If the game feels like you are constantly playing a tutorial...then it is definitely hand-holding...I′ll let you make your own judgement about whether Skyrim does this, but I think some people have valid points in regards to this...

Hmm, i guess you'd classify a dungeon crawler as an action adventure??

I don't really know. I don't pay much attention to genres

But since that is pretty much the only thing you can do in Skyrim, that's what i call it

I do, just not a very good one when it comes to choice and consequence. I made this point on another thread but think it applies here.

• "RPG's should give you freedom and more importantly the freedom to choose. After you choose there should be consequences for you action, if there are no consequences then what is the point? All you have is the illusion of choice. Choosing a side has no baring in the game as is defeating Alduin. That's why I've started to make up my own quests, keep an journal and posting them online. That way I make my own choices and consequences".

Great response people, a few last things:

Here's how you play without quest markers: Take a quick look at the general.location. of your target by going I to the quest screen and selecting 'show on map'. Don't switch markers on, just explore the area it vaguely points to - now you have an X marks the spot style map.

You DON'T have to have compass markers or floating markers on. ALL the compass will show is enemy blips and NESW.

Well, i'd say it' pretty poor RPG when you have to do that.

But the way i see it is that if i want choices and conseqences i go for BioWare (yes, even after DA2 and ME3 ), for freedom i go for Bethesda. If i want both, i go to Nexus

I agree in a sense, but I get to do role play part. Not may games can let you do that.

I agree with all of the above, but slightly disagree with the quest arrow, yes you can turn this off and yes you do not get enough details in the quest description. But you get the clarvoyence (sp) spell, so my mage uses this to gain any extra directions that the description does not give. No not ideal for any other build but a sort of work around for mages.

You can explore as your are heading toward the arrow. Louis & Clark were exploring while heading in to a specific destination. The west coast. There was a map arrow on the west coast. John Speke was exploring the Nile for it's source. There was a map arrow on the Nile Source, (metaphorically) he discovered Lake Victoria, which is NOT the source of the Nile, but an Important discovery.. You discover things by exploring in the right direction. The map arrow just shows the right direction to explore.

Following the map pointer does not contradict exploration, or the feeling of wonder associated with discovery.

"Hand Holding" seems to have a negative connotation in your post. All of the things you are calling "hand holding", are things that make the game fun for me. It wouldn't be fun, if I didn't know where to go, it would be frustrating. It wouldn't be fun if I couldn't tell if I was undetected, it would be frustrating. Without all of the things you mentioned, I'd find the game frustrating, and not fun.

If the game is too easy for you, that's your fault for playing it.

Why even buy an open-world game if you need to be told exactly where to go all the time? Same goes for people who find the game unbearable without fast-travel. If you just want to get straight to the action constantly, without any walking around, exploration, self discovery, etc. then you've really bought the wrong type of game.

I guess this is what happens when a games company tries to appeal to too big an audience. People who don't really like open-world RPGs (even though they may think they do) buy the game, then treat it like a story-driven action-adventure game.

I loved that quest! Unfortunately, when I got the quest something glitched and I did not get a chance to study my lines, so when it came time to pick the correct line to read, I had to do it based on my limited knowledge of TES lore and which line seemed to make the most sense in response to what the other actor had just said. It was great fun, but as you can imagine I only got about half of the lines right.

I get what you are saying. Outside of combat situations, I don't often feel too challenged in Skyrim, although playing without HUD and relying on geographical features and occassional map checks to navigate the land helps.

This is basically how I play, and it is more fun for me that way. However, I go one step further and turn off the HUD because even if you turn quest markers and floating quest markers off, the compass will still show icons for locations you have not discovered yet. If there is a something nearby that I have not discovered, I prefer to discover it myself, not be pointed to it by a magical compass icon. And as you pointed out, the compass also shows the red dots or "enemy blips." Really wish you could turn off the compass, all the compass icons and blips, and sneak crosshair independantly in the Options menu, so folks on console could fine tune their HUD. Better yet would be to also add some in game directions for where you are supposed to go.

Outside of the Daedra Quests, I cannot give you any examples. Closest I can think of is two misc quests for Rifton where the quests failed when a dragon attacked outside of town and killed people who were not tagged essential but who were necessary for the quest. In neither case did I accidently finish them off. It was all the dragons's doing, and I was actually pleasantly surprised when I received a Morrowind style message that the two quests just failed cause folks had died. That's only happened to me the one time though. Hasn't happened since.

I don't see it as hand holding, but as a helping hand for those who are new to the game/series, put your-self in their shoes, you are given a quest told to go to X but you have no idea where X is or even how to get there, the markers on the compass guide you in the right direction. If there was no " helping hand" then all those who bought the game who were not familiar with how it runs or how to play wouldn't even make it past Riverwood before turning the game off. To all you elitists who cannot understand this think of it like this, go buy Halo and play on-line team slayer without a radar, and see how long the game lasts before you think it's dumb because of seasoned vets of the game like myself are more than capable of tracking you down without the need of a radar. I am not on the Halo forums preaching that everyone should play without a radar, it's purely up to oneself to decide when they are ready to play that way, and for all you so called TES elitists if you where actually a wiser TES guru you would understand that and would except that not everyone is as " hard core" as you and would give HELPFUL advice instead of the condescending overtone that tends to fill the topics of game play/playstyle.

Skyrim isn't an online game. You don't have real players that you need to "get an advantage over". It's just NPC opponents. If you spend hundreds of hours playing Halo then you get better. As long as you have a good internet connection and a PC that can run the game smoothly (and you don't just svck at FPS), you get better. So what is wrong with an RPG where you actually have to figure crap out instead of being led around like a mule with a carrot on a string? Nothing. Nothing is wrong with having to use the old brain to find stuff or figure it out on your own. If you can't and you feel stuck, well that's what online hints are for I guess. Consider yourself lucky - in the days of Daggerfall and Kings quest, DM2:Legend of Skullkeep, no one or few people had access to internet to look up hints. Now it will take you all of 5 seconds to find something with google.

It would be more appropriate to compare it to Halo on Campaign mode. Is it really hard to play Halo on Campaign mode with no radar? No, not really. I barely even looked at the radar until I got online and played against human opponents. So, sorry, no; you don't really need "an edge" over NPCs. AI isn't that evolved yet. All NPCs have is surprise and brute force/zerg rush to their advantage. I see some of the same people complaining that the game is too easy on the Hardest difficulty and they have already used a cheat code or a game exploit. Why not challenge yourself a little and play with no radar? There is no radar or GPS in a fantasy setting unless you have some kind of magical clairvoyance. TES characters don't walk around with a "Pip Boy" attached to their arm...

I remember Zelda on Nintendo, the last part with the invisible bridge took me forever to figure out until I watched Indiana Jones and the last crusade on TV and saw his invisible bridge.There was NO "hand holding" in Zelda, I had to use my noodle to figure it out but my point is that by using the radar you are not letting the game "lead you by the noise", you are letting the game point you in the right direction. By calling it "hand holding" or "dumbed down" you are in turn making those who 1: have no choice but use it or not and cannot turn off aspects of the HUD(ie console players) or 2: Newbie to TES who have next to no idea as to what their supposed to be doing feel rather " dumb" IMO, that's how it makes me feel when I read some(not all) of the comments on the subject of RPing or hand holding.
My point with Halo was that to look at me and say that by sneaking a peak at my compass to get a lead as to where those arrows are coming from is in any way cheating or letting the game lead me is just like saying the same thing of Halo.But you CAN play Halo without a radar but the ones who do are either new to the game or are still working on their technique and need a "helping hand" they are not dumbing the game down and the game is not holding their hand, they are just playing the game. This is why the option to turn it off is in the option menu, for those who need/expect a challenge can do it them selves but by saying that someone is playing the game wrong or that the game is holding their hand is just plain mean, it should be put: 'helping hand" or " I like to play......" not "the game is holding your hand" or " by useing the HUD you are not really RPing" ( just examples not direct quotes)
I like to play with the HUD cause I'm rather picky about where I land my arrows, and by turning off the HUD I lose a lot of my accuracy and I find it quite hard to pick things up off of a cluttered table. I also don't like relying on visual ques for when my health is low, I need to be able to track how much damage I'm taking but I do like to turn off the music, IMO it puts you there in the woods and I don't like extra heads up you get from the music when something/someone is trying to attack you.

Question: If I voice my complaints that features such as a gps compass with enemy radar detector should be an optional feature that can easily be turned off by anyone because forcing people to use such "helping hands" is unnecessary and making it optional will make a better game, is that less derogatory than calling such features "hand holding"? I just want a term that quickly describes the isssue so folks will know what I am talking about without me having to use 100 words to explain it and without being derogatory.

Also, the condescending attitude we see on this forum is not limited to "hardcoe elitists." A lot of folks who like the game just the way it is and many folks in between are just as guilty of copping a bad attitude here. We should all work on cleaning up our act.

ummm /go away


Good job ViolentRiC you have provided detailed and sense making points! I rarely see such things on the internet...

edit - i dot care much for the "skyrim is dumbed down/hand holding argument" who cares anyway Wasteland 2 is coming out in a year or two, now thats an rpg..

You have actually just identified one of the biggest problems with Skyrim that has led to complaints that Skyrim lends too much of a helping hand to players. The game does not give you enough clues "where X is" for anyone to be able to find it without resorting to quest markers at least a little (either through peeking at the map with quest markers turned on or clairvoyance). They should have in-game directions AND optional quest markers (with an optional compass, so you can turn off the red dots and icons). That would be a big improvement in the game for everyone.

But it's not an issue, you are making it out to be one.I run around all day in Skyrim with my HUD on and I don't even look at it, there-for, if I'm not noticing it then it's not a big deal, if I could turn everything but the cross hairs I would be happy but I can't so I don't. If you choose to play without a HUD then good for you,it's your game, but others might like the idea of a HUD and that's honkydory too. Try placing a sentence like " I like to play....." in-front with out a HUD not " the game holds you hand by giving you a HUD" and most will see your point. I have absorbed a lot of great ideas on how to make my game experience that much better, but most of which was worded so I didn't feel wrong or dumb in any way by playing the way I do. I try as best as I can to see everyone's point but once I feel that my choice of play style is being harped on then I get a bit defensive and I do agree there is a bit of "bad attitude" floating around but a lot of it I think comes from how people decide to word things not so much that they have a bad attitude( there are some though).
I'm sure I come off like an a$$hole sometimes but I can guarantee that I don't mean to, and I can take criticism as long as it's presented the right way.

I'm glad that you can run around in Skyrim with the HUD turned on without noticing it because that means you are enjoying your game, which is good. But, lots of folks cannot just ignore something that is prominently displayed in the center of the screen.

Just because it is not an issue for you, does not mean it is not an issue for plenty of other folks.

The dungeons are greatly simplified to the point where they are almost always linear. Daggerfall took complexity too far, Ill admit. Morrowind was about right. Oblivion was ok. Skyrim is too simple.

I get your point, and it works well with someone with experience in the TES and yes I do agree that the HUD options could have been better, if I could turn off all but the cross hairs then I would be happy but the only ones that have the option are on PC and that's with mods. But it's there for the new guy who needs help getting a grasp of things and to tell the truth I used it at the start until I got the lay of the land and once I got the hang of that, the HUD was useless for direction I used it for updates on health and stamina.