Why do people HATE quest markers?

[endtherapture]

Okay yeah, quest markers often dumb down a game. But they're not the anti-christ. I'd like having an option for them in the game.

So if you wanted to have a casual session, turn the ability on, follow the marker.

However if you wanted an immersive gaming session, you could turn them off and use the direction in the quest journal that the NPC gave you or whatever.

I've played Morrowind, yeah it's cool having directions and adding an extra layer of depth, but when you're following blatantly wrong directions, or spending 45 minutes out of your precious hour gaming time looking in every house of a town looking for the NPC, then yeah that sucks and the convenience of a quest marker would be helpful.

Similarly in Skyrim, turning off your compass and just using the map to orient yourself is pretty fun at times.

 

[The Madman]

Quest markers take away any sense of exploration. You're not wandering an alien landscape, you're just following the pointy arrow like a good little boy or girl. And while it's easy to say "Just turn them off" that's not really an answer since in a good chunk of games which use quest markers, Skyrim for example, the quest marker is the only way to know where to go as the developers never actually gave the players any real directions.

Ideally if a game has both means of playing implemented then I have no problem with optional quest markers for those less interesting in exploration. But it often isn't, leaving 'follow the shiny arrow' as the only option for actually completing a quest short of random guesswork.

 

[endtherapture]

Quest markers take away any sense of exploration. You're not wandering an alien landscape, you're just following the pointy arrow like a good little boy or girl. And while it's easy to say "Just turn them off" that's not really an answer since in a good chunk of games which use quest markers, Skyrim for example, the quest marker is the only way to know where to go as the developers never actually gave the players any real directions.

Ideally if a game has both means of playing implemented then I have no problem with optional quest markers for those less interesting in exploration. But it often isn't, leaving 'follow the shiny arrow' as the only option for actually completing a quest short of random guesswork.

It's just the easiest way to get people into the game though. Directions require so much more extra voice-acting etc. to become good, and after that I can imagine people becoming very frustrated and snapping the game if they spend an hour looking for random cave 7 or old forest ruin 28 with a set of poorly written directions.

 

[Muspelheim]

They're useful to have, if optional. But they tend to be a bit too... Obvious, I suppose. Being pointed in the right general direction is a good thing, of course. But sometimes, everything you're meant to do is marked out before you have a chance of figuring it out yourself, which doesn't do any favours to the organic pace of a game.

It should depend on the tone of the quest, and the way the actions are supposed to happen. If there is an element of exploring involved, the markers ought to be more vague. If it is just finding someone with no sightseeing or detectivework weaved into the tone of it, a direct marker is better.

 

[Racecarlock]

From what I can gather, a bunch of morons have basically decided that gaming is NOT in fact something in which you can mess around and have fun or get anything done easily, but rather some kind of god damn military fitness test where you must play on some insane fuckin difficulty level or not play games at all.

Because a false sense of accomplishment is apparently worth making games so fucking hard that nobody outside of gaming can possibly get into it unless they have the patience of a tibetan monk. Because people want to believe that gaming is not just a big waste of time and that it is also far more serious and important than it actually is.

People don't want to accept that they're just pushing buttons to execute coding. They want to feel like they're actually doing something, so naturally the only way they can get that is through difficulty. The implication being that if you defeat a really hard boss, it means you are way smarter than normal people. Thus justifying those who do beat said boss to be smug douche nozzles for the rest of time. At least in their minds.

The thing is, easy games existing do not mean that games like dark souls will stop existing. This is really just another version of "This game doesn't cater to my tastes, therefore it sucks and should die or be remade to cater to my tastes.". Because if all gaming caters to one audience, that means gaming is getting better because this hypothetical douche is in that group. And if others don't like it, then they need to find an ENTIRE DIFFERENT HOBBY because that's not selfish at all, is it?

 

[The Madman]

It's just the easiest way to get people into the game though. Directions require so much more extra voice-acting etc. to become good, and after that I can imagine people becoming very frustrated and snapping the game if they spend an hour looking for random cave 7 or old forest ruin 28 with a set of poorly written directions.

Like I said, I'm fine with having quest markers as an optional feature that can be turned on or off. The reason for the hate tends to come when they are the 'only' option for those, like myself, who enjoy exploring.

Dishonored did a good job of making them option for example. You could complete the game without easily enough and the entire 'follow the beating of the heart' to find the bonus things was a cool added mechanic. Skyrim on the other hand did a terrible job since on turning off quest markers, you'll quickly discover there are no other means given to find your objective. That can be annoying!

 

[shrekfan246]

Quest markers take away any sense of exploration. You're not wandering an alien landscape, you're just following the pointy arrow like a good little boy or girl. And while it's easy to say "Just turn them off" that's not really an answer since in a good chunk of games which use quest markers, Skyrim for example, the quest marker is the only way to know where to go as the developers never actually gave the players any real directions.

I'll admit that I've been conditioned after five and a half years of playing World of Warcraft, but personally I don't usually bother reading or listening to the boring drivel quest givers spout out at me when I'm rounding up all of the available quests in a town before going out for some dungeon diving. Having that information in the game is nice, yes, but it also tends to grind the pacing down to a complete halt, and in a game already as slow as Skyrim I'm not sure it's really beneficial. Alternatively...

Ideally if a game has both means of playing implemented then I have no problem with optional quest markers for those less interesting in exploration. But it often isn't, leaving 'follow the shiny arrow' as the only option for actually completing a quest short of random guesswork.

I've been playing through Bioshock 2 a second time lately without the little quest arrow this time around, and I have to admit that I am spending more time wandering back and forth around the hallways, and it's a cool little experience. But that's mostly because the actual level design has been made in such a way that there's eventually only one path you can take to move forward, and comparative to an open-world RPG the world in Bioshock is absolutely tiny. If one were to ask for meticulous details in text form for directions in, again, Skyrim, the in-game map would've had to have been immensely more detailed to supplement the number of times the player would need to check it again just to remind themselves of nearby landmarks, or ones close to their destination, because the actual landscape of Skyrim was largely unremarkable.

Now, I don't mind quest arrows myself, but I don't think Skyrim is really a good example as to why they're bad. At least, not without also using it as an example of poor world-building in video games, which is another discussion entirely. Sorry, that tangent isn't really directed at you, person-I-quoted, simply leaping off from a point that I see brought up fairly often in these conversations.

OT: I can take or leave actual quest arrows that orient you on the in-game HUD, but if there's a mini-map or in-game map, then I like to have indicators marking the place I'm supposed to go. Be it a location, quest-giver, secret, enemy, etc. I like to see it show up, because otherwise I don't really see the point of having the map in the first place.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

For me, it's because it ruins the sense of exploration and the satisfaction gained from finding a place with some effort. For example, in Morrowind, they'd give you general directions to get you headed in the right place, tell you specific landmarks to look out for and the rest is up to you. It actually made you feel like you were searching for something, and it felt more rewarding to find it.

Quest markers are just far too hand-heldy.

Edit: It was also a MASSIVE problem for me with Far Cry 3. You had to search for nothing. Every little thing was marked on the map. Thankfully mods addressed that bullshit, but it's a trend I'm not liking with open world games these days. You can simplify it without treating everyone as lazy morons.

 

[The Madman]

I'll admit that I've been conditioned after five and a half years of playing World of Warcraft, but personally I don't usually bother reading or listening to the boring drivel quest givers spout out at me when I'm rounding up all of the available quests in a town before going out for some dungeon diving. Having that information in the game is nice, yes, but it also tends to grind the pacing down to a complete halt, and in a game already as slow as Skyrim I'm not sure it's really beneficial. Alternatively...

When did they add quest markers in World of Warcraft? I don't remember that being a feature when I played the game. But then I'm also part of the apparently tiny minority that actually did read the quest text and indeed even enjoyed doing so to the extent I got the loremaster achievement on my main character.

Regardless again I'm not advocating for the removal of quest markers entirely. Far from it. I would just prefer that if a developer is going to make them optional, then make them genuinely optional by including other means of finding your objective. As I mention in another reply I thought Dishonored did that pretty well with the whole 'beating of the heart' mechanic. It's just incredibly annoying for someone like myself to turn off the quest markers only to discover that they're actually integral to the experience and the devs were just lying about being able to complete the game without.

 

[shrekfan246]

I'll admit that I've been conditioned after five and a half years of playing World of Warcraft, but personally I don't usually bother reading or listening to the boring drivel quest givers spout out at me when I'm rounding up all of the available quests in a town before going out for some dungeon diving. Having that information in the game is nice, yes, but it also tends to grind the pacing down to a complete halt, and in a game already as slow as Skyrim I'm not sure it's really beneficial. Alternatively...

When did they add quest markers in World of Warcraft? I don't remember that being a feature when I played the game. But then I'm also part of the apparently tiny minority that actually did read the quest text and indeed even enjoyed doing so to the extent I got the loremaster achievement on my main character.

I did, for a while.

But once you've gotten Loremaster and leveled four or five other characters through the same zones, it all starts to blur together.

And I think sometime in Cata or Mists quest markers were added to the default UI, though I believe they only showed up while you had your map open. Mods had the functionality for the longest time before that, of course.

Regardless again I'm not advocating for the removal of quest markers entirely. Far from it. I would just prefer that if a developer is going to make them optional, then make them genuinely optional by including other means of finding your objective. As I mention in another reply I thought Dishonored did that pretty well with the whole 'beating of the heart' mechanic. It's just incredibly annoying for someone like myself to turn off the quest markers only to discover that they're actually integral to the experience and the devs were just lying about being able to complete the game without.

I agree. I think it's much more challenging for an open-world game, but I do think they should strive all the same. For games like Bioshock, Dishonored, or Deus Ex: Human Revolution, it comes more down to simply having good level design, which is part of the reason I like those games so much. For an open-world or larger-scale game, they have to really flesh out the lore and... well, I'm cynical enough to not have that much faith in most of the writers currently in the video game industry.

 

[Catfood220]

Quest markers take away any sense of exploration. You're not wandering an alien landscape, you're just following the pointy arrow like a good little boy or girl.

Ok, I see your point but I'm going to disagree with you. I think they are kind of necessary in games like Fallout 3 where more or less everything is grey/brown and the quest giver goes, "its over there" then you do need a guide as to where to go. Plus I think there are many many people out there that will still set out on a mission, start walking toward the marker and go "hey, there is a house over there, I wonder what that's all about". The quest marker is a guide as to where the story wants me next, it does not stop me exploring.

 

[The Madman]

Ok, I see your point but I'm going to disagree with you. I think they are kind of necessary in games like Fallout 3 where more or less everything is grey/brown and the quest giver goes, "its over there" then you do need a guide as to where to go. Plus I think there are many many people out there that will still set out on a mission, start walking toward the marker and go "hey, there is a house over there, I wonder what that's all about". The quest marker is a guide as to where the story wants me next, it does not stop me exploring.

Perhaps, but it does take away some of the charm or immersion. You're no longer exploring and actively searching the environment for visual clues that would guide you towards your objective (Take a left at the bent tree and follow the trail of daffodils to the heart shaped rock, then turn east!), instead you're proceeding in a straight line where the little arrow tells you to go while occasionally getting distracted along the way. Not really the same thing.

Meanwhile if the major reason for needing quest markers is because the world is so samey that directions like that are difficult... well I'm inclined to think that's more a problem with the art and level design than a point in favor of quest markers.

In any case having the option to go without is just my preference. I certainly don't mind quest markers existing, I just prefer that they're optional and when the developers say they're option, they mean it in that there are other ways of finding you objectives without.

But once you've gotten Loremaster and leveled four or five other characters through the same zones, it all starts to blur together.

I know the feeling, but then that's also exactly why I quit playing. Endgame content has never really been my thing especially without friends to enjoy it with, seeing as most of them were quitting around the same time as I did.

That was also a few years ago however. Wouldn't mind going back and playing wow again sometime, I just don't have the free time for it right now.

 

[DementedSheep]

The problem with turning the markers off is you can't if the game isn't built around doing quest without markers because npc don't give you proper directions and its not always clear what your goal has changed to. Hell in skyrim a lot of the quest gives don't even give you the name of where you are suppose to go because it's random. I like having to explore and follow directions though it can frustrating. Quest maker can be nice but tend to make quest feel samey (got to marker, pick up thing or kill thing and maybe pull a lever on the way). I'd rather then didn't point directly to what you're suppose to be doing rather than the general area and didn't point to how to get past every obstacle.

 

[xshadowscreamx]

I would have really liked a golden crumb trail in the witcher 2.
So yeah decent quest marker for games like witcher 2 would be great, where it's an RPG but not actually open world. F**k that dwarven town.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Personally, I tend to disregard quest markers. They get in the way of actually exploring the world, and while it is handy to have on occasion when searching for the quest giver, designing a game in such a way that the player is essentially forced to use them makes them very annoying. For all my love of Bethesda games, especially Oblivion and Fallout 3, one thing that I can't stand about their more recent titles is that you can't really turn quest arrows or markers off without having no hope of being able to navigate the world to find your objective. As a result, it hinders the spirit of exploration rather than encourages it, and in an open-world game based around exploring the world, that's very poor design.

Now, I don't think quest arrows are the worst things in gaming. I even keep them on at times, and there are times where a game doesn't have them and I wish they were there. Really, it should just be an option, both from a technical and design perspective. In other words, having the option to turn it off isn't enough, but the game has to be designed in such a way that you don't have to rely on them to find your objective.

The quest marker is a guide as to where the story wants me next, it does not stop me exploring.

While it doesn't completely stop exploration, I will say that I find it harder to bring myself to explore when I'm following a quest marker. Essentially, the game is telling me to do something, and explore isn't one of them. I also went out there with the intention of completing the quest, and I may not feel like moving away from my dead-set goal at the time. Ultimately, some of us just don't operate in a way that leads us to go exploring random house X when we're off trying to complete an objective.

Ultimately, if a game wants people to explore its world, it should work that exploration into the actual design. In that case, even someone who tends to follow objectives rather than randomly explore can still get the sense of exploration while trying to find and complete objectives.

 

[Roxas1359]

I don't hate quest markers, but there are two instances in which I hate them.
The first one is when the game's quest glitches and starts putting the wrong quest marker at the wrong location, or when it prevents me from completing the quest entirely. This was a huge problem in Skyrim in which I had 3 glitched quests that I couldn't complete and it helped me to put Skyrim down for good and never want to play it again.

The second instance is when the game starts nagging for you to go to the quest marker because you are taking too long according to it. I hate it when that happens.

 

[synobal]

Quest markers take away any sense of exploration. You're not wandering an alien landscape, you're just following the pointy arrow like a good little boy or girl. And while it's easy to say "Just turn them off" that's not really an answer since in a good chunk of games which use quest markers, Skyrim for example, the quest marker is the only way to know where to go as the developers never actually gave the players any real directions.

Ideally if a game has both means of playing implemented then I have no problem with optional quest markers for those less interesting in exploration. But it often isn't, leaving 'follow the shiny arrow' as the only option for actually completing a quest short of random guesswork.

Thank you for explaining this. Also this is why I have the immerse hud mod, and the better quest objectives mod. Both are pretty much essential if I want to explore skyrim with out feeling like I'm running from quest objective to quest objective.

 

[Savagezion]

Similarly in Skyrim, turning off your compass and just using the map to orient yourself is pretty fun at times.

Problem is in Skyrim, if you do that the game doesn't tell you where to go. You're lucky if they say something like "in a cave west of here". Forget that there are only about 100 of those full of crap. And like I said you are lucky if they even tell you that much. The quest marker cannot be simply turned off and all is well.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Why do we dislike the work of five year olds made for five years olds? Because that isn't how we wanted to play the bloody game, and why these designs persist in games supposedly for adults is beyond me.

And for most designers this instantly means putting zero effort into world orientation, they won't bother with any sort of flow to the map, no distinctive features you could remember and quests will have fuck all direction or logic to them.
All this adds up to no one ever taking in the world or caring because there was no sense to be made from any of it, not to mention you then just coast through the game one dot at a time like a mindless monkey.