What I loved about the quest compass was their excuse for it. "Because the AI is so advanced, all of the NPCs wander around. If you didn't have the compass, you could never find an NPC." Oh yeah? Well if the AI makes the NPCs so freakin smart, how come we can't ask Tweedle Dee where the hell Tweedle Dum has gone? "oh yea, Tweedle Dum likes to go to the Tavern on Morndas evenings, you can probably find him there" Every NPC would have a file where they logged in the last time they saw another particular NPC. Some would have worse memories, and it would fade with time. NPCs who are closer to one another (spouses, siblings) would have better ideas than average strangers. They might even known details, like who there were with, where they were headed, what they were wearing, etc.

I hate the quest markers, and I hate the POIs.
"Hey, the guy I'm looking for is walking towards me on the lower level of this cave. I can't hear or see him, I just know."
"Hey, there's a fort ruin behind that hill, even if there's no way for me to see it. I just know."

You should only know what your character knows. You're not some detached part of him/her, who is granted godlike knowledge of the surroundings and other things, and you just decide which of these facts you 'let' your character know.
"There is a fort ruin, but since my character doesn't actually see it, I'm going to pretend I know nothing about it." Works for some, but still it's just faking.
For some extent, the same problem is ahead of you when you replay the games:
"I know exactly how this quest is going to go, but I just pretend that my character doesn't know."

Wait, you don't like searching through a world for different objectives, but you're playing a huge open sandbox game? Kinda contradictionary. If you want to play a game that doesn't involve searching, play a linear game. It's the whole point.


Oh, I get you now, so Bethesda should ignore thier long time fans that made them where they are, and instead appeal to other gamers that don't appreciate the complexities of the series, such as the lore? Bethesda should listen to the old gamers, and give fans of The Elder Scrolls a game they expect of The Elder Scrolls. Also, since when where games getting more complex? Compare Daggerfall to Oblivion. Each game is getting more and more simpler, and it's awful. We need a rich game full of everything that makes TES.

If a game has a compass, I use it constantly. Almost never a game where it's not something I'd expect to have.

Quest Markers are OK, in that I usually do more exploring than questage early on, giving me map markers to > 50% of the places on the map, including >75% of quest locations. Problem is that I'm actually quite likely to personally forget what I was doing. I could spend 10 minutes re-reading my journal, or I can check my map for the marker. The former might make YOU feel immersed, but it has the opposite effect on me: in real life, I can usually glance over my shoulder to get "direct guidance" as to what I was doing (I have a habit of losing my destination at work...)

There are lots of other things about the series to enjoy other than trying to find needles in haystacks. I'm sure Bethesda would disagree with you that the "whole point" of the series is trying to find quest objectives, especially since they're the ones that added the markers in the first place.



No. If you want to have a discussion then reply to what I'm actually saying instead of knocking down strawmen.

I have come across a few of those myself. And while they are a blast to discover I think Morrowind and Fallout still blow Oblivion out of the water with them. That's all. They should just put a lot more in.

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

Hated the compass, hated quest markers.
Didn't have the voting option to "hate" quest markers, only "didn't use" when I had no choice but to have it displayed...

Quest markers just serve to show how dumbed down Oblivion is, and how Elder Scrolls has become nothing more than a mindless action game.

He's just saying that the whole point of this series is about being overwhelming and tough at first.

You were basically saying, earlier that "hardcoe gamers" as you describe want to alienate "newcomers" who aren't experienced. Page 6, you said that.

I disagree with that whole philosophy.

I believe there are a lot of games out there that you can just sit down and just beat without putting much time in it. And then there are other games that you have to invest time into and master.

The former is more popular, because people like to budget their free time, and not everyone loves RPGs as much as others.

However, I disagree with the notion that Bethesda should accommodate their games to a vaster, mainstream crowd just to increase sales. The Elder Scrolls has always been a niche series, appealing to a smaller crowd of people who want their RPG video games to be slower-paced, involved, and difficult to master.

There are enough "casual" games out there, that I feel it is kind of greedy, if you'll excuse me, to say that Bethesda should take that route with Elderscrolls.

This is why I'll keep asking for a new Adventures game. That way you can kill your Dunmers without having to look for them first. And I can spend 45 minutes finding the entrance to a cave. And everyone has their cake and eats it, too.

EDIT: and I will look up Portal, by the way

Like I've been repeatedly saying, we're talking about adding the option of turning on quest markers. The toggle could even be off by default so people who don't want them don't ever have to worry about it. There is absolutely NO reason to avoid adding an optional feature that might improve the experience of some players.

You can disagree with my "philosophy"all you want, but the fact that you've yet to actually give a good reason for why it shouldn't be ingame as a toggle isn't exactly changing my mind. "It's always been a niche series and I want it to stay that way" isn't a good reason when we're talking about an optional feature that could ONLY improve the game for the players that would want it. The toggle would not affect players who don't want that feature in any way, except for those few who somehow have their experienced ruined knowing that someone else is playing the game differently from them.



This wouldn't change in any way. Once again, we're talking about an optional toggle. It's the epitome of "everyone gets their cake and eats it."

edit: And, considering that quest markers are already currently a part of the series, making it into a toggle instead of forced is making things even more accommodating to the "hardcoe" players.

Just a tiny point...
I'm a console gamer, and I'd like to not have access to any form of cheating at all. consoling stuff on PC for example would be too tempting for me. If I were to ever get really stuck somewhere, I think my weak mind would force me to toggle it on for a quick fix - instead of searching for hours, and feeling rewarded when I find the way. So maybe my point is for us weak-minded people, so easily affected by The Force.

Just make it toggleable when you install the [censored]! Problem solved! Unless you want to uninstall and then reinstall the game that should be enough.

QFT!!!! :thumbsup:

No, its not. I and others (especially Rhekarid), have explained previously why it isn't,

If you make something with a toggle, then it being off needs an alternative. Say I turned the quest compass off in Oblivion. What's my other option to knowing where I need to go? The NPCs give no directions, either in dialog and rarely in the journal. The devs need to do double the work to have "optional features." Essentially, its something that really can't be done because the devs can be running around making fast travel an option, and eating an option, and such and such an option, because some of these need alternatives. Its just like those folks who claim Coop could 'easily' be added when in reality there are tons of problems that can come from "optional features." Problems that the dev team needs to take time to solve. It just isn't worth the time making two options to appease two crowds when they could make one option that tries to make a majority happy. The rest can just live with it.

So it isn't everyone gets their cake and eats it, because the devs need to bake two cakes, not just one and say "you don't have to eat it if you don't want to."

The pointer is minor in the scheme of things.

If it's togglable I'll turn it off and not care as long as NPCs actually give directions this time.

I'm just talking about that notion, in general, of making TES more casual.

Scaling everything, taking away skills, taking away any real consequences for mistakes, making the combat easier, making the quests less linear, making all quests an unrealistic theatrical production, making certain areas impossible to enter until you unlock them with a quest, text boxes telling you exactly what to do, and so on.

If I can turn off the pointer, of course I won't care, but if they're even considering a pointer, to begin with, this game is really aiming at a demographic opposite of mine, and it seems, to me, like the Elder Scrolls is abandoning its roots.

This simply is not that type of game. Instead of trying to accomodate two demographics at once, they should remain a niche and create a separate action series based on the Elderscrolls.

Elderscrolls has always been about the journey, not the destination. That's why, instead of asking the Elderscrolls to change, you should, instead, play a franchise that has always been "casual" like Halo.

Well, I don't mind having a compass, as that is something that almost anybody would have when venturing into unknown areas.

But I would really like to see them get rid of the quest marker on the compass, and return to giving us actual directions in order to find what we are searching for. With the quest marker, all we had to do was find the general direction, tape the forward button down, and go make a sandwich while our character walked to his objective.

I want to get lost in this next game, most of my best memories of morrowind are a result of me getting lost. I think the greatest one was when I was trying to get the Dwemer Puzzle Box near the start of the main quest. I spent about two hours looking for the little crank that opens the door to Arkngthand. Where as if I was playing oblivion I would have had a giant icon going "RIGHT HERE RETARD".

In my opinion the quest markers were a terrible addition in oblivion.

I dont want the compass or the quest markers, its been a while since i played oblivion (i have returned to morrowind) but from what i remember is on the compass little blips of caves, ruins, buildings etc appeared and were colored according to weather or not i had found them already, to me this took alot out of the game as i could just 'hop' from one blip to the other, confident there was nothing in between the two, often with my eyes fixed firmly on the compass, missing the world around me. And then once i had found all of the locations in an area i would never return because there was no feeling of "what if i missed something", because the game told me i hadnt.

In fact now that i think about it i dont even like the fact that every cave is added on your world map, i'd be happy with just the towns, villiages and large ruins and having to rely on my own memory of where that certain cave is. Thanks to the quest markers, location markers and compass i found pretty much everything in oblivion in about 6-8 months which was very dissapointing because i bought an xbox 360 for oblivion, where as im still playing and still discovering things in morrowind and i think its because of the lack of handholding (among many other things).

So to some up, i hate the compass and i hate the quest markers. (Hate alot of things about oblivion actually but meh, dont want to start a flame war).

Anyone can mark anything they want onto their map in real life. I guess with map notes that's still possible, so I guess the automatic map updates have been kind of unnecessary to begin with.

It's the idea of telling you where to go and how to get there that is really the bigger issue that created this map pointer issue. Most games are about the epic battle itself, the Elderscrolls used to be about the lead up to that battle. And the battle itself never really lasted that long. It really is a small group of people who prefer this type of game, but let me give you an anology:

Most people have heard of the franchise Radioshack. It used to be a niche store where you could get all sorts of obscure little electrical parts. Now it puts most of that stuff online to make room for phones, even though everybody sells phones. Radioshack makes more money, but hobbyists have nowhere to go anymore.

Likewise, there are plenty of games out there that are all about getting right to the action. The Elderscrolls RPGs were always a niche game for people who feel like telling a story, not really "playing" in the traditional sense of the word. And we certainly don't want to just act out a story the devs have written for us.

And it really isn't a thing about having both options in the game. Because these two concepts are polar opposites.

In 2002, some people bought Morrowind and some people bought Halo. In 2006, everyone bought Oblivion. Therein lies the problem, IMHO.

I really liked the compass in oblivion.I hated traveling in morrowind
because i was either being eaten alive by slaughterfish or being constantly attacked by cliff racers

Really? I hated fast travel. I preferred the mages guild, boats and silt striders so much more.

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

The problem, there, is the surplus of slaughterfish and cliffracers, not the travelling.

I'm fine with the compass, in fact, I kind of like it. What bothers me is how the quest marker magically points to your destination when nobody told me it was at "insert specific location". That makes no sense and definitely can be implemented better.

Hmmm I just got an idea that just might piss a lot of people off, but add a great element of adventure to the game. We have a compass on the HUD. However, on the menu map, it is more like a paper map with no exact GPS thing and only areas that have been marked on it through purchasing guides, asking scouts/savants, quests, and just walking are labeled. Now, instead of you always knowing exactly where you are, there should be a highlighted/colored/marked shape on a map that can give you an idea of where you are exactly, but won't tell you specifically where. For example, if you're on a road between Kvatch and Skingrad that segment of road will be highlighted, or if you are prancing about in the swamps east of Leyawiin, that general area should be highlighted so that you can truly get the feeling of being "lost" without being too far gone in the world. That would be nice. Oh and [censored] that quest marker. It totally screws up the game and spoils stuff. I want to use my head to get things done. I want to be engaged, not entertained.

I like that idea, however I imagine it would make getting lost really easy. They would have to outdo themselves on the paper map. It would actually be vital. Imagine if the map saying your on Road X, well road X happens to run the spine of the "Country," well how would you know if your at the top of the bottom? The paper map would have to detail very prominent landmarks. And they would obviously have to correspond in the game.

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

I don't think so, there's nothing in halo that even remotely remind me of Oblivion.