It's defense. Smart people won't overextend their defense, meaning even if they are playing offensive, they might let you attack if they can get a parry out of it. You CAN dodge, even without a side step (and blaah someone mentioned a roll it's like nooo. Rolls annoy me so much in games, it becomes just rolley rolley zzz,) but you have to get them engaged in actually trying to attack you, then the bigger problem is that once you DO dodge, they will probably still block you loool. I'm pretty sure if they had a quick step unless it was tied to a fully charged attack (which wouldn't be so fair, ey?,) it would get blocked as well when you tried to punish.
But it's also true you can just not engage. heh. If you are a dex fighter, 'just walk away bruh.' Start a duel and start walking away. haha. That's just the state of the game right now. Any time they play defense, just start walking away.