Being able to see a bonfire doesn't mean it will be easy or quick to get to. It's often a bit of a tease more than anything. It may help you give some sort of directional hint, but not much more in most cases. There are a couple exceptions, like being able to see the 1st bonfire from right outside Firelink shrine, but I think that can be forgiven due to it basically being the tutorial area. I also think the 1st Cathedral of the Deep bonfire is absolutely pointless, but as I said - exceptions and far from the norm.I thought the opposite tbh. You can actually see some bonfires from the next one, and shortcuts seem to be pretty pointless most of the time as warping between bonfires makes them completely redundant. Many times I have opened up a shortcut but thought to myself, 'well, that's nice, but I'm never going to use it'
It holds 30fps most of the time in most areas, but it has regular little stutters due to bad frametiming, which they never fixed. So even when running at a solid 30fps, it rarely felt all that consistent.The framerate dips below 30fps quite a bit I've read.
Really bothered me, especially when you did get to areas where actual framedrops occur. What makes it worse is that the pace of the combat is faster than in other Souls games. So you really need the fluidity and responsiveness more than ever. And it just doesn't deliver on it. It's ultimately bearable and shouldn't put anybody off playing(it's a great game), but I did knock a point off my review of it as a result.