Oldmandan

Nay, although there have been a couple times losing a stack of lockpicks consecutive lost coin flips where I almost regretted it. :P

Yeah, AFAIK, they have no plans to add a GM mode themselves, but they do plan to add extensive mod support with upcoming patches.

The rarities do somewhat correlate with power in a vacuum, but synergy>raw stats, generally.

Some people gotta go fast. :P (Or just miss a lot of content, who knows.)

...Is one of the missing children's names

Dang, I wish I knew this. Be nice if they tweak this trigger to happen later as well, not sure how many people are resting before recruiting at least 2-3 companions.

I suspect it's been cut. Either that, or it's just meant to be a sort of "yeah, Moonhaven was always kinda fucked, between the swamp hag, incognito Red Wizard and Underdark entrance right next to the water source, not exactly safe for children." :P

Maybe once upon a time they were part of some sidequest connected to Ethel, the Red Wizard or the invading Sharrans, or maybe it was just atmosphere, who knows. /shurg

Eh. I haven't seen his dialogue since they apparently tweaked it, but I didn't find it that bad to begin with. There was a bit of a vibe in act 2 like "sorry you're hurt, didn't mean to lead you on, was just being nice" but thats life sometimes. /shurg

The RPGHorrorstory element... eh. I somewhat agree, mostly just in exactly how far along/established in his journey of magic he was. A young prodigy attracting Mystra's attention, and then ruining himself (and endangering others) in pursuit of more, is an interesting twist on the traditional exploration of a Wizard's hubris, the issue comes more from like "yeah, I didn't just attract Mystra's attention, I was a peer of Elminster and one of Mystra's Chosen" (conspicuous failure to mention the magical institutions of his home, EG, the Blackstaff, Vajra, Larael, etc., aside). TBH, just changing his interactions with Elminster to either double down on the implicit arrogance of assuming himself Elminster's peer, or have him be more of a fanboy, a la Karlach to Minsc and Jaheira, would've gone a long way.

You have okay options to play an ace/aro character, you have options to form close bonds with most of your companions without sex for sure. (Was pleasantly surprised that as horny as Karlach is, you have very clear options to set boundaries there and still have that relationship. ) And of course, you don't have to romance anyone, but can still raise their approval and earn their trust/friendship.

Admittedly though, there isn't really any representation from non-player characters, which is unfortunate.

What do you mean? If you enter Act 2 from the mountain pass, that probably breaks some Grymforge quests, but the underdark is very much still accessible.

Short answer; no.

Long answer: If you're really struggling and still quite early, swapping to Samurai isn't a terrible idea, it has a good stat spread and good starting gear. Elden Ring though, like all Soulsborne games, doesn't really put much empthasis on your class. All it is is your starting stats and gear. A couple bosses in, your starting stats won't matter near as much as how you've been leveling, and you can find the gear Samurai starts with in the starting area, if you really want to use a katana. So feel free to do whatever you want/is fun for you, but I wouldn't bother, personally.

There's a lot of griping about the third act, and yeah, I get it, it's incomplete and comparatively poorly optimized. But it's still really good. :P They clearly bit off more than they could chew with the City, that maybe they could've solved with another year or two of dev time. (Hopefully, will be solved in a Def Ed a year or two down the line.) That isn't necessarily dev time they had, though. Not without taking out a ton of loans (do you really want tencent to own more than 30%?) and risking ill-will with consumers and WotC. (The game was meant to come out over a year ago.)