Bottom post of the previous page:
Area protector covenents like rat and bell bros existed in DS1 and while they weren't sun bros or dickwraiths they still saw a fair bit of use.Also a lot of the perception of DS2 protecting newbies was because both the invasion covenants were gravy lord level broken depending on cracked orb rewards from their arenas. Rats and bell bros if in the right memory range could still griff the shit out of people
Oh and stupid shit like brotherhood of blood needing 500 more wins than loses to reach top rank.
Then the dragon covenant just needed like 30 scales, that you could just get as drops with a bit of ascetic use (fuck that despawn mechanic too).
Blood borne and DS2 were just so sparse on interaction it was ridiculous I would much rather be occasionally killed than have a broken hug box.