I remember playing Wizardry 7 where you had to give one of your characters a map drawing skill so he would keep adding the places you had been to in details according to how much you leveled this skill.
Then, when you finally found the location of the chest with the item you had been looking for, one of the NPC's may have been there already and have taken it, so you had to find this guy now and fight or trade him for it.

They don't make games like this any more. Why? Because i played nothing but this game for more than 6 months and still wasn't finished. There is just too many games and too little time.

Do you mean basically telling the person what to do instead of marking it? Because I wonder how many people actually read have the side quests explanations and just read the bits that say 'Deliver 7 of Something' or 'Kill the best of Bodmin'.

FF12 had a good way of doing things, it said the area, maybe a more details bit like type of weather then that's it, you had to try and work out how to get to some Hunts.

I agree, the fact that Zelda gives you very few infos, or only riddles to get you going adds the fun of figuring things for yourself.

It's not just a dumb and easy chore. (some missions were though, but it was a minority). Yes some missions are hard to figure out, but you just leave them aside, and go back to them later, maybe the solution will present itself, or you'll know more about the game so you will be able to find the solution. At the moment, I never had to look up online to find any solution. But I probably will at one point.

I can't even play open world games anymore because it's such a drag
-go there, gives you a big arrow to follow
-take that, the thing you need to take is glowing
-go back, gives you a big arrow again to follow

That's not gaming at all.

Nothing really, but that's not really the point.

It's more about the sum of its parts and how they work with each other.

The game in itself is unique and carefuly crafted. But it's 2017, nobody is reinventing the wheel. The Witcher didn't either, nor does horizon or any game out there.

I haven't played the new Zelda, but that sounds great.

For the most part, yes, open world games have markers to guide you. But usually they include a few puzzle quests that want you to figure out it by yourself like in Skyrim, Fallout, Dark Souls too. Even though I see what the Op is saying, i really dont want this to become a norm. It would definitely increase time consuption figuring these locations out when you could be progressing in other areas of the game, let alone the fact that not everyone has a lot of time on theirs hands to roam mindlessly in a game.

Having puzzles is part of the genre, i don't want puzzles in my witcher/dragon age games.

This thread has really taught me something about how difficult a job developers have.

You can give people the option to have quest markers on or off but they'll still come online and complain about needing to "follow the glowing arrow".  I bet the majority of people complaining about hand-holding probably never turn it off or try to figure out their quest based on the log entry.  I know for a fact you can do this with many Fallout 4 quests.  I've done it a lot personally, since map markers don't automatically appear all the time.

seems like some people don't understand what I'm trying to say,guys it's not about the hud! it's about the replacement of the hud with visual hints and the world connected to side missions! that way you don't need a compass or marker cause the map have the name of the places and all you need to do is go to those places and explore the visual landmarks! there are no visual landmarks on the witcher so without the witcher senses or marker on the map you're going to get lost!

yeah, but the reward is good tbh. More weapon slots, I don't have problem with weapon durability cause I have tons of weapons thanks to the korok seeds. If you're a completionist then prepare to be trolled by Nintendo cause the final reward is a piece of shit, literally.