But there is a difference between a stupid marker on the map or a questgiver pointing directly to where one needs to go and giving hints or a riddle in order for the player to actively solve a quest instead of stumble over the solution by chance
You got enough hints to solve every single quest in D:OS I. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to do that. You were forced to explore in order to solve many quests. That's true. But exploration is among the highlights of the first game, and this is also due to the quest design.