Many people in the Pantheon community really dislike any sort of quest indicators over NPC heads and the game was deliberately designed to not have these. Personally, I don't mind them (at least not ones that would be on if I have an already active quest with the NPC and the next step is to talk to them). Of course, I have ADHD so remembering quest steps, NPCs, etc is very difficult so I mostly don't bother with them.
I think one feature that would be most beneficial (and not likely to draw the ire of the community) would be if we could flag a specific NPC in the quest journal and that would cause their nameplate to show up a different color or the NPC to flag us down with a /wave emote. This isn't punctuation over heads and it's only done manually for specific NPCS as a memory aid for those of us who have poor working memory and can't remember random NPC names. At least Pantheon has been designed to not make quests defacto mandatory so those of us with poor working memory can skip them.
I am one of those who dislike quest flags and shiny indicators. I believe they are linked to the core of a whole ecosystem of MMOs out there that are as clone of each other, mainly through babysitting players with GPS maps, quest givers indicators, reward collectors flags, instanced worlds, and daily tasks. This ecosystem leads to players that do not need each other since games are insultingly easy, with zero tolerance to frustration, no ability to cooperate with others, and joining up only to show off shiny numbers and cosmetics.
I am so glad that Pantheon is the opposite to all of the above, in a good way. Back to the topic, I believe there are too many quests at low level. If anything, something that could be done to lessen the stress caused by lack of indicators, would be to clearly separate crafting quest lines from others, in a way that all NPCs related would have the craft between brackets on their nameplates, and tasks would point to look for specific craft trainer. This way, you would avoid all quests for crafts you are not planning to pursue, and stick to "blank" NPCs that might you a non crafing quest
Ability to add your own notes to quests could solve the problem.
It would help me in that I often collect quest items over play sessions and end up putting things in the bank for weight savings, then forget they are there. Being able to put a note in the quest log that I have 8 rat pelts in the bank, would help me remember I only need to kill x amount more rats. :P
Not to mention, including where you found the quest giver in your notes if you need to.
But I agree, no question marks or exclamation points please.
I feel like this could be easily solved by how they are sorted in the journal When picked up and in progress they are sorted under the giver. When completed they get re-sorted under the turn in header for who ever. Then in the narrative of the quest it could be more precise on say where that person is with a little more detailed writing.
I feel like this makes it stay off the screen, but also sorts the quests for a more user friendly look with out dumbing it down.
Just food for thought.