I guess I'm spoiled.

I love leaving notes for players, and there's a plus side to it, since if your message is recommended by lots of people, you'll get a % health recovery next time you start the game.

The exploration in this game is trully intense, surely you'll be grinding and learning for some hours, but once you get the hang of the game and the layout of the stages, you'll be able to figure out paths and plan strategies before hand ;)

The Thief build that you started is actually one of the hardest, IMO, to start the game for the first time, since you'll have to rely on sneak attacks and backstabs to do some actual good damage, and you'll be very weak to enemy attacks.

I recommend that you focus more on dodging enemies, rather than to block their attacks as it is a more effective strategy on the long run in the game ;)

Well, if your complaint is that you have to replay levels after you die. Well, I'd argue that enemies respawning make the game easier. If they didn't, you wouldn't have enough souls to level up enough to defeat bosses. There's no way people could beat the game.

I guess I try to learn the timing on deflections ->ripostes, which usually lead to 1 shot kills.

That's part of why I'm complaining to have to re-clear level, having to spend the time, to learn the timing on a enemy animation. 

Another thing about the dagger that's nice is that it's fast. So if I attack fast enough most of the early enemies don't have time to attack me.

@Outlawauron

That's not entirely true, there are some youtube videos of people doing SL 1 Royal runs in the game ;)

Don't rely on parry too much, since most of the enemies in latter stages doesn't have any attack that can be parried, or are just too damn quick and dangerous for parrying to be a viable option.

Your best bet is to dodge towards the back of the enemy and do backstabs, it will do tons of damage as well, and it's a safer strategy in the long run ;)

After they've played the game fifty times. I mean, once you've played the game so many times, then maybe.

start with royalty

That's true indeed, but it is possible to do so :P

But that would mean that even less people would get the game and we would have more people giving up on the game, thus it wouldn't be a better system, even if it did make the game much, much harder

More likely he just found it tedious after a while.  I did the same and ended up putting it down a couple weeks ago and haven't even looked at it since...maybe i'll pick it up again when I'm really bored and have lots of time to spare.  I dont get the "improving as a player" I'm not training for the gaming olympics...its not Enders Game...its an entertaining diversion.  Games are supposed to be fun and entertaining and grinding isn't entertaining at least not for those of us with busy lives outside of gaming, heck I only get a couple hours a week to play so playing a few hours with little progress doesnt make me want to try harder..it makes me want to toss it aside and go on to something thats more fun.  I think game sales will be greatly affected by this as well.  Hard is good...tedious is not and this game has a hard time keeping the proper balance IMHO.