>>715882734Yeah, they're right about the quest design.
Doing Nepheli's quest without a guide relies on lots of luck that you find the 4 Belfries and choose the correct option of the 3 destinations that your one key gives you to go back to the tutorial level and enter an open door that previously was closed and you have no way of knowing was opened off screen. Unless you come back 10 hours later after getting the second key and choose the correct of 2 options to, again, go get an item behind a magically opened door that you wouldn't at the time have any way of knowing was connected to Nepheli without foreknowledge of character relationships. Then you have to do Haight's quest and also warp to the correct bonfire to activate the character teleports so they go to the correct locations.
Millicent's Quest is also similarly bad and you can just totally miss that she's around if you don't progress through the game in a certain order. Like if you cleared the Altus Plateau before Caelid. And to finish it properly, you have to retrace your steps after beating a really shitty optional boss to find some hard to see summon signs that magically appear after you beat that optional boss with no indication of that happening.
Rogier can be bricked if you explore down the wrong side of Liurnia and meet Ranni before he tells you to, because didn't mess around with Fia and get information about an optional side dungeon. And if that happens he just dies while giving a hint that is irrelevant to most players.
Goldmask's plot is almost sane, in a certain way, but requires a shitload of backtracking and running to and fro during the Leyndell section particularly. And he's usually in the middle of fucking nowhere, so finding him sucks.
St. Trina requiring you to kill yourself 4 times with her nectar to get more dialog is ridiculous. And Mini Ranni needing to be talked to 3 times at a specific bonfire before she'll deign to speak to the player is almost as bad.