There has been a fair bit of discussion on this here already right? From what I remember it was just a straightforward literal instruction... if a QTE tells you to press square, just say 'square', if A, say 'A'.

Nice and simple to do with TTS if that's available, and saves having to learn a system.

Probably depends how it's implemented, if through TTS the speed is usually cranked up pretty high. Trying to remember where I saw the conversations about it, I think it may have been a thread regarding the QTEs in telltale's games, and another thread about the QTEs in the cutscenes in mortal kombat's story mode?

I think I remember someone talking about using stereo separation for left/right in conjunction with pitch for up/down, I.e. on an Xbox controller x/b being the same pitch but left/right in stereo

OK, I must provide my 2 cents here, and here they are.

I agree with a bit of what everyone is saying. First, both methods of button indication are valid, but that is very dependent on the game, I think. In a game like Madden, you're not actually dealing with QTE's, you're dealing with realtime events that you must react to accordingly. For that reason, I feel that having the buttons spoken by TTS or recorded voice would be a mistake in Madden, but perfect for QTE sequences in other games.

Onto the topic of pitch for this idea of button indication. The idea personally works for me, but i think another question the developers should ask is whether there are ever overlaps for the same button. If a button is used for something, then at a different time that same button is used for something else, perhaps it should play a different sound. The uniformity here would be the pitches. Each pitch is always the same for each button, but the specific types of sounds that are played at that pitch are different depending on the action. One's a beep, one's a kind of ping sound... Just a thought.

Regarding the post about not necessarily being able to tell which one to press without a leadup, I feel that, especially if you are a musician, that kind of thing would come with practice, which is how anyone gets better at a game. And i think that once you have an idea of how, for instance, the plays in Madden actually work, you may have some idea of which buttons you'll be needing to press from the moment you call the play. Of course, Madden being dynamic, things could change, but I think by that point you may know how to deal with those changes.

Don't get me wrong, I could be completely off. I'm not trying to assume anything, just provide ideas and my own input. I hope it helps.

This is an interesting discussion. I do feel though that having beeps kind of gives a sort of simon feel which I don't think is desirable if we want to integrate the game better into mainstream consciousness with accessibility in mind.

A way to counter it could be to use game-centric sounds with a small tutorial, or abandoning the system of logic to just have rising cues, depending on which one it is, without the need for stereo separation.

As for the topic of using a TTS as part of this,  You can actually get around the issue of taking too long to say words buy utilising a numeric system as is mostly done in the fighting game community (FGC).
1=square/x
2=Triangle/y
3=cross(x)/a
4=Circle/B

For needing to press more than one button at once, a rarity in my experience, you'd theoretically just combine numbers.  so if you need to press x and y working with Xbox terminology, the tts would say 12 instead of 1 and 2 simultaneously.

1. Shenmue 1 had beeping for its QTEs on the Dreamcast aaaaaages ago so it's not a new thing at all, but that had a sting in the tail in one particular QTE. (Spoiler: You had not hit anything to pass said QTE, completely going against what you had been doing the whole game), and the less time you had in a QTE the more it beeped faste.

2. Just thowing this out there but wouldn't the TTS/beeping/etc have to be overlayed over any and all music or turn down the music volume to hear the TTS? Just thinking aloud here but if I couldn't hear the TTS over the music it would sort of defeat the point of it. That being said....patten recognition.

For a music based QTE for example, have each button assigned to a chord squenece and work those sequences in

Or...do what the horrifically bad Rambo rail shooter did, and give an upgrade to auto complete QTEs. Well.....that's one way of getting around the issue honestly.

EDIT: Just got this pointed out to me:

Why not pair up the audio with a rumble feature and give each buttom a specific rumble? That way even if the music is too loud there's a failsafe option

I don't like the numbers idea proposed above, it makes you think outside the terms of the controller that you're playing on, Madden already has a ton of controls to get used to, and you don't need another layer of obfuscation making things harder for you. The fact of the matter is using TTS will be slower than just tones. I think tones could work given sufficient practice. My proposal is this, have a single click or short tone sound and position it using HRTF. We already know our controllers and our own way to find our way around them. I think of it as a baseball diamond where on Xbox B is first base, Y is 2nd, X is third and A is home plate. But, the fact is, each of us has found his or her own way to mentally map out the controls. So using HRTF to position the click or tone in the sound stage corresponding to its position on the diamond, I think that could work.

one issue I can think of is make the click audible above the rest of the game, I think a higher pitched short tone or click could do this, but not too high or you're libal to give people headaches, maybe around 800 to 900 Hz. for shoulder buttons, you could slightly alter the tone or click, or use a rumble inn either the left or right side to indicate this. A quick impulse rumble on the left or right could be LB or L1 on XB and PS4 respectively, and one on the right could be RB and R1. A double impulse quick rumble could indicate that you are meant to press LT or RT rather than the bumpers or L1 or R1.

I think a majority of people playing these games will be doing it either on headphones, if in private, or on the TV speakers if with  friends or family. Knowing this, I think a headphone-centric approach would be best. I think it would be challenging to play over the TV speakers. Maybe you could have a mode where these audio cues go over the headest if is is plugged into the controller, but the rest of the audio goes to the TV. I think this is possible with PS4, no telling about XB. I am more familiar with PS4.

As I said about the baseball diamond, everyone finds their own way, I'm not suggesting everyone use that method. I just think TTS is too slow even if sped up. Plus, you have no way to know what people are using speed wise, someone could have it set really slow in which case triangle might take nearly a second to say, no way could you do a QTE that way. As for immersion, no way to avoid it, just get used to it because no matter what's done it will break immersion. The good thing here is you decide what breaks immersion for you, its a personal thing, a mental balance, so if you decide that little clicks aren't going to break immersion for you then they won't. A TTS engine saying square square triangle LB RB etc. is not immersion breaking? I don't know much about HRTF and how to use it but I have heard and demos of it.

I think tones is the best option. TTS is unreliable on PS4, and so I wouldn't even base that in our discussions for the moment, if we're talking about cross platform.

I've discussed this with Musicman several times regarding the Rock Band highway, and I think the same tone idea could work here as well. I think no matter what option is used, there *will* be some overlap.

Tones for face buttons is all well and good, but we're dancing around a topic that Karen brought up in her original post, stick motions.

What about the QTEs that make you use a face button and a stick motion? Double wammy overlap!

Just a heads up, I've moved this topic into general game discussion so hopefully more people will find it.

ps4 controllers have a small and large rumble.
xb1 controllers have left/right rumble.

When attempting to support cross platform, both specifics are generally lost, so very few things use either.

The reason I'm asking about tones is to support 1 to 5 pass icons in Madden. A button icon appears above the player's head the first instant the game considers the player open to catch. Each tone would play once, but they can be in any order, and can overlap. I was considering using surround sound to help identify which side of the field each tone originated.

So this isn't really a QTE, but it helps to have a QTE discussion as a lead-in, and also because I'l like to have as many blind gaming use cases figured out as possible, for any game.