The “artificial” part of the difficulty isn’t the run back, it’s not different from that the original game or dark souls. The “artificial” part is really the dev throwing a few wave of common enemy in an enclosed space, making the game more about positioning than knowing the pattern. People might say “that’s part of the fun, duh”, but well no one actually say they LOVE Capra Demon, and there’s no contact damage when touched by the dog or the boss. It’s just too much.

One boss that also using something that isn’t part of the fight as a difficult is Trobbio. It’s basically exploit sensory overload on some people as a weapon. That’s why some people have increased difficulty with him, some basically do it first try.

And imo, the runback for Bilewater isn’t as bad, there’s tools to help or you can just accept the worm and then expel it afterward. It makes the runback less of a ninja warrior and more of a triathlon. The bossfight however have the same issue i mentioned above.