User blog comment:Cosmicsilver/Dark Souls II Beta/@comment-5974459-20131010191325/@comment-5264386-20131012231913

They most likely made the beta easier than what the final game will actually be, like they did with the TGS demo (i.e. less intelligent enemies, more frequent Lifegem drops, etc). This would be a logical assumption, especially since NamcoBandai is throwing out beta keys to randoms.