Having around 50 hours in at this point on PC (6800XT, 5800X); the frame stutters can definitely be annoying, but are definitely not game breaking and rarely cause a death. My friends and I posited the same question about how it wasn't caught before release, but the fact is, it's not a game breaking issue; in the vast amount of exploring I've done thus far, it would be below 10% of the time and has only affected a boss fight once, which was still not an issue because the mechanics work the same when the stutter happens, so dodging the attack you know is coming still works fine.
It's weird to see people talking about not knowing where to go or about lack of story; the Souls games are literally full of story, both directly and indirectly. From games are the games that make a player actually think, actually remember, actually read item descriptions, actually exhaust and pay attention to dialog . They require more attention and care than the majority of games that release these days to get the full experience. I have a hard time remembering things, so I take notes as I go through dialog and meet new NPCs, I make big use of the map marker system as well; I find that there is an enormous satisfaction when you stumble upon something that was mentioned by a previous person/thing and you can connect those together to make the story instead of having it just told to you.
In a space where the majority of products try to overly simplify the experience, Souls games bring a much needed source of "experience" to anyone willing to see them through. A friend who is much bigger into the series than I am put it very well "Souls games are an exercise in patience, it's about harnessing what the games make you feel into constructive and critical thinking. They force you to confront and overcome what seem like insurmountable struggles, to confront your own anger and to control that anger and place it into constructive self assessment, to force you to think outside your own box, your own perceived limitations. Souls games are about teaching that anger as an emotion makes us less efficient; "Demon of Hatred" (one of the enemies) is an obvious metaphor for the philosophy of the Souls games, devoured by anger, one may become strong, but the toughest hatred will always fall to those who harness their anger and hatred into something more calculated, calm, and concise. These games are one of the few in the medium that make the experience of playing as a person the real character development of the story; they are about you, you are the main character, not the pixels you're controlling on the screen, and if you never finish, you go hollow (Souls reference if you haven't played)."
I think Fromsoft games would actually lose a lot of what make them important, impactful, and memorable if they had a difficulty adjustment, and while Elden Ring has had many QoL improvements over previous entries that make it much more accessible and friendly to the player, I also feel that it is actually the hardest of the Souls games to date.
Quick edit: The music in Elden Ring is absolutely fantastic, and despite the "dated" graphics (I wouldn't say that overall personally), it is gorgeous (there are definitely a few places with bad textures though). VRAM usage at 5120x2880 peaked at 7.7GB according to the latest GPU-Z.
