I like Elden Ring a lot but it is far from as good as the Souls community claims. I got into some arguments in a comment section of a video - I, a guy that likes the game and played it for 150 hours - and explained to multiple people why it is a good but also a generic game and nothing special, beginning with the fact that while it has some interesting lore behind it, it does not have an actual story, which makes it basically the same as old games like Pokémon Red which is full of lore but with a paper-thin plot of "journeying to get to the league and randomly stumbling over the mafia to beat it with a protagonist that back at that time had no personality because developers always think that such characters are immersive which they are not." I really enjoyed playing Elden Ring but for me there is just no reason to act as if it is more than it is. It did nothing new and nothing that it did was better than in other games. And if I do not call them masterpieces I won't call this one a masterpiece. I liked Sekiro a lot more. It had no pointless open world, it had an actual character and it had an actual story. And as open world game I like the Horizon series a lot more for the same reasons. Also some brainlets that try to ridicule others for playing a game with mechanics that the developers made just so you can use them don't really understand the point of games. There is no point in forcing myself through an unnecessary challenge if it is not fun.
Oh and yes, FromSoftware games being artifically hard just for bragging rights is BAD game design. If you are a family that eats chilli and one of the children cannot eat chilli which is too hot the family does not say "then go screw yourself", a good family that is not full of asses readies a second less hot pot and does not exclude the child like some anti-socials. There is 0 loss in making a choosable easy mode for people that have a life beyond video games. And no, Elden Ring having many ways to get stronger is not what I am talking about because if 40-year old family father who only can play for 2 hours a week spend 60 bucks on a game and sees that he just looses and looses he turns around and walks away before even knowing you can make it easier. Easy modes exist for a reason and the only "disadvantage" is that people can no longer brag "I beat the game that has only one difficulty mode" which is no loss at all. A game that only has the difficulty going for it and nothing else is not particularly engaging if you want more from RPGs. I grew up with Final Fantasy. A game with characters, story, lore AND all the RPG adventure elements. Elden Ring is nowhere close to being one of the best RPGs, let alone one of the best games. It is just another game, like Breath of the Wild, which was so hyped up, that people forget other games exist. Just like Nier 2 when Nier 1 was much better.