How to make fighting-related quick time events easier?

I also think that some of these fights are pretty unforgiving. This is what helped me:

If you have to mash left/right, do it as quickly as possible. Sometimes, when I was slacking and pressing it at a relaxed pace, I failed the combat.

Exclamation mark - hit melee attack (defaults to F on PC) Red hand - hit Use command (defaults to E on PC)

You will get notification that a command is coming up, there will be a circle around the icon that will be shrinking rapidly.. when it shrinks to zero, the icon will be lit, as it were, and that's when you have to press it. The preparation phase is about 1 second long.

The PC Gaming Wiki's "Tomb Raider (2013) - QTE (quick time event) Steamlining" guide should help:

QTEs in Tomb Raider do not display key names but rather, the monochrome icon associated with the specific binding or QTE, which can be confusing and problematic to solve.

However, if you are actively using an Xbox 360 controller or other XInput-compatible controller, the game will display controller button names and colors as normal.

List of QTEs and possible solutions:

QTE Icon — Solution

• Hand in red circle — Repeatedly press interact key (default E) as fast as possible.

• Exclamation mark in red diamond. — Press melee key (default F).

• White circle getting smaller — Tap repeatedly melee key (default F). This QTE is bugged - circle animation is out of sync with trigger behind QTE and therefore it is difficult win this QTE normally. Luckily there is no penalization for missing said trigger with key press so pressing melee key for whole duration of QTE works perfectly.

• Left and right arrow — Alternately press left and right movement keys (default A and D).

• Hand in red circle when Lara is hanging from ledge — Press interact key (default E).