100%. NG+ is largely irrelevant in this game because of the open world. The scaled of everything means you're 100-200 with +25/+10 weapons going into NG+, and you have (nearly) every spell, weapon, and item you could ever want. That's fully cleared up by NG++ if you know what you're doing. The end result is that unless you want to do something specific, there's really no point in doing anything except going through the big bosses, and that's not very fun. The difficulty starts to catch up by about NG+4, but by that time you're done with that character until DLC lands.
Start a new character for each new build, it's the only way to keep the game fun. A new magic character and all the progression is infinitely more fun than respeccing into NG+ fully geared and spelled out so you can Meterorite of Astel everything in your path. Work your way up and earn the upgrades. It's how I'm still playing the game.
But word to the wise, once you know what you're doing it's extremely easy to be OP before you've done anything of note. I wanted to do a Greatsword + Lion's Claw character, but by the time I got those two things my running round let me upgrade the sword past the point of any challenge and it was no fun.
OP in 10 steps:
- Beach near the start for Gold Foot
- Weeping Peninsula for Morning Star in a chest
- Straight to Fort Haight for Dectus 1
- Church of Marika for Wonderous Flask
- Through the portal for the shortcut to Fort Faroth for Dectus 2
- Kill Greyoll with Morning Star's bleed
- Use Gold Foot for extra souls, now you're overlevelled
- Altus Plateau, straight to Great Stars in a chest
- Down to the water near Leyndell for Prayerful Strike from a scarab
- Never ever die again, and probably not have fun either because you're so OP
That weapon + ash combo wrecks bosses on later playthroughs though, Malenia doesn't even stand a chance when you poise through her shit and heal more than she could ever dream of. (Great Stars heals on hit and even more if you dual wield, Prayerful Strike also heals massively on hit.)