I have to say I don’t want quest markers either. It dumbs game down and drags player’s attention away from the surrounding world, because all you need to do is just to follow a marker. And this applies to compas as well as to quest marks on a map. I don’t like either of them and I hope it will be like in gothic (plain map…), i.e. not like in the shown version.
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I’ll chime in for those who might like quest markers. I am a fan of having a compass with some kind of indicator if I’m on the right track. This allows a player to get where he’s going and progress the story without fear of being frustrated at getting lost in the woods. I think it’s essential to make the compass and quest markers optional so those who want to play hardcore can easily switch those features off.
i forgot that. i wish to take everything off, probabaly will not even use map. for true immersion
I didn’t have any real issues in Skyrim and Fallout NV (hundreds of hours in each). Though if there was something I couldn’t find I simply activated the quest to see the markers on the map. I didn’t find that too bad, though a little ‘hand-holdy’ for some quests, mostly it made sense that someone would have been able to mark the location on the map.
Generally speaking I found that the quests did give some description as to where you needed to go (usually the name of the place) but even when not, as said you still have the map markers to fall back on. This is a completely different experience to having a large compass on the HUD with markers displayed on it at all times.
In Skyrim and Fallout NV I have my compass set to a hotkey (barely ever use it) and have disabled the player location on the map (both via mods). This works pretty well for me. Any frustration can be instantly alleviated by looking at the map markers, whilst giving (IMO) a much, much better feeling of immersion and satisfaction from your general first person view.
I guess what I’m saying is that I’m OK with map markers (for the most part), but I don’t want anything on screen (HUD), either via a compass or AR…
Pretty sure Warhorse have confirmed that there will be no AR style over head icons (for quest NPCs), so hopefully they ‘get it.’ I’m not a fan of the compass though!
I think skyrim was an “experiment” to see if people can enjoy TESO which become a catch the arrow game. I enjoyed Skyrim for the sorrounding since i love mountain xD but not for the gameplay. About the quest mark and a journal i would like to have no quest mark and the possibility to write journal myself and maybe put mark and write on the map =)
Thanks for the reply!
If possible please give us the option to turn individual HUD elements off, make them context sensitive and scale them independently (useful when running on large, hi-res monitors). Skyrim has some superb mods which allow you to completely customise everything in this regard (‘iHUD’ and ‘Less Intrusive HUD’ for e.g.)
Being able to play without a HUD at all doesn’t work for most of the time as valuable info (such as health) needs to be seen. That doesn’t mean that I want to see it all the time though, far from it in fact. For me, the less of a HUD there is the more inviting and believable the game-world and the more immersive my experience. Just saying that a ‘screenshot mode’ or ‘fake hardcore mode’ (all HUD elements disabled completely) isn’t the same as a proper super minimal/contextual HUD.
I also find it much better playing without a cross-hair at all. This doesn’t cause any issues when trying to pick up/interact with items and contrary to what you might think makes archery infinitely more satisfying (primarily though when you get used to playing HUD-less a cross-hair seems very ‘gamey’ and distracting, especially when just walking around).
Whilst there are some HUD elements which I do find necessary (on a contextual basis) it’s amazing how much better things are with certain elements removed - A lot of the info displayed is unnecessary (or hugely over-sized) and actually works against gameplay for those who prefer a more realistic/hardcore experience.
Speaking of which another point along the lines of the cross-hair would be the compass and player map marker. Using Skyrim as the example (again…) all these things are turned on by default. I’ve already explained how much better playing without a cross-hair is for the archer (more detail in other threads), but removing the compass and player ‘GPS’ map locator is another boost to gameplay. Using an ENB to give darker nights (vanilla is always pretty bright) means that getting lost in the late evening is now a real worry - This is exciting for gameplay and makes you think about what you’re going to do; interesting choices are always good.
“I was pursuing some bandits through a wood, got caught up in a fight, but made it out alive. Now it’s getting dark, I’m wounded, wolves are howling and I don’t know where I am. Should I find cover and wait out the night or try to get to the nearest town and risk crossing animals, or worse more bandits…”
Is far more exciting (to me) than:
“After the fight I found I was lost and wounded. Realising I needed to get to town I opened my map, saw where I was, which direction I was facing and followed the marker on my (always on) compass all the way back to the nearest settlement. There were some wolves en route, but they were easily detected via red dots on my compass and thus avoided; besides it wasn’t exactly scary as it never gets that dark at night, so nothing much to worry about anyway. I did have to take one out mind you, but thanks to my cross-hair it was a guaranteed hit.”
See where I’m coming from here? As you layer on more ‘hardcore’ elements such as the need to eat and sleep, diseases and weather conditions affecting the player (‘Real Needs and Diseases’ and ‘Frostfall’ in Skyrim) the two scenarios become even further apart.
Anyway, I do understand that one man’s excitement is an other’s frustration - So please give us options (and a properly fleshed out hardcore mode :)).
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For remove the quest markers the game must have a system able to guiding the player. I mean the NPCs must give us indications in case we ask them, the indications must be based on land and landmarks. Example:
Q: How I arrive to the XXXXX village/mountain/castle/place of the mission?
A: You must walk for the east path of the town and continue until you reach the dry tree. Then, take the right direction on the crossing and when you see a river walk for the near road to the end and you will have arrived.
For this the landscapes must have clear landmarks and signs on the paths. The map must exist but without any position mark, only description of the terrain and human buldings. Also, it’d be good that we can hire any guide in towns for accompany us to the place we want.
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not necessarily, you could use sign posts. and for more specific things, that’s part of exploration. you see more things when you go around without any direction. i think the quest-giver, for lack of better term, will tell you general location, then that general location is given in your quest log. and you may spend a day trying to find a place. that is exciting!
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It’s easy to demand to not use quest markers and I agree that the game might profit from relinquishing them. But for the devs that would mean that they have to be very careful about quest and world design: if you don’t have quest markers you have to make sure that you actually can find everything (or at least the important things as main quests) without simple guessing.
A proper journal (maybe seperated in quest journal and general journal like in the game Inquisitor) with good descriptions, an understandable world design and a flexible quest design approach fitting to different gameplay is crucial to make an RPG without quest markers and stuff enjoyable today. Without taking extreme care about that the game could just become unwelcoming to a bigger audience nowadays and kind of “clumsy” (something that Dan himself would call bad game design I guess). 
I just got an idea that brings me way back to the first two Fallouts…
In these games, the system of character development and progress offers a plenty of Perks and Traits to choose from, but also has a lot of restrictions so that you can’t have everything and have to think your build through carefully. But the most important thing here are the Traits. (check the Fallout 2 Traits and Perks on its Wiki for reference)
Traits can be obrained only during character creation and only one can be possibly changed later at the cost of one valuable Perk.
So, why not to include something similar to the Traits in KCD, with one of them (you could call it A Sense of Orientation, etc…) giving you a minor “inner compass” that would help you determine the general direction to take, always for one chosen quest only.
A strictly optional feature, also just pointing in the approximate direction, with no quest markers involved.
This would be purely optional and if it would be included along with some other interesting/helpful Traits, it would again be a thing to think about seriously. Those that really feel that they simply have to have this and can’t play the game without it could simply choose it over some other intriguing options which other players might find more suitable for themselves.
Goes without saying that there should also be the restrictions about the number of Traits you can choose…
And if you wanted to go hardcore, you would always be able not to choose any Traits at all (just like in the Fallout) and only stick to the in-game Perks.
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Absolutely.
Playing without quest markers is not as much a matter of the UI, it has more to do with the writing and quest design. Even if the game offers the possibility to switch the quest markers off, one cannot take advantage of it if a quest marker is actually the only reasonable way how to figure where to go.
This is a video complaining about the impossibility to play Skyrim without the arrows: http://youtu.be/JweTAhyR4o0?t=17m20s from 17:20 to 19:20. Essentially the same argument @Cappi made a couple posts before.
I never realized that people really care about HUD elements and cross-hairs so much. Personally I never found them distracting. And I find nothing disconcerting about playing an medieval RPG with a compass. Casual player, huh?
Having in-game support for making screenshots would be nice. And having support for recording a video of my gameplay would be totally awesome. The game could just keep record of the game state and render the actual video afterwards frame by frame, not in real time, which would allow to render it in the best possible quality. With the possibility to switch HUD elements on and off after it has been recorded. One of the games supporting this is Team Fortress 2. Maybe not worth the effort, but…
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Switching off the HUD completely is also possible in Witcher 2.
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Personally, given the size of the playing area, it’s preferable to have the marker.
It’s a game - I get that there’s a solid core of gamers out there who get off on making it as mindlessly difficult as possible, but I lack the patience, time or desire to spend multiple hours feeling my way through to varying destinations for no reason other than “immersion”. More masochism than gaming.
In agreement with an option to disable it for the HC-hero, sure. Demanding it be made core, not so much.
Well, it’s a matter of implementation. Absence of marker doesn’t necessarily mean hardcore dificulty. I have already mentioned Gothic. There is no marker in Gothic yet it’s quite easy to play… I don’t think anyone wants to spend hours searching for something…
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My first choice (if it ever becomes a choice) is to make hud elements optional. If the designers decided to remove quest markers altogether, then I would certainly hope there’s ample information in the game to point me toward the quest destination. You wouldn’t, after all, tell someone “fetch the furznitz in Upper East Neverfindington” without giving them a map, directions (and a way to jot those down), or point them to someone who can direct them on their journey (or towards the next person who can continue them on their journey). I have played a game (maybe games) where the destination is stated in the quest, but then you only find the place through blind exploration. Most people throughout history have not lived as explorers of the physical world. We tend to stick to places we’re familiar with and, when traveling, like to have an idea where we’re going, beyond “it’s that-a-way”.
Sorry if that came off a little harsh towards those who favor the “hardcore” option - I don’t mean it to be. I certainly would like for you to be able to play it your way, but would hope that doesn’t preclude me from playing it my way.
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what is mindlessly difficult, is that like intelligently stupid?
You really should stop being agresive all the time. It’s annoying, especially if you don’t have anything to say on topic. Beside of that, that comparision doesn’t make sense at all…
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he put two together two concepts that don’t fit at all. the comparison is easy to understand.
Aside from the bugs, quite.
Yet there have been times, (most recently Risen 2), where I’ve taken a break from a game, come back and discovered that along with zero marker, the conversation and log entry were also completely devoid of any destination hints. So I had a quest task with no indication of location which saw me re-visiting everything in order to track it down.
Should the map and quest log resolve this, fine. If not, it amounts to replacing engaging game-play with aggravation for the sole purpose of… aggravation… and maybe bragging rights? Neither of which make for compelling content.
No. It isn’t. The latter is an oxymoron, the former not. I get English may not be everyone’s first language but comprehension thereof matters when nit-picking it. 
@213: You do remember, that you should be careful with your words and posts, right? If not, let me just remind you:
It was taken from the robes, capes and cloaks thread (if someone’s wondering, where this quote is from). If you don’t mind, then do mind from now on. Even if this quote doesn’t sound too harsh, it still is a warning from the team. I don’t know the warning limit, yet you shouldn’t provoke it if you want to stay here in the forums.