Skyrim: Turn off your compass marker

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Greni

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Jun 19, 2011
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You serious people are so lulzy [insert y so srs picture of your choice].

Huge thanks to the dude pointing out detailed quest log mod, done putting it in. Excited to try it out.

Happy exploring everybody.
 

Nikolaz72

This place still alive?
Apr 23, 2009
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KingsGambit said:
Nikolaz72 said:
Im currently playing through again with mods. I installed a mod that removed the main quest and made the poor sod on the boat you started at be the Chosen one. And you can walk around doing whatever you want and sometimes see him walking for quest-location to quest-location doing the main quest xD.
You *have* to explain this now!
Nikolaz72 said:
Not to mention that the mods put the environmental graphics of Morrowind on par with Skyrim.

Morrowind: 1 GB.
Environment Mods and Soundfiles: 6GB.

I mean, Holy crap. How many people are modding morrowind?! xD
This too!! Don't say this and not explain! Details details!
The_Blue_Rider said:
I dont need to listen to you.
Are you refusing to follow a direct order Private? That's a court martial offence.
MCA 5.1
Morrowind Overhaul v 2.
MGE.
Morrowind Comes alive.
and the one with the NPC I cant quite remember. But it is a part of the Chargen that allows dozens of new starting locations and equipment.

My last character was a Breton Spellsword named Raegar that started in an Imperial Prison under the castle where you can join em.

Personally though, atm I abandoned Morrowind for Daggerfall.
http://theelderscrolls.wiwiland.net/?title=Daggerfall_:_DaggerfallSetup_EN
nough said. It comes with the most important Daggerfall mods and it is completely compatible with new OS. Enable the mouse/control and you have a game that, although with outdated graphics. Has the most detailed world/NPC/characters and skillsets. 'and' a combat system I actually prefer to Morrowinds. But the graphics are hard to look at, Morrowind mods made the enviroments on par with newer games on Low. But nothing can be done for a game as old as Daggerfall except for perhaps waiting for the guy making the Skyrim mod for Daggerfall.

Only problem is making those sorts of mods takes more years for a modder than it does for Bethesda to release a new Elder Scrolls game and render the old one sorta obsolete in terms of Mod Importance of older remakes. Lets hope the MMO they make will give a break for those modding/remaking singleplayer games.
 

Redingold

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Mar 28, 2009
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After seeing this thread, I've decided to play New Vegas in hardcore mode with the HUD opacity on 0 and this difficulty increasing mod [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.336419-Fallout-New-Vegas-Project-Director-Releases-Personal-Mod] (made by the project director for New Vegas itself). I can get my ass handed to me by a paltry group of geckos, but my god it's fun.
 

Reaper195

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Jul 5, 2009
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Gather said:
Reaper195 said:
*Turns off compass*
"Now, go and find this place called...I dunno....Scary Dungeon Cave."
"Cool! *Charges outside of Witerun, gets bored after ten minutes of having not one clue where to go*"

Seriously...in a lot of games, without the compass, you wouldn't ever get to where you need to go unless by sheer coincidence.
Yeah, that's if the game was designed around the compass as the crutch. It saves on voice acting and writing (Even if it's just one line "Go to the Scary Dungeon Cave; it's to the west of Solitude"... Then if you click on the option "Where is Solitude": "Oh, you follow the road to the West".

It's a little bit more vague and requires a little bit more exploration ("Is this the cave he was talking about? No."). Some people love it but most don't.
Generally, I like exploration. The amount of time in Skyrim I stop doing quests, see something in the distance, and then go wander over there (Maybe being arse raped by a few dragons along the way (Master difficulty ftw!)). But if I'm doing a quest, the last thing I want to do is spend three hours wandering around some rolling planes hoping that one snowy mountain in the distance is the snowy mountain I'm actually looking for.
 

MidnightSt

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Sep 9, 2011
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Thanks for the suggestion...cough...order.
I haven't played Skyrim yet, but next week I'm finally getting a new computer that's gonna be able to handle it, so after finally enjoying IL2 Sturmovik with joystick, and running at more than 18-20 FPS, playing the shit out of AssCreed 1 and 2, then maybe some Batman: Arkham City, I'll go into Skyrim and turn off the compass straight away.

Thank you, good sir.
 

MidnightSt

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Sep 9, 2011
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Reaper195 said:
But if I'm doing a quest, the last thing I want to do is spend three hours wandering around some rolling planes hoping that one snowy mountain in the distance is the snowy mountain I'm actually looking for.
...when have quests turned into something you have to finish as quick as possible before you can go around the world and enjoy it? I remember in the times of Planescape: Torment there were TONS of quests that lingered in your journal for HOURS until you actually even got to the point when you could really do them, and it never bugged me. And another tons of side-quests I finished by accident just by bumping into their objectives as I was pottering* around the world, taking it in? In fact, you get the endgame quest "unofficially" about 10 minutes into playing the game (Pharod says something like "you have to find a way to die for real, while you still can", then Deionarra repeats it), and yes, it never gets written in the journal, but 1. it's kind of obvious, and 2. it would be really cheap story-wise. Despite that, you learn that it'll all end in the Fortress of Regrets somewhere in the middle of the game (that is around 50 hours into it, with another 50 before you, if you don't really do all the side stuff), and THAT actually gets written into your journal...

Is this obsession with "get the quest done ASAP" somehow related to the achievement-hunting rollercoaster rides most games are today, which in turn train us to be just achievement-hunters/consumers instead explorers and adventurers?

*now out of curiosity - how many of you know that this is actually a word (verb) and what it means? I've been curious about that since I've read Harry Potter and looked his name in the dictionary because it seemed silly that he'd be a "Harry ClayDishMaker", and found out I couldn't be more wrong? Btw, it can be actually percieved as a little joke, seeing as he just stumbles upon all the solutions without actually trying.
 

lacktheknack

Je suis joined jewels.
Jan 19, 2009
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Why would I do that? I don't even remember there IS a quest marker until I've gone "DAH WHERE IS THIS BLOODY THING I'M SEARCHING FOR ARGL". Then my eyes are opened and I'm in the wrong house.
 

Souplex

Souplex Killsplosion Awesomegasm
Jul 29, 2008
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The compass isn't as useful as it seems. I can't go through half the mountains in-between me and my quest marker.
 

Krantos

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Jun 30, 2009
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Um, welcome to TES 101?

Next week we'll talk about not using fast travel, and not Min/maxing your character or spamming iron daggers (or leather armor post patch).

Seriously, though, this game works best when you disable a lot of the aids it puts in there. I actually have a fun time playing with the hud turned off completely. I just wish it was a little easier to aim a bow/crossbow like that. :(
 

TheCommanders

ohmygodimonfire
Nov 30, 2011
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Weirdly, I feel like the quest marker actually encourages exploration. When I'm on route to a dungeon or whatever, if I see something that looks interesting, I can go look for it and not worry about having to waste hours finding the damn path again. I have tried this before, and it seems like a great idea... until you actually do it. When the compass marker is off, I always go straight to the location of the quest, because there's to much risk of getting lost. I hate it when adding instructions gets equated to dumbing things down. It's not dumbing things down, it's opening up new possibilities and alleviating frustration.
 
Aug 1, 2010
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Interesting.....

When I first read this, I scoffed quite a bit, but now I'm more than a little intrigued at the possibilities.

I may just have to do this.
 

II2

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Mar 13, 2010
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Just a thought:

Morrowind was great for giving you lots of NPC dialogue and information, but leaving it to you to figure out where your dumb ass was supposed to go without needing a hold your hand visual marker, but...

Both Oblivion and Skyrim are voice acted. When you've got your actors on the clock in the ADR studio, it makes more sense for them to say "at the [singleword]" and give you a visual cursor than have them speak the directions.

I'd posit the change could be a logistical artifact of the switch to actor voiced NPCs.

Personally, I've gotten used to fast travel and compass arrows. I'd like there to be alternatives for players who want an oldschool experience, but it's not an issue for me, either way.

I DID turn off the "X above the head - door" floating indicators in Skyrim though. THAT broke my immersion.
 

TheCommanders

ohmygodimonfire
Nov 30, 2011
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Anthraxus said:
TheCommanders said:
Weirdly, I feel like the quest marker actually encourages exploration. When I'm on route to a dungeon or whatever, if I see something that looks interesting, I can go look for it and not worry about having to waste hours finding the damn path again. I have tried this before, and it seems like a great idea... until you actually do it. When the compass marker is off, I always go straight to the location of the quest, because there's to much risk of getting lost. I hate it when adding instructions gets equated to dumbing things down. It's not dumbing things down, it's opening up new possibilities and alleviating frustration.
That's why they should have markers that you can place anywhere on the map yourself. (and label them)_like in Baldurs Gate, say.

Add your own journal entries too.
Agreed. Maybe I should make a mod for that... or maybe (better yet) someone already has!
 

Greni

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Jun 19, 2011
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II2 said:
I DID turn off the "X above the head - door" floating indicators in Skyrim though. THAT broke my immersion.
That was the original reason I felt the need to change anything. Once I had tried it out and felt quite relieved that I wasn't going around talking to the people with the big white arrows floating above their heads, and actually making an effort finding the person relevant to the quest I was doing, did I think that it might be neat if it applied to every aspect of the gameplay.

As with the people clinging for dear life on the undiscovered location sense: When I had a marker on every settlement in 15 km radius it was simply not exciting for me to wander from the path to find out what I might run into. Already I saw that that thing in the distance was for example a Nordic ruin and I already did one of those recently. Now I just see towers in the distance, check my map and see that I don't know of anything nearby in that direction and head to it to check it out.

Would also take the opportunity (for PC players oc) to point out a few mods I have and like:

Deadly Dragons - I like dragons to be a challenge. Adds a more variety of them, gives them new and awesome shouts, and makes them bloody difficult.

Uncle Sheogorath's really helpful hints and tips - Just for fun. Replaces the boring loading screen tips with funny ones straight from the Daedric Prince of madness.

Unread Books Glow - Like it says, books you have not read glow a bit to distinguish them from the others (you can change how much ingame). They are also named like "The Lusty Argonian Maid (unread)" just to make sure. It's quite handy.

Path of Shadows - I like the sneaking play style, but it's ridiculously overpowered on higher levels and removes all shreds of challenge. This makes sneaking fun and challenging all throughout the game.

Protip: Tesnexus has a nice variety of mods and also has the nexus mod manager which downloads, sorts and makes installing/uninstalling a breeze.
 

Aidan Wiggs

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Jan 30, 2012
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Ineteresting idea. I'll have to try it sometime after I get my copy of the game back from my best friend.

My only question is what if the quest you're doing glitches? I've had quests where my target glitched into a wall or the middle of a lake and the only reason I found the correct NPC at the bottom of said lake (walking and talking like a normal NPC) was from the arrow things.
 

Aidan Wiggs

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Jan 30, 2012
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Ineteresting idea. I'll have to try it sometime after I get my copy of the game back from my best friend.

My only question is what if the quest you're doing glitches? I've had quests where my target glitched into a wall or the middle of a lake and the only reason I found the correct NPC at the bottom of said lake (walking and talking like a normal NPC) was from the arrow things.