I think combined with the agility mechanics especially early game fighting crowds is just not fun. They do lots of damage and stun you. Better to fight a few fewer enemies where tactics play more of a role as opposed to using cheesing as a strategy, imo, like in ds3 where you fight maybe two lothric knights at once who have varied and interesting moves

Horrible enemy placements, hollowing that reduces your health to half (ds1 doesn’t do this, ds3 has embers which just increase health by 30%), extremely low estus in the start meaning consumables are mandatory, enemies are just fast while the combat is slow so they can really surround you