This!! 100% Agree. That would solve the problem.

EDIT: And Bethesda, don't forget to include sneak crosshair and enemy names/health bars in that list.

Turning off the HUD also denies you information your character certainly would have: How bad they're hurt, how tired they are from running, how much magicka they have left. The characters are able to feel these things. They aren't guessing whether or not they need to heal or if they'll have to stop sprinting soon. They know. We can't feel that stuff, so we need the indicators to know things our characters do. Playing without those indicators causes me to have a disconnect with my character, because I don't know things I should know as the character.

I mentally added "IMO" to the end of every sentence in the OP's first post and it reads much better.

Before that it just read like elitist soapbox nonsense.

Play the game how you want mate but don't insist your way is better for everyone.

No problem, only the crosshair disappears, the mentions remain.

ps3, only way to turn off the HUD is to lose everything.

I kinda like that I can't see if I am stealing or not, like MW you have to think about it. But I miss seeing some of the other actions, especially since the PS3 version is so broke and it frequently misses input events.

I am ok not seeing my health bar. The redness + spattering is a good cue and you have to listen to your char for hints about stamina.

I love getting rid of the compass though. Makes me feel again like MW sort of how we had to really find and discover stuff. Unfortunately not nearly enough quest detail to really do that.. >/

turning off music is EPIC! I got pwned by a dragon that swooped down on me right on the eastern shoal outside solitude - I had no idea was there until half my life was gone. You get no warnings that a bad guy is around the corner. Now if we could get rid of the kill cams I woudln't know when I was done with a fight either..

I agree 100%, which is why I would use an immersive HUD mod and keep the status bars if I were playing on a PC. Your character knows how he or she is feeling and so should you.

But on a PS3 you don't get that option. On a console, you gotta take the good with the bad, which means sacrificing the health/magicka/stamina bars if you want to loose the magic GPS compass with enemy radar detecter, etc. IMO, that sacrifice is worth it if immersion is your goal.

Thank you. NOW I can give this a go when I'm feeling like starting a new game. I took a break for a little so I didn't overdo it but I'm getting my itch to play again and no HUD is something I've wanted to do.

Huh, you should try no compass first. Sorry, I made a confusion: without compass, the mentions remain. I don't know if they remain without the HUD.

If you turn off the HUD, you get no screen text whatsoever. On a PC with a mod you can keep the words that tell you what the object is and whether it is a "steal" or a "take" but unfortunately you cannot do that on a console. It is an all or nothing deal.

You can turn down the HUD so it is less apparant, and that works for some, but for me it was even more distracting that way.

OH..... and I got my hopes up.

Well, let's keep hoping for a patch or DLC that gives us console players some more HUD options.

Of course.... Fingers crossed. And low opacity should work for now I guess.

Why would you want to play an archer with no crosshairs? In RL you can aim down the arrow, but in the game, this is not possible, so some guesswork is necessary. I doubt I could pull off half the shots I do now if I disabled the crosshairs, especially on sideways-moving targets.

Immersion and its not as hard as it seems.

You can't just aim down the arrow in real life. If you want to aim that way (eg, "gap" shooting) you have to judge your distance from the target and mentally calculate the "gap" you need between the tip of the arrow and the target. Here is a link explaining this style of archery: http://www.stickbow.com/FEATURES/SHOOTING/gap.CFM

Or, you can shoot instinctively where you focus on the target and instinctively aim the bow, kind of like throwing things. Here is a link explaining this style of archery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinctive_aiming

There are other methods of aiming in real life, including the use of modern bow sights that have different colored crosshairs for different distances. The Skyrim crosshair is more like the modern bow sight. It is not a primitive or traditional method of aiming, like "gap" shooting or instinctive aiming. Bow sights are a modern thing typically used on compound bows with pulleys.

There are other primitive methods for aiming a bow in real life, like "string walking" where you put your fingers on different places along the string to account for distance. That method of aiming is not possible in Skyrim.

But you can use either an instinctive method of shooting or a "gap" method in Skyrim, just like in real life. The archery in Skyrim is very realistic and well done.

Okay... I want to do this but how do you successfully sneak or pickpocket without the EYE?

Seems like I'd spend half my life in jail.

you have to really listen to the game. most (all?) enemies will give hints based on what they are saying if they hear something nearby.

There are hints in the game world that you can look out for, mostly based on NPC movements and comments (typically if an NPC knows you are there they will respond to you in some fashion), but you will never know for sure, which is what makes it more immersive.

If you make it into the pickpocket menu, you will get the percentage chances to steal so at that point, whether you are using HUD or not should not make a difference, and since it is not a crime to look at the inventory, no HUD should not get you tossed in jail for pickpocketing.

Stealing is another matter. If you are playing no HUD, you need to make sure no one is around before you take anything. That is the only way to be sure you won't be caught. If anyone is around, you might get caught, which is the risk that a thief takes when stealing things in plain sight. It is a lot harder to play this way but the reward is greater immersion.

I would also add; I don't think any real life thieves have a HUD indicating if another person is watching. They kind of have to look around and take a chance, right?

Yes. It really is irritating for other people to mandate how others should play the game, and dictate what is and is not acceptable. As if others need to have an excuse to play differently from the OP.

Brother, I think you are missing the point of the "no excuse" comment in the OP. Do you play on a PC? The "no excuse" comment was not aimed at the PC crowd that has an immersive HUD mod at their disposal.

The "no excuse" comment was aimed at console players who may want a more immersive HUD but were afraid to go no HUD because of the loss of the status bars. For console players it is an all or nothing proposition because Bethesda did not give us any other options. See my post #170 above for further explanation.

No offense, but that's you speaking for the OP, and giving your interpretation of his comments. The OP saw how annoyed people got by the pompous attitude of "I know how to play, and you have no excuse not to play the same way I do," and rather than come back and explain he position, he responded indignantly like we were spitting in his face for offering his opinion, when he failed to communicate it in a respectable manner.

I get all the pros that can come from turning off the HUD, but to say that there's "No excuse" to play with it on is flat out wrong. Personal preference is everything in a game like this, and people should be free to play the way they want.

If I could turn off the enemy indicators on the HUD, as well as the landmarks that I haven't discovered, I'd do it. However, I feel more immersed knowing my character's stats and the cardinal directions than I do without them, so I'll keep the HUD on until alternatives present themselves. That decision does not invalidate my playstyle. I'm not against turning the HUD off, but I have an issue when someone starts dictating how everyone else should play and after seeing people tell him off, acting like we're in the wrong for not wanting some stranger on the internet telling us how we should and shouldn't play.

No offense taken, but if you look at my post #49 above and the OP's response in Post #107, you will see that my interpretation of the OP's "no excuse" comment is exactly what the OP meant, or at least that is what the OP said in Post #107. It was meant to give courage to console users to give no HUD a try, not as any dictatorial decree about how everyone should play the game.

I am not defending the way the OP has responded to all the flaming people have been doing on this thread. Seems like he may have taken the flaming a little personal with some of his responses. That's easy to do. I myself got a little upset at Riskybiz's comment that I was full of it (Post #53), but I just turned it into a joke about his ridiculous avatar (Post #56) and moved on. Water of a duck's back you know.

My point is that a lot of folks have misinterpreted his original "no excuse" OP. As the OP confirmed in Post #107 that was meant to be motivational, not dictatorial. Then the flaming started and the OP responded in kind.

I wouldn't say it's misinterpretation so much as it is poorly phrased. Saying its our misinterpretation places the blame on us, when I feel the OP failed to properly word his point. It's kind of like saying to a girl "You're not exactly skinny, are you?" You didn't call her fat, but you can't blame her for interpreting it that way.

If that's really what he meant to say, at the very least he should edit his original post so it's more clear, rather than having a post that's buried in the middle of the thread explaining it that nobody is going to see. And it doesn't change the fact that he's still quite condescending even when he's saying you understood him by insulting everyone else for having the audacity to read his post the wrong way.

Maybe you are right, but I will say that, even with all the flaming, there has been a lot more in-depth discussion of the issue on this thread that just hit post limit than the other more delicately worded thread discussing this same subject. The "Wow . . . no HUD is Amazing" thread just died without a lot of interest or discussion.

Hopefully Bethesda will take notice and offer more HUD options to console users in the future.