I was recommended the game because I liked Dark Souls 1 but hated the second. I don’t like it one bit. The loops are just not fun for me. Exploring is punished instead of encouraged.

Loops?
What is punishing about exploring? Elden Ring is probably the easiest souls game, you can just mount torrent and leave everything in the dust.

Teleporting you to a very hard area cos you touched something. Torrent is there cos the vast majority of the space is empty and serves no purpose gameplay wise.

Just dodge the trapped chests

How do I know which are the trapped ones? Why is the game programmed to be so extremely against you? Is it some form of sadism? The whole game atmosphere reeks of despair. I understand taste may vary and a lot of people like it but it’s just not for me.

The ones that have smoke are trapped, you can dodge roll backwards after seeing the smoke