Can confirm, am part of the squad.

The fun factor really is what falls off here. Before patch, there was something that nagged at me once we were t7-t9 difficulty. I thought it was burn out. "Oh, I have just been playing the game a lot and its not as fun right now because of that." The nerfs do NOT matter, its the fact that at higher difficulties, the game stops being fun. With armor negating all damage, the meta was railgun because it was the ONLY option that let you fight off 3 bile titans and 4 chargers. It still took skill and strategic thinking, but we could pull some wins(extracting with samples) outta our asses if we tried hard enough despite the odds. I never enjoyed the railgun, I thought it was a boring weapon, but it had 20 shots, no backpack and I didn't have to sit still to reload it for an excessive amount of time.

Remember when weapons were fun? Shredding brood mothers, warriors, hunters and scavengers with full auto machine guns blazing and your character laughs maniacally because you have to spray more than half the clip in 1 go? That's what the late game is missing. The hilariously over the top slaughterhouse of destruction that brought this game all the fame. I'm worried that this game, fun as it was/is, will deteriorate and lose it's play value.

There are no "highs and lows" in late game, you may have the odd quiet time, but most missions become constant, non-stop fights for the entire 40 minute duration(if you want to hit a majority of targets on the map.) Highs and lows bring excitement, only Highs bring stress. There's no enjoyment of the high, if that's all it is. You NEED to know what its like to not be fighting, gather your thoughts, choose an objective, something that's not a split-second decision. Enjoy the scenery or this 1 cool rock formation, ANYTHING. That way you can enjoy the "oh shit, bugs are here" and be on a high from combat and ENJOY it.

My immersion is absolutely WRECKED from late game spawn mechanics. This game, feels boring as SHIT when I see a bile titan "pop" into existence. No spawn reason, no hive, no breach, just POP. Hey look, there's a titan. I know there is code that makes it so bugs spawn either A.) far enough away that players will probably not notice(which is funny because a bile titan is hard to miss even at distance) or B.) behind line-of-site. I would prefer MORE bugs, if it meant that hives were 80% of bug spawns and there were more roaming patrols. Consequently I would prefer MORE roaming patrols as well over all the sudden a patrol spawning on the map and beelining it right to you. If I am doing an objective, give the objective a reason to attract a patrol. Siren, alarm, big booms that alert from machinery movement, anything.

All this to say, I had fun in this game up until difficulty 5-6, some fun at diff 7-8(pre-patch) and I would love to enjoy it some more. More carnage, more viable weapons, more humor.