Due to the amount of quests and ways you are pointed towards in skyrim, I feel its an absolute must to have a map where you have the marker where to go.
This is perfect to ensure a flow of game pace instead of dead space trying to find something. Only 0.00001% find it fun to have no clue.

But lets explain one thing here.

Our Character have a map. We all know this. And every quest we get, the quest givers even informs you they will update your map.

Now. The compass.
For anyone living in the era of our character, and for 99% of all aboriginal tribes people and forrest rangers active today. It takes from 5 seconds to 2 minutes to find out the EXACT direction you are walking towards.
Knowledge of nature, formations and basic astronomy will give you this.

And as such, there would be illogical and ill represented of the knowledge of our character, if he did not know which direction North is. And once you know ONE direction, its easy to calculate the rest.
Thats why we have a compass, and we already knew we have a map.
So I have no clue why people complain about the map being marked where to go, and a compass showing the way, when our character, as many of us, would be able to do just this.

Too many citie people with no experience, whatsoever of reality playing this game:-)

But above all, how fun would it be to have a quest journal of 100 quests and not a clue where to walk, in a world as big as Skyrim.
Not fun at all.

People turning off the compass are turning their character into a, for the time and era, an idiot with no knowledge.

While exploring around in Skyrim, I sure as hell love being able to tell my north from south.. I would be lost without the compass - especially since I don't always use markers for directions (non-quest related markers)

Also, the map provided in game isn't all that comprehensive. Sure, its nice and pretty look at Skyrim from a birds eye view but the old maps gave you detailed descriptions of roads and off roads in TES III's case. I'm not complaining the map is functional but the compass is more needed than it was in say Oblivion where the land mass was accessible and open and almost everything was within spitting distance of a major road and town.

Compass is a necessity for a voice-overed game, in Morrowind it was unnecessary because all characters communicated via text and could describe quest locations in detail (if they wanted to).

In Skyrim, when someone asks for you to go to a tomb and recover their family heirloom, all you have is compass and that pizza slice shaped thing. In Morrowind, when someone asks the same thing, either they give the directions themselves, or they lead you to a place/person who can.

Maybe because the way the map is implemented in Oblivion and Skyrim functions like a real-time GPS system, instead of an actual map and compass? It's handholding.

These were my exact arguments in another thread. Calculating direction from knowledge of the land, the position of sun and stars etc is a skill that we don't have today on the whole but a vital one that was common knowledge in the period that this game is set in but not a skill that can really be used in a game hence the basic compass directions. It seems obvious to me.

It is handholding but it can be turned off so I don't care.

How is it handholding? I don't understand that!

Have you evern tried to navigate by map and using a normal compass yourself.
Or just a stick of wood since you already know the direction?

Have you used a real GPS system?

I have done both, in the time of service.

And I can tell you, although the game map might look like a GPS, its just a map with a marker showing where to go.
How would they otherwise do it?

You have a map, its marked where to go, and you know the directions from a compass.

Its just like anyother map and compass you have.

You guys complaining lack knowledge of maps and navigation.
And above all, how fun would it be spending 25% of your game time, atleast, trying to find where to actually walk.
It would be 75% of your game time for many players without a compass.

Oblivian was far easier to nagivate using known hills and mountains.
Skyrim is not.

They have done it perfectly and thats that.

There is no point arguing with people that lack knowledge of reality.
I pointed out the facts, I wont be dragged into an argument.

During the nord age and viking age if we take scandinavian history, children was taught to nagivate by stars when at sea.

navigating at sea is 10 times harder then navigating over land, if you lack instruments. But they did it with little problems.

Navigating over land with both astronomy knowledge AND land formation, nature knowledge was an utter breeze for people during this era. And for many still today.

The Compass is a handholding feature. It makes you not use your brain. It makes exploration boring, and it also tells you where enemies are so you don't need to spot them yourself.

I haven't needed the Compass at all. I disabled it completely. I find the places that I'm headed to just fine. I find the game much better without the Compass.

Your logic and reason make no sense to me. I like how you assume everyone living in that era should have a built in compass/map in their mind.

I do agree with you conclusion though, it won't be fun for me to play Skyrim without a map and a compass, but whether its fun or not is subjective.

Oh, and I hate that little arrow telling me where to go for each quests, that one is hand-holding.

I agree with enemies showing up on the compass.
For the rest, if you want to play someone, that for the time and era, is an iliterate, thats up to you.

As for enemies.

Enemies only show up on the compass after you have identified them as enemies or can hear them.
Thats cause most of us would be able to hear pretty well where enemies are, if they make sound. But its not that easy in stereo.

Enemies actually dissapear from the compass when you dont see or hear them anymore.
But I can agree.

The problem with the compass is that apart from directions it also shows the nearby locations and enemies' positions. I agree that my character should be able to telll where north is, but she definitely doesn't know that there's a mine on the other side of the hill - that's something she finds out when she gets there. That's why I think compass, in the default form, is a handholding feature. If it was restricted to showing only directions, it would be fine.

But I've been playing without the compass for 50 hours and I don't have a problem with finding locations (I still have the map if I ever get lost).

Maybe I should specify, map is not handholding, even the fact that it shows direction you're facing is fine(since North-South is not that hard to figure out even without "ancient knowledge" and the character could have, well, an actual compass).

But a magical compass - the one at the top of the screen - which highlights nearby "points of interest" and directs you to quest objectives? Totally handholding.

You seem to be getting confused between a compass and what is known as the quest compass. A compass and map are essentials and I don't think you'd find many people who wouldn't want them in the game. Being given those tools, however, is not the same as having all nearby locations and the exact location of your next target appear on the HUD.

I still saw a dragon circling around me in the Compass after I had lost it from my sight about a minute ago. Also the dragons don't roar constantly so you could track them exactly like that.

Both, yes. And the functionality of the markers in Skyrim is functionally identical to a GPS: they point to the exact location of the target of the marked quest. Not the location where he might be (that's fine), but the 100% sure, infallible location where your next quest trigger is located. It's quite different to using a map.



Perfectly? You call a tool that holds your hand and tells you exactly where to go and what/who to activate to complete the quest "perfect"? What, maybe it would've been even better if a giant "WIN QUEST" button was added to the game?

Yes we need the compass and map to get around, but that's exactly what the problem is

The quest log offers literally no information on where to actually go, nor any background information on what you're looking for and what kind of resistance you might encounter
If someone in Riften asks me to go fetch their family heirloom in a cave called "goat skull hole" and the actual cave ends up being in bloody Solitude I would assume they tell me it's all the way over there and give me a reason why

I could accept it if that was just true for the tiny side-quests, but it's the same for each step in a larger questline

That's no excuse, that's just plain Lazyness, "Go and to this cave and find what I need" If you cannot possibly do that without Prior knowledge of the quest or without a quest marker, then the developer has failed. A quest should NOT ever, ever have to rely solely on quest markers to successfully complete.
I however like the map, it's not detailed but when it marks locations on it, then that's all I need to work my way there.

I personally think Beth should have kept the Original Morrowind/Oblivion Journal system with Entries made by your character to clear up any missing or vaguely "voiced" directions from the quest giver, then we at-least have something to read and be like "Oh I see"
Best of both worlds.

I'm not condemning Beth for putting the features in the game for people who want them, I'll condemn them for forcing players to actually HAVE to use them just because they failed to give us any real directions or information.

you seem to be under the impression that turning off the compass is everything we need to fix the problem. far from it. turning off the compass DOES turn you into an idiot with no sense of direction, because without the magic marker you have no concept of where something is. who in their right mind would complain about knowing which direction north is? its knowing the exact location of everything youre barely told about thats the issue.

ironically enough, youve described the exact problem i have with the compass and passed it off as your arguement; direction is simple with a basic knowledge of the land and, you know, DIRECTIONS... so why do we need magic markers? in morrowind quest givers just said something like "go north until you hit the river, than follow it west until you see the cave". easy enough... you actually followed directions to find something instead of just pretending that the quest giver told you anything more than "find my sword" and pretending you did anything more than run in a straight line over mountains and through lakes following the pizza slice of omnipotence. if we're going with the "abstraction of character's knowledge" excuse of yours, then why cant fights just be auto-calculated based on my character's skills? since we already know its exact location, why not let us immediately fast travel to every known POI on the map? instead of using shouts and magic, why not have enemies periodically freeze and ragdoll based on what you have available? you see my point... where does it end? at what point do you want to play the game instead of having it played for you?

this is a game. game implies interactive. interactive implies me doing something instead of having it done for me. we need a manual navigation system for no other reason than it is manual. if you want another reason, then how about it being much more immersive, not cheating you out of exploration, and giving you a sense of discovery, something kind of expected from every sandbox game? how about the fact that saints row 3 has a less user-friendly navigation system that only shows you the way on the roads and doesnt allow instant teleportation to anywhere? SAINTS. ROW. are you saying saints row is one of those overly-complicated obsolete RPGS of ancient times?

the game that is about mindless cathartic fun holds my hand less than an open-world RPG. that should not compute in your brain. if youre really going to use the "i dont have time to follow directions" argument in a game with 300+ hours of content that is meant to last you for YEARS, then i dont think we can ever come to an agreement...

I've disabled the compass and markers altogether and am getting around just fine. Still have to use the map once in a while to get my bearings, I still need to use the markers on the map since here is no information about your quest locations whatsoever in the journal.

Not a fan of the map, it's shiny and pretty but that's about all. Some locations I can't pinpoint at all because of the 3d mountains and it's impossible to pan around enough to see where something is. Still would have prefered a detailed 2d map.

Or I could force myself to figure out what direction is north based on the in-game sky rather than have the compass tell me which direction it is. Just because it can be rationalized from ONE subjective perspective of RP doesn't mean that it's arbitrary fact.

Personally, I don't mind the compass if it were just a compass and nothing else. Morrowind had a tiny minimap in the bottom right corner that allowed you to see about 15 in-game feet around your character and know their cardinal direction. I was ok with that.

The problem I have, aside from the enemies which others have already touched on, is that it will identify locations of interest like caves and shrines from very far away, and essentially removes any sense of discovery of that location. In Morrowind, I could be walking around in the middle of nowhere and suddenly stumble across a door to a cave, and it was exciting because I had no idea it would be there. In Oblivion and Skyrim, I'll see big icons on my compass that are basically gigantic billboards screaming out "HEY! THERE'S SOMETHING HERE COME LOOK AT ME!".

Another thing I liked about Morrowind is that they usually wouldn't mark places on your map because outside of settlements, daedric shrines, and dwemer ruins, there were no places to mark. They'd give you directions and you'd have to go out and use your brain and find them yourself. In Skyrim, they don't give you directions. They just put it on your map and let you either follow the map marker or routinely check your map to see what direction you should be going in now.


I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you now.

I don't know why they didn't make the map it's own model and gave it a nice Hi-res Texture of the entire Skyrim Landmass, instead it uses the actual world, hence terrible lack of detail.

The quest is to find something in the cave, not to find the cave.