I frequently hear people using the phrase 'hand holding' in relation to Skyrim. I dislike it for reasons I'll expand on below, but that itself is not to say that I agree or disagree; I honestly don't know what people are referring to. This is a big problem when people latch on to popular phrases and use them in place of actual descriptions of their criticisms e.g. "Skyrim's problem is it's too streamlined", "I can't stand how dumbed down Skyrim is", or "There's just too much hand holding".

Now I understand that people may wish to streamline their comments (and I don't know if that joke works, because streamline is such a vague term), but it would help if everybody was specific and gave examples. The phrase that causes the most confusion with me personally is 'hand holding'. If it referred to completing quests with the use of the quest marker, I would understand. I can't be this, though, as the quest marker is optional in the vast majority of situations. I recently begain playing Morrowind for the second time (in nine years), and have played the first hour or so of Oblivion (which I will play once I've finished Morrowind) whilst at the same time enjoying my second play through of Skyrim. I still do not understand precisely what is being referred to when people talk of Skyrim having "too much hand holding". All three games share incredibly similar formats, from what I have seen, and I don't know what it is about Skyrim that holds ones hand so much to the point that the phrase has been a staple of most criticism on this board.

So please share your examples here so that we can all be clear on where it held our hands when it shouldn't have. **TL;DR version over** - screw you lazy RPG loving yet somehow text hating bell-ends though, really.

As for the use of phrases like 'hand holding' and 'dumbed down': Let's start with the latter; a poster recently started a topic in which they stated that they in fact meant "both simplified and accessible" when they said that, citing their example, the menu interface is "dumbed down". This is a case where entirely the wrong language is being used - making something more efficient should never be described as 'dumbing it down'. To be 'dumb', something must be lacking something positive or desirable, such as intelligence or additional function. To say something is dumb for lacking complexity where said complexity would be needless complication and poor design is, well, dumb. So long as function is not limited or removed, something is not dumb because it is easy to navigate - that's just a misunderstanding of the word's meaning, I would actually call it 'intelligent design'; function and efficiency.

But even if you get it right and say that the levelling up process is "dumbed down" because the options have been simplified (funcitonality reduced), understand that it is an incredible patronising and conceited term to use. Programming exists only to serve, so dumbed down programming would exist only to serve those who would appreciate a dumb system - not those who appreciate a more basic, simpler, or less option heavy system, you're saying that they are most comfortable with a 'dumb' system. This insults not only those who, for *many* possible reasons, prefer a less advanced system, but those who do not dislike the system we have in this game, regardless of whether or not they enjoyed or even preferred previous systems. One of the biggest problems I have with our resident 'debbie downers' is the arrogance displayed, often accompanied by sarcasm. If you're one of them, I know better than to change your knobish ways, but if you're not - please be aware that this is how you come across when using these terms.

'Hand holding' is possibly more condescending than 'dumbed down'. Who needs their hand held? Small children. If Skyrim is full of hand holding, and many people are happy with Skyrim, then many people are happy with having their hand held. You're saying that everyone who did not have a problem with the game's execution is someone who needs or likes being treated like a small child. Perhaps, like the alluded to poster and his definition of 'dumbed down', you mean something which is not negative at all. If that is the case, don't use language that IS negative. I can't expand on the term, because I don't even really know what people are referring to - the gameplay mechanics are the same as ever; the only difference I can say is the use of quest markers in place of directions, but accurate directions hold one's hand as much as quest markers. It's like using a GPS or memorising someone's directions - unless you're driving around aimlessley, you're 'having your hand held'. As said, I don't play with quest markers and neither should you if you don't like them. In the rare instance that the location is not one which can be known without using the markers, just have a look at the general area it's pointing to, turn them off, and explore the area to find it.

Anyway, rant aside - please list your examples of hand holding.

-RiC

Okay here are a few examples of "hand holding" or whatever you want to call it.

1. Compass icons for things you have not found yet. Why not just explore? Too easy when you know there is a fort/ruin/cave over the horizon because there is an icon on your compass. Oblivion had these too, but the compass was down in the corner and smaller, much easier to ignore than the front and center compass in Skyrim.

2. Red dots on your compass indicating where enemies are. Too easy when you don't have to look around and listen (7.1 sound here) to figure out where your enemies are. These red dots are from Fallout and were not in prior TES games

3. Quest arrows. Do I really need to explain this one? Sure you can turn them off, but the game does not give you directions in the game world to find things. Simple directions like, follow the river east of Whiterun and look for a tall tower straddling the river. Much easier to just follow the quest arrow.

4. Enemy health bars. Would you really know how much health your enemy has left?

5. Sneak eye. This one may be more controversial cause a lot of folks like it, but you can play without it. Much more challenging to listen to NPCs and watch their movemetns to determine whether you are hidden or not.

I am sure others will add to the list. The only thing you can turn off is the quest arrow, but then you don't have adequate in game directions to find things. If you are on a console, you have to go no HUD to be rid of the rest of these "hand holding" features.

Yeah I kind of agree, I saw it happen with WoW back when I was into that kinda thing. You used to have to find quests yourself, but then they added a feature to the map that literally paints you a dotted line to the quest location. Thing is, they text is still enough to find it on your own. In this game I don't really care, it takes long enough to get places without fast travel and I'd rather the wild be more dangerous/filled with creatures than have quest locations harder to find

I was reading an article just this morning on how video games have gotten easier over the years. In some ways that is true as back in the coin op days, games had to be hard so people would keep putting quarters in. SMB is a game anyone who played in the early 80's remembers and that game was hard, plus, if you died, you had to start the level over. This is just an example.

Now, in this game, let's talk about Morrowind. In that game, when you were given a quest, you got some vague, usually misleading, in game directions to a place and that was it. We saw more threads on these boards just asking where some place was. If Hannah had not put up her Whereizit page, the Morrowind CHS would have been a mad house. Now, we have a Map with Markers, and a Compass with a Quest Pointer. Of course, it can be turned off in various ways, but I don't think that is hand holding, just telling me where to go. I still chose how to get there.

I don't see any other evidence of hand holding in this game. I do see how it has gotten easier (though this game is much more of a challenge than Oblivion is). But, all games are getting easier. Heck, even shooters bring you back to life every time you die.

My complaint is not that they introduced quest markers. I am glad they are an option. My complaint is that they did not give us any of those "vague" and sometimes misleading directions that you got with Morrowind.

I have heard that there are too many locations in the game to voice act directions for all of them, but they could have voice acted "Let me write the directions down for you" and then had a bunch of notes NPC's could hand you so folks who like finding stuff through exploration could do so.

My other complaint is that they did not give enough options to customize the HUD. Sure you can do it with a mod but that does not help those who play on a console. And lets face it, the majority of people in this world who play Skyrim are playing on a consoles.

It would be nice to be able to turn off parts and pieces of the HUD. However, I don't see the HUD as hand holding, as I am not as aware of my Environment as I would be if I was actually in the game. I see the HUD as just giving me what I don't get from the environmental cues.

Besides, anyone can turn off the HUD.

Yeah, I know. I play with the HUD turned off, but Bethesda went to all the trouble to make those health/magicka/stamina bars invisible when not needed to reduce screen clutter, which was really cool. It kind of svcks that I am forced to choose between having the GPS compass with enemy radar detecter in the middle of my screen and loosing those awesome status bars they designed. You can turn down the HUD but for me that was just more distracting cause when I wanted to see the status bars I could not see them very well and then the compass kept catching my attention. So I opted to turn it off completely. At least they gave us that option, which we did not have in prior games.

What about treasure maps? A doddle on a bit of paper.

I like the treasure maps, though admittingly I have not tried to find the treasure yet. Kind of like a kid saving up his candy. There aren't that many of them, but I am definately looking forward to some treasure huntin!

I've only found two since having the game since day of release and I've not found the X yet.

For me the most frustrating type of handholding is the lack of consequences for my choices. The quests are designed to be linear. Too many times my dialogue "options" are just one single line ("yes mam", "no sir") which is sad for an RPG. The possibility of failing quests, harder puzzles and more responsibility by changing the story with my choices (a la Witcher) would be signs that the developers trust my level of intelligence, maturity and commitment.

I used to turn the HUD opacity way down, but I got tired of fiddling around "in the dark" with the terribly inaccurate object grabbing system and no way of knowing if I was picking up the right object, so now I just play with the "ShowCompass=0" set in the ini, the "Immersive HUD" that makes your health, etc. only show up when you are damaged or a value is decreased. I also set the opacity to about 40 or so, so I can still read text when I need to, but the stat bars aren't as obtrusive when they come up.

With the other options like turning the mini map off and stuff like that, now most of the time, I am seeing no HUD except in combat. My game interface is just about perfect. I want to get that mod that makes the Quest text more descriptive (Better Quest Objectives) but haven't used it yet since I am taking a minimalist approach to mods atm.

The red dots indicating the number of enemies seems like a good criticism. It would be more "realistic" if you had to actually scout a chamber beforehand in order to know what you're dealing with. It also seems to eliminate the need for the Detect Life spells and scrolls.

The arrow telling you where you are and where the objective is doesn't qualify as handholding. Skyrim is an inhabited place that's been around for a long time. It wouldn't make sense if there weren't any maps detailing exact locations. And one can still explore to their heart's content. I don't see how it makes any difference.

There's an option to turn off HUD if you have a problem with the above...

Just thought of a couple other examples of "hand holding," although some may argue these fall into the category of "dumbing down." I am not sure any of these terms are well defined. How about if I just say "easier"?

Guild advancement is much "easier" in Skyrim than Morrowind.

In Skyrim there are no skill requirements for advancement in the Guilds and no real penalty for getting kicked out of a guild for violating the rules.

In Morrowind, you felt a sense of accomplishment when advancing through the Guilds because you not only had to complete jobs but you also had to have sufficient skills.

They took away the skill requirements in Oblivion, but at least you still had a Guild rank and the quest lines were really long, so by the time you became guildmaster you really felt like you earned it. Plus there were fairly harsh penalties for getting kicked out and if you got kicked out more than a few times, there was no way back into the guild.

I have only completed two guild quest lines in Skyrim, and in neither case did I feel like I had earned the title of guildmaster. Being in a Guild in Skyrim reminds me somewhat of those children's sporting events where they do not keep score. Everyone is an easy winner.

Yep, and I play with no HUD. That does not solve the problem of inadequate in game directions and there are some nasty side effects to turning off the HUD, like you loose your "invisible" status bars and there is no on screen text whatsoever, which can be problematic in certain circumstances.

The red dots were the main reason I wanted the Compass turned off, but I could do without the quest markers there, as well. Having them on the map when I choose to pull it up is good enough for me to find my way there. Now that I have the compass turned off, I have very few complaints about the interface. I wouldn't mind just knowing the direction of "North", et. al., but having all that other stuff bothers me too much.

I just recalled the first time I wanted to turn that compass off. I ran across 2 wanderers in the wilderness; I'd have had no way of knowing they were hostile (vampire and his minion) except for those red dots on the compass. Now common sense alone should have told me to be cautious about 2 people out in the middle of nowhere, so I really didn't need those red dots, but they may have caught me a little off guard if I had failed to see them. After that, I immediately looked for a way to turn the compass off.

Aside from the lack of crosshairs and status bars, I would be all for turning the hud off. I would just pretend that the NPC marked the location on my map and then I'll just look at the map with the marker if I need to. Unfortunately not knowing when I'm going to die, not knowing what I'm picking up, etc is more than I think I could tolerate.

i miss in knights of the nine, where you had to pray at the nine divines shrines, and all the priest gave you was a map. no quest markers. It took me forever to find all of them because the map was a little misleading at times. it was fun though

That was epic.

Yep, that's the problem. I have been playing without crosshair since Oblivion, so that is not an issue for me, but without the screen text telling you what the item is can make picking things up a pain. And no health bar means you have to guess at your health based on how many times you have been hit, etc. I have gotten good enough at that to play the game with no HUD, but it is not ideal.

set "ShowCompass = 0" in SkyrimPrefs.ini
set "Immersive HUD" option on in game prefs
get this mod -> http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11135 (hope Whickus appreciates all this advertising!)
Set your HUD opacity on whatever you want (mine is set to 40-50%)
(oh, and turn your crosshair off, if you so choose)

That should pretty much fix your HUD unless you hate seeing your health/stamina/magicka bars come up when they are used/damaged.

You could put tape over the compass, problem solved.

Um, I am looking in my PS3 system file for something called an "ini" file? Yeah, for PC players, you can fix these problems easily enough, but for console players the choices are HUD or no HUD.

EDIT: That looks like an AWESOME mod. Kudos to Whickus, where did he find the time to do this?

Just wish Bethesda had done some of this stuff in the base game instead of leaving it to the modders to fix for PC users only.

Then again MW also had training that was only limited by your controlling attribute.
It was easy enough to earn enough money to just buy training to meet guild requirements and if you managed your attribute increases on level up well the training limits weren't actually a limit.
I found it was just as easy in MW as in Oblivion or Skyrim to become master of everything and head of all the guilds (except the Great Houses in MW obviously)
Really the limits in MW were self-imposed just like in Oblivion and Skyrim