I just booted up Elden Ring to verify it. I was somewhat wrong because for some reason I thought there was a route around the courtyard before the liftside chamber grace, but there's not. After the ramparts grace there are two routes that converge on the courtyard. One through the door that goes to the chapel where Rogier was into the kitchen thingy where the scion is (where you can also unlock the elevator back up to the grace). The door route is pretty much a linear path all the way to the kitchen. In the kitchen as long as you follow the lights you'll end up in the right place which is the courtyard door the turrets are pointed at. That is one of two places that looks like "maybe I shouldn't be here and I should go another way" but if you do you eventually exhaust all other options and you end up back at the courtyard. The other route is from the rooftops and if you cross the wooden bridge before the courtyard you get presented with two options, jump to the left into the courtyard or go right down the ladder. That's the other place where the right choice isn't clear because going right is less committal than jumping off. But going right eventually looks like you're going the wrong way and the other option of going left becomes clear.

However after the courtyard, despite the path branching off again, the route is weirdly obvious. The main road ends up being blocked by a giant so that doesn't feel like the right way. The other route you have to drop down (which is committal so it instantly is less favored) and it takes you under Stormveil which looks dark and damp, so that doesn't feel right either. The final route is up the elevator and there's again lighting being used to show which way to go and it takes you straight to the final grace before the boss.

So I think my point stands and is further proven by that courtyard. The route is pretty obvious from the start all the way to the end except for one part, the courtyard. That single part is an example of bad level design because there's no clear indication that you're supposed to go through the courtyard. In fact it does the opposite, it makes you think you're not supposed to go that way so it makes people wander off. Even something as simple as moving the grace from the elevator room to the upper part of the courtyard (behind the omen) it would be visible from both the door route and the roof route and people would look for a way through the courtyard. It's very easy to mess up progress with poor level design but it doesn't mean you need to put big yellow signs everywhere to show where to go. You can do a lot of other tricks to get people to go where you want or look where you want.