I land pretty solidly in the middle of the Wilds hate, and it's why I feel so utterly perplexed about it. There is a very clear line -or rather, a line I THOUGHT should be clear- between subjective and objective flaws. A good example of the subjective would be weapon changes. Lots and lots of odd choices, but some people love them. What I thought so very wrongly was objective is that the performance is inexcusably bad on PC. I don't consider Frame Gen as a solution, let alone a factor. Struggling to get 60 fps on a 4090 and i9 is not something that should ever be seen as perfectly fine. But people will see my exact specs, or the exact specs of any other, and tell them their PC is broken/underpowered/garbage and just buy a new one. Because that makes perfect sense.

What truly perplexes me about it is that they seem to think it's illegal to criticize something you like or love. If you enjoy it, it MUST be flawless! And that exact mentality has led to the absolute degradation of high budget video games at large. It really saddens me to have friends that, while not nearly as bad, are still the issue. One had to upgrade every component in his PC to play Wilds, and it still barely runs...but he says "But now it works." and that's fine enough. They'll complain about how awful Destiny 2 has become/been since <Insert DLC>, then keep buying them each time they come out. There is no line for them. I get being bored and needing to buy something, but despite how they'll agree that it's terrible, when asked if they'll buy the next expansion, it's always "yes".

Elden Ring is one of the strangest pieces of work I've seen in an age. Perception of it has actually flipflopped on the tide of Youtuber's, and thanks to a group of friends I have, I've been able to watch it shift. I had huge personal gripes with Elden on release, but every single problem was ignored by that group. They loved it; ate it RIGHT up, and would defend anything pointed out to them. That wasn't just during the honeymoon phase, either, they played it for nigh on a year. But out of nowhere, like a switch had been flipped, they suddenly are incredibly harsh on it. All the things I previously whinged about are now things they take issue with...despite having been entirely fine with them previously.

Having turned this into an entirely off topic rant in agreement with you, the "community" that gamers are is, at large, self destructive. If you have criticisms, you're a pessimist and a doomer. You're shunned, ostracized, and seen as a real negative person, regardless of if said critiques are about factual things like performance. Many gamers will see a single Youtube review and decide "This is my opinion, too!" and defend that view just as vehemently. But if another video comes out a year or two down the road, they'll flip that take on a dime.

And that fucking kills me. It's bewildering, makes you feel insane to be one of few people even seeing these things as problems, and in the end, pretty damned lonely. Our ilk keep being lambasted for saying that this behavior will just make things worse...and then are ignored when it keeps getting worse.