I can't get lost (Skyrim related)

[Denamic]

I can see what your grievances are, but you are in no way forced to use the compass directions.
Just don't mark your quests.
Problem solved.

And also, Oblivion dungeons complicated?
They were not, not in any sense of the word.
What are you on about?

 

[NickCaligo42]

As much as i am loving Skyrim, there is this one thing that i just cant stomach.

I've spent, Azura knows how many, hours in Skyrim by now, and not once actually got lost or had to stop and figure out where i have to go.

Every time i get a quest where i have to "find" something....there is no "finding", there is only the "follow the mark on your compass until you bump into that person/item/location".

See, I've got a counter-argument.

I picked up New Vegas a few months ago, and I didn't actually notice the compass at first... so I got one of those first quests to gather up some plants for a soup, and I spent more than an hour looking around town for them, not able to pick out which plants could be harvested from which ones were just set-dressing shrubs. I poked around the graveyard for literally 45 minutes before I finally found the first one I was looking for, figuring it must have been in a grave or something before I found that one of the innocuous, inedible-looking plants on the edge of the place was actually the one I was looking for. Then I spent another hour doing loops around the school, killing mantises inside and out before I FINALLY noticed the compass and followed it directly to the plant of interest. I said to myself, "what, THAT thing!?" when I finally found out it was the innocuous, scrunched-flat thing I'd passed by a hundred times without my cursor so much as lighting up.

You call that shit fun? You call that an enriching use of my time? I'll take all the low-end grinding against Relentless Rats in the world before doing that shit again.

Fuck "finding," fuck "searching," and fuck the ever-loving SHIT out of "getting lost." I understand the appeal of what you're talking about here, but there's a certain kind of usability that has to go with it, and the Elder Scrolls doesn't lend itself well to it. I don't care what artificial UI junk Bethesda has to add to their game, if I don't have to spend two hours looking for two plants that're right in my backyard, so much the better. If I had to find a good compromise, though, I'd dig back into Ultima 7, with the sextant and the map, and not depend on minute objects too strongly.

As to the dungeons: ... I don't really see your side of the argument here. The dungeons in Morrowind and Oblivion were also really linear, just much duller and less organic, and I have to waste time walking back through the empty level. I guess some of them were bigger, I recall the corpusarium was pretty extensive, but I didn't feel like the quality of content was there.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's a design decision and Beth opted for the more user-friendly approach.

It benefits them far more in development. They don't have to write text descriptions and directions for practically every quest, nor do they have to playtest it.

So really, turning the Psychic Radar compass indicator off is just shooting yourself in the foot, since they didn't write any directions (or so I must assume, based on my experience with Fallout 3 and Oblivion).

 

[Shirastro]

As much as i am loving Skyrim, there is this one thing that i just cant stomach.

I've spent, Azura knows how many, hours in Skyrim by now, and not once actually got lost or had to stop and figure out where i have to go.

Every time i get a quest where i have to "find" something....there is no "finding", there is only the "follow the mark on your compass until you bump into that person/item/location".

See, I've got a counter-argument.

I picked up New Vegas a few months ago, and I didn't actually notice the compass at first... so I got one of those first quests to gather up some plants for a soup, and I spent more than an hour looking around town for them, not able to pick out which plants could be harvested from which ones were just set-dressing shrubs. I poked around the graveyard for literally 45 minutes before I finally found the first one I was looking for, figuring it must have been in a grave or something before I found that one of the innocuous, inedible-looking plants on the edge of the place was actually the one I was looking for. Then I spent another hour doing loops around the school, killing mantises inside and out before I FINALLY noticed the compass and followed it directly to the plant of interest. I said to myself, "what, THAT thing!?" when I finally found out it was the innocuous, scrunched-flat thing I'd passed by a hundred times without my cursor so much as lighting up.

You call that shit fun? You call that an enriching use of my time? I'll take all the low-end grinding against Relentless Rats in the world before doing that shit again.

Fuck "finding," fuck "searching," and fuck the ever-loving SHIT out of "getting lost." I understand the appeal of what you're talking about here, but there's a certain kind of usability that has to go with it, and the Elder Scrolls doesn't lend itself well to it. I don't care what artificial UI junk Bethesda has to add to their game, if I don't have to spend two hours looking for two plants that're right in my backyard, so much the better. If I had to find a good compromise, though, I'd dig back into Ultima 7, with the sextant and the map, and not depend on minute objects too strongly.

As to the dungeons: ... I don't really see your side of the argument here. The dungeons in Morrowind and Oblivion were also really linear, just much duller and less organic, and I have to waste time walking back through the empty level. I guess some of them were bigger, I recall the corpusarium was pretty extensive, but I didn't feel like the quality of content was there.

You probably wouldn't have spent 2 hours looking for it if the NPC actually gave you a better description of the plant and it's location. In that case you would actually have to listen to them and find the plant on your own (with relative ease) instead of automatically knowing where the plant is without any effort.

 

[NickCaligo42]

You probably wouldn't have spent 2 hours looking for it if the NPC actually gave you a better description of the plant and it's location. In that case you would actually have to listen to them and find the plant on your own (with relative ease) instead of automatically knowing where the plant is without any effort.

That is a very, very good point.

 

[Shirastro]

Guys it seems some of you completely misunderstood what i'm trying to say here.
I don't want a game where i have to spend hours for each and every quest. Spend all my time trying to find some god forsaken cave or a specific book in a library full of books without any help, and it seems that no matter how many times it is mentioned some people keep proposing the same "solutions" over and over again.

1)Turning off the compass mark is NOT a solution.
This game simply hasn't been designed with the compass off in mind. You are given no alternative, since NPCs usually give you no idea to where the quest location might be (at very best they just give you a vague direction). Also the location of the quest is automatically marked on your map, so you know where you have to go right away.
Sure you can turn the mark off and never look at the map, but there is a big difference between blindly wandering around hopping to bump into whatever you are looking for, and actually being given a proper set of directions you can follow and find, whatever you are looking for, with at least some effort...instead of the integrated GPS system we have now.

2)I don't mind the fast travel system....
...nor did i ever complain about it. Having to explore one location the first time and THAN being able to fast travel there afterwards is perfectly fine with me. The whole "finding and exploring" thing is done, no need to grief the player afterwards.

3)Wandering around without a specific goal and searching for something specific are two different things.
There isn't much i can say about this really. I know i can just wander around aimlessly, that was never the issue.


But i guess I'll best explain my self with an example, of how the game IS and how i would like it to be (spoiler ahead).

Meridia quest:

Currently, once you start the quest all she tells you is to find her beacon. Than you get the map pointer and all you have to do is go to that place and take it. No effort on actually searching for the thing. She gives you no clue to where this beacon might be and you are expected to use the compass mark.

This is how i would like it to be.
She tells you to find her beacon but again gives you no clue to where it might be. Instead your quest log tells you to look for someone who might know something about it's location.
At this point you would actually have to use your brain at least a bit and try and figure out who, in the world of Skyrim, might know something about it (without the compass mark).
It probably wont be some mere peasant or a blacksmith. It would have to be someone educated, a scholar. So, naturally you think of the mages. You go to Dragonsreach and ask the court mage (forgot his name) about it and he points you out to Winterhold.
So you go there, ask around, and the mages there should tell you to speak with that Orc librarian (again forgot his name). He gives you a book about the subject which you have to read and gather clues to the beacons whereabouts.
Again no compass marks or anything, but the book should provide a clear set of direction you can follow and find this cave containing the beacon, without TOO much effort.

Does this really sound so bad? Is having to use your brain at least a little bit such a terrible thing? Does the game has to be so "casual-ised" that any bit of effort required is frown upon?
Skyrim as it is presents ZERO challenge whatsoever. Sure there might be a difficult fight here and there, especially early on, but other than that, there is literary no difficulty in the game.
Your hand is held from start to finish, and all the quests are nothing more than a routine. Find the quest giver, follow the compass mark, kill/find/loot whatever, go back to pick up the reward. Game just literary gives you no opportunity to actually have to stop and think for a second.

The current quest system is identical to that of WoW, and like in WoW any potential effort on you part has been removed and replace by pure grind.

 

[crazyarms33]

By adding the compass mark do we add or take away from the game?

Neither. We get a different game. You mention Morrowind, and while it was kinda fun at times to wander with some vague directions, many times it was tedious and annoying, trying to figure out where the person you are looking for is. It's a design decision and Beth opted for the more user-friendly approach. The game still encourages you to explore the world quite a bit, but allows you to complete your objectives in an efficient manner if that's what you want.

I agree. That is the very reason I gave up on Morrowind. Vague directions are well and good if you haven't spent 3 bloody hours looking for the damned place. The compass marker is useful because I go "Oh, that place is that way!" but then as I am walking across the world I see a cave and my ADD kicks in and I explore it. To me it adds to the game because otherwise I would literally get nothing done except finding all the wrong locations at which point I would rage quit.

 

[Nymi]

Honestly, one of the reasons I decided to pick up Skyrim was the move away from the "faff about for 70 hours" style of gameplay. One of my best RL friends spent lots of time advocating Morrowind and Oblivion to me while we grew up, and I tried both for some time. Never could get into it.

The faces were horrible (Which has been fixed to.. A decent degree), but the whole "Do this but I'll only vaguely tell you how" business is just an arbitrary lengthening of the game. Talking to someone, talking to someone else, then talking to someone else and THEN, finally, doing the quest, isn't my idea of fun.

 

[Shirastro]

Honestly, one of the reasons I decided to pick up Skyrim was the move away from the "faff about for 70 hours" style of gameplay. One of my best RL friends spent lots of time advocating Morrowind and Oblivion to me while we grew up, and I tried both for some time. Never could get into it.

The faces were horrible (Which has been fixed to.. A decent degree), but the whole "Do this but I'll only vaguely tell you how" business is just an arbitrary lengthening of the game. Talking to someone, talking to someone else, then talking to someone else and THEN, finally, doing the quest, isn't my idea of fun.

There is nothing wrong with not liking certain styles of game-play, but that's not the issue here.

Like mentioned before the problem is Bethesdas RPGs became famous for having this "faff about for 70 hours" style. If you don't like that, don't play Bethesdas RPG.
And you having to put some effort into the game is not an arbitrary method of prolonging it.

 

[Nymi]

Honestly, one of the reasons I decided to pick up Skyrim was the move away from the "faff about for 70 hours" style of gameplay. One of my best RL friends spent lots of time advocating Morrowind and Oblivion to me while we grew up, and I tried both for some time. Never could get into it.

The faces were horrible (Which has been fixed to.. A decent degree), but the whole "Do this but I'll only vaguely tell you how" business is just an arbitrary lengthening of the game. Talking to someone, talking to someone else, then talking to someone else and THEN, finally, doing the quest, isn't my idea of fun.

There is nothing wrong with not liking certain styles of game-play, but that's not the issue here.

Like mentioned before the problem is Bethesdas RPGs became famous for having this "faff about for 70 hours" style. If you don't like that, don't play Bethesdas RPG.
And you having to put some effort into the game is not an arbitrary method of prolonging it.

I don't believe I said anything about it being wrong to like the previous style of Bethesda's games. I'd appreciate if you didn't put words in my mouth.

And as I clearly pointed out, I -didn't- play the previous games precisely because of that style of play. I'm sorry, but I just don't see the point you're trying to make, here. I shouldn't play a game I didn't like, and I didn't play it. If you have an actual argument, then I'd love to hear it.

Personally, I'd much rather have interesting dungeons (And I agree that the dungeons in Skyrim are pretty much just a line from A to B) than a lot of "go talk to this guy so he can tell you to go somewhere else."

 

[Shirastro]

I don't believe I said anything about it being wrong to like the previous style of Bethesda's games. I'd appreciate if you didn't put words in my mouth.

And i don't believe i said you said there was something wrong with the previous style of Bethesda's games. Don't put words in my mouth and than blame me for putting words in yours.

 

[Batou667]

Every time i get a quest where i have to "find" something....there is no "finding", there is only the "follow the mark on your compass until you bump into that person/item/location".

Haven't played Skyrim (and I probably won't in the near future) but hand-holding like this really p*sses me off - especially in games that are advertised as sprawling and open-world. Yes, Peter Molyneux, I am looking at you, and you can take your "golden path" and stick it up your... ah, you get the idea.

Ever since I was a young kid, playing on my Atari VCS and Master System, I used to daydream happily about what the Games Of The Future might be like - I imagined huge open worlds, where you could walk through immense forests, talk to every inhabitant of a village and interact in them however you like, where you could make your mark on the world, for good or for ill. Well, the future is more or less here, and... It sucks.

What happened to the idea of truly free-roaming, in an immersive environment? Using your own wits, knowledge, and memory to navigate the world? I don't WANT a bloody HUD in a game that has a medieval tech base. I don't WANT to have an always-on compass-cum-radar in the corner of my screen, and I don't WANT objectives to magically appear, with unerring precision, on my Ordnance Survey-quality world map.

I want a Skyrim-style game where you have to navigate by landmarks, by the position of the sun and the stars. If you want to see where North is, you have to read your crummy and inaccurate compass (by the light of your lantern, if it's at night), or check which side of the trees lichen is growing on. If a villager tells you important information, you have to remember it yourself, or even -shock, horror!- note down details on a piece of paper in real life.

Aah well, I can dream.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

I have to disagree with you here. Compare this:
"Southeast of Whiterun"
To that:
"Eydis Fire-Eye tells me that the eggmine is located a short distance southwest of Balmora, in the bluffs west of the Odai River. The old suspension bridge across the Odai is just southeast of the mine entrance. I'm to follow the river south of Balmora until I see the bridge overhead."
Yeah, you are REALLY expected to use your trusty magical GPS. :/

This comment is not getting enough love.

The first example, from Skyrim, is clearly written with the compass marker in mind. If you turn off the compass marker, you are completely screwed (especially when Skyrim does this annoying thing where "West of Riften" can mean anywhere from the Peak of the World to Falkreath).

The second, from Morrowind, is clearly written as if someone was telling you verbally where something was, in a realistic fashion. It's a good compromise between pinpointing a location for you precisely and making you search a little. AS AN ADDED BONUS: it involves the geographical aspect of the game lore so that you learn about local geography as the inhabitants of the world understand it. That's real immersion: when you care about what the game world cares about.

So essentially, the argument that "you can just turn off your compass marker in Skyrim if you don't like it" is simply not a very strong one. The quests are clearly not designed to facilitate that sort of play - you will get way too lost. In addition to making the game too straight-forward, Bethesda is missing out on a big immersion opportunity that they previously excelled at exploiting.

Edit: Regarding the second example from Morrowind, someone up-thread mentioned that it was as good as pinpointing the location for you anyways. Well, it's not.

For people who never played Morrowind, or played it but have forgotten, the game didn't register a "location" on the world map the same way Oblivion (and onwards) did. You have to be standing right in front of the door before you realize it's there. You don't see it coming up in the HUD, and you don't get a "discovered location" notification when you get within a certain radius. After you find it, the exact location of the door is registered on your world map as a transition/loading point.

 

[Woodsey]

Morrowind's idea of navigation: here's a blank fucking map, and a not-brilliantly-written journal, now go. Which is wonderful, if you want to spend the entire freaking game lost.

Just turn the marker off in Skyrim. Problem solved.

You mean, how you would actually have to find a new location if you were a stranger in a foreign land? Unless you've actually discovered it already why should you instantly know the exact location of one of hundreds of locations? Is it too much to ask to ask for a challenge in the exploration, because god knows I've managed to break everything else to make even Master difficulty a sunday stroll.

Because no one would have a map detailing at least the main cities lying around. MADNESS.

 

[imnot]

Have you tried that "In My Time Of Need" quest? It gives you no compass and nearly no directions, just that you need to find a "Redguard Woman that may or may not be in Whiterun" It's been in my quest log since I started the game, and I still can't find the lady.

If you want to know shes in

Spoiler

The bannered mare (the tavern) She actually aproaches you and asks if you want a drink.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Morrowind's idea of navigation: here's a blank fucking map, and a not-brilliantly-written journal, now go. Which is wonderful, if you want to spend the entire freaking game lost.

Just turn the marker off in Skyrim. Problem solved.

You mean, how you would actually have to find a new location if you were a stranger in a foreign land? Unless you've actually discovered it already why should you instantly know the exact location of one of hundreds of locations? Is it too much to ask to ask for a challenge in the exploration, because god knows I've managed to break everything else to make even Master difficulty a sunday stroll.

Because no one would have a map detailing at least the main cities lying around. MADNESS.

Yeah, but not one that details every obscure abandonded cave and mine. Also where did Dovahkiin get his map from?