I'll start of by saying a few things about how I play. I do not use fast travel, except for carriages, and I HAVE turned off my compass and floating quest markers.

The game was not designed to play like this though. I recently received a quest to find out some missing information about this guys family. That's it, that was all I was told, did I get any leads? The slightest bit of information on where to start? No, all I got was a precisely placed marker on my map. What the hell? Sure I could run around until I do find something, and that's great, but what about these other quest.

"Go give this to my brother"

I get no info on who, or where he is, just a damn mark on the map. How am I supposed to do this without the compass markers? I can't ask anyone, there is no info provide in the game.

This has completely removed any sense of exploration and adventure. Honestly when was the last time you got lost in Skyrim?

I can go on about the dumbing down of this game in so many different areas, but this is simply the one that changes too much in my book.

This was the core of my experience in Morrowind. Following direction, it may not sound all that great, but it's what immersed me. The Morag Tong quests for example, being given these completely believable direction. "I should first head to the Erabenimsun Camp and then go northwest until I reach a steampit. Zaintirari is north of the steampit, but hidden from view". I loved following these direction to a yurt in the middle of no where, I'd have to plan my trips, what stilt striders to take, make sure I had the supplies to make it, but not too much, as to travel light enough to make it there quickly.

Like I said, I can look past most of the other changes in Skyrim, but to me this is really a game changer. It's a damn shame too, Skyrim is beautiful, and I want to get lost in it.

Pretend he said the location and you can look at your map in a town or small outpost.

Or complain. That works too.

Jk^^ I agree somewhat with you, but this features insnt as seriously needed than many others. Heck it isn't really needed at all.

That doesn't mean it wouldn't be bad if it was in game.

You should have been around in Morrowind. No compass, no floating map markers and detailed in game directions designed to lead astray rather than get you to the destination.

Certain quests are like this unfortunately. If you are trying to be as hardcoe as possible, it could be impossible to find the place where you're supposed to go. Some quests, though, do give some pretty good detail as to where you're supposed to go and stuff, without being too hand-holdy.

That being said, I do still get lost in Skyrim. All the time. I had a character who was only using the brown map (the paper one that comes with the game), try that and see if you're not getting lost every 5 minutes. I would use the in-game map (the 3D World Map) to initially chart my destination (with quest marker on) on the paper map with a pencil, but once I charted it, I did not look at the 3D map again.

In other words, I now have my location charted on the paper map, and am using the paper map only to actually try to arrive at the location. Is my marker correct? Is it incorrect? I won't know 'til I'm out there!

I think that's one of the most roleplayish things Beth provided for us, that paper map. And nobody seems to "get" why it's included in the game. It's for us to use. A medieval traveler did not have GPS.

Thats for sure. And yet, we managed to get around alright.

I hate how they've designed the game around markers and other forms of hand-holding. Oblivion was pretty bad for it, but Skyrim seems so much worse. There are even markers for enemies and floating markers within the actual gameworld now! You can turn off the HUD, but as you've rightly pointed out, it becomes very apparent that they've designed most quests under the assumption that the player will be following markers from A to B then back to A again.

It's such a shame because they put so much time crafting a beautiful gameworld by hand. To then completely destroy the sense of immersion, exploration, discovery, etc. with markers and other hand-holding features is such an incredibly detrimental thing to do.

On the same thinking - can you remove the crosshairs? And if so, what is it like to use magic and archery without it?

You can reduce the HUD opacity to where you can't see, or barely see, the crosshairs. I could not do it, but others have and they say that once they get used to it, it goes OK.

I've encountered this exact same issue.

As much as I dislike it, I must admit it hasn't affected my gameplay a great deal since I started to just explore the world in roleplay-mode. (If only because I mostly avoid NPCs and quests for other reasons - voiced dialogue, poor writing, et al.)

It does still cheapen the whole atmosphere of the gameworld, though. It feels... dumb. Like Skyrim is a moronic buffoon I'm just trying to get along with, where Morrowind was a familiar, witty friend with a sense of humour.

Needs a Morrowind text dialogue mod!

Strange, they alway tell me whom and where, or they say give me your map and I'll mark the location.

I do the opposite in regards to the compaass / map, I tag all my quests active including miscellaneous so I have a pletherer of markes on the map, thus confusing the hell out of me, but as I wander, I slowly but surely work my way through quests, returning items, colecting etc... as for fast travel, I just gave that up as I found a great portable campfire mod

If you're a fighter, I would reccommend never picking Health when levelling up, only Stamina. If you feel you've too much stamina, waste some picks in Magicka if you're not using many spells anyway, it's a good XP sink to stop you becoming too powerful.

Don't wear any enchanted armour / clothes nor use enchanted weapons (that require charge.) A lot of the other suggestions here are also good, especially regarding limiting perc picks, if I wanted it on a truly hard setting, I would not pick any skill percs at all.

Done and done. I play primarily as an archer, but I really like having no crosshair, (Though mainly because running around with it in the center of the screen totally killed the scenery) it's nice because I now occasionally miss, as in the heat of combat I can only really know the general area at which my arrow will hit. It's also cool because I'm not this amazing archer that never misses, as I'd imagine one might do so when running around and shooting a bow. It also caused me to use a bit more arrows, which means I have to spend a bit more money stocking up at town, though arrows are still far too easy to come by, I'm never at a shortage even when running around in the wilderness for a few days.

Doing the same on my current character, and quite enjoying the (less-accurate) archery. Can still hit things every time when I have time to aim, which feels about right.