Legitimate reaction and observation.
What I can say about it is exactly what I said on the META discussion on @RomoloHero’s feature list topic:
"If the game has a strong META orientation it will invalidate some playstyles and/or some fantasies because the content can, and surely will, push its boundaries towards this META.
Allowing/Forcing the developers to voluntarily/artificially/ridiculously shape the content.
And it may lead to some questionable game design decisions like the fight against Malenia in Elden Ring.
And I want everybody to play their prefered playstyle and fantasy without having the feeling that they are undervalued."
Or, even worse, to have the feeling that they have to bend their knees to the META to progress in the game.
Like it arguably does now in the Crucible.
What I can add to that is that, of course, it is a real challenge to keep a game balanced the more you add features.
But if you core philosophy is to prevent these kind of extreme scenarios to happen in the first place, it becomes easier, and later on in the process a second nature, to pay attention to it, and work around solutions to alleviate the issue.
This makes me think about something that I noticed between Western and Eastern game development processes.
When on the Eastern side the main philosophy is: “How little do I need to get the intended experience?”.
On the Western side it is more: “Let’s put everything inside and see what happens!”,
A kind of Bottom-Top, Top-Bottom mismatch philosophy.