[Cthulhu_]

It's... interesting design, in that there's a puzzle or chance element I suppose. Especially Elden Ring encourages exploration, because there's almost always a reward for wandering and exploring in terms of items / abilities.

The NPC / quest thing means that, unless you go online, you will need multiple playthroughs and exploration to get every quest done, OR you need to engage in a community - the quests and lore are often all discussed, disseminated, notes compared, theories crafted, etc in the community after the release of a new game.

Whether that's good or bad design I'll leave up to opinion, but it's interesting.

(personally I don't have the time to do multiple 100+ hour playthroughs so I followed guides online)