Just don't select any of your quests in the journal, would that not work for you?

Sorry I disagree, the quest always tells you at least which city or hold, without the quest marker highlighted, you do not know exactly where in that city. It may just say a person and a place, you could encounter them at their work, on the street or in their home. I feel some people get blindsided by their misgivings.

So what's your point then?. This is no longer about not having the compass, but completely redesigning the game? lol.

100% gauranteed, if the compass was not there, this forum would be filled with lots of hate posts about how difficult and time intensive and frustrating it is to find things, no matter what anyone says about how detailed and well designed the world is.

What we have now is CHOICE, and choice isn't a bad thing. Play with it looking at it at the top of the screen, or simply uncheck it from the quests page everytime a new quest is initiated. It takes all of 1 second of your life to uncheck the arrow, hardly an immersion breaker.

This is such a stupid argument over nothing. But some people will never be happy until Bethesda customises the game for that one person only, and by one I mean the one person such as the OP that posts something and continues to use the word 'we' instead if 'i' *rolls eyes*

This is what the CK is for, don't like it, then knock yourself out and go remove it!

I don't want to sound like drama queen that keeps whining over this feature as if it is the worst thing to happen to the series. I go with the quest arrows, I don't even turn them off, since the game is designed around using them.

It is getting very repetitive however to have to point out that I don't have a choice, some of the time I do (i.e. I can go and find someone in Winterhold without a quest or map marker because I can find Winterhold) but a lot of times it is not possible to find a location without the markers (how am I supposed fo find a dwemer ruin based only on the information of its' name unless I check my map and/or quest markers). Look at the different treasure maps you find in game, now imagine that other quest locations were revealed in a similar way when you receive the quest, with the option of having a marker on your map and compass if you want one, then it is a choice because both options will function and give me the information I need to find my location. In order for there to be a choice, I must have a fighting chance of finding locations, based on other information than the markers, without simply guessing and walking around randomly.

My only arguement with the compass markers is that when you have multiple goals in a quest --for instance gathering a guard's kneecap, two troll kibbles and the Emperor's last half-eaten sweetroll, there are three arrows and it's very easy to go east to get the kneecap, while you're in the mountains after the sweetroll.....

I think you fail to understand the fundamental issue here.
The game is not designed to be used without quest markers, and quite contrary to your claim, many quests simply will not provide you with any directions whatsoever, often not even the name of the dungeon youre supposed to go to.

Secondly, the CK is not available to over 70% of the people that play Skyrim.

Therefore, it would be no more than logical to request a more immersive way of playing the game for the next iteration of the series.
The problem that I and many others like me would like to be solved can be done so quite easily by a shift in the premise when designing the game. Instead of designing it for use of quest markers and then add an options that allows you to turn them off, make a game with good and detailed directions and then add quest markers to them, with the option to turn them off.

No need to obsess over this. If you don't want markers just select a quest you are not currently working on and ignore. I am constantly amazed by how folks can get so hung up on something it is easy to do without.

The compass has its uses. Stick a bit of tape onto your monitor.

Turn the HUD off. No more problem.

Ive played no HUD since 11/11/11 and havent looked back. I once got lost in the mountains of winterhold for 3 hours. You just cant beat that kind of immersion. No HUD is where its at.

The compass and Quest Indicators is definitely handholding but the main problem is that you can't really toggle them off due to the fact that Beth didn't give directions to the NPC's thus you have to relay on markers to find out where the heck you have to go.

I'm pretty sure Christopher Columbus felt the same about his compass, it must've really ruined his explorations and discoveries and also made him feel slightly moronic.

Turning off the HUD is not a solution because the quests don't give enough information. Also, like in Gothic 3, quests are local and don't take you across the landscape for miles on end. Bad quest design is when they send you across the map for no reason but to make you see how big the game is.

Gothic 3 does this well and give you enough information to get an idea of where to go and who to look for, without sending you too far. it's easy enough to use the map to find places in the region and following paths generally doesn't get you lost.

I like it the way it is.

TL;DR?
A more descriptive journal is something that should be in the game but is not. Every quest has far too little information stowed away in the journal. Ideally you should be able to complete the quest just based off the info in the journal as it updates. However that is not possible in Skyrim. You NEED clairvoyance or quest markers to find anything for just about every quest. There should be a choice.

Main post.

The OP has said, many times, that it is not about removing the feature of the quest markers and compass. It also is not a problem that can be solved by just turning the markers off or not selecting them in your journal. You cannot complete quests without being spoon fed the objectives location or how to do stuff. It is about the game not being designed around the feature of quest markers. Having quests being created around the quest markers instead of the quest markers being designed for the quests IS the problem for some of us. If you turn the markers off there is practically zero direction to go from. There are no directions telling you how to get somewhere. All there is, is a greyed out location X somewhere on the map and a update in your journal that says "Go to X and find X."

You can still have the quest markers and compass, but what is wrong with some viable choice in the matter. Seriously try to do 2-3 quests without using quest markers at all. You will then see the problem. Some directions would be good that do not require the quest markers. Quests feel shallow and hollow half the time because the description in them is so barebones. There is not even a reason in the quest description for doing half the quests you do. Just retrieve X item from X location and give it to X person. If the quest was received far back in your game(like say 30 hours prior) you will most likely have no friggin clue as to what the quest is even about. It is a problem. Clairvoyance and quest markers are a poor substitute for a descriptive journal.

Even the whole greyed out locations thing should be optional. Written directions that encourage you to explore and find things are much more rewarding then following some floating quest marker. I know many people prefer the convenience of quest markers but not everyone is like you guys. In fact many people are not. A good majority of us want to have to 'figure out' our quests as if they were a challenge instead of following the arrow to the finish line which imo completely cheapens the experience. However having no information to do so we can only really efficiently complete quests through the use of quest markers and the clairvoyance spell. That is something "WE", as in the people who feel the same as us, do not like. They made a guide for the game. It is not like it would have been that hard for the devs to use the text written for that to beef up the quest stages descriptions in the journals.