I love Skyrim.
I cannot remember the last time where I spend 100+ hours on a video game being that absorbed. However, there are 3 basic interface issues of Skyrim where I constantly lose lots of time that I rather would like to spend playing instead of wrestling with the interface. Because these interface problems should be pretty easy to solve, here my humble request for 3 time savers:

Ingredients info
Problem: I often stumble over an ingredient (like a flower or a plant) where I do not know if it is worth picking it up and carrying it with me. I ask myself: How many items of this ingredient do I already have? What is the use of this ingredient?

Hassle: To answer these questions, I currently have to open the inventory and search this ingredient in the inventory, losing precious playing time.

Solution: Whenever an ingredient appears in the main world, please do not only show its name but also the number of items of this ingredient that are already stored in the inventory and the known purposes of this ingredient. This basic info could appear similar besides the ingredient name as it is does in the inventory.

Quest navigation
Problem: I like to play Skyrim in a realistic fashion, so I’m trying to find the shortest routes to solve Quests, as I would do in real world. In other words: I'm trying to avoid going zig-zag all over the country, instead I am trying find regionally linked Quests to pick a smart travel route.

Hassle: To answer this problem, I currently have to open *each quest* to let me show its position on the map, trying to find matching quests, estimating distances manually, losing precious playing time.

Solution: People using a car navigation system know how POIs (points of interest) are visualized and sorted. In Skyrim, the Quests are POIs. Accordingly as a navigation system does, as part of the Quest window, please also show the Direction (an arrow) and the Distance (a value) of a Quest if its position is known. This would make it much easier to find regionally linked quests. Even better -as in a navigation system-: All Quests could appear sorted after distance, with the Quest closest to your actual position first and the Quest most distant to your position last.

PS3 favorites menu
Problem: The biggest remaining problem for PS3 players is the vertical PS3 favorites menu: All favorites - Shouts, Spells, Weapons, Clothing and Potions - appear together in one vertical mess. Therefore, for each hour of superb gameplay you also spend minutes wrestling in the favorite menu to find and select things.

Hassle: For example, the shout “Aura Whisper” appears at the top of the favorite menu, while the shout “Unrelenting Force" appears at the bottom of the list. With dozens of other, unrelated favorites between them, switching just two shouts in a dungeon is a pain, and people are losing precious playing time.

Solution: On the PS3, please split the one vertical favorites list into several favorites lists, like Shouts, Spells, Weapons, Clothing and Potions To switch between these vertical favorite lists, use the left/right arrow button. These two buttons currently can be assigned only to a humble 2-favorite-selection, but this does not help much where people have dozens of favorites. Sacrificing this very limited 2-favorite-selection to build a new, useful favorites menu could mean the biggest time saver for PS3 players.

At last, please excuse my limited English, I am not a native English speaker.

I can help you with Number 2.

Just activate all your quests, or the ones you want to do, and all the map markers will be on the map and you can plan out your path.

As for number 1, ingredients don't weigh that much. I can't collect more than 20 pounds of them in any extended quest trip. So, just pick them all up. You may not use them for a potion that you need, but you can always practice with them to buff up your Alchemy skill.

I'd find it helpful to have the spells I already know indicated in some way, e.g., different color, when I'm buying spell books.

Interesting. That's exactly how I do it. Without fast traveling, finding the fastest route saves time. Turning them on and looking at their locations on the map works really well for that.

For number 2, he already said that is what he has to do. He said he has to open all the quests, go to the map, and figure out what is closest manually. While I agree that it does work just fine his idea wouldn't hurt either. I'd like to be able to at least sort by whatever hold the quest is in, for a general idea.

For number 1 though, I got to agree with you. I force my characters to start with 100 carry weight, so depending on my gear I am between 50 Encumbrance and 80 Encumbrance. I've never maxed my carry weight from JUST ingredients. Besides, if you are an alchemist you can always find a use for an ingredient, even if it just goes into a potion to sell. A little more info wouldn't hurt though.

For number 3, I agree, that's why I have the Categorized Favorites mod on PC.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Ingredients info

Ingredients don't weigh that much. I can't collect more than 20 pounds of them in any extended quest trip. So, just pick them all up.

Unfortunately, this don't work for me, especially not with heavier Ingredients like troll fat. I do not want to leave good things behind because of too many Ingredients. I usually cannot even sell all unneeded potions to the poor merchants, so I often find myself dumping potions to be able to pick up goods from dungeons. Therefore, I really would like to pick up ONLY the Ingredients where my supply is weak and where I need them for my favorite potions. For this, I need to know the item count and the item purpose. Because the engine already can show it in the inventory, I think it should be easy to show it in the world or looting window as well besides the Ingredients' name.

Quest navigation

Just activate all your quests, or the ones you want to do, and all the map markers will be on the map and you can plan out your path.

Thanks, this is really good advice. However, I still find it clumsy having to activate and deactivate all quests to plan routes. I still would appreciate if Quests could at least be sorted on distance, for being able to simply pick the closest one with just one click.

PS3 favorites menu

For number 3, I agree, that's why I have the Categorized Favorites mod on PC.

Unfortunately, modding is not possible on PS3, and just everybody suffers from "favorites menu mess". If I had to pick only one life/timer saver on PS3, categorized favorites would be the one. Just imagine how the inventory would be without categories and with no mouse support to feel the PS3 peoples' pain. Please developers, hear our prayers.

I think the favorites menu is abysmal. But the worst is actually how broken the hotkeys are in general.

I want only one direction to take me to the favorite menu and the rest to be hotkeyed items. So all other d-pad directions are hotkeys again.

You can pretty easily add some logic about which hand is affected first, based on what is equipped and if the object is an aggresive piece and even what the players skills are perked out in. So players with dual wielding perks might prefer equipping a weapon in both hands, but someone whose blocking tree is more filled would prefer rotating weapons.

But this is especially needed for mages. The favorites menu has its place but it breaks the combat too much. I like the excitement of getting to switch spells on the fly. Two hotkeys (that don't even work most of the time) are not enough.

Number 3, please!

1. I pick up everything and dump it in the ingredients satchel on the alchemy table. later whenever I want to make some potion, I know I either have it or not. later on, it makes it easy to recognize some ingredients that I probably won't need or already have a lot of. I have 700 chaurus eggs at home, do I need another 200? The answer is usually yes.

2. i have no problem travelling inefficiently and long distances because I fast travel. it's okay to do one thing in markarth and doing the next thing in windhelm. it doesn't bother me at all.

3. you have too many favorites selected. Try paring it down to 5 or 10. Do you really need 50 favorite things? Deselect it if you don't use it in every battle.