The content is just crazy and the lore is amazing as well as I dive deeper and deeper into it.
Just for context I watched a streamer fight 225 enemies with boss name bars. 225 bosses.
About 80 are unique. So obviously there will be repeats of some in the open world (they usually get remixed with different move sets and abilities STILL)
However, if you removed every single duplicate, and the entire open world, and just stringed the legacy dungeons together. This would STILL be the biggest souls game with the most unique enemies.
Sometimes I wonder if they didn't give some of those guys boss name bars would people even care. I just look at them as open world tougher enemies. It's not like the game is lacking variety, or this content is to the game's detriment imo. I think this criticism is a little unfair. There are fully fledged cut scene bosses in entirely realized levels four legacy dungeons deep that half the player-base won't even find. But people crying there's multiple dragons. As if world building means nothing, yes there is more than one of some of the tougher enemies in this world, go figure.
I think what happens is some people over explore limgrave, weeping peninsula and caelid before getting to any meaty stuff. The world map would have you believe those sections are more of the game world than they are so people get comfortable staying there for 50 hours.
Please don't do yourself a disservice trying to clear the map before you do the fun legacy dungeons. The replay value is through the roof here you don't have to 100 percent the map on run one. Follow the grace, listen to what the npcs say especially in the roundtable hold. You can still explore after you beat the game don't burn yourselves out.