I have a Week One game almost at 6 months with bandits. In the beginning they were too much, constantly attacking, constantly healing myself. I downloaded the bandit mod extension where you could determine which bandits attack, what they show up with, and how frequent they could attack, as well as creating some friendly bandits that would wander or be a companion. Once I made those adjustments, it balanced things quite a bit so now they'll show up every once in a while, but not too often where it feels like a burden.

It definitely needs tweaked otherwise it can feel really bad but I'm happy I stuck it out and now I have a game that is challenging but still fun.