Now that I've played the game on both servers after the update, I can honestly say that this change hasn't bothered me. Most of the time I'm not even noticing the numbers, because I'm focused on the rest of the game window instead of the compass. And to be honest, I'm having trouble fathoming why it's such a big deal to have these numbers up there when most players are using addons that plaster all sorts of other things over the game's window. Oh, well-- to each their own, I suppose.

An add-on hiding those can't come soon enough, no idea who requested that feature and how it can be any helpful to anybody but that's surely shouldn't be a baseline but an opt-in feature.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Now that I've played the game on both servers after the update, I can honestly say that this change hasn't bothered me. Most of the time I'm not even noticing the numbers, because I'm focused on the rest of the game window instead of the compass. And to be honest, I'm having trouble fathoming why it's such a big deal to have these numbers up there when most players are using addons that plaster all sorts of other things over the game's window. Oh, well-- to each their own, I suppose.

Different things bother different people. A lot of websites put videos, animated adverts and other movement next to and in between text (even Steam has started putting flickering gifs between paragraphs in a games description) and I assume a lot of people aren't bothered by them, but it's not a coincidence that there's been a corresponding rise in 3rd party plugins and then built in options to disable unnecessary movement because for some people it makes it impossible to focus on the text.

I suspect this assumption that "most players" cover the game in a mess of clashing addons is behind the apparent shift to ZOS no longer caring what their UI looks like, but I don't think it's true.

Some people do that, but a lot of people don't use addons at all (even on PC) and some of us are careful to only choose addons which blend in with the games UI and even use some to hide or minimise the base game UI. For example I use Azurah to reduce notifications to a small bar above the chat box because it's annoying having huge text covering what I'm doing.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Now that I've played the game on both servers after the update, I can honestly say that this change hasn't bothered me. Most of the time I'm not even noticing the numbers, because I'm focused on the rest of the game window instead of the compass. And to be honest, I'm having trouble fathoming why it's such a big deal to have these numbers up there when most players are using addons that plaster all sorts of other things over the game's window. Oh, well-- to each their own, I suppose.

Some of us never use addons, and would much rather additional features like this were either optional or left to addons.

While the compass distance indicators don't really bother me, they don't add any value to me. An option to turn them off would be welcome and I also wonder as to whether it is a good use of server resources to constantly calculate all those little numbers that most folks seem to either not care about or don't like.

Of MUCH more value when it comes to locational awareness is an addon mini map. I remain surprised to this day why an optional minimap has not been incorporated into the game. Without a minimap, I found myself constantly stopping, opening my map, progressing a short distance and repeating the process. As odd as it sounds, I find the minimap ever so much more immersive than stopping frequently to wrestle with menus.

Just heard there’s a reddit post that tells how to get rid of them:
https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1muc2pe/heres_how_to_disable_distances_shown_on_the/

It seems to be just a script command, so I wouldn’t be surprised if an addon pops up in the next three seconds or so.

My biggest concern is adding features like this seem like they have to tax the servers at least to some degree. And since the feature is redundant anyway, why'd they add it? Nobody requested it.

I'd very much like the ability to turn off these distance markers. The addition of an on/off toggle should have been a no brainer to include when introducing the system as well.

@tomofhyrule Thank you, thank you, thank you for that link, it works!!

I was actually reluctant to log in today after last night's headache, thankfully I can now continue as before.

I'm wondering whether for those that are not so bothered by the numbers if it is maybe the case that they have much larger screens than me? My monitor is pretty small and very old, there is no way that I don't always see those numbers flickering as their values change!

I'm not sure if I like this feature. Sometimes, particularly in Cyrodiil, I get a feeling of "are we there yet" and this saves me having to check the map. But I don't think I'd want it on for regular adventuring. It should definitely be something we can turn on or off.

shadyjane62 wrote: »

I find it very distracting and wish there was a way to toggle it off. I find myself running into things like trees, while I'm distracted by it.

And what does the "m" stand for anyway, meters or miles and what relationship is it to the actual map?

They're probably imperial meters, that would explain why nobody can make sense of them.

I would at least like the option to have it enabled or not

I agree that the numbers are more annoying than helpful and rather baffling since they don’t seem to correlate to meters. I would prefer to have the option to have the icons on the compass a bit faded when at a distance, and clear when close (as I believe they already did) and of course the option to turn off compass markers altogether (which we used to have).

Syldras wrote: »

Apart from being distracting, the unrealistic numbers really don't help, at least for me. As an example: In an environment with cliffs or hills, if I read "150 m", I'd expect the location to be behind the obstacle, so I'd try to find a path around it - and by that I might miss it, because it's still in front of the obstacle, not behind it - because the actual distances are much shorter than the number would make you expect (if you estimate distances by objects in the environment, like your characters size). I'd rather deactivate the whole thing and really hope there will be an option for that.

This is a general problem with distance in the game. See for instance the distance locator for housing items. You'd think a tiny apartment is the size of a mansion.

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Of MUCH more value when it comes to locational awareness is an addon mini map. I remain surprised to this day why an optional minimap has not been incorporated into the game. Without a minimap, I found myself constantly stopping, opening my map, progressing a short distance and repeating the process. As odd as it sounds, I find the minimap ever so much more immersive than stopping frequently to wrestle with menus.

A minimap *is* part of the game, it's just disabled without an addon to turn it back on. I believe the reason given was that the console hardware available at release ten years ago couldn't handle displaying it without an unacceptable framerate drop. See here: https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1399-VotansMinimap.html

And for the record, I, too, would like these distances turned off. They provide no value to me, as the icons were already handling distance with size / alpha blending.

@tomofhyrule Very many thanks I've saved those two text snippets for future use.

freespirit wrote: »

I'm wondering whether for those that are not so bothered by the numbers if it is maybe the case that they have much larger screens than me?

I was actually wondering the same thing. I'm using a large UHD TV as my video monitor, and am not even using the highest available resolution, but the numbers don't seem very obtrusive to me. I'm not saying I like having them there or that I think they're as helpful as intended, but they seem kind of easy for me to ignore.