your right, lack of direction svcks

Torch it, burn it, melt it, nuke it, banish it into oblivion, give it to the adoring fan.

Sure, the morrowind directions had you wind up lost some times, but how about: that big tower on the top of that mountain over there. Good directions XD

It should have been optional in Oblivion and it should be optional now.

Its been confirmed that there is no HUD. I assume this means no magic compass too.

No damnit, don't burn the compass burn the GPS features attached to it. Every TES game has had a basic directional compass and I see no reason why not to. What needs to be removed or entirely re-thought are the quest markers. The point of interest markers I'm indifferent to.

I would prefer if they took off the stupid magical arrow telling you exactly where to go, and replaced the old compass with one that you press a button to whip out.(sort of like the watch in Metro 2033)

I don't know if anyone has thought of this already, but what about, instead of a single point, a shaded area on the map? So it tells you the general area where you should go, but not the exact location.

You could also have a spell effect like Detect Life, except it's Detect Quest Objects (for lack of a better term). It would be a glowy aura that appears in space somewhere, and it gives a general idea of where to go.

Any thoughts?

This. I just don't understand why people complain with making soemthing optional, fine you don't want it then turn it off! Despite this simple mechanism some still say that this must be completely removed from the game...and I wonder why if you're going to turn it off and it doesn't affect you?! So again...optional

The problem with that is that people who want the compass to begin with now have to "waste" a perk to get it. Overall not a huge deal I guess.

In the end the compass is really a non-issue for me. I am kind of surprised how many people are so passionate about it.

Torch it!

I like the compass. It tells me where to go and what I am looking for otherwise I am blindly looking through dark dungeons and I miss it by accident and then I get frustrated and go online to find out I missed it in some dark corner that might have been seen if I had looked up at the right moment.

If the quest is supposed to be a mystery then I don't need it but I would rather be able to find what I am looking for easily enough. After all in morrowind I hated not knowing where to go for quests the beginning of the game tells you to go someplace and it was hours before I actually found it and started the main quest. I hated that because it takes too long to become invested. It is not smart game design. If you must make things difficult for yourself then make a mod for it.(at the worst make it an optional menu thing but this just adds programing to the game that could be better spent doing other things.)

I liked it in Red Dead Redemption where it would make a circle on the map and you knew what you were looking for was in that general area.

Well... there's no denying that the Elder Scrolls universe actually is quite magical itself.

I would like an actual compass item.

Sort of how it worked in minecraft. Just tells you general directions, NSEW...etc.

Torch it... make the players use only the map instead. If they incorporated an ingame map that has as much detail as the paper Morrowind map then they wouldn't need a compass like Oblivions at all. The map tells you the direction, a few visible locations and a few visible but very obscure locations. Let the rest be up to the adventurer.

As long as the quest marker isn't in my face I don't care if it's present or not. I don't need hand holding so I won't be using it

Two things:
1) Cant start sentences with "And"
2) All they have said is that you can disable HUD that doesnt mean you can toggle things off individually

if you mean just the compass i dont have an issue with that although it would be nicer if they did what metro 2033 did where you had to actually pull your compass out and look at it. bethesda probably wont do that however. what i want gone FOREVER is that mother [censored] god awful quest arrow which completely destroyed gameplay almost as much as the level scaling did. i couldnt download a quest arrow mod disabler fast enough and that screwed you since you didnt get any ingame directions from the NPCs. finally somemone made a mod that would make the quest arrow disappear after you got within a certain distance but by then the damage had been done and i had already done several playthroughs.

for the love of God and all that is both evil and holy please do not have any quest arrows in skyrim. stop designing games around stupid people.

KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!! :flamethrower:

I'd like a compass, but not with a magic mark on it. I'd like it so I can keep a grasp on what direction i'm going. Also, objectives should only show the surrounding area they are in, not exactly where they are.

Gone, no. Redesigned, yes. I DO want very much more exploring than in Oblivion, but not the WHOLE THING. Like maybe 50/50 Exploring/"Magic" Compass... MAYBE.

But... Also keep in mind this is the Elder Scrolls, so... MAGIC compass? Hello?

Oh yeah and I agree with the guy above me -- Rivaldo

I'd like to see things like Compass/Fast travel and other helpful items diminish/Increase in direct proportion to the difficulty selected by the player.

So we could have Easy/Normal for those who like to have their hands held for them, and Hard/Extreme for those who want to play the game without being told exactly what to do, where to go and without the ability to insta travel anywhere. Of course this would require deliberate design decisions by the developer and at this late stage in development i imagine things like this are locked down. But really this should be the ideal Bethesda are striving towards. The more options you give the players the better as far as i'm concerned, and the best way to do it would be to incorporate such features into a difficulty scale selectable upon the creation of a new game.

No compass would be asinine. Having a compass is integral. I found myself playing Arkham Asylum and wishing I had a compass. I don't want it to point everything out to me, unless I mark it as such on the map myself maybe. But I do want to know which direction I'm going without having to check the map three or four times to make sure. Just a compass with N, S, E, and W on it, and I'm good.

The best compass is the one that you hold in the palm of your hand, and occasionally look at it to know where is the North pole.

I say tone it way down and make it optional. I liked how Fallout did it's compass, the effectiveness lied with-in the player's perceptive stats. I don't think i'd ever play with it turned on, but i'd like to have it as an option for those who would.

There has been no mention of the HUD being an option. The only thing we have heard is that first person is HUDless, period. Nothing about it being toggleable and I wish people would stop spreading false information about the forums, confusing everyone.