[Game Design] why games don't put button prompts by their place instead of the button itself?

For fighting game move lists Tekken will forever be King for me for illustrating where the buttons you need to press for the combos etc. are.

View attachment 124000
I like when motion inputs are showing the full motion instead of arrows and showing the buttons instead of, for example, SNK putting "down to left + HK" (for Heavy Kick) or even worse having "LK" for accept and "HK" for cancel when that could be anything.
 
Why doesn't the game just press the button itself and drop the pretense that it's giving me any agency?
Yes that's how new mobile games are. It plays itself and you just drop items and unlock waifu and shit to distract yourself with insanity and give yourself a reason not to suicide just to unlock more waifu by wasting most of your money you earned in 996 grind!!!

And then modern Sony games that learned from Hideo Kojima kinda does the same shit. The game play itself for hours and you only play the game a little. This is the future of gameless game of video gameless "video game industry"!!! lolol
 
to amuse myself I'll just drop the question:

if I'm asking you to press a button, why would I should you buttons that you should not press?
To show me where the button you want me to press is situated, duh. If I have to think about it, then a moment of conscious thought happens between what the game is throwing at me and my reaction, and it's no longer pure reflex. It's less viscerally satisfying, and it's not a fun sort of thinking - say, having to think of a clever move in the heat of the action - but just a stressful "where is the Circle again" moment. If you fail because of it, it's frustrating because it feels like a bullshit ask on the part of the game.
 
the button is always there, Mr. duh. I don't see why I have to remind you of that.
What? I'm not looking at my controller, I'm looking at the screen. Showing us all four face buttons while clearly highlighting the one to press eliminates the need to try and remember where that one button is again, which you can forget especially in a stressful moment (like a QTE). If it's meant to be a test of reflexes, then it's a better way to do it. If you tested a hundred people with various degrees of familiarity with a given controller, I'm certain you'd see faster reaction times when doing things this way because that's what happens for me and others who have posted in this thread. "Why do I have to do that?" is a weirdly whiny and lazy question to ask as the game designer you present yourself. If it works best for the player then it's what you should do.
 
If I'm asking you to press a button, why would I should you buttons that you should not press?
It's mostly about which button relative to the others.

It's like saying "go to the house north to the river" which isn't about you to go into the river but to know where the house is.
 
It's mostly about which button relative to the others.
So I'd have to show you Alt alongside the Spacebar?
or R1 alongside R2? Or are those exempt of this scenario
 
Meh. I've been using a controller with a Nintendo layout for years that always ends up having its inputs automatically registered as the Xbox layout only to have the game tell me to push triangle. I've kind of gotten used to the confusion by this point.
 
So I'd have to show you Alt alongside the Spacebar?
Alt and Space are the same in most keyboards.

On the other hand showing the four arrows or WASD fully could be helpful
1762015297555.gif

Same with Right or Left Mouse.

or R1 alongside R2? Or are those exempt of this scenario.
The best would be showing all 4 shoulder buttons but usually they're explicit enough with Left and Right (although I confuse ZL with L and ZR with R sometimes).
 
So I'd have to show you Alt alongside the Spacebar?
or R1 alongside R2? Or are those exempt of this scenario
If you really are having trouble understanding why some of us would prefer having the entire layout, or at least all four face buttons, displayed during a prompt, then I suggest switching your keyboard layout to a different format and attempting to type a sentence from muscle memory.
The QWERTY layout,

1762024085826.png
The modern DVORAK layout,1762024002108.png
And if you consider that a false equivalency, Then all I can say to you is, using this controller, press "X".
Where is X.jpg
 
If you really are having trouble understanding why some of us would prefer having the entire layout, or at least all four face buttons, displayed during a prompt, then I suggest switching your keyboard layout to a different format and attempting to type a sentence from muscle memory.
The QWERTY layout,

View attachment 124314
The modern DVORAK layout,View attachment 124313
And if you consider that a false equivalency, Then all I can say to you is, using this controller, press "X".
View attachment 124320
I completely understand the point, but you guys deliberately changing the inputs to prove the point. Why would the inputs change place? Why would there be a controller with 4 X buttons?
 
The image of an edited controller having four "X" buttons is a gag poking fun at how the "X" button has appeared in all four locations over the years.
And we did not switch the inputs, Nintendo is mirrored from The Xbox as well as the Sega before it.
Nintendo uses YX/BA

1762031815764.png

while Sega and Xbox use XY/AB.

1762031943867.png1762031896333.png
In the heat of the moment, a person used to one controller is more likely to get the prompt wrong if only given a letter and not a location.
The other major controllers just to show where the "X" has been.
1762031853432.png1762031988584.png1762032576863.png
 

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