BioWare games waste your time like there is no fucking tomorrow. I don't know if it's a mandate from the higher ups in EA or if they just need to pad the hour count to get good review scores, but every EA-era BW game is bloated with padding, padding and more padding.
I'm not even sure whether to give them more or less credit for not trying to make money off of it lol
A lot of padding goes on because it's just lazy game design, it's the race to be as bloated as possible for the illusion of "more is better". Our game is bigger, look at all this value for money! It's why there was an industry-wide race to say "our game map is 5x the size of Skyrim". I then go back to asking everyone to check out completion trophy/achievement rates for a range of open world games and see where they sit (like the complete game on X difficulty trophy). In the ADHD-induced gaming world we live in, with thousands of games released every year, you shouldn't be shocked to see completion trophies are even poor for linear SP games.
Just go look at your own backlog and count up everything you've started but haven't finished. Most gamers have a serious issue with completion. Even something like God of War which is more what you could call a "linear open world game" is probably hovering around 50~60% completed. RDR2 will probably sit around the same, but probably lower given the millions of people that buy it due to hype/word of mouth. These are two of the highest reviewed games as well, and both, while they have varying levels of padding, have MSQs which aren't really gated. And people
still struggle to finish them. Pacing is quite the issue in RDR2 mind you, it's pretty bloated.
So while completion and attention is a major issue for all games, those which lean very heavy into padding, Skyrim-like map markers every 2m and then possibly go a step further and somewhat push more of that as mandatory over optional, you're going to alienate some players.
Western open-world game design has long and continually needed critique because it's not all equal and it's not all as "progressive" as some imply. More-so, trying to critique certain franchises or developers is like kicking a beehive at times. I hold no illusions I'm biased towards what I personally enjoy playing, but the OP kicked off this topic seemingly confused at others opinions on AC, so if they really want to consider another viewpoint there are plenty of good posts that explain why some people, myself included, prefer a different take on open-world. Or, what we feel is a more balanced or thoughtful take on open world.
I still haven't completed Skyrim OR Fallout 4. I've played large chunks of them, but my god I get bored and burnt out. I did however complete Morrwind and it's still my favourite TES game. I completed New Vegas too, and while it still had that Bethesda-feeling, it's quality of writing was enough to get me through. Probably because it was only published by Bethesda.
So you didn't play it? That tells me all I need to know.
All I am going to say is before you throw out conspiracy theories you need to know what you are talking about.
Respond to others then that meet your
gated requirements for "this person knows what they're talking about".