I don’t think the problem is having objectives, but rather that so many of them are literally designed in an anti-fun, flow breaking, way.
I could break them all down individually, but imo it’s actually quite obvious which the offenders are.
Objectives, imo, should flow with the fun core gameplay, not be hurdles interrupting it and breaking the flow instead.
For example, with the having to kill Elites to open a door, why is there always one Elite on the critical Dungeon path at the door, which is good, and one that’s in some tiny off-shoot path that’s inevitably missed more than half of the time, which the player then has to track all the way back to and find, kill the Elite in a meaningless 0.5 seconds “fight”, walk half the dungeon back again to the door, to then proceed.
This will never make the game more fun, interesting or engaging - so why does it exist?
Why isn’t the one Elite or Room Event in front of the locked door actually engaging instead?
Why aren’t Dungeon dead-ends filled with big Elite packs, so they aren’t a “Oh ffs” moment of wasted time, but actually a fun moment? Then I either I pick the right path and have quick and efficient run through, or I pick the wrong path and got a cool Elite pack to blow up with gear and resource drops.
Similarly with the “collect/destroy x item/objective somewhere” to then return to a door - why do these rooms just spawn one lazy Elite which instantly dies and doesn’t drop anything - fill these rooms with packs of Elites, waves of EXP raining Demon Hordes, Goblin Packs, Butcher like Encounters, etc., don’t have them be the same, boring and predictable waste of time they are now, every single time.
Objectives are fine, but not if they are literally just a flow breaking, frustrating, inconvenience.
If the answer to “is this making the game more fun” when designing a Dungeon objective isn’t yes, then your design failed. Try again.
Make them feel good moments, not feels bad moments.
The same goes for the Modifiers - has anyone ever been interrupted by Drifting Shade and co. for the 500 time and thought, wow, that was fun?