less about the story and the cutscenes. All other players have a higher probability of failing the QTE or action test because they failed to read the on screen instructions fast enough. Nothing is more annyoing than having to replay a level because some game designer trolled you with a QTE that insta-kills you.

The QTE Boss battles just add another layer of annoyance to that. I cannot even begin to write up a list of all that is wrong with that.