Tips to combat?

The combat is just not clicking for me. I was very, very good at combat in Sekiro and ghost of Tsushima, also dark souls I am decent. But something about the combat in this game is just throwing me off, the most basic enemies I struggle with in groups of two or more.

Part of it is that my attacks sometimes causes enemies to flinch and stop their attacks, and sometimes does not. Also, the parry button being on a different button than the block is throwing me off, but that’s more a thing of habit from the other games. The most frustrating thing is often when I get hit once, I will get hit another five times in a row, despite trying to block, parry, or dodge. I just get caught in a chain and can’t recover. Enemy animations are also very quick, but even so I am challenged to press the block button in time to meet attacks, so I often have to keep block pressed down.

The result is that the only way I make it through encounters is by being extremely defensive, because attacking just puts me in a position of disadvantage.

Did anyone else have similar experience starting off in this game and have any helpful tips?