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Thing is you're trying to compare two different things, one is the (lack of) quality of the product in general compared to what was promised, the other is a design choice.
The irony is, I feel that sentence is more applicable if "lack of quality" is assigned to Soulslike games and "Design Choice" to Bethesda games.
Weird design choice to have games riddled with bugs that need to be fixed by modders 🤷
Could you quantify "riddled with bugs that need to be fixed by modders" regarding Starfield?
Every complaint I've seen so far has involved bullets, physics, or the AI. In my own experience, I've seen exactly 1 bug (the outpost-won't-respond bug) and it only hit me once and was easy to fix.
My first issue with Elden Ring was crash-bugs and screen-stutter. It didn't like my monitor streaming (all my other games were fine, including games using raytracing). And crashing every couple hours sucked. I haven't had one Starfield crash yet.
Also, have you ever ridden torrent across the sky? I have.
I don't claim my experience is everything, but I've seen far more bugs in Elden Ring than in Starfield.
I'm not talking about a game specifically, I'm talking about the way the studio works in general.
If you go back to the comment chain the original complaint is about a lack of quality control (releases full of bugs, missing features, bad UI, bad optimization), the other complaint is about a design choice (the game is hard because the devs intentionally made it so). My point is that it's two different things and saying "Your complaint about Bethesda's game is the same as complaining about Fromsoft not including a difficulty setting." is a false equivalency.
The major complaints people have about Elden Ring are endemic in every Fromsoft game. Janky controls, Rhythm-Game fighting with terrible balance, QOL features that are missing not only out of negligence, but out of design.
And except a couple "releases full of bugs", I don't really agree with those criticisms. You can find people who hate the featureset or UI of most games, and their optimization hasn't particularly been terrible.
I meant to discuss Souls games' exclusion of difficulty sliders in a vacuum, separate from the Garfield discussion.
As prefaced in my comment, I agree with your points about Garfield: the developers should definitely be held accountable for their shortcomings and for hyping up a product that falls flat of its promised contend.
But I don't agree with difficulty sliders being shunned by the "hardcore" community. I feel like this nurtures an elitist environment that doesn't do its fanbase any good other than gatekeeping and separating fans.
Again, just a separate discussion altogether, not related to the Garfield discussion.
What shortcomings, what did Bethesda promise in Starfield that isn't there?
I love how people keep asking this question, yet nobody is answering us when we do. Almost like they can't name a single thing Bethesda promised that we didn't get.
But OMG, the landing sequence isn't seamless. Let's burn the game to the ground.
Which I had seen Todd confirm to be the case months ahead of time. It was never going to be an Elite/NMS style game.
I haven't played the game myself, tbf - just mirroring other people's opinions of the game. The game could be amazing for all I know - I just know that the reviews haven't been stellar and that the community response to the game isn't all too great.
Reviews seem to have hovered around 7 which is think is fair and by far from a bad title. I'd probably be a bit more lenient and go to an 8 due to the subject matter since I'm a huge sci-fi fan.
Reaction depends on the community, of all my big gaming friends in real life are enjoying it, as are the hosts of several podasts I listen to.
That's totally cool, I'm not trying to devalue your experience or people's experience at all!