What ever happened to just... putting the most important info right on the screen? I mean, my screen is pretty good-sized. There's plenty of room for a little hp bar, a few icons, a quick-access bar... It's always worked in the past, so why doesn't Skyrim have that? They just want to make sure you can see every pixel of the landscape? Look! Snow! And rocks! And more snow and rocks! Isn't it beautiful?
Well, yes, actually, it is pretty beautiful, but it's not so riveting that I can't handle having my most essential information viewable on the screen somewhere. I mean, I apparently spent 2 hours wandering around with an illness because there was no indication that I had one. Now and then someone would ask me if I was feeling okay, but it was a while before I realized I could see status effects by hitting tab, going left, scrolling down, clicking "status effects," and scrolling until I found the one relevant. (Bone Break Fever.) Even then, there was no information given on how to deal with it. I talked to one person who said I should be in bed, so I tried sleeping in a bed a few times. Then back through the menus to check; still there. Finally I decided I'd have to track down a healer, buy a cure disease potion, drink it, and scroll all the way through the menus again to make sure it was gone. It worked, but... I still have almost no information on what happened. What caused this disease? Was there any other way to cure it? Would it go away over time? I still have no idea.
The problem with burying everything in menus is it makes me assume that it's not important. If something is important, I should be aware of it, and that's it. So I'm having a hard time figuring out what I need to do to actually get stronger, stay safe and healthy, etc. Having it set on easy helps, but it's unfortunate that that has to be my fix. Rather than get actually strong and powerful and using good strategy, I have to make the game easier.
My problem isn't with managing equipment. I have zero problems managing my equipment. A full-screen menu detailing everything about my equipment doesn't solve anything for me. It's that essential information is scattered so far all over the place that it's impossible for me to keep track of it. So unless there's a UI fix that changes the Skyrim UI into the Morrowind UI or something similar, I'm just going to have to stick with vanilla.