Everybody complained about group encounters in Dark Souls 2 vanilla...
Then From released Scholar of the First Sin and made it even worse.
C'mon, right after leaving Majula and entering Forest of the Fallen Giants the player is greeted by a group encounter... and then, after climbing the ladder, there's another one.
There's the infamous gank behind the iron door leading to the Ruin Sentinels on Lost Bastille...
No Man's Warfs, Iron Keep, The Gutter, Black Gulch, Shaded Woods, Brightsone Cove Tseldora, Shrine of Amana, Undead Crypt, Dragon Shrine, the 3 DLC areas... the game is riddle with gank encounters.
And let's not even talk about the idiotic changes made on Scholar of the First Sin.
As much as I like Dark Souls 2, the game is really flawed on this aspect.